First Polanyi masterclass by Ulf Brunnbauer, Southeastern Europe as a Periphery?
Starting from the observation that migrant workers from Balkan countries employed at abattoirs in Germany were particularly exposed to the risks of a Covid-19 infection in 2020, this lecture addresses the question, whether Southeastern Europe can be conceptualized as a (semi-)periphery. Ulf Brunnbauer revisits some of the ‘classical’ arguments about ‘peripheries’, such as by Duddley Sears and Immanuel Wallerstein. While the concept of the periphery has limitations, he argues, it helps to direct our attention to structural patterns of inequality in Europe and globally. Emigration, which has shaped Southeast European social development since the 19th century, is a major indicator of it. He asks whether it also helps to reproduce inequality and what this means globally.
This is a small series of consecutive lectures that build on each other. They highlight the important dimensions of the Southeast European experience with economic migration since the late 19th century. The goal is to analyze migration regimes and migrant repertoires in their mutual constitution.
The lectures cover the following topics:
- Emigration agents and their business during the great overseas emigration from Southeastern Europe.
- A Longue-durée analysis of diaspora policies by Southeast and Central European governments, starting with the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia before World War One.
- Domestic migration and its importance for socialist industrialization, focussing on Bulgaria and the less known case of Albania
***
Please see the detailed program of the conference on this URL:
