Reflecting on ‘Post-Cosmopolitan’ Odessa

Recently published in paperback, Post-Cosmopolitan Cities: Explorations of Urban Coexistence offers readers an in-depth view into the lives of urban dwellers in six cities, from Venice to Warsaw and Odessa to Thessalonica. Below, volume editors Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja reflect on the content of their volume and how the study sites and subjects may have changed in the two years since its original publication.

 

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Our book Post-Cosmopolitan Cities: Explorations of Urban Coexistence contains three chapters about Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea, but they were written before the recent events in Ukraine. We argued that cities famed for their cosmopolitanism, including the ‘merry’, ‘worldly’ Odessa, deserve deeper investigation of what lies beneath the surface and the uncertain effects of the past on the present.

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The Road to Belonging is Paved with Charity

Catherine Trundle’s recently published volume Americans in Tuscany: Charity, Compassion, and Belonging explores the lives of American female migrants to Italy, and follows a collection of women as they navigate Tuscan society in an attempt to integrate. The author discovered that these women have used charitable acts as a road map to guide their quest to belong. Following, the author provides more information about her background and how it led her to share the stories of this migrant group.

 

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What drew you to the study of American female migrants in Italy and their quest for inclusion?

 

I had conducted previous ethnographic work on American migrants to rural New Zealand, and was fascinated with what it meant to be an American abroad – how one’s sense of nationality and citizenship gets transforms through engagements with the stereotypes that others have of the migrant self, and how ‘culture’ gets characterized and sometimes essentialized in the process.

 

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Storms, Sickness, Suspicions: The Darker Side of Migration

In Points of Passage: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain 1880-1914, published last October, contributors reveal some of the less-savory aspects of immigration (of which there were many). Following, in an excerpt from the newly published volume, editor Tobias Brinkmann gives two examples of passengers enduring misery before arriving on the supposed paradise of North American soil. This is the second entry about the book; read the former here.
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The essay collection “Points of Passage” seeks to shift attention from the well-known success story of Jewish immigration in the United States to the journey. On which paths did Jewish (and other) migrants travel from Eastern Europe to the ports on the North Sea and across the Atlantic between the 1880s and the 1920s, and which obstacles did they face? Researching the paths of migration can be much more challenging than studying immigration.

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Egress and Ingress: Exploring ‘Points of Passage’

Ellis Island in New York City is a historically recognized entrance point for European migrants to the United States. But if this is so well-known, then why do we know so little about the points of departure? This is one of many research questions that informed the writing of Points of Passage: Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain 1880-1914, published last October. Following, an excerpt from the volume — bookended by comments from editor Tobias Brinkmann — delves deeper into these queries.

 

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When I began researching the history of Jewish migrations in the 1990s I concentrated on immigrants. I collected sources on the settlement of Jewish immigrants from small villages in the Central and Eastern European countryside in Chicago between 1840 and 1900. Within a few years the immigrants built a Jewish community, prospered economically and became respected members of Chicago’s social and political circles. My first book concentrated on two major research questions that continue to drive immigration studies: the impact of forces strengthening or weakening ethnic communities, and the impact of assimilation processes on immigrants.

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Following the Diaspora: A Study of the Hadrami Community

The Hadrami community’s migratory patterns throughout the Indian Ocean region have historically been propelled by trade and religious ambitions. Leif Manger’s complex ethnographic account of this community’s varied and widespread diaspora from South Yemen is explored in The Hadrami Diaspora: Community-Building on the Indian Ocean Rim, which was published this month in paperback. Following, Manger discusses his work on this volume and his time spent with this diverse community in widespread areas.

 

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Berghahn Books: What came first, your interest in Hadrami culture or your interest in migration? What drew you to these areas of study?

 

Leif Manger: Yemen has always been a dream for me, but I was particularly fascinated by the terraces in the mountains of the north of the country and the ecological effects of adaptations in such areas. This was due to my research interests in my early career, on intensification of agriculture, agro-pastoral interaction and development.

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