Blackness in Rural Limburg: What the images and life stories of Dutch Black liberation children reveal about their hidden history

Abstract

This interdisciplinary thesis will examine Blackness in rural Limburg through analyzing the role of race in the lives of Dutch Black liberation children who were conceived in unions between Black American liberators and Dutch women at the end of the Second World War. To strengthen this analysis comparisons will be made with German and British Black liberation children. In addition, the oral histories of the twelve documented Dutch Black liberation children will be compared and contrasted with Dutch and American theoretical frameworks from Black Studies. The unique element of this study is its use of family photographs from the personal collections of these children to investigate the possibilities and limits of their familial, communal, and national belonging.

Keywords: Dutch Black liberation children, photography, transatlantic Black Diaspora, interracial intimacy