Migration has been a main feature throughout human history. The recent arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa in the European Union, and the discussions on the treatment of thousands of people fleeing violence and poverty in Central and South America on the US-Mexican border are only the latest examples of its enduring occurrence. The main emphasis of the course will be on the movement of people, with a regional focus on Europe and with strong comparative views on Asia and the Americas. We will look into changing mobility patterns of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how such changes transformed ways of migration and migrants’ identities. Another emphasis will be on the development of the modern state border as an emerging obstacle for migrations and the closely related discussions on inclusion and exclusion. While the course is historical in scope, we will compare past processes with more recent occurrences of migration and the related debates on the issue.
