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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Eighth Island

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This paper proposes a succinct analysis of the factors that have led Aeolians to leave their islands for Australia and explores how patterns of chain migration were established in the second half of the 19th century that are still active today. Saija argues that initially Aeolians went to Australia out of a yearning for adventure rather than out of economic need, although after the substantial economic downturn experienced by the islands from 1888 onwards, economic need became the predominant if not the only factor. Over the last 150 years so many Aeolians have migrated to Australia that it has become known in the Aeolian collective consciousness as the eighth island of the Aeolian archipelago.