Research article Saskia Bonjour Research article Saskia Bonjour

Doing Family Before the State. Does Recognition of De Facto Families Lead to More Inclusive Migration Law Practices?

Critical scholars have long called for state recognition of de facto families, beyond legal or biological ties, as a pathway toward inclusion of more diverse family forms. This article, written by Saskia Bonjour and Susan Diepenmaat, asks to what extent recognition of de facto families indeed leads to more inclusion, in the context of a restrictive immigration regime in which families need state permission to live together.

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Research article Saskia Bonjour Research article Saskia Bonjour

Multiple barriers to the Dutch welfare state. Black Feminists’ intersectional claims to social citizenship in the 1980s

In this research article, Eline Westra sheds light on the social rights claims of the Surinamese-Dutch feminist organization Ashanti that was active between 1980 and 1987. Their Black feminist perspectives provide important insights into the underlying mechanisms of in- and exclusion of the Dutch welfare state, from the standpoints of Dutch citizens and families that did not necessarily fit the picture of the “imagined citizens” for whom the Dutch welfare state was built.

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Research article Saskia Bonjour Research article Saskia Bonjour

Claiming a postcolonial differential citizenship. Contestation of family migration rights in the Netherlands in the wake of Suriname’s independence

Political struggles over national belonging often involve ideas on what a ‘proper’ family looks like. This article connects this important insight from the field of family migration politics to the study of postcolonial citizenship. Rather than focusing on dominant (State) perspectives, we ask: how do citizens from formerly colonised territories themselves conceptualise ‘the family’ and ‘the nation’ in the former metropole?

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