On its fifth anniversary, the Expatriate Archive Centre had great pleasure in hosting a symposium on expatriation from a historical perspective and the role of private documents in research on migration history. The Expatriate Experience: Past and Present was held on 1 April, 2013 in The Hague, the Netherlands
Until now, most research on migration can be found in the area of the social sciences. However, the unique experiences of skilled migrants (or expatriates) specifically, have had less attention in historical research. Skilled migration is currently a major trend amongst migration patterns and this symposium aims to spotlight the potential for historical research. In a plenary session and different workshops we studied the potential research issues in this day symposium.
A young but rapidly expanding archive, the Expatriate Archive Centre documents the global social history of expatriate life with collections describing expatriate experiences dating from as early as the 1890s. Private archives consisting of journals, letters, diaries, film and photographs form the basis of the collection.