Preliminary Programme

Although policymakers and organisations behind intercountry adoption have always claimed to act ‘in the child’s best interest’, historic research on the topic has shown us how the relocation of children not only served philanthropic, but also geopolitical objectives. In order to gain a better historical understanding of intercountry adoption, we need to probe deeper into notions on childhood and parenthood and investigate how they are interrelated. The key question I wish to address in this paper is: if organisations behind intercountry adoption acted ‘in the best interest of the children’, how did they negotiate the expectations and interests of the receiving families and how has this evolved in time? Who decided on the ‘suitability’ of adoptive families? How are beliefs on race and blood ties interrelated to beliefs on parenthood, and how did they play out in practice, for instance when ‘matching’ children and candidate parents? How did expert discourses (doctors, psychologists) on adoptees and adoptive parenthood influence policies and practices? Discursive research on adoption brochures and newspaper clippings and interviews with policymakers and former staff members seem to point out that, with the advent of large-scale intercountry adoption in the early 1970s, organisations and advocates of intercountry adoption not only promoted the practice as an ‘ultimate act of child welfare’, but also launched the idea of a transnational and boarder-defying parenthood, detached from restrictions on kinship and origin. This optimistic attitude, however, had diminished considerably by the mid-1980s, when a growing body of expert literature criticised the possibility of ‘parenthood without borders’. (Show less)

In the past 70 years, numerous organizations have come out in support of migrants. Church based organizations, women’s rights organizations, and gay rights organizations (to name only a few) supported migrants for a large variety of reasons. Organizations looked at each other and copied successful strategies and discourses. Campaigners to some measure also moved between organizations. This paper analyses how, when and why non-migrants organized support for migrants. It looks at successful and less successful campaigns. It also looks at how, when and why strategies and discourses ‘travelled’ between organizations and between countries. Some campaigns may seem local but at closer inspection they fall under the umbrella of large NGOs. Not all activities worked out to the benefit of the migrants, despite the best intentions of the claim makers, as this paper will show. (Show less)

With the publication of two seminal texts on queer migration in 2005 – Queer Migrations: Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings (eds. Luibhéid and Cantú) and Passing Lines: Sexuality and Immigrants (eds. Valens, González, and Epps) – migration scholars explored the roles of sexual orientation and gender identity in global movements. Also around this time, many European countries clarified policies on accepting asylum seekers on the basis of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex (LGBTI), prompting some to note a tension between queer notions of fluid and context-specific identities and practices, and (often authorities’) essentialist understanding of identities as concrete and static (Grigolo, 2003; Laursen and Jayaseelan [for LGBT Denmark and Danish Refugee Council], 2009; Jansen and Thomas Spijerboer [for COC Nederland and Vrije Universiteit], 2011; Akin, 2016). Scholars also complicated the notion that queer migrants (e.g. from developing countries) always experienced European gender and sexual norms as emancipatory.

This paper argues for an historic look at queer migrations in order to better understand today’s debates about LGBTI migration and asylum. (Historic analysis of queer migration is uncommon but not unprecedented: Siobhan Somerville, for example, analyzed how the 1952 U.S. Immigration Act effectively banned homosexuals as ‘psychopathic personalities’ through 1979 [Somerville, 2005]; and others have looked at bans on HIV+ immigrants.) The paper begins by presenting three original oral histories (conducted by Shield) that demonstrate the complexities of historic queer migrations: Tonny (b. 1949, Bali) enjoyed the Dutch liberal attitudes toward sexuality when he visited in the 1970s, but ultimately felt sad to leave both his boyfriend and the underground gay/lesbian cultures he knew in Indonesia when he migrated in 1983; Sean (b. 1965, Tehran), who received asylum in Denmark in 1984 on political grounds, assumed most people had homophobic attitudes and thus evaded questions about his love-life posed by both fellow asylum seekers and the rural Danes he met during his first year; and Frescia (b. 1950s, Peru), who was a prominent agitator in Peruvian lesbian and feminist movements, felt that she abandoned fellow activists when she moved to Denmark in 1990 to be with her partner.

Returning to the present day, Shield then presents his newest research on gay immigrants in Denmark and their uses of online media like Grindr to build offline social networks. Shield presents new narratives (based on his interviews) that show continuities and differences with migrations past. Online and social media play a prominent role in these new narratives, as apps like Grindr bridge some cultural and language barriers while connecting immigrants and locals. Overall, the paper argues that LGBTQ identities, spaces, media, and networks have facilitated (some) global migrations for at least forty years. (Show less)

Based on an ongoing PhD dissertation on Italian emigration policies in France after 1945, this paper aims to understand how Italy was able to manage, control and protect its emigrants while abroad. This work deals with institutional archives, such as the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labour and with private sources from political parties, unions and associations, located both in France and in Italy.
After World War II, emigration is a major economic stake for Italy. It is considered by the Italian government as an outlet for the unemployed workforce and an important source of income in the balance of trades. The stake for Italy is to abet emigration in order to tackle the economic crisis. To do so, the government has to promise receiving countries not to prevent emigrants from assimilation and has to guarantee its emigrants decent living and working conditions abroad. Italian emigration policy in France focuses on social protection for its emigrants. Not only Italy negotiates equal working conditions and social rights with national workers but obtains the exportability of social benefits and allowances for workers and for their families even if they live in Italy. This protection of workers is completed on the French territory by the action of the Italian consulates. They organize charity events, assistance for the poor and cultural manifestations in France in order to assist the most vulnerable members of the community.
This social protection reveals some economic and political stakes. The Italian emigration policy exhorts mobility from Italy and to Italy. It is a free of cost solution to unemployment and the exportability of social benefits enables emigrants to benefit from social protection without seeking for naturalization or for a permanent settlement in France. It is a guarantee that migrants will maintain the transfer of their remittances and make financial investments in Italy and it encourages return to Italy. Assistance towards emigrants is also at stake in the control of the Italian community that opposes Italian Christian-Democrats and Communists in France. They set up rival strategies to assist and protect Italian emigrants in order to control the Italian community abroad.
Finally, the Italian emigration policy facilitates the mobility of workers. It creates a new model of emigrant which is no longer a permanent settler but a mobile worker able to relocate according to different factors such as the economic context. This draws attention on Italian emigration policy as a pioneer and an influence on the liberalization of the movement of workers at stake in the construction of the European Economic Community. (Show less)