Postcolonial Migration and Citizenship in the Netherlands

Can formerly colonized subjects and their descendants be full and equal citizens of the former metropoles – and if so, what would that look like? In this blogpost, we explore these politics of belonging in European postcolonial polities by looking at different conceptualizations of the relationship between the Dutch state and Surinamese-Dutch citizens and immigrants. In particular, we look at Dutch state discourses on the “civic integration” of Surinamese in the 2010s, and Surinamese-Dutch organisations’ discourses on family migration rights in the 1970s and 1980s. While Dutch government discourses tend to represent Surinamese-Dutch as too different to belong to the Dutch Nation, Surinamese-Dutch organisations claimed postcolonial citizenship as different and equal.