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"Cultural pluralism Netherlands Amsterdam."
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Different Effects of Ethnic Diversity on Social Capital
This article examines the effect of ethnic diversity on social capital in Amsterdam neighbourhoods by looking at the effects of the ethnic diversity of a neighbourhood on the social networks that underpin civil society. A distinction is made between homogeneous, more individually oriented social networks, on the one hand, and horizontal heterogeneous networks on the other. The density of foundations—i.e. the number of foundations in a neighbourhood—is used as the indicator for the first type of networks and the density of leisure associations for the latter type. In addition, the study looks at the effect of a changing context in Amsterdam in which ethnic diversity has increasingly come to be perceived as problematic by inhabitants and local politicians. The results indeed show that ethnic diversity has a different effect on both forms of civil society: the horizontal heterogeneous networks suffer more from ethnic diversity than the homogeneous networks.
Journal Article
“They Will Make It Center”: Navigating Food Gentrification in Amsterdam’s Javastraat
Food gentrification is a key driver of socio‐economic and socio‐cultural change in urban spaces. The influx of affluent populations into marginalized neighborhoods often leads to the rise of new food outlets—upscale restaurants, artisan cafés, and boutique‐style food shops—that may initially complement but eventually displace local food cultures. This study examines Javastraat in Amsterdam as a prominent example of urban (food) gentrification in Europe, focusing in particular on the long‐term effects of gentrification on restaurants and food shops who identify as non‐European in their menus and food marketing. State‐led redevelopment in Javastraat has displaced local shops and eateries while imposing cosmopolitan ideals of diversity and sustainability. As a result, long‐established immigrant food establishments have been pressured to align their menus to the tastes of the incoming affluent residents and elite workers. This shift has generated insecurity and alienation among the owners and employees of these vital social gathering spaces. By framing Javastraat as a space in flux, we analyze the experiences of these stakeholders through the lens of social navigation and explore how these gastronomic professionals are navigating shifting food cultures and urban environments.
Journal Article
Sensitive 'Heritage' of Slavery in a Multicultural Classroom: Pupils' Ideas Regarding Significance
Pupils' attribution of significance to sensitive 'heritage' of slavery may differ, particularly in multicultural classrooms. Little is known about the ways in which pupils establish a relationship with the present when discussing the significance of heritage of slavery. Starting from theories of historical significance and identity, these attributions and the interplay with the pupils' identities were examined at a Dutch secondary school using questionnaires and interviews. Pupils primarily used two arguments: significance for a specific identity or group; and slavery as a historical example of inequality. The interplay with their identity was ambiguous.
Journal Article
The impact of dramatic events on public debate concerning accommodation of Islam in Europe
Using the data of the EURISLAM project, this article investigates the impact of dramatic events on the public debate with regard to Islam in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK. It assesses the extent to which dramatic events such as 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London and the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam impacted on the debate on multiculturalism, notably the accommodation of Western-European institutions to Islam. In this contribution, we analyse the overall evolution of public debate in the written press on Muslims, and more particularly Muslim rights, for the period 1999-2009. Our aim is to empirically analyse the transitions that the public debate on Islam in Europe has undergone in the wake of the most dramatic terrorist acts perpetrated by Muslim extremists during the last decade. We hypothesize that dramatic violent events involving Muslim extremists had an impact on the number of claims about Muslims and Islam in general, but not on the debate about religious rights for Muslims in Europe. Descriptive analysis and time series plus intervention analysis were undertaken to test these hypotheses.
Journal Article
Urban Alchemy: Performing Urban Cosmopolitanism in London and Amsterdam
According to certain scholars, the multicultural (global) city may constitute the ultimate site for the development of cosmopolitan sensibilities. Taken to the extreme, the assumed properties of urban life amount to a veritable 'urban alchemy': the belief that diverse and divided populations of urban dwellers may potentially be transformed into one harmonious community of cosmopolitan citizens. This paper presents an analysis of the meaning of urban cosmopolitanism to urban dwellers themselves. Heeding the calls for a more grounded, empirical approach to the phenomenon of ' ordinary' cosmopolitanisms, urban cosmopolitanism is defined as those discursive social practices in which people manage to supersede the parochialisms of their own national, ethnic and religious identities through an identification with the city. Data from 16 focus groups in London and Amsterdam demonstrate that the performance of urban cosmopolitanism was unequally accessible to people positioned differently in terms of race, class and residential status, suggesting that conceptualising cosmopolitanism as either a set of skills and attitudes or an abstract philosophy of world citizenship potentially ignores the exigencies of actual, extant cosmopolitan social practices.
Journal Article
Speaking of Belonging: Learning to be “Good Citizens” in the Context of Voluntary Language Coaching Projects in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
This article explores citizenship education for adult immigrants through informal language education in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Based on data collected over thirteen months of ethnographic research among volunteer Dutch language coaches in Amsterdam, the primary methods used in this study were in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation. While the primary focus of this article is on the ways in which informal educational settings contribute to processes of adult citizenship education, this paper also underscores some of the perceived barriers to integration faced by adult immigrants in the Netherlands. Adopting a Foucauldian theoretical approach to governmentality, this paper considers how volunteer Dutch language coaches both reproduce and challenge contemporary discourses around citizenship and belonging in Dutch society. Experiences and expressions of citizenship among volunteer Dutch language coaches reveal how entangled discourses of cultural difference and neoliberal “active” citizenship shape state and everyday notions of good citizenship practice and integration.
Journal Article
Residential Profiles of Surinamese and Moroccans in Amsterdam
At present, politicians in the Netherlands tend to pay more attention to bridging cultural gaps between various ethnic groups than reducing class differences. In that context, it is frequently assumed that ethnic integration processes can be facilitated by establishing a mixed population. In order to reach that objective, municipalities and local housing associations are encouraged to realise heterogeneous residential areas. However, this kind of policy rests on the assumption of a clear relationship between a spatial mix of the population in ethnic terms and the level of integration in society. The validity of this assumption is challenged in this paper in its investigation of housing profiles for areas containing varying immigrant densities in Amsterdam. Micro-level spatial data for all (over 16 000) postal-code areas in the city were compiled to substantiate this claim. The rich data-set allowed a detailed comparison to be made of the housing situation outside, within and between various ethnic group concentration areas which were constructed from the postal-code areas. This paper discusses the findings for Surinamese and Moroccans, the two largest non-native groups in Amsterdam. It is shown that, in general, all the residential neighbourhoods identified have heterogeneous housing profiles. The results suggest that other factors should be taken into account in order to understand the spatial segregation of immigrant groups. Such factors particularly include economic restructuring, the welfare state—especially redistributive mechanisms—urban history, general housing policy and cultural orientation.
Journal Article
Moving to a welfare state: A comparison of economic mobility of Surinamese in Amsterdam and Puerto Ricans in New York City
This dissertation compares the impact of the different contexts of reception on immigrant economic mobility. Three contexts of reception are defined: the ethnic group, the labor market, and the welfare state context of reception. The analysis focuses on two groups in two different labor markets of two welfare states: Puerto Ricans in New York City, the United States and Surinamese in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Both groups were citizens of the country they arrived in. This makes their situation comparable, as it excludes them from restrictions imposed by immigration laws. Both groups are also non-white, have a large percentage of female headed households, came from diverse origins in their countries of origin, and came from countries with a colonial link to the countries of destination. The labor markets they entered also share many similarities, including the impact of economic restructuring and the decline of manufacturing occupations. There are differences in the labor markets, as in unemployment levels in the cities, on job growth, and on percentages of immigrants in each city. However, the overall picture indicates relatively similarity. The main difference exists in the welfare state: the United States is defined as a liberal welfare state, with low benefits and provisions, the Netherlands is a social-democratic welfare state, and benefits and provisions are generous. I analyze these aspects in detail, to provide a model for the possible impacts of each context of reception. The main results reflect that the welfare state most likely has an impact on education levels of the groups, while labor market characteristics and discrimination explain most of the lack of occupational mobility of the groups. The statistical analysis of the dissertation encountered problems: the sample sizes were differences across groups, which distorts significance levels. The second problem is linked to the measurement model and the usage of factor analysis. The measurement of an 'ethnic context of reception' is problematic and it might be advisable to use separate variables instead of a combined factor to include group characteristics in a model. The conclusions elaborate on alternative approaches to the analysis of occupational mobility across countries.
Dissertation
Too Much Islam? Challenges to the Dutch Model
As in many west European countries, the Islamic presence in the Netherlands is associated with immigration, from Turkey, North Africa, and to some extent from other parts of the Muslim world, an immigration which had its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. Dutch integration policy was multiculturalist in that it took for granted the emergence of immigrant communities with their own cultures, and to some extent facilitated the infrastructure needed to maintain these separate cultures, including those strongly influenced by Islam. However, this rosy picture of cultures living peacefully together started to crack in the 1990s. A strong attack against the growing visibility of Islam in Dutch cities happened in 1997, when the dissident publicist Pim Fortuyn wrote a booklet called, \"Against the Islamisation of Our Culture\". This was a direct assault on the \"so-called multicultural society\" which, Fortuyn maintained, was based on a misplaced cultural relativism.
Journal Article