ISS PhD Research Team together with Leiden Awarded the LDE GMD Seed Grant 2025

Diaspora communities in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, studies on diasporas have focused on their engagement in their new/adopted homes mainly in relation to their economic contribution, integration and social assimilation. Though, we propose to broaden this perspective and focus on the different forms of engagement that diasporas undertake when crises emerge in their ancestral homelands and how a sense of belonging shapes their organisation and mobilisation. This research is timely as it will explore diasporas’ growing role amid recent global geopolitical changes reshaping international aid. The dismantling of USAID, the reduction of EU’s aid budget by 35% and related cuts in the Dutch aid funds have led international organisations to scale down their operations. This has also pushed them into looking for alternative funding and, more importantly, reconsider their engagement with other actors, including diasporas.

Objectives:

1. Understand which are the main forms in which diaspora communities in the Netherlands engage with during times of crises in their ancestral countries.
2. Gain a better understanding of power dynamics among the actors involved in the provision of support by/with/through diaspora communities to their ancestral countries in times of crises.

Project team members

This proposal fosters a collaboration across disciplines, career levels and backgrounds, by bringing together academics from Development studies (ISS-EUR) and Cultural Anthropology (Leiden University).