Scotland diaspora, was there social justice for the failed immigrant in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries University of Dundee

Overview

This Scotland diaspora, was there social justice for the failed immigrant in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries project at University of Dundee will make a major intervention in diaspora studies through the examination of those who strove for social justice in a new land.

Context

The objectives of St Andrew’s societies can be traced back to the philanthropic work of guilds, trade incorporations, and Corpus Christi societies of the seventeenth century. That range of social action then broadened in the enlightenment phase into music, cultural and social activities, the Oddfellows, as well as, in the case of the beggar’s benison, sexual pleasures. The Burns supper has its roots in the ceremonial and fellowship practices of the eighteenth-century Masonic lodge. We know much about those who came to lead these philanthropic and cultural agencies, but much less about the marginalised sections of Scotland's diaspora who sought relief from endemic poverty.