Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
This thesis foregrounds what an ethnographer can learn from unexpected waiting. In particular, it looks at the ways analogue photography can help navigate a research project that is perpetually...Show moreThis thesis foregrounds what an ethnographer can learn from unexpected waiting. In particular, it looks at the ways analogue photography can help navigate a research project that is perpetually deferred. Before entering the field, the preliminary focus of this research was on the organised Heem days. Heem is a young initiative that aspires to evoke interfaith encounter through gardening and making art on designated Heem days. The intention of this research was to research the interfaith encounter between participants through gardening together and making art. When entering the field, the Heem days were repeatedly delayed. At the end of the fieldwork period, no Heem days had taken place. This period of waiting created a space and necessity to pay attention to the slow process and everyday aspects of Heem, through the people and place. Analogue photography was an adequate method to study this waiting process. Due to the limited number of photos that can be made, it stimulates the researcher to be in the moment and preselect what is important and what not. Through the concepts of waiting, everyday and analogue photography, this study explores the purchase of waiting for ethnography. The key finding of this study is that also in the (unexpected) process of waiting for something to happen in the field, a lot of valuable information can be found. Furthermore, analogue photography can teach us to slow down and look at our field – and personal lives – with new eyes. The research has a multimodal output that consists both of a textual part and an ethnographic photobook. The first reflects on the unexpected process of waiting for the organized days of Heem to happen, using the concepts waiting, everyday and analogue photography. The ethnographic photobook expresses the process of waiting at Heem, including the place, the mundane happenings and objects and the people of and around Heem. The photobook ends with photos of an organised Heem day that I participated in after fieldwork to also show what Heem was preparing for.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
Severe menstruation pain is often normalized by society. However, this can be a sign of endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition that affects people with a uterus1, where endometrial tissue...Show moreSevere menstruation pain is often normalized by society. However, this can be a sign of endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition that affects people with a uterus1, where endometrial tissue grows outside the uterus. Often this tissue grows in the pelvic, the ovaries, abdominal cavities. Despite the fact that one in ten people with a uterus have endometriosis, there is little attention for or understanding of this condition. Therefore, this research, consisting of a documentary and accompanying text, explores the complexity of the everyday life experiences of four women with endometriosis living in a Dutch and Belgian context. By placing this research topic in a larger anthropological discourse about illness experiences, it allowed me to approach endometriosis as a condition that is socially constructed by people women themselves and society. Three major themes play a major role in the women's everyday illness experiences. First, there is a lack of awareness for the condition in society that often results in misunderstandings and false diagnoses. Second, the ongoing process of grief and acceptance. Finally, the desire of women for a more holistic approach to endometriosis care. The aim of the research is to create more awareness for the condition and to help us think more openly about chronic pain linked to menstruation.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
In this visual ethnographic research is explored what processes enabled embodiment of traumatic experiences through performed text and dance. The main method of observational cinema enabled to...Show moreIn this visual ethnographic research is explored what processes enabled embodiment of traumatic experiences through performed text and dance. The main method of observational cinema enabled to follow the creation process for the performance of Birds in embodying emotions and trauma of the main character that are based on the personal experiences of the choreographer and director of the performance, Dalton Jansen. Exploring and building the narrative of traumatic experiences of the main character of Birds enabled further steps into embodying the emotions and narrative connected to the traumatic experience by the performers through performed text and dance. By analysing performed text and dance separately insights are found in how they each enabled to express trauma and emotions in different ways. However, the connection exercises and space-holding for trauma at the beginning of the creative process, formed the base that enabled the embodiment in the performers.Show less
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)
closed access
Researching concepts like diaspora and nostalgia has often been done with the assumption of a certain constant in privilege. Transnationalism and feelings of in-betweenness are nuances that make...Show moreResearching concepts like diaspora and nostalgia has often been done with the assumption of a certain constant in privilege. Transnationalism and feelings of in-betweenness are nuances that make sensorial expressions of nostalgia unique. Feminist theory and its intersection with ethnographic methods can help gain a greater understanding of these expressions in which more attention is given to ethics and the researchers’ positionality. Zine-making as a practice can serve as a tool for presenting research findings while being aware of one's positionality as well as the expression of the sensory elements of the field.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
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 article addresses the way LGBTQ+ athletes use sport as a tool for resilience. Preliminary research on resilience through sport focuses on sport as a pre-facilitated space, intentionally...Show moreThis article addresses the way LGBTQ+ athletes use sport as a tool for resilience. Preliminary research on resilience through sport focuses on sport as a pre-facilitated space, intentionally created for resilience building, rather than sport as a regular space but used by the athlete as an independent tool for resilience without interference by external organizations. This research explores the experiences of LGBTQ+ athletes in sport by conducting visual ethnographic research, keeping the social ecology theory in mind. This article reflects on how the process of fieldwork has changed the course of this research, and how audio-visual methods and making a film have led to these changes, thereby providing new insights regarding sport as a tool for resilience.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
Indonesia is one of the countries vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to its geography. Climate change has threatened the agriculture industry and the country’s ability for food security...Show moreIndonesia is one of the countries vulnerable to the impact of climate change due to its geography. Climate change has threatened the agriculture industry and the country’s ability for food security which can be a severe problem in the future. However, there are problems with how the government of Indonesia is trying to manage the impact of climate change on agriculture, especially on rice paddy farming, due to the impacts of the past neo-liberal policy (the green revolution) and challenges within the political reformation after the downfall of the Soeharto regime. In this thesis, I am trying to explore the implications and the causes of agricultural and climate issues management problems in Indramayu, Indonesia, by utilizing Aryo Danusiri’s (2018) visual methods of menjaring (trawling) and berburu (hunting). In understanding the implications, I was using the trawling method where I argue that climate change and agricultural management problems in Indonesia are creating a precarious situation for the rice paddy farmers, in line with Anna Tsing’s (2015: 20) statement of precarity being the condition of our time. Lastly, I was using the hunting method where I found out that ‘sectoral ego’ problems within the government and aggressive neo-liberal politics as one of the major causes.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
How important is getting the perfect shot? And what must make way for this? I use experiences from an ethnographic research period in an area threatened by climate change to argue how audiovisual...Show moreHow important is getting the perfect shot? And what must make way for this? I use experiences from an ethnographic research period in an area threatened by climate change to argue how audiovisual methodologies may reduce researchers' feelings of empathy towards participants. This paper elaborates on diverse literature to demonstrate how both empathy and aesthetics can be of great importance when performing ethnographic research, and real-life examples to show how these concepts relate to eachother during fieldwork. Although this paper focuses specifically on the implications of audiovisual methodologies on me as a researcher, similar ideas may apply to anyone researching people in precarious situations. I have found that seeking empathy and prioritizing aesthetics can coincide with the help of collaborative creativity, on which I elaborate in the final chapter.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
The type of waves that arrive in Scheveningen are often considered mediocre from an international surfing perspective. Even though water-temperatures can drop to 4 degrees during the coldest months...Show moreThe type of waves that arrive in Scheveningen are often considered mediocre from an international surfing perspective. Even though water-temperatures can drop to 4 degrees during the coldest months, there is a quickly growing community of surfing enthusiasts who enter the water year-round. By using visual-ethnographic methodologies during fieldwork such as observational and participative methods, combined with several semi-structured interviews, this study explores how different aspects of surfing such as the uncertainty of waves, the experience of surfing, stoke, and the never-ending search for the ever-changing perfect wave, contribute to the mindset, dedication and closeness among surfing enthusiasts in Scheveningen. The following thesis consists of both a textual component and an ethnographic film of 30 minutes. The written part analyzes various concepts related to the experience of surfing, and moreover how the appeal and experience of surfing relate to the mentality and mindset of surfers, both within and outside of the water. The natural component of surfing is explored, as surfing is not merely conducted in nature, but with nature, and the experience of surfing is formed partly because of the elements that one is engaging with. Types of weather, the moon, the wind, the tide and countless other natural circumstances, such as the dependency of waves and forecasting are all deemed important to understand for surfers in Scheveningen and often become part of the everyday life of surfing enthusiasts. I moreover examine concepts such as experience, forming of identity, and the importance of stoke through comparing my own research with the academic discourse surrounding culture and surfing. The documentary film provides audiovisual means to help understand the experience of different surfing conditions that can occur within Scheveningen through the following of four participants, the researcher herself included. It portrays various people experiencing different kinds of stoke through both surfing and surf-related activities. Through both observational, participatory and sensorial aspects, the documentary-film is created to compliment the written thesis. The key finding of this research is that the aforementioned uncertainty and never-ending search for the ever-changing perfect wave has an impact on the mindset of surfing enthusiasts in and around Scheveningen, creating higher levels of stoke, causing them to continue surfing on a daily basis, whether through surfing or by preparing for the next swell.Show less
