Op de drempel van de stad:Hoe de stad vorm krijgt in tussenruimtes

We verbeelden stedelijke ongelijkheid vaak in termen van een groeiende kloof. Een kloof tussen de stad binnen en buiten de ring, een kloof tussen arme en rijke Amsterdammers, maar ook een kloof tussen leef- en systeemwereld. Het beeld van de kloof helpt om aan te kaarten dat mensen zich vervreemd of benadeeld voelen door beleid dat geen rekening houdt met hun ervaringen, maar het helpt niet om preciezer te begrijpen hoe ongelijkheid ontstaat, en hoe we ongelijkheid kunnen bestrijden. De realiteit is complexer dan je kunt vatten in het beeld van twee werelden met een kloof ertussen. We zullen ín de kloof moeten springen, en moeten bestuderen wat daar gebeurt. Hoe komen bepaalde beleidsbeslissingen en ervaringen van bewoners tot stand, en hoe verhouden zij zich tot elkaar? Femke Kaulingfreks beoogt te onderzoeken hoe gemeenschappen zich vormen in stedelijke tussenruimtes, hoe in die tussenruimtes praktijken van solidariteit ontstaan om mensen te beschermen tegen de negatieve effecten van stedelijke ongelijkheid en welke rol tussenpersonen (vaak sociaal professionals) spelen in het werken aan oplossingen voor stedelijke ongelijkheid

Making Trouble. Disruptive Interventions of Urban Youth as Unruly Politics

In this dissertation, I explore the political meaning of disruptive, and even violent, interventions of youth with a migrant background in the public domain of France and the Netherlands. I relate two qualitative case studies– carried out in one French and one Dutch neighborhood– to a theoretical analysis of the political potential of seemingly senseless events of civil unrest. The urban areas where my research takes place can be characterized as deprived neighborhoods, because of their rundown physical appearance and the range of socio-economic problems inhabitants have to deal with. These areas, and other comparable “problem neighborhoods” have the reputation of being a breeding ground for criminality and aggressive street culture. Urban riots and other spontaneous disturbances of the public order which start in such areas, and during which commodity goods are stolen, public property is demolished and fellow inhabitants are harassed, seem to lack any political sense. Other than countercultural or protest groups with a clear political ideology, like social movements and identity-based interest groups, the youth involved in such events are not seen as political agents, because no spokespeople are put forward to address the press and no banners are carried. The emergence of such spontaneous disorder is often ascribed by the media and politicians to the individual deviancy of the young people involved, as became explicitly apparent in the reception of the riots around Paris in 2005 and the riots around London in 2012. In the first reactions to these events, young rioters were criminalized and pathologized, while the relation to the social and political structures of the society in which they are embedded was often overlooked

Culture Wars, Revanchism, Moral Panics and the Creative City. A Reconstruction of a Decline of Tolerant Public Policy: The Case of Dutch Anti-squatting Legislation

Squatting became illegal in the Netherlands on 1 October 2010. The paper examines the dynamics involved. Theoretically drawing on debates about culture wars, revanchism, moral panics and the creative city, it is based on participant observation in squatter meetings, debates with politicians, a parliament hearing, lobbying meetings and various informal encounters, on a survey and on a collection of documents. A key mechanism that the paper explores is the following. Strategies of resistance that seem more or less manageable in the local context of a creative city can, when they backfire, cause a moral panic on the national level. This provides ammunition for revanchist politicians

Learning to fly: on inspiration and togetherness

Contains fulltext : 212801.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)14 p