This thesis examines the experiences of those "Dutch Somalis" who moved onward to the UK and then returned to the Netherlands. The research is based on qualitative interviews with twelve Dutch...Show moreThis thesis examines the experiences of those "Dutch Somalis" who moved onward to the UK and then returned to the Netherlands. The research is based on qualitative interviews with twelve Dutch Somalis, seven of which made the journey to the UK and returned to the Netherlands. The interviews focused on the reasons why the "returnees" chose to return to the Netherlands. The participants cited safety reasons as the principal reason for return, alongside the belief in superior living standards in the Netherlands. The participants also expressed that in spite of returning to the Netherlands they did not feel entirely accepted there as a result of the assimilationist model of integration and racial discrimination. This paradoxical conclusion challenges some of the previous attempts to theorise return migration, which label return as emblematic of either success or failure.Show less
This thesis has looked at the case of approximately 450 Vietnamese refugees who came from Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands in the 1990s after the Velvet Revolution.
This thesis compares the Italian reception of boat migrants from Albania in the 1900’s and Libya in the 2000’s. The first aim of the thesis is to examine the migration streams from Albania to Italy...Show moreThis thesis compares the Italian reception of boat migrants from Albania in the 1900’s and Libya in the 2000’s. The first aim of the thesis is to examine the migration streams from Albania to Italy, focusing on the years 1991 and 1997, and from Libya to Italy in 2005/6 and 2008/10. The purpose is to understand how Italy reacted to the various cases and why the strategies implemented by the various governments at diverse moments of history were so different. The second, but definitely no less important objective of this thesis, is to test whether or not the gap hypothesis could be applied to Italy’s policies towards boat migrants. By doing so, this thesis could shed new light on whether there was a possible gap in the outcome of the policies implemented during the various years by Italy due to European influence. The hypothesis is that there could be a gap caused by the increasingly more powerful EU and European Court of Human Rights of Strasbourg in the field of migration policy implementation, a policy field historically strongly bonded with state sovereignty.Show less
