ABSTRACT

In the age of climate change, the possibility that dramatic environmental transformations might cause the dislocation of millions of people has become not only a matter for scientific speculation or science-fiction narratives, but the object of strategic planning and military analysis.

Environmental History of Modern Migrations offers a worldwide perspective on the history of migrations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides an opportunity to reflect on the global ecological transformations and developments which have occurred throughout the last few centuries. With a primary focus on the environment/migration nexus, this book advocates that global environmental changes are not distinct from global social transformations. Instead, it offers a progressive method of combining environmental and social history, which manages to both encompass and transcend current approaches to environmental justice issues.

This edited collection will be of great interest to students and practitioners of environmental history and migration studies, as well as those with an interest in history and sociology.

chapter 1|15 pages

Introduction

Migrants in environmental history

part I|91 pages

Changing natures

chapter 1|22 pages

Waves of migration

Settlement and creation of the Hawaiian environment

chapter 4|17 pages

Making the land Russian?

Migration, settlement, and environment in the Russian Far East, 1860–1914

chapter 5|20 pages

Coal lives

Body, work and memory among Italian miners in Wallonia, Belgium

part II|48 pages

Racializing natures

chapter 6|13 pages

Riotous environments

Filipino immigrants in the fields of California

chapter 7|19 pages

Creating the threatening “others”

Environment, Chinese immigrants and racist discourse in colonial Australia

chapter 8|14 pages

Nativist politics and environmental privilege

Ecological and cultural conflicts concerning Latin American migration to the United States

part III|50 pages

Naturalizing causes

chapter 9|18 pages

Environmental degradation as a cause of migration

Cautionary tales from Brazil

chapter 11|16 pages

Archaeologies of the future

Tracing the lineage of contemporary discourses on the climate–migration nexus