(Hi)stories of Migration, Mobility, and Travel: Crossing Literary, Linguistic, and
Historical Boundaries is published as the first English-language volume of the Center
for International Migration Studies (CIMS) at the Faculty of Humanities, University
of Debrecen. The title already reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the publication,
as it offers glimpses into the (hi)stories of migration from numerous different vantage
points, approaches, disciplines, examining the broadly defined theme of migration
(to also include mobility and travel and how these are connected) over centuries.
Despite the regional, disciplinary, as well as chronological diversity of the various
chapters, they all hover around essential questions of what influences migration (international
or internal), what is the role of not only traditional, quantifiable push and pull
factors but also that of perceptions, representations of various countries, infrastructures,
networks, how such movement is presented in various media and the minds of the public,
how migration policy is affected by and affects migrants and diasporas, etc. The chapters
have been arranged into three parts, reflecting the primary geographical/regional
focus of the clusters and their authors (the Netherlands and Dutch colonies, the United
States, and Central and Eastern Europe) discussing various aspects of migration, travel,
and mobility from the 16th century all the way to recent years.
