Claiming and Contesting Postcolonial Citizenship. Political Struggles over the Rights and Belonging of Surinamese-Dutch Citizens

Researcher: Eline Westra

Eline’s PhD research project looks into five decades of political debates over the rights and belonging of Surinamese-Dutch citizens in the Netherlands, from the 1970s to the present. Her dissertation explores citizenship from various angles: legal citizenship (migration politics), social citizenship (welfare state politics) and intimate citizenship (politics of gender and family). She has analyzed both state perspectives and activist political claims-making: the contributions of Surinamese-Dutch citizens themselves to debates on postcolonial citizenship.

Publications

Journal Articles (Peer Reviewed)

Westra, E., & van Hooren, F. (2024). Social rights in a post-colonial welfare state: Revisiting ‘universality’ and ‘inclusivity’. Journal of European Social Policy, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287241297540

Westra, E. (2024). Multiple barriers to the Dutch welfare state: Black Feminists’ intersectional claims to social citizenship in the 1980s. Critical Social Policy, 44(3), 403-424. https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183231215232

Westra, E., Bonjour, S. A., & Vermeulen, F. F. (2023). Claiming a postcolonial differential citizenship: Contestation of family migration rights in the Netherlands in the wake of Suriname’s independence. Migration Studies, 11(3), 431-451. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnad013

Professional

Westra, E., & Bonjour, S. A. (2022). Postcolonial Migration and Citizenship in the Netherlands. Web publication, Verfassungsblog. https://doi.org/10.17176/20220128-180405-0

Popular Scientific

Westra, E., & Konaté, S. W. (2023). Discriminatie op het Kruispunt: Een Intersectionele Analyse van het Toeslagenschandaal. Web publication or website, De Nederlandse Boekengids. https://www.nederlandseboekengids.com/20231123-eline-westra-salama-konate

van Hooren, F. J., & Westra, E. (2023). Wanneer volgt de echte reparatie van het ‘AOW-gat’ van Surinaamse Nederlanders? NRC. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/05/08/wanneer-volgt-de-echte-reparatie-van-het-aow-gat-van-surinaamse-nederlanders-a4164120