Migration and DiffusionMigration and DiffusionChapter 3Chapter 3

Diffusion in population geographyDiffusion in population geography

• Migration– Humankind migrates and adapts– Most important factor causing migration

is economic– Migration of more than 50 million Europeans

during nineteenth century– Today’s migration patterns are very different– Examples of forced migration– Refugee movements and their cause

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MigrationMigration

– Constitutes cultural diffusion– Represents the most basic aspect of

relocation– Humankind has proved remarkably

adaptable to new and different physical environments• Except such places as ice-sheathed

Antarctica and Arabia’s “Empty Quarter”• Permanent habitat extends from ice

sheet edges to seashores and desert valleys

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CategoriesCategories

• International Migration – the big picture

• Migration to the U.S.A. (International migration from the point of a specific receiving country)

• Internal Migration (U.S.A. & other countries)

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MigrationMigration

• The far-flung distribution of humankind is product of migration

• Migrating humans generally remember the event for the rest of their lives

• Prehistoric migrations often remain embedded in folklore for centuries or millennia

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Migration Myth ExampleMigration Myth Example

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TerminologyTerminology

Immigration Immigration

• When a person leaves his/her home country and goes to live in a new country, the receiving country (his/her new home) refers to him/her as an immigrant.

EmigrationEmigration

• When a person leaves his/her home country and goes to live in a new country, the former home country (the one he/she left) refers to him/her as an emigrant.

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Voluntary migrationVoluntary migration

• Takes place when the difficulties of moving seem more than offset by the expected rewards

• Considered to be relocation diffusion• Decision to migrate can also spread by

expansion diffusion• Push-and-pull factors

– Act to make old home unattractive and new land attractive

– Generally push factors are the key ones

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DefinitionsDefinitions

• Push Factors: Push Factors: conditions in one’s place of birth are very unpleasant.– Poverty & famine– War– Political, ethnic,

or religious persecution

– Class system with lack of social mobility

• Pull Factors: Pull Factors: knowledge of other places makes them seem more desirable than the place of birth.– Economic

opportunities– Freedom– Security

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Voluntary migrationVoluntary migration

• Perhaps the most important factor prompting humans to migrate is economic

• Since humans began migrating they have sought greater prosperity through better access to resources, especially land.

• Some cultural ecologists see humans as seeking to fill every possible environmental niche

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Push: Hunger, Poverty & Lack of Push: Hunger, Poverty & Lack of OpportunityOpportunity

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Migration Patterns (Brick=gain & Migration Patterns (Brick=gain & Blue=lossBlue=loss))

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USA Historical Immigrant MajorityUSA Historical Immigrant Majority

Approximations • 1840-1850s: Ireland & Germany• Pre 1890: Western & Northern

Europe• 1900 – 1910: Southern & Central

Europe• 1920 – 1950s: Western & Northern

Europe• 1970s – Present: Mexico & Central

America and Asia

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USA: Immigration RestrictionsUSA: Immigration Restrictions

• Unrestricted immigration ended in 1921– Quota Act– 1924 National Origins Act

• Originally to maintain European dominance– Later – quotas used to limit southern and

eastern European immigration

• Immigration Act 1965 ended quotas• 1968 hemisphere quotas were put in

place• 1978 global quota was put in place

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Current QuotaCurrent Quota

• Global Quota: 620,000• No more than 7% from a single

country• Purpose limits

– 480,000 family sponsored– 140,000 employment related

• Quota doesn’t apply to refugees• Also exempt: spouses, children, &

parents of U.S. citizens

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Current U.S.A. ImmigrationCurrent U.S.A. Immigration

• Chain Migration pattern– Grouping with people of same

ethnicity• Letters & communication with relatives and

friends who previously immigrated to the U.S.

• Campobello di Mazara & St. Louis, MO

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Ethnic Settlements

• Ethnic settlements– Some are assimilated and exist temporarily

• Kerry Patch (Irish) in North St. Louis

– Some remain for generations• “The Hill” St. Louis Italians

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Little India, NY city Chinatown, S.F.

Undocumented U.S. ImmigrationUndocumented U.S. Immigration

• Sources – 50% students or tourists who fail to leave– Crossing the border without visa or

passport

• 2005 statistics low estimate:– Total in residence: 9.3 million

• 5.3 million from Mexico• 2.2 million from other Latin American countries

• 2005 high estimate: total 11.1 million• 2008 estimate 11.9 million• Hispanics = 5% of civilian workforce

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Rounding up undocumented alienRounding up undocumented alien

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U.S. – Mexican problem borderU.S. – Mexican problem border

• Efforts to reduce (eliminate) illegal crossings – 2000 mile long border– Discontinuous border fence– Border guards can’t cover every point

all the time.

• Political problem in U.S. and between U.S. & Mexico

• Fill jobs most U.S. citizens wouldn’t take & are often exploited.

• What tax-supported services should they receive? Education, welfare, etc.?

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Guest WorkersGuest Workers

• Migrate from Less Developed Countries to Europe and the Middle East

• Hold undesirable, low-paying jobs• Examples:

– Construction workers in Dubai– Turks in Germany– African street “merchants” in Rome– Undocumented aliens in U.S.A.

• Send money back home to support family and/or relatives back home

• Welcome in “boom” not in “recession”

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Workers from Turkey in Germany

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Workers being deported from Workers being deported from MalaysiaMalaysia

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Mexican Guests in N. CarolinaMexican Guests in N. Carolina

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Polish guest workers in ItalyPolish guest workers in Italy

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Exploitation of Guest WorkersExploitation of Guest Workers

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“Dormitory” for guest workers in United Arab Emirates

Interregional migration in U.S.A.

• Movement from one region of a country to another– Historic “westward movement”– Dust Bowl era “Oakies”– Southern African Americans to

northern industrial cities– “Rust Belt” to the “Sun Belt”

• Economic activity shift – decline in heavy industry manufacturing – increase in service jobs and high-tech manufacturing

• Air-conditioning made southern locations more desirable than they were previously

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Pop. Change by countiesPop. Change by counties

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Interregional Migratrion Elsewhere

• Russia– Eastward to jobs in resource rich Siberia– Westward from inhospitable environs to

European Russia

• Brazil– From large coastal cities to the interior

• Indonesia– From Java (Jawa) to less densely

populated islands

• India– Restrictions to relocating in Assam

Province

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Brazilia built to attract people to Brazilia built to attract people to interiorinterior

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Intraregional Migration

• Rural to Urban migration– 50% urban worldwide

today– 20 million a year make

this move– Skyrocketing in LDCs –

Africa, Asia , Latin America

– Most seeking economic opportunities

– Live in barrios (squatter settlements)

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Urban to SuburbanUrban to Suburban

• St. Louis example: approximations– 1950

• St. Louis City • – 800.000• St. Louis County • – 200000

– 2000• St. Louis City • – 300,000• St. Louis County • – 1,000,000

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Reverse MigrationReverse Migration

• Primarily in More Developed countries– Back to cities – gentrification

• Lafayette Square• Georgetown in D.C.

• Counterurbanization – move from urban area to rural areas or small towns.– Boeing Aircraft workers living in the Union,

Mo. Area• Prompted by less need to work in the “office” all

the time.

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GentrificationGentrification

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Characteristics of MigrantsCharacteristics of Migrants

• Gender– Historically more males than females –

economic motivation– Pattern has shown reversals in U.S.A.– African guest workers in European

Union – a similar shift

• Family Status– Most long-distant migrants are young

adults– U.S.A. increasing female migrants has

also increased the numbers of children entering

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Traditional Male Farm Traditional Male Farm WorkersWorkers

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Relocation Migration (long-distance)Relocation Migration (long-distance)

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IsraelIsrael

• These Russian Jews (previous slide) are bargaining for fabric with a Bedouin at the Thursday market in Beersheba, an ancient city at the edge of the Negev Desert.

• Voluntary long-distance migrants, they were only recently permitted to leave the former Soviet Union

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IsraelIsrael

• Push-and-pull factors were Russian discriminatory practices, and Jewish perceptions of Israel as “The Promised Land” and place of refuge.

• In 1950, Israel passed the “Law of Return” which gave every Jew the right to settle in Israel.

• Such immigrants are known as “olim”

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Forced (involuntary) MigrationForced (involuntary) Migration

• ” Westward displacement of Native Americans in the United States

• Dispersal of Jews from Israel in Roman times

• Terrible export of African slaves to the Americas

• Brutal “clearings” of Scottish farmers by landlords to make way for large-scale sheep raising

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Encouraged or Coerced MigrationEncouraged or Coerced Migration

• Not well received in Kalimantan

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Forced or Coerced MigrationForced or Coerced Migration

• Today refugee movements are common– Rwandans in Congo– Palestinians in Syria, Lebanon, & Jordan– Sudanese in Kenya

• Prompted by (Push Factors)– Despotism– War– Ethnic hatreds– Famine

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Forced or Coerced MigrationForced or Coerced Migration

• By mid-1900s, 18 million people lived outside their homelands as refugees

• Great dislocations are occurring in southern Asia and Africa

• An additional 21 million displaced persons resided in their own countries

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Cultural-demographic interactionCultural-demographic interaction

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• Political factors– Examples of ethnic cleansing

• Rwanda• Darfur• Bosnia

– Examples of countries with immigration laws

Cultural-demographic interactionCultural-demographic interaction

• Economic factors– Effects of industrialization– Agricultural changes affected

population density– Protein deficiency and malnutrition

primarily in developing countries

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Economic factorsEconomic factors

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• In the past 200 years, industrialization has caused the greatest voluntary migration in world history as people have clustered in manufacturing regions

• Agricultural changes can have a similar effect with less impact on population distribution

Economic factorsEconomic factors

• Mechanization of cotton and wheat cultivation in 20th century America–Allowed crops to be raised by

a much smaller labor force

–Resulted in great depopulation

–Many small towns ceased to exist

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Cultural-demographic interactionCultural-demographic interaction

• Gender and geodemography– Women from specific

countries seen as “desirable” immigrants - good workers• 19th century Irish females often found

work as domestic servants

– Asia’s booming sex industry discussed

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Gender and GeodemographyGender and Geodemography

• James Tyner studied Philippine migration– Female “entertainers” made up 95% of

migrants to Japan– Poverty partly provided “push” factor– Pull factor – Japanese males see

Filipinas as highly desirable, exotic sex objects

– Japenese males also see Filipinas as culturally inferior and “willing victims”

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The settlement landscapeThe settlement landscape• Farm villages

– Vary in size– Most common form of agricultural

settlement in many regions– Most formed by irregular

unplanned clustering– Three types of regular planned villages

• Street village• Green village• Checkerboard

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The settlement landscapeThe settlement landscape

• Farm villages– Farmers journey out from villages

each day to work the land– Most common form of settlement in:

• Much of Europe• Many parts of Latin America• Densely settled farming regions in India,

China, Japan, Africa and Middle East

– Most are irregular clusterings developed spontaneously over the centuries

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The settlement landscapeThe settlement landscape

• Farm villages (continued)– Provide safety– Location tied to local environmental

conditions– Various communal ties bind villagers

together

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Clustered farm village

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Val Tavetsch, Switzerland

• This is a clustered or nucleated settlement in a glaciated region of the Swiss Alps.

• The importance of religion is suggested by the central position of the Protestant church, the tallest structure.

• Farmers live in the village and journey to and from their fields as needed.

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Val Tavetsch, SwitzerlandVal Tavetsch, Switzerland

• The main crops are hay and other feeds for dairy herds that are grazing in alpine pastures for the summer.

• Feed crops are mowed and stored for winter in barns beneath people’s living quarters or in outlying storage buildings high on the slopes.

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Semiclustered row village

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Inner Mongolia, ChinaInner Mongolia, China

• This Chinese-Mongol linear settlement is situated in the context of feng-shui guides.

• Proper orientation dictates “back to the north and face to the south.”

• The dryer slope is facing south.• Correct placement also calls for mountains

behind and a stream in the front.• The straw pile is from wheat which is threshed

by human and animal power.• Horses, sheep and pigs are also raise here.• Coal for fuel is delivered by truckload.

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Far

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Street VillageStreet Village

• The street village is the simplest of the planned types– Farmsteads grouped along both sides of a

single central street– Produce an elongated settlement– Particularly common in Eastern Europe

including much of Russia

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Green VillagesGreen Villages

• Green villages – farmsteads grouped around a central open place, or green, which forms a common– Occur on the plains areas of northern and

northwestern Europe– English immigrant laid out some in colonial

New England

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Checkerboard VillageCheckerboard Village

• Checkerboard village – based on a gridiron pattern of streets meeting at right angles– Found in the layout of

Utah’s Mormon villages

– Dominate most of rural Latin America and northeastern China

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Why farm people huddle Why farm people huddle together in villagestogether in villages• Defense – countryside was threatened

by roving bands of outlaws and raiders• Villages grew larger in times of

insecurity then shrunk during peaceful times

• In deserts and limestone areas ground absorbs moisture quickly, so farmsteads huddled at good water sources

• In marshes, swamps, and areas subject to floods people settle on available high ground

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Village Settlement LandscapeVillage Settlement Landscape

• Various communal ties bind villagers together– Blood relationships– Religious customs like Mormon clustered

villages in Utah– Communal or state ownership of land –

China and Israel

• Closely knit villagers usually depend on crops for their livelihood– Tillage requires less land than stock raising– Villagers do not have to travel far distances

from farmstead to fiel

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Isolated Isolated farmsteadsfarmsteads– Found mainly in

Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa

– Mainly found in lands colonized by emigrating Europeans

– Some appear in Japan, Europe, and parts of India

– Lived on by individual pioneer families

– Peace and security in the countryside

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Isolated farmsteadsIsolated farmsteads

• Reasons for isolated farmstead development– Removal of the need for defense– Colonization by individual pioneer families

rather than socially cohesive groups– Agricultural private enterprise as opposed to a

form of communalism– Rural economies dominated by livestock

raising– Well drained land where water is readily

available– Most date from colonization of new farmland in

the last two or three centuries

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Semiclustered rural settlementSemiclustered rural settlement• Share characteristics of both clustered and

dispersed types• Hamlet – the most common kind, consists of

a small number of farmsteads grouped loosely together– Farmsteads lie in a settlement nucleus separate

from the cropland– Smaller and less compact, containing as few as

3 or 4 houses– Occur most often in poorer hill districts– Common in parts of western Europe, China,

India, the Philippines, and Vietnam

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Irregular clustered villageIrregular clustered village

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• Irregular village – several hamlets lying close to one another share a common name– Often linked to various clans or religious groups– Most comon in southeastern Europe, Malaya,

Bangladesh, southern Japan, India– A deliberate segregation of inhabitants, either

voluntary or involuntary– India’s farmers of the “untouchable” cast are

occasionally segregated

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• Row village – a loose chain of farmsteads spaced at intervals along a road, river or canal, often extending for many miles– Appear in the hills and marshlands

of central and northwestern Europe– Also found in French-settled

portions of North America – Quebec and Louisiana

• “Cajun” row villages are found along Bayou Lafourche in Louisiana

• Dwellings are so close to one another that a baseball could be thrown from house to house for more than a hundred miles

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Reading the cultural landscapeReading the cultural landscape• Rural settlement

forms provide a chance to “read” the cultural landscape, but we must look for the subtle too, and not jump to conclusions

• Example: Maya Indians of the Yucatan

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• Reside in checkerboard villages

• Before Spanish conquest, Mayas lived in templed wet-point villages of irregular clustered type

• Villages located along cenotes – natural sinkholes providing water in a land with no surface streams

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• Spanish destroyed original settlements replacing them with checkerboard villages to accommodate wheeled vehicle.

• A close look reveals the prevalence of Mayan ways with a casual distribution of dwellings

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• Spanish influenced architecture remains confined to areas near the central plaza– Flat-roofed houses

of stone– Town hall, church,

and a hacienda mansion

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• Indian influence increases markedly with distance from the plaza– Traditional Maya pole huts with thatched, hipped

roofs– Separate cook houses of the same design– Doorway gardens surrounding each hut contain

traditional Indian plants– Yards are ringed with traditionally dry rock walls

where pigs share the ground with turkeys– Many still speak the Mayan language– Though Catholicism prevails, the absence of

huts around the cenote suggest a lingering pagan sanctity

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ConclusionsConclusions

• Humankind unevenly distributed across the Earth

• Spatial variations in demographics depicted as cultural regions

• Use of cultural diffusion in analyzing human migration, spread of birth-control, and diseases

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ConclusionsConclusions

• Viewpoint of cultural ecology– How environment and peoples’ perception of it

influence human distribution– Pop. density link to level of environment alteration– Overpopulation’s negative impact on environment

• Use of cultural integration to suggest how demography and mobility are linked– Cultural attitudes can encourage people to be

mobile or stay in one place– Spatial variation in demographic traits are

enmeshed in the fabric of future

• The cultural landscape expresses how people distribute themselves across Earth’s surface

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Sequent occupance reveals culture changes

1. Cultural landscape – the total impact of human action upon the natural conditions – changes made by humans – an expression of their culture.

• Cultures rise and fall

• Cultures change

• Cultures are replaced by other cultures

2. The cultural landscape changes in response to the growth of a culture or its replacement

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Central America SequenceCentral America Sequence

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