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Designs and (Co)Incidents

Cultures of Scholarship and Public Policy on Immigrants/Minorities in the Netherlands

Antioch University, USA

Kwame Nimako

OBEE Consultancy/University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This article sketches the dominant themes that have shaped Dutch discourse, policy and research on issues related to race, ethnicity, and immigration during the past 40 years. It will be shown that the paradigmatic foundations of Dutch minority research were laid in the 1980s and that mainstream research and discourse is largely about ethnic minorities; about their migration and their degree (or lack) of economic, social and political integration in the Netherlands. By (co)incident or design, ethnic minorities – invariably called allochtonen, a Dutch word for non-natives or aliens, irrespective of citizenship – are problematized, while mainstream research generally downplays the ramifications of the colonial history, and concomitant presuppositions of European (Dutch) cultural superiority. We present an extended discussion of the denial of racism and the de-legitimization of racism research. Common sense (notions of) racism profoundly shaped research interpretations and research agendas. Mainstream researchers and scholars are largely critical of antiimmigrant discourse, but with the silencing of race critical paradigms there are few concepts and frameworks left to analyze and contextualize which anti-immigrant sentiments and policies are historically rooted in the invention of race and the Other and which sentiments are fears, discomforts and insecurities resulting from the uncontrollable paradigms of globalization in a world that has become smaller.

Key Words: ethnicity • immigration policy • racism

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