YorkSpace has migrated to a new version of its software. Access our Help Resources to learn how to use the refreshed site. Contact diginit@yorku.ca if you have any questions about the migration.
 

Speaking Together: Exploring Discourses of 'Dutchness' in Language Learning, Voluntarism, and Active Citizenship

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorWinland, Daphne Naomi
dc.creatorMosher, Rhiannon Michelle
dc.date.accessioned2016-09-20T16:23:03Z
dc.date.available2016-09-20T16:23:03Z
dc.date.copyright2015-09-10
dc.date.issued2016-09-20
dc.date.updated2016-09-20T16:23:03Z
dc.degree.disciplineSocial Anthropology
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractMy dissertation examines everyday understandings of citizenship as expressed by voluntary Dutch language coaches in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic research, the primary methods used in this study were in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation. These methods were complemented by archival research examining policy documents, key discussions in mainstream Dutch media, and promotional materials developed by the voluntary organizations studied. Adopting a Foucauldian approach to governmentality informed by the work of Tania Li, Mitchell Dean, Ann Laura Stoler, and Aihwa Ong, this study considers how volunteer Dutch language coaches both reproduce and challenge contemporary discourses around citizenship and belonging in Dutch society. Since the 1990s, in the Netherlands and across the European Union, concerns over increasing cultural diversity and diminishing social cohesion have centred on marginalized, non-Western (Muslim) newcomers and their descendants. These concerns have developed concurrently with neoliberal interventions that have included the downloading of social service provision including immigrant integration to lower levels of government, private and not-for-profit civil society organizations, and individual citizens as volunteers. Cross-cutting historical, colonial calculations of Dutchness and more recent expressions of neoliberal active citizenship (Ong 1996; Muehlebach 2012), the Dutch language has emerged as a key symbol of belonging, and technique for teaching the technology of government to newcomers. In this context I argue that Amsterdams Dutch language coaching volunteers fill an important role as front-line citizenship educators, offering a unique perspective through which to study citizenship. Alongside teaching newcomers the language skills required to naturalize, coaches convey their own ideas of citizenship and belonging as an everyday ethic and practice of community building. Through their voluntary work and expressions of meaningful social integration and citizenship, these research participants consent to and extend the reach of government into the private lives of (potential) citizens. The tensions, practices, and contradictions around belonging revealed by these participants underscore the awkward continuities (Dean 2010:57) with the powerful grammar of difference and Dutchness developed through the experience of empire, and how entangled discourses of cultural difference and neoliberal active citizenship shape state and everyday notions of morally and culturally attuned citizenship practice.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/32084
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectEuropean studies
dc.subject.keywordsAmsterdam
dc.subject.keywordsBelonging
dc.subject.keywordsCitizenship
dc.subject.keywordsCitizenship education
dc.subject.keywordsCivil society
dc.subject.keywordsCivic integration
dc.subject.keywordsDutch
dc.subject.keywordsEthnography
dc.subject.keywordsEthnographic research
dc.subject.keywordsEurope
dc.subject.keywordsEuropean Union
dc.subject.keywordsIdentity
dc.subject.keywordsImmigration
dc.subject.keywordsImmigrant integration
dc.subject.keywordsIntegration
dc.subject.keywordsLanguage learning
dc.subject.keywordsMigration
dc.subject.keywordsNationalism
dc.subject.keywordsThe Netherlands
dc.subject.keywordsVoluntarism
dc.subject.keywordsVolunteer
dc.titleSpeaking Together: Exploring Discourses of 'Dutchness' in Language Learning, Voluntarism, and Active Citizenship
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Mosher_Rhiannon_M_2015_Phd.pdf
Size:
2.24 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.83 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.38 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Social Anthropology

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.