Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
This research explores the link between social stratification, spatial segregation, capital allocation, agency and power. Poelenburg and Oude Westen, two ‘deprived’ neighborhoods in the Netherlands...Show moreThis research explores the link between social stratification, spatial segregation, capital allocation, agency and power. Poelenburg and Oude Westen, two ‘deprived’ neighborhoods in the Netherlands, are the stage of this research. The article follows the analysis of social stratification as a structure in which people are hierarchized along the lines of their social role in that structure. This hierarchy causes for unequal resource allocation, spatial segregation and stigmatization. This is shown in a lack of cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital by the residents in both neighborhoods. However, the findings of this research show how institutional actors in each neighborhood are creating a framework of opportunities for the youth. Consequently, the youth become active agents in accumulating capital by countering the assumed habitus of the fields they engage in. The research concludes with four examples of how the youth in Poelenburg and Oude Westen are claiming power by accumulating capital. This poses an answer to the main research question: How do youth and institutional actors in Oude Westen and Poelenburg co-create opportunities wherein the youth can accumulate capital by countering the assumed habitus of their social fields and thereby claiming power to, power with and power from within?Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
This research presents an historical-ethnographic case-study of ‘Buurland’: a collaborative housing community in Utrecht. By using various audio-visual and ethnographic methods I explore how...Show moreThis research presents an historical-ethnographic case-study of ‘Buurland’: a collaborative housing community in Utrecht. By using various audio-visual and ethnographic methods I explore how Buurland became the community it is now and how this communal living is lived and experienced by different ‘Buurlanders’. The focus of this research is on processes of re-design and place-making and the factors that allowed this re-design to occur. The temporality of the place, and the attitude and close ties of the initiating group prove to be important in this process. Furthermore, drawing upon discourses on architecture and communal living, I argue that the specific design of the housing blocks fosters social interactions between neighbors. In addition, Buurland’s case-study shows how lack of policy in a residential area leads to creative communal practices organized by neighbors. The yearly ‘Zwemfest’ is a key communal practice, which forms a binding ritual among the members of the community. In 2023 the housing blocks of Buurland will be demolished and make place for social housing appartements and mid-market rental housing. The aim of housing corporation Mitros is to ‘create’ a new community with a similar communal character. The question remains if Mitros will succeed in doing so. The outcomes of this research are presented in an article, ‘Making Buurland’, and in an ethnographic film, ‘Buurland, a Land Ruled by Neighbors’.Show less
