Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, SCAS
Associate Professor of History, University of Gothenburg

Hybrid event.
Zoom Webinar: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65802739142 External link, opens in new window.

ABSTRACT:
What happens as contemporary concepts of forced migration travel in history? What distortions might arise, and what potential insights can be gained? My talk explores the concepts of refugee and internally displaced person (IDP) as tools to compare the present-day refugee regime with that of early modernity. Today, debates about who qualifies as a refugee or IDP and on what grounds are central to both practice and scholarship. Present-day scholars often argue that these concepts are intrinsically linked to the logic of the sovereign nation-state, and that to use the concepts outside of that world order is anachronistic. In response, I propose a method of controlled anachronism, starting with etic questions to elicit emic answers, while remaining attentive to etic residues that reshape our questions and highlight differences and similarities between historical and contemporary contexts. By examining how Finnish and Baltic forced migrants negotiated belonging and protection with Swedish authorities and communities in the early 18th century, I aim to show that the concepts of ‘refugee’ and ‘IDP’ are meaningful in early modern research and that historicizing them offer valuable insights for today’s challenges.