Displaced persons, returnees and ‘unsuitables’: the Dutch selection of DPs (1945–1951)

2020

Identities

Self Cite

This article tests the use of the concepts 'politics of belonging' and 'intimate citizenship' for explaining (dis)continuities in intercountry adoption. It focusses on the Netherlands in the period 1900-1995. Adopters, adoption agencies and authorities in the countries of origin and settlement were the main actors. This article shows that adopters were claiming a right to a family, receiving states were granting or withholding rights, and adoption agencies were not only voicing moral claims and following a political agenda, but also a commercial one. In the discourse used in press and Parliament, intercountry adoption was justified and children were 'freed for adoption' by redrawing boundaries and hierarchies between cultures and nations, as well as by redefining the importance of ties, (dis)qualifying 'parents' and stressing state responsibilities.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parenting, citizenship and belonging in Dutch adoption debates 1900-1995

2020

Identities

Self Cite

“…Overall, immigration policies were restrictive. 66 Entry and naturalization of foreign homosexuals were restricted as well, but numbers were low. In this period, homosexuals in the Netherlands, who met with few restrictions (compared to other countries), emancipated and organized.…”

Section: The Immediate After-war Period: Ignoring the Inclinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

'Charter flights full of homosexuals'. The Changing Rights of Homosexual Immigrants in The Netherlands, 1945-1992.

Tijdschrift Voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis/ the Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History

Kampman²

2020

Self Cite

This article seeks to explain changes in Dutch policies regarding the rights of homosexual immigrants. In the period 1945-1992 policies changed fundamentally. As this article will show, existing theories do not fully explain why policies regarding homosexual foreigners changed. The most striking aspect of the policy changes was the casualness with which decisions were taken, and the long time that passed before the consequences of decisions sank in. Although the number of homosexual foreigners coming to the Netherlands was never large, their migration was always highly contested: response to their claims was a key part of how the nation defined itself, both now and in the past. This article shows how discussions about the right to refugee status for homosexual foreigners evolved from debates about the right of homosexual migrants to come within the framework of labour migration or family migration (right to live with your partner). Policies changed -this article argues -because this issue was not at the heart of policy fields (labour migration, family migration, refugee migration) but rather at the points where policy fields intersect-

Migration Histories

IMISCOE Research Series

2022

It is impossible to cover the history of global migrations in one chapter. The literature on global migration has increased rapidly since the 1980s. This increase is more-or-less in line with the increase in publications on migration control and migration management. The number of publications about global migration history is much less. This chapter will and cannot not cover the global migrations in the past 2000 years, but rather it will look critically at data collections, present biases in migration history, and will give a helicopter view of major migrations.