The wars of the twentieth century uprooted people on a previously unimaginable scale to the extent that being a refugee became an increasingly widespread experience. With the arrival of refugees, governments of host countries had to mediate between divided national populations: some wished to welcome those arriving in search of refuge; others preferred a strategy of exclusion or even expulsion. At the same time, refugees had to manage conflicts of the self as they responded to the loss of nationhood, families, socio-political networks, material goods, and arguably also a sense of belonging or home. While return migration was usually perceived by governments and refugees alike as the best solution to the dilemmas of forced displacement, consensus about the timing and dynamics of how this would actually occur was very difficult to achieve. In practice, the return of refugees to their countries of origin rarely, if ever, produced a wholly satisfactory outcome. Conflicts clearly resulted in forced displacement, but it is equally true that forced displacement created conflicts. The complex inter-relationship of conflict, return migration and the sometimes chimerical, but still compelling, search for a sense of home is the central preoccupation of the contributors to the two volumes of the Coming Home? series. Scholars from history, literature, cultural studies and sociology explore the tensions between nation-states and migrants as they have anticipated, implemented or challenged the process of return migration during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book begins with Western Europe and progresses to Central and Eastern Europe from the period of the Spanish Civil War to the Cold War era, whilst the second volume – Coming home? Vol. 2: Conflict and Postcolonial Return Migration in the Context of France and North Africa – shifts the focus to the colonial and post-colonial framework of the French-North African nexus. What emerges from the two volumes of essays is that, as ambiguous and sometimes ambivalent as home could appear, it was nonetheless central to migrants’ preoccupations about returning.

The wars of the twentieth century uprooted people on a previously unimaginable scale to the extent that being a refugee became an increasingly widespread experience. With the arrival of refugees, governments of host countries had to mediate between divided national populations: some wished to welcome those arriving in search of refuge; others preferred a strategy of exclusion or even expulsion. At the same time, refugees had to manage conflicts of the self as they responded to the loss of nationhood, families, socio-political networks, material goods, and arguably also a sense of belonging or home. While return migration was usually perceived by governments and refugees alike as the best solution to the dilemmas of forced displacement, consensus about the timing and dynamics of how this would actually occur was very difficult to achieve. In practice, the return of refugees to their countries of origin rarely, if ever, produced a wholly satisfactory outcome. Conflicts clearly resulted in forced displacement, but it is equally true that forced displacement created conflicts. The complex inter-relationship of conflict, return migration and the sometimes chimerical, but still compelling search for a sense of home is the central preoccupation of the contributors to the two volumes of the Coming Home? series. Scholars from history, literature, cultural studies and sociology explore the tensions between nation-states and migrants as they have anticipated, implemented or challenged the process of return migration during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The first volume – Coming Home? Conflict and Return Migration in the Aftermath of Europe’s Twentieth-Century Civil Wars – covers the period of the Spanish Civil War to the Cold War with a focus on Western, Central and Eastern Europe. This book shifts attention to the colonial and post-colonial framework of the French-North African nexus.

The aftermath of the Second World War marked a radical new moment in the history of migration. For the millions of refugees stranded in Europe, China and Africa, it offered the possibility of mobility to the 'new world' of the West; for countries like Australia that accepted them, it marked the beginning of a radical reimagining of its identity as an immigrant nation. For the next few decades, Australia was transformed by waves of migrants and refugees. However, two of the five million who came between 1947 and 1985 later left. When Migrants Fail to Stay examines why this happened. This innovative collection of essays explores a distinctive form of departure, and its importance in shaping and defining the reordering of societies after World War II. Esteemed historians Ruth Balint, Joy Damousi, and Sheila Fitzpatrick lead a cast of emerging and established scholars to probe this overlooked phenomenon. In doing so, this book enhances our understanding of the migration and its history.

Using multiple languages, numerous archives, press reports, oral histories, letters, and memoirs, Stalin's Niños investigates the well-resourced boarding schools designed specifically for nearly 3,000 child refugees from the Spanish Civil War.

There are today some 60 million people who have fled their homes because of persecution and conflict. This is the highest number ever recorded. These people suffer exile that will likely last for years and even whole lifetimes-both present and future. The unprecedented scale and duration of forced displacement provide unsettling points of departure for the 2016 edition of The State of the World's Refugees. Covering the years since 2012, this volume is the seventh in a series of flagship publications by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ('UNHCR'). This book draws upon expert analysis as well as UNHCR's direct experience to shed light on the root causes and consequences of the current humanitarian and development crisis. Its eleven chapters examine the world's evolving efforts to finance, plan, and implement basic human rights protections amidst a recent spate of complex emergencies. Updated data, maps, and case studies examine persistent challenges such as limited access to asylum abroad, protection gaps at home for internally displaced persons, the devastating consequences of statelessness, and the troubling elusiveness of durable solutions. This book also highlights the widespread impact of climate change as well as innovations in how humanitarian operations are designed and conducted. Over 65 years after UNHCR was established, A World in Turmoil reveals why its work remains more relevant and urgent than ever.

"A history of the roughly half a million Soviet "displaced persons" post-WWII that looks at how ordinary people caught up in the deepening Cold War sought resettlement"--

The wars of the twentieth century uprooted people on a previously unimaginable scale to the extent that being a refugee became an increasingly widespread experience. With the arrival of refugees, governments of host countries had to mediate between divided national populations: some wished to welcome those arriving in search of refuge; others preferred a strategy of exclusion or even expulsion. At the same time, refugees had to manage conflicts of the self as they responded to the loss of nationhood, families, socio-political networks, material goods, and arguably also a sense of belonging or home. While return migration was usually perceived by governments and refugees alike as the best solution to the dilemmas of forced displacement, consensus about the timing and dynamics of how this would actually occur was very difficult to achieve. In practice, the return of refugees to their countries of origin rarely, if ever, produced a wholly satisfactory outcome. Conflicts clearly resulted in forced displacement, but it is equally true that forced displacement created conflicts. The complex inter-relationship of conflict, return migration and the sometimes chimerical, but still compelling search for a sense of home is the central preoccupation of the contributors to the two volumes of the Coming Home? series. Scholars from history, literature, cultural studies and sociology explore the tensions between nation-states and migrants as they have anticipated, implemented or challenged the process of return migration during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The first volumeâ "Coming Home? Conflict and Return Migration in the Aftermath of Europeâ (TM)s Twentieth-Century Civil Warsâ "covers the period of the Spanish Civil War to the Cold War with a focus on Western, Central and Eastern Europe, whilst the second volumeâ "Coming Home? Conflict and Postcolonial Return Migration in the Context of France and North Africaâ "shifts the focus to the colonial and post-colonial framework of the French-North African nexus. What emerges from the two volumes of essays is that, as ambiguous and sometimes ambivalent as home could appear, it was nonetheless central to migrantsâ (TM) preoccupations about returning.

Networking the Russian Diaspora is a fascinating and timely study of interwar Shanghai. Aside from the vacated Orthodox Church in the former French Concession where most Russian émigrés resided, Shanghai today displays few signs of the bustling settlement of those years. Russian musicians established the first opera company in China, as well as choirs, bands, and ensembles, to play for their own and other communities. Russian musicians were the core of Shanghai’s lauded Municipal Orchestra and taught at China’s first conservatory. Two Russian émigré composers in particular—Alexander Tcherepnin and Aaron Avshalomov—experimented with incorporating Chinese elements into their compositions as harbingers of intercultural music that has become a well-recognized trend in composition since the late twentieth century. The Russian musical scene in Shanghai was the embodiment of musical cosmopolitanism, anticipating the hybrid nature of twenty-first-century music arising from cultural contacts through migration, globalization, and technological advancement. As a pioneering study of the Russian community, Networking the Russian Diaspora examines its musical activities and influence in Shanghai. While the focus of the book is on music, it also gives insight into the social dynamics between Russians and other Europeans on the one hand, and with the Chinese on the other. The volume, coauthored by Chinese music specialists, makes a significant contribution to studies of diaspora, cultural identity, and migration by casting light on a little-studied area of Sino-Russian cultural relations and Russian influence in modern China. The discoveries stretch the boundaries of music studies by addressing the relational aspects of Western music: how it has articulated national and cultural identities but also served to connect people of different origins and cultural backgrounds.

"Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were told in sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. In contrast to other refugees, they were pursued by the states they left even as they were sought by the United States and other Western governments eager to claim them. Taking part in a risky game that played out across the globe, defectors sought to transcend the limitations of the Cold War world. The book follows their treacherous journeys and looks at how their unauthorized flight gave shape to a globalized world. It charts a global struggle over defectors that unfolded in a crowded courtroom in Paris, among rival intelligence agencies operating in the shadows of an occupied Europe, in the forbidden border zones of the USSR, in the disputed straits of the South China Sea, on a hijacked plane 10,000 feet in the air, and around the walls of Soviet embassies. In doing so, the book reveals a Cold War world whose borders were far less stable than the notion of an "Iron Curtain" suggests. Surprisingly, the competition for defectors paved the way for collusion between the superpowers, who found common interest in regulating the unruly spaces through which defectors moved. Disputes over defectors mapped out the contours of modern state sovereignty in previously contested places, and defection's ideological framework hardened borders by reinforcing the view that asylum should only be granted to migrants with clear political claims. Although defection all but disappeared after the Cold War, it helped forge an international refugee system whose legacy and limitations remain with us to this day"--