In this interdisciplinary thesis, I use history and anthropology to research the influence of migration history on the identity construct of Hindostani people in the Netherlands. The work is...Show moreIn this interdisciplinary thesis, I use history and anthropology to research the influence of migration history on the identity construct of Hindostani people in the Netherlands. The work is anthropological because I created data by interviewing 23 participants about their lives and experiences, and historical because I used a framework of scholars who have researched the complex fields of identity, colonialism, migration, and transnational history or have specifically researched Hindostani people and their history. Combining these datasets, I present a case study that goes in depth to find out what the influence of colonial migration is on Hindostani people in a ‘postcolonial’ society such as the Netherlands. The conclusion is a careful but meaningful one, as it offers insights into both the people I interviewed and the society in which they live. This study shows that identity is so complex and personal that migration history has divergent meaning and effect on the lives of individual Hindostanis, so that even pointers such as age and gender cannot indicate the importance of that history to a Hindostani person. The only exception to this was religion, as religious participants ascribed more meaning to their migration history. Their history played a large part in the constructing of their identity and in the raising of their children. Lastly, I argue that both interdisciplinary and microhistory, even though small-scale, are key to historical research, especially of colonial history, by creating data and writing with the people who are the embodiment of that history.Show less
This thesis explores how Haitian migrants are received in the Dominican Republic and considers the implications of this for media representation and immigration policy. A variety of mechanisms are...Show moreThis thesis explores how Haitian migrants are received in the Dominican Republic and considers the implications of this for media representation and immigration policy. A variety of mechanisms are identified by which Haitians and people of Haitian descent are positioned as ‘the other’ and are defined and treated as different from the host community in the Dominican Republic. Anti-Haitian attitudes are widely acknowledged to exist in the Dominican Republic but it is unclear whether these are driven by racist ideologies or fears of losing national sovereignty. This paper builds upon the study conducted by Craemer and Martinez (2021), who identified four Haitian stereotypes; anti-Black, anti-immigrant, criminal violence, and anti-Haitian stereotypes. A content analysis is conducted of articles containing the search term ‘Haiti’, from 2020 to 2021, in two Dominican newspapers (El Listín Diario and El Día) and two Haitian newspapers (Rezo Nòdwès and Juno7). This thesis adds to the previous study by examining the content of Haitian newspapers and corroborating previous results. Consistent with Craemer and Martinez, this study finds the strongest stereotype-consistency bias in the criminal violence stereotypes. Diverging from this, the anti-Haitian stereotypes showed a significant increase in stereotype-consistent bias. This contradicts conclusions drawn by Craemer and Martinez. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
2023-08-31T00:00:00Z
In the West, discourse on and about migrants is often characterised by inclusive and exclusive discursive practices that contribute to constructing an “us” vs “them” dichotomy. In Italy, as well as...Show moreIn the West, discourse on and about migrants is often characterised by inclusive and exclusive discursive practices that contribute to constructing an “us” vs “them” dichotomy. In Italy, as well as in Europe, the rise of right-wing and populist parties has advanced an increasingly xenophobic and exclusionary rhetoric. Discriminatory ideologies are not innate, but they are produced and reproduced in society through discourse. The present thesis aims to uncover such discriminatory and exclusionary discourses and to understand how the dichotomous “us” and “them” relationship is constructed in a selection of Italian newspapers. This study investigates the discursive strategies employed in migrant representation in right-wing Il Giornale (IG) and centrist Corriere della Sera (CS) drawing from a combination of theoretical and methodological critical discourse study (CDS) frameworks, namely Wodak’s (2001) Discourse-Historical approach, van Leeuwen’s (1996) Social Actor approach, and KhosraviNik’s (2010) systematisation of CDS analytical categories. A final total number of twenty-six newspaper articles were qualitatively analysed. The study found that topics such as “arrivals”, “landings”, and “irregular arrivals” are particularly salient in both newspapers. The findings fit in with macro-level discourse on migration in Italy (and the EU) as well as with their migration policies that are almost exclusively focused on managing irregular arrivals. Amongst the most common discursive strategies identified in both newspapers are aggregation (presenting migrants in large numbers), objectivation (naming migrants with terminology that lacks the semantic feature “human”) and classification (naming social actors on the basis of their ethnicity, e.g. Tunisians vs Italians). Furthermore, Il Giornale was found to engage in explicitly anti-immigrant arguments drawing on topoi of financial burden, threat, law, and number.Show less
This thesis examines political attitudes towards different groups of migrants arriving in Britain between 1948 and 1971. Specifically, it examines how the creation of the National Health Service ...Show moreThis thesis examines political attitudes towards different groups of migrants arriving in Britain between 1948 and 1971. Specifically, it examines how the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948 influenced attitudes towards different migrant groups. It pays close attention to racial inequalities comparing the different receptions of predominantly black and brown migrant groups from the New Commonwealth states and the predominantly white migrant groups from continental Europe and Old Commonwealth states. Methodologically it uses a combination of close and distant reading techniques on parliamentary transcripts and civil service records, particularly from the British Ministry of Health. The central finding is that far from migrants being treated with universal scepticism, there was a very clear hierarchy of desirability into which different migrant groups were sorted, and further that this hierarchy was structured around perceived racial difference.Show less
The use of active labour market policies (ALMPs) is a common approach in Europe to reintegrate the unemployed back into the labour market. But the effectiveness of these ALMPs is unestablished, as...Show moreThe use of active labour market policies (ALMPs) is a common approach in Europe to reintegrate the unemployed back into the labour market. But the effectiveness of these ALMPs is unestablished, as previous research contributes either failure or success to factors such as strategy, implementation, and continuity. An additional factor is the presence of non-Western migrants, as non-Western migrants are believed to have a greater distance to the labour market, which affects their performance on the labour market. In the Netherlands, municipalities are responsible for their own ALMP strategy. This thesis aims to find the relationship between enrolment in ALMPs and outflow of the social assistance benefit to work, for both the general population and specifically for non-Western migrants, per municipality. A fixed-effects regression for the years 2015 to 2017 in the Netherlands, that controls for unobservable differences between municipalities, show that increased enrolment in ALMPs has no significant effect on the outflow to work. An interaction effect between share of non-Western migrants in a municipality and the enrolment in ALMPs also has no significant effect on the outflow to work. This means that the effectiveness of ALMPs is weak and inelastic, both for the general population and non-Western migrants. Small changes in the short term per municipality in either the number of residents, the fraction of the social assistance benefit recipients that are enrolled in an ALMP, and the share of non-Western migrants, do not impact outflow to work.Show less
The objective of this research is to create an overview of the frameworks the EU has in place to protect climate change migrants and to argue why the EU Member States hold a responsibility in...Show moreThe objective of this research is to create an overview of the frameworks the EU has in place to protect climate change migrants and to argue why the EU Member States hold a responsibility in protecting victims of climate change hazards. An overview of different international instruments makes clear what the current protective framework for climate change migrants is within the EU. Furthermore, the research provides legal arguments that add to the importance of improved efforts on climate change mitigation and may provide a positive obligation for EU Member States to grant international protection to climate change migrants. Moral arguments on their turn create an argument to answer why the EU Member States hold a responsibility in protecting victims of climate change. The EU’s responsibility for the protection of climate change migrants as well as its responsibility to improve efforts on climate change mitigation is mainly based on an argument on the disproportionality that can be found within the climate crisis, namely: the overrepresentation of the ‘Global North’ amongst the main contributors and the overrepresentation of the ‘Global South’ amongst the main victims. Current frameworks as the Temporary Protection Directive and the UN Guiding Principles are not able to fulfil the EU’s role as a protector of climate change migrants. The precautionary principle, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, and the principle of non-refoulement may be a guide to better tools to fulfil this role.Show less
By carrying oral history analysis, this thesis looks at the political activism of Chilean women exiled in Spain from a gender perspective. It highlights the role of gender and stereotypes in women...Show moreBy carrying oral history analysis, this thesis looks at the political activism of Chilean women exiled in Spain from a gender perspective. It highlights the role of gender and stereotypes in women's experience towards their "exilic condition" before and upon arrival to Spain, as well as political activism within and outside the Chilean community during the Spanish transition and arrival of the Spanish Socialist Party to the government in the 1980s. The main findings are: 1) despite their political activism before and during the government of the socialist Salvador Allende and in some cases clandestinely after the 1973’s coup, most women highlight motherhood and the role of their more visible partners in politics as the breaking point in their decision to self-exile. However, by identifying with the social identity of “political exile” based on their activism, their political identity and gender roles from Chilean society cross each other showing a conflicting experience. 2) the gendered division of labour framed Chilean women participation among the Chilean community in Spain, being assigned so-called “female tasks” based on the gendered division of labour which many times kept them invisible from Chilean transnationalism in Spain. And 3) As a result, a group of women organized outside the traditional organics of the Chilean movement to advocate for human rights in Chile and Latin America incorporating the struggles and role of women in these regards. The two cases analyzed are the Chilean women’s association “Tralún” located in Madrid who advocated for human rights in Chile and Latin America from a feminist approach. Likewise, the case of the lawyer and Chilean Judge Alicia Herrera Rivera who became the face against gender violence in Spain in 1983 is analyzed. Herrera’s case shows how her involvement in the feminist movement imposed a “new exile” this time from the Chilean community as her advocacy for women’s rights was seen as a threat to the working-class unity in the Chilean Left.Show less
In this paper, I observe policy changes by established parties which react strategically to new right challengers with a hard stance on migration/integration policies. By assessing parliamentary...Show moreIn this paper, I observe policy changes by established parties which react strategically to new right challengers with a hard stance on migration/integration policies. By assessing parliamentary speech data in a quantitative text analysis with Wordscores in combination with a manual content analysis, I contribute to the ongoing debate of how and when mainstream parties change their positions on the migration/integration dimension. I focus on Germany from 2011 – 2018 to evaluate the effect of the new right challenger “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD) which became successful in the light of the so called ‘refugee crisis’. Both the quantitative text analysis and the manual content analysis find no effect for established parties before the AfD entered the parliament and observe a clear adversarial strategy of left Parties when the AfD entered parliament.Show less
This thesis delves into how the so-called 'European refugee crisis' of 2015 impacted the parliamentary migration and integration discourse in the Netherlands. The study focuses on the eleven...Show moreThis thesis delves into how the so-called 'European refugee crisis' of 2015 impacted the parliamentary migration and integration discourse in the Netherlands. The study focuses on the eleven parties in the Second Chamber of the Netherlands during the Cabinet Rutte- Asscher (2012-2017). The expected changes in the Dutch parliamentary discourse are the use of the 'frame of reason' to bring together contrary discourses and the criminalization of refugees by left-wing parties. This thesis remains open to other changes in discourse by using a grounded theory approach to discourse analysis. In this way, the migration and integration discourse can be studied in an open-minded and differentiated way. This thesis shows that most elements of the ‘frame of reason’ were used during the refugee crisis and that a separation of left-wing parties occurred in which some left-wing parties started to criminalize refugees. In line with Waerniers & Hustinx (2019), a conditionality of residence rights and citizenship for different types of migrants emerged in the debate. Mair's (2009) concepts of responsiveness and responsibility were used to offer a possible explanation for the shifts in the discourse of the parties in government.Show less
Highly skilled migration is a hotly debated topic that involves controversy about its determinants. The academic literature till date have focused on economic migrants, neglecting the migration of...Show moreHighly skilled migration is a hotly debated topic that involves controversy about its determinants. The academic literature till date have focused on economic migrants, neglecting the migration of highly skilled students. This research investigates the flow of skilled student and economic migrants into the European Economic Area. It aims to uncover the likely effect subsidized tertiary education has on attracting or deterring student and economic migration. Using Panel Data of Eurostat and OECD as well as employing variety of econometric techniques, such as OLS, fixed effects, interaction effect and instrumental variable, the research aims to test its main hypothesis: higher public spending on tertiary education is likely to attract highly skilled migrants. Interaction effect seems to support this proposition.Show less
This thesis will look into of what limited the Dutch state in their attempt to deport Chinese immigrants in 1945-1965, and whether this due to national constraints or international constraints.
This study deals with morphosyntactic variation in Paraná Dutch, an endangered heritage variety of Dutch spoken in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. Its original objectives were (i) to...Show moreThis study deals with morphosyntactic variation in Paraná Dutch, an endangered heritage variety of Dutch spoken in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. Its original objectives were (i) to describe divergences from Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands (NLD) as well as retained dialectal features (ii) to compare these variations to findings of other studies on Dutch as a heritage language (HL), and (iii) to relate the findings to extralinguistic features. Due to the situation of intergenerational language loss encountered during the fieldwork conducted for this study, it was deemed important to add a fourth objective, namely to assess the vitality of the heritage variety. No previous linguistic research on language variation in Dutch as a HL in Paraná exists, and this study will therefore extend our knowledge of morphosyntactic divergences and dialectal retentions in the Dutch heritage varieties. More than 22 hours of naturalistic speech data of 82 Dutch heritage speakers (HSs) in three communities – Arapoti, Carambeí and Castrolanda – was gathered between November 2018 and January 2019, and coded for morphosyntactic divergence from NLD or dialectal variation. The sample consisted of speakers of different ages (16-91), generations (first till fourth) and with varying levels of exposure to and usage of Dutch. Two models for language vitality assessment (UNESCO, EGIDS) were used to describe the endangerment of Paraná Dutch. According to the models, the heritage variety is definitively endangered (UNESCO), and threatened or shifting (EGIDS). Morphosyntactic divergences from NLD found in the speech of the participants include the overgeneralization of SVO word order, omission of determiners, variation in grammatical gender assignment, variation in nominal plural markers, pronoun drop, and variation in present verb inflection. Morphosyntactic divergences from the standard language that can be attributed to Dutch dialects or regional languages include the merger of the verbs kennen ‘to know’ and kunnen ‘can’, use of heb ‘to have’ for the 3SG.PRES, and the use of periphrastic doen ‘to do’. Of the morphosyntactic divergences found in the data, the six mentioned previously were used by a sizeable part of the sample (at least ten participants). Many of these divergences have also been attested in Dutch heritage varieties in Anglophone countries, Indonesia and in other parts of Brazil. The divergences from NLD are either due to interference from the majority language Portuguese, due to internal development in the HL, or due to a combination of the former two (multiple causation). Participants whose speech contained morphosyntactic divergences from NLD tend to be of the second generation or later and have a lower usage of and exposure to Dutch than the average of the sample. Although most of the dialectal features present in the speech of the first-generation participants have not been attested in the speech of later generations, some have been retained or even spread throughout the community. The three morphosyntactic features that originate from Dutch dialects or regional languages mentioned above have been retained and transmitted to speakers of the second generation or later.Show less
The Schilderswijk used to be a working-class neighbourhood, with predominantly white native Dutch residents, who have mostly left the area over the last three decades. This study seeks to answer...Show moreThe Schilderswijk used to be a working-class neighbourhood, with predominantly white native Dutch residents, who have mostly left the area over the last three decades. This study seeks to answer this question: how did the established Schilderswijk residents experience such a dramatic change in the ethnic makeup of their neighbourhood, and what effect did this have on their perceptions of local social cohesion? These experiences of change are explored through interviews with white native residents of the area. The first chapter of the analyses will provide the historical context to the stories of these residents. The second chapter paints a picture of the manner in which the residents remember the past, and the third chapter shows how these residents experienced change. Telling the story of these residents is important because this gives more insight into why diversity might have a negative effect on the perception of social cohesion in an area. This will fill a hiatus in scientific debates on the subject, but can also give policy makers insight to mechanisms underlying the policy problem of social cohesion in a diverse neighbourhood. Additionally, telling the story of people that experience loss and change can have a social value. This research gives a voice to those that might not feel like they are being heard.Show less
The Chumash are an indigenous group who formed a complex material culture around 8,000 BP when they began to permanently settle. They settled in SW California and created a material culture which...Show moreThe Chumash are an indigenous group who formed a complex material culture around 8,000 BP when they began to permanently settle. They settled in SW California and created a material culture which revolved around a shell-bead industry and specific ceremonial practices which were governed by a strict socio-political order that was in place until colonialists arrived in the 1700s. From the Early Period (12,000 BP) to the Mission Period (200 BP) the sociopolitical organisation changed dramatically, but how did this happen? This study represents how migratory patterns were crucial in how material culture changed for the Chumash within this timespan. Furthermore, this study examines the migratory patterns of the Chumash through three case studies – The shell-bead industry, ceremonial events and missionisation. The shell-bead industry case study demonstrates how the Chumash on the mainland moved to certain areas in the latter periods in order to gain further autonomy over the industry which was centrally governed by the Chumash on the Channel Islands. Further examination looks at several sites on the Channel Islands which also demonstrated movements, but in those cases was shown as being a motive to increase production. Ceremonial events display how the Chumash temporarily moved into areas for specific reasons and gives another angle to the complex concept of migration which contains many different avenues such as forced, voluntary, permanent and temporary. Missionisation shows how colonial contact forced the Chumash into moving from their villages to specific areas which the colonisers created such as Missions and ranches. The periods of pre and post-contact demonstrate two different types of centralised control: The Chumash elite and the Spanish colonisers. These two groups are important to distinguish during discussion as they reflect differing ideals and thus migratory methods. Using Naismith’s rule of walking, energy expenditures were calculated for each case study and therefore greater insight can be made into exactly why or how people were willing to undertake these movements. Applying this rule using GIS, maps were made of the respective case studies that visually represent the distances that the Chumash voluntarily or forcibly made. Additionally, the theme of centralised control is viewed alongside migratory patterns to examine if migration is reflective of it or not. By investigating each of these case studies an overview of differing migratory patterns that the Chumash undertook can be compared with each other and a clear conclusion can be drawn that they were all linked to centralised control. By using this case study, further research can be made into other past indigenous groups and their retrospective movements pre and post-contact. The brief comparison in the conclusion to other historical sites and to modern day migration also demonstrates that these types of studies can be used when discussing present issues, whereby we can learn from the past and how we choose to study and participate in migration movements.Show less
