Today, mobility and freedom of movement are at the forefront of public discourse and academic inquiry. Issues such as the European refugee crisis, ongoing military operations, and the consequences of climate change have emphasised the urgency of the question. However, mobility has been central to human experience across time. The centuries before the Industrial Revolution were marked by significant movements of people, in response to opportunities and challenges alike. Across city-states and empires, people moved for trade, education, pilgrimage, warfare, enslavement, exile, and so forth. In turn, polities devised strategies to document and facilitate or constrain movement, raising enduring questions about who could move, under what conditions, and at what cost. Ultimately, the tension between the inevitability of human mobility and the will to control such movement has always been a reality.
This paper explores the history of freedom of movement and mobility control in the premodern world. Students will:
- Enhance their understanding of the relation between mobility, identity, and power in various historical contexts between c. 500 and 1750. Themes addressed will include migration patterns, the evolution of surveillance and documentation systems, cultural and legal thought and societal attitudes around freedom of movement, the role of social hierarchies in determining mobility opportunities (class, gender, ethnicity), resistance, and the impact of mobility control on marginalised communities. Case studies will range from Europe and the Mediterranean region to the Atlantic world and Asia.
- Familiarise themselves with broader historiographical debates and theoretical frameworks surrounding the study of mobility, freedom of movement, and mobility control, inside and outside the historical sciences.
- Explore how historical practices around mobility control have shaped the modern and contemporary world – for example, by exposing the roots of contemporary inequalities in mobility opportunities and societal attitudes towards migration.
Gain direct experience of independent research and of analysis of a variety of textual and visual primary sources.
