This round table with Professor Barbara Arneil discusses the political ideology behind this domestic colony. In her prize-winning book Domestic Colonies (Oxford University Press, 2017), Arneil has argued that domestic colonies shared in common with overseas settler colonies a similar ideological commitment to three key principles: segregation; agrarian labour; and improvement of both people and land, in both ethical and economic senses.

Across Europe, domestic colonies attracted progressive thinkers sincerely concerned about the plight of the poor, committed to improving their welfare. From Johannes van den Bosch in the Netherlands and Sir John Sinclair in Scotland, to Alexis de Tocqueville in France and Jeremy Bentham in England. All of them wrote essays defending such domestic colonies over alternative social policies (e.g., outdoor relief, emigration, workhouses and poorhouses, prison barracks). Yet as the colonies evolved and its inhabitants swelled in numbers, the colonies often acquired disciplinary and sometimes outright penal dimensions. What is the place of free and unfree colonies of benevolence in the history of social welfare policy? This round-table explores this question by placing the Dutch Colonies of Benevolence within their wider international context.

Location: Spui25, Amsterdam

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