Feeling at Home in the Nation? Understanding Dutch Nostalgia

Abstract

If we want to better understand the political and social crisis engulfing many West European countries, we have to examine the feelings of alienation among native-born citizens who claim to no longer feel at home in their ‘own’ country. Their alienation is invariably blamed on the increasing number of immigrants in their midst. Rightwing populist parties, on the rise in many countries, see the presence of immigrants as a threat to social cohesion and to ‘their’ national ‘homes’. The cultural ‘deviance’ of immigrants is considered incompatible with being Dutch, Danish, British, French, German, etc.