Idesbald Goddeeris

Families, Foreignness, Migration

Introducing the special issue on ‘Families, Foreignness and Migration. Now and Then’, this essay starts from the observation that in Western Europe migrating with or without ones family in the last century was increasingly shaped by state policies. As a result, migrants identities and family experiences not only depended, and still depend, on their cultural backgrounds but also on very time-specific politics of foreignness and citizenship. The essays main argument is that comparing and deconstructing perceptions, policies and practices of ‘family’ and migration help to overcome the limited attention given to age and kin in the study of gender and migration. From an overview of contributions to this interdisciplinary issue, it is clear that deconstructing ‘family’ in migration studies should be developed further along three axes: child migration, the multi-level analysis of family and migration, including societies of origin and migrant organizations, and the comparison of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ migrants, which contributes to uncovering the relationship between foreignness, gender and age.

Lobbying Allies? The NSZZ Solidarność Coordinating Office Abroad, 1982–1989

After the proclamation of martial law in Poland in December 1981, a Solidarność Coordinating Office Abroad was set up. Led by Jerzy Milewski, the organization eliminated any internal opposition and succeeded in being recognized by most Western partners as the foreign representative of Solidarność. The Coordinating Office received most of its financial aid from trade union internationals and from the United States. Initially, the Coordinating Office was active mainly within international institutions such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the International Labor Organization. From 1984 onward, the organization sought to influence senior politicians and governments and became an important reminder to the Western world of the Polish crisis, as well as providing financial and material aid to the banned Polish trade union. However, it did not have a definitive impact on policymaking and remained largely dependent on its allied organizations.