Preliminary Programme

This paper examines everyday police control of "vagrants" in the cities of Antwerp and Brussels during the 1880s, drawing on a variety of archival sources that document everyday instructions by police chiefs and practices on the ground. We firstly aim to demonstrate that although the intensity of police control and prosecution for vagrancy was significantly higher in Brussels, reflecting different concerns about mobile groups than in Antwerp, local authorities do not appear to have instructed their police forces to specifically target certain unwanted newcomers. Secondly, our evidence suggests that in both cities, patterns of police arrests for vagrancy can not be understood without taking bottom-up uses of the police by vulnerable groups into account. (Show less)

The presence of highly mobile groups has always spurred moral and social anxieties among urban authorities. Yet, as the session organisers rightly point out, their everyday experiences with the criminal justice system are still largely unexplored. This paper will investigate practices of police control and conflict mediation of mobile groups in the accommodation sector of late nineteenth century Antwerp. It argues that the various lodging houses, inns and hotels were particular foci for police control on these mobile groups. The geographical dispersion of these hubs across the entire urban fabric especially challenged the existing social order, particularly in times of epidemics and political or economic crises. Investigating the layered and socially diverse practices of control on these spaces not only allows to rethink urban authorities’ perceptions on their city, but also offers us a clear entry point into everyday police-control on a floating population passing through. (Show less)

This contribution examines how the Ochranka, in cooperation with the Belgian police, tried to get a grip on the mobility of so-called undesirable migrants from the Tsarist Empire in Belgian cities and how they, in turn, tried to escape control at the end of the nineteenth century. Through exploration of several cases of these alleged criminals, it aims to shed light on how these authorities, restricted by their jurisdiction, were confronted by an increasingly mobile group of unwanted migrants. (Show less)