Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This article explores the multiplicity of experiences and perspectives of people practicing consensual non-monogamy (CNM) and questions how their values about love, intimacy, relationality, and...Show moreThis article explores the multiplicity of experiences and perspectives of people practicing consensual non-monogamy (CNM) and questions how their values about love, intimacy, relationality, and sexuality relate to their practice of CNM. To gain these insights, I used experimental ethnographic methods such as autoethnography, film, and in-depth unstructured interviewing, alongside a theoretical framework based on Foucault’s view on sexuality and the concept of mononormativity combined with the wider contextualizing academic discussion surrounding CNM. This resulted in argumentation that centers around the idea that the discourse and narratives surrounding love sex and relationality one adheres to, relate not only to various practical approaches to CNM but also to one’s sense of identity and morality within it. First, I explored sexually nonexclusive relationships or open relationships, in the context of the youth hook-up culture, and then in married couples exploring swinging and BDSM non- monogamously. I argued that both of these relationships’ structures depended on a mononormative separation of romantic love and sexuality, while for the first group this separation was implicit and extradyadic sexuality went unspoken, the second group created this dissociation voluntarily and critically as they presented sex as a form of play and claimed to take advantage of the conventional structure of marriage. After this, I focused on polyamory i.e., romantic CNM, and its use of language to label feelings, relationships, and social phenomena to change the way polyamorists relate and communicate. Which impacted not only polyamorists’ philosophy of relationality but also causes a reorganization of their lives and their sense of identity. However, as this sanitized holistic vision of love is essentialized into a relational identity, it still carries underlying mononormative tendencies.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This study aims to shed light on the artist community Treehouse in Amsterdam as a space for artistic practice. By applying the concepts: place and space, community, artistic practice and artistic...Show moreThis study aims to shed light on the artist community Treehouse in Amsterdam as a space for artistic practice. By applying the concepts: place and space, community, artistic practice and artistic process, this study focuses on place and space as conditions in which artistic process can emerge. My goal is to explore the diversity of these artistic practices and spaces in which it is practiced. In terms of discussing the experiences of place and space, I would like to explore the perspectives of policy makers and the lived experiences of the artists within the place and space. This study aims to offer a more focused navigation of artistic processes; and explores what (pre)conditions are needed for the artists to engage in their artistic process. It aims to shift the approach from exploring art as established institution, to art as “practice”. Therefore, my aim in this article is to explore artistic practice and the role of place and space, and the artistcommunity in it (both physical and social). I used qualitative research methods and observational filmmaking as a research tool to generate empirical data. The results of this research are presented in a textual output (this article), and an audio-visual output (the film: Space for Artistic Practice, 2021), with both being part of the same overarching research. Two of my participants allowed me to study them more intensively on their artistic process. This provided insight in the small-scale aspects of their social reality, such as interaction, the forms of communication through art and their artistic processes. I introduce the concept of “creative sphere” as a mental space, which artists can experience when the workspace meets certain desired preconditions, and artistic process can happen. This approach discusses how the division and ordering principles of the space is part of an artistic interpretation and discusses different conditions in which art is made. Place and Space for artistic practice and artistic process has a political side, but it also has a personal side. Therefore, this article is divided in two parts. In the first part, I explore artistic practice in relation to place and space in a macro perspective (political and community), and in the second part, I will discuss the role of space in artistic process (personal and in a more philosophical perspective).Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
The inefficiencies of the Greek healthcare system, the trafficking networks and the fact that the majority of the nurses of exclusive duty are women and immigrants, challenge the validation of...Show moreThe inefficiencies of the Greek healthcare system, the trafficking networks and the fact that the majority of the nurses of exclusive duty are women and immigrants, challenge the validation of their skills, position and contribution to the society. Drawing on three months of remote ethnographic research with Greek and immigrant nurses of exclusive duty, this study examines their practical and emotional challenges, and their perceptions of their caregiving role adding the connection with the gender stereotypes on care and the social inequalities. The resulting thesis comprises a written text and an ethnographic film. The text offers a reflection on methodological issues and critically explores how my conceptual framework connects with my research findings, while the ethnographic film focuses upon the subjective experiences and the emotions of three nurses of exclusive duty and juxtaposes theirs with my own experiences as a granddaughter of grandparents that were taken care of by a ‘stranger’. My key research finding is that the precarity of this profession, the stereotype of women as ‘natural’ caregivers, the inequalities because of ethnicity and socio-economical status and the consequent crossing of the personal/professional boundaries impact their physical and mental health since they supplement the challenges of this job. The nurses constantly try to negotiate their position and prove their value to the society while working without governmental provision and support. Thus, I argue that their gender, ethical positions, ethnicity and socio-economical status affect the perceptions of their caregiving role and identity.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This research sees the act of "going abroad for work" from two perspectives. One is leaving home and then conducting a cross-cultural life. The other is the expansion or adjustment of a career...Show moreThis research sees the act of "going abroad for work" from two perspectives. One is leaving home and then conducting a cross-cultural life. The other is the expansion or adjustment of a career trajectory. This research examines how recent Chinese migrant workers cope with their overseas life when working in the catering industry in the Netherlands. By doing so, I have tried to understand what is the “social world” of my participants and how they interact with it. During 3 months of fieldwork, I talked with 8 participants and closely yet remotely studied social media content from this group. Our online conversations were based on getting along even virtually. The outcome comprises a written text and a film. The text discusses how these migrant workers engaged with labor and explores how the self was lost and rebuilt. As a trajectory pursuing success, and through daily practices in break times, I gradually gained insight in these migrant workers’ migration journey and witnessed their awareness and sacrifice of self. Sacrificing leisure life and prioritizing work, men I engaged with, can hardly think of their own feelings and needs or reflect on who they are. Yet their practice and narration indicated s certain expectation on self-presentation. The film portrays narratives of “labor migration” from several perspectives as a polyphonous testimony. Overall, the key findings are that for recent Chinese migrant workers who come to the Netherlands and work in the catering industry, the act of migration and adjusting to cross-cultural life are reported to be experienced as a "normal" process: It is experienced as natural that one needs to adjust to different coworkers and to the new work environment. As it is for money that they came overseas, they perceive it as normal to bear difficulties. Rather than entering in a process of trans-national transition and adjustment as I imagined, their journeys can be seen as a continued precarious yet independent career trajectory that illustrates how they, as labor migrants, do not relate more than necessary with their new environment. At the same time, these labor migrants seek and create breathing space for themselves in their daily break-times, and single free weekday, to maintain a sense of self. Also, bearing the uncomfortable, their tendency is to normalize it, and tend to talk about the self in a positive and independent way, together composing a sense of self.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
Cars have been for years dominating our lives and landscapes and are deeply shaped by our culture. By focusing on a particular car, a 2CV, and its reconstruction, observing and analyzing its social...Show moreCars have been for years dominating our lives and landscapes and are deeply shaped by our culture. By focusing on a particular car, a 2CV, and its reconstruction, observing and analyzing its social life, as a commodity as well as an object linked to a particular history since it was the former car of anthropologist-filmmaker Jean Rouch, these study and concomitant film contribute to reveal specific aspects of the relationship between man and car, mainly through the concept of bricolage, that Rouch was also familiar with in his filmmaking. The opposition between bricoleur and ingénieur is revisited, through a detailed film-based ethnography with the diverse participants and situations encountered during a three-month fieldwork, in a follow-the-thing type case. Cars are also envisioned as religious objects that have their cathedrals, worshippers and sorcerers. They are machines but they have their part of humanity, that interacts with us. The perspective is enriched by a physical and practical approach to fieldwork shared with participants, and as an actual making together in a practice-led research during the reconstruction of the car. Inspired as well by Jean Rouch’s approach, filmmaking is thus considered a way of acquiring knowledge as well as facilitating a relational fieldwork.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
Costa Rica is a country known for its natural beauty and eco-friendly attractions, making it an attractive country to visit or migrate to. The main focus of this research is to get a closer look at...Show moreCosta Rica is a country known for its natural beauty and eco-friendly attractions, making it an attractive country to visit or migrate to. The main focus of this research is to get a closer look at how Costa Rican life has changed over the years as landownership laws have affected the landscape of the Pacific seashore in the peninsula of Nicoya. Tourism has become the primary source of work in the area of Montezuma, giving new meanings to a lifestyle often referred to as "Pura Vida." As other sources of income, such as fishing, diminished over the years due to changing environmental policies, the local people in the surroundings of Montezuma have had to change their lifestyles to adapt to the growing tourism industry. This research builds on the experiences of four main interlocutors, each of them representing a different way of life in the village. Luis, Irene, Israel, Rolando, and his wife, Maria, who all explain what the consequences of changing environmental policies are for them, and what the so-called ‘Pura Vida lifestyle’ means to them, now it has taken over as the national ‘slogan’ to attract tourists. In the accompanying documentary (Changing Tides) and text, I explored how their lives are being transformed by tourism and how national policies that include landownerships laws are affecting the lifestyle of the old and new inhabitants in the area. Visual Ethnography was used as a method in order to better convey the sense of ‘Pura Vida’ and how the different characters that are the protagonists in the film relate to their land, life and changes in lifestyle over the last 40 years in Montezuma.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
Achieving universal primary education is both promoted as a global development goal and as a priority for the Tanzanian government. To reach this goal, the government is committed to making primary...Show moreAchieving universal primary education is both promoted as a global development goal and as a priority for the Tanzanian government. To reach this goal, the government is committed to making primary education accessible for as many children as possible by making it both compulsory and free of charge. Nevertheless, there is still a problem with absenteeism in Tanzania. This ethnographic research explores the range of factors and reasons, besides tuition fees, that influence children's absenteeism through a case study of three primary schools in rural northern Tanzania. It analysesthe collaboration between these three schools and the Dutch-Tanzanian NGO Kamitei Foundation in addressing this issue. Based on interviews with teachers, parents, and pupils themselves, the main argument of this thesis is that the different roles that children have within rural households have consequences for their level of attendance. These household activities differ according to gender, and to the extent of how indispensable the children are within their household. Moreover, I found that differences in classroom pedagogy and in schools' policies of dealing with absenteeism also influenced the rate of absenteeism among pupils. Based on my findings, I argue that punishment or ignorance by the teachers as a response to not being present at school is one of the main factors that makes absence recurring, which makes it hard to reduce it. The Kamitei Foundation and the schools try to reach a consensus on this issue by working together to offer good quality education, even though it can be hard to reach the same level of understanding.Show less
