Ethnic Amsterdam: Immigrants and Urban Change in the Twentieth Century

Ethnic Amsterdam

Solidarity and Identity

Over the centuries, people from all parts of the world have been drawn to the city of Amsterdam. While immigrants adapted to local customs, opportunities and constraints, their practices and habits have left indelible marks on their adopted city. This fascinating volume Ethnic Amsterdam: Immigrants and Urban Change in the Twentieth Century explores how twentieth-century immigrants – in bringing with them their religions, languages, cuisines, sports, and other material and immaterial aspects of their native countries – have transformed Amsterdam into a cosmopolitan city.

Solidarity and Identity

“From language and food to housing and religion, Ethnic Amsterdam is full of wonderfully rich material and fascinating insights into how immigrants are creating a new and dynamic multiethnic Amsterdam. The book is an indispensable guide to understanding the far-reaching consequences of immigration in one of the world’s most diverse cities.” Nancy Foner, Distinguished Professor of Sociology Hunter College and he Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Solidarity and Identity

“May this book contribute to a better understanding of the role of immigrants – coming from more than 170 countries of the world – during the last century in making Amsterdam the diverse city it is.” Job Cohen, Mayor of Amsterdam

edited by liza nell & jan rath

Liza Nell is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University. Jan Rath is Professor of Urban Sociology and Director of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

nell | rath (eds.)

ISBN  978 90 8964 168 7

Ethnic Amsterdam Immigrants and Urban Change in the Twentieth Century

www.aup.nl

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04-03-2010 12:11:11

Ethnic Amsterdam

SOLIDARITY AND IDENTITY In the past decades several large-scale social, cultural and economic developments have occurred. Processes of economic restructuring (de-industrialization) have brought into existence new categories of unemployed people; the process of individualization is manifested in increased individual independence, a growing sense of personal rights, and – possibly – in a growing opposition between self-interest and civil virtues; the increased world-wide mobility of people, commodities, services, money and information – globalization – has far-reaching consequences for the way individual citizens are living and experiencing their lives. Contemporary society is characterized by cultural and ethnic diversity. People’s social and cultural identities have become more varied. What are the consequences of these developments for the way people form social bonds and experience mutual solidarity in our society? Is there any empirical support for the widespread idea that social solidarity is declining? Which social domains – care, volunteer work, living together in old city quarters, relations between family members, neighbors, friends, etcetera – are the most vulnerable for a potential decay of solidarity? What is the role of familism and within-group solidarity among immigrant communities? Which new challenges are brought about by the multicultural society in terms of new forms of cultural expression, new (group) identities, new alliances, new institutions, new forms of formal and informal support? These and similar questions are the theme of the series Solidarity and Identity.

editors of the series Prof. J. Burgers, Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam Prof. J.C. Rath, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam

Ethnic Amsterdam Immigrants and Urban Change in the Twentieth Century Edited by Liza Nell & Jan Rath

Cover illustration: © Nationale Beeldbank Cover design: Neon, design and communications, Sabine Mannel Layout: japes, Amsterdam isbn 978 90 8964 168 7 e-isbn 978 90 4851 120 4 nur 758 / 763 © Liza Nell & Jan Rath / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Contents List of figures, tables and images

7

Preface

9

1

Am I Amsterdam? Immigrant integration and urban change Liza Nell & Jan Rath

11 23

2

Ethnic groups in Amsterdam’s public spaces Thaddeus Müller

3

Eating out ‘ethnic’ in Amsterdam from the 1920s to the present Anneke H. van Otterloo

41

Living Amsterdam: tangible homes behind Amsterdam’s facades Hilje van der Horst

61

Housing and population: spatial mobility in twentieth-century Amsterdam Hans van Amersfoort & Cees Cortie †

75

4

5

6

Towards cultural diversity in Amsterdam’s arts Christine Delhaye

103

7

Multilingual Amsterdam Folkert Kuiken

123

8

Immigrant organisations in Amsterdam Floris Vermeulen & Anja van Heelsum

145

9

Houses of worship and the politics of space in Amsterdam Thijl Sunier

159

5

10

The integration of migrants into the Amsterdam sport pattern Ruud Stokvis

11

Social boundaries in movement Liza Nell & Jan Rath

177 193

About the contributors

201

Index

205

6

List of figures, tables and images List of Figures Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2 Figure 5.3 Figure 5.4 Figure 5.5 Figure 5.6 Figure 5.7 Figure 5.8 Figure 5.9 Figure 5.10 Figure 5.11 Figure 5.12 Figure 5.13 Figure 5.14 Figure 5.15 Figure 5.16 Figure 5.17 Figure 8.1

Private consumption in the Netherlands, 1925-1985 50 Restaurants by cuisine in Amsterdam, 1975-2004 56 Minimum income households per neighbourhood, compared to the municipal average (17.9%), 2007 76 Amsterdam: factors of population change 79 Regional Organ Amsterdam (ROA) 80 Residence patterns of Surinamese in Amsterdam, 1973 and 1990 83 Concentration of Surinamese in Amsterdam, 2000 84 Residence patterns of Moroccans in Amsterdam, 1973 and 1990 86 Concentration of Moroccans in Amsterdam, 2000 87 Amsterdam population by origin, 1979-2004 88 Population by residential area (Amsterdam, 2000, %) 88 Population by type of residential area (ROA, 2003, %) 89 Attractiveness of residential areas 92 First settlement by attractiveness of residential area 93 Population by attractiveness of residential area 94 Total mobility (per 1,000 residents) 95 Mobility through suburbanization (per 1,000 residents) 96 Amsterdam population by age in 2000 (%) 97 Stage of life and mobility in 2000 (per 1000 residents) 98 Municipal funding to Surinamese organisations in Amsterdam for the period 1968-98, in guilders 153

7

List of Tables Table 1.1 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 5.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 8.1

Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 10.3 Table 10.4 Table 10.5

Population by origin and generation, 1 January 2007 13 Number of registered food outlets, 1951-1981 46 Distribution of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands, 1960-1996 49 Growth of restaurants in the Netherlands, 1960-1982 49 Residents in ROA municipalities and Almere by birth country/birth country parent(s), 1 January 2006 90 Examples of loanwords from different languages in Dutch 123 Examples of loanwords from Dutch in different languages 124 Examples of loanwords from Indonesian and Chinese in Dutch 126 Examples of loanwords from the West Indies in Dutch 126 Examples of loanwords from languages spoken in Mediterranean countries in Dutch 127 Signs of fifteen shops on an average street in Amsterdam 128 Examples of words from different languages used in street language 132 Number of organisations and organisational density (organisations/citizens) for Surinamese, Turkish and Moroccan organisations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, 2003 146 Sport clubs and their members in Amsterdam, 1911 180 Sports in Amsterdam by number of participants, 1962 182 Sports in Amsterdam by members, 2005/2006 185 Sport participation in Amsterdam irrespective of organisation membership, 2003 187 Sport participation in the Netherlands irrespective of organisation membership, 2003 188

List of Images Image 3.1 Image 3.2

8

Vendor of peanut cookies in the 1930s Atlas Islamic Butcher, Javastraat 56, Amsterdam

43 54

Preface

This book is about the city of Amsterdam. The city has always been associated with (international) migration, even though the rate of immigration has fluctuated over time. Amsterdam has become what it is today in large part due to immigrants’ hard labour, entrepreneurial drive and financial capital. Oddly enough, this is hardly reflected in academic research. While an abundance of studies on the ‘integration’ of immigrants highlight how immigrants enter the mainstream (a process that slowly but surely takes place), the city itself and its social institutions have usually been treated as givens, as if they were part of the scenery. How immigrants have influenced urban progress has rarely been touched upon. By examining the mutual influencing of immigrant integration and urban change in a diversity of domains, this book should fill this gap. Most of the contributors to this volume are or have been affiliated with the University of Amsterdam. Some are well-versed in post-migration studies, others are specialists in other fields of research, but all share an interest in the nexus of urban development and immigrant ethnic diversity. We met several times to discuss the progress of this endeavour and, in doing so, helped foster the quality and coherence of the book. Takeo David Hymans did the linguistic editing with utmost care, and we are grateful for this contribution to the book. Finally, and regrettably, one of the authors passed away during the editing process, Cees Cortie. We would like to express our sympathy to the next of kin and dedicate this book to him as a token of our appreciation of his scientific work. Amsterdam, August 2009 Liza Nell and Jan Rath

9

1

Am I Amsterdam? Immigrant integration and urban change Liza Nell & Jan Rath

The city of Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands, the Dutch capital, and – in the eyes of chauvinist Amsterdammers – the centre of the universe. But compared to Mumbai, New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo or – closer to home – Istanbul, London and Paris, Amsterdam seems a provincial backwater: while these megacities boast populations in the multi-millions, Amsterdam counts no more than 740,000 residents (O+S 2007: 20). This remains the case even when we expand our focus to include greater Amsterdam, which has just over a million residents. Greater Los Angeles, in contrast, covers an area almost half the size of the Netherlands, and has more inhabitants (17,800,000 versus 16,400,000). Depending on the traffic, it can easily take an hour and a half to drive from one part of greater Los Angeles to another, by which time an Amsterdammer would have crossed the Belgian or German border. Los Angeles is admittedly characterized by urban sprawl. While Paris, London and New York are more compact, they still dwarf the Dutch capital – in area, population, and the size of their economies. Related to these differences in scale are qualitative differences in local opportunities. Seen from this perspective, it is no wonder social scientists have shown a marked preference for the exploration of global cities such as Los Angeles, London, Paris and Tokyo (for example Mollenkopf & Castells 1991; Sassen 1991; Fainstein, Gordon & Harloe 1992; Soja 1996, 2000; Abu Lughod 2000; Scott 2001). Why, then, a book about Amsterdam? Strolling along the picturesque canals of downtown Amsterdam and enjoying the famous heritage architecture, one becomes aware that the city was once the pounding heart of global capitalism. Amsterdam hosted the world’s first multinational company – the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) – which gave the city a cosmopolitan outlook and brought 11

glory, power and wealth (indeed, at the expense of numerous colonial subjects in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean) (Kuijpers & Prak 2004). The Dutch East India Company ceased to exist in the early nineteenth century, but some of the cosmopolitan spirit and business sense have survived. Nowadays, many international companies consider Amsterdam as one of the gateways to Europe. The presence of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and headquarters of financials like ING underscore Amsterdam as a nodal point, albeit a relatively small one, in the global economy.1 The American authors Benton-Short, Price & Friedman (2005), in exploring the rise of global cities, have criticized scholars and research bureaus that privilege economic criteria while ignoring immigration in their ranking of global cites. Amsterdam, to be sure, hardly appears in these rankings. By arguing that immigration is a powerful example of ‘globalization from below’, BentonShort et al. have created an alternative ranking. Amsterdam is now number three, just behind Dubai and Miami, and ahead of such cities as Toronto, Vancouver, Auckland, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, London and Paris. While the authors are sensitive to the methodological flaws inherent in these rankings,2 the gist of their argument is clear: non-economic factors are central to the rise of global cities. They also note that many influential economic centres show high degrees of cultural globalization, such as immigration and diversity. This certainly applies to Amsterdam. The abstraction of ‘globalization’ is vernacularized within everyday urban practices. One senses the international mobility of capital and labour in the skyboxes of the Amsterdam Arena – the grounds of the local soccer team, Ajax – where international businessmen manage their affairs. One senses globalization in basements of the high-rises in the Bijlmer suburb where everything from food processing to hairdressing and weed dealing takes place, oftentimes informally, or at the Albert Cuyp Market in the southern part of the city where one can purchase imported ingredients for Surinamese and Ghanaian dishes. The globalization of popular culture can literally be smelled and tasted in the Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Portuguese restaurants on the Zeedijk in downtown Amsterdam. This much is clear: international business people, travellers and migrants personify the global character of the city and bring new impulses to the urban social fabric. 12

Amsterdam in 2008 (as it did in 2006 and 2007), attained thirteenth place on the Mercer list of the world’s most liveable cities – a ranking based on the availability of goods and services, safety and infrastructure.3 People from around the world are evidently attracted to Amsterdam. Approximately 30 million people visit the city each year, including backpackers in pursuit of counter-cultural activities and pot, English lager louts on the look-out for naughty spots for the perfect stag night, American tourists standing in line for the Anne Frank or Van Gogh museums, Chinese package tourists bargaining for diamonds and other luxury goods, and a heterogeneous company of international scientists and businesspeople. Especially during the summer months, people from all corners of the world rub shoulders in Amsterdam’s narrow alleyways and sidewalk cafés. One of the editors of this book once caught himself apologizing in English instead of Dutch when bumping into an unsuspecting pedestrian near Dam Square. And it doesn’t end there: the city of Amsterdam has recently stepped up its campaign to attract even more visitors and to boost its international image with the international slogan (in English!) I Amsterdam, inspired by I love New York and Je suis Paris.4 Table 1.1 Population by origin and generation, 1 January 2007 Groups of origin

Absolute number first

second

Percentage native

total

generation generation Surinamese

first

second

native

total

generation generation

40,684

28,194

68,878

59.1%

40.9%

100.0%

7,015

4,275

11,290

62.1%

37.9%

100.0%

Turks

21,595

16,970

38,565

56.0%

44.0%

100.0%

Moroccans

34,599

31,657

66,256

52.2%

47.8%

100.0%

103,976

72,035

176,011

59.1%

40.9%

Antilleans

Other non-Dutch Dutch Total

382,104 382,104 207,869

153,131

382,104 743,104

100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

28.0%

20.6%

100.0%

Source: O+S 2007: 53

More important perhaps is the composition of the population. Today, approximately 28 per cent of Amsterdam’s inhabitants are first-generation immigrants. First- and second-generation immigrants together make up almost half the population; half of them have Surinamese, Moroccan or Turkish backgrounds (O+S 2007: 20, see Table 1.1). In its proportion of immigrants, Amsterdam

13

equals cities like Los Angeles and Sydney. That today the most popular name for newborn boys is Mohammed illustrates the enormous influx of immigrants over the last decades. Seen from this perspective, Amsterdam has been a world city for more than half a millennium, attracting immigrants from the Dutch provinces and from faraway foreign countries since the sixteenth century. Though local Amsterdammers often frowned upon them, immigrants’ hard labour, entrepreneurial drive and financial capital propelled urban economic progress. In retrospect, we know that immigrants and their offspring, despite the succession of exclusionary practices, eventually managed to become part of the mainstream (Lucassen & Penninx 1997). But these historical lessons are easily forgotten when assessing today’s immigrants. Over the past few decades – roughly over the same period in which international migration rapidly increased – the Amsterdam economy has undergone great changes. These transformations were heralded by the steady decline of manufacturing and an unprecedented loss of industrial jobs; at the same time, there was spectacular growth in the service industries, with ICT, finance, insurance, real estate, media and tourism emerging as key sources of income and economic growth. A wide range of inter-related factors provided the impetus for the expansion of personal and producer services, from the introduction of ever-newer information technologies, the erosion of economies of scale, the fragmentation of consumer tastes, changes in the international division of labour, the increased mobility of capital and labour, the diminishing role of the state as a comprehensive provider of services, and the concomitant re-appraisal of the private sector. Whatever the decisive factor, the emerging economy is largely deindustrialized and global, and places a premium on knowledge and information processing. Economic development in post-war Europe has always been associated with international migration, though the nature and function of immigration has changed over time (see Van Amersfoort and Cortie in this book). In the 1950s, 1960s and mid-1970s, before the forces of economic restructuring gained momentum, Amsterdam received immigrants from the former colonies, including Suriname and the Antilles, and unskilled workers (predominantly male) from Mediterranean countries like Spain, Yugoslavia, Turkey and Morocco. The latter were recruited under a guestworker scheme and, like many ex-colonials, allocated to low-wage, 14

dangerous, dirty and dull positions in the labour market – the positions vacated by native Dutch workers able to move up the social ladder. This was especially the case in the ‘old’ manufacturing industries such as garments, shipbuilding, car assembling and tobacco. At this juncture, low-wage migrant workers played a critical role: their employment enabled these sunset industries to temporarily sustain their production and internationally competitive positions. After the first oil crisis in 1973, there was no stopping the process of deindustrialization. Many old industries were forced to shut down or to relocate production to low-wage countries, and many workers were laid off. Migrant workers were hit hard by the economic crisis, as seen in their extreme levels of (long-term) unemployment. A multitude of structural factors accounted for the intense exclusion of (particular groups of) immigrants from the labour market and their subsequent deprivations: employers preferred native white workers or workers from their own social networks, were sometimes blatantly racist, did not fully recognize immigrants’ educational credentials, or demanded education, skills and experience that immigrants did not have (see for instance Cross 1992; Wolff & Penninx 1993; Kloosterman 1994, 1996; Wrench, Rea & Ouali 1999). The emerging knowledge economy continues to be associated with international migration. Immigration to Amsterdam is no longer confined to unskilled workers, but increasingly includes professionals, asylum seekers, family members and students – many with technical and managerial skills and qualifications. Immigrants are thus no longer found only at the lower end of the labour market, but also in the middle and top tiers. This trend is reflected in the composition of the labour force within key industries of the knowledge economy (Brandellero & Kloosterman 2007). There is ample evidence that unskilled people find it harder to benefit from the knowledge economy, resulting in high levels of unemployment – even in times of boom – and low levels of upward occupational mobility. This particularly holds true for immigrants from Third World countries. In so far as they are active in the labour market, they tend to gravitate to sectors of the economy that require manual or unskilled labour and have low entry barriers, such as cleaning and catering (Wrench et al. 1999; Rath 2001; Engelen 2004). There is thus a growing and ethnically spe15

cific divide between highly educated, well-paid knowledge workers and those concentrated in the secondary tiers of the labour market, who are becoming increasingly marginalized in society. These developments are also gender specific, as the changing opportunity structure engenders different outcomes for men and women. These developments moreover have a particular spatial dimension. Capital today is more mobile and cities even more central in the emerging economy than during the industrial age (Webster 2001). These converging processes affect the urban social fabric in profound ways. They alter the opportunity structure, shape and re-shape forms of inclusion/exclusion and add new dimensions to existing economic, social and cultural diversity. Those who fail educationally and are excluded from the knowledge economy, and who live in impoverished inner-city areas in close proximity to the affluent, have become a source of serious political and social concern (Rath 2007). The process of ‘integration’, as it is called in the Netherlands, has indeed become a sensitive issue.5 A large part of the population – 57 per cent according to a recent survey – believes that the acceptance of immigrants from Third World countries was Dutch post-war history’s biggest mistake.6 The same survey revealed that 56 per cent of the population regards ‘Islam’ as a significant threat to Dutch identity. Social and political debate over the integration of immigrants has changed drastically since the turn of the century. – First, there is the often-repeated claim that the Dutch, for a long time, were not allowed to call a spade a spade – but that this awkward and perverse political correctness has been abolished thanks to a number of opinion leaders such as Frits Bolkestein and Pim Fortuyn who have been ‘brave’ enough to speak out on behalf of ‘ordinary people’. A ‘neo-realist’ discourse now dominates (Prins 2002). – Second, there is the popular assumption that immigrants are to be defined in ethnic and, increasingly, in religious terms. Explanations for every aspect of their behaviour are directly linked to real or alleged ethno-cultural or ethno-religious traditions, moral frameworks, loyalties and so forth. Culturalism is de rigueur (cf. Rath 1997, 1999; Swinkels 2007). – Third, and related to the previous point, is the idea that the problem of integration should be solved by diluting ethnic differences – by assimilation and spatial dispersal, through per-

16

suasion and, if need be, coercion. The framing of integration in terms of overcoming cultural differences is not new, but it is clear that alternative ways of framing the issue have lost political ground. In the 1990s, the process of integration, engineered by the central and local governments, was couched in the buzzwords ‘work, work, work’. Today it is all about Dutch norms, values and practices, about social cohesion and security. – Fourth, Dutch society has apparently lost its confidence in the ability of newcomers to find their own way into Dutch society. While integration is conceived as a one-way process – immigrants have to change, the host society does not – the government is seen as the only institution capable of making integration happen. In the field of immigrant integration, neo-etatism reigns. The current discourse does not appreciate that the process of integration – and with it the development of Amsterdam as a world city – has been influenced by numerous factors. On the one hand are the characteristics of the immigrants themselves. On the other are the forces of the (urban) opportunity structure. The interplay between immigrants and the host society is a multilayered process, covering many societal spheres including the economic, socio-political and cultural. The interplay is highly dynamic and is moreover a two-way process. This way of conceiving integration implies that the fate of immigrants is shaped by the institutional make-up of the host society, and that immigrants – the vox populi notwithstanding – leave their mark on the host society: sometimes transient and on the surface, at other times more structural. True, some constituencies have always claimed immigrants impact the host society. In the 1960s and 1970s, left-wing radicals considered immigrants the most exploited part of the working class, and hopefully, the vanguard of socialist revolution. If any group was capable and willing to bring down the capitalist system, it was them (Miller 1981). Already in this period, but increasingly today, right-wing radicals fear that immigrants are on the brink of taking power. This holds particularly for Muslim migrants who allegedly cannot wait to introduce sharia and wipe out the Christian and humanist traditions of the host society (Rath 1983). Neither representation of society is realistic. Those who believe the host society will never change, and those who hope or fear it will transform into something completely different, are arguing

17

on the basis of ideology, not on the basis of established facts. Empirical research is needed. This book aims to fill this void. It asks how and to what extent the fate of immigrants has been influenced by the urban opportunity structure, and how and to what extent immigrants have left their mark on the city. The book goes beyond describing and analyzing how Amsterdam has received and absorbed immigrants over time to explore the divergent ways in which newcomers have changed the urban social fabric.7 Rather than taking these processes for granted, this book aims to establish empirical facts. And instead of focusing on the ‘harder sectors’ such as education or labour (as academics normally do), this book explores the ‘softer sectors’ – issues such as the use of public space, the decoration of homes, eating habits and the use of street language, as well as the spheres of arts, sports, and organizational and religious life. In doing so, this book meshes well with social developments and the public discourse on integration which has, as stated, taken a cultural turn. The contributions in this volume do not share a single theoretical perspective. Nor are they confined within a single discipline. Depending on the topic, the themes are approached through different disciplines including linguistics, cultural studies, political science, history, geography, anthropology and sociology. Uniting the chapters is the search for the mutual relationship between immigrant integration and urban form: immigrants have been both influenced by the urban opportunity structure and have changed the face of Amsterdam through their presence. Each author takes a historical perspective and describes and analyzes the situation before and after the arrival of newcomers. They cover different domains, whose historical developments are not always in sync. Nor is it always the same immigrant groups that drive developments. Chinese eateries date back to the 1930s and 1940s, and Chinese food entrepreneurs have been influencing ‘Dutch’ cuisine ever since. Turkish associations, on the other hand, date from the 1960s and 1970s; their impact on the Amsterdam associational landscape has been more recent. Besides, for many native Dutch, Chinese cuisine is more visible and palpable than ethnic associations. The different chapters may therefore refer to somewhat different historical periods.

18

That this book revolves around the city rather than immigrants did not make our endeavour easier. Most authors could not rely on ongoing work, as the focus of their research tends to be on integration dynamics rather than urban dynamics. Their data – or other data sets for that matter – were often not suited for the task. For example, there was an abundance of data on ethnic associations, but much less about the historical development of associational life in Amsterdam. In the remainder of this book, individual researchers will introduce us to their respective domains. In the next chapter we join urban sociologist Thaddeus Müller in his stroll down the streets of downtown Amsterdam, where he shows us how immigrants have changed the use of public space in the Zeedijk and other areas. In chapter three, sociologist Anneke van Otterloo invites us into Amsterdam’s restaurants and eateries to show how immigrants have transformed the rather bland Dutch cuisine and helped democratize the habit of eating out. We then leave public and semi-public spaces as human geographer Hilje van der Horst introduces us in chapter four to the private lives of Amsterdam’s Turkish immigrants, notably their material culture. In chapter five, geographers Hans van Amersfoort and Cees Cortie shift our attention from living to housing, focusing on ethnic spatial concentration and dispersion over time. In chapter six we move to the domain of higher art, where sociologist Christine Delhaye reveals how immigrant artists were initially unable to make headway in the Amsterdam arts scene. In chapter seven, linguist Folkert Kuiken explores a somewhat more banal cultural expression: language use. How the Amsterdam associational landscape developed over time is described by historian Floris Vermeulen and social psychologist Anja van Heelsum in chapter eight. In chapter nine, cultural anthropologist Thijl Sunier gives a historical overview of the role of religion in Amsterdam, showing how negotiations over the construction of mosques are embedded within larger discussions that conceptualize space and contextualize identity, while in chapter ten sociologist Ruud Stokvis describes the process of ethnic succession in sports. In the final chapter we return to our central question: how have immigrants in Amsterdam changed their adopted city?

19

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

On 1 April 2008, the Boston Consulting Group presented a report to the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs noting that the position of the Netherlands as a place of business for multinational companies is in jeopardy unless they join forces and constitute clusters. See http://www.volkskrant.nl/ economie/article521647.ece/Nederland_laks_met_hoofdkantoren, accessed 2 April 2008. In the case of Amsterdam, the authors confuse the number of immigrants (as given by Dutch bureaus of statistics and most times referring to first- and second-generation immigrants – the so-called allochtonen) with the number of foreign-born. Mercer Human Resource Consulting Worldwide Quality of Living Survey 2008. http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1307990, accessed 25 February 2009. Go to http://www.iamsterdam.nl/. Contrary to, for example the Unites States, the term ‘assimilation’ has never become the buzzword to describe the process of immigrant incorporation, though many are actually seeking ‘assimilation’, i.e. the disappearance of ethnic differences (Rath 2000; Alba & Nee 2003). See Elsevier, 26 March 2008. This figure is based on the so-called Geschiedenismonitor, a survey by the Historisch Nieuwsblad, Andere Tijden, and de Volkskrant. As such, it continues a research path initiated by Hoving et al. (2005) in their collection of essays exploring how migrants have changed Dutch culture in daily life in the period 1950-2000.

References Abu Lughod, J.L. (2000), New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. America’s global cities. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Alba, R. & V. Nee (2003), Remaking the American mainstream. Assimilation and contemporary immigration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Benton-Short, L., M.D. Price & S. Friedman (2005), ‘Globalization from below. The ranking of global immigrant cities’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 (4): 945-959. Brandellero, A. & R. Kloosterman (2007), ‘Creatieve migranten? Een conceptuele analyse van de rol van migranten in de cultural industries’, Migrantenstudies, special issue on ‘Migrantenondernemerschap’ edited by R. Kloosterman, J. van der Leun & J. Rath, 23 (2): 115-130. Cross, M. (ed.) (1992), Ethnic minorities and industrial change in Europe and North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engelen, E. (2004), ‘Exploring rates of immigrant self employment across borders. The case for a comparative political economy of migration’, KOLOR, 4 (2): 61-74. Fainstein, S.S., I. Gordon & M. Harloe (eds.) (1992), Divided cities. New York and London in the contemporary world. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

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Hoving, Isabel, Hester Dibbits & Marlou Schrover (eds.) (2005), Cultuur en migratie in Nederland. Veranderingen van het alledaagse 1950-2000. The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers. Kloosterman, R.C. (1994), ‘Amsterdamned: the rise of unemployment in Amsterdam in the 1980s’, Urban Studies 31 (8): 1325-44. — (1996), ‘Mixed experiences: post-industrial transition and ethnic minorities on the Amsterdam labour market’, New Community 22 (4): 637-54. Kuijpers, E. & M. Prak (2004), ‘Gevestigden en buitenstaanders’, in W. Frijhoff & M. Prak (eds.), Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Centrum van de wereld 1578-1650, 189-240. Amsterdam: SUN. Lucassen, J. & R. Penninx (1997), Newcomers. Immigrants and their descendants in the Netherlands 1550-1995. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Miller, M.J. (1981), Foreign workers in Europe. An emerging political force. New York: Praeger. Mollenkopf, J.H. & M. Castells (1991), Dual city. Restructuring New York. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. O+S (2007), Amsterdam in cijfers 2007. Amsterdam: Gemeente Amsterdam, Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek. Prins, B. (2002), ‘The nerve to break taboos. New realism in the Dutch discourse on multiculturalism’, Journal of International Migration and Integration 3 (3-4): 363-380. Rath, J. (1983), ‘The enfranchisement of immigrants in practice. Turkish and Moroccan islands in the fairway of Dutch politics’, Netherlands Journal of Sociology 19 (2): 151-180. — (1997), ‘Das strenge Gesicht von Frau Antje. Die andere Seite des niederländischen Modells für die Integration ethnischer Minderheiten’, Neue Praxis 26 (6): 479-494. — (1999), ‘The Netherlands. A Dutch treat for anti-social families and immigrant ethnic minorities’, in M. Cole and G. Dale (eds.), The European Union and migrant labour, 147-170. Oxford: Berg Publishers. — (2000), ‘Editorial. Assimilation of immigrants in Amsterdam and New York. A case for international comparative study’, Netherlands’ Journal of Social Sciences, special issue on 'Immigrants and Assimilation', edited by Jan Rath, 36 (2): 117-175. — (ed.) (2001), Unraveling the rag trade. Immigrant entrepreneurship in seven world cities. Oxford/New York: Berg/University of New York Press. — (2007), Het Mooist van Mokum. Inaugural lecture for Professorship in Sociology, University of Amsterdam, 13 October 2006. Amsterdam: Vossiuspers UvA. Sassen, S. (1991), The global city. New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scott, A.J. (ed.) (2001), Global city-regions: trends, theory, policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Soja, E.W. (1996), ‘The stimulus of a little confusion. A contemporary comparison of Amsterdam and Los Angeles’, in E.W. Soja, Thirdspace: journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places, 280-320. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. — (2000), Postmetropolis: critical studies of cities and regions. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell.

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Swinkels, W. (2007), Denken in een tijd van sociale hypochondrie. Aanzet tot een theorie voorbij de maatschappij. Kampen: Klement. Wrench, J., A. Rea & N. Ouali (eds.) (1999), Migrants, ethnic minorities and the labour market. Integration and exclusion in Europe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press. Wolff, R. & R. Penninx (1993), De ontwikkeling van de positie van minderheden op de Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt 1979-1992. The Hague: SDU/DOP.

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2 Ethnic groups in Amsterdam’s public spaces Thaddeus Müller

Introduction This chapter addresses how mass immigration has transformed the use and meanings of public and semi-public spaces in Amsterdam. Public space can in principle be accessed by everyone and includes streets, parks and squares; semi-public space refers to privately owned places such as shops, cafes and swimming pools used by a large part of the population. There are significant differences between how public space is used in central business districts (the public realm) and residential neighbourhoods (the parochial realm). In the public realm people are strangers, and interactions tend to be fleeting and anonymous (Lofland 1998: 9). In contrast, people in the parochial realm know each other, at least to some extent. The parochial realm consists of ‘… the world of commonality among acquaintances and neighbours who are involved in interpersonal networks located within communities’ (Lofland 1998: 11). This chapter argues that the ethnic use of public space is influenced by differences between the public and parochial realms. Social control is low in the public realm, allowing people to use it as a ‘forum’ or ‘agora’ to explore new ways of expressing identity (Whyte 1988; Häusserman & Siebel 1988). In the parochial realm social control is high; people here follow (unwritten and ethnic) rules of behaviour which may foster ‘traditional’ ethnic identities or result in avoidance, antagonism and conflict between groups. How and when do migrants use public space as a ‘forum’? How and when do migrants use public space as an ethnic enclave? And how do these differ from traditional Dutch uses of public space? While these questions have been hotly debated in political circles and within society, they are difficult to answer: most official re23

cords and studies on public space do not include data on ethnicity, while ethnic studies seldom focus on the public realm. This study therefore explores a new field. The use of public space is heavily influenced by dominant norms and values for public behaviour. Codes of conduct change over time largely due to structural developments such as changes in the ethnic composition of populations and economic growth. The next section gives an overview of how the use of public space in Amsterdam has changed over the past six decades. The following sections then analyse how one migrant group, the Afro-Surinamese, have made use of the public realm and what an increasingly diverse population means for the use of the parochial realm in particular Amsterdam neighbourhoods.

Amsterdam public space 1945-2005 The Amsterdam public realm has become a place of consumption, leisure and self-expression over the sixty years since World War II (Brunt 1989). The post-war public realm was sombre, even provincial compared to other European capitals like Paris and Brussels. Most Amsterdam residents were poor, and going out was beyond their means. But a glimpse at the tourist guides of the late 1940s and early 1950s reveals that nightlife, though it did not dominate the public realm, was flourishing around the Leidseplein, Rembrandtplein and the Zeedijk (W.W. Guide 1949; Wallagh & Van Bennekom 1953). Economic growth characterized the period 1965-1975 and was reflected in the way Dutch youths began to make use of the public realm. In 1965 people in their twenties began to congregate at ‘happenings’ in the inner city’s Spui square – the beginning of the Provo movement. Youths dressed in white outfits, dancing and chanting and handing out raisins to passers-by, infuriated the police, whose intervention attracted so much attention that the weekly, initially small ‘happenings’ grew into large events. Hippies slept in public places including parks and squares in the city centre, while young, clean-shaven marines ‘cleaned’ the squares on their own initiative. These developments should be seen in the context of the ‘democratisation’ and ‘informalisation’ that washed over Amsterdam in the 1960s. Groups previously excluded from decision making – 24

the working class, youth and women – now claimed political power. At the same time ruling class mores were loosening and becoming more informal. This influenced the way people dressed and behaved in public places (Wouters 1990). While the consumption of drugs and alcohol in public invoked shame in the early 1950s, it became more acceptable in the 1960s. Such selfexpressions marked a definite change in the use of public space (Jansen van Galen 1983: 81-83). In the mid-1970s, the ‘frozen’ national economy plunged Amsterdam into economic crisis; the city became one of decay and anarchy. Unemployment was high and caused major social problems including drug abuse. In the midst of a severe housing shortage, many buildings were left decrepit and abandoned as the objects of speculation. This prompted a huge squatters’ movement to take control of at least 10,000 houses and to claim the public realm through demonstrations and riots (Werkman 1983: 114-119). The squatters’ movement added a new dimension to Amsterdam’s public life through its network of bars, restaurants, discos and galleries where one could eat and drink for almost wholesale prices. In the meantime, nightlife in the city was changing with the rise of discotheques. Dancing in flashy clothes to African-American pop music became the trend in Amsterdam nightlife. The Dutch economy slowly recovered in the mid-1980s and remained strong through the 1990s. Amsterdam turned into a hip, attractive place, and house prices skyrocketed accordingly. Old ‘no-go areas’ such as the Zeedijk – the territory of drug addicts, dealers and prostitutes in the early 1980s (Brouns 1993) – became friendly, touristy places. Increased wealth in the 1990s was also seen in the popularity of the grand cafés and expensive restaurants. Socio-economic developments also impacted the use of the parochial realm. Social contacts were already expanding beyond immediate neighbourhoods in the 1950s (Van Doorn 1970) due to economic growth and the rise of geographical and social mobility. In the new middle-class neighbourhoods on the city’s outskirts, social life revolved around nuclear families – this was very different from what had prevailed in working-class neighbourhoods in the city centre where the community was central to social life.

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The economic boom (1965-1975) changed the social character of many neighbourhoods. More people could now afford larger, more modern houses in newly built areas on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Their old homes, available and affordable, were often taken over by migrant families. In the period 1975-2005 this social transformation also took place in neighbourhoods built after World War II and further from the city centre, like Purmerend and Almere. Geographical and social mobility was loosening the old neighbourhood bonds.

Afro-Surinamese in the public realm: the 1950s and 1960s The case of Surinamese migrants shows how the use of public space is influenced by (ethnic) identity, socio-economic context and migration history. Below I describe how three groups of Surinamese migrants who arrived in different periods used public space. This section addresses Surinamese students and educated labourers who arrived before Suriname’s independence in 1975. Following sections will then focus on young black men from the lower-working class who arrived after 1975 and youth who were born in Suriname but who grew up in Amsterdam. Immigration from Suriname in the 1950s and 1960s was small in scale. Those who settled in Amsterdam were educated and mainly had middle-class backgrounds. Due to their colonial Dutch orientation, their use of the public realm hardly differed from that of the white locals. The public realm was for them a ‘forum’ to meet and mingle with Dutch people. As black people in public spaces were a rarity, they were treated differently and were approached based on their ‘exotic’ appearance. One migrant who arrived in the 1950s recalls: ‘We were welcome everywhere. People looked surprised when we entered a bar, but bought us a beer… We attracted a lot of attention’ (Leistra 1995: 22). This experience of (semi-) public space is also confirmed by Vermeulen (1984). Until the mass immigration of the 1970s, most Surinamese did not feel (structurally) discriminated against: ‘I got a very nice welcome here in 1947. One can actually say that one got discriminated in a positive way. […] Of course there were kids in the streets who called you Black Pete [the black helper of Dutch Santa Claus], but that was not bad. I had to laugh at that.’ 26

Although these interactions were generally not interpreted as grave and painful, these incidents clearly show how ‘blacks’ were positioned in the public realm. Blacks were regarded as ‘open people’ who were so little respected that they could be approached at will (see Goffman 1963). This deviates from the rules for proper interaction in the Dutch public realm, where ‘civil inattention’ requires that ‘one gives to another enough visual notice to demonstrate that one appreciates that the other is present… while at the next moment withdrawing one’s attention from him so as to express that he does not constitute a target of special curiosity or design’ (Goffman 1963: 84). It was the daily experience of Surinamese people that white Dutch people breached this rule (Tan 2000: 50). The mass immigration of lower-class Surinamese in the 1970s had an immediate effect on the treatment of middle-class Surinamese in the public realm. The reaction of white locals changed from interest in the ‘exotic’ into structural discrimination against all Surinamese including those middle-class migrants who had arrived earlier and were now assimilated in Dutch society (Essed 1984). This pushed them from the Amsterdam public realm into the parochial realm of Surinamese migrants (Vermeulen 1984: 49-53).

‘Wakamans’ in the 1970s and 1980s Young, lower-class Surinamese men used public space differently from middle-class Surinamese. The wakamans (which means ‘walking man’ in the Surinamese lingua franca Sranan Tongo and refers to men who wander and hustle) transplanted to Amsterdam an Afro male way of using public space from Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. The case of the wakamans shows how their use of Amsterdam public space was influenced by ethnicity, the character of public space (public or parochial) and socio-economic developments in the country of settlement. At their height, there were several hundred wakamans in Amsterdam, hustling and hanging around bars in the city centre and in neighbourhoods where many Surinamese lived such as the Pijp and the Bijlmer (Biervliet 1978: 220). In the city centre wakamans congregated around the Zeedijk. For centuries the Zeedijk had been the heart of the sailors’ district; it was now one of the focal 27

points of Amsterdam nightlife. Its public realm, internationally known as the ‘red light district’ and ‘Chinatown’, consisted of street life, prostitution, bars and clubs. Wakamans spoke their native language Sranan Tongo on the streets; their presentation of self in the public realm was a mixture of lower-class Afro-Surinamese and black masculine identity. The latter derived from African-American popular culture – especially the film genre ‘black movies’ – which was popular in the 1970s and portrayed a glamorous, conspicuous black male lifestyle emphasizing physical strength, flashy clothing, coolness, toughness and a macho attitude (Biervliet 1975: 198). Though the wakamans’ lifestyle and use of public space was largely transplanted from Suriname, the meaning of their behaviour changed in the context of Dutch society. In Paramaribo these men were part of a community; their hangouts were in the neighbourhood, the crossroads of city and household (BranaShute 1979: 21). Because of Paramaribo’s small size, public space had a parochial character. Shops were meeting places for wakamans of various ages and incomes, where they met friends, relatives and business relations. In contrast, wakamans in Amsterdam were confronted with an anonymous world where social control was minimal. The lack of social control in Amsterdam was furthered by the group’s homogeneity in age and income – they were no longer supervised by elder wakamans. Moreover, a thriving informal economy did not exist in Amsterdam, while in Paramaribo ‘hustling’ – from selling food to dealing in marijuana – was part of daily life. In Amsterdam hustling was illegal and took the form of dealing in hard drugs, pimping, robbing and burglary (Buiks 1983: 106; Van Gelder: 1990). This pushed the wakamans’ use of public space towards criminality. The differences between wakamans’ use of public space in Paramaribo and Amsterdam can also be understood against the broader background of social change. Wakamans took part in the cultural shift towards hedonism, individualism and tolerance of deviant behaviour in general, and the use of drugs in particular. Like the general public, wakamans used the city to express new morals. In the mid-1970s commercial heroin entered the inner city and transformed the wakamans’ use of the public realm. Dealing and using drugs now became prominent activities and turned the Zeedijk area into a no-go area. Groups of mainly Surinamese men hung around, dealing and using drugs in front of bars and 28

cafés carrying Surinamese names such as Wan Pipel (One People) (Leistra 1995:177). Local authorities reacted harshly to the wakamans’ use of (semi-) public space. Due to police intervention, most left for places outside the city centre including Amsterdam East and the Bijlmer. Initially, wakamans used the public realm (like the general public) as a forum – a place where one explored new identities, created new lifestyles and had new experiences. But during the economic recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s, their use of the public realm was overshadowed by conflict and police intervention. The public atmosphere of the Zeedijk area changed again when the economic boom of the 1990s attracted entrepreneurs to the city. While drug addicts – black and white – remained, they were no longer as prominent as in the 1980s.

Amsterdam nightlife in the 1980s and 1990s1 In the early 1980s Afro-Surinamese youths explored the public realm in groups which they themselves called ‘youth gangs’. These were influenced by the wakaman lifestyle, Dutch neighbourhood gangs, and gangs as portrayed in black movies. In these protective peer groups they frequented the Amsterdam public realm, especially city centre discotheques and the shopping area around the Nieuwendijk and the Kalverstraat (Sansone 1992: 158159). They soon became involved in conflicts with other youths in clubs and discos, and the ensuing police crackdown led to the emergence of a new subculture: the Rastafarians. The Rastafarians met in (semi-)public places such as record stores, youth clubs and concert halls like De Melkweg and Paradiso. Preferring a sober image, they rejected the black image focused on Western consumption culture and instead wore leather sandals, army boots, training suits, woollen hats and dreadlocks. Rasta culture became less prominent in Amsterdam after the mid-1980s. The Rastafarians increasingly got into fights with other youth groups; their favourite hangout, the record shops, became too commercial in their view. But they were unable to create new spaces where they felt at home. Rasta culture in Amsterdam further declined with the coming of disco. Afro-Surinamese youth now acquired status through flashy presentations and being good dancers. These Surinamese discos were oriented towards Dutch 29

society and labelled ‘Dutchified’ by the older generation (Van Niekerk & Vermeulen 1989: 143). Rap slowly replaced the disco scene in the late 1980s. Rap in the public realm mainly took place on the Leidseplein, a square in the heart of the city, with young Afro-Surinamese males dancing to music from their ghetto blasters. Although they were appreciated by passers-by, they were chased away by the police for disturbing the public order. But the dancers kept returning and eventually became an accepted phenomenon in the city centre; they were even hired to perform in well-known discotheques. Rap subsequently became one of the prominent youth cultures of the Netherlands, and remains popular among inner city youth of nonDutch ethnicity. The above examples have shown how diverse groups of Surinamese migrants have made use of public space; the timing of migration, the motive for migration, age, and the changing socioeconomic climate all affected their use of the public realm. The use of the city as a ‘forum’ – as a place to meet others, have new experiences and develop new identities – can be seen among all groups. Because of the fleeting and anonymous character of the public realm, many felt the freedom to explore new identities; young people in particular felt they could present themselves as they saw fit. But this freedom was relative. The above cases also show that the public realm is not a neutral place: it is a political space, shaped by existing social structures and the power dynamics that inform inter-ethnic relations. There were consequences for those who behaved in ways that were deemed unacceptable by Dutch society.

The parochial realm as an ethnic urban village Large-scale immigration since the 1970s has changed the use and meaning of public and semi-public spaces in many parts of Amsterdam. Over 40 per cent of inhabitants in some quarters of the city are now ethnically non-Dutch (O&S 2006). Some of these areas – especially those where one ethnic group is concentrated – form what Gans (1962) has termed an ethnic ‘urban village’. This section describes how the arrival of immigrants with strong ingroup ties have changed the parochial realm of many workingclass neighbourhoods and the social lives of their Dutch residents. 30

Tight ethnic networks and traditional social norms characterise these ethnic urban villages. Streets, parks and markets as well as semi-public spaces including restaurants, coffeehouses and shops are ethnic meeting places. This is the case in the west of Amsterdam (where many Turks and Moroccans live) and in the Bijlmer (with its concentration of Surinamese). A street in the Mercatorbuurt neighbourhood in Amsterdam West is a good example of the parochial realm functioning as an ethnic urban village. Here members of the Günal family live with many others who came from the same village in Turkey. Mrs. Günal explains: ‘This is a Turkish street. The Dutch are the foreigners here’ (Müller 1998: 57). The use of public space is influenced by culture and gender. Turks and Moroccans, for instance, make plentiful use of the city’s parks (Jókövi 2000; PBR 2000). One park in the north of the city in particular is used by Turkish women for lunch and picnics, where they have little contact with Dutch women (Van Liempt 2001). For many Turkish men, a visit to the coffeehouse where they meet fellow countrymen is part of the daily routine. Several studies have shown that at least 40 per cent of the Turkish male population visits coffeehouses (Brassé 1985: 140; Veraart 1987: 18). Insiders may experience the ethnic urban village as warm and intimate, or as stifling due to social control. Others, especially the traditional Dutch, tend to experience this transformation differently – as a loss of the social contact in (semi-)public spaces that typified life in the old neighbourhood. One middle-aged Dutch informant who has always lived in the Mercatorbuurt wished she had more contact with people on the street: ‘With the Egyptian neighbour we still have contact because he speaks Dutch quite well, but not the others. This part of the street has become foreign. That is a pity. One can’t rely on each other for help’ (Müller 1998: 67). Many Dutch inhabitants have left the neighbourhood; this is seen as a loss by both the Dutch who stayed as well as secondgeneration immigrants (Reijndorp 2004: 105). A young Turkish informant remembered the contact in the old days as friendly and warm: ‘Ten years ago, it was better, in those days many Dutch people lived here, who came to visit for a cup of coffee. But now there are many other types of people who are more on to themselves, such as Moroccans, Surinamese and Yugoslavs’ (Müller 1998: 74-75). 31

Dutch inhabitants see their neighbourhoods transform through migrants’ use of (semi-)public space. In their view, migrants characteristically put garbage out at the wrong time, hang around, sell on the streets and double park. As an older Dutch man explains: ‘On Saturdays, Jan van Galen Street is totally jammed with traffic. There they park double and talk with each other. Walking there with my neighbour in her wheelchair, we cannot cross the street’ (Müller 1998: 67). From a traditional Dutch perspective, the upkeep and cleaning of (semi-)public space form a way of differentiating oneself from others in status and way of life. Those who do not clean their pavement endanger the reputation of the neighbourhood. But despite complaints, racist behaviour between neighbours has hardly been reported in ethnographic studies on multicultural neighbourhoods. Intercultural friction between neighbours rarely becomes overtly racist (see Essed 1984) and generally involves complaints about disturbances by, for instance, children and loud music. In multicultural neighbourhoods such as the Mercatorbuurt, the traditional Dutch way of interacting with neighbours is no longer dominant. One is thus uncertain how to interact and how to deal with potential areas of conflict. In some Amsterdam neighbourhoods, residents have collectively tried to restore social order in public spaces by formulating ‘street etiquettes’, an initiative which has been supported by local councils. In the Spaarndammerbuurt in the west of the city, inhabitants have chosen ten ‘golden’ street rules focused on keeping the public space clean and safe and using it as a place for friendly social interactions (Müller 2004a). In addition to avoidance and conflict, public space in the parochial realm is used for friendly interaction; this, however, is understudied as the focus remains on problems such as ethnic segregation and conflict. People of migrant background and Dutch natives also use the parochial realm as a forum to meet people of other ethnicities. Positive interactions differ in form, meaning and emotional investment. In the beginning of mass immigration, it was quite common for Dutch residents to help new immigrants find their way in Dutch society. Dutch residents would help their ‘foreign’ neighbours in dealings with bureaucracy, filling out forms, reading letters in Dutch, explaining the school system, learning Dutch and so on. Within ten to fifteen years, however, most of these contacts had diminished as migrants no longer 32

needed the help of their Dutch neighbours. This had several reasons. First, help for migrant groups became institutionalized. Second, growing migrant populations created strong networks of mutual assistance. And finally, the second and third generation, born and raised in the Netherlands, assisted the first generation with their knowledge of the Dutch language and familiarity with Dutch society. Although ties between neighbours have diminished, others have been created. Especially children play an important role in the development of intercultural relations among neighbours. These include collective activities such as taking care of each other’s children and eating together (see Van Liempt 2001). Another motive for especially working-class Dutch to interact with their non-Dutch neighbours is the value placed on gezelligheid (cosiness). The complaints of an older Dutch informant about the lack of contact with his Dutch ‘posh’ middle-class neighbours in the Hoofdweg, a richer street in the Mercatorbuurt, are instructive. He fondly remembers the hospitality of his former Turkish neighbours: Where I used to live, at the Mercatorplein, it was way better. Standing on the small balcony one was chatting away with anybody. On the first floor we had Turkish neighbours and during a traditional Muslim celebration they knocked at our door and gave us different kinds of meat. Those things do not take place here (Müller 1998: 55).

It is not uncommon for these public or semi-public contacts to evolve into the private realm. An older Dutch couple in the Mercatorbuurt, for example, is visited regularly by their young Moroccan neighbour from the third floor. They help him do his paperwork and write postcards for his family in Arnhem, a city in the east of the Netherlands, because his Dutch handwriting is unclear. They also watch the soccer world championships and Ajax games together: ‘We think it is cosy… When he gets his lager I tell him: “You are naughty because you are not allowed to drink by Mohammed”. Then we laugh’ (Müller 1998: 50). For residents with migrant backgrounds who do not have strong networks within their own ethnic groups, such interactions are an important part of daily life.

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The situation of second-generation migrants, born and raised in the Netherlands, differs from that of their parents. Their language skills are better, so it is easier for them to establish contact with their Dutch neighbours. Though they share some of their parents’ positive norms towards neighbourly relations, there is a tendency towards individualism. Betwixt and between, they have no firm guidelines for intercultural contact and have to recreate their own forms of neighbourly relations that fit their needs and perceptions. An unconventional example is given by a second-generation Moroccan woman who says regular contact with her Dutch neighbour is vital. She is better able to express her emotions in Dutch to Dutch women than to Moroccans in Moroccan. She explains: ‘When I have a problem, from my heart, I speak Dutch, and visit my neighbour, a woman. Not my man, he only speaks Moroccan. I never tell other Moroccan women because they tell everything to each other’ (Van Liempt 2001: 80). For native Dutch as well, it seems easier to identify with second- and third-generation immigrants who are, in their eyes, ‘Dutchified’. The lack of a language barrier makes it easier to establish communication and contact. After 30 years the urban village has returned to many Amsterdam neighbourhoods. This urban village, however, has a different ethnic composition and is harder to relate to for many native Dutch residents. As their ‘traditional’ norms for interaction can no longer be taken for granted, it takes more effort and reflection to establish meaningful relations. Over the years their neighbourhood has transformed into a world of strangers. Yet the image of interethnic conflict and avoidance in the parochial realm – which is dominant in the media and even in most ethnographic studies – is only one side of the social reality of multicultural neighbourhoods. In these very same neighbourhoods, people from different ethnic groups (including the Dutch) greet each other, socialize on the street, treat each other with special dishes, exchange visits and help each other in different ways. The underlying common ground of these interactions seems to be a shared sense of civility; being good neighbours, cultivating contact and helping each other in times of need is, after all, valued across cultures. As an older Surinamese man from Amsterdam North states, neighbours need to greet and respect each other: ‘Greeting is peace’. He is eager to do things for the neighbour-

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hood though his health limits his activities: ‘One has to work together, one cannot break a stick alone’ (Müller 1998). The use of the parochial realm as an inter-ethnic meeting place remains an area of research that needs to be explored. Only then will we be able to grasp the form and meaning of these positive intercultural interactions and the circumstances in which they thrive. Relevant factors may include the size of cities, the ethnic composition of local populations, and the physical characteristics of neighbourhoods (including the quantity and quality of public space and housing) (Blokland 2009, Gijsberts & Dagevos 2005). Furthermore, comparative studies will be necessary to see how these factors influence the many uses and meanings of the parochial realm.

Conclusion As different cultures use public space in different ways, it is hardly surprising that Amsterdam’s public spaces have changed with mass migration. As public space, by definition, is shared by all, it changes for everyone. Just how the presence of migrants interacts with other factors to produce these changes, however, is less obvious. In popular (or rather populist) imagery, migrants are largely responsible for the new, often more negative ways in which the native population experiences public space. In analysing the relationship between migration and the use of public space in Amsterdam, this chapter has depicted a rather more nuanced picture. Many of the socio-economic trends that have changed the use of public space – above all growing mobility – have been present in Amsterdam for much longer than the migrant groups discussed in this chapter. While the common complaint of ‘loss of neighbourhood feeling’ has been readily identified with the presence of ‘foreigners’, the underlying processes have their roots elsewhere. Migrants from Turkey and Morocco, in fact, use the parochial realm in ways that are more compatible with those established in Amsterdam working-class neighbourhoods than Dutch newcomers to Amsterdam. The proximity of different ethnic groups has led not only to situations of disagreement and conflict, but also to cooperation and sociability. Because of their inter-ethnic character, interactions 35

cannot be taken for granted like before, but require reflection as well as exploration to overcome intercultural differences and misunderstandings. The discussion of how the Afro-Surinamese have used and shaped Amsterdam’s public spaces supports the conclusion that these uses are influenced by the local population’s views of the migrant group’s role and status in society. At the danger of oversimplifying a complex process, migrants’ use of public space is often influenced by different forms of discrimination. This discrimination can take subtle forms – simply treating migrants as ‘different’ or exotic often suffices – but it nevertheless structures the options migrants have to find and construct their ‘place’ in the city. Migrants’ use of public space is also affected by changes in the economic and cultural context. Economic downturns push vulnerable socio-economic groups to the margins and foster uses of public space that are then considered ‘deviant’. When the economic malaise of the 1980s coincided with the growing availability of heroine, it led to the association of migrants in public space with junkies in the Zeedijk area. The permissive environment of the 1970s was exploited by Dutch and migrant youths alike to explore new forms of cultural expression. Given their ‘black’ identity, Afro-Surinamese youths had other sources of inspiration than their ‘white’ Dutch counterparts; their presence in public space thus differed visibly. Nevertheless, both were manifestations of young people making their presence felt in the public realm, whose dominant norms they no longer identified with. I conclude by pointing to an under-studied field of research within both ethnic and public space studies: the ethnic use of the public realm. We require systematic ethnographic exploration of what I have elsewhere called the ‘warm city’: different connotations and uses of inner-city public space such as people watching, meeting, flirting, going out, being with friends and using the city as a flaneur (Müller 2002; Müller & Kors 2004; Wilk 2005). Within the literature on the parochial realm, attention to sociability and cooperation amongst different ethnic groups – inter-ethnic civility (see also Lee 2002; Müller 2004b; Galloway 2006; Hoepel 2006; Verstrate 2006) – is almost absent. Further exploration is necessary to understand the forms and meanings of these positive inter-

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cultural interactions and the circumstances under which they can flourish. For those who study public space, the focus on ethnicity shows that the city is used by ethnic groups in an archetypically urban way – as a forum, as a place to be confronted by other identities and to project one’s own. While most studies of public space relate the functions of the forum to the public realm, taking ethnicity into account shows that the parochial realm can also function as a forum. It will further be seen that public space – public or parochial – has a political, non-neutral character. Its use depends on the social context and relations of power between ethnic groups. For those interested in ethnic studies, the findings here suggest that the character of public space – parochial or public – plays a significant role in the search for new identities, ethnic or otherwise. Studies on the relationship between the use of the parochial realm and the public realm by different migrant groups are thus crucial in understanding the current processes of social integration.

Note 1.

This section makes extensive use of Sansone’s study of young Surinamese in Amsterdam (1992).

References Biervliet, W. (1975), ‘Werkloosheid van jonge Surinamers in grote steden van Nederland’, Jeugd en samenleving 5 (12): 911-24. — (1978), ‘The hustler culture of young unemployed Surinamers’, in H. Lamur & J. Speckmann (eds.), Adaption of migrants from the Caribbean in the European and American Metropolis, 191-201. Amsterdam/Leiden: Antropologisch Sociologisch Centrum & KITLV. Blokland, T. (2009), Oog voor elkaar. Veiligheidsbeleving en sociale controle in de grote stad. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Brana-Shute, Gary (1979), On the corner. Male social life in a Paramaribo Creole neighborhood. Assen: Van Gorcum. Brassé, P. (1985), Jonge migranten en hun vrije tijd. Het sport en vrijetijdsgedrag van jonge Turken en Marokkanen in Eindhoven en Dordrecht, Instituut voor sociale geografie, no.15. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. Brouns, Hans (1993) Zeedijk. De ‘dijk binnenste buiten’. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jan Mets.

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Brunt, Lodewijk (1989), Magie van de stad. Inaugurale rede Universiteit van Amsterdam. Meppel: Boom. Buiks, P.E.J. (1983), Surinaamse jongeren op de Kruiskade. Overleven in een etnische randgroep. Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus. Doorn, J.A.A. van (1955), ‘Wijk en stad. Reële integratiekaders?’, in S. Groenman & H. de Jager (eds.), Staalkaart der Nederlandse sociologie, 231-253. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1970. Essed, Philomena (1984), Alledaagse racisme. Baarn/The Hague: Ambo/Novib. Galloway, Moira (2006), Positieve geluiden uit een multiculturele wijk. Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar interculturele contacten in de Amsterdamse Kolenkitbuurt, MA thesis Social and Behavioural Sciences. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. Gans, Herbert J. (1962), The urban villagers. Group and class in the life of ItalianAmericans. New York: Free Press. Gelder, P. van (1990), ‘Het Surinaamse begrip “hosselen” ’, Migrantenstudies 6 (3): 31-43. Gijsberts, M. & J. Dagevos (2005), Uit elkaars buurt. De invloed van etnische concentratie op intgratie en beeldvorming. Den Haag: SCP. Goffman, Erving (1963), Behavior in public places. Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Häusserman, H. & W. Siebel (1988), Neue urbanität. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag. Hoepel, S. Mandy (2006), Een goede buur is geen goud maar Diamant waard! Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar buurtcontacten tussen autochtone bewoners en Marokkaanse bewoners in de Diamantbuurt in Amsterdam, MA thesis Social and Behavioural Sciences. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. Jansen van Galen, John (1983), ‘Paradiso’, in John Jansen van Galen, Evert Werkman & Maarten ’t Hart (eds.), Amsterdam. De jaren 70 foto’s, 81-89. Amsterdam: Tiebosch Uitgeversmaatschappij. Jókövi, E.M. (2000), Recreatie van Turken, Marokkanen en Surinamers in Rotterdam en Amsterdam. Een verkenning van het vrijetijdsgedrag en van de effecten van de etnische cultuur op de vrijetijdscultuur. Wageningen: Alterra Research Instituut voor de Groene Ruimte. Lee, Jennifer (2002), Civility in the city. Blacks, Jews, and Koreans in urban America. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. Leistra, Gerlof (1995), Parbo aan de Amstel. Surinamers in Nederland. Amsterdam/ Antwerp: Uitgeverij de Arbeiderspers. Liempt, Ilse van (2001), Ontmoetingen in de openbare ruimte. Een onderzoek naar het recreatiegedrag van Marokkaanse en Turkse vrouwen in een park in Amsterdam Noord, MA thesis Social Geography. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Lofland, Lyn H. (1998), The public realm: exploring the city’s quintessential social territory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Müller, Thaddeus (1998) ‘Je doet het voor je gevoel’. Een onderzoek naar buurtbetrokkenheid in Amsterdam. Haarlem: Architext. — (2002) De warme stad. Betrokkenheid bij het publieke domein, PhD thesis. Utrecht: Uitgeverij Jan van Arkel. — (2004a), ‘De staat van de straat. Regels voor de openbare ruimte in de Spaarndammerbuurt’, Agora 20 (4): 36-39. — (2004b), ‘Dagelijkse dialoog in de multiculturele wijk, een praatje op straat of op visite bij de buren’, in Wat leer je van het publieke debat en hoe effectief is de dialoog, 53-64. Rotterdam: RKS.

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Müller, T. & Fatima Kors (2004), ‘Psst en de reactie van Marokkaanse meiden’, Rooilijn (September): 349-353. Niekerk, Mies van & Hans Vermeulen (1989), ‘Ethnicity and leisure time: Surinamese girls in Amsterdam’, in J. Boissevan & J. Verrips (eds.), Dutch dilemmas. Anthropologists look at the Netherlands, 138-152. Assen/Maasstricht: Van Gorcum. O&S (2006) ‘Tabel 2.1.14. Bevolking naar stadelen en herkomstgroepering’, in Amsterdam in Cijfers. Amsterdam: Gemeente Amsterdam. Platform Buitenlanders Rijnmond (PBR) (2000), Natuurbeleving en recreatiegedrag van allochtone Rotterdammers. The Hague: Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij. Reijndorp, Arnold (2004), Stadswijk stedenbouw en dagelijks leven. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers. Sansone, Livio (1992), Schitteren in de schaduw. Overlevingsstrategieën, subcultuur en etniciteit van Creoolse jongeren uit de lagere klasse in Amsterdam 1981-1990. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Tan, Huberto (2000), Het Surinaamse Legioen, Surinaamse voetballers in de eredivisie. Schoorl: Uitgeverij Conserve. Veraart, Jan (1987), ‘Turkse koffiehuizen in Nederland’, Migrantenstudies 3 (3): 1527. Vermeulen, Hans (1984), Etnische groepen en grenzen. Surinamers, Chinezen en Turken. Weesp: Het wereldvenster. Verstrate, Lianne (2006), Eén wijk, vele gezichten. Een onderzoek naar interculturele contacten in de Nijmeegse wijk Willemskwartier, MA thesis Social and Behavioural Sciences. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. W.W. Guide, The (1949), Amsterdam the gateway to Europe. Amsterdam: The World’s Window. Wallagh, B. & Lood van Bennekom (1953), Amsterdam bij avond. Amsterdam: De Kern. Werkman, Evert (1983), ‘Kraker’, in John Jansen van Galen, Evert Werkman & Maarten ’t Hart (eds.), Amsterdam. De jaren 70 foto’s, 109-125. Amsterdam: Tiebosch Uitgeversmaatschappij Amsterdam. Whyte, William H. (1988), City. Rediscovering the center. New York: Doubleday. Wouters, Cas (1990), Van minnen en sterven. ‘Informalisering van omgangsvormen rond seks en dood’. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker.

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3 Eating out ‘ethnic’ in Amsterdam from the 1920s to the present Anneke H. van Otterloo

Introduction ‘People eat where they live, work and shop’. Thus wrote Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, in the introduction to one of the city’s restaurant guides, Iens Independent Index (2004). The abundance of restaurants in Amsterdam is a recent and remarkable phenomenon. Changes in urban life, the rise of affluence, the coming of immigrants, and the diminishing of class and other social boundaries are among the reasons for this revolution in Dutch eating habits. Admittedly, the Dutch never held culinary matters in high esteem though this differed between social classes and between city and country dwellers. Amsterdam had its hotels and cafés. Festive dinners at home, catered by butchers or bakers or prepared by servants, was an (upper) middle-class fashion before WWII. In contrast, eating out was already fashionable among the middle classes in nineteenth-century Brussels (Scholliers 1993: 71-73). But in the second half of the twentieth century, a new trend swept the city of Amsterdam and the Netherlands more generally: eating out, and more specifically, eating out ethnic. Ethnicity is ascribed to meal patterns, eating habits, and cuisines – by entrepreneurs, their clientele and culinary critics. However, ‘ethnic’ eating is a dynamic process whereby formerly exotic food can come to be experienced as indigenous. The phenomenon of outdoor ethnic eating is of course not restricted to Amsterdam and the Netherlands; it is a phenomenon of the modern industrial world (Warde 2000; Ram, Jones, Abbas & Sanghera 2002). Its rise in Amsterdam has to do with the coming together of several eco41

nomic and socio-cultural developments. In the following I trace these developments, concentrating on the rise of ‘ethnic’ restaurants in Amsterdam. The city may be seen as an innovator, an early adopter of eating habits that were to become more common in the Netherlands as a whole after the 1960s. This chapter focuses on the dynamic mutual influence between the arrival of foreign immigrants coming to live and work in Amsterdam and the city’s changing eating habits. The following sketch is based on research on Amsterdam and draws on national data as well. The first part addresses eating out in the city from the 1920s up until the 1960s. The second part covers the ensuing forty years (1960-2000) when increasing mobility led to the proliferation of ethnic restaurants. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion.

Eating out between the wars Restaurants in the interwar period were patronised by travellers, businessmen and the elite on special occasions. Extended meals were usual in upper-class hotel restaurants such as the Krasnapolsky and the Amstel Hotel. For the broader public, however, hot meals were mainly eaten at home. For Amsterdam’s middle- and lower-class families, this was not so much a choice as a necessity. Yet, in some respects, eating habits had been changing since the first decades of the twentieth century under the influence of big city life. Steam and electricity informed this development (Den Hartog 2003). Travellers, businessmen, students, shoppers and artists could now come to the city by train; the function of the city centre transformed accordingly as shops, offices, schools, museums and cinemas attracted their own clientele. With new activities in the city centre, new places to eat and drink sprang up. Restaurants in railway stations, tearooms, milk bars and lunchrooms targeted people on the move and were generally not equipped for hot multi-course meals laid on tables. In places like milk bars, the clientele was free to bring their own lunch; they became places where people from different classes could meet – a new phenomenon in Amsterdam. The new establishments offered simpler and cheaper types of catering than the upper- and middle-class restaurants. Visitors to the city centre could buy a drink and with it eat a small 42

(hot or cold) snack, or even lunch. Lunch was the first of the three main Dutch meals eaten out under the influence of city life. Savoury snacks were available in the many cafés offering alcoholic beverages. The patrons of Amsterdam’s nightlife in the 1920s could enjoy rolls, croquettes and salads at butchers, bakers, sandwich bars and early automats, to take away or to eat on the spot (Albert de la Bruhèze & Van Otterloo 2003: 322-325). In the 1930s, lunchrooms became cafeterias with tables to stand at, furnished with mirrors and shiny fittings. They were joined by immigrant vendors on the streets, selling Italian ice cream or Chinese peanut cookies (Bovenkerk, Eijken & Bovenkerk 1983; Rijkschroeff 1998: 49-51). In times of economic crisis, street food required little capital investment (Tinker 1987). Image 3.1 Vendor of peanut cookies in the 1930s

Source: Google Images 2005

43

Options for eating out in Amsterdam in the interwar period were varied and appealed to different clienteles based largely on social class. There were places to drink beer and gin, to have lunch, tea and cakes, a glass of milk, a roll, a croquette, a herring, an ice cream and other snacks. Catering was available in a range of upper- to lower-class locations. Eating out for hot meals, however, was too expensive for most citizens and visitors.

The first pre-war Chinese restaurants This short sketch of the Amsterdam catering scene and its clientele gives an impression of the opportunities the first Chinese restaurant entrepreneurs came across when trying their luck in the Amsterdam ‘restaurant’ field. Chinese immigrants had been working as stokers for Dutch shipping companies since 1911 when they were hired to replace Dutch seamen in a harbour strike. Like many others, they lost their jobs after the economic crisis of 1929. Many left the city, while those who remained tried to make a living by selling haberdashery or street food. Some were already running restaurants connected to boarding houses in the harbour districts, offering beds and serving meals to Chinese sailors on furlough. They now faced a shrinking clientele and tried to find new customers from among the urban population. Cheap restaurants offering hot meals did not exist and invited daring entrepreneurs. The Chinese presence was not unique to Amsterdam, extending to the harbour cities of Rotterdam, Liverpool and London. Some had saved money by selling peanut cookies and now tried to move into the new restaurant business. In this way, the limited demand for Chinese restaurant food in the Nieuwmarkt district did not remain restricted to a Chinese clientele. Early patrons included Chinese students from the Dutch East Indies, artists and bohemians, Dutch repatriates and the military from the colonies who appreciated the taste of Chinese cuisine (Rijkschroeff 1998: 59-63). The more daring among the Dutch spread the news to family and friends. Upon his acquaintance with the spring roll (loempia), a newspaperman wrote: ‘An enormous whitish croquette shaped as a large sausage roll, filled with dry vegetables. A large quantity of hot sambal and soya are meant to add smell and taste’ (Wieringa cited in Rijkschroeff 1998: 61). 44

The first ‘ethnic’ restaurants in the Netherlands were located exclusively in the big western cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. These cities provided opportunities for new Chinese restaurants, even during the economic crisis of the 1930s. Entrepreneurs did not need a lot of money to start, and what they had to offer was a new kind of eating experience. Some Chinese eating establishments in Amsterdam became famous: the Kong Hing on the Binnen Bantammerstraat and the distinguished Hong Kong on the Damrak – advertised as a ‘real culinary experience’ – where guests were served by liveried waiters (Rijkschroeff 1998: 62). The Second World War further influenced Dutch eating habits, which cannot be treated here.

Chinese restaurants and the post-war catering business The restaurant business had to recover after WWII. Many ingredients were unavailable or were rationed, a problem which also affected home kitchens (Montijn 1991: 103). The Hague at this time lost its monopoly on Indonesian restaurants. Some famous Chinese restaurants in Amsterdam rose again with more Indonesian food on the menu. The growing popularity of Chinese and Indonesian cuisine in Amsterdam was characterized by a significant merging of Chinese and Indonesian dishes offered in restaurants. Aiming at the expanding restaurant market, Chinese entrepreneurs named their establishments ‘Chinese-Indonesian’ instead of ‘Chinese’. Between 1945 and 1960, the number of Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam grew from none to nine, while that of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants rose from two to 44 (Van Otterloo 1986: 326). The remainder of the restaurants in Amsterdam served ‘Dutch’ meals, more or less influenced by French cuisine. These figures point to the modest beginnings of the restaurant sector in Amsterdam. The change was comprised of two trends: eating out in restaurants among the mass public and, as part of this, the fashion of eating out ethnic. In the first decades after WWII, these trends developed slowly as incomes remained small and economical eating habits remained resilient. A luxury item like meat, for instance, was scarce and expensive. Those who initially belonged to the restaurant clientele were probably non-resident foreigners, businessmen, visitors and high income groups.

45

As late as 1960, seventeen out of twenty Dutch reported never having eaten in a restaurant (Montijn 1991:105). Outdoor nibbles and snacks, however, had been part of Amsterdam’s city life since the 1920s, and the practice revived on a modest scale in the immediate post-war decades. Ice cream was popular, prepared industrially by the VAMI (Verenigde Amsterdamse Melkinrichtingen, United Amsterdam Milk Institutions) or traditionally by Italian street vendors. Broodje van Kootje at the Spui in the centre of the city sold liver and salted beef rolls, while croquettes came from Kwekkeboom’s Bakery. For a soft drink, a cold salad or a cup of hot soup, Heck’s Cafeteria on Rembrandt’s Square was the place to go (Montijn 1991: 102-104). The 1950s also witnessed a boom in new eateries called snack bars. Those equipped with jukeboxes were the most popular among the young clientele, called nozems (rowdies). The modest provisions to eat out in Amsterdam, based upon the pre-war development of the city centre, now received new impetus (De la Bruhèze & Van Otterloo 2003: 322-325). Table 3.1 shows the trends for eating out in the Netherlands from the 1950s to the 1980s. The different kinds of establishments required varied levels of capital, know-how and labour to succeed. Their status (as judged by connoisseurs), and the social status of their owners and clienteles also differed. Thus, there was a hierarchy among the types of establishments, though not exactly in the order shown below. Table 3.1 Number of registered food outlets, 1951-1981 1951 Restaurant

1956

1961

1966

1971

1976

1981

19

111

207

307

746

1570

2982

1168

1330

1905

2048

2027

2379

2898

Station restaurant

106

97

101

98

116

–

–

Cafeteria

105

102

145

226

362

502

515

Sandwich bar

104

79

62

50

68

74

–

Lunchroom

502

507

376

282

208

137

–

Automat

109

249

385

481

594

409

134

Patates-frites restaurant

580

408

145

76

43

17

–

Snack-bar

197

903

2219

2705

3261

3666

–

Traiteur

11

37

30

23

21

20

20

Pancake bakery

18

10

7

13

22

31

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

111

Cafe-Restaurant

Crêperie

Source: Catering Branch Annual Reports, in: Willem Jan Poolen, Snackbar of de dualiteit van het vet, MA thesis Sociology, University of Amsterdam 1993: 21-22.

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The figures for snack bars catch the eye: they rise steeply at the expense of lunchrooms, sandwich bars and, later on, automats. Snacks on the street became all the rage with the arrival of the patat – salty French fries from the southern part of the Netherlands and Belgium. It was a favourite from the beginning, just as liver and salt beef sandwiches had been decades earlier. In city centres and in other crowded places, entrepreneurs set up snack bars with adjacent automats. These eateries led to a new type of post-war eating out called eating from the wall. This rising snack culture was joined by another, competing mode of eating out: going Chinese. Hungry bellies could now be served at similarly modest prices with Chinese and Indonesian food served in restaurants, where guests were offered a full-plate hot meal consisting of several dishes. Quite a difference! Aunt Mia on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in the city centre was among the first to serve nasi and bami on plates in her living room for 60 cents. Her guests were students, artists and others with little money but a curious palate. Their tastes probably differed from those who ate only snacks. The Chinese-Indonesian eating places quickly gained a reputation in Amsterdam. Who were the entrepreneurs and clientele? The new practice of eating out in restaurants merging two Asian cuisines had to do with both foreign entrepreneurship and with the war’s aftermath: decolonization and repatriation of people from Indonesia, including former soldiers. Repatriates and immigrants accustomed to Dutch-Indonesian and Chinese kitchens (which had already partially fused in Indonesia) generated a new market for ‘Eastern’ foods, spices and ingredients. The newcomers wanted to cook their own meals in their new homes and as a rule did not eat in restaurants (Cottaar 2000: 270). The number of shops (tokos) in Amsterdam and other cities thus increased, alongside a new system of delivering prepared dishes or complete meals by rantang (containers for transporting food). This retail and catering business was dominated by female cooks. The demand for Chinese restaurant food rose as well. The promising market attracted a new group of Chinese from Hong Kong and, from the late 1970s, directly from the mainland. They came to Amsterdam over the years through ‘chain migration’, invited by their Chinese relatives or friends in the Dutch catering sector to help in the kitchen. The new immigrants first hoped to learn from 47

their compatriots, and then to open restaurants of their own. Established entrepreneurs also contracted Dutch-East Indian kokkies who worked alongside Chinese cooks and advertised their dishes and restaurants as ‘Chinese-Indonesian’, for instance Tai Ton in Amsterdam. The urban context was central to the above developments; a curious public looking for ‘something new’ provided a favourable climate for new fashions. Not being gourmets, most favoured large portions at low prices. Chinese-Indonesian eating establishments went further in fusing their cuisines by adapting dishes to local Dutch taste. As previously mentioned, the number of ChineseIndonesian restaurants in Amsterdam rose from 2 to 44 between 1945 and 1960; the corresponding nationwide figures were approximately 30 to 225 (Rijkschroeff 1998: 64-75). The imprecision arises from the probable inclusion of unidentified Chinese-Indonesian restaurants under the general heading ‘restaurant’ in Table 3.1, as well as the registration practices at the time of the Dutch catering organisation, Horeca Nederland. The Dutch now learnt to appreciate rijsttafel (an elaborate Indonesian meal consisting of many side dishes served with rice). Alongside restaurants, Chinese-Indonesian dishes diffused into Dutch culinary culture through recipes in magazines, cookbooks and snack bars. The popular women’s magazine Margriet had in 1950 already published advice for the preparation of ChineseIndonesian dishes and, a few years later, for canned bami (chow mein) and nasi (fried rice) (Salzman 1985: 15-16). Around the same time entrepreneurs in the snack business competing for the same ‘lower part’ of the catering market began taking advantage of the new Eastern ‘hype’ by offering loempia, sateh (skewered meat), nasi and chow mein balls in the city centre’s automats and snack bars. The taste for Chinese-Indonesian dishes spread; eating out in the small Chinese district in the Nieuwmarkt area of the old city centre came to appeal to a broader clientele. In the 1950s and 1960s, diners coming to the Binnen Bantammerstreet in the centre could choose between four Chinese-Indonesian restaurants. Hard-working Chinese entrepreneurs brought in their families and compatriots and became successful in the catering sector; their establishments soon spread throughout the country.

48

Chinese-Indonesian cuisine until the 1980s Most Chinese and Indonesian restaurants in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Rijkschroeff (1998: 72) shows that the growth in the number of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants between 1960 and 1993 was not spread equally across the country. The Netherlands’ most urbanized western provinces had the highest number from the beginning and kept their top positions following the spread of restaurants to the rest of the country (see Table 3.2). Table 3.2 Distribution of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands, 1960-1996 (percentages) Region in the Netherlands

1960

1970

1982

1993

1996

N=225

N=618

N=1,916

N=1,847

N=1,977

North

5%

5%

9%

9%

10%

East

13%

13%

16%

20%

19%

West

70%

63%

50%

46%

44%

South

12%

19%

25%

25%

27%

Source: adapted from Rijkschroeff 1998: 72

Table 3.3 Growth of restaurants in the Netherlands, 1960-1982 (absolute numbers and percentages) Sector

1960-1970 1960-1970 1970-1982 1970-1982 number

% growth

number

% growth

Chinese and Chinese-Indonesian restaurants

393

174

1.298

Remaining restaurants

540

32

1.825

210 81

All restaurants (Chimese-Indonesian included)

933

48

3.125

109

Source: adapted from Rijschroeff 1998: 87

The Dutch learnt to eat out while visiting Amsterdam’s city centre to shop, visit the cinema, and for special festive occasions. Low prices, big portions and adapted tastes helped the uninitiated (among the middle-aged or belonging to the lower classes) cross the threshold where the ‘early adopters’ led the way (Van Otterloo 1986: 329). Between 1960 and 1980 the percentage of Dutch who said they rarely or never ate in a restaurant dropped from 84 to 26 (Albert de la Bruhèze & Van Otterloo 2003: 318). The number of 49

restaurants serving other cuisines (‘Dutch’ as a rule) also increased over these decades and surpassed the Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in absolute terms. Chinese-Indonesian restaurants, as a percentage of the total, however, grew even faster (see Table 3.3). Figure 3.1 Private consumption in the Netherlands, 1925-1985

Source: Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek gemeente Amsterdam, 2005

Why did the Dutch change their eating habits from around 1960? Various reasons explain this transformation in favour of eating out. The introduction of the free Saturday in 1961 changed the spending of leisure time on weekends: travelling and shopping became popular, contributing to the prosperity of the catering business in Amsterdam and in other big cities. The market for prepared foods in the city centre profited from these developments, as did Chinese and Indonesian restaurants, snack bars and McDonalds restaurants from the United States. Other social and cultural developments – more women working outside the home, shrinking households, the growing number of divorces – fuelled the trend as well. But the major underlying factor was the rise of affluence and its corresponding way of life. Cars, televisions and new household appliances changed the lives of consumers in various ways, not least by increasing mobility and opportunities to travel abroad, and by broadening mental horizons. This led to a change in the cooking and eating habits of at least a part of the population. Curiosity for foreign food and unknown recipes

50

invited experimentation in the kitchen; parallel developments included greater spending on clothing, luxury food, restaurants, cafés and hotels (see Figure 3.1). The aggregated figures above do not differentiate between types of restaurants and other eating places. It may be assumed, however, that both ‘eating from the wall’ and ‘going Chinese’ commanded large shares of the total. Changes did not occur at the same pace everywhere in the country. We can further assume that Amsterdam and the other big cities were among the early adopters of these new habits as domestic and overseas travel and recreation acquired prominence in urbanites’ spending of money and leisure time.

Waves of immigrants, waves of cuisine Foreign restaurant entrepreneurship blossomed in Amsterdam in the 1960s and 1970s and then spread more slowly to the rest of the country. This owed much to Chinese initiatives in the past, as well as to colonialism’s aftermath in Indonesia. The influx of Chinese to Amsterdam continued as relatives of restaurant owners came as help or as entrepreneurs in their own right. Other newcomers also appeared at about the same time to fill shortages in the Dutch labour market. Initially, immigrants from Mediterranean countries (see Chapter 1) had nothing to do with ethnic restaurants, though this changed over time. The intention of the Dutch government and the Mediterranean immigrants alike was that they would return to their countries of origin after working for some years in the Netherlands. Widespread ‘return’, however, never happened. Rather, the Dutch government began its policy of ‘family-reunion’ in the mid-1970s, allowing migrant workers to stay and to bring their wives and children to the Netherlands. The migrant population in Amsterdam and in other big Dutch cities increased rapidly. The new wave of Mediterranean immigrants kept their own eating habits, just as repatriates from Indonesia in the 1940s and 1950s had done before. Conservatism in eating habits is a characteristic of immigrants and locals alike; culinary culture transforms slowly (Gabaccia 1998: 8-9). For lack of basic materials, Italians at first made do with Chinese restaurant food. In the long run they succeeded in creating wholesale and retail networks for the ingre51

dients (herbs, vegetables, cheeses, yogurts, olives, olive oil, nuts, wines) necessary to prepare their meals at home. Some opened shops near markets to supply their compatriots (availability of market stall places was restricted). Others opened restaurants to attract a wider urban clientele. In 1965, eight Italian restaurants were to be found in Amsterdam, while Utrecht had two or three (Van Otterloo 1986: 328). Italian pizzerias and Greek restaurants also came into vogue in Amsterdam, alongside a few Spanish eating places and a single ‘Yugoslavian’ restaurant on the Singel. These new eateries added to the few non-Chinese-Indonesian restaurants present in Amsterdam in the early 1960s (Montijn 1991: 104-105). The Mediterranean establishments were not equally distributed over migrants’ countries of origin. Nor did entrepreneurs’ ethnic origin always match the cuisine they sold. Italian establishments were by far the most common in 1975, followed by a handful of ‘Balkan’, Spanish, Greek and Turkish restaurants; Moroccan restaurants were absent (Dienst Onderzoek & Statistiek 2005). This means there is no automatic connection between the arrival of immigrants and the opening of ethnic eating places. Many other factors influence opportunities and success (Kloosterman & Van der Leun 1998: 117-120; Rekers 1998: 102-106), including the tastes of prospective guests and entrepreneurial skill to maintain restaurants within competitive environments. Wise entrepreneurs adapt their dishes to Dutch tastes. Garlic and other condiments were initially experienced as strange and inedible, though tastes eventually changed, sometimes surprisingly fast. The Amsterdam snack scene, for instance, was suddenly visited in the early 1970s by the Israeli-Egyptian shoarma. Shoarma snack bars later added falafel and kebab to their menus and flourished in the city’s prepared snack and takeaway sector. This sector had prospered in the city centre since the 1920s, and had since the 1950s integrated flavours from the Far East into its range of products. Now Egyptian immigrants seized the opportunity to introduce new dishes from the Middle East (Choenni 1997: 72-79). The most numerous eating places in the ‘Mediterranean’ category were the pizzerias, which soon adopted the ‘quick and easy’ trend within Dutch culinary culture. They did so with takeaway ‘Dutch-Italian’ pizzas, even delivering them to people’s homes using young motorized ‘pizza couriers’. The growing taste for Italian dishes in the Netherlands had a precedent. Italian food, though less famous than the French, already had a reputation be52

fore WWII. Familiarity with both cuisines had long been restricted to elite groups, but as Dutch eating habits transformed after the 1960s, Italian and adapted-Italian home cooking gained in popularity. In the decade and a half between 1978 and 1994, the consumption of pasta products in the Netherlands increased fourfold (Berendsen 1997: 26-27). Italian pasta was eaten frequently (twice a week) by young (under 44) double-income couples with or without children. As their dishes grew famous among the wider public, pizzerias became meeting places for people from different social classes (also because of their relatively low prices). Between 1975 and 1993, the number of Italian restaurants and pizzerias in Amsterdam increased from about 20 to 125, approaching the number of Chinese-Indonesian restaurants (Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek 2005).

Eating out ‘ethnic’ and globalisation After 1975 the developments sketched thus far consolidated, quickened, expanded and diversified, involving successive waves of immigrants (at first mainly from the former colony Suriname, see Chapter 1 in this volume), and the blurring of boundaries between people and dishes. These processes accelerated upon the arrival of women and children. The arrival of the new groups did not lead to a sudden explosion of Surinamese, Moroccan or Turkish eating places in Amsterdam (Montijn 1991: 111). Their arrival, however, meant that there were many new tastes to be satisfied, which became apparent in the vegetable, fruit and fish stalls of day markets like the Ten Kate and the Albert Cuyp in the old working-class neighbourhoods of Amsterdam (Van der Weg & Douwes 2005). Islamic butcher shops appeared in districts where many Moroccan and Turkish people lived. These outlets did not stick to their ‘own kind’; they attracted younger neighbours and visitors adventurous enough to shop and try the new foods (Hogeboom & Van der Molen 2004).

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Image 3.2 Atlas Islamic Butcher, Javastraat 56, Amsterdam

Source: www.Javastraat.nl

The catering scene in Amsterdam changed again in the 1980s. Fast food became even more popular, with new eating habits arriving from the United States and pervading the ways of established and immigrant inhabitants alike. The breakthrough of McDonalds in the 1980s took about two decades (Albert de la Bruhèze & Van Otterloo 2003: 327), and its success shook both the snack and ethnic food sectors. The new ‘family restaurant’ – cheap, accessible and tasty – appeared as a fearsome competitor, and competition as well as market saturation caused stagnation in the ‘established’ Chinese-Indonesian food sector (Rijkschroeff 1998: 81-82). The number of Greek restaurants in Amsterdam rose from 2 to 15 between 1975 and 1985 (Van Otterloo 1986: 336). Mexican restaurants and Argentine grills like Los Gauchos represented the LatinAmerican continent in the gamut of Amsterdam eateries as meat and spicy titbits secured a clientele looking for a change (Montijn 1991: 111-112). Eating out had become a favourite activity when being in the city – ‘ethnic’ flavours contributed to the experience of seeing and being seen at the right place. The democratisation of eating out in places like Chinese-Indonesian restaurants and pizzerias notwithstanding, eating out re-

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mained luxury spending and thus sensitive to consumer affluence. Mainly highly educated people and double-income couples visited the 10,800 establishments registered as ‘restaurants’ nation-wide in 1994. The share of ‘Dutch’ (or ‘French’) kitchens slightly exceeded half of this number, meaning many other kitchens were successful as well (Horeca in Cijfers, cited in Rijkschroeff 1998: 70). An ‘ethnic-food-oriented’ clientele in search of new tastes and experiences grew more critical and demanding, while culinary habits became increasingly important within conspicuous lifestyles. Wine-drinking and foreign culinary cultures had been introduced by the large supermarket chain, Albert Heijn, which began offering ready-made products for the ‘ethnic’ kitchen at home. For some, ‘going ethnic’ remained prestigious only if it was ‘authentic’. Increasing mobility and globalisation were changing people and lives in the city centre, just like industrialisation and urbanisation had before. For tourists, colourful ethnic food in multi-culinary locations added to Amsterdam’s image as a global city (Rath 2002). Imitation, borrowing and moving across ethnic boundaries emerged as strategies within the ethnic restaurant sector. Identifying one’s restaurant with a faraway country or part of the world did well, even if the entrepreneur ethnically had nothing to do with the country. ‘Italian food’ now also came from the American chain Pizza Hut. In so far as immigrants were able to make a living from the ethnic eating business in Amsterdam, they often ‘borrowed’ kitchens. Turkish entrepreneurs opened Greek restaurants and Italian pizzerias, just as Chinese entrepreneurs had done with Indonesian dishes (Van Otterloo 1987: 137). Soon, too, many Mediterranean restaurants were present in Amsterdam and the other big cities, and diffusion into the country began again. For immigrants, the catering sector remained one of the most accessible to enter as a small entrepreneur; in 1989, 33 per cent of immigrant entrepreneurs in Amsterdam did so in the catering trade (De Feijter, Sterckx & Gier: 72-73). Turkish entrepreneurs in Amsterdam were especially well represented in the various foodrelated trades (Rekers 1998: 115-116). Since the early 1990s the Amsterdam catering industry has changed again: cafés and snack bars have been losing ground to restaurants. In 2004, restaurants in Amsterdam were classified into twelve types of cuisine (see Figure 3.2). The leading category was ‘international’, which in my view reflects the process of globa55

lisation and the blurring of ‘ethnic’ culinary boundaries described above. Notably, the ranking of Italian and Chinese restaurants has reversed since the early 1990s. Surinamese, Turkish and Moroccan cuisines appear to have firmly established themselves among the kaleidoscope of possibilities to eat out ethnic, while a wellknown food critic now devotes space to ‘Arabic-African’ restaurants in his gastronomic guide to Amsterdam (Van Dam 2001: 117-119). Despite the decline in status of Chinese restaurants, kitchens from the Far East – now Thai and Japanese – remain popular and represent a trend towards ‘“authentic” replication of dishes from a foreign cuisine’ (Warde 2000: 312-314). As more people become familiar with ethnic cuisines, we witness the growth of niche markets amidst other types of ethnic adaptation and hybridization. Figure 3.2 Restaurants by cuisine in Amsterdam, 1975-2004

Source: Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek gemeente Amsterdam, 2005

Concluding remarks The rise of eating out ethnic in Amsterdam involved the coming together of various actors (individuals and ethnic groups) and factors (demographic, economic and socio-cultural conditions) over time. This resulted in a novel and successively more interdepen-

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dent supply and demand structure consisting of a kaleidoscopic range of ethnic restaurant enterprises and a multifarious clientele. Amsterdam led in this development. The large-scale eating out of titbits and snacks had begun in the 1920s with changes in (night) life in the city centre. The tiny catering businesses then went through several phases of differentiation and streamlining, forming the social structure of opportunities and impediments Chinese entrepreneurs came across when they established the first ethnic restaurants before the Second World War. The new establishments were patronised by cultural elites with little money, foreign visitors and a variety of other non-resident groups. Post-war waves of immigrants then added to the increasing supply and demand for foreign foods and catering services. The two trends of eating out and eating out ‘ethnic’ became part and parcel of the diversification of culinary developments in the Netherlands which accelerated after the 1960s. With its many opportunities for employment, not least to fulfil the diverse tastes of its population, the city of Amsterdam became a magnet for immigrants and foods from around the world. Inhabitants became tourists in faraway countries while tourists from around the world came to the city. All three groups – immigrants, inhabitants and tourists – contributed to the rise of the phenomenon of eating out ethnic. Foreign visitors to Amsterdam now consider rijsttafel truly Dutch, while the culinary integration of ethnic food in Dutch eating habits is confirmed by the many loanwords of Chinese and Indonesian origin. The acceptance of dishes in catering and of words in the dictionary often went together: loempia (1954) and gado-gado and tjaptjoi (1968) date from the boom in Chinese-Indonesian restaurants. Loanwords from Italian, Spanish and Greek include pizza, tosti, tortilla, gazpacho and retsina in the 1960s, kebab in 1976, and baklava and tahin in 1992 (Van der Sijs, quoted in Kuiken, this volume). Shoarma as a snack and as a spice mixture for meat can be added to this list. While these foods and drinks may now have lost their ethnic character, they have not lost their ethnic origins – just like naturalized immigrants. Competition initiated various mechanisms of adaptation, blurring, shifting and fusion of cuisines and dishes. Over time, the ethnic eating out business became independent of its ethnic origins. Ethnic boundaries were crossed for commercial reasons, but also for reasons of taste; new distinctions were created by the 57

demand for ‘authentic’ food. International tourism became a dynamic force in the ethnic food business as well, continuing, expanding and accelerating existing developments. The city of Amsterdam became increasingly global in its supply and demand for restaurant food. Economic fluctuations, however, may still have disastrous consequences for the (ethnic) catering business, as was the case in the first years of the twenty-first century. But according to the most recent figures, the Amsterdam ethnic restaurant business is flourishing as never before. Yet it is less sure that the corresponding ethnic immigrants are the entrepreneurs behind it.

References Albert de la Bruhèze, A. & A.H. van Otterloo (2003), ‘Snacks and snack culture in the rise of eating out in the Netherlands in the twentieth century’, in M. Jacobs & P. Scholliers (eds.), Eating out in Europe. Picnics, gourmet dining, and snacks since the late eighteenth century, 317-337. Oxford, New York: Berg. Berendsen, M. (1997), Worden aardappeleters pasta-eters? Opkomst en acceptatie van macaroni, spaghette en andere pasta in het Nederlandse voedingspatroon in de loop van de twinigste eeuw, Master’s thesis Faculty of Social History. Rotterdam: Erasmus University. Bovenkerk, F., A. Eijken & W. Bovenkerk (1983), Italiaans ijs. De opmerkelijke historie van de Italiaanse ijsbereiders in Nederland. Meppel, Amsterdam: Boom. Choenni, A. (1997), Veelsoortig assortiment. Allochtoon ondernemerschap in Amsterdam als incorporatietraject 1965-1995. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Cottaar, A. (2000), ‘Een oosterse stad in het westen. Etnisch-culinaire pioniers in Den Haag’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 27 (1): 261-280. Dam, J. van (2001), Lekker Amsterdam. Gastronomische gids 2001-2002. Amsterdam: Bas Lubberhuizen. Dienst Onderzoek & Statistiek (2005), Horeca in Amsterdam: minder cafés, meer restaurants, Fact Sheet no 2. Gemeente Amsterdam, March. Feijter, H. de, L. Sterckx & E. de Gier (n.d.) Nieuw Amsterdams peil. Wonen, werken, leven in een multiculturele metropool. Amsterdam: Siswo. Gabaccia, D.R. (1998), We are what we eat. Ethnic food and the making of Americans. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Hartog, A. den (2003), ‘Technological innovations and eating out as a mass phenomenon in Europe. A Preamble’, in M. Jacobs & P. Scholliers (eds.), Eating out in Europe. Picnics, gourmet dining and snacks since the late eighteenth century, 263-299. Oxford, New York: Berg. Hogeboom, L. & J. van der Molen (2004), Islamitische slagerijen in Amsterdam. Een multicultureel tafereel. Amsterdam: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. Iens Independent Index (2004), Restaurants van Amsterdam en omstreken. Amsterdam: IENS Independent Index bv.

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Kloosterman, R. & J. van der Leun (1998), ‘Een dans om dezelfde stoelen? Stedelijke kansenstructuur en startende immigrantenondernemers in Amsterdam en Rotterdam’ in, J. Rath & R. Kloosterman (eds.), Rijp en Groen. Het zelfstandig ondernemerschap van immigranten in Nederland, 116-130. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Montijn, I. (1991), Aan tafel. Vijftig jaar eten in Nederland. Utrecht, Antwerp: Kosmos. Otterloo, A.H. van (1986), ‘Buitenlandse migranten en Nederlanders aan tafel tussen 1945 en 1985. Toenadering of distantie?’, Sociologisch Tijdschrift 13 (2): 317-349. — (1987), ‘Foreign immigrants and the Dutch at table 1945-1985. Bridging or widening the gap?’, The Netherlands Journal of Sociology 23 (2): 126-144. Ram, M., T. Jones, T. Abbas & B. Sanghera (2002), ‘Ethnic minority enterprise in its urban context: South Asian restaurants in Birmingham’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 26 (1): 24-40. Rath, J. (2002), ‘Immigrants and the tourist industry: the commodification of cultural resources’, paper prepared for the Research Committee Sociology of Migration RC31, sessions 10 and 11 on Immigrant Entrepreneurship, XVth World Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia, 7-13 July 2002. Rekers, A. (1998), ‘Migrantenondernemerschap anders bekeken. Locatie, spreiding en oriëntatie van Turkse ondernemers in Amsterdam en Rotterdam’, in J. Rath & R. Kloosterman (eds.), Rijp en groen. Het zelfstandig ondernemerschap van immigranten in Nederland, 101-115. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Rijkschroeff, B.R. (1998), Etnisch ondernemerschap. De Chinese horecasector in Nederland en in de Verenigde Staten van Amerika. Capelle a/d IJssel: Labyrint Publication. Salzman, C. (1985), ‘Margriet’s advies aan de Nederlandse huisvrouw. Continuïteit en veranderring in de culinaire geschiedenis van Nederland 1945-1975’, Volkskundig Bulletin 11 (1): 1-27. Scholliers, P. (1993), Arm en rijk aan tafel. Tweehonderd jaar eetcultuur in België. Breda: De Geus. Tinker, I. (1987), ‘Street foods. Testing assumptions about informal sector activity by women and men’, Current Sociology 35 (3): 81-110. Warde, A. (2000), ‘Eating globally. Cultural flows and the spread of ethnic restaurants’, in D. Kalb, M. van der Land, R. Staring & N. Wilterdink (eds.), The ends of globalization. Bringing society back in, 200-317. New York, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. Weg, M. van der & Douwes, M. (2005) 100 jaar Albert Cuypmarkt. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bas Lubberhuizen.

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4 Living Amsterdam: tangible homes behind Amsterdam’s facades Hilje van der Horst

Introduction With its many inhabitants with foreign backgrounds, the city of Amsterdam must share attachments with many other places. Turks and their descendants make up a large part of Amsterdam’s non-Dutch population, but for a long time Turkish guest workers considered the city a temporary place of residence; their home attachments remained in Turkey. But as their stay in the Netherlands grew longer and workers were joined by their families, home attachments increasingly came to be directed towards their adopted city. This article traces the development of Amsterdam into ‘home’ for Turkish migrants by focusing on their interior decorating practices. This chapter borrows from different disciplines. It begins with an analysis of the concept of home as used (mostly) in social psychology. While dominant scientific and lay discourse treats home as an individual state of mind, I argue that the study of home needs to take into account material practices beyond the realm of verbal discourse – as has been done in material culture studies. The chapter then approaches practices of home-making in Amsterdam historically, making use of writings in cultural history on the genesis of supposedly separate ‘private’ and ‘public’ spheres. Far from being confined within the private sphere, it will be seen that material practices of home-making focused on displaying status within the wider society. This social dimension of home will be further treated in the third and fourth sections, which focus on the Turkish presence in Amsterdam. Though Turkish immigrants at first did not invest in their houses in the Netherlands, they have 61

more recently become spaces for the display of social status. This process, I argue, is making houses – and Amsterdam – into home.

Home in narrative and in material practice Whereas the house is a physical structure, the home is charged with emotional meaning. The latter can relate to the house but also to more abstract entities such as family, or to fantasies of belonging more generally. The home is usually seen as a private space, and as lying within the individual imagination. A vast amount of scientific writing, mainly from the perspective of social psychology, on the ‘meaning of home’ has appeared in previous decades. The home is seen as a shelter, a place of identity formation (Perkins & Thorns 1999) or a safe haven (Kearns, Hiscock, Ellaway & Macintyre 2000; Sibley 2001). The consensus is that home is something desirable and necessary for individual fulfilment. For Turkish migrants and their descendants, houses and homes are not simply sources of individual fulfilment but of conflicting feelings. Some have several houses that embody different homelike attachments. A house in the Netherlands can be the ‘most familiar place’, while the house in Turkey may be the focal point of nostalgia. Within the current discourse of nation-states, home is connected with the ‘home’ country. Sometimes even the whole country or city is referred to as ‘home’ (see for example Sommerville 1997; Zukin 1998; Moore 2000; Fortier 2001; Lewin 2001; Miller 2001), leaving those who no longer feel at home in Turkey in a difficult position. Though the concept of home is partly based on a material place, its meaning is almost exclusively sought in the ideal realm. Authors in material culture studies, in contrast, have drawn attention to the materiality of home (see for example Miller 2001). The home is not just something of the mind, as is argued by social psychologists, but a space filled with objects that help make it home. This materiality is not a derivative of the home as a mental construct, but part and parcel of the construction of home. Do you identify as Turkish or Dutch? Which national soccer team do you support? Do you prefer Dutch or Turkish television? Many of my informants are regularly confronted by such questions, especially those who grew up in the Netherlands. Such 62

questions are problematic, as loyalties and feelings of belonging are often too complex and fluid to be narrated. Though my informants sometimes reflected on ‘feeling at home’ in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, I found these less revealing than their material practices of ‘home-making’. Focusing on material practices often gave more insight into the complexities of belonging. Çaglar (2002) and Gans (1994) among others have developed such a focus, and my research builds upon their work.

Home in Amsterdam between public and private The individualized understanding of home is a recent invention; current conceptions can be traced to the nineteenth century debate on civility and efforts to uplift the working class. Deben (1988) claims that the promotion of homeliness was a means to induce ‘decent’ behaviour among labourers. This was not unique to Amsterdam, nor to the rest of the urban Netherlands. Sennett (1990) describes how the strict separation of the private home and the public sphere was an invention of nineteenth and twentieth century Western civil society. The distinction grew into a moral belief, which the better-off tried to impose on the poor. ‘The more generous-minded felt it only proper to intervene in the lives of the poor to take them inside into a sheltered domesticity, where at last their lives would supposedly become more orderly. Orderly, therefore moral’ (Sennett 1990: 29). Life inside the house was associated with order, neatness and warmth. Life on the street was considered dirty, noisy and crowded. The civilization offensive thus promoted the privacy of home, though it considered legitimate intrusion into the private lives of urban workers. Even though nineteenth-century burghers were preoccupied with homeliness, the houses of the poor often gave little opportunity for such cosy connotations. In 1901, the year of the Dutch Housing Act, the Amsterdamschen Bestuurdersbond (Association of Amsterdam Administrators) commissioned research on the city’s slums. Hermans’s (1901) report depicted abominable living conditions among inner-city slum dwellers in a literary style still able to move readers. But Amsterdam’s slums were short lived, to be demolished or radically renovated. In addition, new neighbourhoods were built, for example Rivierenbuurt and Zuid in the south, and after World War Two, Westelijke Tuinsteden in the west. With 63

living standards rising in the city, furnishing one’s house changed from necessity to preference for a growing part of its population. The tastes of those from poorer backgrounds, however, did not always please the proponents of civilisation, who dismissed them as unpractical ‘fake chic’. Nor did newly furnished interiors always suggest family privacy. Working-class families favoured gold leaf and imitation antique furniture and frills, a style that came to be associated with the Jordaan neighbourhood in Amsterdam and the lavish tastes of its working-class population. Through such display, residents made their houses into showcases for what they aspired to be or had become. For an increasing number of Amsterdam residents, the house during the twentieth century became a display for status aspirations as well as a private space demarcated from the public sphere. While the scientific discourse on home has focused on privacy, display is at least as important. Imagining home is intertwined with imagining identity. The home is an imagined place – and in this imagination, individual aspirations matter. It is furthermore questionable whether home has ever been the intimate, private place it is claimed to be; even in the most private of family moments, the decor speaks of desired social position, thereby connecting the private with the public. The following section tests this argument against the home-making practices of Turkish migrants and their descendants in Amsterdam.

The multiple homes of Turkish migrants and their descendants Turkish migrants first came as temporary guest workers and then gradually became permanent citizens of Amsterdam. In addition to gains in economic and cultural capital (in Bourdieu’s terms, especially among the second generation), hopes and aspirations changed immensely over four decades. This section is based on research in the houses of Turkish migrants and their descendants in the Netherlands and in Turkey. The research in the Netherlands consisted of 50 interviews in 2004-2005, of which 45 took place in the informants’ houses. Initial contacts were made for example through Turkish women’s groups in community centres, while subsequent informants were found through snowballing. About one-third of the interviews 64

took place in Amsterdam, and this article draws heavily on them, though they yield similar results to interviews in other big cities. Urban location mattered: Turkish furniture shops exist in large numbers in Amsterdam and Rotterdam but not in the provincial town of Groningen; the commercial landscape clearly shapes home interiors. The majority of the house interviews (25) were with first-generation migrants: guest workers, re-united family members and individuals who had come to the Netherlands after marrying a Dutch-Turk. The second generation (twenty informants) included people born in Turkey but who grew up in the Netherlands. On the basis of occupation and education, about half could be classified as working class and the other half as middle class. The majority had Turkish backgrounds while some were Kurdish. The majority were Sunni, though certainly not all were practising Muslims. Respondents also included smaller groups of Alevis (nine) and Christians (five). In addition to my research in the Netherlands, over two months of fieldwork in 2005 were spent visiting 46 houses in central Turkey that belonged to (or were used by) Dutch-Turkish migrants and re-migrants. Many Turks in the Netherlands and in Amsterdam come from villages in central Anatolia (see also Den Exter 1993), sometimes after a ‘stop over’ in a bigger city. This was also the case with my informants. When the first guest workers came to the Netherlands, the length of their stay was rarely questioned. As recounted in a number of historic works on guest worker migration, they were hardly recognised as residents. Turkish men lived in collective housing facilities and pensions where they shared rooms with fellow guest workers. Such lodgings had little of the autonomy associated with home (see also Tuskan & Vogel 2004). When kitchens were made available in Camp Atatürk, the largest housing facility in Amsterdam, this was considered a great improvement (Ernst 2000). As their stay in the Netherlands grew longer and Turkey remained politically and economically unstable, guest workers were joined by their wives and children. Moving out of the pensions, they sought to establish their own households in city neighbourhoods amidst a tight housing market. With the former Dutch working class pursuing upward mobility in the smaller municipalities outside Amsterdam, migrants were left with those places least desired by the native Dutch. Families were often forced to 65

live together, and newly married couples often spent years living in their parents’ houses. Members of a Turkish women’s group in Amsterdam East recall there were no showers in their first houses.1 As even the simplest of houses in Turkish villages had places for personal washing, this was unimaginable to them. It underlined their weak position on the Amsterdam housing market. Though some informants reported borrowing money to furnish their houses nicely, more often they assembled cheap, secondhand furniture – befitting their temporary stay. Though secondhand furniture was considered undesirable, couches and coffee tables were welcome. Those who wished to climb the status ladder did not cling to Turkish vernacular interior design. ‘Western’-style furniture had already been associated with middle-class status in Turkey. One man who spent his childhood in Turkey and his teens in the Netherlands said about Turkey: The real city folk had a table, a dining table. You had those children, memurçocugu, children of civil servants, and there you saw that really clearly that they did have a dining table. In Turkey that was a higher class. If you were a civil servant, then you had a good life, a steady income.2

The man’s family came from a village but had moved to a small nearby city. They did not consider themselves real city folk, which was reflected in the decoration of their house in the village style. After a table entered the house (following the trend in Turkey, also enabled by remittances from the Netherlands), dinner continued to be served on the floor. The table testified to their modernity and urban status, but old practices remained. For a long time upward mobility was not so much aspired to in the Netherlands but in Turkey. Where possible, money was saved to buy a house, land, a tractor, a car or cattle. As luxury and consumer goods came within reach, mini vans loaded with items purchased in Amsterdam on summer trips to Turkey became legendary. A second-generation woman (she lives in The Hague) whom I interviewed in Turkey3 recalled how poor they used to be, not because there was no money but because her parents were saving for land and a house in Turkey. To economise, they never ate meat and brought dried beans from Turkey; from the age of fourteen she had to work and hand over her earnings to her father. While 66

she feels she was deprived as a child, she fears she and her husband, a first-generation migrant, are doing the same to their own children. To repay the loan for their house in Turkey, they have to sacrifice elsewhere: their children cannot wear the brand clothing they would like to, but have to settle for Turkish-made replicas. It is also significant that they rent their house in the Netherlands while they own their house in Turkey. Emine’s parents now live in Turkey half of the year. They consider the house in Turkey their home, though they had difficulty adjusting the first time they stayed there. Though Emine considers the house in Turkey a necessity, for her it is not home: in Turkey she says she feels like a fish out of water, a feeling which is reflected in her interior decorating. She plans to bring several expensive vases displayed in her Turkish apartment to the Netherlands, though the relative who gave them to her as a housewarming gift picked them especially to match the furniture. She likes the way the vases look, Emine told me. But now she can only appreciate them for six weeks every other year. Whereas their prettiness would in the past have been a reason for the first generation to keep them in Turkey, it is now a reason for Emine to bring them to the Netherlands. It is easy to be misled by the appearance of Emine’s Turkish house. Her apartment looks chic, and the furniture is new. She explains that furniture in Turkey is cheap; everything in the living room cost a thousand euros – a dining table with chairs, two glass cabinets, a dresser, two couches and two fauteuils. The house has hardly been used, and the furniture shows no wear; they bought the house six years ago and usually go there every other year. Emine says she cares little for decoration in Turkey. Everything was bought early on and has never been changed since. In the Netherlands she has many more decorative objects, which she rearranges often, showing her care for that house. In the process of caring for it, she also makes it her home. As was the case with Emine’s parents, a moral code of frugality evolved among first-generation migrants. To spend little was virtuous; unnecessary spending could ruin the dream of return. While this has changed, children of first-generation migrants still tell me they are scorned for wasting money. One double-income couple with their own suburban Amsterdam house recounted how they were looking for a table. The man’s parents suggested they had one to give them; the couple, however, was not looking for any 67

table, but one specifically to fit their decorated house. The anecdote was told with laughter, underlining the differences the man perceived between himself and his parents. Another informant said about his parents: It must have a function, it should not be a decorative piece. They say I need a dining table. So that is where I am going to eat. That’s it. It does not have to have a nice extra border or something… My parents really do not look at what is ‘in’. We really chose the colour of the laminate. If we have laminate in the colour so and so, we choose cherry wood furniture. That gives a nice contrast. Then you see that it is different… They look for what is cheapest. It changes really slowly. But [ for them] it is purely about functionality.4

The first generation’s idealization of frugality changed with their views on returning to Turkey. While some returned (even if only for half the year), others came to consider the Netherlands their permanent place of residence. This came to be reflected in the furnishing of their Amsterdam houses: second-hand items were thrown out or given to new arrivals in favour of new acquisitions. While informants often explained the change by referring to circumstances (improved finances, moving to a new house), in the background was the more basic change in attitude towards investing in home in the Netherlands.

Displaying status A style popular among first-generation Turkish migrants shows this desire to invest in the Netherlands through the suggestion of wealth. The style consists of corner couches, often in pastel and made of imitation leather, glass cabinets and high-gloss material. The glass cabinet is the centre of display, often containing a wellorchestrated selection of statues, glassware, crystal and needlework doilies (dantel). Cabinets also often contain presents such as henna or candy in wrappings given to guests at weddings, displaying (as Roukens suggests) the family’s social capital.5 The style is considered by many to be stereotypically Turkish; especially children of migrants describe (and distance themselves from) it when asked about typical Turkish interiors. The style is also the one mostly catered to by Turkish furniture and import-export stores. 68

The fiskos masası, a small round table with a table cloth in the corner of the room (also fashionable among Dutch families) has entered many houses, as has the dresser, an item previously associated with the bedroom. Interestingly, elements of this style are found among Dutch families with low cultural capital (again in Bourdieu’s terms), suggesting that ethnic background cannot be seen in isolation (see also Dibbits 2005). Home is constructed not only through links between the house and the identity of its dwellers, but by practices of display – by making it a space for the portrayal and realization of social aspirations. Turkish migrants are increasingly integrating this showcase function into their Amsterdam apartments. The emergence of Turkish furniture stores in several Amsterdam neighbourhoods is evidence of this new desire to spend money on furnishings and decoration, as is the fact that Turks are now the ethnic group in the Netherlands spending the most on articles for furnishing and interior design (Nibud 2004). This affects families unable to create impressive displays. One Amsterdam family did not own a house in Turkey; nor could they decorate their house in Amsterdam according to their wishes.6 Their house was a source of embarrassment: material evidence of unfulfilled dreams. They distanced themselves from it and stressed that if I wished to learn about them, their house was a bad place to start, the result of limited possibilities rather than personal choice. For example, there was no cupboard. On my asking, they explained that their old cupboard had collapsed, and circumstances had not allowed them to buy a new one. Their inability to turn their house into a public space for display adversely affected their feelings of being at home. While displaying status and making their houses into homes, people strive for status and follow strategies of display within specific groups. As Bourdieu (1979) has argued, taste is intrinsically related to one’s class position in society – more specifically, to a combination of one’s economic and cultural capital. Taste is in part the result of a set of dispositions created by upbringing and education. Tradition is often seen as belonging to the realm of the pre-reflexive habitus. For my more highly educated (often second-generation) informants, ‘tradition’ was a consciously chosen style. The difference between generations becomes clear in the following interview. The woman was born in Turkey and moved in her teens 69

with her parents to Amsterdam, where she completed her higher education. She says of the copper objects in her family’s house: I like old things, not fake old, that have really been used. I bought them at the market, at the copper market. I had them polished, but I want to do something with them, lots more, but it is too small here. My parents say ‘are you going back in time?’ But they bring back memories. If people say ‘hey that’s fun that copper’ they say ‘Yeah we really used that in the past’. In that way they like it. But if I buy it, or bring it back home, they say, ‘Huh, why not something from now, why do you have to take something from the past, something used?’ Still they bring back memories. They do like it.7

The objects favoured by this woman and by educated children of Turkish immigrants more generally such as kelims, water pipes, copper items, Iznik earthenware and old quotidian objects are also found in Turkish tourist stores. They are souvenirs of an idealized and exotic place, like the souvenirs that native Dutch youths collect from around the world to accessorize their Ikea interiors. Often these Turkish objects are juxtaposed with contemporary (often Ikea) furniture. Even though their houses may be full of Turkish objects, they do not consider them Turkish as this (in their eyes) refers to the style of their parents. The urban environment of Amsterdam is one in which people are continuously striving for identity by emphasizing what sets them apart from everyone else. This inevitably places individuals within groups that share the identity or taste. In this sense Turkish youths are not so different from others in Amsterdam. Home can refer to the home country or to fantasies of belonging as well as to physical houses. After abandoning their ideal of returning to Turkey, first-generation migrants ‘homed’ their Amsterdam apartments by bringing their status displays. The second generation considers Amsterdam a more or less permanent place of residence; their attachments to Turkey are abstract and imaginary. While the imaginary homeland is objectified within their Amsterdam apartments, the display, though related to their Turkish heritage, is for a mixed public. Turkey remains an imagined – and desired – homeland but more a dream than a concrete option. The Turkey that some want to go back to is not the Turkey where their parents came from. The term ‘re-migration’ does not fit here. 70

Conclusion My argument has been both theoretical and empirical. Home should be studied not only (or primarily) as a mental construct, but by looking at the material practices of home-making. Whereas the dominant lay and academic discourse considers home as something psychological and individual – confined within the private sphere – I have argued that orchestrating an image for the outside world is precisely what makes a house into a home. Historical analysis of home-making practices in Amsterdam (and the Netherlands) has shown that those able to do so have always focussed on the display of social status. Nevertheless, home in scientific scholarship has been defined in separation from society; by bringing onto the level of discourse a practice that largely takes place outside discourse, this scholarship has produced (or reproduced) a cliché that has only partial bearing on actual practices of home-making. The empirical question has been how this argument applies to Turkish migrants and their descendants in the Netherlands. At first feelings of home (and practices of status display) remained in Turkey. But as Amsterdam increasingly became home, practices of display moved to Amsterdam as well. Houses in Turkey often became vacation houses, filled with practical sofa beds and the like, while Amsterdam apartments gained new glass cabinets and other furniture and frills – to the extent that Turks have now become the biggest spenders on interior decoration. While feelings of home remain ambiguous, an analysis of material practices shows that Amsterdam is increasingly becoming home for these former guest workers and their children. Whereas former guest workers had other Turks as an audience and reference group, their educated children have grown up in Amsterdam’s more hybrid environment. Influenced by ideals constructed by house decoration stores, television shows and magazines, their modern interiors with Turkish elements allow for the conspicuous display of a Turkish background while sharing the style of other middle-class Amsterdam residents (they share similar aesthetic ideals, for example that of authenticity). The way the second generation displays Turkishness has greater relevance within Amsterdam’s mixed environment than within exclusively Turkish circles.

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Amsterdam streets have only changed slightly as a result of these changes in feelings of home. Turkish furniture stores are visible in neighbourhoods with many Turkish residents, their shop windows displaying furniture in the style favoured by their lower-class clientele. Partly through this visibility, this style has developed into the cliché image of Turkish decoration taste. The existence of these furniture stores has sometimes been interpreted as a rejection of Dutch mainstream taste, though this is hard to sustain on three counts. First, there isn’t just one ‘mainstream’ in Dutch decoration taste (Cieraad 2000). Second, the ‘Turkish’ style shares elements with the lower-class chic style that Cieraad describes. Finally, it is by investing in decoration of one’s own taste that migrants’ Amsterdam houses are made into homes. Much of this change takes place behind the walls and windows of individual houses. As Turkish migrants and their descendants often cover their windows with net curtains, passers-by on the street are unaware of the changes inside, and may misinterpret the meaning of the curtains. Some Dutch residents in The Hague, for example, perceived closed curtains as signs of non-involvement in the neighbourhood (Van der Horst & Messing 2006). Turkish families, however, consider window dressing decent; it has nothing to do with turning one’s back on the neighbourhood. Amsterdam is changing behind these curtains. The curtains may actually be wonderfully draped examples of current fashion within Turkish circles. They bear witness to the trend to invest in the decoration of houses in Amsterdam, a sharp contrast to the frugality that reigned in the first decades of labour migration. These curtains may just be helping to make that house – and Amsterdam – into home.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Group discussion, Amsterdam, 13 December 2004. Interview, Rotterdam, 9 August 2004. Interview, Aksaray, 4 and 6 July 2005. Interview, Rotterdam, 9 August 2004. Expert meeting, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam, 27 January 2005. Interview, Amsterdam, 24 December 2004. Interview, Amsterdam, 16 July 2004.

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References Bourdieu, Pierre (1979), Distinction, a social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge, 1984. Çaglar, Ayse Simsek (2002), ‘A table in two hands’, in Deniz Kandiyoti & Ayse Saktanber (eds.), Fragments of culture, the everyday of modern Turkey, 294-307. London: I.B. Taurus. Cieraad, Irene (2000), ‘De gestoffeerde illusie’, in Jaap Huisman, Irene Cieraad, Karin Gaillard & Rob van Engelsdorp Gastelaars (eds.), Honderd jaar wonen in Nederland 1900-2000. Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010. Deben, Leon (1988), Van onderkomen tot woning. Een studie over woonbeschaving in Nederland. 1850-1969. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam/ Sociologisch Instituut. Dibbits, Hester (2005), ‘Nieuw maar vertrouwd; migranteninterieurs en het samenspel tussen sociale klasse en etniciteit’, Sociologie 1 (2): 143-159. Ernst, Mila (2000), ‘Woonoord Ataturk in Noord’, Ons Amsterdam, February, 5459. Exter, Jan den (1993), ‘Regionale herkomst van Turken in Nederland’, Migrantenstudies 3: 18-34. Fortier, Anne-Marie (2001), ‘“Coming home”: queer migrations and multiple evocations of home’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 4 (4): 405-424. Gans, Herbert J. (1994), ‘Symbolic ethnicity and symbolic religiosity: towards a comparison of ethnic and religious acculturation’, Ethnic and racial studies 17 (4): 577-592. Hermans, L.M. (1901), Krotten en sloppen, een onderzoek naar de woningtoestand te Amsterdam, ingesteld in opdracht van den Amsterdamschen Bestuurdersbond. Amsterdam: S.L. van Looy. Horst, Hilje van der & Jantine Messing (2006), ‘It's not Dutch to close the curtains. Visual struggles on the threshold between the public and private realm in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in the Netherlands’, Home cultures 3 (1): 21-38. Kearns, Ade, Rosemary Hiscock, Anne Ellaway & Sally Macintyre (2000), ‘Beyond four walls. The psycho-social benefits of home: evidence from West Central Scotland’, Housing studies 15 (3): 387-410. Lewin, Fereshteh Ahmadi (2001), ‘The meaning of home among elderly immigrants: directions for future research and theoretical development’, Housing studies 16 (3): 353-370. Miller, Daniel (2001), Home possessions, material culture behind closed doors. Oxford, New York: Berg. Moore, Jeanne (2000), ‘Placing home in context’, Journal of environmental psychology 20 (3): 207-217. Nibud (2004), De inkomsten, uitgaven en het financieel beheer van allochtone huishoudens. Utrecht: Nibud. Perkins, Harvey C. & David C. Thorns (1999), ‘House and home and their interaction with changes in New Zealand’s urban system, household and family structures’, Housing theory and society 16 (3): 124-135. Sennett, Richard (1990), The conscience of the eye: the design and social life of cities. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Sibley, David (2001), ‘The binary city’, Urban studies 38 (2): 239-250. Sommerville, P. (1997), ‘The social construction of home’, Journal of architectural and planning research 14 (3): 226-245.

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Tuskan, Erhan & Jaap Vogel (2004), Lied uit den vreemde, Türküsü, brieven en foto's van Turkse migranten 1964-1975. Amsterdam: Aksant. Zukin, Sharon (1998), ‘How “bad” is it? Institutions and intentions in the study of the American ghetto’, International journal of urban and regional research 22 (3): 511-520.

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5 Housing and population: spatial mobility in twentieth-century Amsterdam Hans van Amersfoort & Cees Cortie †

Introduction While no population is static, urban populations are especially prone to the forces of concentration and dispersal that accompany broader changes in society and the economy. Amsterdam is no exception, and the interaction of population dynamics and housing stock – differentiated by price, quality and location – has produced specific residential patterns in the city and its environments. To set periods in a long-term historic process is always arbitrary and sometimes misleading. Fortunately, we have a date relevant to our subject that falls at the turn of the century. The use made of the Housing Act of 1901 by the municipality of Amsterdam led to the rise of social housing in the city. While the end of our century is more diffuse, we can safely say that the ideological shift towards private housing for the middle class over the last decades is ending the heyday of social housing in Amsterdam. Market forces will henceforth play a greater role. This chapter begins by describing the historical development of Amsterdam’s housing stock, the process of suburbanization, and the successive waves of immigrants who entered the city after 1950. These developments created Amsterdam’s ethnic mosaic as we know it today. The final section addresses the dynamics operating inside this urban mosaic, in particular the relation between residential patterns and the social mobility of ethnic groups.

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Planning for the people The often appalling living conditions of the late nineteenth century led to public concern and the Housing Act of 1901. Before the Housing Act enabled government intervention, building was a matter left to private enterprise. The old city (within the city walls) contained highly differentiated housing stock within which rich and poor lived in close proximity. Today, the great houses on the grachten (canals) remain fashionable for the well-to-do while the poor back alleys – which in the nineteenth century housed the labouring poor – are inhabited by students and the otherwise unattached ‘boheme’. Figure 5.1 Minimum income households per neighbourhood, compared to the municipal average (17.9%), 2007

Source: Gemeente Amsterdam Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek 2008

Population growth and rising prosperity made Amsterdam expand beyond its walls. New fashionable quarters arose in the south behind the Rijksmuseum and Concertgebouw and around the Vondelpark. At the same time, a girdle of hastily constructed, low-quality housing was built for the working population; sections of this nineteenth-century belt of substandard housing have more recently become zones of urban renewal. As reconstruction took 76

place within the social housing sector, these areas still occupy the lower end of the market, though the quality of housing has undoubtedly been improved. The current pattern of differentiation in housing stock according to quality and price thus dates from when building was primarily a matter of unrestricted private enterprise (Dignum 2003). Wintershoven (2000) describes demographic developments and the extension of the housing stock over the twentieth century. The Housing Act, which cleared the way for systematic planning, had a long-term impact on the city’s development. The Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan (AUP, General Extension Plan) of 1934 looked ahead to the year 2000 in its project to remake Amsterdam into a modern city (Van der Cammen & De Klerk 1993). With hindsight, many of the assumptions on which the AUP was based were incorrect: households became smaller than forecast, while international migration and the tremendous rise in wealth and its attendant use of space were not taken into account. But these postwar developments were impossible to foresee when the plan was designed. The Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan had two long-lasting effects that explain socio-spatial differentiation up to the present. Prestigious neighbourhoods arose in the south of the city to adjoin the existing axis of upper middle-class housing. Amstelveen, then a village on the outskirts of the city, became a well-to-do suburb after World War II. At the same time the construction of neighbourhoods for the working and lower middle classes spread beyond the nineteenth century belt of cheap housing. New neighbourhoods with higher-quality housing were built for families with modest but stable incomes. While economic conditions in the interbellum period were generally unfavourable, low building costs and interest rates for long-term loans encouraged a building boom. In the north of the city, separated from the old city centre by the waterway of the Ij, the construction of new working-class housing was influenced by the Garden City movement in England. The layout and low houses of this area gave it a village-like atmosphere. These neighbourhoods were highly appreciated and have remained a characteristic part of the city to this day. These developments came to a halt with the outbreak of World War II.

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The war’s aftermath (1945-1965) The country was impoverished after the war. The lack of building equipment and material was acute; the housing shortage and pressure on the market was so great that the government froze all rents. The rent freeze was meant to be temporary – but as is often the case with temporary measures – it proved difficult to end, and it took years before rents were brought into balance with the cost of building new houses or maintaining old ones. Under these circumstances, private investors (such as pension funds active in the interbellum period) withdrew from the market; governmentfinanced housing (woningwet-woningen) became the only kind of housing built. Houses built in the years after the war were generally of modest quality, reaching the quality of those built between 1920 and 1940 only after 1960. In the first decades after the war, most of the construction was in the city’s western outlying areas. Most units were flats in four-floor apartment blocks (later joined by flats in high-rise towers). Almost all had moderate rents. In the meantime, two trends emerged that would drive developments in the last decades of the century. First, rising prosperity from the early 1960s made more people aspire to be home owners. The city of Amsterdam, however, did not respond to this demand, as the left-wing majority (Labour Party, Communists) in the city council was ideologically committed to ‘building for the people’ and against ‘capitalism in the housing sector’. As late as 1993, only eleven per cent of the Amsterdam housing stock was owner-occupied. The second trend was the simple fact that space within the municipality was running out – Amsterdam had to build beyond its boundaries. Rising prosperity had also enhanced mobility: the private car was no longer a luxury. The consequence of these developments was rapid suburbanization.

The rise of suburbia (1965-1985) Rising prosperity and mobility caused further differentiation in the built area of the Amsterdam region. Suburbanization had already begun in attractive areas in the Gooi and along the dunes when they were connected to Amsterdam by rail at the end of the nineteenth century. This suburbanization, however, only affected 78

a handful among the upper classes. After 1965 the flight from the city grew massively. New houses in surrounding towns – especially in Uithoorn and later on in the ‘new towns’ (groeikernen) of Purmerend and Almere – attracted the lower middle class by offering decent quality for moderate rents. Figure 5.2 shows the flow of population in and out of Amsterdam over the last decades. Figure 5.2 Amsterdam: factors of population change

Many Dutch families with children moved out of the city: the lower-middle class to surrounding towns and communities with social housing, and more established middle-class families to single, owner-occupied dwellings. The rise of suburbia caused a dramatic decline in Amsterdam’s population. Inside the municipality the population dropped from more than 865,000 in the mid1960s to 675,000 in the mid-1980s. A large building programme on obsolete docklands and derelict industrial areas within the city has more recently reversed this population loss. Amsterdam now has about 740,000 inhabitants. Population growth in the last decades of the twentieth century has been due mainly to the arrival of immigrants. To understand social differentiation within the present urban population, we have to pay attention to the position of various immigrant groups in the city.

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Housing differentiation in the Amsterdam region The region surrounding Amsterdam contains residential environments that differ greatly from the city centre. According to an analysis of 1971 census data (Engelsdorp Gastelaars, Ostendorff & De Vos 1980), most of these municipalities were still rural, poor or stagnating countryside communities: Zeevang, Waterland, Wormerland, Landsmeer, Oostzaan, Ouder-Amstel, Aalsmeer, Beemster and Edam-Volendam. They still have a residential environment more akin to small towns or villages, though most residents work elsewhere in the service sector and no longer in agriculture or in local enterprises (Droogh, Buys & Cortie 1991). Figure 5.3 Regional Organ Amsterdam (ROA)

Source: www.afwc.nl/images/gemeentekaart.gif

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Within the regional area of Amsterdam (Regionaal Overleg Amsterdam, ROA),1 Amstelveen is the prototype of the private suburb. Its newer versions include the fast-growing Haarlemmermeer (containing Schiphol airport), Uithoorn and Diemen. As one of the oldest factory towns in the Netherlands, Zaanstad has areas for residence and employment, while Almere and Purmerend emerged as social housing suburbs in the 1970s. The latter offered few prospects for employment, though Almere is now successfully attracting more prosperous residents and businesses. Whereas the rental sector dominates the city proper, suburban housing tends to be owner-occupied. This divide between Amsterdam and its surrounding areas has grown wider over the last decades of the twentieth century. It is only over the last decade that Amsterdam has changed its policies to attract middle-class households. To accurately describe Amsterdam’s urban mosaic and the spatial careers of its residents, we have to consider differentiation within the city as well as in the larger ROA area. This area forms one housing market, and the factors underlying the dynamics of the residential patterns can only be understood in this broader geographical context.

Immigrants in Amsterdam The immigrant population in the Amsterdam region is highly heterogeneous according to nationality, country of birth or origin, duration of stay, educational attainments and other cultural characteristics. We have to distinguish between at least four different categories of immigrants: post-colonial immigrants; labour migrants from Mediterranean countries; expatriates or in-company immigrants; and international commuters. While the decolonisation of Indonesia brought an influx of immigrants from Indonesia to the Netherlands, migration flows from the West Indies, in particular from Suriname, have been much more important for Amsterdam (Van Amersfoort, 1987; Van Amersfoort & Van Niekerk, 2006). Small numbers of Surinamese middle-class people had already settled in Amsterdam before World War II, but the migration flow gathered momentum when in 1954 Surinamese and Antilleans became Dutch citizens. There are now about 70,000 first-

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and second-generation Surinamese living in Amsterdam, predominantly of the Creole ethnic group. A second important migration flow grew out of the recruitment of unskilled labour in the Mediterranean area, especially from Turkey and Morocco. These immigrants have filled the gaps in the labour and housing markets caused by the upward social mobility of the national population. For at least one generation we find these ‘replacement immigrants’ at the bottom of the social ladder. Expatriates are people who settle in a foreign country but remain dependent on an external agency – a foreign government or company – for their social position. The most notable and visible in this category are employees of Japanese companies with branches in the Amsterdam area. The category of international commuters presents a more complicated picture. Here we find people in the arts, sciences and professional sports – individuals who find their own way within an international labour market. They may already be established stars, such as members of the Ajax football team or the Concertgebouw Orchestra, or young talents still trying to find their way. Expatriates and international commuters in the Netherlands come mainly from industrialized Western nations, though both groups also have among them immigrants from non-industrialized countries.

Residential patterns Of the migration flows connected to political developments in the (former) colonies, the one from Suriname has had the greatest effect on the composition of the Amsterdam population. From less than one per cent in 1973, the Surinamese population has increased to about ten per cent today. The residential pattern of Surinamese has been researched repeatedly over the years (Van Amersfoort & Cortie 1973; Van Amersfoort & De Klerk 1987; Van Amersfoort 1992; Van Amersfoort & Cortie 1996; Van Amersfoort 2002). Areas of Surinamese concentration in the city are shown in Figure 5.5. Since the introduction of postcodes, residential patterns can be shown by postcode area, as is done here for the year 2000.

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Figure 5.4 Residence patterns of Surinamese in Amsterdam, 1973 and 1990

Source: Van Amersfoort 2002, p. 25

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Figure 5.5 Concentration of Surinamese in Amsterdam, 2000

Source: Van Amersfoort 2002, p. 29

The Surinamese are well represented in the somewhat better and relatively more expensive parts of the public housing sector. The most conspicuous concentration is in some high-rise flats in the new town of Amsterdam Southeast. These highly futuristic flats, unpopular among the Dutch population, were by sheer historical coincidence on the market just when the great pre-independence rush from Suriname began. The housing associations were happy to rent them to anyone willing to take them, and in this way a strong Surinamese concentration came into being. We have to point out, however, that the over-representation of Surinamese, or any other sub-population, does not mean they are also the dominant population of the area. Nor does it tell us which part of the sub-population is living inside these concentration areas. Of all Surinamese within the municipality of Amsterdam, only 12 per cent live in concentration areas (Deurloo et al., 2000). Surinamese have found homes in all parts of the city, but they are clearly over-represented in (upgrading) Amsterdam Southeast and underrepresented in the Centre and Amsterdam South. Of the migration flows connected to labour market developments in the latter half of the twentieth century, those from Turkey and Morocco have been most prominent. Early migration involved adult men who found rooms in pensions and poor-quality dwellings adjoining the harbours and industrial estates (Van Amersfoort & Cortie 1973; Cortie & Van Engelsdorp Gastelaars 1985). The Turkish and Moroccan populations in Amsterdam sub84

sequently grew through family reunification and the recruiting of brides and bridegrooms from home countries; this changed the demographic composition of these communities as well as their housing needs. Turks and Moroccans have relatively large households (by Dutch standards) and at the time were almost uniformly lower class. The houses they found were therefore at the lower end of the market. As Dutch families were moving to the suburbs just when family reunification was gaining momentum, migrants became replacement populations in the lower end of the private market and in the older woningwet-woningen (Van Amersfoort & De Klerk 1987; Van Amersfoort 1995; Van Amersfoort & Cortie 1996). The development of the Moroccan residential pattern is shown in Figure 5.6, where the difference with the Surinamese residential pattern is clear. The proportion of Moroccans who live in concentration areas (one out of three) is much higher than for the Surinamese who form a socially more heterogeneous population. (Deurloo, Musterd, Van Antwerpen, Slot & Fonville 2000). The residential patterns of the expatriates and international commuters are more difficult to describe as they are highly heterogeneous in terms of nationality and country of origin. Japanese expatriates are an exception: their residential pattern reflects their high status and relatively closed community structure. We find them along the prestigious axis to the South in the direction of the Schiphol-Amstelveen area. The distinction between Western and non-Western countries of origin is helpful only up to a point as expatriates and certainly international commuters come from all sorts of countries. Generally speaking, immigrants from industrialized nations are better off than immigrants from Third World countries; we therefore tend to find them living in more attractive neighbourhoods.

Amsterdam’s dynamic ethnic mosaic The settling of immigrants in Amsterdam is a relatively recent phenomenon. Residential patterns have changed accordingly over the past decades, partly as a result of their growing numbers, partly as a result of demographic change within populations. These changes can be understood in terms of interaction between the development of the housing stock and immigration. But be85

Figure 5.6 Residence patterns of Moroccans in Amsterdam, 1973 and 1990

Source: Van Amersfoort 2002, p. 26

fore we consider the influence of ethnicity on immigrant residential patterns, we want to point out that, whatever its importance, ethnicity is far from the only factor. More decisive is the simple factor of income (see Figure 5.1), while other factors relevant to all (such as composition of households) can’t be ignored. 86

Figure 5.7 Concentration of Moroccans in Amsterdam, 2000

Source: Van Amersfoort 2002, p. 29

To describe the dynamics of ethnic residential patterns, we have to rely on official statistics that often do not reveal exactly what we want to know. Statistics based on nationality may hide ethnic diversity within nationalities. Among people with Turkish passports, for instance, are an unknown number of Kurds and Armenians who do not consider themselves ethnic Turks. Nationality may also change in the course of generations and obscure the presence of a second generation that has acquired Dutch citizenship. For Surinamese, nationality is a totally useless indicator as nearly all are Dutch citizens. We encounter similar difficulties when we use country of birth as an indicator, either of the person himself or of his parents. Here we have the further problem of classifying persons whose parents are born in different countries. Dutch statistics classify persons as allochtoon (originating from another country) on the basis of country of birth and of the country of birth of at least one parent – a proxy for the more intricate concept of ethnicity. These considerations notwithstanding, we set out to describe below the city’s overall ethnic mosaic on the basis of the statistical definition of allochtoon. The previous paragraphs have sketched the impact of two processes – sub-urbanisation and immigration – on the size and ethnic composition of Amsterdam’s population. Over the last quarter of the twentieth century, these processes have substantially changed the ethnic composition of the population within the municipality of Amsterdam, as can be seen in Figure 5.8.

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Figure 5.8 Amsterdam population by origin, 1979-2004

Figure 5.9 Population by residential area (Amsterdam, 2000, %)

Figure 5.9 shows the distribution of immigrant groups and the native Dutch population in residential areas within the municipality of Amsterdam. People from industrialized nations are highly represented in the city centre and the city’s southern extensions. Native Dutch and immigrants from southern Europe are more dispersed, with the former well-represented in northern neighbourhoods and the latter in other parts of the city. Immigrants

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from Suriname, the Antilles and non-industrialized countries (other than Turkey and Morocco) are concentrated in Amsterdam Southeast. Income is the main factor that explains differentiation in residence patterns. This becomes clear when we compare the distribution of immigrant populations with the distribution of households according to wealth (Figure 5.1). The city centre and the city’s southern districts are the posh residential areas that attract immigrants who can be characterised as expatriates and successful international commuters. The second factor is timing of immigration and availability of affordable housing at that time. The development of ethnic residential patterns in Amsterdam – the dynamics within the mosaic – can only be fully understood when seen in the context of the greater Amsterdam area. Figure 5.10 shows the population distribution in different parts of the ROA area. We see at once that the central city is the main area of immigrant settlement. The detailed picture, however, is more complicated. Immigrants from industrialized nations are well-represented in the suburbs, while Surinamese are prominent in the new towns. Table 5.1 gives an idea of the absolute and relative numbers within the ROA and the neighbouring new town of Almere. Figure 5.10 Population by type of residential area (ROA, 2003, %)

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Table 5.1 Residents in ROA municipalities and Almere by birth country/birth country parent(s), 1 January 2006 per 1000 1-1-2003

non-Western

Western

migrants

migrants

Turkey

Morocco Suriname/

total Rest Total non-Dutch Dutch absolute

Dutch Antilles + Aruba Aalsmeer Almere

1

11

7

21

40

75

885

22839

13

26

112

65

216

97

687

165106 78095

Amstelveen

5

7

32

63

106

173

720

Beemster

1

0

4

13

18

60

922

8536

19

17

102

77

215

113

672

24046

Edam-Volendam

1

10

4

15

29

36

935

28063

Haarlemmermeer

8

13

30

39

90

98

811

122902

Landsmeer

2

1

15

20

37

74

888

10352

Oostzaan

7

3

11

18

38

58

904

9118

Ouder-Amstel

3

4

35

33

75

108

817

13054

Purmerend

9

11

54

50

125

88

786

74921

Uithoorn

3

17

13

34

67

99

834

26680 17150

Diemen

Waterland

1

3

6

14

24

69

907

Wormerland

10

2

10

18

39

63

898

15510

Zaanstad

69

9

32

35

145

85

770

139464

Zeevang

3

0

6

12

21

66

913

6324

ROA-A'dam

19

13

49

45

127

97

776

762160

Amsterdam

50

83

113

89

335

137

528

736562

These general snapshots bring us to the fundamental but intricate question of the importance of residential patterns for participation in society. So far we have described the urban mosaic as the consequence of social differentiation among segments of the urban population. We have described residential patterns of immigrant groups as resulting from the (social) capital they brought from their home countries, especially such things that determine entry into the labour market as literacy, school attainments and familiarity with the language of the host society. Residential differentiation was already explained in these terms in the early studies of immigrants in industrial cities, especially Chicago. The same indicators remain valid in today’s post-industrial cities (Burgess 1925: 56-57; Van der Erf & Tesser 2001). The approach, however, poses methodological problems when we turn

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to the analysis of change. To put it differently: what is the relationship between residential patterns and socio-economic mobility? These methodological issues have been addressed by scholars in the field (Peach 1975; Lieberson 1980: ch. 9; Peach, Robinson & Smith 1981; Jackson & Smith 1981; Peach 2003). Residential patterns are a group characteristic. They are constructs based on a comparison of the distribution of a subpopulation with the general population or another chosen subpopulation. This is the base of much-used measures such as the Index of Dissimilarity or Lee’s Location Quotient, which we also use in our mobility index.2 This approach, however, obscures the extent of individual social mobility inside and between groups, especially in situations of ongoing immigration. To understand processes of social mobility, other comparisons have to be made – for instance between the first and second generations of the same immigrant population. Another approach, however intricate, would be to study individual movements between social areas in the city over time. In the next section we venture to study the dynamics in the Amsterdam mosaic in this way.

Social mobility and residential distribution To study the relation between residential distribution and socioeconomic mobility, we need to be able to classify residents by ethnic origin and residential areas by their attractiveness or socio-economic status. For the latter, income per resident based on data published by the Internal Revenue Service serves as an indicator. Individuals rather than households are the units of analysis, on the grounds that the composition of households changes through migration. This is also part of the reason why the characteristics of households are not properly registered. Stage of life (to be discussed below) is approximated by age based on a much-used classification system to facilitate comparisons. We have identified three levels of attractiveness of neighbourhoods. The middle level comprises the ten per cent of incomes immediately above and below the average for all residents of the City of Amsterdam for that year. This makes it possible to study shifts in residence patterns in terms of moving into better or worse neighbourhoods. The attractiveness of neighbourhoods and municipalities can change as well, either upward through ur91

Figure 5.11 Attractiveness of residential areas

Source: Cortie 2003, p. 205

ban renewal and gentrification or downward through selective out-migration and under-investment. Departure from the city, provided it takes place within the city’s suburban area, should be regarded as an alternative to moving (upward) within the city. Moves outside the area are irrelevant for our research as they are usually motivated by employment opportunities rather than attractiveness of residential areas. The suburban area is therefore restricted to the area within (daily) commuting distance. First settlement generally reflects immigrants’ financial means and their knowledge of local housing markets (limited). New arrivals tend to settle in the vicinity of friends and relations and in areas where temporary lodging can be found. Over time (and cer-

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tainly over generations), social mobility can be expected to lead to distribution patterns different from that for the area of first settlement. Areas of first settlement according to attractiveness are shown in Figure 5.12; we see that the pattern has changed little since 1988. Figure 5.12 First settlement by attractiveness of residential area

The mobility index reflects the percentage points of a population group that would need to move to more (-) or less (+) attractive residential areas to attain the municipal average.

The direction of change over these years has been relatively unfavourable for immigrants from the Antilles and Suriname, while figures keep improving for new arrivals from industrialized nations and southern Europe. We assume the latter include many well-educated employees of multinationals temporarily stationed in Amsterdam. No signs of advancement are discernable among the native Dutch settling in Amsterdam; their income and stage of life place them low on the housing ladder. We assume many have come to Amsterdam to complete their educations before moving elsewhere. Understanding differences in mobility potential among arrivals thus requires factoring in stage of the life, which will be done later in this section. While the trend over the research period is hardly linear, it suggests the gap is growing between groups at the ‘bottom’ and those at the ‘top’. The gap is widening between arrivals from developed

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(southern Europe, industrialized nations, the Netherlands) and less-developed nations. Distribution patterns reflect ethnic background as well (see Figure 5.13). Residents from Suriname and the Antilles live in more attractive areas than those from Turkey and Morocco. Residents with southern European backgrounds live in less attractive areas than where new immigrants from these countries settle today. The explanation may be that present-day immigrants from these countries are better educated than immigrants from earlier migration flows. Figure 5.13 Population by attractiveness of residential area

Comparing the four measurement years suggests that differences between groups are increasing as residents from industrialized nations and Southern Europe improve their circumstances while those from the Netherlands do not. This may lead one to conclude that spatial differentiation is growing, perhaps even polarizing. Such a conclusion, however, would be premature as individual spatial mobility has not been factored in. Individual mobility is especially important for groups whose compositions are fluid due to the continuous arrival of new members. The process can be compared to a school where the steady arrival of foreign students stabilizes or even reduces the share of Dutch-speaking students

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(general pattern). The students already present, however, improve their command of the language during their school careers (individual process). Similarly, residential and employment mobility for individuals changes over time. Young adults living on their own for the first time generally live in less attractive neighbourhoods than their parents, negatively affecting the score of a population group with many young adults. Stage of life is therefore an important addition to the analysis so far. Figure 5.14 reviews spatial mobility over the four measurement years. The scores reflect the number of relocations to more attractive/less attractive residential environments – one point per progression. The total score is subsequently divided by the number of Amsterdam residents in the corresponding population (this procedure is based on the same principle as the one applied in calculating the foregoing figures and tables). Figure 5.14 Total mobility (per 1,000 residents)

Mobility among residents with a Turkish or Moroccan background remains below average, although some improvement is apparent for 2000. Surinamese and Antilleans consistently score above average; in 2000 they had the best mobility figures of all groups. Amsterdam residents from non-industrialized nations (except Turkey and Morocco) scored slightly below average, but better than residents with Turkish and Moroccan backgrounds. This supports our assumption that present-day migrants from less developed countries represent a positive selection.

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Spatial mobility does not directly reflect the socio-economic position of Amsterdam’s population groups. Upward social mobility is only relevant for groups which occupy the lower rungs on the social ladder. People from developed nations show hardly any mobility; their first homes are already in attractive residential environments. Upward mobility within the city of Amsterdam is not particularly high for any single year. For all groups, suburbanization is the leading factor underlying upward spatial mobility. Figure 5.15 shows that moving up in the social-spatial sense is tied to suburbanization. Restricting analysis to the municipality of Amsterdam would seriously underestimate social mobility among resident groups. Figure 5.15 Mobility through suburbanization (per 1,000 residents)

Initial settlement by attractiveness of residential environment is virtually identical among people from less developed countries. Surinamese and Antilleans, however, show much more social and spatial mobility than Turks and Moroccans, although their massive settlement in the Netherlands took place later. This difference can largely be attributed to factors such as knowledge of the Dutch language and familiarity with the Dutch school system. Among Amsterdam residents from developed countries, people from the industrialized nations are more likely to settle and live in attractive residential areas than people of Dutch origin. Unlike the Dutch, however, they hardly improve their residential environment through spatial mobility.

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Stage of life and social mobility To elucidate this last finding, we conclude this analysis by addressing the influence of stage of life on mobility. Material for this analysis is far from perfect as it only registers individual age; reliable information on household composition prior to and following the move is unavailable. Moreover, due to space constraints, we have only used data from one year: 2000. Figure 5.16 Amsterdam population by age in 2000 (%)

The differences in age distribution are substantial. Moroccan and Turkish populations have a much larger percentage of children and young adults of marriageable age than population groups from industrialized countries. Many thus do not have incomes. This in part explains the low average income and tendency to live in unattractive neighbourhoods. The native Dutch population is made up of few children, many senior citizens, and the same share of 25-34-year-olds as the Moroccan and Turkish populations. But in contrast to the immigrant groups, many in this Dutch age group live alone or with a partner. Amsterdam residents from industrialized countries consist largely of people in their thirties and forties without children; most have already advanced in their careers. Those settling at the ‘top end’ show major differences in stage of life, which in turn affects the attractiveness of the environment in which they live.

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Figure 5.17 illustrates the importance of stage of life on the mobility of four groups of Amsterdam residents. Differences notwithstanding, a pattern prevails: families with young children move to more attractive residential areas. This can be seen in the number of very young persons moving to the suburbs. Figure 5.17 Stage of life and mobility in 2000 (per 1,000 residents)

Especially among the native Dutch, families with children move to more attractive residential environments. The traditional mobility described for American urban areas also applies in the Amsterdam region. Surinamese follow the same suburbanization trajectory as the Dutch, while preliminary signs of this ‘modern’ spatial mobility are emerging among Moroccans as well. On the other hand, residents from developed countries – especially young residents in their twenties – register significant negative mobility. Established households in this section of the population generally live in the most attractive areas; the younger generation must often start at a lower level.

Conclusion This chapter has examined Amsterdam’s social mosaic and the dynamics operating within it. One of our starting points has been

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that selection operates in both countries of origin and settlement, and that the characteristics of specific immigrant groups largely determine their social mobility in the new country, at least for the first generation. The recruitment of guest workers from Mediterranean countries in the 1960s versus that of computer experts in the 1990s is a good example of how selectivity within migration flows changes over time. The Amsterdam region is a rich arena for examining the dynamics operating inside the modern urban social fabric. The deindustrialization of the 1970s was followed by the growth of service industries in the 1980s. As a hub in the globalizing economy, especially the Schiphol area has created many new employment opportunities. But in comparing processes of social and spatial mobility with American cities, we need to keep in mind one factor that makes Amsterdam (and some other West European cities) different: much of the housing stock consists of subsidised social housing. The impact of income on the residential patterns in the city is therefore only relative. At the time of settlement in Amsterdam, patterns of residence are influenced most by the economic position of the country of origin. Migrants from less developed countries end up in the least attractive residential environments. The correlation is not complete, however, as present-day immigrants from ‘non-industrialized countries’ are less likely to settle in the least attractive residential environments. Remarkable differences exist at the ‘top’ as well, especially between Dutch arrivals and those from industrialized nations. Here, stage of life is a major explanatory factor. Purchasing power is decisive in explaining differences in residential environment especially between the top and bottom ends of the housing market. After settlement, opportunities for social mobility depend on possibilities for employment. People from Suriname and the Antilles are prime examples of the advance to the suburban ‘Promised Land’ (albeit to its cheaper social housing sections) associated with mobility over stages of life. While the beginnings of upward social and spatial mobility can be detected among people from Turkey and Morocco as well, they still lag far behind those from other less developed countries who have penetrated old and new suburbs as well as the city centre and the South district of Amsterdam.

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People of Dutch origin show strong upward mobility to new suburbs and modern and gentrified parts of the city. While the new towns are losing some of their appeal, they have been as important for Amsterdam residents of Dutch origin in moving to more attractive neighbourhoods as they are today for mobile sections of the immigrant population. In contrast, Amsterdam residents from developed countries show less spatial mobility as they tend to arrive in the city already well-placed in their careers and neighbourhoods.

Notes 1.

2.

The ROA is an administrative body that was set up in 1992 to improve collaboration and planning in the Amsterdam area. It includes 16 municipalities in the province of Noord Holland. For our analysis we have also included the new town Almere which lies in the province of Flevoland but is within commuting distance and forms part of the same housing market. While we do not want to dwell on the technical implications of measuring segregation, we would like to make two points. First, the need to consider both relative and absolute numbers. A small immigrant population’s overrepresentation in a given area does not mean it is significant in absolute numbers there. Second, all measures of residential segregation are influenced by scale. The smaller the area, the sooner we see higher scores of dissimilarity. An introduction to these technical problems can be found in the cited literature.

References Amersfoort, H. van (1992), ‘Ethnic residential patterns in a welfare state: lessons from Amsterdam, 1970-1990’, New community 18 (2): 439-456. — (1995), ‘From workers to immigrants. Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands, 1965-1992’, in Robin Cohen (ed.), The Cambridge survey of world migration, 308-312. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2002), ‘Immigratie, hoogconjunctuur en uitsortering’, in S. Musterd & H. Ottens (eds.), Strijd om de stad. Sociale en economische integratie in de stedelijke samenleving, 19-31. Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum. Amersfoort, H. van & C. Cortie (1973), ‘Het patroon van de Surinaamse vestiging in Amsterdam in de periode 1968 t/m 1970’, Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie LXIV (5): 293-294. — (1996), ‘Social polarization in a welfare state? Immigrants in the Amsterdam region’, New community 22 (4): 671-687. Amersfoort, H. van & L. de Klerk (1987), ‘The dynamics of immigrant settlement. Surinamese, Turks and Moroccans in Amsterdam 1973-1983’, in

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G. Glebe & J. O’Loughlin (eds.), Foreign minorities in continental European cities, 199-222. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden Amersfoort, H. van & M. van Niekerk (2006), ‘Immigration as a colonial inheritance. Post-colonial immigrants in the Netherlands, 1945-2002’, Journal of ethnic and migration studies 32 (3): 323-346. Burgess, E.W. (1925), ‘The growth of the city: an introduction to a research project’, in R.E. Park, E.W. Burgess & R.D. McKenzie (eds.), The city, 47-62. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cammen, H. van der & L.A. de Klerk (1993), Ruimtelijke ordening. De ontwikkeling van de ruimtelijke ordening in Nederland, 2nd revised printing. Utrecht: Uitgeverij Spectrum. Cortie, C. (2003), ‘The metropolitan population. Origin and mobility’, in S. Mustard & W. Salet (eds.), Amsterdam human capital, 199-216. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Cortie, C. & R. van Engelsdorp Gastelaars (1985), ‘Amsterdam: decaying city, gentrifying inner city?’, in P. White & B. van der Knaap (eds.), Contemporary studies of migration, 129-142. Norwich: Geo Books. Deurloo, M.C., S. Musterd, J. van Antwerpen, J. Slot & T. Fonville (2000), Ruimtelijke dynamiek van immigranten in Amsterdam, 1994-1995. Amsterdam: Bureau voor Onderzoek en Statistiek. Dignum, K. (2003), ‘Kwaliteit van Amsterdamse woonmilieus’, in C. Cortie, J. Drooglever Fortuijn & M. Wagenaar (eds.), Stad en land. Over bewoners en woonmilieus, 207-223. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers. Droogh, D., A. Buys & C. Cortie (1991), Op overbrugbare afstand. Wonen en werken in een polycentrisch stadsgewest. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam/Gemeente Amsterdam. Engelsdorp Gastelaars, R. van, W. Ostendorff & S. de Vos (1980), Typologieën van Nederlandse gemeenten naar stedelijkheidsgraad. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij. Erf, R. van der & P. Tesser (2001), ‘Migranten op cursus’, Demos 17 (3): 21-23. Gemeente Amsterdam, Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek (2008), Amsterdamse Armoedemonitor nummber 11. Amsterdam: Gemeente Amsterdam O&S. Jackson, P. & S. Smith (eds.) (1981), Social interaction and ethnic segregation, Institute of British Geographers, special publication no.11. London: Academic Press. Lieberson, S. (1980), A piece of the pie. Black and white immigrants since 1880. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press. O+S (2006), Amsterdam in cijfers 2006. http://www.os.amsterdam.nl. Peach, C. (ed.) (1975), Urban social segregation. London & New York: Longman. — (2003), ‘The ghetto and the ethnic enclave’, in J. Doomernik & H. Knippenberg (eds.), Immigration and immigrants: between policy and reality, 99-122. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers. Peach, C., V. Robinson & S. Smith (eds.) (1981), Ethnic segregation in cities. London: Croom Helm. Wintershoven, L. (2000), Demografisch eeuwboek Amsterdam: ontwikkelingen tussen 1900 en 2000. Amsterdam: Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Gemeente Amsterdam.

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6 Towards cultural diversity in Amsterdam’s arts1 Christine Delhaye

It is the year 2050. A Moroccan mayor whose grandparents were born in the Netherlands chairs the Amsterdam city council. On the agenda is the sale of Rembrandt’s Nachtwacht. The composition of the council represents that of the population itself: 75 per cent is of migrant descent. By this time, the concept of ‘migrant’ is outdated… it is the generic term for families who arrived in the Netherlands less than a hundred years ago. The proposal to sell the Nachtwacht is prompted by the idea that much distress can be relieved with the enormous profits (Fransman 2003: 121, translation CD).

This is how the Social Democrat politician Jurriaan Fransman opened his comments on the document outlining the Amsterdam city council’s policy on intercultural issues Langetermijnvisie Cultuur 2015 (The Long Term Vision on Culture 2015) (Gemeente Amsterdam 2003). While Fransman reassured his readers that he did not mean a doomsday scenario, he nevertheless gave voice to the widespread uncertainties caused by contemporary changes in the art world. The Nachtwacht is perhaps the most canonized and sacralized piece of Dutch art and an icon of Western art in general. Its sale would be an ultimate instance of the loss of Dutch identity and the decline of Western civilisation, which many fear will occur in the foreseeable future due to growing diversity in the population. As the arts have played a central role in the process of nationbuilding and the creation of national identities and consciousness (Kaplan 1994; Duncan 1993), it comes as no surprise that the image of selling the Nachtwacht was chosen to ask questions about national and cultural identity. This chapter charts changes in Amsterdam’s art field over the last four decades as a result of changes in its population. Amsterdam has become a home to artists and audiences of diverse cul103

tural backgrounds, all of whom contribute in some way or another to local culture. Cities have always been places par excellence of cultural encounter; as Hannerz argues in his book Cultural Complexity, urban sites are places of cultural vitality. The city hosts a variety of subcultures, extensive cultural infrastructure and numerous meaning systems within a limited space – a space where artists of different (artistic) backgrounds inspire and challenge one another. The more open cities are to this cultural diversity, Hannerz (1992: 197) argues, the more their cultural production will flourish. But while Hannerz correctly highlights the innovative potential of urban sites, he downplays the fact that cultural encounters are framed by structures of power. According to Bourdieu (1971), art fields are exclusionary structures, sites of struggle and symbolic battlegrounds where powerful and celebrated artists and cultural intermediaries attempt to exclude newcomers. More recently, scholars have argued that non-Western artists in post-colonial times are no longer blatantly excluded from the art scene. Instead, many different power strategies are deployed to prevent them from being positioned at centre stage (Cubitt 2002: 4; Nederveen Pieterse 1997: 80; Buikema & Meijer 2004: 3). In tracing the dynamics of the Amsterdam municipal art scene over the last four decades, I aim to understand different dimensions of the global cultural encounter that have unfolded in the city – in particular elements of cross-over and innovation and power strategies to marginalise newcomers in the field (see Delhaye 2008). This chapter focuses on high art and, within it, the visual arts and theatre performance. Although the boundaries between high and low culture have become increasingly blurred, one can still distinguish a marché restraint (restricted field) made up of canonised and sacralised art institutions on the one hand and experimental institutions on the other, and a marché élargi (enlarged field), the market of mass culture (Bourdieu 1971). What distinguishes Amsterdam from other Dutch cities is the number of canonized and experimental art institutions based in the city. Moreover, focusing on high art gives us insight into which practices and objects have been defined as legitimate by the experts. Artists and institutions in the field are subject to complex procedures of valuation and canonization. While subsidies are welcome material support for artists and institutions, they are also forms of symbolic support – signs of recognition for aesthetic value. Artists 104

and institutions that become eligible for subsidies are suddenly ‘consecrated’ by the Culture Council and the government as institutions of aesthetic quality. As cultural policy has a pervasive influence on the structuring of the field, the first part of this chapter chronicles national and municipal cultural policy as they relate to cultural diversity. The following sections then analyse the internal dynamics of the visual and performing arts and how they have responded to both cultural influx and public policy.

Diversity in Dutch and Amsterdam cultural policy Contemporary Dutch cultural policy occupies a position in-between the continental model of direct government intervention and the Anglo-Saxon tradition of governing from a distance (Ministry of Education, Culture & Science 2006: 12). Cultural policy as we understand the term today came into existence only after World War II. The Department for Art and Culture was founded in 1945; the Council for the Arts was installed by the cabinet two years later (Ibid.: 13). However, it was only in the 1960s and 1970s that a national arts policy was fully formulated, with larger budgets, consultation facilities and advisory boards (Trienekens 2004: 127). While cultural policy in the post-war period aimed to counter the ‘degrading’ influence of popular culture, by the 1970s many people were pinning their hopes on the arts to alleviate deprivation among particular segments of society. ‘Social relevance’ became the catchword of cultural policy (Ministry of Education, Culture & Science 2006: 40). This was also the period when migrant labourers were entering the country in increasing numbers. The government assumed their stay would be temporary, and to facilitate their (and their children’s) return, measures were taken to preserve their own culture and language (Snel 2003). Awareness that immigrants were in the Netherlands to stay grew in the second half of the 1970s. The first ‘minorities policy’ (Minderhedenbeleid), which appeared in 1983, aimed at ‘integration with the preservation of one’s own cultural identity’ (Van den Broek & Van der Camp 1983). It was assumed that stimulating ethnic identity would facilitate emancipation and integration; the government thus encouraged ethnic groups to establish their own 105

cultural and artistic circuits. On both national and local levels, a special subsidy system was developed for allochtone kunstenaars (foreign artists). The term referred to artists from ethnic target groups – Surinamese, Antillean, Turkish, Moroccan and Moluccan – as well as to artists from Latin America and Asia who had already been in the country for years (López 2002: 141). The separate subsidy system meant ‘foreign artists’ were subject to different assessment procedures than their Dutch colleagues. Budgets were large, and eligibility thresholds deliberately kept low. The system was based on the belief that minority artists needed to be encouraged to enhance the quality of their work (Lavrijsen 1992: 350). The ‘target group policy’ came under increasing criticism in the late 1980s for its questionable effects on integration. This informed a change in cultural policy in the 1990s: from supporting minorities in setting up their own cultural circuits to encouraging foreign artists to participate in the established field (Van den Berg 1994). Government organs implementing cultural policy for minorities were thus shut down and their budgets transferred to the mainstream art budget (Van Duin 1988). Although several ministers of culture had previously addressed cultural diversity, the issue was really brought to the fore in 1999 when State Secretary Rick van der Ploeg announced far-reaching changes in policy (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Welzijn 1999a). In his view, fresh productions were being stifled while established institutions were failing to reach wider audiences. The aim was to enhance cultural diversity among both artists and audiences, for which Van der Ploeg earmarked ten per cent of the national budget for culture. Organizations had to spend at least three per cent of their subsidies to reach a more diverse programme and public. To broaden the reach of the arts, the state worked with municipalities and provinces to attract migrants and youths (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Welzijn 1999b). Van der Ploeg further pleaded for a rethinking of the concept of ‘quality’ to accommodate different cultural traditions (Ibid.); he would therefore facilitate representation of minority groups within advisory boards. But Van der Ploeg’s policy provoked strong reactions from artists’ unions, individual artists, cultural critics and politicians. After discussions in parliament, most of the proposed measures were diluted.

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Diversity remained on the agenda of the next state secretary, Medy van der Laan, though her policy differed in tone and design. Van der Laan did not believe in a prescriptive policy for fostering diversity. Instead she aimed to stimulate co-operation between cultural institutions. She delegated much of the implementation to the fonds (semi-public bodies administering funding), which were required to develop their own diversity plans (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Welzijn 2003). While this had a depolarizing effect, the urgency to adapt to society’s diversity ebbed. In 2006 a string of new measures to encourage diversity was announced, including the founding of the House of Cultural Dialogue, to stimulate intercultural exchange especially in the Netherlands’ four big cities. Although municipal cultural policy has existed in Amsterdam since the 1920s, it gained maturity starting in the 1960s (Holleman 2004: 60). The Amsterdam Art Council was founded in the early 1960s to make municipal cultural policy more systematic and to advise the city on allocating funds. As was the case with the National Council, increasing ‘participation’ in the arts was central on its agenda. In 1981 the local council was joined by the Commissie Allochtone Groepen (Commission ‘Allochtonous’ Groups) composed of representatives of different ethnic groups and experts in non-Western music and theatre (Van den Broek & Van der Camp 1983). The commission advised the city council and tried to familiarize artists of non-Dutch descent with the Dutch subsidy system (Holleman 2004: 62). The separate commission, however, functioned as an alibi for mainstream disciplinary commissions not to engage with non-Western art. It was abolished by the municipal Art Council in 1988 on the condition that at least one ‘new-Dutch’ artist or expert would sit on the different disciplinary commissions.2 This aim has not yet been met.3 From the 1990s attention was directed towards enlarging audiences. National and municipal policies to enlarge the art public had focussed on the lower social classes since the 1960s. While this goal remained, policies now targeted specific ethnic groups as well. Art institutes were further charged to adapt their programmes to the public’s demands (Holleman 2004: 66). In the late 1990s, the Amsterdam art field was the subject of two evaluations;4 both were critical when it came to cultural diversity (Holleman 2004: 67- 68). The art world, it seemed, was not seriously engaging with the issue (Davis 1999: 49). 107

Aware of the need for change, the City of Amsterdam committed itself to participate in Van der Ploeg’s national project, the ‘Cultural Outreach Action Plan’, in 2001. The national government would now match funds earmarked by the city to reach broader and more diverse audiences. Implementation of this policy, however, has been difficult. With the first phase evaluated quite negatively, its second phase (2005-2008) directed funds to new ad hoc projects instead of to the regular art organisations.5 With its emphasis on enlarging and diversifying audiences, the latest plan – Amsterdam Creative City (2005-2008) – follows its predecessors (Gemeente Amsterdam 2004). While national and municipal policies tried to manage cultural diversity, individuals and organisations within the art field have been the creators of culture. These actors – themselves the products as well as agents of social and cultural change – steer, use and resist the boundaries set out by official cultural policy. The following section summarises how newcomers have been able to position themselves in Amsterdam’s art field and contribute to its cultural dynamic.

Visual artists, curators and museums Internationalism and activism characterised the visual arts in the 1960s and 1970s (van der Plas 2002). In this period the Netherlands – and especially the city of Amsterdam – became known worldwide for its liberal atmosphere. An increasing number of artists from countries as diverse as Colombia, Mexico, Iceland and Israel came to the Netherlands, many of them for political reasons. Artists then did not feel divided by nationality or cultural background – being ‘foreign’ was not an issue (López 2002: 141). Instead, diversity was expected to contribute to aesthetic cross-fertilization and to counterbalance Dutch ‘down-to-earthness’ (Gribling 2004: 1; see also López 2002). One remarkable achievement of this international environment was the opening of the In-Out Centre in 1972. Initiated by the Colombian artist Michel Gardena, it became the meeting place for artists from Iceland, Latin America, Hungary, England and the Netherlands. Artists, however, complained that the founding of the centre, one of the very first alternative artists’ spaces in Europe, went unnoticed by the Dutch dailies and the specialized art press (López 2002: 140). The In108

Out Centre did, however, inspire other initiatives. Ulisses Carrion opened the bookshop and art centre Other Books and So in 1975 (Van Mechelen 2006: 38-39). The alternative art centre De Appel (The Apple) was also founded in 1975 to present new, experimental and not yet canonized works of feminist art and body art/performance. De Appel maintained strong ties with artists from Eastern European countries (Van Mechelen 2006: 243; Jansen 2005: 58). Amsterdam’s liberal climate also attracted artists from Turkey. Although their immigration had begun in the 1950s, many more arrived in the 1970s (Welling 2004: 99). As the art field in Turkey was experienced as very traditional and not very inspiring, they sought freedom for experimental expression in Amsterdam. Turkish artists who arrived in those days said Amsterdam appealed to them because of its free and ‘hip’ atmosphere (Welling 2004: 100). The cultural and political climate changed in the 1980s. ‘Foreignness’ became a socially and culturally divisive concept; as was pointed out in the previous section, the term allochtoon increasingly became the point of departure for national and local policies (López 2002:141). The cultural policy geared towards ‘target groups’ unwittingly promoted cultural segregation within the art field. Turkish artist Bülent Evren, a member of the Commission Allochtonous Groups in 1988, was surprised by the sheer range of subsidy applications. As thresholds within subsidy procedures were deliberately kept low, a whole plethora of applications were submitted, ranging from a Surinamese commemoration of the dead to an Orthodox Russian icon exhibition (Welling 2004: 100). Unsurprisingly in this context, the concept of ‘artistic quality’ began to be questioned anew. As female artists had experienced a decade earlier, non-Western artists now saw how the concept of ‘quality’ functioned to close the art market. Argentinean artist Sebastian López explains how foreign artists living in the Netherlands failed to capture the interest of art galleries and museums because their work was considered too idiosyncratic or lacking in ‘quality’ (López 2002: 143). The official definition of ‘allochtonous artist’ relegated them to alternative art circuits and marginal exhibition spaces. In Amsterdam, the Tropenmuseum (Ethnographic Museum of Amsterdam) was one of the first institutes to openly reflect on its changing role as a result of the city’s altered demographic and 109

cultural situation. Founded in 1871 as a colonial museum to showcase artefacts from the Dutch colonies, it has over the last decades put enhancing communication between cultures at the heart of its new mission (Tropenmuseum 2006) and has pioneered in putting the spotlights on ‘foreign’ artists. In the visual arts, the museum has stimulated public discussion on cultural diversity through exhibitions of contemporary non-Western art. To spark interest in the modern artistic production of non-Western countries and non-Western artists living in the Netherlands, the museum has been organising meetings for representatives of Dutch museums and cultural institutions since 1985 (López 2002: 143). In the meantime, ‘foreign’ artists tried to curate their own exhibitions. They created space for non-Dutch artists in cultural centres, opened their own associations and squatted galleries (López 2002: 143). The Gate Foundation was founded in 1988 to stimulate the intercultural exchange of modern and contemporary art from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania, establishing an information centre and staging exhibitions to trigger public debate. Its financial support, however, was cut off in 2006, with State Secretary for Culture Van der Laan arguing the institute lacked vision (Gate Foundation 2006). ‘Non-Western art’ slowly gained ground within mainstream museums in the 1990s. Curator Jean-Hubert Martin’s 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la terre in Paris was a watershed in this respect, presenting contemporary European artists mixed indiscriminately with shamans and artists from the former colonies. Magiciens marked the beginning of an era questioning dominant Western views on the arts. In the same period, exhibitions about ‘difference’ were programmed in the Netherlands. Wim Beeren, director of the Amsterdam Museum of Modern Art (Het Stedelijk), staged UABC (Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile), an exhibition of Latin American artists in 1989. Het klimaat (The Climate) was organised by the Cultural Council of South Holland in 1991. It was made up of 30 exhibitions spread over many cities; several were hosted by venues in Amsterdam. The overall project presented the work of more than 70 ‘foreign’ artists living in the Netherlands (López 2002: 143). Other exhibitions in the Stedelijk were devoted to South African and Surinamese modern art in 1993 and 1997, respectively, though neither was wholeheartedly supported by the artistic direction (Van der Plas 1998: 76).

110

Magiciens de la terre was received ambiguously, if not negatively. Critics charged that the world of the arts was split into the West and the rest, constructing dividing lines between Western modernism and non-Western traditionalism, conceptually grounded autonomous art versus spectacle and crafts (Cubitt 2002: 3). Moreover, the 1990s phenomenon of global exhibitions showed that ‘cultural marginality [was] no longer a problem of invisibility’ (Fisher cited in Mercer 2002: 117). While in modern times, making oneself culturally visible was seen as a strategy towards emancipation, in postmodern times, the equivalence between political empowerment and public visibility has been torn apart. Cultural difference had been integrated into the global markets of postmodern capitalism (Mercer 2002: 117). As criticisms of the global exhibitions grew less harsh, there emerged more space for constructive voices, even if they only more explicitly interrogated the relationships between Western and non-Western aesthetics and discourse (Enwezor in Meyer 2003: 154). These discussions, however, did not stimulate the Stedelijk to invest in a lasting multiform presentation of ‘modern’ art. The Stedelijk did not engage in several international projects focussing on the position of non-Western art: The Short Century (2001), curated by the African art critic and curator Okwui Enwezor and co-financed by the Dutch Prins Clausfonds (a foundation that supports African, Asian and Latin American art), was not shown in Amsterdam nor in any other Dutch city. The museum also declined to cooperate with curator Martin in the exhibition Africa Remix (2004) (Kottman 2004: 15). Martin, nowadays the director of the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf, realized the project with the collaboration of the Hayward Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, where the exhibition was also staged. To counter the inertia of large Dutch museums, the Mondriaan Foundation (a national foundation for the stimulation of visual arts, design and cultural heritage) organized a Development Award for Cultural Diversity (Stimuleringsprijs voor Culturele Diversiteit) in the spring of 2006. Museum directors, however, felt threatened, seeing it as an attack on their institutional autonomy; they ended their resistance, persuaded by the financial incentives connected to the award (Vinckx 2006: 23). The Stedelijk submitted a plan together with eight other museums but did not make the shortlist. A few months after the award was presented, 111

new problems appeared, and the conflict between the museum directors and the foundation flared up openly in the press. The directors could not stomach the foundation exerting influence beyond its subsidising role. The Stedelijk and other large museums have stuck to their faith in the autonomy of the arts, even though contemporary cultural diversity questions such confidence. While the major institutes of contemporary art are adapting slowly, the smaller and experimental ones seem to be more attuned to the fast-changing society they inhabit. Bureau Amsterdam, a branch of the Stedelijk founded in 1993, invites artists from different artistic traditions and genres.6 De Appel remains an important institute in the promotion of cutting-edge art and features work by non-Western artists; its exhibitions explore themes such as migration, displacement and identity (Jansen 2005: 58; De Appel 2006). If one examines the biographies of artists exhibiting at these venues, very few fit the closed and static categories of Western versus non-Western that dominate contemporary debates. Many biographies include several (intercontinental) migrations. The crumbling of these static categories will be further fuelled by the growing number of ‘migrant’ children entering art schools. Born in the Netherlands of parents who came as labour migrants in the 1960s and 1970s, many have found their way into formal art education and into the Dutch and international art scenes. A remarkable number are of Turkish and Moroccan descent (Welling 2004; Caubet 2006). Although their responses have varied, the ‘historical’ art institutes have gradually acknowledged the increasingly multicultural character of the society within which they operate. Amsterdam’s most internationally renowned cultural institute is the Rijksmuseum. Built in 1876, but dating to the foundation of the National Art Gallery (Nationale Kunstgalerij) in The Hague in 1800, the museum is meant to collect and present Dutch history and culture. With a million objects and a large number of masterpieces, it is the largest and most prestigious museum of art and history in the Netherlands (Het Rijksmuseum 2006). In 1998, when the department of Dutch history was designed anew, greater attention was devoted to ties with Suriname and South Africa. To attract new audiences, the museum has recently organised exhibits such as The Dutch Encounter with Asia (2002) and The Ambassador, the Sultan and the Artist (2003).7 While the museum tries to cater to a more multi-vocal story of Dutch history and culture, there is at 112

present no overall strategy to adapt to the increasingly multicultural character of Dutch society.8 In contrast, the Amsterdams Historisch Museum (the Amsterdam Historical Museum) acknowledges its increasingly pluralist audience by making exhibitions accessible and appealing to different groups; it focuses on presenting a history of the city in which all sections of the population are visible (Van den Berg, Verberk & Van der Linden 1999: 18-19).9 Located in the city centre and housed in a former church, the Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church) has over the years developed into a centre featuring cultural encounters with the ‘other’. Past exhibitions at the Nieuwe Kerk have been devoted to Morocco, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey, while world religious themes have also been in the spotlight (De Nieuwe Kerk 2007). The centre for the visual representation of migration and cultures Imagine IC (Imagine Identity and Culture) is a newcomer to the visual arts scene. Founded in 2001 and situated in one of the most multicultural neighbourhoods of Amsterdam (Zuid-Oost), Imagine IC represents the identities and cultures of migrants from their perspective. The centre collects archival material and produces new material together with residents and professionals. Many hope Imagine IC will influence other institutes to approach historical collections and archives in a fresh light (Van der Geest 2005: 8).

Actors, actresses, directors and theatres In theatre, as in the visual arts, the 1960s and 1970s were boisterous times. Theatre students and young actors criticised mainstream theatre as old fashioned and bourgeois; new movements saw theatre as a medium to address political problems and everyday life and tried to appeal to new audiences including the less educated and members of the working class. Because of the separate funding system for ‘allochtonen’ artists mentioned earlier, a ‘minorities circuit’ developed apart from the mainstream. The separate subsidy system ensured that even the groups that did reach professional standards carried the stigma of ‘minority theatre’ (Zonneveld 1993: 9-10). The African-American actor Rufus Collins was among the pioneers in the 1970s who transformed Amsterdam’s theatre landscape. Due to his membership in New York’s legendary Living 113

Theatre Group, Collins was banned from the US. In exile in London, he joined the Black Theatre movement. Collins was invited to Amsterdam by the Soeterijntheater (linked to the Ethnographic Museum) to train young theatre makers. Soon he became the key figure in making ‘minority theatre’, together with Surinamese director Henk Tjon. Turkish actor Vasif Öngören and his wife Meral Taygun also arrived in the Netherlands on the invitation of the Amsterdam Theatre School,10 and together with Collins and Tjon began theatre classes to train young people. In 1986 Collins and Tjon founded the first multicultural theatre group De Nieuw Amsterdam (the New Amsterdam, DNA) (Van der Geest 2004: 46), which soon received local and national funding. Its first play as a recognised, professional theatre company was performed in the Stadschouwburg, Amsterdam’s municipal theatre. This would not have been possible without the involvement of the director at the time, who aimed to diversify the Stadschouwburg’s mostly white upper-class audience (Alkema 1988: 9). DNA remains one of Amsterdam’s most successful multicultural theatre companies. Its history, however, has been far from easy. Theatre critics reacted with the usual stereotypes, and funding was temporarily withdrawn in the 1990s due to – according to the national Culture Council – ‘lack of quality’ (Keulemans, Nekuee & Top 2004: 368). Other theatre companies and production houses were founded in Amsterdam in Collins’s footsteps. In the 1980s the Antillean artists Felix Peter de Rooy and Norman de Palm opened the first intercultural production house, Cosmic Theatre. Cosmic has emerged over the past three decades as a leading production house in the theatre scene. Its mission is to search for a theatre language that expresses the intercultural experiences of people today (Cosmic Theater 2004). Rufus Collins died prematurely in 1996, but not before bequeathing a lasting impact on Amsterdam theatre: new-Dutch actors had grown politically conscious, ethnically mixed casts were no longer exceptional, and the fusion of different cultural traditions had resulted in new forms of scenario writing, music and dance. Collins had also championed ethnic diversity in the arts councils and in the fonds (Van der Geest 2004: 54-56). While Collins had mainly inspired theatre makers, writers, actors and actresses of Surinamese descent, Vasif Öngören worked with the Turkish and Moroccan communities. While he died too 114

early to influence a whole generation (Van der Geest, 2004: 44), he transmitted his enthusiasm and professionalism to his pupils, some of whom entered the Amsterdam Theatre School. His wife Meral Taygun was artistic director there for more than fifteen years (Jansen 2005: 48), and afterwards at the International Theatre Lab of Amsterdam, which ran a one-year training programme for (semi)professional actors to work and create in a global context. Despite Öngören and Taygun’s efforts, it was mostly Surinamese and Antillean actors and directors who found their way; it was not until the 1990s that actors and directors of Turkish descent became truly visible. The mid-1980s witnessed grassroots initiatives to create opportunities for amateur performers and actors of all backgrounds. Migrant children between the ages of fourteen and twenty could work with professional directors, choreographers and musicians within projects to recruit new talent. These initiatives have been effective as some of these youths were later accepted into drama schools and entered professional theatres (Lavrijsen 2001: 24). Secretary of Culture van der Ploeg’s policies meant more newcomers received funding in 2001 while some renowned ‘white’ theatre companies in Amsterdam had to close their doors due to the loss of their subsidies. Among the beneficiaries was the Turkish/Kurdish theatre group RAST, led by Öngören’s former pupils. The way RAST productions ‘fused Eastern and Western traditions’ and trained the younger generation (Rast, 2006) resonated with the overall aims of the policy. With role models such as Collins and Öngören, ‘minority theatre’ emerged as part of the Amsterdam theatre scene – and still occasionally invites controversy. Established theatre institutes also had to face the changed demographic and cultural situation of the city. Since the nineteenth century, the Stadsschouwburg has been the symbol of Dutch bourgeois theatre par excellence. Already in the late 1960s, theatre school students had challenged its staidness. As part of a nationwide protest (the ‘tomato campaign’), students pelted actors with tomatoes during performances to express their discontent with established theatre’s undemocratic character. It resulted in a profound re-organisation of the theatre landscape, with the old-fashioned bourgeois playhouse becoming the home of many new experimental theatre groups (de Vries 2002: 148). Many performances with ‘foreign’ actors and directors were produced in the 1980s thanks to the active policy of director Cox Habbema. 115

Habbema’s policies, however, were not continued with the same vigour. As special funding for ‘allochtonen’ theatre was abolished and theatres could no longer produce ‘risky’ shows, support for diversity faded.11 The 1990s witnessed the blossoming of formalistic avant-garde theatre. While there was not yet an explicit policy for diversity, the now-famous Moroccan actor Mimoun Oaïssa was a member of the Theatre Group Amsterdam (the house company of the Municipal Theatre).12 In recent years the Municipal Theatre has become more responsive to the growing diversity of its audiences and to the availability of different cultural traditions. The current director of Theater Group Amsterdam regularly co-operates with the DutchMoroccan writer Hafid Bouazza. To attract a new and younger public, the theatre has developed its programme Expanding Theatre to scout the boundaries of theatre as an artistic genre and to search for dialogue with other art forms. The theatre has therefore intensified co-operation with Urban Myth, a young multicultural theatre group. The change is also reflected in the guest programme. Multicultural Dutch groups such as RAST and DNA are featured regularly, as are the productions of the multicultural production house Cosmic. More productions by foreign choreographers and theatre makers working within non-Western theatre and dance traditions have also been shown (De Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam 2006). A remarkable project that embodies this international and multicultural approach is the annual dance festival July Dance.13 Launched in 1992 by the Municipal Theatre, it is now held in cooperation with five other institutions in the inner city of Amsterdam. The festival, combining established companies, controversial and provocative productions, and swinging urban dance from all over the world, resembles the utopia of an all-inclusive cultural swirl (Julidans 2006). Another prestigious institution located in the centre of Amsterdam is Het Muziektheater (the Music Theatre), housing the Dutch Opera and the National Ballet. It is also one of the most important stages for classical and modern dance as well as music theatre in the city. While opera houses and ballet companies were known as relatively closed white institutes, even these have begun to open up. In the fall of 2006, Krzysztof Pastors presented the world premiere of the National Ballet’s new production Taqasim, an excellent example of what is now called hybrid art: the music of Bach 116

mixed with religious and secular Arab music, the integration of movements from different traditions, and costumes and decor inspired by both Western and Arab iconography. The programme for dance also appears to be embracing diversity, featuring groups from Senegal, Japan, China, Indonesia and South Africa (Het Muziektheater 2006).

Conclusion Amsterdam’s landscape for the arts has been transformed by the arrival of new ethnic communities since the 1960s. Networks of artists with roots in different artistic traditions have developed, resulting in active cross-cultural engagement. New institutions have been founded (even if some later disappeared) to give the floor to fresh urban artistic languages. Young people have attended formal and informal training programmes and have succeeded in positioning themselves in the art scene while non-Western artistic practices have gradually entered the programme. The process of cross-cultural fertilisation, however, has been far from smooth; artists and cultural intermediaries have encountered numerous stumbling blocks. Intercultural dialogue has been constrained by the unintended effects of national and local policies and by the ignorance of some established art institutes. Designed with the best intensions in mind, the 1980s special cultural policy for minorities isolated ‘allochtonen’ artists from the established field (Bousetta 1996). Since cultural diversity truly became part of the mainstream political agenda in the late 1990s, implementation has presented challenges. Art institutes were not always aware of the new circumstances while governments have been reluctant to translate principles into practice. Gatekeepers in the cultural field – museum and theatre directors, programmers and curators – did not do justice to many artists, by evaluating art by exclusive Western standards of artistic quality. Other gatekeepers have defended their autonomy by resisting adaption to cultural diversity. These difficulties notwithstanding, national and municipal cultural policies from the second half of the 1990s have succeeded in funding newcomers to the Amsterdam arts scene. The inclusion of cultural diversity unfolds unevenly across different domains, the performing arts showing more dynamics than the visual arts. In various niches of the art field, new ‘migrant’ 117

institutions designed to accommodate diversity are blossoming. Established cultural institutes, some of them with fixed ideas about art, are however adapting to diversity much more slowly. Although many new-Dutch artists have succeeded in positioning themselves, many more jostle for space within the dominant institutes. While the city of Amsterdam has embraced many newDutch artists and has opened the door to many different artistic languages and traditions, most of them have to survive outside the cultural establishment.

Notes 1.

2.

3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

I would like to thank the late Ria Lavrijsen, Folkert Kuiken, Jeanine Jansen, Luc Holleman, Sandra Trienekens, Bart Top, Quirine Verhoeven, Marco Bentz van den Berg, Dineke Stam, Annemarie Vels Heijn, Eveline Sint Nikolaas, Cox Habbema and the other authors of this book, all of whom generously shared their time, expertise and knowledge. Marco Bentz van den Berg, General Secretary of the Amsterdam Art Council from 1986 to 1995, personal communication by telephone, 12 December 2006. Luc Holleman, civil servant for culture for the City of Amsterdam, personal communication by email 20 March 2006. The first report was commissioned by the Amsterdam Art Council and conducted by Adviesbureau Berenschot, which resulted in the report Adviesbureau Berenschot (1999) Evaluatie zakelijke resultaten van 26 kunstinstellingen. The second report was made by British cultural expert Trevor Davies under the authority of the City of Amsterdam. Luc Holleman, personal communication by email, 14 December 2005. Ria Lavrijsen, publicist, consultant and coach in matters related to the arts, personal communication by telephone, 8 December 2004. Dineke Stam, project coordinator for Intercultural Programmes Heritage of the Netherlands Museum Association (the Nederlandse Museumvereniging), personal communication by email, 8 December 2006. Eveline Sint Nikolaas, curator of Dutch History at the Rijskmuseum, personal communication by telephone, 16 April 2007. Annemarie Vels Heijn, former chairperson of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging (the Netherlands Museum Association), personal communication by mail, 30 March 2007. Marco Bentz van den Berg, communication by telephone, 12 December 2006. Cox Habbema, former director of the Stadsschouwburg (Municipal Theatre), personal communication by telephone, 16 April 2007. Ria Lavrijsen, personal communication by telephone, 8 December 2004. Bart Top, journalist on media, culture and diversity, personal communication, Amsterdam, 12 July 2006.

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Muziektheater (2006), http: //web.het-muziektheater.nl. Nederveen-Pieterse, Jan (1997), ‘Globalization and emancipation: from local empowerment to global reform’, New political economy 2 (1): 79-92. Nieuwe Kerk (2007), www.nieuwekerk.nl/nl/index.htm. Plas, Els van der (1998), ‘Van witte Kubus naar veelkleurig museum’, in Ines van Hamersveld (ed.), Nieuwe Nederlanders en musea, 75-87. Amsterdam: Boekmanstudies/Mondriaan Stichting. — (2002), ‘Openingsspeech ter gelegenheid van de opening van de ‘Tentoonstelling door Raul Marroquin’ op de Overtoom 136 in Amsterdam’. www. xs4all.nl/~itfits/speech.htm. Rast (2006) www.rast.nl. Rijksmuseum (2006), http: //rijksmuseum.nl/index.jsp. Snel, Erik (2003), De vermeende kloof tussen culturen. Enschede: Universiteit Twente. Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam (2006), http: //www.stadsschouwburgamsterdam.nl. Trienekens, Sandra (2004), Urban paradoxes. Lived citizenship and the location of diversity in the arts, dissertation, University of Rotterdam. Tropenmuseum (2006), www.tropenmuseum.nl. Vinckx, Yaël (2006), ‘Worst van half miljoen. Musea strijden om de Stimuleringsprijs Culturele Diversiteit’. NRC Handelsblad, 10 March 2006: 23. Vries, Geert de (2002), ‘De proeftuin van de samenleving. Cultuurbeleid 19651982’, in I. de Haan & J.W. Duyvendak (eds.), In het hart van de verzorgingsstaat. Het ministerie van Maatschappelijk Werk en zijn opvolgers (CRM, WVC, VWS) 1952-2002, 131-151. Zutphen: Walburg Pers. Welling, Wouter (2004), ‘Een tentoonstelling in historisch perspectief. 3 juni 1988. Ismet Birsel opent Turkse kunstenaars in Holland’, in R. Buikema & M. Meijer (eds.), Kunsten in beweging. Cultuur en migratie in Nederland 19802000, 97-112. The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers. Zonneveld, Loek (1993), ‘Tussen swingend welzijn en stijve kunst. Intercultureel Nederland op drift’, Toneel theatraal 114 (4): 8-12.

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7 Multilingual Amsterdam Folkert Kuiken1

Every Dutchman knows what is meant by tof (‘terrific’), gokken (‘to gamble’), bolleboos (‘clever clogs’), roddelen (‘to gossip’), stiekem (‘in secret’) and smoes (‘excuse’). But what many do not know is that these words were originally Yiddish and were incorporated into Dutch in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These are just some of the many words Dutch has borrowed from other languages (Van der Sijs 2001). Table 7.1 Examples of loan words from different languages in Dutch Year

Word

Meaning and language of origin

901-1000

muur

‘wall’ < Latin: murus

901-1000

poort

‘gate’ < Latin: porta

1100

venster

‘window’ < Latin: fenestra

1588

armada

‘armada’ < Spanish: armada

1614

casco

‘body’ < Spanish: casco

1633

cargo

‘load’ < Spanish: cargo

1798

politie

‘police’ < French: police

1808

reçu

‘reçu’ < French: receipt

1813

douane

‘customs’ < French: douane

1940

quatsch

‘nonsense’ < German: Quatsch

1944

omstreden

‘controversial’ < German: umstritten

1944

vuistregel

‘rule of thumb’ < German: Faustregel

Source: Van der Sijs 2001

Whenever two or more languages come into contact, they influence each other (Appel & Muysken 1987). Successive invaders of the Low Countries introduced many words into Dutch: the Romans, Spanish, French and Germans all left their mark on the every day use of language (see Table 7.1). These invasions, however, provoked purist movements to push back the influence of 123

the invaders’ languages. This was especially the case against the French around 1800 and against the Germans during the Second World War. Even today many Germans visiting Amsterdam intuitively feel safer addressing a person in English than in German. In the same way that Dutch has borrowed words from other languages, Dutch has influenced languages with which it has come into contact. This is especially the case for maritime terms in languages like English, French, Russian and Japanese (see Table 7.2). In modern society, where communication is so crucial, languages influence each other at a faster rate, illustrated by the number of information and computer technology words that many languages have recently adopted from English. Table 7.2 Examples of loan words from Dutch in different languages Language English

French

Russian

Japanese

Word

Origin

buoy

< Dutch: boei

yacht

< Dutch: jacht

to keelhaul

< Dutch: kielhalen

bâbord

‘port’ < Dutch: bakboord

foc

‘jib’ < Dutch: fok

amarrer

‘to moor’ < Dutch: afmeren

botsman

‘boatswain’ < Dutch: bootsman

busjsprit

‘bowsprit’ < Dutch: boegspriet

sjturman

‘steersman’ < Dutch: stuurman

bisuketto

‘Dutch rusk’ < Dutch: beschuit

madorosu

‘sailor’ < Dutch: matroos

masuto

‘mast’ < Dutch: mast

Source: De Vries, Willemyns & Burger 1993

This chapter focuses on Dutch contact with other cultures and languages in Amsterdam over the last half century. Dutch society over these fifty years has undergone drastic changes with the arrival of new citizens from the former colonies, migrant workers from the Mediterranean area, and refugees from all over the world. Below we identify the cross-linguistic influences that have resulted from these contacts – in Dutch society in general, and in Amsterdam in particular. First we look at changes that have taken place in Amsterdam’s linguistic landscape. We then address the 124

influence of Dutch and minority languages upon each other, and how the educational system has tried to cope with the growing number of students whose first language is not Dutch.

The changing linguistic landscape Amsterdam has a long history of attracting foreigners, but the composition of the population never changed so much as in the second half of the twentieth century. The city first faced an influx of citizens from the former colonies, primarily from Indonesia and later from Suriname, the Dutch Antilles and Aruba. They were followed by migrant workers from countries around the Mediterranean, and later their wives and children. Life was tough in post-war Amsterdam as the city struggled to recover from the material and emotional damage of the Second World War. Photographs from the 1950s show street signs announcing rag-and-bone businesses: Opkoper van lompen en metalen (Posthuma de Boer, Blokker & Haveman 2003; Van Tulder 1999). Bread was sold at Bakkerij De Tijdgeest (‘Spirit of the Age’ bakery) while the milkman brought milk from the VAMI, a famous dairy factory. Daily food consisted of potatoes in many forms with names like rode muizen, dorés, Zeeuwse gelen or Andijker drielingen – varieties which hardly exist today. At the same time, the opportunity for a new start lent vigour to city life. The culture of the overseas liberators became a role model for Dutch teenagers who dressed in jeans and montycoats, had their hair cut into bebop, roamed around town on their scooters with a buddyseat, ate hotdogs with ketchup, smoked North State cigarettes and bought lp’s or singles with the latest rock-’n-roll or dixieland hits.2 After the transfer of Indonesia in 1949, thousands of Moluccan soldiers and Indische Nederlanders (‘Indonesian Dutchmen’) migrated to the Netherlands. Among them were many Chinese who often started Chinese-Indonesian restaurants. In this way many words from Chinese and Bahasa Indonesia, often referring to food and kitchen utensils, entered the Dutch language (see Table 7.3).3 Some tourist guides even mention the famous Indonesian ‘rice table’ as typically Dutch cuisine. With the independence of Suriname in 1975 and the ensuing political turmoil, many Surinamese decided to stay in the Netherlands. Most of the 72,000 Surinamese living in Amsterdam have 125

Table 7.3 Examples of loan words from Indonesian and Chinese in Dutch Year

Word

Meaning and language of origin

1954

loempia

‘spring roll’ < Indonesian

1968

gado-gado

dish with vegetables and peanut sauce < Indonesian

1976

wadjan(g)

‘wok’< Indonesian

1984

babi pangang

‘roasted porc’ < Indonesian

1992

nasi rames

rice dish < Indonesian ‘shrimp omelette’ < Chinese

1968

foeyonghai

1968

tjaptjoi

vegetable dish < Chinese

1975

mi

‘Chinese noodles’ < Chinese

1984

mihoen

‘thin Chinese noodles’ < Chinese

1992

tofoe

‘tofu, bean curd’ < Chinese

Source: Van der Sijs 2001

Creole backgrounds and speak Sranantongo, a Creole language based on English. The Indo-Surinamese community speaks Sarnami, a language close to Hindi with influences of Sranan, Dutch and English. During the colonial period a variety of Dutch developed called Surinamese Dutch. Most Surinamese speak Surinamese Dutch while Sranan and Sarnami are used to express identity and mutual solidarity. The inhabitants from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba speak Papiamento at home, a Creole language based on Portuguese. Examples of words from Sranan, Surinamese Dutch and Papiamento that have come into use in Dutch are shown in Table 7.4. Table 7.4 Examples of loan words from the West Indies in Dutch Year

Word

Meaning and language of origin

1969

bakra

‘white man/woman’ < Sranantongo

1972

blakaman

‘black man/woman’ < Sranantongo

1979

wakaman

‘gadabout’ < Sranantongo

1988

bobo

‘important person’< Sranantongo

1971

buitenvrouw

‘concubine’ < Surinamese Dutch

1984

hosselen

‘to hustle’ < Surinamese Dutch

1976

carco

‘(edible) sea slug’ < Papiamento

1986

florin

‘florin’, currency used in Aruba < Papiamento

Source: Van der Sijs 2001

126

Workers from Mediterranean countries were recruited by Dutch companies in the 1950s and 1960s, and their languages have also left their traces in Dutch, although it is sometimes hard to tell whether specific words result from immigration, tourism, or both. For some examples, see Table 7.5. Table 7.5 Examples of loan words from languages spoken in Mediterranean countries in Dutch Year

Word

Meaning and language of origin

1967

tosti

‘toasted sandwich’ < Italian

1968

ossobuco

‘osso bucco’< Italian

1968

pizza

‘pizza’< Italian

1968

zabaglione

‘egg flip’ < Italian

1976

mozzarella

type of cheese < Italian

1968

oregano

‘wild marjoram’ < Spanish

1976

gazpacho

cold vegetable soup < Spanish

1984

tortilla

Spanish omelette < Spanish

1969

sirtaki

Greek dance < Greek

1978

ouzo

Greek brandy < Greek

1978

retsina

type of white wine < Greek

1976

bismillah

exclamation meaning ‘in name of God’ < Arabic

1986

raï

type of music < Arabic

1989

fatwa

‘verdict’ < Arabic

1992

qat

kind of drug < Arabic

1992

tahin

‘sesame paste’ < Arabic

1976

kebab

‘kebab’, roasted meat < Turkish

1992

baklava

sweet pastry made with honey < Turkish

Source: Van der Sijs 2001

About 177 nationalities live in Amsterdam today. A great multitude of languages are spoken, but recent data on the languages used in Amsterdam are unavailable. In a study in The Hague, primary and secondary school children were asked which language(s) they spoke at home (Extra, Aarts, Van der Avoird, Broeder & Yağmur 2001). Of the 88 reported languages, 21 languages were mentioned by 97 per cent of the pupils: Turkish, Sarnami, Berber, Arabic, English, Sranantongo, Papiamento, Kurdish, Spanish, Urdu, French, Chinese, German, Somalian/Asharaaf, Javanese, Portuguese, Italian, Akan/Twi/Ghanese, Farsi, Moluccan/Malay, and 127

Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian. There is little reason to believe the situation in Amsterdam would be very different. One hears these languages when traveling through the city by tram, subway or on foot – especially Arabic, Berber, Turkish, and the Surinamese languages spoken by the larger ethnic groups. Besides hearing them, one sees these languages in shop windows. Table 7.6 displays the signs of fifteen adjacent shops on the Kinkerstraat, an average shopping street in Amsterdam. Of the fifteen shops, only four or five have Dutch names. The other languages we encounter include English (in the majority of cases, like Coffee Company or My Com), Arabic (Al Jaberi, Nasafi), Turkish (Dönerland, Anadolu Firini) and Indonesian (Toko Sentosa). Table 7.6 Signs of fifteen shops on an average street in Amsterdam Name of the shop

Text in window

1. Coffee Company 2. Sunday’s professioneel zonnen [profes-

Lookin’ good, feelin’ great!

sional tanning] 3. All-in Plaza

Huishoudelijke & cadeau artikelen [household goods and presents]

4. Studio Marina’s

Kapsalon Marina’s voor Dames en Heren [barbershop for ladies and gents]

5. Robel Schoenen [shoes] 6. Al Jaberi Juwelier [jeweler]

Goudsmid, 14, 18 en 22k goud [goldsmith, 14, 18 and 22k gold]

7. Dönerland

Grillroom.

8. Reisbureau Nova [travel agency]

KLM tickets.

9. Nasafi

Klokken en horloges. Verkoop van batterijen, accessoires en sieraden. [Clocks and watches. Sale of batteries, accessories and jewellery]

10. Nicole

Kledingreparatie & stomerij [clothes repair & dry cleaning]

11. Het Beddencentrum [the bed centre] 12. Anadolu Bakkerij [bakery]

Warme bakker, Oosterse en Turkse specialiteiten. Anadolu Fırını, echte Turkse pizza. [Fresh bakery, eastern and Turkish specialities. Real Turkish pizza]

13. My Com

Computers, componenten, randapparatuur. De betere computerwinkel. ’t Klikt met My Com. [Computers, components, peripheral equipment. The better computer shop. It clicks with My Com]

14. Juwelier Nusselein [jeweler]

Sieraden die blij maken. [jewellery that pleases]

15.Toko Sentosa

Indonesische gerechten. Afhaalcentrum. [Indonesian dishes. Takeaway centre]

128

Fifty years on, the rag-and-bone business, the milkman and the potato dealer have disappeared from the street. Daily food is now available in large supermarkets. Potatoes are still in stock, but in no more than two varieties, and have been replaced by a whole array of rice (Basmati, broken, jasmine, long grain, lontong, Pandan, parboiled, Patna, risotto, Siam, sticky, Surinamese and yellow) and by a variety of pasta, all with their specific names (spaghetti, macaroni, lasagne, fettucine, penne, fusilli, tagliatelle, ravioli, farfalle and rigatoni).4 For the majority of inhabitants of contemporary Amsterdam, multilingualism has thus become the norm, although large groups of first-generation newcomers have only a very basic knowledge of Dutch and sometimes not even that. To reach these groups, local authorities provide information on housing, public transport and health care in various languages. This practice, however, is under discussion as it reduces the need to learn Dutch – now considered crucial in integrating newcomers into Dutch society.

Cross-linguistic influences With so many languages spoken in a limited area, one may wonder how these languages have influenced each other. We first focus on English, as it is regularly used as a lingua franca in Amsterdam. We then turn to the minority languages. How have they influenced Dutch? Have younger migrants developed a new variety of Dutch? Has Dutch in turn influenced minority languages? And how have minority languages influenced each other? In many parts of the world, English has become a lingua franca, and English-speaking people will have no trouble at all wandering about Amsterdam. Taxi drivers, tram conductors, policemen, shopkeepers and garbage collectors all speak English and love to do so, making it difficult for foreigners to practise their Dutch. Even Dutch citizens may be addressed in English in bars, restaurants or shops, and surprisingly many are not bothered by having to answer in English. In primary schools English is taught in the last two years (grades 5 and 6); in secondary schools pupils may choose from several languages, but the study of English is compulsory. For this reason, (almost) every Dutchman has at least a basic knowledge of English. Young children are nowadays sur129

rounded by English: they listen to music in English, play computer games in English, and watch English movies and television programmes in English (with subtitles in Dutch). Amsterdam tries to attract foreign companies to establish offices in the city, while vacancy ads in Dutch newspapers contain terms like technical manager, sales representative, assistant controller, patent officer or managing director for which Dutch equivalents are hardly ever used. While English loanwords already abounded in Dutch, their presence became massive in the era of information and communication technology. Over a very short period they have been integrated into Dutch following Dutch morphosyntactic rules, as illustrated in examples (a) and (b): a. een gsm (‘a mobile telephone’) – 2 gsm’s (plural) – een gsm’etje (diminutive) – gsm’en (verb) – gsm’de (past tense) – gegsm’d (perfect) – een gsm’er (person who uses his gsm) – gsm-abonnement (‘gsm subscription’) b. cool (‘cool’) – coole (declension of the adjective) – cooler (comparative) – coolst (superlative) English is also promoted in the Dutch educational system. With the implementation of the Bachelor’s/Master’s system in Dutch universities in 2003, English has become the recommended language at the Master’s level (Dutch remains the language of instruction for the Bachelor’s degree). The KNAW (Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie voor Wetenschappen, ‘Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences’) supports this development. A committee, installed by the KNAW, studying the use of Dutch in science wrote: ‘The rise of one worldwide lingua franca has enormous advantages, especially in science. Not only in the beta sciences, but also in the humanities and in the social sciences. Therefore the use of English needs to be stimulated with no hard feelings and with elan’. The University of Amsterdam has launched a campaign to attract students from abroad, but such strategies are not universally welcomed as they could have disastrous consequences for the position of Dutch. Beheydt (2003) warns that some secondary schools have already started to offer much of their curriculum in English, and a new elite will soon demand English in primary schools and start speaking English at home. Others see no harm in this: ‘There is no good reason why people should not switch to another, more viable language if they think after ample consideration that that is the best’ (De Swaan 2002). 130

New varieties of Dutch? In the preceding sections the influence of various languages on Dutch has been demonstrated through several examples. Those in Tables 7.1 and 7.3-7.5 all concern lexical borrowings from other languages; morphosyntactic or other adjustments of these languages to Dutch as described above for English are far less frequent. Minority languages, however, not only leave marks on standard Dutch, but also on the Dutch spoken by members of minority groups. Two clear examples are varieties of Dutch that developed in the former colonies. The Dutch spoken in Indonesia was influenced by Malay and Javanese in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Characteristics of Indisch-Nederlands, as this variety of Dutch is called, include deletion of the final t in present tense forms like hij studeer instead of hij studeert (‘he studies’), word accent on the last syllable (postkan’toor instead of ’postkantoor), deletion of reflexive prounouns (ik moet altijd schamen voor hem instead of ik moet me altijd schamen voor hem (‘I always have to be ashamed of him’), and the use of Indonesian words like soesa (‘bother, fuss’) and adoe (exclamation). Surinamese Dutch may likewise be considered an ethnolect of Dutch,5 differing from standard Dutch on the phonological, grammatical and lexical levels. Examples are a strong, bilabial /w/, the frequent use of the auxiliary gaan (‘to go’) as in Ik ga naar Holland gaan (‘I am going to Holland’) and the use of duim (‘thumb’) for big toe (Janssens 2003). But what about other varieties of Dutch based on more recent contact with, for instance, Arabic and Turkish? Are new varieties of Dutch developing which could be labelled Arabic Dutch or Turkish Dutch? So far, this does not seem to be the case, though it may be too early to answer this question. Of course the Dutch spoken by first-generation migrants differs in many respects from standard Dutch, though this is hardly surprising as they learnt Dutch at a later age. And while the Amsterdam accents of the third and second generation often cannot be distinguished from that of their native Dutch peers, their Dutch language proficiency is often below that of their native peers, especially in vocabulary. This can lead to educational problems and in the end to less-desired jobs.

131

Nevertheless, it may be the case that some sort of new ethnic variety of Dutch is developing: there are suggestions that second and later generation youngsters are trying to distinguish themselves from standard Dutch in their language. Appel (1999) was the first to observe this phenomenon and called it straattaal (‘street language’); others prefer the term ‘urban youngster variety’ (Cornips & Reizevoort 2006).

Street language Appel’s (1999) study of Amsterdam street language characterises it as a mixed language used by different ethnic groups. Based on Dutch, it contains many words from other languages, either in authentic or adapted form, as well as newly created expressions. The majority of foreign words and expressions used in street language are from Sranan, as many inhabitants of Amsterdam have roots in Suriname. Other foreign elements used in street language come from English, Arabic and Turkish (for examples see Table 7.7). Table 7.7 Examples of words from different languages, used in street language Word

Meaning and origin

duku

‘money’< Sranantongo

oso

‘house’ < Sranantongo

fatu

‘joke’ < Sranantongo

yu ma panpan

‘your mother’s cunt’ < Sranantongo

chick

‘girl’ < English

checken

‘to check’ < English

chillen

‘to chill’ < English

who(e)lla

‘I swear it’ < Arabic

jemek

‘your mother’ < Arabic

domuz

‘pork’ < Turkish

lan

‘boy, kid’ < Turkish

Source: Appel 1999

132

Besides the Surinamese background of many street language users, Appel provides two explanations for the significant presence of Sranan in street language. First, Surinamese adolescents are considered trendsetters in style and fashion (music, clothes, shoes) and are also imitated in their language. Second, Sranan contains many words with a consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel sequence, like bigi (‘big’), niri (‘angry’) or meki (‘to make’) which young people seem to appreciate, as can be seen in words from youth language in general like bako (‘bacardi cola’), leipo (‘weirdo’), mega (‘great’) or giga (‘gigantic’) (Hoppenbrouwers 1991). The influence of English can be traced to adolescents’ attraction to English and American music and media culture. The examples in Table 7.7 show that in street language, elements from different minority languages (Sranan, Arabic and Turkish) are integrated, illustrating the influence of minority languages on each other. However, street language also contains terms typically used by Dutch youths like keller (‘nice’), flex (‘okay’) and merrie (‘Mercedes’). This raises the question whether street language is ‘just’ a multilingual version of the more general spread of youth language (Janssens 2003) – after all, most people tend to speak a more standard language once they begin their careers, start families and become members of the establishment. However, others consider street language a new ethnic variant of Dutch (Aarssen, Boumans & Nortier 2002). Other features of street language are not so much the result of contact between groups with different language backgrounds as of a deficient acquisition of Dutch. This is illustrated by the overuse of the article de (used for masculine and feminine nouns) instead of het (used for neuter nouns) and its related forms (relative pronouns, declension of adjectives). Some proclaim these grammatical simplifications will become a part of standard Dutch over time (Weerman 2003). Although opinion on the future of street language differs, all agree the variety confers a certain prestige to its users – native Dutch youngsters use it to appear cool and to express attitude.

Changes and loss of minority languages? It goes without saying there are big differences in the use and proficiency of minority languages. First-generation migrant work133

ers tend to stick to their native tongue; situations in which they use Dutch are mostly limited to work, in shops and with the authorities. At home, among friends and in places of worship, they speak their mother tongue while information enters the home in the native language via the satellite dish. Among the second generation, the native language is increasingly replaced by the use of Dutch, although the use of the mother tongue varies between groups. Young Turks tend to speak Turkish with each other, whereas young Moroccans generally communicate in Dutch. The explanation may rest in the higher status Turks attribute to Turkish compared to what Moroccans assign to Moroccan Arabic and Berber, and in the role club life plays in Turkish culture (Aarssen, Boumans & Nortier 2002). These assumptions are corroborated by the findings of Extra et al. (2001) in their study on multilingualism in The Hague, which calculated a language vitality index and found a higher score for Turkish than for Berber and Arabic. The study found relatively low scores for languages spoken by migrants from the former colonies: Sarnami, Moluccan Malay, Sranan and Javanese. After having lived within Dutch society for many years, the influence of Dutch on minority languages is palpable. This is especially true for members of the second generation who often employ code switching – conversations in the native tongue are interspersed with Dutch words and expressions, as in the following example of Dutch-Moroccan Arabic code switching (Nortier 1989): _ h. etta gedda also tomorrow 9end-na with-us

9end-na with-us

_ bazar, gedda kan ik niet eh sale, tomorrow I cannot uh

bazar fe-l-xedma sale at-the-work

(‘Tomorrow we also have a sale, tomorrow I can’t uh we are having a sale at my work.’)

In some cases, the native language changes in the direction of Dutch grammar. Some speakers of Moroccan Arabic in the Netherlands express the meaning of ‘no longer’ by means of adverbs, whereas in Morocco an auxiliary is used. When they have a choice between two constructions to express possession – an analytic and 134

a synthetic one – they opt in the majority of cases for the former, corresponding to the equivalent construction in Dutch (Boumans 2002). Turks sometimes say sınav almak (‘to pass an exam’, following Dutch), whereas in Turkey one would say sınav kazanmak (‘to win an exam’) (Dorleijn 2002). Grammatical changes in Turkish have also been reported, such as the dropping of object marking, which is obligatory in Turkish but not in Dutch (Aarssen 2002). These examples suggest new varieties of Arabic and Turkish are developing under the influence of Dutch. But before we can speak of a Dutch Arabic or a Dutch Turkish, further study is needed to investigate whether these changes are systematic and structural. Over generations, the use of minority languages diminishes, changes under the influence of the majority language, and is gradually lost. The experience of migrants in Europe and America show the native language is replaced by the language of the adopted country within two or three generations (Bennis, Extra & Nortier 2002). This is also what we are witnessing in Amsterdam today.

Teaching Dutch as a second language: innovation and problems The arrival of immigrants has led to changes in school teaching. This section gives a short overview of the ways in which Amsterdam has tried to teach newcomers the Dutch language. Amsterdam has a tradition for innovative approaches, illustrated by a large project carried out in the 1970s. By the 1980s, however, the growing number of pupils from ethnic minority groups coupled with the lack of adequate course books and insufficient knowledge of second language acquisition and teaching methods became too heavy a burden for many teachers. Remarkably, Amsterdam succeeded in turning the tide by adopting a results-oriented approach in the 1990s. Nowadays, ‘language policy’ is the keyword. The Innovatieproject Amsterdam (‘Innovation Project Amsterdam’), which ran from 1971 until 1978 (Van Calcar 1977a, b, 1980), was meant to solve the problems of lower-class children in primary school. The project emphasized group work among students and promoted autonomous learning; the main role of the teacher was not to pass on knowledge, but to act as a coach in the 135

learning process. Contact with kindergarten and secondary education was encouraged to create an ongoing curriculum, as was the involvement of parents. Teachers were exhorted to improve their didactic skills. The Innovatieproject was meant to be an answer to earlier efforts aimed at lower-class children. Such so-called compensation programmes were informed by the deficit hypothesis, which stated that lower-class children lacked basic language proficiency (Appel, Hubers & Meijer 1976). The failure of these programmes came as no surprise to Labov, advocate of the difference hypothesis (1972), who concluded that the English spoken by black people in New York was not deficient in comparison to that of white speakers, but simply different. This conclusion, plausible as it sounded, was applied to lower-class Dutch children. Their language was now considered to be equal to that of any other group; what had to be learnt was ‘only’ the language of that other group, the language of school. The Innovatieproject did not discuss the equality of language systems, but assumed existing social relations prevented lower-class children from participating under certain circumstances. Informed by Van Calcar’s (1980) culture hypothesis which emphasized the relation between language and reality, several projects were set up to stimulate pupils’ cultural and social participation, including the language printing workshop and involving the close cooperation of schools, libraries and community centres. A prominent place in the project was given to language education, for which a new approach was developed: de Nieuwe Taalaanpak (‘the New Language Approach’). Lessons were now centred on themes, beginning with the familiar (at home, on the street) and moving to new situations (at the station). The starting points of these lessons were children’s own stories and experiences. This meant teachers could no longer work with the course books they were used to, which undermined continuity in their lessons. The project’s coordinators tried to address these problems by giving teachers large schemes with language goals and specific tasks and exercises, but these proved too complicated. Meanwhile, the student population was rapidly changing, with new arrivals from abroad. Already in the 1970s, half the children entering kindergarten did not speak Dutch. Teachers complained that ‘they had to teach them words’ and were wasting time. Later they would realize this was the most appropriate thing to do under the circum136

stances. Looking back at the new language approach some thirty years later, one has to admit many of its basic assumptions remain valid. The project’s authors may have been too far ahead of their time. In the 1980s, teachers found themselves in a vacuum: although the Innovatieproject had changed their educational approach, it had not delivered the successes they had hoped for. In the meantime, more and more ethnic minority children had entered their classes. The Innovatieproject had ended, but there was no followup programme to address the new challenges teachers faced. Teachers thus had to cope with the language difficulties of newcomers on their own. In Amsterdam the majority of such primary school pupils were placed in regular classes with the hope that Dutch immersion would solve the problems. But as these children often did not speak a word of Dutch, they were left to their own devices for much of the day. Their language acquisition thus suffered, eventually condemning many to the lower rungs of secondary education. Problems in the education of minority children gradually became obvious. These included: (1) a delay in Dutch proficiency of about two years, particularly in vocabulary and in reading; (2) insufficient knowledge of the instructional language used at school. In more technical terms, this meant their basic interpersonal cognitive style (BICS) may have been adequate, but their cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) was lacking (Cummins 1979). This would explain why many children could finish primary school but encountered problems as soon as they entered high school; (3) the need for an ongoing curriculum with smooth transitions from pre-school to primary school to secondary school; (4) problems with subjects like history, physics, biology and math, where pupils lack basic vocabulary such as assumption, to involve, to address, to refer to, resources, etc.

Teaching Dutch as a second language: back to results An attempt was made to halt this downward trend in the 1990s. This was also when policymaking for educational problems was transferred from the national to the local level. The city of Amsterdam took this opportunity to establish a new ‘results-oriented’ policy with targets to be met at all educational levels. 137

Programmes for pre-schoolers now try to stimulate child development in many areas, among them language development. By the time children go to school, they should have made up 50 per cent of their deficiencies. Evaluations show that results are best when centre and family-based programmes are combined, and when children start at an early age (2.5-3.5 years) (Leseman 2002). The 2006 goal of having half of the 15,000 children who need these programmes participating has been reached, while the results for language proficiency and maths are promising (Veen, Roeleveld & Van Daalen 2005). Most primary school children in the Netherlands are evaluated in their final year (grade 6) by a nationally administered test called Eindtoets Basisonderwijs (‘Final test primary education’), better known as the Citotoets. Its use has been controversial, but under the new policy, all primary schools in the city have committed themselves to administer the Citotoets. In 1996, 168 out of a total of 207 schools took the test. By 2001 this had increased to 194 out of 195. The average score for Amsterdam schools increased from 529.4 in 1996 (national average: 534.4) to 533.3 in 2001 (national average 534.9) to 537.1 in 2009 (national average 536.2) (Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek 2009). Amsterdam has caught up. But there is still a lot to be done. The average score of many Amsterdam schools is still below the national average, and has to do with the large number of minority children (more than 60 per cent) in the city’s schools. Progress, however, is being made: schools which had relatively low scores in 1998 are improving faster than others (Waijenberg 2002), while the Stuurgroep Succesvolle Schoolloopbaan (‘Steering Committee Successful School Career’) has launched an ambitious plan for the in-service training of primary school teachers to improve their language teaching. Ethnic minority youth are over-represented in the lower streams of secondary education (VMBO) and under-represented in its higher streams (HAVO/VWO). This may have to do with the fact that upon finishing primary school, 60 per cent of pupils are advised to continue in a lower stream. The percentage of Moroccan and Turkish children who receive such advice is even higher; it is hard to avoid the impression that for many of them, it is bad advice. Further, most of the 25 per cent of first-year pupils who start a year late are minority youths. This matters as age seems to be the only determining factor for school success: the older one starts at secondary school, the smaller the chances of 138

graduating. This holds for Dutch pupils as well, but as stated above, it is thought many Turkish and Moroccan students could be doing better than VMBO (Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling 2003b). Over the last fifteen years secondary schools have been confronted by a series of reforms involving new didactic procedures designated by such terms as ‘learning to learn’, ‘cooperative learning’, ‘autonomous learning’, ‘natural learning’ and ‘new learning’. While this has sapped a lot of energy, one advantage has been the development of new course books that acknowledge the presence of multilingual students and the fact that their academic language skills are insufficient. While experiments to integrate language with subject goals following a content-based approach have begun, early implementation has not been smooth (Teunissen & Hacquebord 2002). Schools have recently been given financial incentives to implement this approach on a larger scale, and progress is being made, albeit slowly (Herder & Berenst 2006; Kuiken 2006).

Adult education There have been important changes for adult immigrants as well. For a long time the learning of Dutch was left to their discretion, but in the 1990s the government became seriously involved in the integration of newcomers. The 1998 Wet Inburgering Nieuwkomers (Newcomers Integration Act) was a major change in policy: newcomers were henceforth obliged to integrate. Since then, municipalities had to provide new immigrants with an integration course shortly after their arrival. After an entrance test assessed learning ability and ambition, newcomers followed a 600-hour programme over a maximum of twelve months. It consisted mainly of Dutch as a second language as well as social and employment orientation. The initial results of the programme in Amsterdam were hardly impressive: nearly half who started did not finish. Things have improved since 2002, with 73 per cent finishing the course, of whom half found trainee posts or jobs. In 2003, 77 per cent of about 4,000 participants finished the course, but due to a stagnating economy, trainee posts and jobs became more difficult to find. ‘Dual’ or ‘integrated routes’ have since been developed, combin-

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ing the integration programme with vocational training or work (Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling 2003a). A new law, the Wet Inburgering (‘Integration Act’) came into effect in January 2007. It not only applies to newcomers but to socalled ‘oldcomers’ as well. Participation in an integration programme no longer suffices; both groups have to pass an exam. Amsterdam developed ambitious plans for the inhabitants to whom this applies (Gemeente Amsterdam 2006), but concrete data on how many newcomers and oldcomers have since then passed the integration exam are lacking (Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek 2009).

Minority language teaching The teaching of minority languages deserves special mention. Ever since primary schools were faced with the arrival of large groups of children from ethnic minority backgrounds, there has been an animated discussion over whether their home languages should be taught (Turkenburg 2001). Those in favour stress minority language teaching may stimulate the child’s emotional well-being, while a good base in the home language may facilitate second language acquisition (Appel 1984). The often-heard counter-argument is that time spent on minority language teaching cannot be devoted to teaching Dutch, which most of the time has not yet been sufficiently mastered. There are also practical problems: which language should be taught to Moroccan pupils whose mother tongue may be Moroccan Arabic or a Berber language like Tarifit, Tashelhit or Tamazight? Finding good language materials and qualified teachers pose further challenges. Amsterdam has a long experience with this type of education, for instance with Chinese children. From its introduction in 1970 until 1998, education in the language (and culture) of the home country (Onderwijs in Eigen Taal (en Cultuur)) was arranged according to national guidelines. Since 1998, education in ‘allochthonous minority languages’ (Onderwijs in Allochtone Levende Talen) has been left to the responsibility of local authorities. In Amsterdam this type of education took place at school in grades 1-3, with the idea that it might stimulate the acquisition of Dutch; children in grades 4-6 could follow lessons in their home language after school. These facilities, however, were abolished by the Minister 140

of Education in 2004. In the long run, language schools may be set up that are intended not only for native speakers, but for all children who want to learn the language.

The twenty-first century: language policy In the twenty-first century, ‘language policy’ has become the key word adopted by the Amsterdam authorities in the battle against language delay. Alongside the above-mentioned improvements begun in the 1990s, school managers are now obliged to formulate documents on language policy. These give the status of Dutch as a mother tongue, Dutch as a second language, Dutch used in the different school subjects, other languages taught at school (mostly English, French and German) and the home languages of pupils, as well as of all the parties involved: pupils, language teachers, subject teachers, directors, managers and contacts with institutions and persons outside school. Two steering committees or networks, for primary and secondary education, respectively, will coordinate language policy to guarantee an ongoing curriculum from preschool to secondary education. Both networks support a ‘broad approach’ for language proficiency where language is connected to daily life: sports, arts, culture, libraries, neighbourhood events and so on. In the classroom, language and subject matter teaching will be integrated according to the principles of content-based instruction. The approach and aims for adult learners of Dutch follow similar lines in the integration plan Niemand aan de kant (‘Nobody left aside’) (Gemeente Amsterdam 2006), combining language and vocational training. What emerges from this historical overview is that throughout the years Amsterdam has tried to find the best way for newcomers to learn Dutch so that they can participate as full members of Dutch society. It goes without saying that new challenges will arise over time and demand new solutions.

Concluding remarks If Amsterdam was not yet a multilingual city some fifty years ago, it has certainly become one with the arrival of thousands of citi141

zens from the former colonies and migrant workers with their families. Any trip through the city by tram will bear this out. Schoolteachers have had a hard time coping with the large number of multilingual pupils in their classrooms. But results are improving since the city adopted a results-oriented approach. There is, however, still a lot to be done before all candidates for pre-school programs have been reached, all primary schools have achieved higher test scores, and a content-based approach has been implemented in secondary and adult education. But Amsterdam is working hard to raise the quality of language teaching at all educational levels. In the meantime, Dutch is changing through contact with minority languages; the latter, influenced by Dutch, are likewise changing. How far these changes are systematic and structural so that one can speak of new varieties of Dutch, Turkish and Arabic needs to be determined in the future. Views differ on whether these changes should be seen as progress or decay, while vehement debates take place in newspapers and other media about the corruption of the Dutch language. History, however, shows that it is harder to stand up for purism than to fight windmills.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

I would like to thank René Appel and the authors of the present book for their comments on an earlier draft. A shorter version of this chapter has been published as Kuiken (2005). All italicized words in this sentence were incorporated from English into Dutch in the 1950s (Van der Sijs 2001). In Tables 7.3-7.5, the years indicate when words were included in the dictionary. They may have been in use before then. The (incorrect) impression that Dutch has only borrowed words in the consumptive fields can be remedied by examples given in Tables 7.1 and 7.4. In January 2005 the Republic of Suriname joined the Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union). Since then the Dutch language consists of three officially recognized varieties: Standard Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese Dutch.

References Aarssen, J. (2002), ‘Turks in Lombok: een sterk (s)taaltje?’, in H. Bennis, G. Extra and J. Nortier (eds.), Een buurt in beweging. Talen en Culturen in het Utrechtse Lombok en Transvaal, 235-248. Amsterdam: Aksant.

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Aarssen, J., L. Boumans & J. Nortier (2002), ‘Beweging in taal’, in H. Bennis, G. Extra and J. Nortier (eds.), Een buurt in beweging. Talen en Culturen in het Utrechtse Lombok en Transvaal, 303-315. Amsterdam: Aksant. Appel, R. (1984), Immigrant children learning Dutch. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of second-language acquisition. Dissertation University of Amsterdam. — (1999), ‘Straattaal. De mengtaal van jongeren in Amsterdam’, Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen 62 (2): 39-57. Appel, R., G. Hubers & G. Meijer (1976), Sociolinguïstiek. Utrecht/Antwerp: Het Spectrum. Appel, R. & P. Muysken (1987), Language contact and bilingualism. London: Edward Arnold. Beheydt, L. (2003), ‘De moeizame weg van een standaardtaal. De externe en interne druk op het Nederlands’, in J. Stroop (ed.), Waar gaat het Nederlands naartoe? Panorama van een taal, 152-163. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Bennis, H., G. Extra & J. Nortier (eds.) (2002), Een buurt in beweging. Talen en Culturen in het Utrechtse Lombok en Transvaal. Amsterdam: Aksant. Boumans, L. (2002), ‘Meertaligheid op Marokkaanse elektronische prikborden’, Levende talen tijdschrift 3 (1): 11-21. Calcar, C. van (1977a), Innovatieproject Amsterdam. Deel 1: Bronnenboek. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. — (1977b), Innovatieproject Amsterdam. Deel II: Tussenstand. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. — (1980), Innovatieproject Amsterdam. Eindverslag: een opening. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. Cornips, L. & B. Reizevoort (2006), ‘Taal en identiteit: de dynamische aspecten van een urbane jongerenvariëteit’, in T. Koole, J. Nortier & B. Tahitu (eds.), Artikelen van de Vijfde Sociolinguïstische Conferentie, 88-99. Delft: Eburon. Cummins, J. (1979), ‘Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age and some other matters’, Working papers on bilingualism 19: 197-205. Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling (2003a), Verslag Conferentie ‘Inburgeren in Amsterdam’. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling. — (2003b), Voortgezet onderwijs in beeld. Rapportage 2003. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling. Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek (2009), De staat van de stad. Amsterdam V. Ontwikkelingen in participatie en leefsituatie. Amsterdam: Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek. Dorleijn, M. (2002), ‘“Ik leg mijn schoen met Sinterklaas”. Leenvertalingen in het Turks en Nederlands’, in H. Bennis, G. Extra & J. Nortier (eds.), Een buurt in beweging. Talen en Culturen in het Utrechtse Lombok en Transvaal, 217-234. Amsterdam: Aksant. Extra, G., R. Aarts, T. van der Avoird, P. Broeder & K. Yağmur (2001), Meertaligheid in Den Haag. De status van allochtone talen thuis en op school. Amsterdam: European Cultural Foundation. Gemeente Amsterdam (2006), Niemand aan de kant. Inburgering, de Amsterdamse aanpak. Amsterdam: Gemeente Amsterdam. Herder, A. & J. Berenst (2006), Over taalbeleid gesproken. Een onderzoek naar de wijze waarop verschillende actoren in het voortgezet onderwijs in Amsterdam invul-

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ling geven aan het begrip taalbeleid. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijk Ontwikkeling. Hoppenbrouwers, C. (1991), Jongerentaal. De tipparade van de omgangstaal. Hoogezand: Stubeg. Janssens, G. (2003), Het Nederlands vroeger en nu. Leuven/Leusden: Acco. Kuiken, F. (2005), ‘Linguistic diversity in Amsterdam’, in E. Witte, L. Van Mensel, M. Pierrard, L. Mettewie, A. Housen, & R. De Groof (eds.), Language attitudes and education in multilingual cities, 113-122. Brussels: Koninklijke Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten. — (2006), Tot op het bot gemotiveerd. Vier portretten van Amsterdamse vo-scholen bij de ontwikkeling en invoering van taalbeleid. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijk Ontwikkeling. Labov, W. (1972), Language in the inner city. Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Leseman, P. (2002), Onderzoek in de voor- en vroegschoolse periode. Trends en nieuwe vragen. The Hague: NWO-PROO. Nortier, J. (1989), Dutch and Moroccan Arabic in contact: code switching among Moroccans in the Netherlands. Dissertation University of Amsterdam. Posthuma de Boer, E., J. Blokker & B. Haveman (2003), Amsterdam, stad van mijn leven. Amsterdam: Bas Lubberhuizen. Sijs, N. van der (2001), Chronologisch woordenboek. De ouderdom en herkomst van onze woorden en betekenissen. Amsterdam/Antwerp: Veen. Swaan, A. de (2002), Woorden van de wereld. Het mondiale talenstelsel. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Teunissen, F. & H. Hacquebord (2002), Onderwijs met taalkwaliteit. Op zoek naar kwaliteitskenmerken voor effectief taalonderwijs voor onderwijskansen. ’s-Hertogenbosch: KPC Groep. Tulder, R. van (1999), De echo van een eeuw. Honderd jaar Amsterdamse stadsgezichten. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Publishers. Turkenburg, M. (2001), Onderwijs in allochtone levende talen. Een verkenning in zeven gemeenten. The Hague: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Veen, A., J. Roeleveld & M. van Daalen (2005), Op zoek naar ‘best practices’. Opbrengsten van Amsterdamse scholen. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling. Vries, J. de, R. Willemyns & P. Burger (1993), Het verhaal van een taal. Negen eeuwen Nederlands. Amsterdam: Prometheus. Waijenberg, K. (2002), 10 jaar basisonderwijs in Amsterdam 1991-2001. Amsterdam: Dienst Welzijn Amsterdam, afdeling Onderwijs. Weerman, F. (2003), ‘Een mooie verhaal. Veranderingen in uitgangen’, in J. Stroop (ed.), Waar gaat het Nederlands naartoe? Panorama van een taal, 249260. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.

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8 Immigrant organisations in Amsterdam Floris Vermeulen & Anja van Heelsum

Introduction The establishment of immigrant organisations is an important part of the settlement process as they provide opportunities to pursue goals too broad to be accomplished by individuals alone. Amsterdam is no exception, and the city has a long history of immigrant groups establishing their own organisations. This history dates back to the early immigrant churches of the seventeenth century and continues today with the establishment of mosques, temples and numerous other secular associations (Van Heelsum 2004a, b; Lucassen 2003; Vermeulen 2006). This chapter focuses on how the specific environment of Amsterdam has influenced the associational life of its immigrants over the last decades of the twentieth century. It is widely accepted that the political opportunity structure (POS) of the host society influences immigrant organising. The political opportunity structure for immigrants can best be conceived as the extent to which they are supported by state authorities to establish their own organisations – through subsidies, positive policy implementation and personal support. External incentives affect expectations of success or failure, and will increase or decrease associational activity (Tarrow 1998: 76-77; Koopmans & Statham 2000: 32). Changes in integration policy are therefore telling, as they often indicate changes in external opportunities for immigrants to organise, while levels of state subsidy are good indicators of authorities’ receptiveness to immigrants’ organisational demands. In addition to formal political opportunity structures, informal structures also affect incentives for collective action. These relate less to formal policy measures than to the historically emerged strategies of elite groups to cope with political 145

challengers and cultural diversity (Koopmans & Statham 2000: 34). This chapter looks at specific elements of the Amsterdam political opportunity structure to explain how the city has influenced the associational behaviour of its immigrants. While this Amsterdam POS consists of general (Dutch) elements including the system of ‘pillarisation’ (discussed below) and the multicultural minority policy, it contains elements that are unique to, or more pronounced in, Amsterdam: the city authorities’ positive attitude towards social movements and the attendant ease with which public subsidies are given to voluntary (immigrant) organisations. Table 8.1 Number of organisations and organisational density (organisations/citizens) for Surinamese, Turkish and Moroccan organisations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, 2003 Surinamese

Turkish

Moroccan

number

density

number

density

number

density

Amsterdam

217

3.0

189

5.6

170

3.1

Rotterdam

131

2.5

81

1.9

77

2.4

Source: Van Heelsum (2005)

Table 8.1 shows the organisational density of the three largest immigrant groups in Amsterdam and Rotterdam: the Surinamese, the Turks and the Moroccans (the data were obtained from fieldwork in 2003). For all three groups, the number of organisations and their density is higher in Amsterdam. The purpose of this chapter, however, is not to compare Dutch cities but to elaborate on Amsterdam’s special situation. It will show how the combination of general and specific factors within Amsterdam’s POS enhanced the establishment of immigrant organisations in the city until about 2000. Examples from the experience of specific immigrant groups will illustrate both the general and specific elements of the Amsterdam POS. First, we examine the Dutch system of pillarisation and its effects on Turkish religious organisations in Amsterdam. Second, we discuss the positive attitude of Amsterdam authorities towards new social movements and the related generous state subsidy system of the 1970s and 1980s, with its effect on Surinamese welfare organisations in this period.

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The system of ‘pillarisation’ The Dutch system of ‘pillarisation’ (verzuiling) was originally developed to cope with religious diversity (see also Sunier’s chapter in this book) and was based on the idea that each group could provide its own services (Lijphart 1968; Duyvendak 1997). From 1920, Dutch society was divided into three segments, or ‘pillars’: Catholic, Protestant and non-confessional. Each pillar had its own political parties, schools, hospitals, trade unions, broadcasters, newspapers and magazines, and voluntary associations. Even villages had Catholic, Protestant and non-confessional sports clubs and choirs. The housing market was likewise divided into segments. Though the system disintegrated in the 1960s, and the 1983 revision of the constitution ended a number of financial commitments towards churches (Rath, Penninx, Groenendijk & Meyer 1996), traces of pillarisation can still be found at almost every level of Dutch minority policy. These tend to reinforce group structures (Rijkschroeff & Duyvendak 2004: 29). The residues of pillarisation are particularly evident in the way Muslim groups are treated. Due to legislation dating from the heydays of pillarisation, very few Muslim claims have been categorically denied by the Dutch authorities (Rath et al. 1996: 242). Every religious group in the Netherlands, Christian or not, is entitled to establish its own school, fully financed by the government, if there is a minimum number of students (Duyvené de Wit & Koopmans 2002). The first Islamic school in the Netherlands was founded in 1989; by 2004 Amsterdam had ten Islamic primary schools (DMO 2004). Even though the system’s strength has decreased, its formal structures still provide ample opportunity for religious newcomers to establish their own organisations. The example of Turkish Muslim organisations in Amsterdam shows more elaborately how the pillarised system has worked for a specific group. While the same Turkish denominations exist in other West European cities, nowhere are they as institutionalised as in Amsterdam (Vermeulen 2006).

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Turkish Muslim organisations in Amsterdam The largest Turkish religious grouping is related to Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs. The federation in the Netherlands, Stichting Turks-Islamitische Culturele Federatie (STICF), counts 140 local mosques as members, while the related foundation Islamitische Stichting Nederland (ISN) owns most mosques on behalf of the Turkish government. The ties with the Turkish state are underlined by the ISN chairman always being the representative for religious affairs from the Turkish embassy in The Hague. Well-educated imams for the affiliated mosques are sent and paid by Diyanet for a period of four years. In 2006 a problem arose because the Dutch Minister of Integration Affairs proposed to ban imams educated abroad. Amsterdam has six Diyanet mosques: the Fatih Mosque, the Emir Sultan Mosque, Hacı Bayran Mosque, Mimar Sinan Mosque, Kuba Mosque and Eyüp Sultan. Their imams usually have moderate views and emphasize good relations with Dutch society (Van Heelsum, Fennema & Tillie 2004). Alongside the Diyanet-related mosques, several smaller Islamic denominations and their organisations are present in Amsterdam. The ‘Süleymancılar’ stream within Sunni Islam is represented in the Netherlands by the federation Stichting Islamitisch Centrum Nederland (SICN), founded in 1972. SICN now has about thirty local member organisations throughout the Netherlands, including Ufuk in Amsterdam. Süleymancılar have been characterized as: … opponent[s] of the state controlled type of Islam that exists in Turkey. They support the principle of division of Church and State, as it stands in the Netherlands. The Süleymancılar direct themselves to Koran education and mystical gatherings in mosques. SICN propagates wearing headscarves, prefers to keep boys and girls separate during sport in school and opposes sex education in schools. (Den Exter 2004: 5)

Ufuk cooperates with the district council of Oost-Watergraafsmeer in the east of the city (Van Heelsum & Penninx 1999). Ufuk takes part in the district’s advisory council and in several working groups (for instance on the elderly). They are recognized for their

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efforts, and their socio-cultural activities are subsidised by the district council. Milli Görüş is another Turkish Sunni movement influential in Amsterdam. A European federation in Cologne, the Islamitische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş (IGMG), chairs the grouping; the Nederlandse Islamitische Federatie (NIF) is its semi-independent umbrella organisation in the Netherlands. NIF is based in Schiedam, close to Rotterdam, and has about 45 mosques with a growing number of active youth clubs. Several authors (Den Exter 2004; Van Westerloo 2004) have described the movement’s two faces: one, modern and friendly, involved in the social elevation of Turkish youths, and the other, that of intolerant, anti-Western orthodoxy. Until 2006 the Milli Görüş movement had two branches in the Netherlands, a more and a less conservative branch. Amsterdam’s liberal atmosphere seems to have influenced the northern branch. Its director until 2006, Haci Karacaer, supported members’ integration into Dutch society, a line of thinking attractive to both second-generation youngsters and the city’s political parties. Van Westerloo (2004) describes the tensions between progressive board members and the conservative constituency within the largest Milli Görüş mosque in Amsterdam, the Aya Sofia. In 2006, when plans for a large new mosque complex with social facilities was close to realization, the German headquarters removed the progressive board members in a bid to take over the building process. This led to conflict with the district authorities and a building freeze. A third important group within Turkish Islam, Alevitism, emphasises tolerance (religious) and the equality of men and women. The Alevite faith differs from Sunni and Orthodox Shiite Islam, which is also true for Alevite appearance and behaviour (women do not wear headscarves). Alevitism has long been forbidden in Turkey though Alevite groups have existed in hiding outside the country. Approximately 20-25 per cent of Turks in the Netherlands are of Alevite origin (Yerden 2006). This is a considerably higher percentage than in Turkey, as many suppressed people left in the 1960s and 1970s to become guest labourers in other countries. Until the 1980s Alevites were organised as progressive non-religious organisations, with human rights in Turkey as one of their main concerns. Only in the last ten years have Alevite groups been able to openly manifest themselves within Turkish Islam. In the 149

Netherlands, they are still careful not to attract too much attention. They have no mosques but community centres used for religious ceremonies. The last group of Turkish mosques in Amsterdam consists of organisations with extreme right-wing views such as the Grey Wolves. Though we are only talking about two mosques in an old school building, they have a constituency and have founded many other types of organisations in Amsterdam (Vermeulen 2006).

Amsterdam authorities and new social movements Duyvendak, Koopmans, van der Heijden & Wijmans (1992: 213) argue that the tendency of Dutch authorities to compromise, cooperate and co-opt has enhanced the likelihood of new movements achieving their objectives. Although this is also a characteristic of the nationwide POS, Amsterdam politicians have exemplified this openness to new social movements. To understand this unique relationship between Amsterdam politicians and new social movements, we need to briefly review the city’s recent political history. Twentieth-century politics in Amsterdam has been dominated by the Social Democratic Party (PvdA). The PvdA has been the dominant party in local government since 1945, and has consistently supplied the city’s mayors (Berveling 1994: 25-27). In the 1960s, the political elite encountered opposition from groups of radicalized youth demanding fundamental changes in society and the way in which the city and its institutions were run. At first the Provos and Kabouters targeted authoritarian city and university administrators; their protests later branched out to include environmental and urban planning issues. Radicalized youths demanded facilities for communal living, public bicycles for all to use, and the restricting of cars from public spaces (Mamadouh 1992). Other social movements emerged in the 1970s, such as the women’s and gay movement and groups involved in anti-racism and solidarity with the Third World (Mamadouh 1992: 159; De Liagre Böhl 2003). The lack of affordable apartments for young people had become serious with the growing population of single households, and the squatters developed into a well-organised movement counting between 9,000 and 20,000 activists in 1983.

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The Amsterdam authorities initially tried to repress the Provos, the Kabouters and the squatters. Police violence, however, only increased sympathy for them among the population, and the leaders of the Amsterdam PvdA understood that a different, more cooperative approach had become necessary. Under the leadership of Ed van Thijn, the party developed a new strategy. Although Van Thijn was no radical, he believed traditional Amsterdam politics had to change; most problems occurred because of the dysfunctional political system. Van Thijn introduced a new kind of politics for his party, which he christened ‘the political party of communication’. Politicians were now expected to be receptive to the demands of ordinary people (Fennema 2001: 289-299). This led to the Amsterdam authorities cultivating contacts with all sorts of social groups and movements. Gay demonstrators and militant squatters from Staatsliedenbuurt – a neighbourhood in the West of Amsterdam – even received subsidies (Duyvendak et al. 1992: 213). Sometimes action groups (especially the squatters’ movement) were in fierce conflict with local authorities, but in the end, housing laws were changed in their favour. Other groups tried to work closely with politicians from the beginning. Anti-racism was an important issue for the Social Democrats in the 1980s, and antiracism groups received strong institutional support. Van Thijn, by then mayor of Amsterdam, announced anti-racism to be his main motive to be politically active (Van Thijn 2003: 50). Generous state subsidies to local groups and associations may have originated from the more receptive climate towards new social movements, but the next example, that of the relationship between local authorities and the Amsterdam section of the motorcycle club the Hells Angels, shows how subsidies involved more than just ‘communicating’ with dissident groups. Amsterdam authorities used subsidies in an unsuccessful attempt to counter unwanted behaviour, a strategy that came to be known as ‘repressive tolerance’. The Amsterdam section of the Hells Angels grew increasingly troublesome for the local authorities in the early 1970s. Their activities had evolved from small misdemeanours into serious criminal activities. But rather than police repression, the city council believed it would be best to provide them with housing in an attempt to keep them on the right track. In 1977 the Hells Angels received their own building, fully financed by the city. The 151

hope that this would decrease criminal behaviour was optimistic. The building became the centre of all types of violent and criminal activity, and within a year a large police raid was staged to end this situation. However, instead of closing the building, the Amsterdam authorities decided the Hells Angels could keep their headquarters and, in addition, receive a large annual state subsidy as representatives of youth culture. The annual subsidies continued for ten years until they became politically impossible (especially as representatives of youth culture, with most members now in their late thirties). As compensation for the loss of the annual subsidy, the Hells Angels became the legal owners of their headquarters which has since become a valuable property (Parool 2004). The Hells Angels are an extreme example. But government subsidies to this motorcycle gang illustrate the climate of receptiveness among Amsterdam authorities, even to groups who challenged their authority. But subsidies were also used to gain control over these groups. It led, for instance, to oversight of their annual reports. In the 1980s Amsterdam was often accused of working with subversive groups to regulate them. What did this mean for immigrants and their organisations? The development of Surinamese welfare organisations in the city will serve as an example to answer this question.

Surinamese welfare organisations in the 1970s Amsterdam felt the presence of large numbers of immigrants earlier than other Dutch cities. The influx of Surinamese immigrants grew enormously in the first half of the 1970s, with more than 10,000 settling in Amsterdam in 1975 alone (Wintershoven 2000). The arrival of so many immigrants in such a short period caused many social problems. As a nationwide policy did not exist until 1989, Amsterdam initiated its own programme specifically targeting the Surinamese community in 1974. The accompanying memorandum stated that the overloading of municipal services – and not their arrival – was the problem. It stated: ‘Amsterdam provides, because of its plural society, its tolerant climate and its typical mentality of “live and let live”, for Surinamese people enough opportunity to develop their own cultural institutions’ (Vermeulen 2006). Although social democrats in the PvdA always preferred general strategies to improve the position of the underclass, they 152

now decided to use Afro-Surinamese welfare organisations to implement their policies. Their efforts focused on providing social services to deprived segments of the community, with special attention to the drug-related problems of youth (Vermeulen 2006). Never before had immigrant associations enjoyed such a prominent role in social service delivery. Five Surinamese welfare organisations were receiving municipal funding by 1974. The tolerant climate, the mentality of ‘live and let live’ – perhaps combined with feelings of guilt about the colonial period and of responsibility for the serious social problems – generated a huge flow of finances, as seen in Figure 8.1. Figure 8.1 Municipal funding to Surinamese organisations in Amsterdam for the period 1968-98, in guilders

Source: Vermeulen 2006

The golden age for Surinamese organisations was 1975-1984, when they were receiving more than five million guilders a year. The first Surinamese welfare organisation to receive a subsidy from the Amsterdam city council was Welsuria, a joint initiative by Dutch and Afro-Surinamese, mostly with Christian backgrounds. Welsuria’s board members enjoyed good relations with local officials and could count on generous grants, which they distributed to other Surinamese organisations in the city. Within the Surinamese community, Welsuria was widely regarded as an elite, Dutch and colonial organisation; this prompted the founding of a new Afro-Surinamese welfare organisation, Bouwen aan Een Suri153

naams Tehuis (BEST). BEST had its roots in the Surinamese nationalist movement and had a more pronounced Afro-Surinamese character. Although its relationship with local officials was not as good as Welsuria’s, the city council approved funding. BEST was a combined welfare organisation and pressure group. It published exposés on social problems plaguing the Surinamese community in the 1970s (among them housing, police brutality and racial discrimination) and provided social welfare services to Surinamese youths (Meerveld 2002). The Amsterdam subsidy policy was to have far-reaching consequences for Surinamese associations – both positive and negative. On the positive side, many new Surinamese associations benefited from subsidies, and many were indeed established after 1974. Yet the negative repercussions were tremendous. There was no clear idea informing social policy for Surinamese in the 1970s, neither at the government level nor among the organisations. Policy was characterised by ad hoc measures to keep the peace, and little monitoring took place. One Afro-Surinamese organisation to provide welfare services to youth, Stichting Opbouwwerk Surinamers in Amsterdam (SOSA), gained notoriety as a centre for the drugs trade. Another organisation founded in 1977 to support Surinamese drug addicts, Srefidensi, received millions of guilders but could not account for how the money was spent (Reubsaet and Geerts 1983: 100-103). The supply of public money available to Surinamese organisations in the mid-1970s aroused high expectations within the Surinamese community. Until 1978 there was enough money for all, but this was to change. So many groups were receiving money that it became difficult for new ones to receive funding, and new organisations did not accept this. The suspicion grew that Welsuria and other large Afro-Surinamese organisations were withholding money (Reubsaet & Geerts 1983: 79-81), and in the 1970s and early 1980s the offices of Welsuria and BEST were occupied dozens of times by small Surinamese organisations. The Amsterdam city government severely curtailed the stream of subsidies to Surinamese welfare organisations in 1983, as illustrated in Figure 8.1. Social policy for the Surinamese was henceforth carried out by mainstream Dutch organisations. Surinamese organisations now became part of the general minority policy framework, in which Turkish organisations were also included.

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From multiculturalism to diversity The Amsterdam political opportunity structure of the 1970s and 1980s enhanced associational activity among immigrants. In the 1990s, both locally and nationally, attitudes toward immigrants and their associations became much more negative. The national electoral success of the right-wing party LPF led by Pim Fortuyn in 2002 accelerated this shift. The effects of state support for immigrant organisations and Amsterdam’s manner of dealing with organisations and social movements now became targets of criticism. Some charged that institutional support of immigrant organisations (and other social movements) did not create better organisations or a more coherent society, but instead fuelled segregation and polarisation in society. The second major development involved a redirection of policy away from multiculturalism with its structural subsidies to immigrant organisations. The increasing number of nationality groups in Amsterdam made it impossible to support all groups separately. The new diversity policy (as it was called) aimed to better serve Amsterdam’s population by focusing on individual rather than group differences. All citizens were encouraged to be more open to change and to participate actively in society. Social problems and deprivation were no longer the starting points of policy; the new focus was on building the ‘strength’ of Amsterdam’s inhabitants, together. Following the national trend of reducing support for migrant associations, a drastic cut in subsidies took place around 2002. After the assassination of Theo van Gogh, more money was allocated to promoting social cohesion and relations between ethnic groups. Many older associations had their subsidies withdrawn, mainly because they catered to single ethnic groups. The new policy worked in favour of highly educated Dutch and second-generation migrants as they were better able to establish relationships with other groups, which were used to set up new cross-ethnic organisations. The policy change endangered many established organisations. Uitermark and Steenbergen (2006) conclude their analysis with the remark that Amsterdam has succeeded in breaking down the civil society of its weakest citizens, those who are not able to adjust to the changing political context.

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Conclusion The city of Amsterdam has influenced the associational life of its immigrants. The city’s POS has been open to new organisations, and this favoured the establishment of migrant organisations. New religious groups successfully claimed their right to establish religious organisations and schools, one of the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Dutch state. The second factor that helped the establishment of associations was Amsterdam’s openness to social change. New social movements like the Kabouters, the Provos and the squatters’ movement flourished because the public judged them positively, and the authorities were ready to talk and to change their policies if necessary. Even financial support was available, though sometimes as a means to gain leverage over these groups. The attitude of the local authorities towards immigrants resembled their attitude to the new social movements. In the 1990s, Muslim organisations were courted by the authorities and introduced into advisory councils. To what extent were these developments a uniquely Amsterdam affair? Some of the elements in the Amsterdam POS were part of the larger national political opportunity structure, for instance the system of pillarisation. However, the authorities’ open attitude towards new social movements and immigrant organisations was largely an Amsterdam phenomenon. Other Dutch cities in the 1960s and 1970s did not have such strong dissident groups, leaving the attitudes of local authorities towards such groups unchanged. The presence of immigrant organisations, mosques, and Hindu and Buddhist temples have changed Amsterdam’s neighbourhoods and streets. But there are echoes of the past. Immigrant religious organisations, including the ‘churches in hiding’ and Jewish synagogues, have been present in the city since the sixteenth century. Critical movements also continue to appear. According to Mamadouh (2000, 2003), subversion is an urban style specific to Amsterdam which has recently been taken over by young Moroccans. Discussions on the right to associate and the danger of association are not new. Both the squatters’ movement and Muslim organisations can host undemocratic thinkers. But as history has shown, Amsterdam’s organisational wealth contains the seeds of change and for the improvement of the position of marginal groups. 156

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Parool (2004), ‘Voor 1 gulden werd de motorclub eigenaar van het clubhuis’, 23 October 2004. Rath, J., R. Penninx, K. Groenendijk & A. Meyer (1996), Nederland en zijn islam; een ontzuilende samenleving reageert op het ontstaan van een geloofsgemeenschap. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Rijkschroef R. & J.W. Duyvendak (2004), ‘De omstreden betekenis van zelforganisaties’, Sociologische gids 51 (1): 18-35. Reubsaert T.J.M. & R.W.M. Geerts (1983), Het beleid van enkele Nederlandse steden, deel 5 van de serie Surinaamse migranten in Nederland. Nijmegen: ITS. Tarrow, S. (1998), Power in movements: social movements and contentious politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thijn, E. van (2003), BM. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Augustus. Uitermark, J. & F. van Steenbergen (2006), ‘Postmulticulturalisme en stedelijk burgerschap. Over de neoliberale transformatie van het Amsterdamse integratiebeleid’, Sociologie 2 (3): 265-87. Vermeulen, F. (2006), The immigrant organising process. Turkish organisations in Amsterdam and Berlin and Surinamese organisations in Amsterdam, 1960-2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Westerloo, G. van (2004), ‘Revolutie bij de zwarte kousenmoslims’, NRC-M, 7 February 2004, 11-24. Wintershoven, L. (2000), Demografisch eeuwboek Amsterdam: ontwikkelingen tussen 1900 en 2000. Amsterdam: Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Gemeente Amsterdam. Yerden, I. (2006), Levensbeschouwing en maatschappelijke integratie van Alevieten in de Nederlandse samenleving, unpublished research proposal.

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9 Houses of worship and the politics of space in Amsterdam Thijl Sunier

Introduction If there is one area in which Amsterdam lives up to its reputation as a world city, it is religion (see also Sassen 1991; Eade 2000). Religious presence – and above all, religious visibility – have been important markers of the city’s multicultural character ever since the seventeenth century. Although The Hague has been the country’s administrative centre, Amsterdam was where immigrants and refugees flocked to build and worship in their own congregations; where in the republican years the struggle between the public church and dissident religious denominations took its most overt form (Israel 1995); where in 1878 the orthodox Protestant leader Abraham Kuyper founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party, the first mass (religious) political party (Stuurman 1983); and where post-1960s de-confessionalization reached its most vivid expression (Snel et al. 2000). Today, Amsterdam is home to the most religiously diverse immigrant population in the Netherlands. Despite secularizing tendencies, the city still has the most houses of prayer per inhabitant. Amsterdam municipality’s 2001 statistics show that more than 55 per cent of the total population considers itself non-religious. This is higher than the national average, though not very different from other big cities in the country (SCP, 1994). Of the remaining 45 per cent, 17 per cent declare themselves Christian, 1 per cent Jewish and 14 per cent Muslim.1 The small number of Jews has to do with the Holocaust. Almost 75 per cent of the city’s Jewish inhabitants were deported and killed by the Nazis (Knippenberg 2005: 92) In addition to these ‘mainstream’ religious denominations, there are many Buddhists, especially in the old inner-city Chinese 159

area. Here we find the first purpose-built temple in the Netherlands, officially opened in September 2000: a huge colourful building erected in Chinese style.2

Immigrant religion and the myth of religious tolerance Much of this religious diversity is due to almost continuous immigration to the Netherlands since the seventeenth century, and to Amsterdam in particular. Lucassen & Penninx (1997) cite two main reasons for this inflow. The first and most important was the economic pull of the city. During the ‘Golden Age’, the Dutch republic was one of the richest countries in the world, and Amsterdam was its international metropolis. The second reason had to do with the Spanish oppression of non-Catholics. Thousands of refugees fled to the Northern Provinces of the Spanish empire (Lucassen & Penninx 1997: 17), and it was among these refugees and dissidents that the ‘revolt’ against Spanish oppression began in the late sixteenth century. When in 1685 the French emperor Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, the Dutch republic became the port of refuge for French Protestants, known as Huguenots. Most of them came to Amsterdam and found work in trade and manufacturing. Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, the Sephardic Jews, settled in Amsterdam in the late sixteenth century. They were followed in the second half of the seventeenth century by Yiddishspeaking Ashkenazi Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. By the late eighteenth century there were some 30,000 Jews in the republic, mainly residing in Amsterdam – the largest nonChristian religious group in the city. Although the Reformed Church was the public (read: dominant) church for centuries, other Christian and non-Christian religions were granted a degree of freedom. Interestingly, the authorities were more willing to grant autonomy to more ‘distant’ religious groups such as the Scandinavian and German Lutherans and the Jews than to groups closer to the Reformed Public Church. Even Catholics enjoyed limited autonomy. Amsterdam subsequently continued to attract people from a wide range of religious backgrounds, bolstering the image of the Dutch political culture’s tolerance and open attitude towards religious newcomers. Indeed, the Union of Utrecht, the founding 160

document of the republic, contained a passage renouncing the Inquisition. It also placed no restrictions on the number of refugees entering the country. The Estates General further decreed in 1657 that Jews were Dutch subjects equal to other Dutchmen (Daalder 1997: 41). This compared favourably to the situation in the French empire after the revoking of the Edict of Nantes, or in Germany, where religion was simply imposed upon subjects by local princes. Tolerance has thus acquired an almost mythical status as something ingrained in the Dutch soul. Especially Amsterdam, with its long history as a cosmopolitan trading city, has acquired a reputation for openness and tolerance. This is what one reads in virtually every tourist booklet about the city, while more serious sources also allude to it. This article refutes this image. Although the narrative outlined above is (selectively) based on historical facts, the trajectory to fullscale citizenship and equality – today so ominously called inburgering – has always been difficult. When it happened, it was the result of struggle. Lucassen & Penninx (1997: 24) rightly argue that ‘tolerance’ was indeed tolerance in the strict sense of the word: toleration of people with different religious backgrounds so long as differences were not displayed in public. In actual fact, the position of religious minorities has largely depended on the personal tastes of local magistrates (Spaans 2002: 77). The assumption behind this autonomy was that minorities would never become real Dutch citizens, and should not challenge the status quo. Pragmatism informed the Protestant Church’s toleration of minorities. In fact, it was the almost complete separation of the respective religious public spheres – and not living together – which accounted for tolerance in the Protestant-dominated republic (Po-Chia Hsia & van Nierop 2002). The argument I advance here is that religious newcomers, rather than relying on tolerance from above, have (had) to conquer their place in Dutch society. Many of the arrangements that have been (and remain to be) made with the Dutch authorities are the result of political struggle. This is as much the case for Amsterdam as it is for other places in the country. Instead of looking for an essentialized religious tolerance running through Dutch history, we need to carefully analyze each period to trace the specific characteristics of political contestation. I do this by looking at the construction of places of worship. 161

The acquisition of places of worship plays an important role in religious emancipation. Religious groups, whether minorities or majorities, have always prioritized organizing room for prayer. Although political empowerment, organizational activity and legal arrangements are crucial landmarks in the emancipation of religious ‘outsiders’, the symbolic significance of places of worship cannot be over-estimated. Places of worship, especially when they have been built for this purpose, ‘objectify’ religious presence – they are the prime signifiers of the process of localization of religious newcomers (Metcalf 1996). As places of worship materialize religious presence, they are also instruments through which states exert control over religious subjects. Thus, contestation over the building of places of worship has always triggered debates about the character of public space, in which authenticity, historicity and representation are key concepts. Analysis of contestation to establish places of worship can thus provide us with clues about relative religious freedom. The significance of the building of places of worship is threefold: as a marker of religious institutionalization, as a test case for the status of that particular religion, and as material symbol of the struggle over the character of public space. Rather than considering the net result of this contestation (the actual buildings) as signs of religious tolerance towards religious minorities, we need to analyze processes prior to their founding – particular sites of contestation not only reflect specific historical, social and political contexts, but also shape religious identities and reproduce political culture.

Dynamics of religious contention What we witness today in diversity in religious belief and infrastructure is not the result of the generosity of magistrates and policymakers, but the outcome of religious challengers’ struggle with the status quo of successive eras. This struggle (or process of negotiation) should not be understood as a static relation between groups representing fixed religious identities and political cultures, but as a process that itself constitutes political subjects. Whatever we may think of the presence of ‘new’ religions such as Islam, it is clear they have challenged the character of Western European nation-states. 162

The notion that Western European nation-states are ‘accomplished’ – with their formative episodes more than a century and a half ago – is widespread, but misleading. It is, at best, an ideological assumption. Billig (1995) has shown that established nationstates must constantly ‘reconfirm’ their status quo; hegemonic discourses and meta-narratives of the nation must be retold over and over again. The very image of Muslims arriving in an ‘accomplished’ nation-state is part of this hegemonic discourse and proves, so to speak, the thesis that nation-states are constantly being contested and defended (Khosrokhavar 1997). An essential part of this process of nation-building is the construction of terms by which groups are included and excluded. Thus, Brubaker (1992) has referred to citizenship as a form of social closure, an exclusive status that some people acquire and others do not. The incidents and debates in the Netherlands (as in many other European countries) over Islamic terrorism, domestic violence, the position of women in Islam, criminality among Moroccan youths, and values and norms in the public sphere all point to the power-loaded debate on whether Muslims can be part of the nation, and on what terms. It is a debate about the very character of the nation, and will itself influence its character. The modern state provides a neutral legal and administrative framework, but as a socio-cultural network, the nation is not neutral at all. My contention is that religious emancipation must largely be understood in the context of existing (unequal) power relations and unequal access to material and immaterial resources, as was earlier the case with Catholics and Jews (see Birnbaum & Katznelson 1995; van Rooden 1996; Liedtke & Wenderhorst 1999). Emancipation is a process whereby a minority group attempts to acquire a place within a nation-state, thereby developing a certain (political and cultural) consciousness. The building of associational networks by members of religious groups has often been explained by referring to religious prescriptions. The idea is that organizational activities by Muslims, such as the founding of schools, can be explained by normative religious obligations. This is a typical culturalist explanation. Muslims, however, do not organize themselves because Islam prescribes them to do so, but because they have goals related to their position in society (Sunier 1996; 2004). The activities of religious organizations can thus be seen as forms of collective action while

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their (political) agendas can only be understood in relation to the dominant discourse in society. The dominant discourse is at once a threat and an opportunity for emancipation: it provides the argumentative repertoire and the political language actors have at their disposal, the mastery of which is vital. The ways in which Jews in the second half of the nineteenth century re-organized themselves into welfare organizations and school boards reflected the prevailing organizational modes of Dutch political culture. Religious denominations took an associational shape similar to that of the dominant Protestant groups. Jews were rather Dutchmen with a Jewish faith (Daalder 1997). This process of negotiation should not be seen as a static relation between fixed religious identities and political cultures. A crucial element here is what Tarrow (1998) calls the framing process. The struggle of religious minorities to gain access to societal resources affects their position, their political status, and the ways in which the state deals with religious diversity as much as it effects the construction of collective identities. This was as much the case for Protestants, Catholics and Jews earlier as it is for Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus today. As nation-states are shaped and re-shaped through political struggle, these political struggles, rather than their outcomes, should be our prime analytical concern (see Stuurman 1983). An example may elucidate. In the republican era, Amsterdam adopted a relatively limiting policy on religious minorities, especially Jews and Catholics. Neither were allowed to marry outside their own circles or to become guild members (Fuks-Mansfeld 1989). Denominations other than the public church were saddled with an extra tax, while religious minorities were tolerated so long as society could benefit from them. The extent to which religious minorities managed to gain access to material or political resources – or were able to set up their own institutions – was the result of political struggle. In the period after the French Revolution (in the Netherlands called the Batavian era), religious minorities were constitutionally granted full rights as citizens, not as religious minorities (McLeod 1997). Religion became a private affair. Paradoxically, the influence of the new central state on religious affairs, as in many other fields, grew larger. Especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, the state largely controlled religious practice (Bronkhorst 164

1953; De Haan 2003); religious minorities therefore concentrated their organizational activity on preserving religious autonomy. While the 1848 Constitution granted freedom of religion in the original sense of the word, the centralizing tendencies of the Dutch state gave rise to new controversies over religious diversity, especially in education and welfare (Stuurman 1983; Sunier 2004). The era of pillarisation, which started roughly in the 1920s, has often been portrayed as the proverbial example of Dutch tolerance and consociation. It, too, was the result of a long period of political struggle. Despite legislation applicable to all religious denominations, it was hard for outsiders to acquire an equal place within the system. The present dispute over Islamic schools is a good example of the relative closure of the system (Sunier 2004). Although this type of school fits completely within the legal framework of the Dutch education system, in the debate and in political decision-making we hear all kinds of arguments against the founding of these schools. The arguments mainly have to do with the relative isolation pupils in these schools are said to find themselves, while many also fear they are being indoctrinated with ideologies that run counter to the liberal understanding of citizenship. Since the early 1980s, the political landscape has been dominated once again by a strong state-led liberalism similar to that of the late nineteenth century. It is the principle of freedom of speech and religion that counts, phrased in a discourse of tolerance. Thus, ‘shattered tolerance’ was the buzzword in the media in the aftermath of the November 2004 assassination of Theo van Gogh by a young Muslim who considered him a heretic who had offended Islam. In a speech at Dam Square on the evening of the murder, the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, recalled the liberal revolutionary roots of Dutch society and the right to disagree, quoting Voltaire’s famous expression, ‘I disagree with you on all issues, but I will continue to fight for your right to express that opinion’. Others see a continuous line between seventeenth-century pragmatism and the twentieth-century consociationalism of the pillarised political system (Lijphart 1977; Walzer 1997).

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Places of worship and the politics of space The religious contention that shaped the political culture of the Netherlands over the centuries is reflected in the physical appearance of its cities, most notably that of Amsterdam. Religious minorities were not allowed public religious services and had to perform them secretly (Kaplan 2002). In almost all big cities in the northern part of the country, one can find traces of hidden churches (schuilkerken). Amsterdam’s famous ‘dissenter churches’ include the Moses and Aaron Church at the Waterlooplein, ‘Our Lord in the Attic’ at the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, and the Portuguese synagogue in the centre of the old city (Von der Dunk 2000). All of these places of worship were set up after initial refusal from the authorities. In each era, religious newcomers faced specific barriers and opportunities in institutionalizing their religion. Jews and some dissident Protestant groups were gradually allowed to perform public services, but for Catholics – considered the greatest enemies of the Dutch republic – it remained forbidden until the very end of the eighteenth century. With local efforts to build places of worship cut off from central authorities in Rome and Spain, Catholic communities towards the end of the eighteenth century almost functioned as secret autonomous congregations. It was only after the official separation of church and state in 1795 that Catholics turned to building churches. The development of a religious infrastructure was equally important for other religious minorities. During the republican era, the acquisition of places of worship was probably the most important yardstick for measuring social position. In the era of pillarisation, religious equality came to be measured primarily through distribution of religious infrastructure, most notably for education (Raedts 1996). Today, mosques have significance among Muslim migrants that cannot be explained by theological obligations alone (Metcalf 1996; Sunier 1996). Places of worship, especially when they have been built for this purpose, ‘objectify’ religious presence (Eickelman 1989; Landman & Wessels 2005). The appearance of mosques, mandirs and gurdwaras in the UK typically reflect the political and social climate at the time of their construction. Places of worship have become increasingly conspicuous, and as such are signs of a community’s empowerment and integration. Eade (2000: 6) argues that con166

testation over the construction of places of worship in London shows public space is not fixed by ‘eternal’ traditions, but is open to a constant reshaping and renegotiating of the physical environment. Beyond community building and simple architectural appearance, the construction of places of worship is a matter of public representation. This may explain why some governments have tried to discourage the building of prayer houses or, as in France and the UK, channelled efforts into huge central mosques. The Netherlands differs here, for though it once ruled over Indonesia, there has never been any physical reminder of this in the form of a central mosque (see Landman 1992; Wiegers 1999). In France, the building of places of worship has always been a more public affair related to the secularist republic (in which religious symbolism plays a central role) (see Maussen 2003; Kepel 1991; Cesari 2001; Ternisien 2002). In the UK, the construction of places of worship is tied to debates over racial equality and political empowerment (Eade 2000). The Netherlands has tended to associate religious infrastructure and associations with decentralized welfare institutions; religious meanings are thus downplayed, while the building of mosques ideally falls within urban planning (Sunier 1996; Lindo 1999; Rath et al. 1996; Buijs 1998; Dijker 1995; Wessels 2003, Akkus 2004). While this offers opportunities, it also creates obstacles.

The construction of mosques: negotiating space Although mosques already existed in France, the Netherlands and the UK long before World War II (see Naylor and Ryan 2002; Eade 2000; Kepel 1991; Landman 1992; Shadid & van Koningsveld 1996), their numbers increased in the early 1960s when thousands of Muslim migrants arrived in Western Europe. As most migrants expected to return to their countries of origin, their activities were directed at temporary solutions, including the use of churches, factory halls and other facilities for special occasions. As their return was postponed, greater efforts were channelled into finding more permanent accommodation. Muslim populations in Western European countries vary in size, ethnic and national background, and levels of organization and societal skills; their colonial and migration histories differ, 167

too. The states in which they live have unique legal arrangements, decision-making procedures and political climates that shape immigrants’ possibilities. Thus, the building of mosques in France is almost completely private, though there have been projects such as the big mosque in Paris in which the state played a central role. In Germany, places of worship receive state funding once the denomination has been recognized as a public religious body, but Islam has so far not been recognized. In Belgium, Islam has been recognized as an official religion since 1974, and the state has actively supported its functioning. In the Netherlands, the state has subsidized activities in mosques if they support the integration of migrants, while the building of mosques has at times been financed by state subsidies to rebuild churches after the damage of World War II (Ireland 1994; Monsma & Soper 1997; Nielsen 1992; Nonneman et al. 1996; Sunier & Meijer 1997; Walzer 1997). As already stated, the realization of places for Muslim worship often follow intensive negotiations and sometimes struggle with authorities, local pressure groups and other parties (see Lindo 1999; Sunier 1996; McLoughlin 2005). In other cases, it can be little more than a bureaucratic procedure (see Wessels 2003). The acquisition of prayer room has generally been analysed as the result of two parties making demands and then striving to reach an agreement acceptable to both (Amiraux 2001; Cesari 2001; Dunn 2001; Lindo 1999; Rath et al. 1996). Analyses of these negotiation processes can generate insights into the relation between state and religion and the position of Muslims in different countries, from which we can draw inferences about relative religious freedom and the bargaining power of collective actors. Putting the variables together, we can come up with a rather sophisticated grid-like model of opportunities and constraints in each country. Much of the literature on the presence of Muslims in Europe follows such lines. Although this general approach may yield insights into bureaucratic procedures and political decision-making, it lacks conceptual depth. Identities and cultural or religious differences are in most cases taken for granted (Jacobs & Fincher 1998: 6-10), making them seem fixed, given, with an ‘appearance of substance’ (Butler 1990). For example, Doomernik’s (1991) study of negotiation processes leading to the establishment of mosques in Amsterdam relies on a rather fixed understanding of religious iden168

tity. It is my contention that the institutionalisation of Islam – and more specifically, the acquisition of mosques – must be understood within a broader analytical framework that takes into account processes of inclusion and exclusion of religious minorities in the nation-state, the construction of identities and the (re)structuring of the public sphere. Behind the regular bureaucratic and political procedures, a process of localization emerges in which the religious ‘newcomers’ establish themselves symbolically. Ramadan has called this a process of entrenchment (1999: 207) which may take place over a longer period, as in the case of the Jews, or more rapidly, as was the case with Catholics in the first half of the nineteenth century and with Muslims after the 1970s. In both cases the restructuring of the public sphere was highly symbolic as it signified a process of religious emancipation.

(Re)structuring the public sphere: two cases compared The Batavian Revolution in 1795 legally offered Catholics religious freedom. The dominant position of the Protestant Church was abolished, and Catholics were able to set up their own seminaries and institutions, though their actual position at the turn of the century was far from advantageous. As most Catholics were impoverished, it was difficult for them to benefit from their improved legal status. On top of this, the state maintained a heavy hand in religious affairs, which only grew heavier after the French annexation of the Netherlands in 1810. It followed that the first visible Catholic church – the ‘Duif’ on the Prinsengracht in the inner city, inaugurated in 1796 – had high symbolic significance, even though the building was dilapidated and torn down in 1835 (Von der Dunk 2000). Despite formal improvement in the position of Catholics, relations between Protestants and Catholics left much to be desired. At lower bureaucratic levels, Protestants were able to frustrate many Catholic attempts to set up churches. Especially the decree that the building of churches should be apportioned equally among the denominations fuelled Protestant resentment, and the first ten years following the Batavian Revolution were characterized by endless legal struggles over property rights between Catholics and Protestants.

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The French period also witnessed an initiative to reinstall the Episcopal hierarchy in the Netherlands. But with the collapse of the French reign and the crowning of the first Dutch King of Orange, William I, in 1813, all plans to improve the position of Catholics were cancelled (von der Dunk 2000: 172). However, as the southern part of the Lowlands (including today’s Belgium) was almost completely Catholic, the new Protestant government realized that good relations with Catholics were essential for stability in the new kingdom. However, the government and municipalities, especially in northern parts of the kingdom, feared that a tooaccommodating attitude could stimulate the politically decentralized Catholic population to organise to build new churches (Van Heel 1941). Suspicion against Catholics increased over the years. Their loyalty to the Pope in the Vatican (a foreign power) and the secession of predominantly Catholic Belgium in 1831 had already made them suspect. The re-installation of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853, enabled by the religious freedom granted in the constitution of 1848, unleashed a mass protest movement – the ‘April Movement’ – by Protestants (Bronkhorst 1953). Because the Catholic Church installed an official representative (the bishop) of the Vatican within the boundaries of the Dutch state, the movement questioned the loyalty of Catholics to the Dutch nation. Despite these inter-religious cleavages, the social and legal position of Catholics had changed fundamentally since the turn of the century, and their political influence continued to grow over the second half of the nineteenth century. Although in many respects the situation of Muslims in the 1970s differed from that of the Catholics more than a century and a half before, there are similarities in that formal religious freedoms did not guarantee smooth negotiations for either group. Muslims, arriving in Amsterdam from the 1960s onwards, experienced particular difficulty in establishing places for religious worship. First they tried to rent or buy existing buildings for special occasions, but with little success, while church boards’ refusal to negotiate with Muslims frustrated the efforts of a task group of Muslims and welfare workers trying to find appropriate accommodations (Landman 1992: 48). In 1977, Turkish Muslims managed to open a mosque in a former church on a small alley in the centre of the city, later called the Fatih Mosque. The group had used the place before, but were 170

now able to rent it permanently. Though this was an important first step, the need for additional accommodation in the late 1970s was increasing rapidly. The first half of the 1980s witnessed the establishment of a number of mosques, particularly in older neighbourhoods around the inner city (Doomernik 1991). Many of these were located in ordinary houses, garages or factory buildings, and remained hidden from wider society. Landman (1992) argues that in the early 1980s, politicians and social workers particularly opposed the opening of mosques in the big cities. Turkish and Moroccan Muslims were accused of having ties with extreme right-wing groups or with the regime in their countries of origin; mosques were accused of spying on their fellow countrymen for governments back home, and strong mutual mistrust hampered negotiations. The overall attitude of the municipality was one of neglect. Surinamese Muslims, however, were a little bit better off. The opening of the first purpose-built mosque in Amsterdam Bijlmer, the Taibah Mosque, by the Vice-secretary of Social Affairs in 1985 was a symbolic event. With increased prestige, Surinamese Muslims participated in the institutionalization of Islam in the 1980s. Turkish and Moroccan Muslims, however, kept a relatively low profile until the beginning of the 1990s (Landman 1992). By this time, the number of young Muslims in the western parts of the city had increased considerably, as had a variety of social problems. To address this new situation, younger leaders of Islamic organizations began looking for new solutions. One of the most ambitious plans was for a huge complex called the Wester Mosque (named after one of the famous churches in the city). Initiated by the Turkish Milli Görüş movement, it would consist of a central mosque, conference halls, and sporting and shopping facilities built in the architectural style of the Amsterdam School (Lindo 1999). Construction finally began in 2005, but was called off a year later after the German headquarters of Milli Görüş dismissed the board of the northern branch of the Dutch organization in April 2006 to install a more subservient board. The dismissed board had become well-known in the Netherlands for its fresh ideas, cooperativeness and open-mindedness towards Dutch society. The German branch of Milli Görüş has a bad reputation (they are branded fundamentalists). This led to the withdrawal of the project’s Dutch partners as well as withdrawal of municipal support, and the project’s future is uncertain. 171

A closer look at the long and difficult negotiations over this highly symbolic project reveals how aims and strategies evolved over time. Whereas acquiring room for prayer in the 1970s and 1980s was the relatively private affair of a group of migrants with few enduring attachments to the surrounding society, today it is a statement through which collective actors enter the public sphere. The announcement of a new mosque project by a Muslim organization is a performative act related to the position of Muslims in society. The former spokesperson of Milli Görüş explained: ‘We do not want an ugly big white pastry in our neighbourhood, like you sometimes see when they build a new mosque. Our mosque will be completely in the style of the “Amsterdam School” so that it perfectly fits into the neighbourhood and becomes a real Dutch mosque. That must be the future of all mosques in this country: in line with the physical environment’ (stated during a public meeting in 2003). Particularly after 9/11, the Dutch government is taking a much more active role in managing religious diversity – by promoting a particular kind of Islam that ‘fits within the framework of the secular democratic state’ while marginalizing religious articulations and practices deemed undemocratic. Just as in the early nineteenth century, the state is now trying to monitor the activities of religious minorities through a kind of containment policy. Discussions about imam education, Islamic schools and many other issues pertaining to religion fit within this political goal. It all points to a shift in the logic of secularization, from one based on laissezfaire to more active involvement.

Conclusion Dunn rightly argues that locality is a contested issue (2000: 29192). Negotiations over the construction of mosques are embedded within larger discussions that conceptualise space and contextualise identity. It seems to me that here we should make a distinction between ‘room’ and ‘space’. Room (for mosques in this case) is no more than an administrative category which has to do with urban zoning, bureaucracy and legal arrangements. Many mosques as we know them today have been realized almost as an administrative procedure (see also Wessels 2003). Space, on the other hand, is a discursive, contentious field embedded in specific 172

power and political relations and linked to constructions of identity – by definition something that finds resolution in the public sphere. Today, the construction of mosques has been transformed into a public issue that includes much more than administrative procedure. For many Muslim organizations, a large, purpose-built mosque signifies recognition and communicates space; it is a phase in the process of emancipation. The actual design and the architectural specificities are in themselves less important than the discourse in which negotiations are embedded. The new mosque in the style of the Amsterdam School, as well as its current demise, cannot be understood by just describing the project. It is the result of a complex, decades-long negotiation process that will eventually affect Amsterdam’s identity.

Notes 1.

2.

This figure concerns actual religious belief. While statistics on the number of Muslims often use ‘Muslim background’ as their criteria, less than half are active believers. Thus, when the municipality of Amsterdam claims 88,000 adult Islamic inhabitants, it says little about religious conviction. On the other hand, a higher than average percentage of inhabitants of Islamic background are religious. In general, one should be precise with these figures. Especially after van Gogh’s assassination, there seems to be a consensus among politicians, journalists and the public that the majority of people with an Islamic background are actively religious. This, however, is not the case. The number of Buddhists in the city is difficult to determine. According to the Buddhist umbrella organization, B.U.N., in January 2004 there were an estimated 170,000 Buddhists in the Netherlands, of whom 70,000 are (descendants of) immigrants, especially Chinese. Most seem to live in Amsterdam.

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Liedtke, R. & S. Wendehorst (eds.) (1999), The emancipation of Catholics, Jews and Protestants: minorities and the nation state in nineteenth century Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lijphart, A. (1977), Democracy in plural societies. A comparative exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lindo, F. (1999), Heilige wijsheid in Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Lucassen & Penninx (1997), Newcomers. Immigrants and their descendants in the Netherlands 1550-1995. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Maussen, M. (2003), ‘Constructing a mosque. Public discussions on mosques in Marseilles’, unpublished paper. McLeod, H. (1997), Religion and the people of Western Europe 1789-1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McLoughlin, S. (2005), ‘Mosques and public space: conflict and cooperation in Bradford’, Journal of ethnic and migration studies 31 (6): 1045-1066 Metcalf, B. (ed.) (1996), Making Muslim space in North America and Europe. Berkeley: University of California Press. Monsma, S.V. & J.C. Soper (1997), The challenge of pluralism. Church and state in five democracies. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Naylor, S. & J.R. Ryan (2002), ‘The mosque in the suburbs: negotiating religion and ethnicity in South London’, Social & Cultural Geography 3 (1): 39-59. Nielsen, J. (1992), Muslims in Western Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Nonneman, G. (1996), Muslim communities in the new Europe. Ithaca: Ithaca Press. Po-Chia Hsia, R. & H. van Nierop (2002), Calvinism and religious toleration in the Dutch Golden Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raedts, P. (1996), ‘Tussen Rome en The Hague: de integratie van Nederlandse katholieken in kerk en staat’, in H. te Velde & H. Verhage (eds.), De eenheid en de delen. Zuilenvorming, onderwijs en natievorming in Nederland 1850-1900, 2945. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Ramadan, T. (1999), To be a European Muslim. Leicester: The Islamic Foundation. Rath, J. et al. (1996), Nederland en zijn islam. Een ontzuilende samenleving reageert op het ontstaan van een geloofsgemeenschap, Reeks Migratie en Etnische Studies 5. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Rooden, P. van (1996), Religieuze regimes. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Sassen, S. (1991), The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. SCP (1994), Secularisatie in Nederland, 1966-1991. Rijswijk: The Hague. Shadid, W.A. & P.S. van Koningsveld (eds.) (1996), Muslims in the margin. Kampen: Kok Pharos. Snel, J.D. et al. (2000), En God bleef toch in Mokum. Amsterdamse kerkgeschiedenis in de 19e en 20e eeuw. Delft: Eburon. Spaans, J. (2002), ‘Religious policies in the 17th century Dutch republic’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia & H. van Nierop (eds.), Calvinism and religious toleration in the Dutch Golden Age, 72-86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stuurman, S. (1983), Verzuiling, kapitalisme en patriarchaat: Aspecten van de ontwikkeling van de moderne staat in Nederland. Nijmegen: SUN. Sunier, T. (1996), Islam in beweging. Turkse jongeren en islamitische organisaties. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.

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— (2004), ‘Naar een nieuwe schoolstrijd?’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen Betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 119 (4): 610-635. Sunier, T. & A. Meyer (1997), ‘Religion’, in H. Vermeulen (ed.), Immigrant policy for a multicultural society. A comparative study of integration, language and religious policy in five Western European countries, 101-131. Brussels/Amsterdam: Migration Policy Group/IMES. Tarrow, S. (1998), Power in movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ternisien, X. (2002), La France des mosqueés. Paris: Albin Michel. Walzer, M. (1997), On toleration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wessels, W. (2003), Van Kerkstraat naar Moskeedreef?, M.A. thesis University of Utrecht. Wiegers, G.A. (1999), ‘De Nederlanden en de islam in de 19e eeuw: wisselwerking tussen cultuurcontact en beeldvorming?’, in W.A. Shadid & P.S. van Koningsveld (eds.), Religie, cultuur en minderheden, 141-154. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press.

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10 The integration of migrants into the Amsterdam sport pattern Ruud Stokvis

Introduction The arrival of migrants may have consequences for sport in the host society. I write ‘may’ for this remains uncertain. Newcomers may adapt to existing practices by joining established clubs or by creating their own clubs within established sports. If they stay outside established organizations, they can pursue their activities in sport schools or in public squares and parks where they will join a large group of practitioners already active in these places. Adaptation, however, does not take place without friction. In the 1920s upper- and middle-class boys in the Netherlands observed lower-class boys’ entry into soccer with distaste and established the organisation Nederlandse Corinthians to maintain soccer’s upper-class character. As the discriminatory character of the organisation invited trouble, many upper-class boys left soccer to play hockey and rugby (Miermans 1955: 150, 151). Still earlier, in the 1890s, a similar development had occurred in track cycling with comparable complaints. With the arrival of lower-class professional cyclists, upper-class amateurs who had dominated the sport left it for other sports (Burkens in Feith 1900: 254). Over the past two decades, something similar seems to be happening to tennis and golf. Tennis in the 1970s became less exclusive; as a result, many switched to golf, making golf less exclusive in turn. In the general development of sport participation, these are temporary developments. This chapter argues that migrants’ influence on sport participation in Amsterdam parallels earlier changes when lower-class athletes moved into sports that had previously been dominated by members of higher social classes. My main proposition is that it

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is not the specific culture of migrants but their social position that determines their influence on sport participation. In analyzing changes in sport participation, I rely on the concept of a sport pattern: the ranking of sports by the number of their participants in a given society (i.e. Amsterdam). It is well known that sport participation follows general developments in social stratification (Stokvis 1989; Van Bottenburg 2001; Scheerder, Vanreusel, Taks & Renson 2001; Scheerder, Vanreusel & Taks 2005). A 1954 report on sport participation in Amsterdam stated: ‘each sport has its – more or less pronounced – social milieu (in terms of work, income, schooling and neighbourhood), that distinguishes it from other sports’ (Schonlank & Van Schelt 1954: 50). This, however, is too static; one can distinguish between two kinds of social change that affect the sport pattern: a) the rise and decline of social classes and its consequences for the number of participants of a given sport; and b) changes in status aspirations and its consequences for choice of sport. The second recognizes that lower-class people may become conscious of the (low) status of ‘their’ sport and adopt others with higher status.

Sport participation: statistics and meanings This article relies on statistics on sport participation in Amsterdam. I approach changes in the sport pattern as resulting from changes in the city’s social stratification, within which I try to specify the influence of migrants. Keeping the focus on the numbers allows us to avoid the wild debates on the mentality and behaviour of migrants that presently fill the media. It can be countered that by focusing on numbers, one misses the meanings people attach to sport involvement. From a symbolic interactionistic point of view, one might even say that it is these meanings that determine preferences for certain sports and thus the statistics for sport participation. However, on the basis of the literature already referred to (Schonlank & Van Schelt 1954; Stokvis 1989; Bottenburg 2001; Scheerder et al. 2001, 2005) and the ideas of Coakley and Bourdieu (Coakley 1998: 298; Bourdieu 1979: 240), I work from the assumption that the most important meaning that influences preference is a sport’s status. A further assumption is that most other meanings people attach to their sport can be deduced from these status associations. This especially concerns ideas about the ag178

gressiveness and lack of fairness of ‘others’. Most of the time these ‘others’ are from a lower class. Within the limits of the game’s rules, differences in behaviour between natives and migrants may lead to friction and conflict. They may have different notions regarding timing, food and hygiene, financial contributions, voluntary labour and fair play. All of these differences can aggravate relations (Mout 1986). Allegations of rough play, unfairness, scolding and other forms of aggression, however, can be considered a side-effect of mass participation in sport (Miermans 1955: 150). Presumably in every sport one can find friction between insiders and outsiders, with all the stereotypical allegations about their behaviour (Elias 1974). The ethos of ‘fair play’ was created to keep the aggressive emotions generated in the sportive fight under control. Given the number of participants and the intensity of the emotions involved, it is remarkable that the sport ethos remains fairly effective and that the number of serious incidents between newcomers and natives remains limited (Meloen & Eersteling 1994). A common notion among native Dutch sport participants is that they themselves play for fun. Migrants and minorities, however, are often thought to be playing for upward social mobility. This is doubtful; given the nature of competitive professional sport, only very few would succeed (Coakley 1998: 308). We may also consider that even if people play with hopes of social mobility, they would choose sports familiar to them, sports already associated with the status groups to which they belong. The broader social construction of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ in the Netherlands is thus necessary to understand the preference of specific migrant groups for more or less exclusive clubs (Janssens 1999). Nobody reacts against exclusive tennis, golf or yachting clubs. But if outsiders create their own clubs, they are suspected of refusing to become a part of Dutch society. While these issues involving the meanings attached to sport are worth investigating, one needs to be aware of the prejudices one will encounter in studying them. For this reason I prefer to limit myself to the study of statistics on the development of sport participation in Amsterdam and how they relate to broader structural developments in the city.

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The Amsterdam sport pattern (1911-2003) The first inventory of sport participation in Amsterdam was made between 1908 and 1911 by the Nederlandsche Bond voor Lichamelijke Opvoeding (NbvLO, or Dutch Association for Physical Education). The NbvLO was the first to try to embrace all Dutch sport organizations. One of its first tasks was to make an inventory of Dutch organized sport, and the data for Amsterdam are derived from this inventory. While the validity of these data can be questioned, they are the best available. Table 10.1 Sportclubs and their members in Amsterdam, 1911 Rank

Sport

1

ice sports

2

gymnastics

3 4

Clubs

Members 1

2,564

16

2,246

rowing/sailing

9

2,184

soccer

15

1,644

5

swimming

4

,638

6

lawn tennis

1

,319

7

athletics

11

,317

8

korfball

8

,310

9

cricket

3

,100

10

horse riding

3

,094

11

cycling

2

,082

12

hockey

1

,0??

Source: NBvLO 1911. Lijst van sportvereenigingen (rew. R.S.)

The sport pattern for 1911 reflects Amsterdam’s upper social strata; sport was not yet generally practised, and people from the lower-middle and lower classes were under-represented. The ice sport club Amsterdamsche IJsclub (AIJC) was set up following a model that existed in many Dutch towns and villages where members of the local elite organized clubs as a kind of philanthropic activity. The care of ice tracks offered employment for the poor, while the most athletic among them could gain prizes in the form of money, food or golden ornaments that could be sold. Club members belonged to the traditional trading and banking elite that dominated Amsterdam’s economic, political and cultural life; many skated themselves, while some participated in races. Many club members lived along the main canals, with significant overlap in the memberships of the ice and rowing and sailing clubs.

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Some also played lawn tennis, cricket, hockey, and rode horses. And since sport had not yet been discovered by the lower classes on a large scale, members of the elite participated in other sports as well (Mooij & Stokvis 2000: 286). The position of gymnastics (second in popularity) is interesting. Its prominence was largely due to the efforts of physical education teachers who sought to strengthen the mental and physical character of youths through physical education. Teachers tried to introduce gymnastics into the school curriculum and to stimulate the establishment of clubs outside school. Within these clubs, gymnastics slowly evolved from physical exercise to being a competitive sport. The physical educators, however, were unable to attract elite youths more interested in their own sports. Gymnastics thus became an activity for members of the middle class. Kees de Jongen, a character from a well-known Dutch novel of the same name (Thijssen 1923), aspired to membership in a gymnastics club, but his ailing father, a small shoe shop owner, could not afford the membership. Swimming and korfball were other sports practised in this milieu. Gymnastics teachers especially developed korfball, and later handball and baseball, as alternatives to soccer which was considered too violent and elite oriented. Soccer was still largely a sport for upper-class youths in 1911. Clubs, however, were also being established by middle- and lowerclass boys. While upper-class players tried to keep their sport exclusive, they could not stop the establishment of clubs in other milieus, which they were prepared to meet on the field. Some older soccer officials also tried to promote soccer as a sport for all. Cricket was different. Cricket in England had been dominated by the upper class, and its practitioners in Holland were able to continue its exclusivity. It became a sport for young adults who could afford the leisure necessary for a game of cricket, while clothing prescriptions and the barrier between upper-class amateurs and lower-class professionals reinforced cricket’s social exclusivity (Bottenburg 1992). Around 1911 lower-class people were visibly present in cycling where they could aspire to become professionals, and in athletics, which at the time meant wrestling, weightlifting and tug-of-war. By 1962 the sport pattern had changed considerably (Table 10.2). To appreciate the 1962 rankings, we need to know how sports were divided according to the social status of their practitioners. Towards this end, we look at practitioners’ neighbour181

hoods: statistics on the possession of telephones, educational levels, and the percentage of firm owners, professionals and higher managers residing there. Uniformly upper-class sports included hockey, cricket, tennis, rowing, ice hockey and horse riding. Sports with more upper- than lower-class participants included badminton, basketball, volleyball, fencing, ice dancing and skating. Sports with as many lower- as upper-class participants included athletics, baseball, softball, table tennis, judo and swimming, while more lower- than upper-class participants could be found in handball, korfball and canoeing. Predominantly lowerclass sports included soccer, boxing, weightlifting and wrestling, and cycling (Van den Ham 1965: 18, 21). Table 10.2 Sports in Amsterdam by number of participants, 1962 Rank

Sport

Clubs

Members

1

soccer

180

26,009

2

gymnastics

61

14,770

3

swimming

16

5,831

4

lawn tennis

37

4,850

5

korfball

32

3,994

6

handball

42

3,706

7

basketball

45

3,358

8

judo

25

2,643

9

hockey

8

1,636

10

tabletennis

90

1,620

11

rowing

10

1,479

12

baseball

30

1,376

Source: v.d. Ham 1965. De Amsterdamsche sportbevolking, pp. 38-55

The most conspicuous change, compared to 1911, was the downfall of the traditionally grachtengordel-based (the Grachtengordel is Amsterdam’s canal ring area) elite in sport. The ice club nearly disappeared, though sailing continued. The newer clubs were based outside of Amsterdam, while the remnants of the traditional elite took refuge in the most elite rowing, hockey and tennis clubs. Soccer had become the most practised sport, well established in the working-class neighbourhoods of Amsterdam North, West and East. In fact, soccer was played in all Amsterdam neighbourhoods, upper as well as lower class. However, soccer players were over-represented among sport practitioners in lower-class neighbourhoods and under-represented in upper-class neighbourhoods (Van den Ham

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1965: 23). School-related middle-class sports such as gymnastics (predominantly for girls), korfball, handball, basketball and, to an extent, school swimming became popular, a reflection of post-war gymnastic teachers’ efforts to introduce new sports. These sports, however, could not compete with soccer or hockey. This was about the time that Rijsdorp (1957) wrote his authoritative introduction to the social study of sports: Sport als een jongmenselijke activiteit (‘Sport as an activity for young people’). According to Rijsdorp, sport typically belonged to the life stage between childhood and adulthood (Rijsdorp 1957: 271). The view reflected actual sport participation, which was dominated by boys and girls of high school and college age. The new ball sports had encouraged the building of sport halls in many neighbourhoods. These halls, however, often did not increase interest in the sports they were built for; many became underused in the 1980s and were renovated to accommodate other sports (Stokvis 1989: 34). Hockey and tennis now became the favourites of the upper-middle class: hockey for the younger people, tennis for the older. Judo was successfully propagated as a sport for young children, probably the first to deviate from Rijsdorp’s view that young children preferred less-regulated forms of play (Rijsdorp 1957: 238). It is noteworthy that judo became popular before the success of the famous Dutch judoka Anton Geesink at the 1964 Olympic Games, confirming the view that stars have no influence on participation in their sport (Van Bottenburg 2001: 34-38). The statistics show how the development of sport for young people was connected to the spread of public education. Another development relevant to the study of migrants in sport during the first sixty years of the twentieth century, however, remains invisible: the establishment of exclusive clubs for people of the same religious denomination. The motives that fuelled the drive towards exclusivity were the same as those we see today: discrimination and the drive for exclusivity on the part of the we-group (Janssens 1999). Of course these are two sides of the same coin. Among Jews, both motives can be discovered in the establishment of Jewish clubs. In the beginning of the twentieth century, many members of the Dutch elite were privately anti-Semitic (Mak 1995: 247). The elite were prominent in rowing and sailing; especially in rowing, discrimination was a reason for Jews to establish a club of their own, Poseidon. In other sports (boxing, billiards), Jews estab183

lished clubs of their own because they lived in the same neighbourhood, or due to ideological considerations stemming from Zionism. This drive for exclusivity was also present among Roman Catholics. Catholic priests and higher church officials admonished believers to become members of exclusive Catholic sport clubs. One reason for separate organization was to avoid the mingling of the sexes (Stokvis 1996: 175). If migrants have influenced the organized sport pattern in Amsterdam, it should be reflected in the numbers for 2005/06. Migrants then comprised about 37 per cent of the city’s population (Amsterdam.nl). Yet what do we see in Table 10.3? Soccer maintained its first place, though it lost some of its former dominance. In 1962, 36 per cent of Amsterdam’s sporting population played soccer; this declined to 31 per cent in 2005/06. Soccer is now followed by tennis, which most likely reflects change in status aspirations among middle-class people. Tennis used to be an upper-middle-class sport (Van der Ham 1965). It has, however, become a more generally middle-class sport – a class that has grown due to the domination of trade and service occupations in Amsterdam. More remarkable is the prevalence of other upper-middle-class sports in the sport pattern. Since 1962 tennis has moved up two places, while hockey climbed from ninth to third place. Bridge and golf, both typical upper-middle-class sports, are newcomers among the higher ranks. Also of note is the downward trend in school-related sports such as gymnastics, korfball, volleyball and basketball. Basketball disappeared from our table completely, while gymnastics fell six positions and korfball seven. In 1962 volleyball was not yet present in the statistics. In 2005/06 it was eleventh. Had data been available, they probably would have shown volleyball’s decline from its most successful period in the 1970s and 1980s. With upper-middle-class sports improving their position, it is surprising that soccer kept its place on top. Soccer, more than other sports, has become a sport for all social classes. It remains a lower-class sport, with many players coming from the lower middle-class neighbourhoods of North and East Amsterdam. But clubs that cater to the wealthier population are prospering too: two of the largest clubs are located in the city’s wealthier districts (De Vries 2003: 3). The social image of soccer has transformed from a lower class to a national sport due to media coverage (Stokvis 2003). Members of migrant groups and the middle and upper 184

classes meet each other through soccer, certainly on the playing field and sometimes as members of the same clubs. To the extent that migrants began to play soccer in Amsterdam they became part of the general sport pattern of the city. Table 10.3 Sports in Amsterdam by members, 2005/2006 Rank

Sport

Members

1

soccer

25,170

2

tennis

17,500

3

hockey

8,421

4

bridge

4,661 (04/05)

5

golf

4,166

6

swimming

4,063

7

watersports

3,607(04/05)

8

gymnastics

3,350

9

skating

2,873

10

athletics

2,842

11

volleyball

1,750

12

korfball

1,662

Source: O+S 2006. Amsterdam in cijfers 2006, p. 295

Comparing the sport patterns for 1962 and 2005/06, we can conclude that preferences are shaped less by school and more by social class. The number of participants in school-related sports like gymnastics and korfball (and, to a lesser extent, handball, volleyball and basketball) has dropped, while sports with an upper-class image have done well. In 2005/06, organized sport in Amsterdam was more structured by social class than had been the case since the First World War. The big change since 1911 was that the leading sport, soccer, was now played by members of all social classes. One can assume this created more social tensions in soccer than in other sports, as may be seen in the increase of conflict on the field and on the sidelines.

Veterans and white flight? Changes in the sport pattern between 1962 and 2005/06 – the period when many migrants arrived – are intriguing. Higher-class sports gained a greater share of total participation at the expense of school sports. At the same time soccer in Amsterdam kept its

185

top position among organized sports. At first these changes seem unrelated to the arrival of migrants; part of the change is explained by increased participation among older people. The influx of ‘veteran’ sport practitioners – many of whom took up tennis, hockey and golf – undermined the ranking of the traditional school-related sports. The higher social classes probably produced more veteran sport practitioners; they certainly produced more practitioners in general (SCP 2003: 85). This is supported by the SCP data for the national Dutch population. In the solo sports, participation among 6-19-year-olds increased from 68.8 to 71.9 per cent (+3.1 per cent) between 1979 and 1999. For those between 20 and 64, the increase was from 37.0 to 50.3 per cent (+13.3 per cent); for those between 65 and 79, from 6.4 to 20.0 per cent (+13.6 per cent). Much of this was due to the popularity of golf. In duo and team sports, such spectacular changes were absent. Participation here remained more or less stable, with the exception of duo sports among the 65-79 age group, which increased from 0.6 to 4.0 per cent (SCP 2003: 85). In sum, one can say that traditional school team sports missed the influx of veterans, and thus declined within the Amsterdam sport pattern. Is this all there is to say? A closer look at soccer reveals that it kept its number one place due to two developments. As noted earlier, soccer regained some popularity among the higher social classes. At the same time we see that some migrant groups are avid soccer players. Among sport practitioners in the Turkish and Moroccan migrant communities, 45 and 42 per cent, respectively play soccer (De Vries 2003: 2). This preference among men and boys from Turkey and Morocco is not very surprising. Soccer is a world sport. It is the most widely played sport in Turkey (Bottenburg 2001: 213) and probably in Morocco, too (Stanton 2004: 151). Migrants were able to continue playing soccer in the Netherlands as it is an open sport with a low threshold for entry. Soccer in Amsterdam kept its number one rank partly due to the influx of migrants from Turkey and Morocco. There is also reason to suspect that there has been a ‘white flight’ away from soccer, leading to increased participation in traditionally upper class sports like tennis, hockey and golf. Data are not available to give more than a suggestion in this direction (Janssens 1999: 49), though it would not be surprising if ‘white flight’ were confirmed. With migrants today acting as the new lower 186

class, it would follow established patterns in the development of class relations in sport.

The Amsterdam sport pattern in national perspective In the Netherlands, clubs and national organizations contribute to the class character of sport. As many people pursue sport outside traditional organizations, another way to measure the sport pattern is to count the total number of participants irrespective of organization membership. This should remove from the data the effects of organizational forms of class discrimination; one thus expects the influence of migrants to become more visible. As this is a recent way to measure sport participation, we don’t have data for its long-term development (Table 10.4). Table 10.4 Sport participation in Amsterdam irrespective of organization membership, 2003 Rank

Sport

Participants (%)

1

fitness

19

2

swimming

14

3

soccer

12

4

aerobics/steps

6

5

running

6

6

tennis

5

7

fight sports

5

8

dancing

3

9

squash

3

10

hockey

3

11

walking

3

12

golf

2

Source: DMO 2003. Sport monitor 2003

It’s hard to identify migrant influence on the ranking of fitnessrelated sports. These include aerobics, steps, running, cycling, walking and in-line skating as well as swimming. Their popularity in Amsterdam cannot be traced to the presence of migrants as their ranking in Table 10.4 approximates their ranking nationally (percentages are generally higher in Table 10.5 as respondents could name more than one sport). These national data are corroborated by data for ten Dutch communities with different percen-

187

tages of migrants in their populations. In these communities one observes rankings similar to Amsterdam, with fitness first and swimming second (Hoyng, Roques & Van Bottenburg 2003: 135). A remarkable difference is that in these communities, soccer figures no higher than eighth, though this probably results from differences in methodology: Hoyng et al. do not include hall soccer in their results. Table 10.5 Sport participation in the Netherlands irrespective of organization membership, 2003 Rank

Sport

Participation (%)

1

swimming

2

fitness

17

3

cycling

20

4

walking

15

5

running

12

6

soccer

12

7

tennis

11

8

skeeling

11

9

skating

9

10

sailing/rowing

8

11

badminton

7

12

gymnastics

6

38

Source: SCP 2006. Rapportage sport 2006, p. 83

The prominence of fitness over swimming in Amsterdam and other places is hard to explain. Differences in the distributions of facilities would probably explain much of the variation. The most important difference between the data for Amsterdam (Table 10.4) and the national data (Table 10.5) is the prominence of fight sports and dancing. They take seventh and eighth place in Amsterdam and are too insignificant to appear in the national data. Do these two sports reveal migrant influence on the sport pattern?

Fighting and dancing in Amsterdam Hoyng et al. (2003) give data on sport participation in 52 Dutch communities. In ten of these communities, dancing or fight sports rank among the top ten. Were migrants behind the prominence of fight sports and dancing, one would expect similar pat-

188

terns for cities with similar shares of migrants in their populations. Yet this is not the case. In The Hague (32 per cent migrants) (RIVM 2006), we find dancing in tenth place while fight sports are not among the top ten. In Rotterdam (35 per cent migrants) (RIVM 2006), we see fight sports in tenth place while dancing is not among the top ten. While available data don’t allow further study of these differences, Elling’s work ascribes the prominence of fight sports to migrants. In her sample of high school pupils from Amsterdam and Tilburg (a city in the southern Netherlands with 200,000 inhabitants, of whom 16 per cent are migrants), fight sports are in seventh place. Migrant boys as well as girls participated at a rate twice that of native Dutch boys, while native Dutch girls were nearly absent. With dancing it is harder to support the idea that its high ranking in Amsterdam is due to migrants. In Elling’s sample, dancing is especially popular among native Dutch girls. In fact, it is their most popular sport. Among migrant girls, dancing is sixth, after fitness, swimming, soccer, fight sports and basketball (Elling 2002: 130). The most one can say about dancing is that migrant girls contributed to its popularity in Amsterdam while it remains dominated by native Dutch girls. Thus, migrant influence on Amsterdam’s sport pattern seems likely only with the fight sports. But migrant participation here can be better explained through their socio-economic position than by their status as migrants. Boxing, wrestling and most martial arts were lower-class sports; facilities are in lower-class areas. Since most migrants belong to the lower classes and live in lowerclass neighbourhoods, we can expect them to choose the same sports as their native Dutch peers. Thus, even here it is hard to say that migrants have significantly contributed to changes in the Amsterdam sport pattern.

Sport and folklore Every country has traditional pastimes, some of which have a competitive character. Because their practitioners didn’t create national organizations or inspire people in other countries, they remained local or national folklore bereft of recognition as modern sport (Stokvis 1989; Bottenburg 2001). Migrants brought these pastimes with them. In Amsterdam, two have gained reputations: 189

oil wrestling and singing bird competitions. A journalist wrote of the oil wrestlers’ leather pants: ‘What the Frisian wooden skate is for the Dutch, the leather pants are for the Turkish people: cultural heritage’ (Lange 2000, translation RS). The singing bird competitions from Suriname have more or less the same cultural status. In Suriname, early Sunday morning competitions with singing Picolets, Twa Twa and Roties are held at the People’s Square in Nieuw Nickerie and the Independence Square in Paramaribo. An official organization has published the rules. Migrants from Suriname have organized similar matches in the larger Dutch cities, and it is now a popular sport in the Amsterdam district of the Bijlmer. While these activities can be considered real innovations in the Amsterdam sport scene, they remain marginal compared to the number of participants in organized and non-organized sports. Yet they give some variety to Amsterdam’s panorama of sport.

Conclusion Migrants have had little structural influence on the Amsterdam sport pattern. This does not mean migrants don’t participate in sport; their overall participation is just below that of their native Dutch peers. In the Netherlands in 2003, 69 per cent of natives and 59 per cent of migrants participated in sport (SCP 2006: 85). In 1999 (no data for 2003), natives participated in an average of 2.3 sports, and migrants 2.1 (SCP 2003: 81). In 2003, 59 per cent of natives and 47 per cent of migrants played ‘solo sports’, 23 and 19 per cent played ‘duo sports’, and 20 and 18 per cent played ‘team sports’ (SCP 2006: 95). Given their substantial participation, we are drawn to conclude that migrants have been absorbed into the Amsterdam pattern of organized and unorganized sport. In more policy-oriented language, one might say that migrants have been perfectly integrated. This does not mean their absorption into individual sports has left no traces. Ethnic differences and relations between natives and newcomers sometimes become pretexts for aggression and discrimination. One can assume that these are temporary problems. One important effect of the influx of migrants became visible only on closer inspection. Thanks to the relatively high participation of Moroccans and Turks in soccer, it kept its number one 190

place among sports in Amsterdam. The concentration of practitioners in upper-class sports since the 1960s may be the result of an influx of migrants into the lower-class sports, especially soccer. As explained in the introduction, the entry of lower-class athletes pushing established participants towards sports with higher status associations is a well-known process, already observed in cycling at the end of the nineteenth century. The idea of ‘white flight’, however, remains informed speculation on the basis of available data.

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O+S (2006), Amsterdam in cijfers 2006. http://www.os.amsterdam.nl. Rijsdorp, K. (1957), Sport als jong-menselijke activiteit. Groningen, Djakarta: J.B. Wolters. RIVM (Rijks Instituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu) (2006), Nationale atlas volksgezondheid versie 3.8. Bilthoven: RIVM. Scheerder, J., B. van Reusel, M. Taks & R. Renson (2001), ‘Is de actieve sportbeoefening in Vlaanderen gedemocratiseerd? Over de sociale gelaagdheid van de sportdeelname gedurende de periode 1969-1999’, Tijdschrift voor sociologie (22) 4: 383-420. Scheerder, J., B. van Reusel & M. Taks (2005), ‘Stratification patterns of active sport involvement among adults’, International review for the sociology of sport 40 (2): 139-162. Schonlank, C. & G. van Stelt (1954), De Amsterdamse sportbevolking. Sociale achtergronden van de georganiseerde sportbeoefening in Amsterdam in het seizoen 19521953. Amsterdam: Sociografische werkgemeenschap. Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau (SCP) (2003), Rapportage sport 2003. The Hague: SCP. — (2006), Rapportage sport 2006. The Hague: SCP. Stanton, G. (2004), ‘Chasing the ghosts: narratives of football and nation in Morocco’, in G. Armstrong & R. Giulianotti (eds.), Football in Africa. Conflict, conciliation and community. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Stokvis, R. (1989), ‘The international and national expansion of sports’, in E. Wagner (ed.), Sport in Asia and Africa, New York: Greenwood. — (1996), ‘Migranten, minderheden en sport. Een vergelijking in de tijd’, in M. ’t Hart, J. Lucassen & H. Schmal (eds.), (1996), Nieuwe Nederlanders. Vestiging van migranten door de eeuwen heen, Amsterdam: IISG. — (2003), Sport, publiek en de media. Amsterdam: Aksant. Thijssen, T. (1923) Kees de Jongen. Amsterdam: Querido, 2000. Vries, S. de (2003), Voetbal en hockey in Amsterdam. Amsterdam: O+S.

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11 Social boundaries in movement Liza Nell & Jan Rath

Current debates about the social position of immigrants and the trajectories they are (or should be) following within their host societies revolve around the concept of integration. Originally coined in the United States to describe the black civil rights movement’s goal of lifting the racial segregation of schools and public services, the concept now enjoys popular currency in Europe. It is an umbrella term about settlement that overlaps terms such as acculturation, incorporation, adaptation, inclusion and so on. Some conceive of integration as a norm. Others see it as the final stage of some process. Yet others interpret integration as the process itself. In our view, integration refers to the social process in its entirety that follows cross-border mobility; it encompasses institutional fields such as citizenship, the labour market, housing, education, religion, media, the use of public space and so forth. In general terms, integration refers to the process of making immigrants fully fledged members of the political, socio-economic and cultural community. Critics have argued that this conceptualization implies a oneway process in which the host society remains relatively unchanged (Freeman 2004). It can be argued, however, that change affects newcomers and receiving societies alike, and that ‘integration’ does not necessarily assume assimilation into the dominant culture. Nevertheless, many authors believe immigrant minority groups are unlikely to change receiving societies, simply because numbers work to their disadvantage. Other critics observe that the societies into which migrants integrate are themselves fragmented and decentred; the integration process must thus also be fragmented (Joppke & Morawska 2003). Over time, a much stricter and normative interpretation of integration has become de rigueur in European political and media discourses. According to this stricter interpretation, immigrants must conform to the norms and values of the dominant majority in order to be accepted. Integration here is a linear and inevitable 193

process leading to the absorption of immigrant ethnic minorities in the middle-class social and cultural patterns of the native white majority. This interpretation of integration shows remarkable similarities with the old concept of ‘assimilation’, popular in the United States and elsewhere until the 1960s. ‘Assimilation’ – along with its metaphor of the ‘melting pot’ – came under fire in the 1960s not least because evidence contradicted the orthodoxy on all points. Some immigrants were clearly finding their way in society while retaining their ethnic identities; often their very identity together with their social networks was their trump card. Such facts fuelled criticisms of ‘assimilation’ as an ethnocentric and patronizing imposition on immigrant minorities struggling to retain their cultural and ethnic integrity. According to Alba & Nee (2003), the old school (1) presented assimilation as the natural end point of the process of incorporation into mainstream society; (2) elevated a particular cultural model – that of the native white middle-class – to a normative standard by which other groups were assessed and towards which they should aspire; and (3) claimed that minority groups were supposed to change almost completely, while the majority culture would remain unaffected. In response, Alba & Nee (2003) advanced their ‘neo-assimilation’ theory, taking the decline of ethnic distinctions and their attendant cultural and social differences as the starting point. As this decline sets in, ethnic features become less relevant in minoritymajority relations: individuals from both minority and majority groups gradually stop perceiving themselves in terms of ethnicity. This does not mean ethnicity disappears; the point is that ethnic markers are no longer relevant in the allocation of social resources. Alba & Nee conceive of ethnic distinctions as social boundaries; assimilation in their view boils down to the demise of a boundary’s relevance. Assimilation then is fundamentally a two-way process: immigrants are influenced by the host society just as the host society is influenced by immigrants, while the degree to which this occurs is a matter for empirical study. For Alba & Nee, the relevance of ethnic boundaries can decline in three ways: 1. Boundary crossing corresponds to the classic version of assimilation. Individuals from one group move across the boundary to the other group, without any real change to the boundary itself. The urban social fabric and its institutional make-up re194

main entirely intact; boundary-crossing individuals are the ones who change. 2. Boundary blurring occurs when the social significance of boundaries become less clear; the boundary itself loses relevance alongside the social distinctions it serves to mark. Distinctions between members of the Dutch Reformed Church, Roman Catholics and Jews in Amsterdam were extremely relevant in the past. Today, they hardly matter. In contrast, the distinction between Christians, Jews and secularists on the one hand and Muslims on the other have sharpened. 3. Boundary shifting implies the relocation of a boundary. The distinction between outsiders and insiders changes in such a way that people once on the outside now find themselves among the insiders, without really having changed. As this book shows, the mechanism of boundary shifting can explain developments in many social domains, including food, sports and housing. We concur with Alba & Nee that the integration of newcomers is not – as is widely thought – a one-way adoption of mainstream norms, values and practices by immigrants, but a two-way process. Immigrants have clearly left their mark on the city of Amsterdam. And it is this dynamic, two-way process of integration that has been the focus of this volume. To what extent has the fortune of immigrants been influenced by the urban opportunity structure? How and to what extent have immigrants left their mark on the city? These are the questions that have guided the contributions to this volume. The openness or closure of the urban opportunity structure partly depends on immigrants’ skills, competencies and resources, their ability to carve a niche in the urban social fabric, to be adopted by the mainstream, or even to change the host society. The opportunity structure thus differs for immigrant groups and for individuals within them – meaning immigrant influence varies over time, across space and between situations. The willingness of natives to move their boundaries and to open up to new influences also shapes interactions between immigrants and the urban opportunity structure. This interaction, to be sure, does not take place in a political vacuum, as governments attempt to mould the process. In some cases we have seen that domain-specific opportunities for immigrants have been created by local govern195

ments to foster their participation and integration. Such attempts, however, have not always been successful; at times, they have perverse effects. We have witnessed immigrants making creative use of new urban opportunities by crossing boundaries. This was clear in the case of ‘eating out ethnic’ as described by Van Otterloo, who showed how Chinese restaurants established in Amsterdam before WWII attracted an exclusively Chinese clientele, but increasingly drew Dutch bohemians and repatriates from the colonies. After WWII, eating out in restaurants became a veritable trend in Amsterdam. Chinese restaurants benefited from this new opportunity and fuelled the now-fashionable trend of ‘eating out ethnic’. Similar patterns could be observed in the use of public space by Afro-Surinamese youths in the 1960s. As highlighted by Müller, both Afro-Surinamese and Dutch youths were exploring new forms of cultural expression on Amsterdam’s streets. While their specific forms differed, they shared the desire to make their presence felt in the public realm – the dominant norms of which were not their own. In their public manifestations of identity, Afro-Surinamese could easily make use of the general cry for change among Amsterdam’s youths. Clear examples of two-way interaction between immigrants and the host society were seen in Vermeulen & Van Heelsum’s and Sunier’s respective chapters on associational and religious life in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has a long history of consociation, which favoured the establishment of a diverse spectrum of migrant organizations. Here the existing institutional infrastructure was employed creatively by both sides. Religious groups successfully claimed their right to establish religious institutions, including schools and houses of worship. While this was not unique to Amsterdam (it applies to the Netherlands in general), the Amsterdam authorities’ particularly open attitude to migrant organizations played a central role in their proliferation, though this openness has recently been compromised by the monitoring of religious organizations as part of local and national governments’ strategies against radicalization (see Tillie & Slootman 2006; Demant, Slootman, Buijs & Tillie 2008). In the domain of public space and housing, Müller and Van Amersfoort & Cortie have shown how socio-economic factors affected the urban opportunity structure. Upward social mobility fuelled the flight of native Dutch from Amsterdam’s working-class 196

neighbourhoods to residential outskirts such as the new town of Almere, creating space for immigrants of Moroccan and Turkish descent now concentrated in these neighbourhoods. In contrast to other major Dutch cities like Rotterdam, Amsterdam has not proposed policies – and thus provided specific opportunities – for distributing migrants evenly around the city. Such domain-specific opportunities were created in the realms of high art and language acquisition. Alongside the first minority policies, national and local governments in the 1980s created special cultural policies for ‘immigrant minority artists’. Here we witness a clear case of boundary shifting at the institutional level. But according to Delhaye, these policies were counter-productive as they isolated immigrants from the established fields of performing and visual art. Since the second half of the 1990s, policies have been redirected to ‘mainstream’ diversity in all layers of art. But despite increased immigrant visibility, cultural institutes have had a hard time adapting to diversity; artists with immigrant backgrounds still jostle for space within the dominant cultural institutes. In the field of language acquisition, Kuiken has shown that policies since the 1970s have aimed to improve the Dutch language capabilities of children with migrant backgrounds, mainly through primary schooling. With the idea that mastery of one’s mother tongue would also improve Dutch language acquisition, Amsterdam (with the support of the national government) provided schooling in children’s native languages from the 1970s up until 2000. Dutch language courses for adults, which only entered the political agenda in the 1990s, are now a core pillar of integration policy. Immigrants have also left their mark on Amsterdam as a city, sometimes in ways that are clearly visible to the general public. While the immigrant influence is readily apparent in public space, housing, language and eating habits, less visible expressions are found in material culture, religion, high art, sports and the organizational landscape. Certain practices associated with immigrants have been adopted by the native population; others remain within ‘ethnic’ niches. Food and foodways are a case in point. Eating out was previously not widespread, certainly not among the lower social classes. The proliferation of Chinese and Indonesian restaurants that offered rijsttafel and other dishes at relatively low prices broke 197

down the (financial and cultural) barriers to eating out. ‘Eating out’ in Amsterdam now basically means ‘eating out ethnic’, as other cuisines (Greek, Indian, Portuguese, Ethiopian and so forth) soon followed. The Amsterdam foodscape has thus been transformed by immigration, underscoring the cosmopolitan image of the city. Chinese restaurants are now an integral part of the city centre and Amsterdam’s marketing of its ‘Chinatown’. Such adaptation – and thus boundary blurring and shifting – may take time. Changes in public space are highly visible. Some streets have become ‘Turkish’ or ‘Moroccan’, with their residents creating parochial realms that differ from those of the native Dutch, leading to a loss of ‘neighbourhood feeling’ among the latter. Van Amersfoort & Cortie have shown how guest workers and other lower-class immigrants initially gravitated to social housing projects, filling the spaces that the indigenous Dutch left behind. More recently, upwardly mobile immigrants have begun moving into middle-class neighbourhoods in the city as well as in the suburbs, just as their indigenous Dutch counterparts did before them. In the arena of sports, Stokvis reports a similar pattern: broadly speaking, immigrants practise the same sports as the native Dutch in similar class positions did before them. The rise of ethnic diversity, however, has sometimes involved problems on the pitch, due to different expectations, traditions and, at times, discrimination. Immigrants have also introduced ‘new’ sports or made existing sports more popular, such as song bird matches and cricket. While these new sports have yet to attract mass followings, the fact that they are on the rise tells us something about the mutual influencing of immigrants and cities. Amsterdam has become a multilingual city, not only because immigrants – particularly first-generation immigrants – have a preference for communicating in their native languages (certainly in more private settings), but also because they have introduced a wealth of loanwords into Dutch. This is particularly true for the street language popular among youths, but increasingly also among other age groups. In the performing and visual arts, change is less visible than one might expect. As formal and informal forms of exclusion barred their access to the established centres of art, immigrant artists responded by developing alternative art circuits that have clearly invigorated the arts in Amsterdam. Although the problem 198

of exclusion has yet to be resolved, this will change with the second and third generations reaching adulthood: many new actors in the municipal theatre group, for instance, have migrant backgrounds. In the winter of 2008, a Turkish opera on honour killings was performed at the municipal theatre, attracting large Turkish and Kurdish audiences and the native elite. Walking down the street in parts of Amsterdam, mosques are hard to miss. Sunier has shown us how negotiations for building mosques are embedded within larger discussions that conceptualize space and contextualize identity. These discussions are part of a complex and prolonged negotiation process embedded in Amsterdam’s history. Current discussions over the establishment of mosques will eventually affect Amsterdam’s identity as a city. As a practised religion, Islam is less visible to the general public than its mosques. Given the negative publicity after 9/11, the past years have witnessed initiatives to let natives ‘peep behind the curtains’, especially during Ramadan. Since 2005 there has been a national Ramadan festival (of which the Municipality of Amsterdam is a major sponsor), when many mosques open their doors to their neighbours to share the traditional iftar meal. Islamic festivities are likewise celebrated in some primary schools. Last but not least, Amsterdam is changing behind closed doors. Van der Horst has shown us how Turkish guest workers invested little in home furnishing during their ‘sojourn’ in Amsterdam. This has changed as they slowly but surely accepted the more permanent nature of their residence. While satellite dishes and the growing number of Turkish furniture stores are visible on the streets, the material culture of home furnishing is changing behind curtains, largely hidden from outsiders’ view. The contributions in this book have shown that the crossing, blurring and shifting of boundaries – and thus the mutual influencing of immigrants and the host society – manifest themselves in distinct ways across domains. While these processes of integration are affected by numerous institutional factors, the institutional infrastructure itself is far from static. The contributions have shown that institutions are contested by citizens with both migrant and non-migrant backgrounds who share their youth, class, religion and ambitions of making Amsterdam their home.

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References Alba, Richard & Victor Nee (2003), Remaking the American mainstream: Assimilation and contemporary immigration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Demant, Froukje, Marieke Slootman, Frank Buijs & Jean N. Tillie (2008), Teruggang en uittreding: processen van deradicalisering ontleed. Amsterdam: IMES. Freeman, Gary (2004), ‘Immigrant incorporation in Western democracies’, International Migration Review 38(3): 945-969. Joppke, Christian & Ewa Morawska (eds.) (2003), Toward assimilation and citizenship. Immigrants in liberal nation-states. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Tillie, Jean & Marieke Slootman (2006), Processes of radicalisation. Why some Amsterdam Muslims become radicals. Amsterdam: IMES.

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About the contributors

Hans van Amersfoort (1937) is Professor Emeritus in Population Geography at the University of Amsterdam. His main research interests are international migration, the social position of immigrant groups, and the adjacent fields of ethnicity and nationalism. He is currently a Research Associate at the Institute for Ethnic and Migration Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Cees Cortie (1938-2006) was Senior Lecturer in Urban Geography at the University of Amsterdam. His research aimed to elucidate the social and cultural factors that shape modern cities. He was especially interested in the impact ethnic residential patterns have on other fields of social interaction such as the labour market and the school system. Christine Delhaye is Lecturer in the Department of European Cultural History at the University of Amsterdam, where she teaches cultural theory and cultural policy. She has published on fashion, consumer culture and feminist theory, and is working on a research project on cultural diversity, transnational and transcultural practices, and cultural policy. Anja van Heelsum, a social psychologist, received her PhD in Social Sciences from VU University Amsterdam. She has been a Researcher at the Institute for Ethnic and Migration Studies at the University of Amsterdam since 1997, mostly focusing on migrants’ political participation, migrant organizations and local integration policies. Hilje van der Horst is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology of Consumers and Households at Wageningen University. For her PhD, obtained from the Meertens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, she studied the roles of ob-

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jects in Turkish-Dutch households. Her interests include material culture, consumption, ‘home’, everyday life and plural societies. Folkert Kuiken is a linguist specialized in language acquisition. He was appointed as Extraordinary Professor of Dutch as a Second Language at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Second Language Acquisition on the account of the Municipality of Amsterdam in 2005. Kuiken is coordinator of the Dutch as a Second Language Master’s programme. Thaddeus Müller, an urban sociologist, is affiliated to the Criminology Section of the Justice Department of the Erasmus University (Rotterdam) and owns a bureau for research, consultancy and policy on urban societies (De Warme Stad). His interests include public space, youth, safety and social interaction in multicultural neighbourhoods. Liza Nell is Lecturer in the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University and an Associate Member of the IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion) Network of Excellence. Her research interests include migrant transnationalism, political mobilization, Kurdish diaspora, and Turkish and Surinamese politics. Anneke H. van Otterloo has published in the field of food and lifestyle since 1982, from the angles of culture, sociology and history. She is affiliated with the University of Amsterdam and is a Guest Researcher at the Amsterdam School of Social Science Research. Jan Rath is Professor of Urban Sociology and Director of the Institute for Ethnic and Migration Studies at the University of Amsterdam. An urban and migration studies specialist, he is the author, editor or co-editor of numerous articles, book chapters, reports and books on the sociology, politics and economics of post-migration processes (http://www.janrath.com). Ruud Stokvis (1943) was Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam until 2008. He is affiliated with the Amsterdam School of Social Science Research and is a Board Member of the W.J.H. Mulier Institute Centre for Research on Sports in Society.

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Thijl Sunier (1954) is Professor of Islam in European Societies at VU University Amsterdam’s Institute for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society. His research addresses Islamic leadership in Europe and Islam in European history. He is developing an interdisciplinary research programme on youth, religion, politics and popular culture. Floris Vermeulen is Researcher at the Institute for Ethnic and Migration Studies and at the Political Science Department of the University of Amsterdam. His work focuses on integration policy, immigrant organizations and integration processes of immigrant groups in urban areas.

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Index 9/11 172, 199 Aalsmeer 80, 90, 92 Aarssen, J. 133-135 Aarts, R. 127 Abbas, T. 41 Abu Lughod, J.L. 11 Africa 12, 110 Africa Remix 111 Ajax 12, 33, 82 Al Jaberi juwelier 128 Alba, R. 194-195 Albert Cuyp market 12, 53 Albert Heijn 55 Alevitism/alevis 65, 149 Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan of 1934/ AUP/General Extension Plan 77 Alkema, H. 114 All-in Plaza 128 Almere 26, 79, 81, 89-90, 92, 197 Ambassador, The 112 America 135 Amersfoort, H. van 14, 19, 75, 81-85, 87, 196, 198, 201 Amiraux, V. 168 Amstel Hotel 42 Amstelveen 77, 81, 90, 92 Amsterdam 9, 11-15, 17-19, 23-30, 32, 34-37, 41-58, 61-72, 75-82, 8489, 91, 93, 95-100, 103-104, 107111, 113-118, 123-125, 127-132, 135, 137-142, 145-156, 159-161, 164, 166, 168, 170, 177-180, 182, 184191, 195, 196-199 Amsterdam Arena 12 Amsterdam Art Council 107 Amsterdam Bijlmer/Bijlmer 12, 27, 29, 31, 171, 190 Amsterdam City Council 103, 153 Amsterdam Creative City 108 Amsterdam East/East Amsterdam 29, 66, 148, 182, 184

Amsterdam Historisch Museum (The Amsterdam Historical Museum) 113 Amsterdam Museum of Modern Art (Het Stedelijk) 110-112 Amsterdam North/North Amsterdam 31, 34, 77, 182, 184 Amsterdam political opportunity structure (POS)/political opportunity structure 145, 146, 150, 155, 156 Amsterdam School 171-173 Amsterdam School of Social Science Research 202 Amsterdam South/the South/South district of Amsterdam 12, 63, 7677, 84, 85, 89, 99 Amsterdam Southeast/Amsterdam Zuidoost 84, 89, 113 Amsterdam subsidy policy 154 Amsterdam Theatre School 114-115 Amsterdam West 31-32, 63, 151, 171, 182 Amsterdamsche IJsclub (AIJC) 180 Amsterdamsche sportbevolking 182 Amsterdamschen Bestuurdersbond (Association of Amsterdam Administrators) 63 Anadolu Firini/Anadolu bakkerij 128 Anatolia 65 Anne Frank Museum 13 Antilles 14, 88-90, 93-97, 99, 125126 Anti-Revolutionary Party 159 Antwerpen, J. van 85 Appel, De (The Apple) 109, 112 Appel, R. 123, 132-133, 136, 140 April Movement 170 Arnhem 33 Aruba 90, 125, 126 Asia 12, 106, 110

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Atlas islamic butcher 54 Auckland 12 Aunt Mia 47 Avoird, T. van der 127 Aya Sofia 149 Bachelor’s/Master system 130 Bach, J.S. 116 Basic interpersonal cognitive style (BICS) 137 Batavian era 164 Batavian Revolution 1795 169 Beddencentrum, het (the Bed centre) 128 Beemster 80, 90, 92 Beeren, W. 110 Beheydt, L. 130 Belgium 47, 168, 170 Bennekom, L. van 24 Bennis, H. 135 Benton-Short, L. 12 Berendsen, M. 53 Berenst, J. 139 Berg, H.O. van den 106, 113 Berveling, J. 150 Biervliet, W. 27-28 Billig, M. 163 Binnen Bantammerstraat 45, 48 Birnbaum, P. 163 Black movies 28-29 Black Pete 26 Black Theatre movement 114 Blokker, J. 125 Blokland, T. 35 Bolkestein, F. 16 Bottenburg, M. van 178, 181, 183, 186, 188-189 Bouazza, H. 116 Boumans, L. 133-135 Bourdieu, P. 64, 69, 104, 178 Bousetta, H. 117 Bouwen aan Een Surinaams Tehuis (BEST) 153-154 Bovenkerk, F. 43 Brana-Shute, G. 28 Brandellero, A. 15 Brassé, P. 31 Broeder, P. 127 Broek, I. van den 105, 107 Bronkhorst, A.J. 164, 170

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Broodje van Kootje 46 Brouns, H. 25 Brubaker, R. 163 Bruhèze, A. de la 46, 49, 54 Brunt, L. 24 Brussels 24, 41 Buijs, F. 167, 196 Buikema, R. 104 Buiks, P.E.J. 28 Bureau Amsterdam 112 Burger, P. 124 Burgess, E.W. 90 Burkens, J. 177 Butler, J. 168 Buys, A. 80 Çaglar, A.S. 63 Calcar, C. van 135-136 Cammen, H. van der 77 Camp Atatürk 65 Camp, B. van den 105, 107 Caribbean 12 Carrion, U. 109 Castells, M. 11 Catering Branch Annual Reports 46 Caubet, D. 112 Centre Pompidou 111 Cesari, J. 167-168 Chicago 90 China 117 Chinatown 28, 198 Choenni, A. 52 Cieraad, I. 72 City centre (Amsterdam) 24-30, 42, 46-50, 52, 55, 57, 77, 80, 84, 8889, 99, 113, 116, 166, 170, 198 Coakley, J. 178-179 Coffee Company 128 Cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) 137 Cohen, J. 41, 165 Collins, R. 113-115 Cologne 149 Colombia 108 Commissie Allochtone Groepen (Commission Allochtonous Groups) 107, 109 Concertgebouw 76 Concergebouw Orchestra 82 Constitution of 1848 165, 170

Cornips, L. 132 Cortie, C. 9, 14, 19, 75, 80, 82, 8485, 92, 196, 198, 201 Cosmic Theatre 114, 116 Cottaar, A. 47 Council for the Arts 105 Cross, M. 15 Cubitt, S. 104, 111 Cultural Complexity 104 Culture Council 105, 114 Cultural Council of South Holland 110 Cultural Outreach Action Plan 2001 108 Cummins, J. 137 Daalder, H. 161, 164 Daalen, M. van 138 Dagevos, J. 35 Dam, J. van 56 Dam Square 13, 165 Damrak 45 Davis, T. 107 Deben, L. 63 Delhaye, C. 19, 103-104, 197, 201 Demant, F. 196 Department for Art and Culture 105 Deurloo, M.C. 84-85 Development Award for Cultural Diversity (Stimuleringsprijs voor Culturele Diversiteit) 111 Dibbits, H. 69 Diemen 81, 90, 92 Dienst Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling (DMO) 139-140, 147, 187 Dienst Onderzoek en Statistiek/O+S 13, 30, 50, 52-53, 56, 76, 138, 140, 184 Dignum, K. 77 Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs 148 Dönerland 128 Doomernik, J. 168, 171 Doorn, J.A.A. van 25 Dorleijn, M. 135 Douwes, M. 53 Droogh, D. 80 Dubai 12 Duif, de 169 Duin, L. van 106

Duncan, C. 103 Dunk, T. von der 166, 169-170 Dunn, K. 168, 172 Düsseldorf 111 Dutch Antilles 90, 125 Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) 11-12 Dutch East Indies 44 Dutch Encounter with Asia The 112 Dutch Housing Act 63 Dutch Opera 116 Duyvendak, J.W. 147, 150-151 Duyvené de Wit, T. 147 Eade, J. 159, 166-167 Eastern Europe 160 Economic malaise 1980s 36 Edam 80, 90, 92 Edict of Nantes 160-161 Eersteling, P. 179 Eickelman, D. 166 Eijken, A. 43 Eindtoets Basisonderwijs (Final test primary education)/Citotoets 138 Elias, N. 179 Ellaway, A. 62 Elling, A. 189 Emir Sultan Mosque 148 Engelen, E. 15 Engelsdorp Gastelaars, R. van 80, 84 England 77, 108, 181 Enwezor, O. 111 Erasmus University Rotterdam 202 Erf, R. van der 90 Ernst, M. 65 Essed, P. 27, 32 Europe 14, 108, 135, 162-163, 167168, 193 Evren, B. 109 Expanding Theatre 116 Exter, J. den 65, 148-149 Extra, G. 127, 134, 135 Eyüp Sultan 148 Fainstein, S.S. 11 Far East 52, 56 Fatih Mosque 148, 170 Feijter, H. de 55

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Feith, J. 177 Fennema, M. 148, 151 Fincher, R. 168 First World War 185 Fisher 111 Fonville, T. 85 Fortier, A-M. 62 Fortuyn, P. 16, 155 France 167-168 Fransman, J. 103 Freeman, G. 193 French Revolution 164 Friedman, S. 12 Fuks-Mansfeld, R. 164 Gabaccia, D.R. 51 Galloway, M. 36 Gans, H.J. 30, 63 Garden City movement 77 Gardena, M. 108 Gate Foundation 110 Geerts, R.W.M. 154 Geesink, A. 183 Geest, N. van der 113-115 Gelder, P. van 28 Gemeente Amsterdam 103, 108, 140-141 Germany 161, 168 Gier, E. de 55 Gijsberts, M. 35 Goffman, E. 27 Gogh, T. van 155, 165 Golden Age 160 Google Images 43 Gooi, het 78 Gordon, I. 11 Grachtengordel (canal ring area) 182 Grey Wolves 150 Gribling, F. 108 Groenendijk, K. 147 Groningen 65 Günal family 31 Haan, N. de 165 Haarlemmermeer 81, 90, 92 Habbema, C. 115-116 Haci Bayran Mosque 148 Hacquebord, H. 139

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Hague, The 45, 49, 66, 72, 112, 127, 134, 148, 159, 189 Ham, P. van der 182, 184 Hannerz, U. 104 Harloe, M. 11 Hartog, A. den 42 Häusserman, H. 23 Haveman, B. 125 Hayward Gallery 111 HBO (Hoger Beroeps Onderwijs) 138 Heck’s Cafetaria 46 Heel, D. van 170 Heelsum, A. van 19, 145-146, 148, 196, 201 Heijden, H.A. van der 150 Hells Angels 151-152 Herder, A. 139 Hermans, L.M. 63 Hiscock, R. 62 Hoepel, S.M. 36 Hogeboom, L. 53 Holland 131, 181 Holleman, L. 107 Holocaust 159 Hong Kong 45, 47 Hoofdweg 33 Hoppenbrouwers, C. 133 Horeca in Cijfers 55 Horeca Nederland 48 Horst, H. van der 19, 61, 72, 199, 201 House of Cultural Dialogue 107 Housing Act of 1901 75-77 Hoyng, J. 188 Hubers, G. 136 Hungary 108 Hymans, T.D. 9 Iceland 108 Iens Independent Index 41 Ikea 70 Imagine IC (Imagine Identity and Culture) 113 Independence Square 190 Index of Dissimilarity 91 Indonesia 47, 51, 81, 113, 117, 125, 131, 167 Industrialized nations 85, 88-89, 93-99

ING (Internationale Nederlanden Groep) 12 Innovatieproject Amsterdam (Innovation Project Amsterdam) 135137 In-Out-Centre 108 Institute for Ethnic and Migration Studies (IMES) 201-203 Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology 202 Internal Revenue Service 91 International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion (IMISCOE) Network of Excellence 202 International Theatre Lab of Amsterdam 115 Ireland 168 Islamitische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş (IGMG) 149 Islamitische Stichting Nederland (ISN) 148 Israel 108 Israel, J. 159 Istanbul 11 Jackson, P. 91 Jacobs, J. 168 Jan van Galen Street 32 Jansen, J. 109, 112, 115 Jansen van Galen, J. 25 Janssens, G. 131, 133 Janssens, J. 179, 183, 186 Japan 117 Javastraat 54 Jókövi, E.M. 31 Jones, T. 41 Joppke, C. 193 Jordaan 64 Julidans 116 Kalverstraat 29 Kaplan, B.J. 166 Kaplan, F. 103 Karacaer, H. 149 Katznelson, I. 163 Kearns, A. 62 Kees de Jongen 181 Keulemans, C. 114 Khosrokhavar, F. 163 Kinkerstraat 128

Klerk, L.A. de 77, 82, 85 Klimaat, Het (The Climate) 110 Kloosterman, R.C. 15, 52 KNAW (Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie voor Wetenschappen/ Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences) 130, 201 Knippenberg, H. 159 Kong Hing 45 Koopmans, R. 145-147, 150 Kors, F. 36 Kottman, P. 111 Krasnapolsky 42 Kuba Mosque 148 Kuijpers, E. 12 Kuiken, F. 19, 57, 123, 139, 197, 202 Kuyper, A. 159 Kwekkeboom’s Bakery 46 Laan, M. van der 107, 110 Labour Party 78 Landman, L. 166 Landman, N. 170-171 Landsmeer 80, 90, 92 Lange, Y. 190 Langetermijnvisie Cultuur 2015 (The Long Term Vision on Culture 2015) 103 Latin America 106, 108, 110 Lavrijsen, R. 106, 115 Lee, J. 36 Lee’s Location Quotient 91 Leiden University 202 Leidseplein 24, 30 Leistra, G. 26, 29 Leseman, P. 138 Leun, J. van der 52 Lewin, F.A. 62 Liagre Böhl, H.D. de 150 Lieberson, S. 91 Liedtke, R. 163 Liempt, I. van 31, 33-34 Lijphart, A. 147, 165 Linden, L. van der 113 Lindo, F. 167-168, 171 Liverpool 44 Living Theatre Group 113 Lofland, L.H. 23 London 11-12, 44, 111, 114, 167 López, S. 106, 108-110

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Los Angeles 11-12, 14 Los Gauchos 54 Louis XIV 160 Low Countries 123 Lowlands, the 170 LPF (Lijst Pim Fortuyn) 155 Lucassen, J. 14, 160-161 Lucassen, L. 145 Macintyre, S. 62 Magiciens de la terre 110-111 Mak, G. 183 Mamadouh, V. 150, 156 Margriet 48 Martin, J-H. 110-111 McDonalds 50, 54 McLeod, H. 164 McLoughlin, S. 168 Mechelen, M. van 109 Mediterranean 14, 51, 81, 82, 99, 124-125, 127 Meertens Institute 201 Meerveld, S.P. 154 Mercer, K. 111 Meijer, A. 168 Meijer, G. 136 Meijer, M. 104 Melkweg, De 29 Mercatorbuurt 31-33 Mercatorplein 33 Mercer list 13 Messing, J. 72 Metcalf, B. 162, 166 Mexico 108, 113 Mexico City 11 Meyer, A. 147 Meyer, J. 111 Miami 12 Middle East 52 Miermans, C. 177, 179 Miller, D. 62 Miller, M.J. 17 Milli Görüş movement 149, 171-172 Mimar Sinan Mosque 148 Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Welzijn 106-107 Ministry of Education, Culture & Science 105 Minorities policy 1983 (Minderhedenbeleid) 105

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Mobility index 91, 93-94 Mohammed 14, 33 Molen, J. van der 53 Mollenkopf, J.H. 11 Mondriaan Foundation 111 Monsma, S.V. 168 Montijn, I. 45-46, 52-54 Mooij, A. 181 Moore, J. 62 Morawska, E. 193 Mori Art Museum 111 Morocco 14, 35, 82, 84, 88-90, 9399, 113, 134, 186 Moses and Aaron Church 166 Mout, G. 179 Mulier, W.J.H. Institute Centre for Research on Sports in Society 202 Müller, T. 19, 31-33, 35-36, 196, 202 Mumbai 11 Municipal Theatre 114, 116, 199 Municipality of Amsterdam 199, 202 Museum Kunst Palast 111 Musterd, S. 85 Muysken, P. 123 Muziektheater, het (the Music Theatre) 116-117 My Com 128 Nachtwacht 103 Nasafi 128 National Art Gallery (Nationale Kunstgalerij) 112 National Ballet 116 National Council 107 Nederlandse Bond voor Lichamelijke Opvoeding (NbvLO/Dutch Association for Physical Education) 180 Nederlandse Corinthians 177 Nederlandse Islamitische Federatie (NIF) 149 Nederveen Pieterse, J. 104 Nee, V. 194-195 Nekuee, S. 114 Nell, L. 9, 11, 193, 202 Netherlands, the 11, 16, 30, 33-34, 41-42, 45-47, 49-53, 57, 61-69, 71, 81-82, 88-89, 93-98, 103, 105,

107-110, 112, 114, 125-126, 134, 138, 147-148, 150, 159-160, 163164, 166-171, 177, 179, 186-188, 190, 196 New diversity policy 155 New York 11-13, 113, 136 Nibud 69 Nicole 128 Niekerk, M. van 30, 81 Nielsen, J. 168 Niemand aan de kant (Nobody left aside) 141 Nierop, H. van 161 Nieuw Amsterdam, De (the New Amsterdam/DNA) 114, 116 Nieuw Nickerie 190 Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church) 113 Nieuwe Taalaanpak (the New Language Approach) 136-137 Nieuwendijk 29 Nieuwmarkt 44, 48 Non-industrialized countries 82, 88-89, 93-97, 99 Nonneman, G. 168 Nortier, J. 133-135 Nusselein, juwelier 128 Oaïssa, M. 116 Oceania 110 Oil Crisis 1973 15 Olympic Games 1964 183 Öngören, V. 114-115 Oost-Watergraafsmeer 148 Oostzaan 80, 90, 92 Ostendorff, W. 80 Other Books and So 109 Otterloo, A.H. van 19, 41, 43, 45-46, 49, 52, 54-55, 196, 202 Ouali, N. 15 Ouder-Amstel 80, 90, 92 Oudezijds Achterburgwal 47 Oudezijds Voorburgwal 166 Palm, N. de 114 Paradiso 29 Paramaribo 27-28, 190 Paris 11-13, 24, 110-111, 168 Parool, Het 152 Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) 150-152 Pastors, K. 116

PBR (Platform Buitenlanders Rijnmond) 31 Peach, C. 91 Penninx, R. 14-15, 147-148, 160-161 People’s Square 190 Perkins, H.C. 62 Pijp, De 27 Pizza Hut 55 Plas, E. van der 108, 110 Ploeg, R. van den 106, 108, 115 Po-Chia Hsia, R. 161 Policy of ‘family-reunion’ 51 Poolen, W.J. 46 Portugal 160 Poseidon 183 Posthuma de Boer, E. 125 Prak, M. 12 Price, M.D. 12 Prins, B. 16 Prins Claus Fonds 111 Prinsengracht 169 ‘Promised Land’ 99 Provo Movement 24, 150-151, 156 Purmerend 26, 79, 81, 90, 92 Raedts, P. 166 Ram, M. 41 Ramadan 199 Ramadan festival 199 Ramadan, T. 169 Rapportage sport 2006 188 RAST 115-116 Rasta culture 29 Rastafarians 29 Rath, J. 9, 11, 15-17, 55, 147, 167-168, 193, 202 Rea, A. 15 Red light district 28 Regional Organ Amsterdam (ROA) 80-81, 89-90 ROA area 89 Reijndorp, A. 31 Reisbureau Nova 128 Reizevoort, B. 132 Rekers, A. 52, 55 Rembrandtplein/Rembrandt’s Square 24, 46 Rembrandt 103 Reubsaet, T.J.M. 154

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Rijkschroeff, B.R. 43-45, 48-49, 5455, 147 Rijksmuseum 76, 112 Rijsdorp, K. 183 Rivierenbuurt 63 RIVM (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu) 189 Robel Schoenen 128 Robinson, V. 91 Roeleveld, J. 138 Rome 166 Rooden, P. van 163 Rooy, F.P. de 114 Roques, C. 188 Rotterdam 44-45, 49, 65, 146, 149, 189, 197 Roukens 68 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences See KNAW Salzman, C. 48 San Fransisco 12 Sanghera, B. 41 Sansone, L. 29, 37 Santa Claus 26 Sassen, S. 11, 159 Scheerder, J. 178 Schelt, G. van 178 Schiedam 149 Schiphol Airport 12, 81 Schiphol area 99 Schiphol-Amstelveen area 85 Scholliers, P. 41 Schonlank, C. 178 Scott, A.J. 11 SCP (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau) 159, 186, 188, 190 Senegal 117 Sennet, R. 63 Short Century The 111 Sibley, D. 62 Siebel, W. 23 Sijs, N. van der 57, 123, 126-127 Singel 52 Slootman, M. 196 Slot, J. 85 Smith, S. 91 Snackbar of de dualiteit van het vet 46

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Snel, E. 105 Snel, J.D. 159 Soeterijntheater 114 Soja, E.W. 11 Sommerville, P. 62 Soper, J.C. 168 South Africa 112, 117 Southern Europe 88-89, 93-97 Southern Netherlands 189 Spaans, J. 161 Spaarndammerbuurt 32 Spain 14, 160, 166 Sport als een jongmenselijke activiteit (Sport as an activity for young people) 183 Sport monitor 2003 187 Spui square 24, 46 Srefidensi 154 Staatsliedenbuurt 151 Stadsschouwburg (Municipal theatre) 114-116 Stanton, G. 186 Statham, P. 145-146 Steenbergen, F. van 155 Sterckx, L. 55 Stichting Islamitisch Centrum Nederland (SICN) 148 Stichting Opbouwwerk Surinamers in Amsterdam (SOSA) 154 Stichting Turks-Islamitische Culturele Federatie (STICF) 148 Stokvis, R. 19, 177-178, 181, 183-184, 189, 198, 202 Studio Marina’s 128 Stuurgroep Succesvolle Schoolloopbaan (Steering Committee Succesfull School Career) 138 Stuurman, S. 159, 164-165 Süleymancilar 148 Sultan and the Artist The 112 Sunday’s professioneel zonnen (Sunday’s professional tanning) 128 Sunier, T. 19, 147, 159, 163, 165-168, 196, 199, 203 Suriname 14, 26, 28, 81-84, 88-90, 93-99, 112, 125, 132, 190 Swaan, A. de 130 Swinkels, W. 16 Sydney 12, 14

Tai Ton 48 Taibah Mosque 171 Taks, M. 178 Tan, H. 27 Taqasim 116 Tarrow, S. 145, 164 Taygun, M. 114-115 Ten Kate market 53 Tesser, P. 90 Teunissen, F. 139 Theatre Group Amsterdam 116 Thijn, E. van 151 Thijssen, T. 181 Third World countries 15-16, 85, 150 Thorns, D.C. 62 Tijdgeest, bakkerij de (Spirit of the Age Bakery) 125 Tilburg 189 Tillie, J. 148, 196 Tinker, I. 43 Tjon, H. 114 Toko Sentosa 128 Tokyo 11-12, 111 Top, B. 114 Toronto 12 Trienekens, S. 105 Tropenmuseum (Ethnographic Museum of Amsterdam) 109-110, 114 Tulder, R. van 125 Turkenburg, M. 140 Turkey 14, 31, 35, 61-62, 64-71, 82, 84, 88-90, 93-97, 99, 109, 113, 135, 148-149, 186 Tuskan, E. 65 UABC (Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile) 110 Ufuk 148 Uitermark, J. 155 Uithoorn 79, 81, 90, 92 UK (United Kingdom) 166 Union of Utrecht 160 United Amsterdam Milk Institutions 46 United States 50, 54, 114, 193-194 University of Amsterdam 9, 46, 130, 201-203 Urban Myth 116

VAMI (Vereenigde Amsterdamsche Melkinrichtingen) 41, 46, 125 Van Gogh museum 13 Vancouver 12 Vanreusel, B. 178 Vatican 170 Veen, A. 138 Veraart, J. 31 Verberk, M. 113 Vermeulen, F. 19, 145, 147, 150, 152153, 196, 203 Vermeulen, H. 26-27, 30 Verstrate, L. 36 Vinckx, Y. 111 VMBO (Voortgezet Middelbaar Beroeps Onderwijs) 138-139 Vogel, J. 65 Volendam 80, 90, 92 Voltaire 165 Vondelpark 76 Vos, S. de 80 Vries, G. de 115 Vries, J. de 124 Vries, S. de 184, 186 VU Institute for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society 203 VU University Amsterdam 201-202 VWO (Voortgezet Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs) 138 Wageningen University 201 Waijenberg, K. 138 Wallagh, B. 24 Walzer, M. 165, 168 Wan Pipel (One People) 29 Warde, A. 41, 56 Warme Stad, de 202 Waterland 80, 90, 92 Waterlooplein 166 Webster, F. 16 Weerman, F. 133 Weg, M. van der 53 Welling, W. 109, 112 Welsuria 153-154 Wenderhorst, S. 163 Werkman, E. 25 Wessels, W. 166-168, 172 West Indies 81, 126 Westelijke Tuinsteden 63 Westerloo, G. van 149

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Wester Mosque 171 Western consumption culture 29 Wet Inburgering Nieuwkomers 1998 (Newcomers Integration Act) 139-140, 161 Whyte, W.H. 23 Wieringa, F. 44 Wijmans, L. 150 Wilk 36 Willemyns, R. 124 William I 170 Wintershoven, L. 77, 152 Wolff, R. 15 Woningwet woningen 78, 85 W.W. Guide (World’s Window Guide) The 24

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World War II (WW II)/Second World War 24, 26, 41, 45, 53, 57, 63, 77, 81, 105, 124-125, 167-168, 196 Wormerland 80, 90, 92 Wouters, C. 25 Wrench, J. 15 Yağmur, K. 127 Yerden, I. 149 Yugoslavia 14 Zaanstad 81, 90, 92 Zeedijk 12, 19, 24-25, 27-29, 36 Zeevang 80, 90, 92 Zionism 184 Zonneveld, L. 113 Zukin, S. 62

SOLIDARITY AND IDENTITY

previously published Minghuan Li: We Need Two Worlds. Chinese Immigrant Associations in a Western Society 1999 (isbn 978 90 5356 402 8) Aafke E. Komter, Jack Burgers and Godfried Engbersen: Het cement van de samenleving. Een verkennende studie naar solidariteit en cohesie 2000/20042 (isbn 978 90 5356 437 0) Clementine van Eck: Purified by Blood. Honour Killings amongst Turks in the Netherlands 2002 (isbn 978 90 5356 491 2) Joanne van der Leun: Looking for Loopholes. Processes of Incorporation of Illegal Immigrants in the Netherlands 2003 (isbn 978 90 5356 600 8) Marc Hooghe: Sociaal kapitaal in Vlaanderen. Verenigingen en democratische politieke cultuur 2003 (isbn 978 90 5356 643 5) Aafke E. Komter: Solidariteit en de gift. Sociale banden en sociale uitsluiting 2003 (isbn 978 90 5356 645 9) Marco van der Land: Vluchtige verbondenheid. Stedelijke bindingen van de Rotterdamse nieuwe middenklasse 2004 (isbn 978 90 5356 678 7) Frank J. Buijs, Froukje Demant en Atef Hamdy: Strijders van eigen bodem. Radicale en democratische moslims in Nederland 2006 (isbn 978 90 5356 916 0) Irma Thoen: Strategic Affection? Gift Exchange in SeventeenthCentury Holland 2007 (isbn 978 90 5356 811 8) Talja Blokland: Oog voor elkaar. Veiligheidsbeleving en sociale controle in de grote stad 2008 (isbn 978 90 8964 043 7) Lynn Owens: Cracking Under Pressure. Narrating the Decline of the Amsterdam Squatters’ Movement 2009 (isbn 978 90 8964 059 8)

Marlene de Vries: ‘Indisch is een gevoel’. De tweede en derde generatie Indische Nederlanders 2009 (isbn 978 90 8964 125 0) Paul de Beer and Ferry Koster: Sticking Together or Falling Apart? Individualization, Globalization and Solidarity 2009 (isbn 978 90 8964 128 1)