This introductory history of the Scottish diaspora (c.1700 to 1945) explores migration, Scots' experiences where they landed and the reverse impact of this migration on Scotland. It examines the geographies of the diaspora and key theories, concepts and themes, including associationalism and return migration. Includes conceptual case studies.
"After 1600, English emigration became one of Europe's most significant population movements. Yet compared to what has been written about the migration of Scots and Irish, relatively little energy has been expended on the numerically more significant English flows. Whilst the Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Jewish and Black Diasporas are well known and much studied, there is virtual silence on the English. Why, then, is there no English Diaspora? Why has little been said about the English other than to map their main emigration flows? Did the English simply disappear into the host population? Or were they so fundamental, and foundational, to the Anglophone, Protestant cultures of the evolving British World that they could not be distinguished in the way Catholic Irish or continental Europeans were? With contributions from the UK, Europe North America and Australasia that examine themes as wide-ranging as Yorkshire societies in New Zealand and St George's societies in Montreal, to Anglo-Saxonism in the Atlantic World and the English Diaspora of the sixteenth century, this international collection explores these and related key issues about the nature and character of English identity during the creation of the cultures of the wider British World. It does not do so uncritically. Several of the authors deal with and accept the invisibility of the English, while others take the opposite view. The result is a lively collection which combines reaffirmations of some existing ideas with fresh empirical research, and groundbreaking new conceptualisations."-- Publisher Summary
Ethnic associations once were vibrant features of societies, such as the United States and Canada, which attracted large numbers of immigrants. While the transplanted cultural lives of the Irish, Scots, and Europeans have received much attention, the English are far less widely explored. It isassumed the English were not an ethnic community; that they lacked the alienating experiences associated with immigration and thus possessed few elements of diasporas. This deeply researched new book questions this assumption. Instead it shows that English associations once were widespread, takinghold in colonial America, spreading to Canada and then encompassing all of the empire. Celebrating saints days, expressing pride in the monarch and national heroes, providing charity to the national poor, and forging mutual aid societies mutual, were all features of English life overseas. In fact,the English simply resembled other immigrant groups too much to be dismissed as the unproblematic, invisible immigrants.