Abstract/Summary

This article analyses the discourse surrounding diaspora in Life and Labour of the People in London, drawing upon the published volumes of the project and the unpublished notebooks used to record observations and interviews. It examines how Western and Southern European migrant groups in London were depicted in Charles Booth’s work at the turn of the twentieth century, comparing these depictions with those of the Irish Catholic and Jewish Diasporas. It focuses on four areas through which the concept of diaspora was interrogated in Life and Labour – ideas of territory, economic roles, criminality, and the nature of transnational institutions. It will demonstrate how these groups experienced differences in patterns of settlement and in interactions with the host society, and why between 1890 and 1914 Western and Southern European diasporas never attracted the attention or the opprobrium so apparent in the discourse on Irish and Jewish migrants.