Racialized intimacies and national imaginaries 'Mixed' marriages and the configuration of the 'Muslim question' in the Netherlands

This dissertation analyzes Dutch discourses on "mixed" marriages and relationships to explore Dutch national imaginaries and the configuration of the "Muslim Question" in the Netherlands. Drawing on the analysis of archival material, policy documents, visual material, and media and public debates, it shows how categories of "mixed" marriage and their presumed societal relevance are constructed, and how this connects to imaginaries of the nation's future.
This study demonstrates an important shift in discourses on "mixed" marriages and relationships in the Netherlands. From the late 19th century until the second half of the 20th century, amid Dutch pillarization, colonialism, and (post-)colonial migration, "mixed" marriages were framed as threats, posing a biopolitical problem for racial and religious population boundaries. During the early 2000s, this discourse clearly shifted. Statistics on "mixed" marriages were now produced as a structural tool to measure the integration of so-called "non-Western allochthons," used as a proxy for closeness to presumed Dutch norms. In public debates, "mixed" couples were reframed as a hopeful cure for the alleged "failure of multiculturalism," reinvented as a symbol of the liberal-secular, sexually liberated nation. In this new discursive frame, Muslims were increasingly positioned as “not mixing enough” and lagging behind, at odds with Dutch secularism and sexual liberation. Overall, this study connects the empirical study of "mixedness" with scholarship on the racialization of Muslims, advancing the analytic of the "Muslim Question." It furthermore clearly demonstrates how (cultural) reproduction, partner choice, and family formation are sites through which racialized hierarchies are constructed and maintained.