In the decades around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, millions of children migrated from Britain and elsewhere to Canada, the United States of America and Australia. They migrated with their families or on their own. If they departed on their own, they often migrated through family networks and with the consent of their families or were even sent by them. In other cases, children were sent to Canada and Australia, mostly from Britain, through child migration schemes often funded or at least approved of by the national governments involved.
This seminar builds on the idea that child migration created specific situations and children's migration experiences differed significantly from those of adults. Migration experiences shaped the biographies of the children involved to a particular extent. It is these biographies this seminar is focused on.
At the beginning of the seminar we will explore different contexts of and processes around the migration of children in the period under consideration. We will then focus on ego-documents and fiction to capture and analyze self-narratives of migrant children. Students will analyze these primary sources and present their findings to the class. To that purpose, different methods for analyzing ego-documents will be introduced and discussed. The oral assignment, in addition to regular attendance and active participation, constitutes the ‘Studienleistung’. Based on preselected primary sources, students will proceed to write biographical sketches centered on migrated children. This paper counts as the ‘Prüfungsleistung’.