Lecture | LIMS seminar
Forced Choices: Migration, Identity, and Belonging in the South Tyrolean Option (1939-1955)
- Date
- Monday 10 March 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Leiden Interdisciplinary Migration Seminars 2024-2025
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
Abstract
Migration is often framed as an exercise of agency, yet history offers numerous cases where populations were coerced into displacement or assimilation. The South Tyrolean Option (1939–1943) represents a striking example of forced migration orchestrated through state policy, compelling German- and Ladin-speaking South Tyroleans to choose between migrating to Nazi Germany, or assimilating under Fascist Italy. This talk situates the Option within broader global patterns of coerced migration, drawing comparisons with the Greco-Turkish population exchange (1923), the expulsions of ethnic Germans after World War II, and other state-driven efforts at ethnic homogenization.
The South Tyrolean Option serves as a microcosm of broader forced migration patterns, demonstrating how state policies shape displacement and identity. Understanding this case can offer insights into modern migration crises, where populations continue to be forced into difficult, and often artificial, choices regarding identity, belonging, and mobility.
LIMS
The Leiden Interdisciplinary Migration Seminars (LIMS) aim at fostering further discussion across disciplines on migration-related topics and creating an open dialogue between the speakers and the attendees. The seminars are a platform for those at Leiden University working on migration-related topics. LIMS is associated with Social Citizenship & Migration (SCM), one of nine interdisciplinary programmes launched by Leiden University in 2020.
Interested in attending? Registration is not necessary. For inquires, or to participate in future events, contact Dr. Andrew Shield.