1. Introduction: the language of inclusion and exclusion in the context of immigration and integration Marlou Schrover and Willem Schinkel 2. The imagination of 'society' in measurements of immigrant integration Willem Schinkel 3. Bodies at the border: the medical protection of immigrants in a French immigration detention centre Nicolas Fischer 4. Spectacles of migrant 'illegality': the scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion Nicholas De Genova 5. From heroes to vulnerable victims: labelling Christian Turks as refugees in the 1970s Tycho Walaardt 6. Shifting meanings on transnationalism: analysing Dutch political discourse on Moroccan migrants' transnational ties, 1960-2010 Nadia Bouras 7. Family metaphor in political and public debates in the Netherlands on migrants from the (former) Dutch East Indies 1949-66 Charlotte Laarman.

This collection provides an overview of some of the most relevant concepts in the study of the language of inclusion and exclusion, specifically with a view to the functioning of nation-state categories. Categorizations, words, and phrases are constantly renewed with the intention to exclude (mostly) or to include (rarely), promulgating problematizations that highlight discursive distinctions between in-groups and out-groups. Such discursive constructions and the practices through which they are effectuated are sites of symbolic power, and their study reveals the workings of power. Historical analysis of the language of inclusion and exclusion can help elucidate contemporary transformations of discursive power.