The Euromix research team at the Vrije Universiteit Faculty of Law study the regulation of ‘mixture’ (‘inter-racialized’ sex, relationships and marriage) in Europe’s past and present.

Researching Past Restrictions

The project  challenges the common assumption that Europe never had anti-miscegenation laws comparable to those in the United States. We explore if, when, how and why forms of regulation aiming to prevent or restrict ‘interracial mixture’ developed in Europe. This historical research is conducted by the Principal Investigator, Professor Betty de Hart on the Netherlands and three PhD researchers: Rébecca Franco – France, Andrea Tarchi – Italy, and Nawal Mustafa – the United Kingdom.

Identifying Contemporary Regulations

The contemporary inquiry is conducted by two post-doctoral researchers: Guno Jones researching  ‘mixed intimacies’ in European law, and Elena Zambelli researching law in the everyday lives of ‘mixed’ families. Jones and Zambelli explore whether and how, in spite of norms of formal equality and colour-blindness, race and monoracial family norms still play a part in European law and the everyday lives of ‘interracial couples’. We seek to understand what lawmakers and enforcers believe ‘race’ is, what they believe ‘mixture’ is, how this is translated into legal practices, and how targeted couples respond. The project contributes to the genealogy of racial thinking in Europe, especially in addressing the understudied role of law and legal scholarship in the social construction of ‘race’ and ‘mixture’ in an increasingly diverse Europe.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 725238.

Euromix e-mail list

Would you like to get regular updates about the Euromix research project and similar projects and publications? The Euromix e-mail list is for all academics and other interested parties in Europe and beyond researching ‘mixture’ (mixed couples and families).

If you want to subscribe, add yourself to the list through the website:  https://listserver.vu.nl/mailman/listinfo/euromixproject.rch