Preliminary Programme

This paper explores in three case-studies the personal stories of Dutch immigrants who moved to New Zealand during the 1950s and 1960s. Its aim is to explore the ways in which a combination of two types of sources – letters sent from New Zealand to the Netherlands and retrospective interviews conducted in the present – can shed light on the ways in which three of these immigrants made and continued to make sense of their migration experiences. Over the past twenty years, a broad scholarly interest in the history and experiences of migrants has led to a substantial amount of qualitative and ethnographic studies. Studies on personal accounts of 19th and early 20th century migrants tend to focus on letters or diaries, as these are often simply the only available types of personal sources, whereas research on later 20th century migrants is almost exclusively based on interviews. This preference for interviews is understandable because participants are often more readily available and the particular nature of the source offers researchers the benefit to focus on specific topics of interest. But the value of contemporary ego documents such as letters for studies of more recent groups of immigrants, especially when combined with interviews, has been largely overlooked. A recent publication by migration historian Angela McCarthy argues for a reverse trend, to which this paper aims to make a contribution by means of a systematical analysis of letters alongside interviews using three theoretical notions derived from oral history debates: retrospectivity, composure and collective memory. I will argue that it is exactly the combination of retrospective interviews with contemporary letters that offers an extra dimension to our understanding of migration and of the longitudinal process of making sense of migration in particular. (Show less)

Emigration from Europe to North America in the 19th and early 20th century was of great societal importance and has inspired many studies at the aggregate level. We know less however about the individual and household level characteristics of migrants and the extent to which migration was selective. This paper deals with the importance of household structure and socioeconomic status for individual decisions to migrate. The design of the study implies a multivariate analysis of longitudinal individual level data for a random sample of emigrants in 1891 compared with a control group of stayers. Data are from the Swedish census 1890 and parish records for the period 1855-1991 for Halland county in Western Sweden. The indicator variable is emigration in 1891 (or not) and the explanatory variables discribes individual characteristics (sex, age, marital status, occupation), household features (fathers occupation, survival of parents) and the individual’s position in the household (birth rank in relation to surviving siblings). Also information about previous emigration in the family is available for analysis. (Show less)

The paper intends to analyse how various Muslim women’s organisations in Norway have represented gender identities over the last thirty-five years. Which developments can be seen over time and how can they be explained? It will be argued that these developments are not only the result of changes within minority communities or in the political opportunity structure, but that these representations can also be seen as a response to public discourses about the emancipation and integration of Muslim women. These discourses have increasingly portrayed Muslim women as ‘oppressed victims’.
Just like many countries in Western and Northern Europe, Norway has seen an influx of migrants with a Muslim background since the 1970s. The Norwegian government aimed at the structural integration of minority groups while stimulating the preservation and development of minority cultures. This is often called ‘multiculturalism’. At the same time, Norway seems to be the ultimate example of a country where state feminism has been very strong and where gender equality is seen as an important aspect of the national identity. Since the late 1990s, multiculturalism has been critisiced more and more often in many European countries, including Norway. One of the arguments has been that minority cultures, especially Muslim cultures, are oppressive to women. While Muslim women have increasingly been presented as as a homogeneous group of ‘victims’, Western women – especially Norwegian women – have been presented as emancipated and sexually liberated. Some have argued that Islam is incompatible with Western norms and values because of its inherently ‘oppressive’ nature. Multiculturalism would limit the opportunity for Muslim women to emancipate and to ‘break free’ from their oppressive cultural environment. After the 9/11 attacks, the integration of Muslims in Norwegian society has become the subject of heated debates, with a strong focus on the emancipation of Muslim women. Emancipation has almost become synonimous with assimilation. Critical voices have stated that depictions of Muslim women as ‘oppressed victims’ are part of an Islamophobic agenda. These depictions would not help Muslim women in their emancipation process, but rather serve to symbolically exlude them. This could make Muslim women turn away from Norwegian society and become more conservative in their religious practices.
In this paper, an analysis will be made of how women with a Muslim background have been portrayed in Norwegian newspaper articles and policy documents between 1975 and 2010. Then the paper discusses the developments in several (Muslim) minority women’s organisations in Norway. Research is based on archive material and open interviews. What kind of activities have been organised over the years? What can be said about the publications issued by some of these organisations? Have these organisations denied the ascribed identity of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ by presenting an opposite image, or have they chosen to defend certain ‘traditional’ gender roles? Or have they chosen other alternatives, such as a strategy where they aim at liberating Muslim women from oppressive ‘cultural traditions’ by offering them a more ‘authentic’ Islam? How has this changed over time? (Show less)