Cornish identities and migration

A Multi-Scalar Approach

Bibliographic Data

ID4262885
AuthorsBernard A Deacon (University of Exeter), Bernard Deacon, Sharron Schwartz, Sharron P Schwartz (University of Exeter)
Year2007
Volume7
Issue3
Pages289-306
Publication date2007-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Networks (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1471-0374.2007.00170.x
OpenAlexW2093603994
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited40

In this article we argue that theories of transnationalism have value in exploring the historical context of migration and that historical contexts help to shape such theoretical conceptualizations. Historians of migration have now begun to engage more directly with the literature of transnationalism, focusing on the networks that linked settler and home communities. Here we add to this by examining a nineteenth-century migrant community from a British region through the lens of transnationalism, applying the concept to the case of the Cornish, whose economic specialization produced culturally distinct Cornish communities on the mining frontiers of North America, Australia and South Africa. In doing so, we bring together the issues of scale and time. We review the multiple levels of the Cornish transnational space of the late nineteenth century, which exhibited aspects of both core transnationalism and translocalism. This waned, but in the later twentieth century, a renewed interest in a transnational Cornish identity re-emerged, articulating with changing identity claims in Cornwall itself. To capture better the experience of the Cornish over these two very different phases of transnationalism we identify another subset of transnationalism - that of transregionalism

Cornish · Transnationalism · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Irish and British Studies · Scottish History and National Identity

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access