[URBANTH-L]CFP: Colonials in the Metropole: Race, Nation, and Belonging in Europe's Decolonization Migrations

[Angela Jancius]

CFP: SEEKING PANELISTS FOR COUNCIL ON EUROPEAN STUDIES MEETINGS, 
Spring 2006

If you are interested in participating in the panel below, please contact
Andrea Smith at smithal at lafayette.edu.

Colonials in the Metropole: Race, Nation, and Belonging in Europe's
Decolonization Migrations

It is commonplace to assert that Europe has changed dramatically since
decolonization, and to highlight the changes wrought by the immigration of
former colonial subjects from colony to metropole.  Less often explored are
the immigrants deemed "repatriates," whose arrival and integration are assumed
to have been far smoother processes.  Has this in fact been the case?  If so,
what does this tell us about national ideologies of citizenship and belonging?
This panel addresses these questions through a comparative approach to
Europe's postcolonial "colonials." Some repatriate/migrants encountered
notions of national membership understood as rooted in race, language, and
other attributes purportedly stemming from some common ancestral heritage,
rather than in the legal-political realm, such as citizenship status.  For
other colonial migrants, however, citizenship status and place in a racial
classification scheme were isomorphic.  Moreover, in many countries,
visibility of these migrants has shifted with the changing valence and
salience of the decolonization history as people sometimes grapple with this
past well after the fact. By presenting cases from several different European
countries that repatriated citizens following the loss of former colonies,
this panel both highlights recent research conducted in this new area of
postcolonial European studies, and explores in a focused ways how an
exploration of colonial "repatriates" can elucidate the role played by race,
citizenship status, and cultural capital in the experience of migrants more
generally.