AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to introduce students to the themes of the geography of population and migration, which are essential for understanding and critically addressing crucial aspects of current migration phenomena, the international relations connected to them and their effects on cooperation policies for the development. At the end of the course the student will know: nature and possibilities of use of the main demographic indices and indicators; the fundamental features of the history of the world population; the main factors and the forms assumed over time by international migratory movements. Consequently, the student will be able to use the basic tools of demography to understand and interpret the main lines of the history of the distribution of the world population and its evolution in time and space, of migratory movements and their connections with factors. of an environmental, economic, social and cultural nature. For this purpose, the student must first memorize a set of notions and definitions essential to identify, describe and analyze demographic and migratory phenomena. Secondly, he will have to know how to apply some elementary statistical models and use the analytical tools made available by the historical-geo-cartographic sciences. Finally, he will have to be able to apply these tools to the analysis of migratory phenomena that characterize the second half of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. In this way, at the end of the course the student will have to be able to evaluate and contextualize different types and methods of migration, in order to develop the ability to formulate critical interpretations of the same and of the interventions that are proposed in different political and institutional settings.

TEACHING METHODS

The lessons will be mainly frontal and held in Italian. The presentation of testimonies and interventions by experts or operators in the sector is foreseen.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course is divided into two parts.
PART ONE - The first part of the course will address the study of the main components of the demographic evolution of a human population. In particular, we will focus on: strategies for demographic growth (mortality, marriage, fertility, mobility and migration); demographic development between choice and compulsion; relationships between demographic dynamics and resources.
SECOND PART - The second part of the course will deal with the study of the most historically relevant international migrations and contemporary ones divided by large geographical regions. We will then move on to an analysis of the relationships between demographic dynamics and development. Finally, the issues of the acceleration of migratory phenomena in the course of the nineteenth century, of the inversion of the migratory cycle starting from the second half of the twentieth century, of the relations between processes of globalization and migratory movements will be addressed, and finally the economic effects and social aspects of contemporary migratory movements in the countries of origin and destination.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Livi Bacci (2011), On the way. Brief history of migration. Il Mulino, Bologna
A text to be chosen from:
M. Sammers (2012), Migrations. Carocci publisher, Rome
D. Di Cesare (2017), Foreign residents. A philosophy of migration. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin
G. Ceccatelli (2020), Atlas of migration. from the origins of man to the new pandemics. Clichy Editions, Florence
The study of the texts indicated above must be integrated with that of the material that will be inserted by the teacher on Aulaweb.