Marcelo Javier BORGES

The large-scale transoceanic migrations that began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century put the world on the move at unprecedented levels and created the need for millions of migrants and their families to build, maintain, and recreate affective bonds. Migration and the circulation of international correspondence grew hand in hand. Letters provided a vehicle for migrant families to adapt to the challenges created by distant relations and to express the underlying emotional work. Migration extended and democratized the practice of letter writing. Increased access to photographic portraits and domestic images added a new medium that contributed to the emotional language of epistolary exchanges. Through the analysis of letters and vernacular and family photography, Emotions on the Move examines family and gender dynamics, emotions and identity, and the language of migration and separation among southern European migrants and their families, as they adapted to living apart as a result of seasonal, temporary, or long-term migration.

Marcelo Borges is Professor of History and the Boyd Lee Spahr Chair in the History of the Americas, at Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania), where he teaches Latin American and migration history. His publications include articles, special journal issues and books that have appeared in venues in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Among them, Chains of Gold: Portuguese Migration to Argentina in Transatlantic Perspective; Company Towns: Labor, Space, and Power Relations across Time and Continents (co-edited); and Migrant Letters: Emotional Language, Mobile Identities, and Writing Practices in Historical Perspective (co-edited). He is the co-editor of the University of Illinois’ book series on Studies of World Migrations. He holds undergraduates degrees from the National University of La Plata (Argentina) and a Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University (U.S.A.).

BORGES, Marcelo and CANCIAN, Sonia. Migrant Letters: Emotional Language, Mobile Identities, and Writing Practices in Historical Perspective, New York, Routledge, 2018.

BORGES, Marcelo. “For the Good of the Family: Migratory Strategies and Affective Language in Portuguese Migrant Letters, 1870s–1920s,” in The History of the Family volume 21, 2016, pp. 368–97.

BORGES, Marcelo and TORRES, Susana. Company Towns: Labor, Space, and Power Relations across Time and Continents, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

BORGES, Marcelo. Chains of Gold: Portuguese Migration to Argentina in Transatlantic Perspective, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2009.

BORGES, Marcelo. “Portuguese Migrations in Comparison: Historical Patterns and Transnational Communities,” in Portuguese Studies Review volume 14, 2009.