This chapter traces the maturation of Palermo’s architectural idiom across a network of local churches in the Kalsa and Loggia districts. Designed in collaboration with itinerant architects from southeastern Sicily and the Iberian Mediterranean, these early sixteenth-century monuments bear the mark of local builders and craftsmen fluent in ornamental and structural solutions inherited from the Normans. In Palermo’s contested cultural environment, building sites became laboratories for the development of a speculative architecture that tested the limits of architectural revivalism. Local practices of vernacularization and historicization developed against the backdrop of the city’s rich humanistic tradition, which creatively reimagined Palermo’s proximate and distant pasts.

Joint ritual performances mobilized diplomatic actors across the lowlands whose travels inspired creation of hieroglyphic records, prompted dissemination of religious knowledge and artifacts, and fostered exchange of particular ways of writing.

The chapter explores how engagements with strangers were established in the early medieval emporia in Northern Europe, and how trust was created from the ‘weak ties’ of social networks in these meeting places. It has its foundations in the archaeological record, which is contextualized in a broader geographical and temporal framework. Focusing on themes such as maritime mobility and interaction, scale and organization of transport, modes of trade and exchange, extraction and circulation of materials, crafts and specialized urban production, and the cultural interactions of urban communities, the chapter debates how the findings of Viking-Age archaeology may hold important implications more generally for those studying the development of urbanism and the history of human societies. It also considers how emporia operated as an aspect of social networks beyond regional groups and polities in the non-state societies of early medieval Northern Europe, and how aspects of social networks can account for the development of these centres.

Romani people have been present in the United States since its earliest days, yet public awareness of Romani lives and experiences remains limited to episodic reporting often highlighting negative interactions with the public. Drawing upon two episodes of Romani interactions with non-Roma, separated by almost a century, this chapter argues that American Romani experiences, memories and kinship connections illuminate the complex character of American immigration controls for individuals who were often deemed to be “undesirable.” Moreover, this chapter highlights the power of strategic actions and claims of belonging by American Roma pursuing their dreams for a new home in the United States. Utilizing both archival documentation and oral history, this chapter shows how American Romani persistence and tenacity, built upon years of effort, have pushed new forms of kinship and social memory around the Atlantic.

Compares those to whom the US government denies nonimmigrant visas to those it grants such visas in order to show how officers are more likely to deny visas to those who tell surveyors would not immigrate if they had the opportunity to do so whereas they are more likely to grant visas to those who told surveyors they would immigrate if they had an opportunity – contrary to what US immigration law ostensibly mandates visa officers to do. Officers are more likely to grant visas to those who possess indicators of what I define as (im)mobility capital. Such (im)mobility capital consists of only a subset of many measures of socioeconomic status and social ties, such as high levels of formal education, extensive travel experience, attendance at a selective school, and the number of years at their current job. The components I identified to comprise (im)mobility capital are also associated with whether a (non)immigrant visa applicant would be willing to spend more than half of the rest of their life in the country of destination if they had the opportunity. Adjudication about who to deny visas to by US visa officers is similar to how consulates of other countries operate.

Potential immigrants do not even apply for a visa because they also confront social forces from the community bearing on their families that deter them from leaving. Many young adults become deterred from migrating not merely from visa requirements, but also due to opposition and pressure from the family. Despite how most of China has a patrilocal kinship system and culture that more strongly sanctions men from marrying outside their bloodline, Chinese parents are much more likely to oppose women going abroad than men, even if this opposition decreases as they age. Aside from overt opposition children may face, many women specifically are discouraged from migrating abroad or even traveling abroad due to concerns about their daughter’s physical safety, socioeconomic dependence on their parents, and societal peer pressure. Such concerns are particularly strong in the patriarchal context of China as it is mediated by a traditional filial duty amongst the one-child-only generation toward their parents and the intense influence that parents exercise over the educational, career, and marital choices of their adult children – both of which have a stronger deterrent effect on daughters than on sons.

For a group of Spanish Gitano families, who now refer to themselves as American Gitanos, the reproduction of a cosmopolitan habitus has a social and historical basis. Transnational mobility is a key aspect of identity, whereby cosmopolitanism is the translation of internationality as an emic discourse. The migration of this network of families in the late 1950s provides the starting point for an analysis of the cultural mechanisms of this new cultural style and self-identification. The interface of cosmopolitanism, transnational migration and social mobility is shown through the protagonists’ narratives about migratory trajectories and their implantation in America.

Mobility drove imperial systems, networks not intended for subaltern gain. This chapter emphasizes the initiatives of diverse peoples across the span of empire: mariners of various ethnicities, “Black” servants from the Atlantic world and South Asia, plus the mobile subversive travels of Black women Caribbean hucksters. All profited from their tours as they could. All used the potential inherent in officially sanctioned journeys to advance their lives, whether through private trade or the freedom they secured, and more. Knowledge of materials and fashion competence were vital. Persistence was also key. This chapter traces these histories, including Indian ayahs serving clients from India to Britain and back, some settling in Britain. Later in the 1700s, other servants self-described as “Black” advertised their skills. The notices they posted in British newspapers demonstrate the authoritative roles they claimed, voices of a vital transnational populations. These histories of creative tenacity bring a broader perspective to the imperial past, including self-defined genteel Black servants, travelling amid unruly sailors and on-shore allies.

Somewhere outside the laws and statutes regulating immigration to the United States, lies practice. While there was nothing on the books during the early 1900s that should have prevented Roma from entering the US at immigration ports, many faced draconian scrutiny upon arrival, whether they claimed to be “Gypsy” or not. These immigration challenges were fueled by a concerted behind-the-scenes effort to constrain their entry. Archival case files that shadow attempts Roma made while trying to enter North America unmask tactics deployed by US and Canadian authorities to exclude Roma, as a people or type, from entry. Decidedly unhidden, however, was press coverage of Romani immigration and settlement. This chapter analyzes the attempts made by several Romani groups to enter the United States during the early 1900s through transatlantic and transcontinental crossings, and which foreshadowed an increase in Romani exclusion, surveillance and public harassment.

My results about denial, deterrence, and disenchantment provide empirical support to how a push-retain-pull-repel model can help us understand why many remain ambivalent (im)mobile and never immigrate. I also review how my findings about each mechanism demonstrate how socioeconomic resources and social ties both facilitate and increase the costs of migration due to an interaction of immigration policy and social forces in society that incentivize individuals to establish stable ties to their society rather than migrate. This (im)mobility paradox makes international migration a far more difficult decision and unlikely event than many in migrant-destination countries perceive it to be. Finally, I reflect on how my data from the PIS the interaction of immigration policy and social forces stratifies potential immigrants who never immigrated due to deterrence, denial, and disenchantment into respectively an under-class, a lower class, and an upper class in the origin society, mirroring the stratification of immigrants through different pathways of assimilation in the migrant-destination society.

The way B-visa applicants’ presentation of self to surveyors and officers in their visa interviews differs from those that are applying for other types of visas-like degree-seeking student visas, cultural exchange visas, and skilled worker visas, which are more frequently converted to immigrant visas. This is due to a provision in the immigration law statute–the dual-intent doctrine–that encourages US visa officers to evaluate immigrant intent more strictly with the former than the latter by not denying nonimmigrant visas to such latter applicants based on the likelihood that they will change their mind about immigrating after they arrive in the United States. Therefore, I show how B nonimmigrant visa (NIVs) applicants answer questions differently than all other nonimmigrant visa applicants about how they first came to go abroad, why they want to visit the United States rather than another country, what questions the visa officer asked them, and why or why not they would immigrate or not into the United States. (Im)mobility capital is not as important to demonstrate for those applying for such high-conversion visas as those with low-conversion visas due to the dual-intent doctrine.

Our understanding of international migration as a general phenomenon and in its various aspects is still limited to a relative deficiency in knowledge about a possibly even larger population of individuals that might have counterfactually immigrated but did not. This book examines the processes that prevent migration via the interaction between (a) specific government policies; and (b) societal forces emanating from the social networks in which potential immigrants are embedded. Additional data, empirical results, and theories about potential immigrants help us contribute three new theoretical frameworks to international migration: (1) the push-retain-pull-repel model, (2) the (im)mobility paradox, and (3) how might-have-been-immigrants who do not immigrate due to denial, deterrence, and disenchantment are stratified as unequally as immigrants are. Previous scholars have already discovered much about denial, deterrence, and disenchantment but no study has systematically and comparatively analyzed these three processes alongside each other. The outline of chapters for this book examines different aspects of denial, deterrence, and disenchantment.

This chapter explores the transatlantic and global mobility of Romani families from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It focuses on their development of “mobility capital,” a form of social expertise in navigating international migration systems. Case studies highlight how Roma drew on kinship networks, economic skills (e.g., coppersmithing) and strategic self-presentation to cross borders and adapt to varied legal and cultural contexts. Far from being passive victims of discrimination, these families actively shaped and reshaped their identities, legal statuses and migration strategies. Using a wide range of archival sources, the work argues for a shift from “methodological nationalism” to a transnational perspective on migration, by showing how Romani itineraries challenged existing notions of borders, belonging and mobility.

This chapter argues that racial reckoning may mean something more to Black people than either awareness or accountability for racial inequality—it may mean material wellbeing. It tells the little-known story of 21st century Black migration away from traditional Back-identified urban spaces and suggests that these movements teach us a lot about the ingredients of racial reckoning according to Black households themselves. Millions have moved. The original research discussed here shows three trends rooted in affordability: involuntary displacement, local movement in search of better options and relocation by the most mobile for a reset of opportunities. Though some questions remain, the evidence of exodus shows how important local, state and democratic conditions are to a sense of Black wellbeing—and probably most Americans’.

This introduction presents a historical and conceptual overview of the monograph, particularly the longer history of discourses connecting Italian opera, Italy and italianità, and ideas surrounding the Old World and the New World. Milan and Liberal Italy (1861/70–1922) are introduced first in the context of Italy’s unification and the wider social and technological transformations that defined the Second Industrial Revolution. New York and Buenos Aires are then considered together, exploring their changing position in the global operatic circuit from the 1870s onwards and the theatrical infrastructure in both cities, before the methodological approach of the monograph and an overview of the individual chapters are outlined.

This chapter explores the experiences of hundreds of Kenyan students who travelled to the Soviet Union, East Germany, Bulgaria and other communist states during the late 1950s and 1960s and the politics surrounding them. Initiated for similar reasons as Mboya’s own airlift of students to the United States and expanded in a deliberate effort to compete with Mboya’s programme, the support of students for study in Eastern and Central Europe was a major part of Odinga’s efforts to build his own political base and to address Kenya’s urgent educational needs. After independence in 1963, and with Odinga increasingly in conflict with both Mboya and Kenyatta, these students became a source of considerable political controversy. The fact that some of the students had been sent for military training under agreements struck by nationalist leaders before independent Kenya’s military deals with Britain were finalised meant that returning graduates became the subject of Cold War–inspired rumours of coup plots to support Odinga. With Odinga forced out of the ruling party and government in 1966, the graduates from Eastern and Central Europe were frozen out of senior roles in government.