Problematic Yet Needed: Shifting Problematisations of Migrant Reception in Malmö 1945–1970

This article describes and analyses by whom, in what ways and with what consequences migrant reception was performed in Malmö during the period 1945–1970 and how this changed over time. Inspired by Carol Bacchi’s ‘what’s the problem represented to be’ (wpr) approach, the article analyses the shifting problematisations of migrant reception in Malmö, and argues that there were two decisive shifts in Malmö’s migrant reception policy. With the help of Robert Miles’ concept of racialisation, the article shows that different migrant groups were racialised in different ways, depending on how they were depicted by the Swedish society. We also identify a gendered racialisation as women and men were racialised differently.

A ‘Melting Pot’ City: Migration and Municipality in the Reconstruction of Dortmund

This article explores how Dortmund’s municipal government propagated a concept of city-citizenship and belonging for new arrivals by mediating between expellee, refugee and migrant communities and ‘native’ civil society in the 1940s-1950s. The devastation of Dortmund during the Second World War, and the housing and energy shortages that followed, meant that the arrival of over a hundred thousand expellees and refugees in 1945–1960 placed severe strains on municipal resources while exacerbating conflicts between ‘native’ Dortmunders and new arrivals. The success of the Social Democratic Party (spd) in building a hegemonic position in postwar politics and administration by the late 1940s facilitated the coordination of municipal efforts to foster inter-community relations and introduce new populations to city life. Within the city council and government, in expellee meetings, and in municipal events we observe sustained municipal efforts to 1) exert social control over expellee/refugee arrivals to deflect anger at the poor conditions of the reconstruction period away from municipal officials and 2) inculcate taboos based on peace and democratic norms to delegitimise the politics of inter-community resentment. It concludes by tracing how official narratives and municipal practices constructed in the 1940s-50s were redeployed during the arrival of guest workers in the 1960s.

‘A Peaceful History’? West Indians, the Inner City, and Local Responses to Migration in Post-War Bristol

Using the 1980 St. Paul’s riot as a point of departure, this article retrospectively explores migration policymaking in Bristol during the 1950s and 1960s. It charts some of the deliberations, policies and practices of three local actors who played key roles in the city’s debates and developments on migration and integration: the police, charitable, community, religious and voluntary groups and organisations, and the municipality. In doing so, it exposes a complex urban policy arena comprised of varied, multifaceted and ever-changing responses to Commonwealth immigrants, and West Indians in particular. Overall, the article argues that Bristol’s migration policies and practices of the 1950s and 1960s are crucial in light of subsequent increasing inner-city tensions and the 1980 uprising, but also because they broaden our understanding of the pivotal role that cities played in the governance of migration and diversity already during the post-war decades.

The „Niemands“ – Heimatlose Ausländer in Mannheim

Heimatloser Ausländer (homeless foreigner) was a status granted to Displaced Persons, who were mostly slave or foreign workers during the Third Reich. How did local authorities and the population in Mannheim – an industrial ‘migration-city’– deal with these first ‘Ausländer’ of the Federal Republic of Germany? This article outlines how local authorities managed housing for dp s and later homeless foreigners and how their concerns were treated with at the Ausländerbehörde (foreigners office). It also looks into the reactions and attitudes of the population mirrored in local/regional administrative files and press coverage. The self-denomination as Niemands (nobodies), originating from sociologist and Mannheim based son of dp s, Stanislaus Stepień, expresses the history of a group of migrants who have been mostly forgotten after serving as projection surfaces and transmission objects for racial knowledge about the ‘migrant Other’ and ‘the German’.

Attempts to Build Postwar Europe from Below in Stuttgart: Failure or Forerunner?

On May 2, 1964, a so-called Emigrationsparlament held its constituent meeting in the house of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (dgb) in Stuttgart. The meeting was opened by a speech of the parliament’s president, Antonio Maspoli, in which he outlined the aims of the new institution and coined the phrase ‘The emigrant is a worker from and for Europe and Europe is his country’. In the months following the Emigrationsparlament gathered several times and Maspoli—a Swiss national known for his engagement in the trade unions in Switzerland—pleaded for the establishment of a ‘sort of a European parliament of the foreign worker’ in Stuttgart. Maspoli’s repeated claims initiated debates within the municipal government about the stimulation of self-help among foreigners and their growing involvement in issues concerning them. Furthermore, Maspoli obtained premises for the establishment of an international meeting point called ‘Europa-Club’. However, his wish of setting up a European parliament in Stuttgart remained unfulfilled. While the local government eventually established a council, the desired parliament of foreign workers did not come into existence. Hence, Stuttgart missed the opportunity to become the site of an elected European parliament and the activities of the ueg fell into oblivion.

Cities, Migration and the Historiography of Post-war Europe

The role of municipalities in migrant integration in post-war European history has largely slipped below the radar in previous migration research. Our special issue presents case studies on how Bristol, Dortmund, Malmö, Mannheim, Stuttgart and Utrecht managed migrant influxes from the mid-1940s to 1960s. Following interdisciplinary advances in local migration studies, our urban histories take a diversity of approaches, present diverse temporalities, and uncover municipal responses that range from generosity to indifference and to outright hostility. In all six cities, despite such diversity in local attitudes and municipal policies, municipal authorities had significant impacts on migrants’ lives. The introductory article explores how our urban perspectives contribute to scholarship on reconstruction and the post-war boom; welfare; democracy and citizenship; and European integration. Using local migration as a lens into postwar European history, we argue, provides important new insights for the historiography of postwar Europe.

Rats, Rooms and Riots: Usage of Space by Immigrants in the Dutch Town Utrecht 1945–1970

Immigrant access to space depended on the activities of local authorities, claim makers, journalists and firms. Together they shaped policies regarding immigrant housing, and more indirectly community formation. Local actors played a key role in migration governance, although they mostly did not work together. This article focusses on the Dutch town Utrecht, where housing was a major issue and immigrant housing was considered to be the worst in the Netherlands. When the number of immigrants was low, when employers arranged housing, and when the immigrants could be presented as much-needed workers, there were fewer protests. This article shows that immigrants lived where they were housed, where they could afford to, or were allowed to live, and only partly where they chose to live. Authorities attached value to the input of immigrant organisation, but most initiatives were for immigrants, rather than by immigrants.

Explaining Resistance to Early Nineteenth-Century British Emigrants to New South Wales

In the 1830s, the British government commenced a programme of relocating poor labourers to its Australian colony of New South Wales, a practice known as ‘assisted migration’. Though intended to address the colony’s labour shortage, the new arrivals were met with hostility by the colonial elite, who claimed the immigrants were immoral and unsuitable as workers. While migration historians have shown these judgements to be largely unfair, the forces underpinning these perceptions await a thorough interrogation. This article examines colonial public rhetoric about immigration to reveal attitudes shaped by a tangle of overlapping and reinforcing political, economic, and cultural factors. Ultimately, the colonial elite wanted to control who could enter their community, both physically and socially, which became a temporally persistent pattern vital to the settler colonial project.

Gems: From Bangkok to Lausanne. Belgian Jurist Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns’ Letter to his French Colleague Ernest Lehr

The section ‘Gems’ consists of short articles which present sources that might be of interest to migration researcher. In this Gems: a letter sent from Bangkok on 23 August 1896 by Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns to his French colleague Ernest Lehr. We show that this document enables us to highlight the international networks in which international law scholars were involved. It reveals the professional concerns and problems of the lawyer, but also the social reality of his daily life.