I. INTRODUCTION

Europe has in modern times always been a continent on the move. Emigration and immigration to and from Europe, migration within the European continent, and migration flows within Europe’s individual nation-states have shaped its social, political and cultural face.^[1] The same is true for European colonial expansion and decolonization. Large-scale migration has had wide-reaching repercussions in Europe: migration movements have shaped nation-state populations as well as Europe’s economic and social fabric. Large-scale migration began to unfold in early modern times. These movements increased during the industrial period and have not yet come to a halt in Europe. Thus, migration has been a continuum of European history and not only a phenomenon of modernity. In the 21st century, the movement of people across borders and space remains a dominant characteristic of Europe, marking its populations, its societies and its states. Social, cultural and demographic plurality will increase rather than decrease in the future. Future European society will further be shaped by a plurality of peoples, groups and cultures. Plurality will remain a crucial element of future European identity. This plurality will not least be shaped by immigration and its effects.
European cultures and national public discourses often do not at all or only insufficiently present and depict the societal and cultural plurality of Europe’s past and present. National paradigms and modes of interpretation still determine national identity, despite the historically different experiences of each European nation-state. This leaves little room for the representation of border-transcending phenomena such as migration. Migrants are written into European national memories and histories as ‘Others’. This representation of migrants holds true for European public debates and discourses. Immigrants play a crucial role in defining European (and national) identities. Immigrants are seldom portrayed as part of the dominant society and culture, the ‘Self’. This is particularly true for national and nationalistic discourses concerning immigration and migrant integration. National debates are not usually dominated by discussions emphasizing plurality and co-existence of persons with diverse ethnicity and culture, but by arguments revolving around societal exclusion along ethnic and cultural lines.
Despite increasing Europeanization, institutions shaping the European historical consciousness and memory (museums, media, schools, universities, historiography, textbooks, curricula) are usually conceptualized by individual nation-states (and in accordance with the views of the ethnic and cultural majority in each country). A pan-European or transnational process of relating historical consciousness and memory does not often take place. This is particularly true in the historical representation of migration and migrants.
Within the existing and enlarging European Union, historically rooted plurality (a plurality not least stemming from migration) needs adequate representation, visualization and permanent commemoration. An important aspect of representing European plurality is embodied in historiography, media discourses about history and not least of all in historical museums. The embodiment of migration history in these forms is a decisive precondition and opportunity to recognize this plurality within a common European cultural framework. Moreover, the representation of European migration history within a pan-European context provides an opportunity to intellectually challenge nation-state created images of the past. Migration history and its written and visual representation can serve to decentralize European historical memory as well as to strengthen a common European identity. European migration history, which has transcended the political borders created by nation-states and supported by national historiography, provides an opportunity to create an image of European history that breaks through national historiography and limitations of ‘national’ thinking.
Such an “approach can make a crucial contribution to a common European identity, an identity which is derived from regional and non-national processes of socialization, which incorporates many elements of borderland cultures, i.e. zones of cultural interaction beyond linguistic barriers. This historical depth makes it possible to question and dissolve national developments and limitations”.^[2]
The adequate representation and depiction of European migration history means a two-fold extension of European history. First, European history would be narrated not by European hegemonic centres (state, nation), but would be told from the viewpoints of many marginal or marginalized groups, thus mirroring the everyday life of many Europeans. Such a view and historical interpretation would match the historical and contemporary reality in Europe, which has been shaped less by national elites. Second, a multifaceted representation and depiction of migrants in Europe could serve as an important undertaking, going beyond the limited purpose of simply representing immigrant history. In the age of globalization, portraying a non-national and more realistic image of migration history could also help broaden and transcend another bias, this time the Eurocentric understanding of migration history. Historical representations of migration in and to Europe naturally have a strong extra- or trans-European element.

II. HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY AS A “TOOL” FOR CREATING COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES

What role can historiography, historical representation and historical visualization play in the shaping of human communities and creating large-scale social entities? Since the 1980s and the renewed debates about nationalism, nation-building and state formation (Anderson 1991; Gellner 1983; Hall 1998, Hobsbawn 1992; Smith 1986), history and historiography has been seen to play a crucial and more conscious role in forging and forming national identities and thus ‘constructing’ or ‘engineering’ a national fabric, as the scientific terminology goes. Within post-structuralist and post-modern debates about history and historical writing, it has also become common wisdom that reconstructing, reading and interpreting the past in a text or as a text^[3] can radically differ from what ‘actually happened’ in the past. To a certain extent, Historiography recreates the past , but it also creates it as a new textual reality.^[4] With this paradigm shift to a new understanding to the writing of history, nineteenth-century objectivism, factitiousness and reliance upon facts was declared to be dead.
If one follows this line of argumentation, the question must be asked as to what extent historiography will modify its inherited standard of being source-oriented and source-based to becoming ‘objective’ and recreating an ‘objective’ and factually past in the 21st century. One possible development could be a (further and increased) weakening of ‘objective’ national historiographical paradigms and idioms. This change might come about by way of regionalization, Europeanization, globalization or the emergence of supra-national entities and identities, causing a parallel European historiography to emerge. Another possible outcome could be the development of a more subjective, a more flexible, more ‘constructed’, though also more fragmented, attitude towards writing European history. Thus, categories of difference, diversity, and plurality could gain stronger influence and eventually replace clearly bound national narratives. Hence, the future paradigm concerning European historiography might shift more strongly towards asking what history should and can be about, and not only question what it is and was about. The new paradigm could be open to more ambivalent (and intertwined) historical narratives emphasizing the in-between nature of groups, populations, and nations thus recognizing the fact that national (communities) are and have been under constant transformation. In such a view, marginal populations such as immigrants and minorities could become central foci of historiography. These groups would offer the possibility of researching history from the social periphery, narrating it from its margins, partly against the telos of the center and thus opening up historical imagination for much larger, more open but also more conflicting interpretations.

III. THE RISE OF THE NATIONAL NARRATIVE IN THE AGE OF NATION-STATES: CLIO’S (RE-)BIRTH AS A NATIONAL AGENT

Where and from which time period did the long prevailing national historical narrative come? Simplifying a very complex historical genesis one can state that the national narrative emerged as a 19th century European model. This was a time when the following questions were negotiated and decided within (partly only emerging) European nations and nation-states: Who are we? Who are they? And how do we distinguish ourselves from them? The emergence of national historical narratives in Europe was inherently tied to national identity building (centered on national ‘Selves’ and national ‘Others’). This included the delineation of national, ethnic and/or cultural borders and the establishment of national founding myths, concerning national origin and descent. However, though being mainly a phenomenon of the 19th century, this kind of national historical narrative remained mostly intact in Europe throughout the 20th century and is far from being over.
An essential trait of the national narrative was that it was based on the dichotomy of a collective ‘We’ portrayed against a collective ‘Them’. This point can be made more clearly through a couple of examples:
In the 19th century, Germany and France construed each other as rivals and became arch enemies. They defined themselves by way of mirroring themselves in the comparative success of the other (starting with the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, continuing through the revolutionary turmoil of 1848 and finding a climax in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71, when France was defeated by Germany and the German Empire was founded). As a consequence of this century long rivalry, both countries saw the other as its significant opponent, a view that was deeply rooted in the minds of the two nations.
One could spell this out for other cases, such as Belgium and the Netherlands which split along religious, but also political and partly ethnic lines of separation in 1830. It can also be found in Poland and its complex interrelation with neighboring Russians and Germans against whom the Polish nation (later the Polish nation-state) then defined itself and was defined. Sweden and Norway pose another example, the latter emancipated itself from Sweden in 1905 while emphasizing differences between Norwegians and Swedes. Romanians (or Slovaks) and Hungarians similarly struggled over territories with mixed ethnic, cultural and linguistic populations and so on and so forth.
These national rivalries were based on two crucial preconditions. First, localized conflicts between neighboring or intertwined, yet cultural or ethnically different peoples could be politicized and narrated or communicated on a larger scale. For instance, gaining the allegiance of populations with dual, multiple, unclear, volatile or floating identities were used in power struggles over border territories to expand political control.
Second, spatial proximity (usually between neighboring states) played an essential role in national rivalries. It was not France that defined itself vis-а-vis Sweden or Poland through its uniqueness in comparison to Italy. The ‘Other’, through whom European nations in the 19th and 20th centuries identified and understood themselves, were close-by and well known. As crucial as differences might have been in defining a nationally rooted identity, some similarities were also necessary to distinguish this identity and to relate to the ‘Other’. The ‘Other’ had a composition well known to the national identity composing the ‘Self’.
Crucial to my argument is that national narratives were selective, eclectic, highly subjective and always antagonistic. This lead to the fact that narrations of single historical events differed and were often contradictory in Europe’s various nation-states and political entities. Differing historical narratives were not only a consequence of diverse experiences and developments, but also of different political idiosyncrasies and narrative objectives, different future agendas and thus a consequence of different historical memories. This can be illustrated by the conclusion of the First World War and its impact on the historical European memories of individual nation-states in their 1918 forms:
Taking four European states – France, Germany, Hungary and Romania – as examples, one can see how the same historical events (granted having had different political impacts on each of these states) were recorded, historically remembered and instrumentalized by these four states, quite differently. France’s historical narrative demonstrates a positive view of “La Grande Guerre”, and is annually commemorated by the state on November 11, a national holiday until today. Hungary represents a contrasting viewpoint of this event. The end of the First World War or rather the peace treaty concluded in Trianon reducing Hungary to one third of its previous size is still the national trauma for Hungarian society. This point of view is shared in Hungary regardless of age. Neighboring Romania, among the winners of the First World War, annually celebrates the end of the war (or rather the unification of historical Romanian with its newly gained territories on December 1, 1918) as the national holiday, one of the most heroic and glorious days in the country’s past. The German point of view, on the other hand, is like that of Hungary, from the standpoint of defeat, but is currently remembered less traumatically. The trauma, which used to be associated with the Treaty of Versailles and its consequences is now looked at rather indifferently and has more or less fallen into ‘historical amnesia’ within German society.
One could spell out this varied historical memory and nationally determined historiography for almost every single, or at least several crucial events in European history when looking at it from different national angles.^[5] A fundamental, though simple point to be remembered here is that perspectives change(d) dependent on the standpoint of the protagonist. Within the context of migration history in Europe, an important consequence of nationally colored historiography and historical memory needs to be stressed: as a consequence of clearly bound national narratives and national frameworks of interpretation, the opportunity for creating commonly shared European historical narratives was lacking.
To make a long argument short and abbreviate it into a metaphor: the rebirth of Clio, the historical muse, in the age of nation-states and ethno-genesis transformed this ancient Greek beauty into a willing comfort woman for entrepreneurs on the market of national historical imaginations. The lovers competing for her Historical Beauty jealously watched so as not to be betrayed and protected Clio with national chastity belts. The challenge of today and a European (historiographical) future is to convince her competing lovers that promiscuity is not such a bad thing after all and can even provide intellectual pleasures… In other words, namely those of Peter Novick: in the age of post-modernity and (post-post-modernity), “there was no king in Israel.”^[6] Instead, there is only an assembly of competing authorities who together provide new eclectic and often competing, even contradictory historical narratives and interpretations. These variations form the basis for new narratives, not just national master narratives. Thus, history, or better yet historiography, has truly become dialectic, although in slightly different terms than those Marxists posited.

IV. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PRECONDITIONS TO CONSTRUCTING NATIONAL NARRATIVES

Prior to the successful establishment of national narratives, several political, social and structural preconditions, not least the rise of nation-states to key political actors, had to be established. Historiography had to diverge from older notions and inherited “standards” before it could be successfully re-conceived according to national frameworks. Ancient and mediaeval forms and traditions of “historiography”, based on literary and hagiographic approaches, not yet source based and critical, had to be overcome. Moreover, institutional preconditions had to be established, namely archives, systematic collection and registration of sources and academic training of professional historians to supply the demand for national narratives. In other words: the professionalization of historical scholarship and its dissemination were crucial prerequisites to constructing national narratives. However, professionalization, i.e. changes of the historiographical supply-side, did not suffice. The demand-side also had to undergo changes. These changes were based on universal literacy among the population in general and not only on the literacy of the elite. The rise of vernacular languages to standard national means of communication and the establishment of state institutions which disseminated the historical “products”, namely schools via curricula that included history as a subject also played an important role. Further demand-side changes crucial to the development of national narratives were the emergence of national commemorative public events, sites and practices, such as national holidays, national monuments and widely shared national myths. Likewise, there was a change within the historical profession from universal approaches to more national ones, namely from universal or world history, which was still the paradigm during the early 19th century, to national history which dominated at its end. A crucial social precondition to constructing national narratives shall not remain unmentioned: nations needed to be turned into communities of shared pasts and common communication. This process depended on the development and rise of modern means of communication, such as newspapers in the 19th, radio and TV in the 20th century.^[7]

V. GOING BEYOND NATIONAL NARRATIVES

One could actually discuss whether there is a need for going beyond the established national frameworks of analyzing, narrating and displaying history in Europe or European history. Looking at more recent and current scholarly and political debates, a consensus, though not a completely outspoken one, seems to be emerging that the heyday of the nation-state has ended. This consensus creates demand for new forms of identity and thus historical narrations. Four points might serve to illustrate this argument:
1. (Some) historians stepped on the ground of doing comparative studies thus leaving a limited area of analyzing national history, or history bound by just one nation-state. More recently, the comparative approach was even broadened by introducing the paradigm of Beziehungsgeschichte (literally history of interrelations) thus focusing on interdependent and interrelated phenomena that extend beyond nation-states or even constitute non or extra-nation-state areas of analysis.^[8]
2. Postnationalism has made it into intellectual debates ever since the 1980s. This debate, which stems from scholarship in citizenship studies and migration, argues that the nation-state is declining in Europe and its heyday is over. In the political arena this is mirrored by the introduction of a European citizenship and the right to vote on the local level throughout the European Union regardless of one’s citizenship.^[9] However, in the area of scholarly debates one needs to mention that there is also a current, which argues that we are actually living in an age of nation-state renaissance.
3. The classical role of the Other (i.e. other nations and nation-states) is weakening (in Western Europe) within the process of creating collective identities. Thus, an essential element of building strong national identities is loosing more and more ground, i.e. images of enemies are politically not as strong and useful any longer.
4. The political project of European unification is increasingly tied to the creation of a common European identity, or in Marxist terms, the material European base of the European Union is looking for an ideological super-structure. It might be expected that a European identity will follow the economic achievements of unification, in particular the monetary union and the introduction of the Euro.

VI. LOCATING EUROPEAN MIGRATION HISTORY WITHIN NATIONAL TRADITIONS – IMMIGRATION HISTORY AS EUROPEAN TRAJECTORY

Immigration history, minority history or, in general, the history of the Other is a rather new field within the historical discipline. The genesis of professional historical scholarship (in Europe), which dates back to the early 19th century, was closely related to the emergence and victory of the nation-state. The establishment of national education, the writing of national curricula, the construction or standardization of national culture and a somewhat teleological national perspective were the consequence of and, in part, the precondition to this development. The nation and the nation-state were portrayed as quasi-natural entities and as the quasi-end of (ethnic/national) history.
In this perspective, immigrants (as well as indigenous or autochthonous minorities) were seen either as aliens, and thereby a nuisance to others, or as a group to be assimilated into mainstream society (and thus also into dominant modes of historical master narratives). The former stance, portraying migrants and minorities as aliens or national strangers, has predominantly been a European perspective and in particular, but not limited to, Central and Eastern Europe. The latter attitude was primarily formed, established and implemented in classical immigration countries such as the United States, Canada or Australia but lost importance once paradigms of multiculturalism made it into the arena of public debates. Within the process of establishing immigration (and ethnic) history as a scholarly field in the second half of the 20th century, academics have questioned and criticized the traditional modes of interpretation.
As a result, (migrant) minorities (as well as historiographically previously marginalized groups such as workers or women) managed to make it into historical scholarship and national narratives in the second half of the 20th century.^[10] In the context of immigration history, this shift began in traditional immigration countries, particularly in the United States immediately following the post-war period.^[11] In Western Europe, however, immigration history first emerged in the late 1970s,^[12] took off on a larger scale in the 1980s and escalated in the 1990s. In Central and Eastern Europe, historical migration research (in a modern sense) only developed after the collapse of the socialist system.
There are several explanations for these varying developments in (im)migration research and historiography. In the case of the United States, the establishment of immigration history was closely linked to waves of immigration and educational reforms, which transformed American society in the 20th century. The offspring of mass migrants who came to the United States between 1890 and 1910 (second, and partly third generation ‘immigrants’) attained professional academic positions in historical scholarship and research fields after the Second World War. This generational effect coincided with the introduction and expansion of the educational system, which provided not only job opportunities, but also the possibility for curricula modifications and reform. Moreover, post-war US society in general shifted from a paradigm of assimilation, or Americanization, to the recognition of ethnic differences and ethnic roots. The ‘ethnic revival,’ which began in the 1960s and continues until today, is an important factor in explaining the successful and permanent establishment of immigration history. Thus, one could argue economically that there was an almost perfect correlation of supply and demand in the case of the United States. A new cohort of scholars established itself within the academic system (supply side) and was able to satisfy the demand articulated within a socially and politically rapidly transforming society that turned to its past for confirmation of a new present.
The European case(s) look(ed) different in almost every respect. The social preconditions for writing and establishing immigration history were lacking, or are still lacking, in most European societies and nation-states. This can be argued from both sides, supply and demand. Historical (migration) scholars and European migration historians have convincingly argued that spatial mobility and migration have been a social reality in Europe spanning centuries and are not merely a modern phenomenon.^[13] However, it is important to emphasize the rather trivial fact that large scale (voluntary, not forced) immigration to, or within, Europe only occurred with the establishment of labor migration systems and decolonization after the Second World War. Thus, serious confrontation with cultural differences only gained high importance in European societies at a comparatively later time. The fabric of the societies – or at least the predominant myths about this fabric – was structured along the idea of cultural and often ethno-‘racial’ homogeneity. National societies were seen as fairly stable products that emerged and were consolidated over centuries: thus stability and continuity, not mobility, were key factors for historical analysis and interpretation.
Compared to the development in the United States, there are at least three crucial facts for explaining that historical immigration scholarship is just merely an emerging field in Europe, and not yet an established and consolidated one. Firstly, as a consequence of the rather late(r) mass immigration, an educated and academically trained elite of ‘second’ or ‘third’ generation ‘immigrants’ is only a nascent group in (Western) Europe. However, such a group is a prerequisite for the articulation and advocacy of immigrant interests within immigration societies. They exercise the role of immigrant spokespeople and even write immigration history based on, or at least influenced by, individual and collective experiences.^[14] The actual outward appearance that immigration history and historiography might assume when challenged from this side is open to speculation and is nothing that can or should be discussed here at length. Given that second generation immigrants tend to pursue economically more promising fields rather than positions in the humanities or the social sciences, it may even take the third generation to confront historical scholarship in Europe with this challenge.^[15]
Secondly, the history of education and educational reform of (Western) European institutions of higher education (high schools and universities) also followed different paths in the second half of the 20th century with regard to researching and teaching (immigration) history and providing resources for it. This can be seen both in curricula and in institutional structures. Numerous immigration research institutions for (sociological and) historical migration research have been established in the previous two decades at several European universities and as extra-university research institutions.^[16] However, the crucial step of making immigration history an integral part of the European academic research and teaching system is still missing. At present, immigration history is – if at all – rather an addendum, or an appendix, to still nationally-based curricula. The topic is largely marginalized in separate institutions and is researched and taught by specialists but not as an important part of general history. The history of migration and spatial mobility as well as the history of the Other is not yet interdisciplinary (or intersectional) among historians. Thus, it could be argued that the supply side in European societies – immigration scholars as well as institutions and educational material – is comparatively weakly developed as a consequence of social and political developments and decisions in the past.
Thirdly, the argument can also be made from the demand side. Incorporation of immigrants or, in general, of Others into European societies, differs from incorporation of immigration into classical immigration societies in one crucial respect. National European and nation-based societies do not (yet) perceive themselves as societies and countries of immigration.^[17] Thus, the demand side that shapes American society, for instance, is practically nonexistent in European states. Constructing an all-encompassing national identity by positively referring to immigration, immigrant groups and migrant minorities is almost absent from European societies. Given that only a small minority of European citizens have a family history of migration, or even a memory of it, the demand for representing immigrant history will most likely not emerge as a widespread movement in European societies. The social basis for something like an American style ‘ethnic revival’ and its resonance is just too small.
Fourthly, for the former communist countries some other factors need to be considered when explaining why immigration history is a weakly developed, sometimes even non-existent discipline in these countries. One key factor is that research on migration (and minorities) was a highly politicized issue that was kept secret and largely taboo. Data and sources were either restricted or were not made available (supply side). Moreover, these countries historically tended, and for the most part continue, to be countries of emigration, not countries of immigration. Emigration, however, provides for a much weaker (possible) historical memory and representation than immigration. What is lost or no longer visible tends to be forgotten rather easily. Thus, immigration history was never an option for constructing national or social identities for countries in this part of Europe. A crucial political factor also needs to be included: research on, and debate about, emigration in socialist countries would have opened the highly politicized and silenced issue of the political emigration of dissidents and dissenting individuals to the West. For ideological reasons the debate could not have been initiated before 1989, and it has still not been completely opened up since then because it would force many post-communist societies to confront the shadows of their dark past, which in many cases would preferably be forgotten.

VII. (NATIONAL) MODES OF IMMIGRANT REPRESENTATION

The question of how immigrant (and ethnic) history can be written into national, as well as into transnational and nation-transcending, history will continue to be a key issue for debate and decision in the historical profession in the future. One could argue that there are basically five ideal type approaches to representing migrants (and ethnic minorities) historiographically. They could be labeled as:

1. ethnification
2. assimilation
3. ‘distinctive’ integration
4. non-representation
5. multiculturalization

These five approaches were and are (at least partly) mirrored in current or real type societies and their attitudes towards (migrant) minorities. Ethnification of migration history is probably best epitomized by the American approach, which developed in the aftermath of the ‘ethnic revival’ and was reinforced by debates about political correctness and recognition of minorities.^[18] As a result, separate histories of immigrant groups and ethnic minorities are recognized. These histories are perceived more as a separate part of national history (or better histories) than as an essential part of it. Each group has its own history, its own museum and its own collective memory. The nature of this distinctive approach opens the way for fragmentation of national history. In the extreme form, national history remains only a loosely connected patchwork of group histories or is even dissolved as an autonomous entity. Critics would even argue that it endangers the coherence of a society itself and leads to tribalization.^[19]
The opposing model is the assimilative approach. It is best mirrored by (historical) France. It sees immigrants (and minorities) as a constitutive and essential, though not separate or distinctive, part of the politically defined nation and national history. Creating ethnically blind nationals (Frenchmen) with a commonly shared and often invented past is the primary goal within this model.^[20] This approach would not recognize ethnic, regional or historical roots and differences among migrants, nor would it provide any capacity for special group rights or recognition of particular interests. A group-specific historical narrative may evolve on an independent, local level, but it would not be initiated or supported by state institutions. Conforming to the republican values on which the model is based is the first rule for state educational institutions using this model.
The third alternative would be the model of ‘distinctive’ integration and representation of privileged migrants such as co-ethnic or colonial ‘repatriates’. This approach is characterized by a relatively smooth integration of immigrants into the national narrative without assimilating the group and its history completely. Instead, the group becomes an integrative and essential part of national history, while maintaining its visible distinctness. Germany and its co-ethnic migrants (post-war expellees and refugees, but also ethnic German migrants who have come as Aussiedler from Central and Eastern Europe since 1950) could represent such a model.^[21] Dutch-Indonesians who went to the Netherlands after decolonization or French Pieds-Noirs from Algeria immigrating to France could be seen as two other groups exemplifying such an approach. One could also make the same argument for Jews who migrated away from discrimination in Eastern Europe, the (former) Soviet Union, Iraq or Ethiopia to Israel. This mode of representation is often based on narratives of suffering and victim status identity prior to immigration. Therefore, the real or ascribed status of victim provides a rather easy possibility for the receiving society to fit the group history into its own national narrative. The state is usually much more inclined to tolerate and support an independent historical narrative of privileged immigrant groups (for instance by state supported research and research institutions).
The fourth model is really a non-model, i.e., one of ignoring (migrant) minorities completely within national historiography, seeing them as not belonging to one’s own history and thus overlooking rather than representing them. This is probably the most widespread approach to immigrants in most countries that do not explicitly consider themselves as countries of immigration even though they may have a large immigrant population in their societies. The long-term attitude of Western European societies toward labor migrants that were recruited up until the early 1970s is one good example of such an attitude, although it has been slowly changing within the last one or two decades. However, one could also argue that the approach of Central and Eastern European nation-states towards the history of indigenous minorities matches this model. In these cases, the structure of excluding minority history from (ethno-) national history is very similar to the exclusion of labor migrants in Western Europe.
The fifth model of immigrant representation, the multicultural one, is probably best represented by Canada.^[22] In a very different, territorially-defined way, Switzerland also fits this category. In the European case, the Netherlands corresponds to the multicultural type to a certain degree from the 1990s onward. In contrast to the ethnification of history, the multicultural option provides (at least in theory) an all-encompassing social design that holds societies together and provides a coherent picture of the past. Majority and minority groups play an equally important role in the construction of a national past. The national past is actually seen and portrayed as the very outcome of social and ethnic diversity. The state would fairly and equally support majority population and (migrant) minorities represented historically and historiographically. However, the danger of this model, critics would argue, is its potential for turning into an ethnification or tribalization of societies and their past. Recognition of differences, the argument would run, has the inherent tendency to establish and consolidate these differences at the expense of national coherence.
It is noteworthy to mention that the emergence of these real type models was highly contingent upon concrete social and political settings as well as the point of time in which they emerged. They cannot easily and mechanistically be transferred from one society to another. Some of the selected examples illustrate this fact: Canadian multiculturalism emerged at a specific time under specific conditions and most importantly within a specific tradition of civil society within an established and functioning welfare state. Although the very same term is used in Canada and in the United States, the meaning of the word takes on different concepts and is woven into different debates, influenced by different historical legacies and different political challenges which resulted from past and present conflicts.
Whereas in the United States the term is inherently tied to the civil rights movement and the recognition of differences within the ethno-racial pentagon (native American, African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian-American and white or Euro-American), the term is used in a much wider sense in Canada. In particular, it refers more to differences among immigrant groups and is more open to change and newly emerging “ethnic” groups. Given this fact, it is not surprising then that the transfer of the term and the concept from North America to Western Europe beginning in the early 1980s by the European left was doomed to fail. In all its naъvite the project lacked historical and context-specific awareness. One could make the same point for continual misunderstandings between North Americans and (especially Central and Eastern) Europeans in using and discussing the terms ‘ethnic,’ ‘racial’ or ‘national.’ These words are loaded with very different historically-influenced connotations, though often used in a simplistic manner by social scientists as if they were universal categories. Moreover, the categories are used by different actors and are constantly being reinterpreted and redefined within specific contexts of social practice. Thus, I would argue that social scientists and historians should abstain from (political) recommendations for the future based upon their analysis of the past or of cross-cultural comparisons when acting as scholars. However, as citizens and political beings, academics should use their expertise and knowledge but clearly and honestly define the distinction when leaving the scholarly realm and buying into questions of identity politics, which are at the very heart of issues related to questions of migration.