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.