Die räumliche Ballung von Einwanderern wird gemeinhin als Integrationsmaßstab angesehen, wobei dieser Auffassung die Annahme zugrunde liegt, dass Ballungsgebiete mit Gemeinschaften gleichgesetzt werden können. Indem wir uns Ballungsgebiete über einen langen Zeitraum (ein ganzes Jahrhundert) und auf der Ebene individueller Einwanderer ansehen, können wir zeigen, dass in den meisten Ballungsgebieten eine örtliche, aber keine besitzmäßige Kontinuität herrschte. Unter Einwanderern gab es einen hohen Grad an Mobilität, so dass wenig Zeit blieb, irgendeine Form von Zusammenhalt zu entwickeln. Ballungsgebiete können daher nicht mit Gemeinschaften gleichgesetzt werden, und Integration lässt sich nicht dadurch messen, dass man allein auf die Ballungsgebiete schaut.

This article examines generational continuity and kinship patterns in Willingham (England) between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and in Kami-shiojiri (Japan) in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In Willingham few families continued to survive in a given locality for more than a couple of generations in the male line. Yet at the same time local testators left bequests to a wide range of kin in their wills, indicating that, despite the mobility of the population, kinship ties remained important and were acknowledged. For Kami-shiojiri, the almost continuous series of Shumon Aratame-cho (religious faith registers) reveals a gradual change towards smaller and simpler household structures (Ie). In addition, occasional abrupt increases in the numbers of households and in the numbers of messuages (dwelling units) imply that the community as a whole and/or the local overlord did sometimes intervene to reconstruct sections of the village economy and the use of household labour. Households in Kami-shiojiri were larger and more complex than those in England and the population was much more stable, with the mobility rate about half that reported for England. The extent of variation in inheritance patterns within both populations is also discussed, showing that some families persisted for several generations in Willingham and that in Kami-shiojiri more than a third of cases of change of headship of the household, involved a successor who was not the eldest son of the previous head.

Spatial concentrations of immigrants are commonly regarded as a measure for integration of migrants into the host society. The underlying assumption is that concentrations can be equated with communities. By looking at concentrations in Utrecht both over a long period of time (a century) and at the level of individual immigrants we show that the concentrations remained in the same locality but showed a high turnover amongst their inhabitants, and thus little time for any form of coherent group to develop. Concentrations can therefore not be equated with communities, and integration cannot be measured by looking at concentrations alone.

This article examines aspects of infant mortality in a discrete part of Kingston upon Thames – the Canbury area – in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It highlights the concentration of infant mortality in this area, which was characterized – especially in the 1890s – by an increasingly overcrowded and unhealthy environment, made worse by the proximity of animals to living space. Animal manure attracted flies which, particularly during hot summer months, transmitted disease to infant foodstuffs, especially milk, increasing the incidence of summer diarrhoea. Poor feeding and child-care practices contributed to high levels of infant mortality, a situation acknowledged by Kingston's Medical Officer of Health.

The article sheds fresh light on socio-legal change in the Ottoman Empire during the late nineteenth century by focusing on the legal culture that emerged in the newly established Nizamiye court system. It is argued that a characteristic Nizamiye discourse that emphasized procedure mirrored the syncretic nature of this judicial system. This syncretism was a typical outcome of legal borrowing, encompassing both indigenous and foreign legal traditions. In addition, the article points to the possible impact of the new legal culture on judicial strategies employed by litigants. The accentuation of procedure opened up new litigation opportunities for the wealthier classes while disadvantaging and alienating the lower strata of society. Yet Ottoman law also provided some legal solutions for the lower orders.

This article studies the commemoration and ceremonial culture surrounding the inauguration of new waterworks in British municipalities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It analyses how new waterworks could be seen as a symbol of a progressive civic government, and how the commemoration of their opening could be used to enhance a city's image. The article also studies the ways in which ideas concerning the purity of new water supplies were constructed. An examination is made of how ceremonial culture and publications reflected the particular politics of waterworks in individual localities, and how such commemoration could serve as a vehicle for the promotion of civic unity.

Robert Putnam's influential article ‘Bowling alone: America's declining social capital’ puts forward a number of possible factors to explain the decline of civil society in the USA. Many of these same forces are also at work in America's erstwhile colony in Asia, the Philippines, where almost the opposite outcome is true if one can measure such things as social capital by the activity of formal and informal associations and networks devoted to mutual assistance. Unlike Americans, however, Filipinos are exposed to a much higher degree of everyday risk. This article traces the evolution of mutual benefit associations and networks and suggests that it is in precisely those geographical regions most exposed to personal misfortune and community danger that they proliferate most readily.