Upon completion of the course, students are able to:
- Work with concepts, theories and methods to study different forms of forced migration in the past, as well as the present;
- Understand and work with relevant sources such as shipping lists, egodocuments, criminal court records, penal colony records, and slave registers to study life courses and strategies of forced migrants;
- Combine insights from secondary literature with research results from primary sources in a hands-on approach.
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In all centuries, humans have been trafficked, deported, and convicted to serve prison terms in remote areas or even the other side of the world. Common to their histories is their inferior societal status, their hardship, and alienation. But there is another side to their stories as well. Forced migrants have always found ways to deal with their new surroundings: by adapting to their new environments, by forging communities and networks of support, by resisting and revolting, and by findings ways to escape or even to return home. In this course, we will explore different forms of forced migrations and focus on the agency of the migrants. What choices did they have, given the coercive constraints of their situation?
The course offers the conceptual tools to study and compare different forms of forced migration around the globe. We will zoom in on various important case studies – such as the slave trade, penal colonies, indentured labour, banishment, prisoners of war, and sex trafficking - from circa 1600 onwards, when human migration is argued to have become less ‘free’ than ever before. Historical sources that we will work with include official reports, egodocuments, criminal court records, as well as databases of enslaved, indentured workers and convicts.
This elective is part of a series of three courses organized by the team of Economic, Social and Demographic History. They all focus on ‘history from below’, that is the life courses, choices and constraints of individual people in widely different contexts and regions. How did the poor, the servants, the migrants, slaves and refugees manage to survive or even to improve their situation? In other words, we study how ordinary people became the ‘heroes of their own lives’. All electives can be followed separately.
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None required.
Note for exchange students:
You cannot take this course if your English proficiency level is not at least B2 (TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC or Cambridge). A statement from your home university won't be accepted.
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Written exam (test weight: 100%), minimum grade: 5,5
Opportunities Block Per3, Block Per 4
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