Introducing: Eline Westra
Eline Westra recently joined the Institute for History as a postdoctoral researcher in the NWA-funded project 'Dilemmas of Doing Diversity', under the supervision of Marlou Schrover. Below, she introduces herself.
Some have already met me in the beautiful garden or in the corridors by now. I am very happy to have joined the institute in April this year, after defending my dissertation in March at the University of Amsterdam. I joined Marlou Schrover’s project 'Dilemma’s of Doing Diversity' (DiDi). Going to the office in Leiden feels cozy and slightly nostalgic, since I spent my high school years in this city. It is like coming home: before the PhD I spent many years in Greece and Italy – studying, working and enjoying Mediterranean life. Here I am in Leiden, a few kilometres from where I grew up.
Research: Postcolonial Citizenship in the Netherlands (1970s-present)
In the coming months (until June), I contribute to the DiDi project while also continuing the line of research that I developed during my PhD. I have an interdisciplinary background with a BA in International Relations, a MA in Human Rights, and a PhD in Political Science. My research delves into the complex realities of citizenship in postcolonial Europe, focusing on the experiences of Surinamese-Dutch citizens in the five decades following Suriname’s decolonisation (1975). Through archive research and a discursive analysis of parliamentary records, state documents and activist political claims-making, I explore the legacies of colonialism in contemporary citizenship debates in the Netherlands. I developed a special interest in counternarratives - visions and perspectives of non-state actors such as activists and grassroots workers - in these important debates on the postcolonial present.
In my dissertation I focused on four key debates: family migration rights in the aftermath of decolonisation, the position of illegalised Surinamese nationals, pension inequalities stemming from colonial-era exclusions, and intersectional discrimination in the welfare state. Currently, I am working on an article exploring dispersal policy (‘spreidingsbeleid’) and resistance to that policy by Surinamese-Dutch organisations in the 1970s and 1980.
Let me know if you have similar research interests, or like to talk Greek or Italian during lunch.