Changing identities, multi-local politics and citizenship: Reflections on the agency of migrants from Indonesia and their descendants in the Netherlands

Abstract

Studies on intergenerational identities of migrant groups – who originate from Indonesia and have been resident in the Netherlands for more than half a century – focus on the issue of their integration in Dutch society while maintaining their own but changing identities over generations. The change in identities is explained by the interplay between migrant policies in the country of settlement and shifts in the socio-economic and family positions of migrant generations, for example intermarriage with native Dutch (de la Croix/Dumpel/van Naerssen/Portier 2006; de Vries 2009; Rinsampessy 2008; van Leeuwen 2008). Some studies have compared the experiences of the two largest migrant groups from Indonesia, the Indisch Dutch or Indo’s from mixed Asian and European descent2 and the Moluccans, stressing differences in the expectations of the immigrants and the reception in the country of arrival (Bosma 2009; van Amersfoort/ van Niekerk 2006).