Samenvatting

This article demonstrates how Dutch politicians have in- and excluded people from the former overseas Dutch colonies in/from the Dutch legal and imagined community, against the backdrop of decolonization and increased migration to the Netherlands. Political discourses by members of the Dutch Government and Parliament in the wake of World War II demonstrate the contingent meaning of Dutch citizenship of people in and from the (former) Dutch colonies of Indone-sia, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles. These discourses not only illustrate that formal Dutch nationality as such can proof to be an uncertain status that can be lost. They also illuminate how politicians have redefined the meaning of Dutch citizenship of people from the colonies (who remained Dutch citizens) in con-nection with discourses on their identities. As a consequence, their rights of free migration and settlement in the Netherlands were problematized, both symbolically and via policies. However, Dutch political discourses and related policies are also characterized by instances of partial inclusion of legal aliens and stateless people from the former colonies who lost Dutch citizenship, often to compensate for political injustices in the past. Agency by postcolonial citi-zens played an important role in bringing about these changes. In sum, formal citizenship, statelessness and legal alienage turned out not to be stable predictors of positions in Dutch society: their meaning was and is constantly mediated by power relations.