In Search of Fortune: Migration and Risk in the Pacific World

March 9-10, 2018

Migration brings with it a particular set of risks. There is a danger to traveling into the unknown, leaving behind the privileges of membership, and becoming an outsider. Some migrants set out, in spite of these risks, in search of fortune. Others find themselves trafficked, displaced, or exiled in the name of someone else’s profit. This conference will consider the history of migrants’ precarious lives, with a specific focus on the Pacific World from the 19th century to the present.

Discussion will be centered on three primary lines of inquiry:

• What made migration hazardous? We will discuss how mobility created risk and how the nature of that risk changed over time due to shifting markets, new technology, and state/imperial border-making.

• How did migrants define and manage risk? We will consider migrants’ conception of risk and the strategies they used to mitigate it, including building transnational networks, maintaining ethnic identities, adapting family structures, and making bids for immigrant rights.
• What role did migration play in shaping the Pacific Rim? We will consider whether migration helped to create a “Pacific World” and, if so, when and why. Finally, we will discuss whether the “Pacific World” is a meaningful category in the history of migration.

Convened by:

Beth Lew-Williams and Angela Creager

Sponsored by:

Shelby Cullom Davis Center, the PIIRS Research Community on Migration, Program in American Studies, Program in East Asian Studies