The Development of Transmigrant Historiography in Britain

Abstract

The growth of migrant studies since the early 1970s has filled significant lacuna in the historiography of Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The development of transmigrant historiography in the UK has followed a very different pattern: the scholars who have been instrumental to the emergence of this subfield of migrant studies have been scattered across the UK. Though their work has focused on Britain itself, the field inevitably requires understanding of other geographies, spaces and places and approaches beyond solely that of the history profession. The chapter briefly seeks to explore this new field and to situate it within broader British, European and North American migrant studies, thereby complementing discourse surrounding the Sheffield School. It discusses the pioneers of early 'transmigrant historiography', the era when the topic was a mere adjunct not of British history but 'local' facets of ethnic history in North America.