During the WWI, tens of thousands Austro-Italian soldiers from rural areas of Trentine had been called to the arms and thrown into the Galician battlefields. Many of them were captured by Russians...Show moreDuring the WWI, tens of thousands Austro-Italian soldiers from rural areas of Trentine had been called to the arms and thrown into the Galician battlefields. Many of them were captured by Russians and, during their captivity, were asked to chose between Austro-Hungarian and Italian citizenship. Through the analysis of their diaries and memorials, this research aims to uncover the social processes underlying the construction of a new national identity.Show less
In political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of...Show moreIn political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of the Age of Revolution increasingly brings to light the many links that connect these revolutions and render their dichotomization illegitimate. This thesis simultaneously draws on and contributes to this historiographical development by experimenting the methodological approach of Atlantic intellectual history from below. Focusing on the perspectives of the French sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves of Saint Domingue (colonial Haiti), it explores how these revolutionary groups’ exposure to a transatlantic flux of ideas and developments impacted their views on the slavery system between 1789 and 1794. The thesis reconstructs these views through a myriad of primary sources reflective of public opinion, such as French revolutionary newspapers and eyewitness accounts of the insurgent slave armies’ internal debates. In line with Homi Bhabha’s theoretical proposition that concepts have no ‘primordial fixity’ and can therefore be ‘translated and read anew’ in different ideological environments, it finds that the introduction of news and ideas from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean generated abolitionist popular mentalités among both the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves. While the former came to conceive of themselves as slaves rebelling against their aristocratic masters and thus developed a view of Saint-Domingue’s slaves as natural allies, the latter fused French revolutionary rights-based discourse with originally West-African political culture to produce a syncretic political vision which rendered abolition imaginable and, therefore, attainable. The convergence of these distinct, yet ultimately commensurable, popular mentalités facilitated the general emancipation of Saint-Domingue’s enslaved population by the French colonial authorities in August 1793, followed by the formal abolition of slavery by the French National Convention in February 1794. The interwoven abolitionist history of the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves presented by the thesis brings to the fore the commonalities, rather than the conflicts that characterized the connected French and Haitian Revolutions: it offers a mode of telling that might be hopeful and helpful in our own times.Show less
The legal forms of migrant education (OETC and OALT) existed in the Netherlands from 1985 to 2004. Both its start and its ending have been linked to changing national models of integration. Five...Show moreThe legal forms of migrant education (OETC and OALT) existed in the Netherlands from 1985 to 2004. Both its start and its ending have been linked to changing national models of integration. Five models by Scholten are compared for the political discourse and the news discourse. These are: assimilationism, multiculturalism, differentialism, transnationalism/post-universalism and universalism. The shifts in the political discourse (differentialism-multiculturalism-universalism-assimilationism) were only to a certain extent comparable to the news discourse. Newspapers as Trouw, De Waarheid, Nederlands Dagblad, Algemeen Dagblad and De Volkskrant showed that the multicultural model of which OETC and OALT were an outcome, should have been put to doubt – and was merely symbolic. Migrant education did not lead to integration from either minorities or the majority. It still accommodated differences between groups. And although a multicultural model has a minimum amount of government interference, the government did play a central role here. Especially De Volkskrant and Trouw have seemed to be on the right end by labeling migrant education in the Netherlands as a legacy of the nation’s past of differentialist pillarization: OETC and OALT as ‘well-meant apartheid’. Notably De Waarheid influenced the political discourse by acting as a claim maker pro-migrant education.Show less
By means of a sample of 200 railway, post and police workers from the Leiden population register around 1900 patterns and systems are found out concerning career migration in the Netherlands. The...Show moreBy means of a sample of 200 railway, post and police workers from the Leiden population register around 1900 patterns and systems are found out concerning career migration in the Netherlands. The sample is analysed on migration patterns like city of birth, city of provenance and city of departure, on ages and family situations and on adresses in Leiden.Show less
It is exactly 100 years ago (1911) that hundreds of Chinese migrants set foot in the Netherlands. They were seamen employed by Dutch shipping companies and came originally from Guangdong province...Show moreIt is exactly 100 years ago (1911) that hundreds of Chinese migrants set foot in the Netherlands. They were seamen employed by Dutch shipping companies and came originally from Guangdong province in China. The Chinese community has now grown into a highly diverse community of 100,000 people. It is highly diverse in terms of their place of birth, socio-economic status and immigration history. Among the Chinese immigrants originating from the New Territories in Hong Kong who re-migrated from Britain to the Netherlands in the 1950s, there was a significant lineage, i.e. the Man lineage. Currently, this lineage in the Netherlands is made up of approximately 2000 – 2500 members and in Britain over 4000 members who share the same surname ‘Man’. This thesis has sought to find out what were the causes of migration that contributed to the exodus of the Man lineage to Europe from two particular villages – namely San Tin and Chau Tau – in the New Territories in Hong Kong. The thesis has conducted a comprehensive analysis that consists of a three-level examination, namely that of the macro, meso and micro levels. As a matter of fact, the rationale behind such decisions demonstrates the interaction between structure and agency, culminating in chain migration. In other words, factors such as colonialism, the economic situation, national immigration policies and established social networks all played a role in the decision-making process, making transnational migration possible. It has also demonstrated that family structure has a strong correlation with the pattern of migration. This thesis has also identified certain major changes in relation to the Man lineage in Europe as a result of migration. First of all, there has been an upward social mobility. Second, there has been a conversion in consciousness, notably, from a diasporic consciousness to a transcultural consciousness. Finally, there has been a change in social relationship among the second and the third generation Man lineage members since, according to the survey, they do not have close ties with their their agnates established in Europe and in the New Territories or the villages of their ancestors.Show less
