present in the past

Since returning to Canada I've been having a hard time living here. Don't get me wrong; I have a great place to live a fantastic roommate and friend to live with, and enough money to support myself. What I mean is that I have been having, I think, a hard time accepting that I have to be in Toronto on an emotional level.

Rationally, it makes complete sense that I live here now - my sources of funding require me to be here, my resources in terms of libraries and supervisory support are here, and frankly, I ran out of long-term visa options that would allow me to stay in the Netherlands even if everything else was in order. And, while it was suggested by a colleague that I should just stay in Amsterdam forever (a tempting thought!), I have to admit that I needed the geographical separation from the site of my research to actually be able to think about it and analyze it in the ways I need to. In short, in terms of actually completing my dissertation in a timely fashion, I need to physically be in Toronto.

Yet, analyzing all this data requires me to dwell on everything I've learned and experienced over the past year. I have to pour over my old journals, collected papers, articles, meeting notes, etc. sifting through all those details and memories to try to extract the research gold that will form the very foundations of my dissertation.

Doing ethnographic fieldwork is, I think, a bit different than other kinds of research in that your own reactions and emotions, experiences and memories, questions, and yes, even crises (real or imagined) all come to form the archive of your research. Try as you might, these things all creep into how you understand what you're studying and how you study it. And, really, these can turn out to be some of the most important things! The sheer amount of information you absorb simply by living your daily life comes to be important in ways you never would have expected at the time.

Now, I have to say that when I first entered the 'field' I think that I had some ideas about what I would be doing and how I should be doing it that were just plain romanticized, ridiculous, or wrong. I had read a bit of another PhD dissertation by an American anthropologist who had done her fieldwork in Amsterdam. In it she described how she had been surprised to find that the fieldwork experience in a Dutch urban centre was very different than she had originally imagined:

Unknowingly, I had continued to imagine my fieldwork as if it were to take place in a small town filled with lively streets, welcoming people, and conviviality. But, instead of informally socializing with people, I had to schedule appointments; generally speaking, just “dropping in” on someone is frowned upon. Instead of being constantly surrounded by people and struggling to find private moments, I found myself alone most of the time, except when I sought out interviews, committee meetings, and public gatherings. Instead of being able to integrate myself into daily neighborhood life, becoming inconspicuous over time, I found I was often the only person lingering around outside, with no one to observe. (Martineau 2006:12)

Armed with this knowledge on how to 'do' fieldwork in Amsterdam, I thought I had things all figured out. Of course, later I realized that I too held idealized notions about anthropological fieldwork. For example, my choice of waterproof hiking shoes that I thought I would need in the perpetually rainy climate of the Netherlands (the romanticized field!) were actually very uncool and definitely marked me as a foreigner (which was often pointed out by some of my more blunt Dutch friends - who, like all Dutch people wore very fashionable shoes), and that I only needed to wear my rain pants once during the whole year (also very uncool). But perhaps the biggest error in judgment came from my ideas about what an anthropological archive was. I thought that my field-journal should only be filled with important facts and observations that clearly related to my research questions. When I started writing in my journal I promised myself that all the mundane details and emotional crises not directly related to my research (e.g. 'culture shock' and 'ethical dilemmas') would never make it into this archive.

Of course, it wasn't too long after I was living in Amsterdam that this resolve quickly dissolved. I had an emotional crisis very decidedly unrelated to my ability to do research. Yet, it was then that I realized that contrary to the naive ideas I came to Amsterdam with, in fact everything I did and thought affected how I did research, and was usually worthy of making it into this archive in one way or another. So, yes, now I am pouring over not only interestingly productive frustrations with trying to learn Dutch (such as trying to practice with the woman at my local vegetable stall only to be replied to in English), or the experience of going to a Balkans Film Festival one weekend (an international event mainly in English), or learning the reason that the Dutch political cartoon characters Fokke en Sukke have exposed genitals (because of Dutch liberal sensibilities poking fun at the American Donald Duck who also doesn't wear pants), but also more seemingly unconnected jottings about things going on in my personal life and relationships.

So, with the process of analyzing my research data, I have to relive, remember, and dwell on what my life was like in the Netherlands. Really, it's no wonder that I'm having a hard time committing emotionally to Toronto. I am still in Amsterdam every day.

home-sick (a researchy post)

Where do you feel at home? Do you feel at home in your neighbourhood, in your city, in your province, in your country? Do you feel at home in other places, like at work, in school, at clubs or societies you might belong to? What does home mean to you?

These were some of the kinds of questions I asked during most of the interviews I conducted over the course of my year doing ethnographic research in Amsterdam. I wanted to figure out where people felt comfortable, where they didn't, and how this might contribute to their wider understandings of belonging. Now that I'm back in Canada after a year spent in the Netherlands, I am asking myself my own questions about what 'home' is.

So what does it mean to feel at home? People gave me lots of different answers in my interviews. Some said that they simply felt at home in their house, in their neighbourhood. They knew their neighbours, or their local cafes and markets. Others said that 'home' was less a place than people they knew: their family or friends, wherever they were in the country or world. Still others said that being at home was more about a feeling than anything else. This feeling could mean being surrounded by people with shared or similar interests, or a certain atmosphere, or landscape, or be completely indescribable and only known. Some could, for example, feel at home in Amsterdam, or in one of the other big cities in the Randstad, or in the Netherlands at large, or in Europe. They could even feel more at home in their vacation house in France, than in a small village just outside of Amsterdam. I think that feeling at home can be all of these things. In the Netherlands, I felt an incredible feeling of home whenever I stepped into a NS train and darted across the country. Or when I climbed onto my fiets and cycled through Amsterdam's cobbled streets and red-paved bike paths. Or when I climbed over the dunes to the North Sea and smelled the fresh and salty air (which reminded me taking that first deep breath of Nova Scotia when I leave the airport after flying 'home' from Toronto). In many ways - whether through a sense of place, people, or simply my senses - by the time I left Amsterdam I felt more at home there than I ever had during the three years I lived in Toronto.

But even if home can be a place, people, a feeling, I think that time also has an important role to play. Being home-sick is quite a different thing than being nostalgic, and the major difference is time. When you're home-sick, you're longing for this thing called 'home' only across distance. This can be cured relatively easily by either 'going home', or trying to 'bring home to you' (as in the case of my Dutch Thanksgiving last year). Longing for 'home' across time (and maybe, but not necessarily, across space too) is quite a bit more complicated. There is something to the phrase "you can never go home again" afterall... It makes for a very interesting kind of home-sickness, since you're longing for a place that might not even exist anymore. Yes, the streets might still be the same, the houses and shops and parks might still be unchanged, the same people you came to know, love, be annoyed by or avoid might even yet populate those houses and crowd the streets, but time nonetheless marches ever on, and things may never be the same again.

This is something that people used to discuss now and then when I was in the field, especially when it came to talking about immigration issues. In many conversations about the problems that the Netherlands is facing with integrating (new and old) immigrants and minority ethnic communities (usually called 'allochtonen') into the country, a lot of autochtoon ('native') Dutch people seemed to say that part of the problem came down to nostalgia. Some allochtonen, especially those who moved into the bigger cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam, just didn't bother letting go of how things were in the mother-country. They said that instead of integrating - learning to and actually speaking Dutch, adopting or at least respecting the 'progressive' social values of the mainstream Dutch - they just set up their own little ethnic neighbourhoods; mirrors of the norms and styles of living that they left when they moved to the Netherlands in the first place. And, the funniest thing about it I was often told, was that now a lot of these practices and values from the mother-country had actually changed there, becoming more liberal, while the immigrants who had come to the Netherlands 30 or 40 years ago were still clinging to the older ways and ideas! Hmmm. I'm not sure if that's entirely true (haven't done my homework here), but it does make for an interesting story about the tensions surrounding ideas of home.

Of course, these same Dutch people aren't immune to the power of nostalgia themselves. In fact, a lot of the momentum behind the new populist, far Right movements in the Netherlands (like the PVV and ToN - and I would say all of Western Europe, and well, in the US too) is spurred on more by a dewy-eyed sense of nostalgia (and anger) than fact. For example, stories about how things used to be better - safer, freer, more equal, more... something - before all these immigrants came really gloss over a lot of important information. One of the most cited 'problems with immigrants' I heard in the news and in general when I was living in the Netherlands, was that they clung to these 'backwards' ideas and practices regarding gender and sexuality. The Netherlands was/ is seen as this sort of bastion of liberalism, progressive values, openness, tolerance, etc. For generations, women have been the equals of men, and everyone, regardless of their sexuality is welcomed, respected, and even celebrated. In reality, it was only a very short time ago when things were quite the opposite. In fact, most of the contemporary values considered ‘typically Dutch’ actually emerged only as pillarization (verzuiling) waned. As the dramatic changes experienced across the West during the 1960s came to the Netherlands, older concerns for family, employment and economic security lost ground to concerns for the self and secularism (Lechner 2008:132). Thus, the characteristically broad threshold of tolerance that has become a ‘distinctively Dutch value’

was very nearly the other way around only a (historically) short time ago. Even after World War II, the Netherlands was characterized by traditional male-female roles; gender segregation in primary schools and in the church on Sundays; fear of nudity and sexuality; physical punishment for children; an ideology of family solidarity over individualism; and immense respect for authority. Paradoxically, the values now taken to be distinctively Dutch clash with traditionally Dutch values. (Sniderman and Hagendoorn 2007:129-130)

While Amsterdam might represent these ideals fairly well today, it's clear that these views aren't necessarily shared by everyone, regardless of how far back they can trace their family history within the Netherlands. Just hearing about people in small villages outside the Randstad or who live in the Dutch Bible Belt who might say they accept homosexuality and act in ways that highlight the limitedness of this acceptance kind of contradicts (or at least complicates) this image of a progressive moral majority. A recent example was the fallout from the election of a gay Carnival king who was refused communion in Brabant. Another example is how one of the political parties that ran in the June 2009 federal elections still wont allow women to be members. The point I'm getting at here, is that since nostalgia is so connected with our memories we often mis-remember, blotting out the bad and exaggerating the good. Nostalgia might even push us past this mis-remembering and convince us to long for something that maybe never was.

So, I guess this brings me back to the question I started with... what is 'home'? But, perhaps more importantly, how can we all live there together?

'home' again... now what?

Well, I've been back 'home' in Toronto, Canada for about two months now. My year in Amsterdam was truly the best year in my life. I learned a lot, met wonderful people, made amazing friends, and fell head over heels with the city. Now, after the whirlwind of visiting friends and family I hadn't seen in over a year, I'm finally settling in again to life in Canada and working on deciphering my fieldnotes and figuring out what I actually learned while I was away.

What I've learned so far, is that no anthropologist ever seems to come back from 'the field' (wherever that may be) feeling like they got everything they could have. So far, all my colleagues in the same situation say the exact same things. Mostly along the lines of, "I know that if I had been there for another month or so, I could have gotten much more done!" I just hope that I have enough to be able to write something worth reading, and interesting enough to present to the folks back in Amsterdam in the spring...

It would be really great if what I ultimately produce could be more than just interesting. It would be wonderful if my dissertation could actually be more than just pretty academic musings and be, dare I say it, useful. This is something that I think a lot of social researchers think about. I would be really proud if my research could have positive implications for policy making or something in the Netherlands, (how cool would that be?) but I'm not entirely sure how to make that happen...

While I have always thought that I would want to stay in academia - become a professor and wear a tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, etc. - the course I am TA-ing this year, Public Anthropology, is encouraging me to weigh some other options. The reality is that at least half of all professional anthropologists (i.e. folks with the letters PhD after their names) end up working outside of the university. While I like the idea of a career where I could not only research and write but also to teach, the researching and writing bits ain't bad. There are lots of great research institutes (like the Meertens in Amsterdam) out there, in addition to local and governmental organizations who hire social researchers. While some of these organizations do have more of an academic bent to them, a lot of their work funnels directly into making positive, useful changes in policy and other areas of society. That's pretty cool.

These decisions and job applications are more than a year away from becoming a reality for me. In the meantime, I have lots of notes to sift through, interviews to transcribe, literature to read up on, and research to write (and edit, and edit, and edit...). But, when the time comes, non-academic job options are something to consider. Besides, I heard you're allowed to have the elbow patches on your tweed jacket once you have your PhD, whether you stay in academia or not...

holidaze!

The end of April and beginning of May in the Netherlands is chock full of holidays! In fact, I've been so busy celebrating that I haven't had much time to write about them: Koninginnedag on April 30th (and to a lesser extent Koninginnenacht on the 29th), is quickly followed by the more somber Dodenherdenking on May 4th, only to be followed the next day by Bevrijdingsdag on May 5th. And as if that wasn't enough, the Christian holiday of Hemelsvaart crops up on May 13th giving everyone yet another day off (or 2)! I feel like a need a holiday from all these holidays! Or rather, I feel like I really need to stop celebrating and do some work...

It's not that I haven't been busy. In fact, many people have started responding to my request for interview participants, so my calendar is filling up with meetings and discussions with interesting people. (Thank you!!) But, in studying (among other things) ideas about the nation, it's been important to take a look at these holidays - Koninginnedag, Dodenherdenking, and Bevrijdingsdag - where the Dutch, who usually seem so somber and quiet about expressions of belonging at the level of the nation, actually come out of their shells a bit (though, I'm still waiting to see what happens during the World Cup...).

Koninginnedag (which I can finally actually say, after much practice!), Queen's Day, means that the Dutch landscape erupts in a riot of orange, as people celebrate the monarchy (the House of Orange). I bought an orange shirt so I could fit in with the locals, though I was also told I could don the red, white and blue of the Dutch flag instead. A friend who declares himself a Republican explicitly refused to wear orange in protest, though he did still participate in the fun of the day. For us, this included walking (or kind of slowly drifting with the crowds) through the city (celebratory beverages in tow). For others, especially children, it was clear that the day's activities encompassed the Dutch sense of enterprise: everything you could want was for sale, from little fleamarkets of old toys and treasures, specially-made kijkdoosjes (a box you could peek inside to see a scene for just 1 Euro), 'clean toilets' in people's houses (also available for a Euro), and of course lots of food and drinks (patatjes, taart, soft drinks, beer, poffertjes, and so on). Others set up chairs or small stages on the bits of street that they had claimed well in advance of the day (with chalk or tape marking out squares of the street as bezet) to sell things from, dance and play music, or just enjoy the view of passersby. On the Museumplein, thousands of people - mostly from outside of Amsterdam - gathered for the free all-day concert. Anyone with a boat spent the day puttering through the crowded canals. While I'm sure most people weren't really thinking about the monarchy, images of the royals were visible throughout the city and at least a few people were taking the opportunity to make political statements of some sort (i.e. the cut out of the PVV's controversial leader, Geert Wilders, who you could throw balls at for a small fee, and under which someone has scrawled the word mongol - slang for 'retard').

A national committee organizes the events for both the 4th and 5th of May events: The Dodenherdenking is the national day of remembrance for those that died in World War II, which is followed the next day by Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day) where everyone celebrates their freedom with free concerts and outdoor festivals all over the country - at least, everyone gets to once every 5 years... While making 5 May a statutory holiday every year is now being discussed by the politicans, currently it's only students who get to annually enjoy this light-hearted day of freedom. Though, this year, everyone taking the train might have had the chance to see the travelling exhibition/ train for freedom sponsored by the committee. (I managed to miss it, but a friend stumbled upon it in place of her regular train to Utrecht during her morning commute one day.)

Unlike Bevrijdingsdag, Dodenherdenking events take place every year, with the royal family and notable Dutch people (such as politicans) attending a (televised) service in the Nieuwe Kerk followed by a procession to the national monument on the Dam, where wreaths were laid. This year was a little more eventful than anyone anticipated due to an incident during the 2 minutes silence that turned into a panic. I think that most people had the image of the tragedy of Koninginnedag 2009 in Apeldoorn in the back of their minds. Luckily, no one died, and no one was too seriously injured. In the aftermath, one of the most interesting things to have come out of this year's Dodenherdenking is the discussion around feeling safe in the Netherlands, and how more people feel less so than ten, or even two years ago. The reaction against this fear is also interesting. I went to Zwolle to celebrate Bevrijdingsdag the following day, and during one of the concerts from the main stage an announcer gave a short speech in the spirit of freedom about not being afraid and giving into fear.

I find this sense of fear interesting, especially since I personally feel exceptionally safe living in the Netherlands. It will be interesting to get some other perspectives on this though, like tonight, when I go back to 'work'. I'll be joining some people from my own neighbourhood during a schouwloop though the buurt. A couple locals, as well as a plain-clothes police officer and someone from the city will be strolling through the neighbourhood this evening, making note of anything that seems dangerous, or broken (i.e. street lamps), dirty (although with a garbage strike on at the moment, our clipboards might be full on this point), etc. I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I think it'll be interesting. And, I've gotta say, that after so many holidays, it does feel good to be doing a bit of work!

getting the word out: interviews!

I've been here, in Amsterdam, hanging out, being a sociocultural sponge (or anthropologist as we're sometimes called), for a while now. In fact, my little red agenda tells me I only have about 100 days left (where did the time go?!) before I have to return to Canada and start making sense of all these notes, experiences, discussions, observations and ideas. Oh, and interviews!

Yes, I am now at the point in my research where I am actively trying to find folks to interview. I have done two interviews with very interesting people thus far, and happily have another two lined up over the coming weeks. But, I would really like to do more.

Although things have changed slightly since my initial research proposal in terms of finding people to tell me about their everyday lives and opinions about what it means to belong in Amsterdam and the Netherlands (shifting the focus from neighbourhoods to networks), I am still absolutely interested in talking to people who have some kind of professional interest in issues of 'Dutchness', citizenship, immigration and integration. Currently, I am trying to find people to interview who participate in voluntary work to discuss these things as well. I've contacted the organizers of the volunteer organizations I have been working with here - including the language-oriented programs of Gilde Amsterdam (SamenSpraak) and Hart Voor Amsterdam (Native Speaker Project) - and hopefully the replies will start trickling in very soon! (Thank you to Dominique at the Native Speaker Project for helping me to get the word out to the other Native Speakers!)

So, here's to getting the word out! If you know of anyone (preferably living in Amsterdam) who either has a professional interest (as a social worker, a language teacher, an inburgering-cursus instructor or participant, artist keen on representations of belonging in the Dutch context, etc.) or is involved in voluntary work who would like to have a bit of a formal chat with someone researching questions of feeling at home in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, please feel free to send them my way!

museums

Maybe too often, when people think of Amsterdam, the first (and sometimes, sadly only) things that come to mind characterizing this amazing city are marijuana and prostitution. But, there is so much more to Amsterdam than the overly touristy Red Light District would have you believe.

For example, Amsterdam, and the whole Netherlands in general, seem to really love their museums! I've never seen so many different museums: big and small, famous and practically unheard of (even by people who live here), exotic, grand, and everyday... And this past weekend - national museum weekend - was the perfect time to check some of them out (for free)!

I've already been to a handful of different museums in Amsterdam and elsewhere.

In Amsterdam:

• the Van Gogh Museum
• the Rijksmuseum
• the Houseboat Museum
• the comically horrid Sex Museum
• the secret Catholic church Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder
• Anne Frank House, twice
• and in both the Oud Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk.

I've also been to the wonderful Gemeente Museum in Den Haag, as well as Escher in het Paleis.

This weekend, what with all the great discounts and all, I went to three more:

• the neighbourhood museum in Amsterdam Noord aptly known as Museum de Noord (Museum the North),
• the city museum Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Amsterdam Historical Museum),
• and the famous former Colonial Museum today known as the Tropenmuseum (Tropics Museum).

I am trying to look at these three museums with eyes a little more critical than those of your average museum visitor. To me, these museums are interesting because of how they tell the stories of what it means to belong, to be Dutch, and to relate to the past and present, to each other inside and across these particular settings. The little Museum de Noord, just one year old, is actually housed in the former bath house for a neighbourhood in Amsterdam Noord. It's a tiny museum compared to most I've seen, but is still rich with the history of the area (through maps, pictures, and a very knowledgeable caretaker) and everyday lived experiences (as through the art of Liesbeth Verhoeven, whose work was on display when I visited on Friday). The Amsterdams Historisch Museum is much larger, and tells the story of the growth of Amsterdam as a city, its place in the Netherlands (especially during the Golden Age), and through the special exhibit on now, Hoerengracht (Whore's canal), takes a critical, artistic look at the Red Light District that for many visitors, characterizes (symbolizes?) Amsterdam. The Tropenmuseum looks outward to the Dutch connections (past, present and future) with the wider world, namely, places in the tropics - particularly, places where the Netherlands had colonial interests. It was really interesting to see how a museum that is clearly popular with children (lots of rugrats running around, and presentations and activities specifically to entertain and teach the little ones) covered historical topics just as clearly part of a past that Dutch people seem to be both proud (e.g. past glories and scientific advancements) and ashamed of (e.g. slavery).

After my fancy new museumkaart (discount card for Dutch museums) arrives in the mail, hopefully this week, I think I need to visit all of these museums again - in the research-minded sense, and because they're just so (unexpectedly) large that I didn't get to see everything! I'm also planning to check out:

• the Amsterdam city archives' exhibits (Stadsarchief); in particular, the earliest photos of Amsterdam, and their Giro d'Italia photos.
• the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum (Dutch Maritime Museum)
• the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum (Dutch Open Air Museum) in Arnhem - really excited for this one!

So, as Ms. Long would probably say, "Red Light, schmred Light. Bring on the museums!"

attention to detail...

Paying attention to the little things can be both wonderful and kind of hindering. Wonderful, when it comes to enjoying the little things in life (like getting perhaps unusually excited about finding an organic brewery in a windmill, or seeing a cat on the street, or the first flowers of the season). Terrible, when it takes much, much longer than expected to finish (or start) a task because I feel like I just don't have all the facts straight yet.

Then there's the times when paying attention to the details is just downright intriguing.

Yesterday, on my way back home from my volunteer work in Amsterdam Noord, I was waiting for the ferry. I had just missed the last boat by seconds, so had about 8 minutes to wait before the next one arrived. That's when I saw a little white sticker, no bigger than a name-tag pasted onto a pole. I had to get closer to read it, but it said

Geef Almere

AAN DE

Palesteijnen

which translates as "Give Almere to the Palestinians."

Almere, if you recall, is the city near Amsterdam where the PVV (the far-Right, staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party of Geert Wilders) recently swept the municipal elections. Woah. The things is, there aren't a whole lot of 'allochtonen' (which in public discourse usually means, non-white, non-Western people, immigrants, probably Muslims and therefore, probably in need of integration) actually living in Almere (surprise, surprise), but the people that do live in Almere seem to be very concerned about this 'group' of 'newcomers' and their effect on the Netherlands. So, the fact that someone is proposing that the city should be given to the Palestinians (as a new homeland?), well that's just interesting! When I came home I googled the phrase to see what else is out there, whether it's some kind of organized campaign, or a random incident, or what?

What I found was that more people around the city have run across similar graffiti. Random expressions of anger, frustration, ridicule, or disassociation of Almere from... what? From Amsterdam, from the Netherlands, from the Dutch as a people, from the artists themselves? For instance, this one was posted on Twitter in January 2010 (notably even before the municipal elections in March 2010. And according to someone else on Twitter, the same graffitied message was in de Volkskrant in February, and I've found similar images posted from the Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam):

Or this one ('Give Almere back to the sea')... posted in December 2009:

I'm wondering now if these messages are only being found in Amsterdam, or if they're being pasted and sprayed on the urban landscapes of other cities as well. Back in mid-March I was walking on the Waterlooplein in Amsterdam one weekend, and came across this poster taped up to the side of a building on the fairly busy, even in grey weather, street. One of the many little old accordion playing women was sitting a few metres away (interesting contrast), and people were strolling the street, visiting the shopping plaza the next building over, or whizzing past on bicycles or scooters on their way to other parts of the city.

In a city as diverse as Amsterdam, as historically tolerant as Amsterdam, as tourist-magnet-y as Amsterdam, it's an interesting question to ask. Who is the real alien? What does being alien actually mean here? Does it have to do with geography, personal biography, or maybe with social or cultural values? And, the thing is, this poster, in English, is taped up to the side of a building in Amsterdam Centrum. Despite some social housing in the nearby streets, the centre is a place for wealthier, and better educated people, and predominantly white, 'native' Dutch people (2008 stats for this neighbourhood mark only about 12% of inhabitants as 'non-Western allochtonen' - which basically mean people whose families immigrated from non-Western countries, probably Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia or Suriname). Even so, I get the feeling that this poster wants the reader to set aside questions of race or ethnicity or autochthony and ask what it really means to belong in Amsterdam, or even in the Netherlands. Who is the real alien?

just like riding a bike...

Since spring washed over Amsterdam, I have been having a harder time finding a place to park my bike outside my house. Weird, right? It's like more bikes have suddenly been called into existence and they're hogging all the good spaces in the bike rack! Since last autumn, and all winter I had been locking my bike up in more or less the exact same place, and now I'm lucky if I can find anywhere at all among the 26 or so bike spots in front of my house. Even my flatmate's usual spot (on a railing literally outside our door) has been usurped!

Anyway, the point is (besides a little venting) that Amsterdammers are crazy for bikes. Most people seem to own more than one of them - especially if they commute between cities, leaving one bike in each place rather than paying 7 Euros to bring it on the train with them. It's not that public transportation is bad here. Not at all. It's just that cycling is by far the best way to get around the city (any city), and the cheapest, and the healthiest. In Amsterdam, like everywhere else in the Netherlands, the bicycle is celebrated. I think this is done quietly: in having (usually) enough places for people to lock up their bikes, in making roads friendly for cyclists (not automobilists), in allowing you to take your bike for free on the ferry across to Amsterdam Noord or on the train if it's a small folding bike, etc. But it seems in spring, this spring especially, Amsterdam is making noise about how great their bicycle culture is.

Today, in Amsterdam and all over the Netherlands, the Dutch are trying to break the world record for the most people cycling at once. Although I didn't get on my bike between noon and 1pm for the record myself, I don't doubt that there were a lot of people who did. Afterall, "Nederland is gegrepen door het fietsvirus" (The Netherlands is in the grips of the bike-bug).

Of course, all the people who cycle daily to and from work, school, through the neighbourhood and everywhere else, will be making way in May this year for the 'professionals'. From the 8th to 10th of May, the city just recovering from spring fever is expected to succumb briefly to Giromania! That's right, the Giro d'Italia is kicking off the cycling tour this year with time trials in Amsterdam and two races to other cities (Utrecht and Middelburg) the following days. Keeners can try the course for themselves on the 9th.

With all this attention on how great cycling is, it makes me thankful that the old saying is true; once you learn how to ride a bike, you'll never forget. It does make me think though (and recall a certain early post by one Ms. Long) about just how important knowing how to bike is to really living and maybe even belonging in Amsterdam, or anywhere else in the Netherlands!

spring!

Spring is in the air, and things are happening! Well, at least I am determined to smell spring and discern a very spring-like quality in the sunlight. Plus, all the signs of spring are undeniably cropping up: lovely sneeuwklokjes (snowdrops) on a plein in Den Haag a couple of weeks ago, the return of some very chirpy songbirds outside of my window, the increasing masses of tourists, and of course, the return of GreenPeace and other charitable canvassers on all the busy street corners!

Last week this change in the air made me feel restless for change myself, but this week it's making me aware of all the things I have to do before I head back to Canada (and all the things I have to do once I'm back in Canada - but, maybe there I'm getting a bit ahead of myself!).

This week, on top of all the usual things, I had an interview on Monday (yay!), had to finish preparing my own paper to be presented at a reading group next week on questions of the culturalization of citizenship (eep!), am attending another reading group on Thursday afternoon about national identities (nice), and am looking forward to what looks like a really interesting discussion Thursday evening: "Echt Nederlands" (Real Dutch; unsurprisingly, the site is also really in Dutch).

Frank J. Lechner (a Dutch-American sociologist; I read his book), Ergün Erkoçu (an architect), Willemijn Maas (director of the AVRO), and Pieter-Matthijs Gijsbers (director of the Openluchtmuseum Arnhem) will be moderated by Kees Ribbens (researcher at the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie) in their discussion about the dynamics of Dutch identity formation: "Hoe veranderen ideeën over Nederlanderschap en wat is hierin de rol van maatschappelijk beleid en cultuurpraktijk?" (How are ideas about Dutchness/ Dutch nationality changing, and what is the role of social policy and cultural practices?) The discussion is going to be in Dutch, so even though I think I'll have my work cut out for me trying to keep up, it should be really interesting. If you're keen on attending, entry is free, and the event is from 19:00 to 21:00 March 11th (Imagine IC – Bijlmerplein 1006-1008 - Amsterdam Zuidoost, 1 minute walking from station Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena).

the votes are in...

Yesterday was the nation-wide gemeenteraadverkiezingendag (municipal elections day). Citizens in all the municipalities in the entire country went to their local polling stations to cast their votes for their next municipal government.

The verpleeghuis (nursing home) where I volunteer on Wednesday afternoons was busier than usual. While this mostly had to do with the concert of visserliedjes, fisherman songs replete with accordion and heartfelt sentiments happening in the unusually crowded restaurant, at least a little of the foot-traffic was being directed to small room off the cafeteria where people could cast their vote. Later, when I was getting off the rush-hour ferry from Amsterdam Noord there was a man with a loud-horn telling Amsterdammers to remember to vote, and also to vote for GroenLinks (an amalgamated party of lefties). His group of people in vests were competing with people sporting Partij voor de Ardebeider (Labour party) vests in giving away last minute leaflets. Later in the evening, my speaking partner asked me if I'd like to come with him to the polling station, since he still needed to vote. We donned our coats and walked across the chilly street to the polling station in a nearby school. I couldn't vote, what with being Canadian and having only lived in Amsterdam for about 7 months, but I did enjoy the festive atmosphere and an early chocolade Pasei (chocolate Easter egg), while I waited for my friend to do his civic duty.

Today, however, the votes are all in - and almost everyone agrees that the results of the municipal elections that happened everywhere in the country yesterday (March 3rd) point to what to expect during the national elections come June 9th.

And what to expect, seems to be huge gains for the far-right populist Geert Wilders. In what has been a shrewd move by Wilders, his PVV ran only in Den Haag and Almere, where it swept the polls (though the results for Den Haag/ 's-Gravenhage aren't in officially yet according to the Amsterdamse daily Het Parool) coming in as the second largest party in both cities. If this is a sign of things to come for the Netherlands as a whole this summer, commentators predict that Wilders could even be the next Prime Minister!

The PVV wasn't the only party to make gains in the polls though, the D66 and GroenLinks (both lefty parties) also won more seats in municipalities across the country. And as to be expected, according to RNW, the "Christian Democrats (CDA) and Labour Party [PvdA], the two parties responsible for the fall of the Dutch cabinet two weeks ago, both lost a large number of seats." The results for Amsterdam really highlight these changes, although a few local parties also took some seats from the bigger parties.

So, while the media makes its own predictions for the future, I am thinking that it's going to be a pretty interesting few months for thinking about what it means to feel at home in the Netherlands. I fully anticipate having to pay a lot more attention to the news over the coming months as the various political parties work on perfecting their platforms and slogans, and duke it out in debates on the national stage. For now though, I need to pay attention to the episode of De Wereld Draait Door and their poking fun of yesterday's election coverage...

oh, some actual news...

Oh, also, the Dutch national government fell last week! While everyone was gearing up for municipal level elections (taking place on 3 March, all over the country), the federal government was becoming ever more unstable: first with the results of an inquiry into the Dutch support for the US's war in Iraq (which nearly brought it down in January), and finally with heated debate over the position of the Netherlands on extending their mission in Afghanistan. In a parliamentary system characterized by the generally dull compromise of coalition governing, I'm told that this was the most riveting debate in Dutch politics in years. After a flurry of questioning and posturing on Thursday (the 18th), the discussion began anew on Friday evening. It lasted all night, finally finishing at 5:30 AM Saturday morning with the decisive collapse of the coalition.

I don't think it got a whole lot of press around the world, but it is, understandably, a pretty big story here (even more than the fortunes of the speed skaters at the Olympics). I think it's going to be pretty interesting to see what happens over the coming months, especially with talk of Wilders gaining enough seats to potentially form the government. Good for my research, but perhaps not so much for the Dutch themselves... On the other hand, some people I've been talking to about this possibility have said that maybe it's a good thing if Wilders' party (PVV) gets enough seats because - like the 'new realist', populist, far-Right Lijst Pim Fortuyn back in 2002 - they might just fall apart once they are given some real responsibility in the government.

If you're interested in reading more about this shake-up, check out Ms. Long's excellent blog about it: Government...scmovernment. The Dutch do it their own way!

beterschap...

While I think I had learned the meaning behind the untranslatable Dutch gezelligheid back in December, it seems that my body isn't sure I've learned the meaning of beterschap yet...

So, after my very busy week last week, I wake up this morning feeling a bit sick. All the early signs of a cold coming on: sore throat, fuzzy head, extra tired, a few aches and pains....

After having such a full agenda last week, this is where my mother might say that getting sick is nature's way of telling you to slow down.

But seriously, how slow do I have to move in the Netherlands? I think I have never been moving more slowly, due to repeatedly getting sick, than ever in my life!

It feels like once a month or so I wake up with a bit of a cold. I had my first one (a nasty head cold) in the beginning of August, on my first full day of living in Amsterdam, and during my first week of my intensive Dutch classes. (Let me tell you, Dutch is even harder to learn when your head feels like it will explode.) And since then, it's felt kind of like a broken record, skipping a beat, and tirelessly repeating itself in October, November, December, January, and this month, I have even been sick twice!

So, this has got me wondering, why?!

Is it because I am wearing myself thin with the active and stressful life of a researcher? Somehow, I don't quite think so. I mean, I am pretty busy, but I don't think I'm running myself into the ground by any means. And, while I am usually buzzing with a certain level of research-related stress (which I think I have mostly been repressing), as a perma-student, stress isn't really anything new.

Perhaps, it's simply the fact that my poor little Canadian immune system doesn't quite recognize or know what to do with all these Dutch cold germs? I'm beginning to think that this is the most likely answer. I seem to catch anything that's going around (except, curiously, thankfully, that H1N1 thing that was taking the world by storm...). I think I eat pretty healthily, but I'm also hanging out with a lot of different groups of people that probably put me at higher risk for exposure to different bugs, at least lately. I volunteer twice a week now. On Monday mornings, I cycle over to a school in the Oud West neighbourhood to help kids learn and practice speaking English. On Wednesday afternoons, I head over to Amsterdam Noord to help with a painting activity hour at a senior's home. (More on these things another time, when I have a less fuzzy mind.) I also usually have some sort of various academic talk or reading group to attend once a week. And, the rest of my time gets spent hanging out with friends (which sometimes includes a healthy dose of train travel).

So, yeah, I guess getting sick so often does make some sense, but it has me wondering if anyone else living abroad (or who has lived abroad in the past) is having the same cold-germ hassle as I am?

I think I will go back to my mug of tea and cozy bed for a little while...

netherlands to america, non-stop

It's kind of a busy week for me. I've got a lot on my mind: trying to finish writing a revised research plan to send out to my reading group for the end of the month (it's my turn to present - eek!), two interesting talks to attend (today and tomorrow) with interesting people to 'network with', volunteering on Wednesday at a senior's home in Amsterdam-Noord and then meeting my speaking partner in the evening... All of this, and the Olympics are happening in Vancouver!

But wait, Vancouver isn't in America. Yes, I know. Don't think that just because I haven't lived in Canada for over half a year means that I've forgotten the very important national distinctions marked out by the 49th parallel... So, why, you might be asking, is 'America' in the title for this post?

Well, it's inspired by some interesting web-items that came my way last week as well as what's happening on *Friday*, marking the end of my busy week.

The first Netherlands-America connection was in this article about biking in style, a.k.a. like the Dutch, in NYC. If you didn't already know, the Dutch ride their bikes everywhere, in all sorts of weather, and look amazing doing it. Though the article focuses on men's fashion, I can't help but be amazed every time I see a woman in a skirt and fashionable heels cycling through the streets of Amsterdam.

Secondly, in America (as in Canada), it is Black History Month. So, coming to me via www.dumpert.nl (a kind of repository for funny videos, but also a whole lot more) is a clip from the one and only Stephen Colbert about the Dutch and Black History Month). Food for thought, indeed!

And finally, this Friday (not Saturday as I had originally thought!) some pretty obvious connections between NL and America are being made with the much anticipated opening of Amsterdam artist and geographer, Eva Pel's "Observations of a Celebration NY400" photo exhibit at my friend Nina's little gallery, 1k Project space! Eva's exhibition is part of a wider project she had been working on when I first met her, which she turned into a really cool little book of interviews. The following is the blurb that Nina has up about Eva's work on the gallery's site:

Eva Pel is a visual artist and urban geographer interested in the fields of urbanism, urban history and sociology. The subjects for her projects often involve these fields, while her research methods come to production mainly through photography and interviews. Her most recent focus has been researching and documenting cultural celebrations, events and spectacles, such as the Olympics held in Torino, and last year’s NY400- the year long celebration commemorating Henry Hudson's arrival in New York in 1609, and 400 years of Dutch culture in New York.
...
Pel visited New York in the summer of 2009 to observe events and festivities representing Dutch culture during NY400.

Her goal was to come to some kind of conclusion regarding questions such as: What is there actually to see during the celebrations, what do we want to show from the Netherlands, who is the audience, and did 'we' make a difference in New York? What did we have to say?

Her exhibition at 1K Projectspace will present a more extensive view of the images she made during her fieldwork, as well as those included in her book.

Exciting! So, while you're waiting for the end of the week to roll around in order to check out Eva's work for yourself, you can read the article about the joys of the Dutch bicycle or watch Colbert make connections between the Dutch colonial past and contemporary America.

If your week is even busier than mine and can't make it over to 1K Project space this weekend, Eva's photos will be on display until March 28th.

the fieldwork freakout

Ah yes, the joys of fieldwork, which apparently not unlike adolescence, include lots of relatively dramatic moodswings. From the highs of feeling like you're on the right track, talking to lots of interesting people and generally 'getting out there' to the lows of feeling like you really have no idea what you're actually doing, you haven't talked to enough people, or at least enough of the 'right' people (whatever that means...) and you're actually a bit of a fraud as a researcher.

So, I am finding myself on the low end of the fieldworking experience this week. The reason, well, reasons have to do with some deep-thinking about my project as of late. I have been here for 6 months (half my anticipated time here) already! And don't feel like I have really accomplished all that much, especially when compared to other anthropologues I know (in say, Rotterdam or San Francisco) who have been doing their own respective fieldwork-things for about the same amount of time. I also have to put together some sort of paper on my work to present to an awesome reading group I get to hang out with for the end of the month. Since my research has (expectedly) deviated from what I said I would do in my proposal, I have to rethink/ rewrite and possibly reassess how I am framing my research questions, the people I want to talk to , and how I am going to go about talking to them. A wee bit stressful.

So, floating in the fog of fieldwork liminality, here I am, doing the fieldwork freakout - and really looking forward to putting one foot in front of the other toward feeling like I know what I'm doing again.

pretty awesome.

I have been feeling pretty awesome lately. A little stressed, recovering from a bit of a cold, cold from the unseasonably chilly Dutch winter and cycling in the rain from my house to Amsterdam Noord this morning, but nonetheless, pretty awesome. I think it's because I feel like things are starting to come together, research-wise, at long last. I think 28 (my verjaardag was this past Wednesday), is going to be a good year.

First of all, I am feeling more confident about my Dutch. In part, this is thanks to starting an amazing speaking partnership programme two weeks ago. I found the SamenSpraak programma offered by the Gilde Amsterdam group a long, long while ago. The Gilde is an organization whose goal is to make Amsterdam a better place to live. They do a few different things around the city which seem to range from general volunteer work in schools and such, to integration-related work, but also sponsor activities like free walking tours (neat!) guided by real Amsterdammers (which shows you a much different city than what you would see if you took a conventional commercial tour). Anyway, I finally called up the SamenSpraak people and arranged an interview, and then last week met with my very own Amsterdammer to work on my Dutch. I know I still need a lot of work, since I make simple mistakes and often forget words, but I think that Dennis and I have had some pretty good and relaxed conversations so far. And, I am happy to say we're not only talking about the weather and vegetables (though I think we've covered the weather a few times - I mean, hey, this is the Netherlands afterall)!

Secondly, I am volunteering more. (Yay!) I think that I knew volunteering at places was a good idea, a great way to meet people and show my face around the 'community' a long while ago, but I just never quite knew how to go about doing it. My fieldworking partner-in-crime so to speak, Ms. Long, had the volunteer-thing in the bag since the get-go, but she has also made a lot of contacts in her own neighbourhood in Rotterdam (the woman knows her butcher!) and volunteering opportunities have been easier to find for her. I don't live in the neighbourhood I plan to study, so making contacts outside of academic-circles has been a bit more of a puzzle for me. Thankfully (and to make a long-story short-ish), I happily stumbled upon the Vrijwilligers Centraal Amsterdam (Volunteers Central Amsterdam) website last week. While I may have actually seen this site before, my now much-improved Dutch skills have meant that I actually understood what a vrijwilliger was and what the site was about: basically, an excellent resource for anyone looking for any kind of volunteer opportunity in Amsterdam. Although the site is all in Dutch (so you need either some level of comprehension or a friend who can help to navigate it), there are many vacatures that require little or no knowledge of Dutch (just click the 'Anderstaligen' box in the search engine and, voila, literally hundreds of opportunities pop up indicating that 'geen of weinig Nederlands is ok' - that is, 'no or little Dutch is ok').

So, last Friday I volunteered to help out with leisure activities at a senior's home in Amsterdam Noord. I sent the reaction email via the website, and literally, within a minute of hitting send I got a phone call from the volunteer coordinator asking to set up a meeting! I had the meeting this morning - also nearly all in Dutch - and hope to start doing handicrafts, drinking coffee, and talking to lots of older Amsterdammers this coming Wednesday. I am pretty excited, and feeling (especially now that my feet are dry and I am warmed up again), pretty awesome.

doing things the hard way

I have never really been a fan of doing things the hard way, but I seem to have often been an unwitting disciple of this method of living.

Case in point: all my complaining about banking in the Netherlands.

Turns out, I just tried the wrong bank at the wrong time (ING before I had all my residence documents in order) and then the wrong bank - or at least the wrong snooty customer service representative at the wrong bank - at the right time (Rabobank). After hearing of the seemingly miraculous feat of a fellow Canuck researcher getting an account at ING, I thought I would try again for myself. So, today I had an appointment at ABN-AMRO and walked away, after only 6 months of living in the Netherlands and 45 minutes of sitting in a bank office, with my very own Dutch bank account!

So simple. So friendly. So easy. Damn.

I can't help but scold myself for not just walking out of the Rabobank and down the street to another banking institution to try again all those months ago. (October, I think.)

However, this experience in the school of hard knocks - fieldwork edition, has made me think about taking people at their word. The snooty Rabobank guy assured me that I was out of luck if I wanted a bank account in this country, since I do not have either a university- or work-contract. As a person in a position of some authority, a seeming expert on the area of banks and such, I believed him. Of course, now I know he wasn't really correct. And I am reminded of all the anecdotes from my long ago methods courses detailing the perils of not getting a second (and third and fouth...) opinion. While the logic in this has undoubtedly always been in the back of my mind, I think that I needed this experience to kind of remind me not to be stupid or naive, and to get multiple views on the subject before thinking I know all about it. (I'm an anthropologist, for crying out loud! Isn't this kind of what we're supposed to do?!)

On the other hand, I think I am in good company since the school of hard knocks seems to kind of be the norm around here. At least, as far as my observations of Dutch parenting compared to contemporary North American parenting are concerned. From what I can tell, Dutch kids today are treated kind of the way that my parents talk about their childhoods: if they are going to do something stupid, and if they get hurt, then they will learn not to do it again. (Not to mention the old adage "Wie niet horen wil, moet voelen." In English "who doesn't want to listen, must feel" - roughly akin to the more familiar English "If you don't listen, you're gonna get it.") My experience growing up was a bit different. If it looked like we (my brother, sister or I) were going to do something stupid or unsafe, for the most part, an adult would stop us, tell us we would get hurt, and that we needed to be more careful. Now, I'm not saying that we never did stupid and potentially dangerous things growing up, but I think that the culturally, expectations for parents to guard their kids against all kind of physical, emotional and every other kind of potential danger are much more heightened in North America than here.

Take for example, the reaction of my brother when he visited me in September. On the Museumplein there is a great big sign with the slogan "I amsterdam." The letters are probably about 8 feet high, and understandably tempting to climb all over. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen it without children climbing on it. But, when my brother saw a little girl standing fearlessly on top of the 'd' he was incredulous! she was going to get hurt! Where were her parents? He was really not impressed. While to me, it had become normal to see this, his reaction reminded me that things were very different where we came from. In Canada, it would be, I think, considered irresponsible and a mark of bad parenting to let your kid climb on an 8-foot high 'd'. In Canada, there would at least be a sign saying "climb at your own risk." But maybe having to take account of yourself, even at a young age, is a good thing.

As painful as it can be, I think the fieldwork process is a little bit like growing up all over again, just this time in the Netherlands. So, when in Amsterdam...

januari 2010 and the search for the missing link

December has been a long month. Long in an enjoyable sense. After Sinterklaas at the beginning of the month, and a few meetings with other academics, most of my December 2009 was given over to holiday-related activities, namely, eating, drinking and being merry. It was loads of fun, and kind of nice to have a bit of a vacation, visiting friends (and their family) in a couple different places around the Netherlands. But, even a long December can't last forever... and January 2010 is now here, begging, chiding, and encouraging me to eat more vegetables (and fewer sweets) and do my research!

While I am excited at the prospect of talking to new and interesting people about what they think it means to belong here - and all the related issues to pour out of such a question - I still find it a bit intimidating to take the initial steps of introducing myself. It's one of those endlessly useful practical things you don't learn in a methods class: how to simply go about the doing of the research. Now that I have an idea of who I want to talk to and why, and even have a sense of where specifically I can start to find them, how do I go about actually getting them to talk to me? Is it really as simple as sending an email/ calling them up/ walking into the office and saying something like, "Hi, I'm an anthropological researcher from Canada and I would like to talk to you about what it means to be Dutch?" I feel like I am missing vital information about how to go about making the link between research plans and actually researching. How do I introduce myself and my project to the the people I want to study? Literally, what is it I am supposed to say?