Dissertation
Social Subjecthood? The inclusion of (post)colonial migrants in Dutch, French, and British welfare states, 1945-1970
How were (post) colonial migrants included in post-war welfare systems?
- Author
- Emil Wolff
- Date
- 18 June 2024
- Links
- Full text in Scholarly Publications Leiden University
If diversity counteracts solidarity, as welfare state scholarship commonly concludes, then how did the expansion of European welfare states in the postwar period coexist with (post)colonial migrations? Through a historical-interpretivist lens, this dissertation studies the inclusion of migrants from the Caribbean, Algeria, and present-day Indonesia in post-war British, French, and Dutch welfare states respectively. It documents a variety of inclusions on unequal terms in French and Dutch welfare states. While those who qualified as repatriates received aid under targeted assistance schemes and expedited access to social security, many who had been disadvantaged under colonial legal codes were directed towards paternalistic arms of the welfare state aimed at surveillance and cultural conversion. In the UK, street-level discrimination and restricitonist immigration law marred the promise of equality under the Beveridgean welfare state for Caribbean citizens. These patterns were racialised, but not inevitable. Ideological efforts to construct certain migrants as deserving cultural insiders have important explanatory power. This dissertation improves the theoretical toolkit available to welfare state scholars interested in inclusion, and elucidates the relationship between race and redistribution. Diversity neither caused retrenchment, nor threatened solidarity. Rather, (post)colonial migrations offered contemporaries an opportunity to consciously and manually create it.