Marcelo Borges, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1965. Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Professor of History, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
EURIAS Senior Fellow (1 September 2013 – 30 June 2014)
EPISTOLARY CONNECTIONS: PORTUGUESE MIGRATION THROUGH FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE
Research Question
How can migratory strategies, gender roles, and emotional negotiations among turn-of-the-twentieth-century transnational families be illuminated by family correspondence?
Project Description
I will devote my residence to study the correspondence of Portuguese families separated by migration at the turn of the twentieth century. In particular, I will explore the analytical possibilities of a variety of immigrant correspondence commonly known as call letters (private letters that became public documents in the passport application process). Through the study of this type of family correspondence, I will examine the ways in which migrant husbands and their wives lived in transnational situations—how they evaluated and negotiated their migratory strategies, the tension and conflicts created by distance, the opportunities at home and abroad, as well as their hopes, dreams, and perceptions of their fluid reality.
Selected Publications
1) Company Towns: Labor, Space, and Power Relations Across Time and Continents, with S. Torres (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2012.
2) Chains of Gold: Portuguese Migration to Argentina in Transatlantic Perspective, Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2009.
3) ‘Portuguese Migrations in Comparison: Historical Patterns and Transnational Communities’, special issue of Portuguese Studies Review 14, 2 (2006, released 2009). Guest editor.