'All roads lead to Ghent' :trajectories of Mediterranean immigrants to the city of Artevelde, 1960-1980

Ondanks de aankomst van nieuwe migrantengroepen in de loop van de voorbije twee decennia, is onze maatschappij nog steeds sterk getekend door de naoorlogse migratie van gastarbeiders en hun families uit de landen rond de Middellandse Zee. Het beeld dat we vandaag hebben van het verloop van die gastarbeidersmigratie is echter doordrongen van stereotypen. Een van die stereotypen is de manier waarop die migranten naar ons land zijn gekomen. In het collectieve geheugen staat de naoorlogse migratie van gastarbeiders naar West-Europa bekend als het resultaat van een officieel rekruteringsprogramma, waarbij speciaal daarvoor bevoegde diensten arbeiders in hun land van herkomst anoniem aanwierven en in groep naar hun bestemming brachten. De aankomst van hun families wordt gekaderd in een proces van gezinshereniging, dat na de befaamde migratiestop op gang kwam. In deze bijdrage gaan we na in hoeverre dat beeld overeenstemt met de historische realiteit. Verschillende migratietrajecten komen aan bod en worden beschouwd binnen hun economisch en politiek historische context. We focussen daarbij op één casus, met name de migratietrajecten van mediterrane migranten naar de stad Gent in de periode 1960-1980. De focus op het lokale niveau laat toe een gedetailleerd inzicht te krijgen in het specifieke verloop van de migratietrajecten. De mechanismen die op die manier blootgelegd worden, hebben echter een ruimere geldigheidswaarde.The arrival of new immigrant groups over the course of the past two decades has not erased the visible impact on Belgian society of the post-war migration of ‘guest workers’ and their families, originating from the countries around the Mediterranean. Current perception of this ‘guest worker migration’ is, however, highly stereotyped. One of the most common misconceptions concerns the way in which ‘guest worker migrants’ have made their way to Western Europe. Post-war Mediterranean migration to the West has been engraved in our collective memory as the result of an official recruitment program, involving special services which anonymously recruited workers in their home countries and provided collective transport to their destination countries. The arrival of their families is seen to have taken place later, after the notorious immigration stop had been imposed. Based on one case study, dealing with the migration trajectories of Mediterranean immigrants to the city of Ghent in the period 1960-1980, this article examines to what extent this perception is consistent with historical reality. Several migration trajectories are explored in their respective economic, political and historical contexts. The focus on the local level is meant to allow for a detailed insight in the historical development of each of these trajectories; the mechanisms which are thus disclosed, however, have a wider range of validity

'We have made our whole lives here' : immigration, settlement and integration processes of Mediterranean immigrants in Ghent, 1960-1980

Defence date: 8 October 2013Examining Board: Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, EUI (EUI supervisor) Professor Frank Caestecker, Gent (External supervisor) Professor Federico Romero, EUI Professor Nancy Green, EHESS.In the field of migration history, the history of post-war labour migration to Western Europe has been receiving the attention of an increasing number of scholars, especially since the beginning of the new millennium. Applying a historical lens to a subject that has been studied by social scientists for decades, historians are trying to contextualize this migration stream, debunk some of its ancient myths and uncover the historical realities of the relatively under-researched period before the migration stops of the mid-1970s. Taking the integration processes of Mediterranean immigrants in the Belgian city of Ghent over the course of the 1960s and 1970s as a case study, this thesis engages with both the sociological and historical literature on the subject. It studies the ways in which these immigrants have constructed their lives in an urban environment over the course of the first decades after their arrival, dealing with the structural elements that framed their integration processes, looking at the strategies they used in order to realize their goals and focusing on their social life-worlds and the networks they created. In addition to a detailed narrative of these structural and social integration processes, the thesis also provides a thorough analysis of the interplay of structure and agency in these processes, following Nancy Green’s call for a poststructural structuralist approach. Further, it studies the integration processes of immigrants from a multi-dimensional rather than an ethno-focal perspective. The thesis also takes a critical stance towards phenomena that are generally qualified as 'ethnic’, and pays special attention to those aspects of immigrants’ lives that crossed ethnic boundaries. What comes to the fore is a picture of post-war 'guest worker’ populations that is characterized by more agency and less ethnicity, less homogeneity and more interethnic contact than is generally the case

Parallel lives revisited : Mediterranean guest workers and their families at work in the neighbourhood, 1960-1980

Originally coined in 2001 in studies of racial tension in the United Kingdom, the concept of `parallel lives' has become familiar in analyses of socially isolated immigrant communities. Yet even just within Europe, migrant segregation is clearly not a new historical phenomenon. Combining careful historical research with over one hundred migrant interviews, Parallel Lives Revisited explores the lives of immigrants from six Mediterranean countries in postwar Ghent to provide a fascinating collective account of work and home life across two decades.-- Postwar Mediterranean migration to the city of Ghent -- Integration processes of immigrants in the local labour market and the workplace -- Immigrant workers' relations with colleagues and employers -- Integration processes of immigrants in the local housing market and the neighbourhood -- Immigrants' social relations with neighbours -- Quantitative appendix -- List of interviewsPublished version of EUI PhD thesis, 201