Migration and Mobility Through the Lens of History

Abstract

This chapter examines how the study of population movement in the past has been approached by scholars from a range of disciplines, and how greater engagement with concepts currently used in much mobilities research might alter and possibly enhance the historical study of migration, mobility and transport. I focus on three aspects of movement: international migration, internal migration, and everyday mobility; and in conclusion consider the role of transport in all forms of population movement. Examples are drawn from a variety of locations and time periods. In the chapter I demonstrate the ways in which different approaches to population movement may be unified and enhanced through the use of concepts drawn from mobilities studies.