On the 13th of June, the Dutch-Flemish academic network Centre for the History of Migrants (CGM) in cooperation with Museum aan de Stroom (MAS), will organize a one day workshop on migration and integration policies. The title of the workshop is: ‘Travelling Policies. Convergence of Dutch and Flemish immigration and integration policies and practices put into a European comparative perspective 1945-2005’.
Outline
Migrants, per definition, travel between countries, but they also travel between categories of migrants: colonial, labour, family, or refugee migrants. Authoritative institutions, states above all, use formalised categorisations. States have the authority to decide who is who, and differentiate rights accordingly. Policy makers, as a rule, seek to interpret categories of migrants narrowly, and to exclude people who do not fit their definitions, while support groups tend to stretch categories and create sympathy for those who seemed to be inhumanly harmed by the government’s rigour. Categorisation is not static but is frequently presented as such because that increases governmentability.
In this workshop we want to move away for groupism and a narrow national focus. We analyse how policies and practices travel, especially between The Netherlands and Belgium, as neighbouring countries with more or less similar immigration histories. We focus on the period since 1945. At our workshop we also look at transferrals at a more theoretical level, and between other countries.
In short
Date: 13th of June 2014
Time: 08:45 am – 18:00 pm
Venue: Museum aan de Stroom, Room 9 Beaufort (Hanzestedenplaats 1, Antwerp)
Cost: €30,- (including coffee, lunch and drinks). To be paid (in cash) at the beginning of the workshop.
Registration by sending an e-mail to
For more information contact prof.dr. Marlou Schrover,