Separate but One: the Sociology and History of Revolutions and Refugee Migration.

Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan

All the great revolutions – the French, Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and Cuban – have generated huge flows of refugees. However, the academics who studied them have been two separate intellectual communities that dialogue among themselves but not with each other. Thus, they remain two very different fields and areas of intellectual concern. In this paper, I attempt to show that the two phenomena – revolution and refugee exodus – are deeply intertwined with one another in several ways. Using Albert O. Hirschman’s distinction between exit (refugee exodus) and voice (social protest) I rely on my research on the Cuban revolution and exodus, as well as other significant social movements, to show that overtime various exit-voice relationships obtained. Ultimately, the paper argues that our knowledge of each of these social processes – revolutions and refugees -- is enhanced by bringing them together and compelling them to marry one another, so that we can understand them both with greater depth.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 130. Nation-Making through Empire, Settlement, and Revolution