All populations present the historian with certain questions. Their origins, the date of their arrival, their reason for coming and finally, how they came - all demand explanation. The population of Ulster today, derived mainly from Scotland, far from proving an exception, personifies the problem. So greatly does the population of Ulster differ from the rest of Ireland that barbed wire and road blocks periodically, even now, demark the boundaries between the two. Over three centuries after the Scots arrived, they still maintain their differences from those who Inhabited Ireland before them.

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NOTE: Missing p. i of Preface

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Based on archival work in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Australia, my dissertation expands the traditional purview of diplomatic history into the international dimensions of the social and cultural realms. My study treats doomed attempts to reconstruct previously-held notions of hierarchy and deference as encapsulated in the Empire Settlement Act (ESA) in the wake of the dramatic changes to the world order resulting from World War I. To counter the emergence of Japan as a world power, under the auspices of the ESA, British Columbia and Western Australia, the two most distant outposts of the “white” British Empire in the Pacific, imported poor Celtic farmers and militiamen from northern Scotland in an attempt to retain their “British” identity, which they felt was threatened by Japan on the one hand, the Japanese in their midst on another, and local “nationalisms” on a third. This dissertation argues that such schemes were undermined by the conflicting priorities of Britain and the Dominions, the tensions between laissez-faire and excessive centralized control, the disconnect between government, capital and labor, the valuations of self-help within highly circumscribed situations, the conflict between the themes of rejuvenation and permanent regression, the fight between an idiosyncratic rural ideal and the reality of the urbanized and industrialized world of the twentieth century, and the inconsistent application of supposedly inviolable Social Darwinist ideals. The birth and death of plans to recruit Hebridean crofters to British Columbia and Western Australia in the 1920s reveals a great deal about the fluidity surrounding concepts of identity and security in a very unstable time. The debates surrounding the status of the Hebridean Scots, especially vis-à-vis their British compatriots and the Japanese, are an extreme window through which the much wider dialogues taking place regarding the status of the British Empire both internally and on the global stage, on the changing role of race as the final determinant of one’s identity and status, and the clashes between the Victorian and the modern ways of defining and conceiving of Empire, can be viewed and debated. / text

This thesis analyses the commercial, maritime and military relations between Scotland and the cities and territories in the North Western parts of the Holy Roman Empire during the early modern period; specifically Hamburg, Bremen, the Swedish duchies of Bremen and Verden, Danish Altona and Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Having identified anomalies in the histories of these locations, and bringing a more international dimension to them, my study tackles a remarkable understudied geo-political location. The core of my research identifies the immigration of Scots and the establishment of commercial networks within a region rather than an individual territory, highlighting contact across political borders. This region differed significantly from other places in Northern Europe in that it did not maintain an ethnically distinct Scottish community enforcing and encouraging interaction with the indigenous German population and other foreigners such as the English Merchant Adventurers in Hamburg. The survey reveals that despite the lack of such a community the region was of commercial significance to Scots as evidenced by the presence of individual Scottish merchants, factors and entrepreneurs whose trade links stretched far beyond their home country. Significantly, these Scots present in mercantile capacities were demonstrably linked to their countrymen who frequented the region as diplomats and soldiers who frequently resided in the neutral cities of Bremen and Hamburg. Some of these Scots within the Swedish army were of importance in the administration of Swedish Bremen-Verden while others fought for Braunschweig-Lüneburg. Their presence encouraged chain migration, particularly offering shelter to Scottish political exiles in the later seventeenth century. Analysing the collective role of these men and the relationships between them, this thesis highlights the overall significance of the wider Elbe-Weser region to the Scots and vice versa, filling a gap in our understanding of the Scottish Diaspora in the early modern period, and broadening our understanding of the region itself.

Muslim family members constitute a significant migration flow to the UK (Kofman et al., 2013). Despite such observations, this form of mobility is under-explored in geographic scholarship on migration. Accordingly, this thesis examines the subjective experiences of migration of a small group of Muslim women, who migrated either with or to join their families in Scotland. Participant observation, focus groups and the life narratives of eight women are used to gain an in-depth understanding of both the reasons for and the consequences of migration for this group of Muslim women. In addition, this thesis examines the role of a secular community-based organisation in supporting migrants in their everyday lives. Drawing on conceptual approaches to migration, this study reveals diverse and complex motivations among participants in “choosing” to migrate. Far from “victims” or “trailing wives”, participants privileged their children's needs but also the possibility to transform their sense of self through migration. The study draws attention to the struggles of daily life in Scotland where, bereft of extended family, the synchronisation of migration with childbirth resulted in some participants enduring years of isolation. Such struggles resulted in changes in the home, with husbands providing both physical and emotional support. The experience of migration affected the women's religious identities, providing solace as well as a way to assert belonging in Scotland by drawing on Islamic theology. The community-based organisation provided a “safe space”, bridging the secular and non-secular and offering women the chance to socialise, learn and volunteer. The study shows that volunteering provided not only a way into paid work but also shaped women's subjectivities and home lives. However, the re-direction of national government funding towards “Muslim problems” threatens to undermine the organisation's ability to continue to meet the local needs of Muslim migrant women.

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