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Contributions for edited volume on socialist migrations
| Date Submitted: |
2011-01-31 |
| Announcement ID: |
182618 |
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We are soliciting contributions for an interdisciplinary volume on the subject of socialist migrations during the Cold War period. In the past decades it has become customary among scholars in both the social sciences and humanities to associate the rise of global interconnectedness specifically with the history of Western capitalist expansion. From the establishment of the Atlantic system of exchange in the 15th-16th century to the European scramble for Africa to the post-colonial modernizing agency of the ‘Black Atlantic’, scholars have focused overwhelmingly on the movement of people, goods, and ideas along North-South and East-West axes. However, the history of globalization in the 20th century is incomplete without the story of another type of massive migratory movements and long-distance exchanges, namely, those within the so-called ‘socialist camp’. Prior to the communist collapse in 1989-1991, hundreds of thousands of socialist subjects journeyed to distant corners of the socialist community of nations in fulfillment of their internationalist duty, in search of education, or within the framework of mutual economic assistance. As a result Cuban soldiers and military experts crossed the Atlantic to fight in Angola and other African locations, Vietnamese laborers traveled to East Germany, Soviet technocrats arrived en masse in Communist China after 1949, and thousands of African students took advantage of generous educational scholarships to study in the USSR or one of its satellites. These socialist migrations were far less spontaneous than postcolonial migrations to and from the West and usually subject to strict administrative controls. They, nevertheless, involved a significant number of people, sharing little in common besides the ideological affiliation of their respective nation-states or sponsoring organizations, moving to unfamiliar geographical and cultural settings. The projected volume will attempt to chart out the topography and typology of these migrations and relocations as well as examine the content of such exchanges and encounters between the hosts and the migrants within the socialist universe. Moreover, it will give voice to the sojourners themselves whose unique migrant experiences during the age of “mature socialism” continue to have profound and often unanticipated ramifications for their personal lives but also for the political and economic fortunes of their own societies as well as those of their former hosts.
We envision a volume of 9 to 10 chapters, 20-25 pages each. Strong preference for original scholarship. Kindly send a short one-page chapter proposal and a brief bio to one of the editors:
Professor Katrin Hansing (Baruch College, City University New York) katrin.hansing@baruch.cuny.edu
Professor Maxim Matusevich (Seton Hall University) matusema@shu.edu
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Maxim Matusevich
Department of History
Seton Hall University
South Orange, NJ 07079
973-761-9386
Email: matusema@shu.edu
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