making contact. generating interethnic contact for multicultural integration and tolerance in...
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Making contact. Generating interethniccontact for multicultural integrationand tolerance in AmsterdamFloris Müller aa Department of Sociology , The Erasmus University Rotterdam ,Amsterdam , The NetherlandsPublished online: 26 Aug 2011.
To cite this article: Floris Müller (2012) Making contact. Generating interethnic contact formulticultural integration and tolerance in Amsterdam, Race Ethnicity and Education, 15:3, 425-440,DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2011.585341
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Making contact. Generating interethnic contact for multiculturalintegration and tolerance in Amsterdam
Floris Müller*
Department of Sociology, The Erasmus University Rotterdam, Amsterdam,The Netherlands
Interethnic contact is considered a potent tool for the generation ofinterethnic understanding and tolerance. This faith has engenderedcountless social projects that seek to stimulate contact between mem-bers of different ethnic groups under ‘optimal conditions’. However,the academic literature does not stipulate how, if at all, these optimalconditions can be realized in real world interventions. This articleinvestigates how the organizers of a number of Dutch projects for‘contact under optimal conditions’ conceived of such contact and howthese conceptualisations informed how projects were set up, executedand experienced. The analysis demonstrates that organizers conceivedof ‘interethnic contact under optimal conditions’ as a natural autono-mous process. Optimal conditions for this natural process wereassumed to be guaranteed when project workers interfered as little aspossible with the contact between participants. The ‘natural’ processesthus engendered were assumed to lead to the recognition of fundamen-tal sameness between two ethnic groups and/or the recognition of thesuperficiality of their differences. In practice, however, projects wereset up in ways that privileged the exchange of uncontroversial informa-tion on personal tastes and ethnic differences. Moreover, the emphasison the dual recognition of fundamental sameness and superficial differ-ence produced a discursive context in which the exploration of con-flicts of interest was foreclosed. These results suggest that the notionof ‘interethnic contact under optimal conditions’ may in practice haveconnotations that lead to practices that reinforce, rather than challenge,existing prejudices and misunderstandings.
Keywords: contact hypothesis; interethnic communication; multicultural-ism
Introduction
Interethnic contact1 is central to current approaches to multicultural integra-tion and anti-racism. Common sense and academic theory both assume that
*Email: [email protected]
Race Ethnicity and EducationVol. 15, No. 3, June 2012, 425–440
ISSN 1361-3324 print/ISSN 1470-109X online� 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2011.585341http://www.tandfonline.com
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‘contact’ reduces prejudice and improves interethnic relations (Allport 1954;Amin 2002; Fortier 2007; Kabcenell Wayne 2008; Pettigrew 1998; Shukra2004). The widespread faith in the positive effects of interethnic contact hasproduced its own genre of social projects and events for interethnic toler-ance and integration (Fortier 2007).
The effects of ‘interethnic contact’ have been extensively researched anddocumented (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). However, interethnic contact hasbeen studied mostly in experimental settings in which ‘optimal conditions’for contact are created artificially (Dixon et al. 2005). Dixon et al. haveargued that in most ‘real world’ situations such ‘optimal conditions’ are verydifficult, if not often impossible, to establish (2005). As a consequence, theresults from these studies cannot help us to understand the forms, meaningsand outcomes of interethnic contact in ‘real world’ situations where optimalconditions are often absent (Dixon et al. 2005). Moreover, not only does theliterature provide little insight into the processes of interethnic contact ineveryday life, it also offers little advice to policymakers and project organiz-ers that seek to harness the powers of interethnic contact for the greatersocial good. Experimental studies on the effects of contact remain silent onhow the optimal conditions for effective interethnic contact can be guaran-teed practically.
Projects organizers are therefore left to their own devices to design andexecute their projects with whatever common sense and academic knowl-edge they see fit. Even though these projects are often central to policies ofmulticultural integration, nothing is known about the ways in which ‘optimalconditions’ are provided for in these projects. The proposed shift to a studyof ‘real world’ interethnic contact should therefore also include those formsof interethnic contact that have been actively produced and orchestratedthrough projects for intercultural understanding and tolerance. This articleseeks to do this by presenting an analysis of a group of projects for intereth-nic contact that took place in the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlandsbetween 2005 and 2006. The main question that guides this investigation is‘how was ‘interethnic contact under optimal conditions’ conceptualised andguaranteed at the studied projects?’ This question is answered using policydocuments, participant observations and in-depth interviews with organizersand volunteers at the selected projects.
Contact hypothesis controversies
Most academic engagements with the positive effects of interethnic contactare indebted to the so-called ‘contact hypothesis’ (Allport 1954; Amir 1969;Gaertner and Dovidio 2000; Bramel 2004). At its most basic, the contacthypothesis holds that interethnic prejudice will diminish if their memberscome into contact under favourable conditions (Allport 1954). These condi-tions are, among others, equal status between individuals, common goals,
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interethnic cooperation and the support of authorities, law, or custom (Petti-grew and Tropp 2006). When contact occurs under these conditions, individ-uals are expected to learn personal information about members of thegroups they hold prejudices against (Pettigrew & Tropp 2006). In so doing,they come to see similarities between themselves and these ‘others’ and real-ize that their prejudice is irrational and based on ignorance (Masson & Ver-kuyten 1993; Pettigrew 1998). This experience is referred to by Allport(1954) as the recognition of a ‘common humanity.’
Critics have argued that the study of the contact hypothesis has focusedtoo much on interethnic contact under ‘optimal conditions’ and thereforefailed to study the patterns and consequences of contact in everyday life individed societies (Connolly 2000; Bramel 2004; Dixon et al. 2005; Forbes2002). Due to quantitative methodological conventions, there has been aneglect of the ways in which participants construct the meaning of theirexperience of contact and which local, biographical, subcultural, ideologicaland political factors play a role in this process (Connolly 2000).
A number of scholars have therefore recently called for an expansion ofthe scope of theoretical and methodological approaches in the study of inter-ethnic contact to address these criticisms (Connolly 2000; Dixon et al.2005). This agenda proposes to address the meanings, practices and effectsof contact with a focus on their local, historical, social and ideologicaldimensions. Using qualitative methods such as participatory observation andin-depth interviewing, studies might begin to assess the practices and mean-ings of interethnic contact in the ‘real world’ outside the experimental labo-ratory. Through case studies, the processes that occur during interethniccontact may be investigated to understand their local, social and historicaldeterminants. Moreover, these studies could shed light on the ways in whichthey relate to the struggles over power and ideology in contemporary society(Connolly 2000).
The studies that have already been carried out in this alternative para-digm have focused on experiences and meanings of interethnic contact ineveryday life. Another important area of study lies with the practices andmeanings of interethnic contact in projects that claim to provide ‘optimalconditions’ for contact (cf. Connolly 2000; Dixon et al. 2005).
Interethnic contact and power
The meaning of interethnic contact in projects for intercultural tolerance andunderstanding is not necessarily identical to the meaning that such encoun-ters may have in everyday life. This distinction can be appreciated by draw-ing on the conceptual tools offered by the work of Foucault (1978). Thework of Foucault suggests that power is not a property of an individual orinstitution but rather expresses itself in our self understandings and ourconstructions of social reality. From this perspective, the meanings that
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people give to interethnic encounters do not flow exclusively or in the firstplace from their unmediated experiences. These meanings are insteadenabled by the discourses that are available locally to speak and think aboutthese encounters (Foucault 1978). This point of view rejects the assumptionthat interethnic contact under purposely arranged ‘optimal conditions’ some-how manages to evade the workings of power and may lead to the recogni-tion of some kind of extra-discursive ‘common humanity.’ As Fortier (2007)has argued, it is an illusion that power relations and conflicts ‘will be some-how suspended through dialogue and intimacy, and that the distance andhierarchy between those who tolerate and those who are tolerated will dis-solve’ (111). Instead the question becomes, ‘how are certain kinds of mean-ings reproduced or contested during interethnic contact within particularlocal, social and historical conditions that frame and shape each encounter?’
Jackman and Crane (1986) give an insightful example of how discourseand power pervade the meaning that is attributed to interpersonal contact.They note the persistence of male sexist attitudes despite continuing positiveinterpersonal contact between women and men. Up until the emergence ofthe women’s movement, generations of enduring and affectionate forms ofcontact between the sexes had not managed to persuade men to grantwomen equal legal and civic rights (Jackman and Crane 1986). Their expla-nation for this paradox is that all of this positive contact between men andwomen has been produced and experienced through heterosexist discourses.These discourses shape the ways in which men can speak about, think aboutand experience their contact with women. As such, power pervades theminutiae of everyday discourse and practice and shapes the meaning of eventheir most intimate experiences of contact with women.
According to Jackman and Crane (1986), the same principles also applyto interethnic contact. Basing their conclusions on quantitative survey data,they conclude that commitments to ethnic in-group privilege remain intacteven when people have sustained, intimate contact with minority groupmembers. Through contact, attitudes towards these groups may becomemore positive on a superficial level. However, political commitments todefend the white group’s privilege (as evidenced by refusing to support poli-cies for the emancipation of blacks) did not fundamentally change. Instead,deep-seated commitments to in-group privilege came to coexist with superfi-cial positive attitudes about certain aspects of subordinate groups.
Jackman and Crane rely only on quantitative data for their conclusionsand say little about the dynamic interactions and negotiations that occur dur-ing contact. To increase our understanding of these processes, it is necessaryto open the ‘black box’ of interethnic contact and investigate how it comesto take a certain form and meaning within a particular context. What does itmean, for instance, to recognize a ‘common humanity’ through interethniccontact as Allport (1954) has argued? What kinds of practices areconsidered appropriate to realize such a goal? From a post structural
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perspective, the assertion that a ‘common humanity’ has been recognizedwithin the context of a project for interethnic contact needs to be regardedas a performative speech act. Such a speech act produces the social reality itclaims to describe and since it redefines a political aspect of this reality (i.e.the nature of the relation between different ethnic groups) it is bound upwith the workings of power and ideology.
Based on the theoretical issues discussed above, the study analysis ofthe projects of the ‘We Amsterdammers’ campaign was set up to revolvearound three main themes. First of all, since ‘contact under optimal condi-tions’ has been mostly studied using a quantitative experimental method,the current literature lacks an understanding of the ways in which themeaning of any interpersonal encounter is derived from the socio-historicalcontext in which it occurs. In this study, this issue was addressed by ask-ing: what was the political and historical context of the selected projectsfor interethnic contact? Second, since the local meanings of interethniccontact are constituted in and mediated by the discourses that the peopleinvolved have at their disposal, the discourse of the organizers and volun-teers is an especially important source of information. These individualsdecide on the ways in which optimal conditions for interethnic contact willbe guaranteed in their projects. Therefore, a second theme pertained to thediscourse of organizers and volunteers: how do organizers construct themeaning of interethnic contact under optimal conditions at their projects?Third, in order to understand what kinds of interethnic contact resultedfrom the efforts of organizers and volunteers, the actual organized encoun-ters themselves were investigated.
Case study and methods of analysis
The projects that were analysed for this article were part of a campaign forinterethnic tolerance and understanding held in the Dutch city of Amster-dam. The campaign was launched by the city of Amsterdam within twoweeks after a home grown Islamist assassinated the Dutch filmmaker andIslam critic Theo van Gogh. The new campaign was called ‘We Amsterdam-mers’ and was meant to ease the interethnic tensions that had been raised bythe murder of Theo van Gogh.2
The municipality solicited, selected and funded mostly small scale grass-roots projects by third party organisations. The policy of the ‘WeAmsterdammers’ campaign was such that projects were not funded if theyonly focused on members of a single group (e.g. children or Muslims) andhence attempted to set up interethnic contact. Projects were set up as eventsthat provided an opportunity for a voluntary encounter between members ofdifferent groups (Amsterdam Municipality 2004). Most projects were set upeither as festivities and playful competitions or as occasions for dialogueand discussions. The projects typically focused on generating single, one-off
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meetings between individuals who had not previously met and were held inlocations throughout the city. The projects of the ‘We Amsterdammers’ cam-paign differed widely in the number of participants they drew and the extentto which different ethnic communities participated in them. In the ‘Citygames,’ the largest of the projects examined, most diversity was foundamongst the participants. The finale, held on the city’s main square, was vis-ited by more than 1000 people from various ethnic communities.
Five projects were selected as case studies for this article. The selectionwas made to reflect the breadth of the campaign’s social projects for inter-ethnic contact. The first of these projects, called the ‘City games,’ was asports, cooking and musical competition. The second project was a neigh-bourhood meeting project by an organisation called ‘Spicy Food’ (‘PittigGekruid’) in which individuals with different backgrounds could cooktogether and get to know one another. The third project was called theRamadan festival and was a city-wide event in which Muslims and Dutchpeople could meet for shared meals and discussion nights on various topicsassociated with Islam and integration. The fourth project was called the‘Speaking Stone’ and was a Dutch version of the speakers-corner in HydePark. It was established near the street where Theo van Gogh was killedand featured weekly debating sessions on Sunday afternoon. The fifth pro-ject was called ‘City Dinners’ and consisted of voluntary meetings betweenAmsterdammers that did not know each other yet, over dinner in arestaurant.
Policy documents and project websites were used to collect the officialdiscourse of the projects. Participatory observations were carried out at anumber of selected projects, concentrating mainly on one project for compe-titions (the City Games (‘Stadsspelen’) and one for dialogue (‘the SpeakingStone’). A total of 26 informants from five projects were interviewed inorder to understand the meaning of contact to its organisers and volunteers.Upon selection of the respondents, it became clear that volunteers and semi-professionals working on the projects were predominantly higher educatedwhites.3 Care was taken to include sufficient non-white respondents but thecomposition of the sample was also intended to reflect the actual ratio ofwhite and non-white of this group. Of the 26 respondents, 20 were of whiteDutch nationality, five were of Moroccan descent and one had a Surinambackground. Moreover, education levels of all participants appeared to bevery high, as over 70% either had a university degree or was enrolled inuniversity.
The results of the analysis are presented in the order of the three sub-questions formulated earlier. First, the social, political, and historical contextof the ‘We Amsterdammers’ campaign is discussed. Second, the ways inwhich the meaning of ‘contact under the optimal conditions’ was con-structed by organizers and volunteers of the projects. Third, the actual formsof interethnic contact at the five projects are discussed.
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Political and historical context of the campaign ‘We Amsterdammers’
The projects for interethnic contact were part of the municipality’s so-called‘diversity policy’ that was set up in the early 1990s. This policy stressedindividual citizenship and social cohesion and seeks to promote the equalparticipation of individuals with diverse ethnic backgrounds in socio-eco-nomic, labour, housing and educational spheres. However, its implementa-tion has followed a uniform and consistent strategy (Uitermark 2003). WhenTheo van Gogh van murdered by a ‘home grown’ Muslim extremist and atumultuous aftermath ensued in the city, a novel and practical implementa-tion of diversity policy was devised. Drawing in part on the work of thepsychologist Irving Staub (1989), the municipality concluded that the poten-tial for conflict and terrorism in Amsterdam needed to be reduced through anumber of social interventions (Amsterdam Municipality 2004). From inter-views with organisers and volunteers, it becomes clear that participating inthese social projects as a volunteer was seen as a means to respond to thesocial unrest and polarization that followed the murder of Theo van Gogh.
There’s people who go too far both on the left as well as on the right, in their,ehm, ways of thinking, and stuff like that. And so then you get the [Theo vanGogh’s killer] Mohammed Bs on the one side and the Hirsi Alis, eh, on theother side and the Wilders4 and then you get people like that. And so that isnot a society you want to be a part of. And you can’t say, like, ehm, ‘I don’twant to be a part of people like that’ so I really want, I am standing here, butwell, if you don’t move, if you don’t take any steps to get these things mov-ing, no matter how small they may be, nothing will change either. (Jane, pro-ject worker)
In the account above, Jane constructs participation in projects for inter-ethnic contact as the only right thing to do in the radicalised political cli-mate of the Netherlands after the murder of Theo van Gogh. She achievesthis by constructing the political spectrum as polarized into two extremes inthe multicultural debate (Muslim fundamentalism on the one hand, throughreferencing the killer of Theo van Gogh, and extreme right xenophobia onthe other, by referencing extreme right politician Wilders and Islam hostilepolitician Ayaan Hirsi Ali). At the same time, she denies the possibility oftaking up any other political standpoints that might fall in between by omit-ting other politician actors in the debate completely. As both of these posi-tions represent unwanted social trajectories (‘I don’t want to be part of asociety like that’), her own apolitical contribution becomes a meaningful actof resistance against the polarization and radicalization of Dutch society.
This account illustrates how participation in these projects acquired itsmeaning against the backdrop of a polarized political climate in which bothsides no longer represented the points of view of the reasonable regular citi-zen. The social projects for interethnic contact functioned as an outlet for aspecific desire for civic engagement that sidestepped the polarized political
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debate of Islam versus the Dutch national majority. Drawing on their com-mon-sense understandings of the interethnic contact, organizers and volun-teers presented their projects and their own participation as the onlyreasonable way out of the false dilemmatic choice between xenophobic anti-Islam rhetoric of right wing politicians and anti-Dutch extremism. Crucial inthis respect were the ways in which interethnic encounters were consistentlypresented in a pacified and apolitical way. This point is exemplified by thequote below.
[The city games will result in] more cohesion. More understanding, moreawareness, friendship. Nice festival days. I think it is important. (Renske, headorganizer)
In the above, an organizer constructs the social impact of her project asan entirely uncontroversial positive contribution to society. After labelingthis effect ‘cohesion,’ she subsequently constructs the meaning of this termas made up of ‘understanding, awareness and friendship.’ Through suchapolitical accounting, the projects were constructed as transcending the polit-ical turmoil in which they were situated. Interethnic contact was constructedas the ideal solution to this turmoil as it would ‘merely’ let people developtheir understandings and friendship for other social groups.
The meaning of contact at the ‘We Amsterdammers’ projects
The official discourses of the social project elaborated on this general frame.As can be seen from the quotes below, the interpersonal encounters weregenerally constructed as encounters of equals in which the mutuality ofunderstanding and respect between individuals of different groups is empha-sized.5
‘Spicy Food,’ to put it shortly, is a project that wants to bring residents of bor-oughs together in a fun, active and definitely non-condescending way.Because only personal contact can produce structural changes in the way weperceive social groups on a human level. Spicy Food wants to show that dif-ferent tastes in Amsterdam constitute an enrichment of daily life. (Spicy Foodwebsite, translation by the author)
In the quote above, the meaning of interethnic contact is produced bydrawing on a pluralist multicultural discourse. After first establishing thatthe project is entirely uncontroversial (‘fun and definitely non-condescend-ing’), it presents personal contact as a way to demonstrate that cultural dif-ferences are a positive aspect of societal life (cultural differences aredescribed here as ‘different tastes,’ because of the central metaphor of foodin this particular project). By emphasising that the project demonstrates thisfact (using the word ‘shows’), this account suggests that the exclusively
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positive nature of diversity is a matter of fact rather than opinion. As such,objections to these kinds of celebrations are rendered unthinkable in this dis-course. The project is constructed in this way as the ultimate tool to improveinterethnic relations (‘only interpersonal contact can produce structuralchanges’).
This particular construction of interethnic contact was regularly repro-duced in interviews with organizers and volunteers. Often, the risk of leav-ing differences unrecognised was stressed as well:
If you as a Dutch teacher reprimand a boy from the Dutch Antilles then youwill think ‘he is not being honest with you because he doesn’t look me in theeye.’ (..) Whereas in that culture it is actually really rude to look someone inthe eye when you know you did something wrong, so admitting to guilt islooking down and ehm, accepting authority is looking down. Yeah and it’sthose small subtle things that we totally don’t get, even, as totally Dutch peo-ple we don’t. And, can we force that, no we can’t force it, we can only talkabout it (. . .) and hopefully one day we will find out after 20 years that we allcan live together in this world and that we all religions, all cultures work sideto side together. (Ellie, project volunteer)
In the account above, interethnic contact is similarly constructed as anultimate pathway to positive interethnic relations. In this case, however,this is accomplished by acknowledging the possibility that cultural differ-ence can be a source of conflict. In the first sentence, this conflict isillustrated with an example of a schoolteacher who is unaware of culturalcodes of conduct of his Caribbean pupils. The resulting misunderstandingbecomes inevitable because the cognitive mislabelling is assumed to beautomatic (if he does not look you in the eye, then ‘you will think he isnot being honest’). In the next sentence, this misunderstanding is exposedby stating that the behaviour was actually intended as a form of polite-ness (‘in that culture, it is rude to look someone in the eye’). Interethniccontact is then presented as the ideal way to produce this recognition(‘we can only talk about it’) because of its subtle (‘small subtle thingswe Dutch don’t get [without help]’) and delicate nature (‘we can’t forcethat’).
Thus far, all of the presented accounts illustrate how interethnic contactwas constructed to result in a recognition of difference through its potentialto gently transfer ‘knowledge’ about cultural beliefs and practices betweengroups. By emphasizing the exchange of such (presumably objective) infor-mation, cultural difference was acknowledged but simultaneously con-structed as harmless cultural practices and beliefs. Next to these accounts ofthe interethnic contact as a process of the recognition of difference, how-ever, the same participants also sometimes paradoxically argued for theopposite. In these situations, they argued that interethnic contact was crucialin order to produce the recognition of sameness.
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My motivation is the most to let people to know each other. (. . .) It’s like this:(. . .) When people know one another, when people connect, make connectionsto one another, they see beyond color. They see beyond, they see human. AndI want people to see humans. At the end of the day we are humans, we areall going to be judged as humans. Not as where you are born, where youlived or whatever, you are going to be judged as human. (Edith, projectworker)
The quote above illustrates how constructing the interethnic encounteras a potential for the recognition of sameness amounted to the claim thatcontact under the optimal conditions of the projects of the We Amterdam-mers campaign would result in an increased awareness of the equality ofpeople of different cultural backgrounds. In the account above, this isachieved by juxtaposing superficial difference (‘color,’ ‘where you areborn,’ ‘where you lived’) with deeper equality and sameness (‘at the endof the day we are humans’). Interethnic contact is presented as a tool tomove from the superficial level to the deeper level by stressing its abilityto enable people who previously were ignorant of each other becomefamiliar with each other ‘let them know one another.’ When knowledge ofthe other becomes sufficiently intimate (i.e. when they ‘connect’), the dee-per truth of their equality will see dawn upon them (they ‘see beyondcolor’).
However, by juxtaposing superficial difference with deeper equality andsameness, these accounts can also be seen to exclude the possibility of anyreal or consequential differences between groups. More importantly, it alsodenies the possibility of any real conflicts of interests between differentgroups. In the context of mere superficial differences, it is only natural thatstrangers become friends once they get to know each other better in interper-sonal encounters. Through interaction and dialogue, they inevitably developan awareness of their deeper fundamental sameness in which conflicts ofinterest can no longer be conceived to exist. The construction of suchencounters as ways to let people ‘see beyond color’ therefore framed thesesocial projects as intuitively plausible, uncontroversial interventions forsocial integration.
Practices and attendance
Despite the rhetoric of organizers and volunteers, however, participatoryobservations at several of the studied projects suggest that many participantsonly engaged in contact with members of their own ethnic community. Thiswas especially true for those projects in which participants were left entirelyto their own devices. For example, the following scene in a tent where amusic competition was being held was typical for the ways in which thespaces at the tournament ground were used.
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Once the Caribbean drum band has finished playing, all of its 150 or soCaribbean supporters move out of the sticky tent and into the warm outdoorweather. Their places in the tent are then taken up by the friends and familyof the white Dutch rock band that will play next. However, this second bandhas not brought as many friends and family. The tent suddenly appears emptyas only 40 white Dutch people stand and watch. (From the author’s fieldnotes)
As the above observation illustrates, the nature of this particular eventseemed to work against the kinds of cross-cultural interpersonal encountersthe official project discourse aimed for. To some extent, this appeared to berelated to the competitive and ethnically coded nature of the competition.Hip hoppers were black, drum bands were Hindustani and rock bands werewhite. In the competitive environment, each act brought supporters fromtheir own community who mainly wanted to see their own group win. How-ever, they also reflect more complex processes of self-segregation that havebeen noted elsewhere (Dixon and Reicher 1997).
In projects where ethnicity and competition were not fore grounded,interpersonal encounters also often did not always materialize in the waythey had been envisioned by the organisers. For example, in the speakers’corner project, attendance was often very small and strangers rarely engagedin one-on-one conversations with people they did not know. The followingexcerpt from ethnographic field notes taken during one of the meetings illus-trates this point:
The participants are made up of a small group of about six white Dutch whoshow up every time for the whole session and about 5–15 passers-by thatdon’t seem to have come to the park to visit the speakers’ corner and hangaround to check out what is going on. The latter stand around for a couple ofminutes to watch the proceedings and then carry on with their walk throughthe park. (. . .) There is no conversation or discussion going on between thepassers-by that temporarily the audience and the small group of hard core ofdiscussants. (From the author’s field notes)
In other projects (eye) contact and conversation between individuals wasinevitable as people came to the project to talk to strangers over dinner or acooking lesson. Participants that did experience interethnic encounters at pro-jects of the ‘We Amterdammers’ campaign often described these as an oppor-tunity to get to know unfamiliar social groups. In cases where white Dutchand members from ethnic minorities engaged in conversation, cultural differ-ence was thus the central topic of interest, especially for the white Dutch.
[The dinner] was a bit of an eastern kitchen where the couscous and ehm..you could also drink wine. And a little bit to my surprise my [Muslim] guestalso drank wine. That is another prejudice of course that you can have,because she is still religious, she participates in Ramadan but she is quitemodern. And then she does take a little glass of wine and ehm that than is a
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bit, like, wow. . . Like ehm, of course I knew that countries, I know moreMuslims who drink, mind you, but it is still for a moment an eye-opener thatnot everyone sticks so closely to the rules. (Ann, 56-year-old white Dutch,visitor to the city dinner)
In the quote above, Ann reconstructs her interethnic contact as anencounter in which she was able to experience the recognition of difference.She does so by presenting herself as a person who has prejudices (‘that isof course a prejudice that you can have’) that are dispelled by simplyobserving others in interethnic contact. The account is careful to presentthese prejudices as common and rooted in benign ignorance. These preju-dices are immediately dispelled once contradictory information presentsitself (implied here by the word ‘eye-opener’). In so doing, she constructsher encounter with the member of another group as an opportunity tobecome more ‘adjusted’ to the benign aspects of multicultural society. Thestereotypes about immigrants that she reluctantly entertained because of alack of contact with ethnic minorities were debunked during her participa-tion in the project.
The subject positions of contact
The implicit structure of account such as the one above suggests that thisdiscourse offers two complementary roles for participants. On the one hand,there is the person who holds unwanted prejudices that he or she wishes torelinquish. On the other hand, there is the person who holds the kind ofinformation that can effectively contradict these prejudices. In the discourseof the projects and the organizers, these positions were generally accordedto the white Dutch majority and the minorities (sometimes Muslims in par-ticular) respectively.
You see that there are big stereotypes about ‘Moroccans,’ particularlyMoroccans, and, it’s not always true. I worked for Spicy Food with a col-league that was also Moroccan. He’s a good guy; there is nothing wrongwith him. And there are lots of guys like him. (. . .) That was my motiva-tion. To [make them] see that there is a great group of people who arenot bad and they are good guys and they have to (pause), they do theirthing and there are, well, it’s good that they are in Holland because theyhave a (pause), they give something back to Holland. (Jake, projectworker)
In the quote above, a distinction is made between a group that holds preju-dices (‘the people’) and the group that these prejudices are about (Moroc-cans). Interethnic contact is constructed as a tool with which organizers canhelp the first group shed their stereotypes about the second group. Thegroup denoted as ‘the people’ is subsequently implicitly constructed as theDutch majority through the assertion that interethnic contact will produce
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the realization that ‘it is good that they are in Holland’ and ‘they give some-thing back to Holland.’
Through accounts such as the one above, the projects were expected toprovide a context in which ethnic minorities could produce informationabout themselves that would facilitate the recognition of their fundamentalsameness or of inconsequential difference by the prejudiced white majority.By implication, participating ethnic minorities carried a ‘burden of proof’ asthey were expected to present themselves to the white majority as the ‘goodguys’ that they really were. Although the organizers nowhere explicitlyimposed limits on the kinds of interactions that interethnic contact shouldconsist of, their discourse suggests that presenting yourself other than as a‘good guy’ was unexpected.
Paradoxically, the burden of proof was sometimes also constructed as aposition of considerable agency. Since the discrimination of the Dutchmajority was constructed as a result of the ignorance of the white Dutch,participants from minority groups could take it upon themselves to reduceprejudice by providing the appropriate information about their ethnic group:
You just let people come together and set up contact between people and ehmit is a sort of encounter. (. . .) At the last ‘city dinner,’ the participants getinformation about the history of Morocco. In other themes people also getinformation about other things, and the evening is filled with music, cultureand food. (. . .) And ehm, yeah, you can teach a great deal. (Ali, 22–year-oldMoroccan, project worker)
In the account above, the same discourse about interethnic contact isdeployed but this time it is used to take up the position of a teacher who canimpart information to prejudiced people. Through imparting informationabout his ethnic background (‘history of Morocco’ as well as ‘music,’ ‘cul-ture’ and ‘food’) the speaker presents himself as a teacher for people ignorantof harmless, entertaining difference (‘you can teach a great deal’). However,even though such social roles at first sight accorded participants with an eth-nic minority background considerable agency, the kinds of information thatthey were expected to teach was limited. The dominant discourse of intereth-nic contact left no room for the articulation of real conflicts between groupsfrom which prejudice and negative attitudes might also flow. Moreover, theWhite Dutch were never expected to demonstrate their good intentions orbenign cultural difference in any way. The position of the non-white partici-pants in these encounters was therefore constrained through the dominant dis-course on the possible meanings of interethnic contact.
Conclusion
The analysis presented in this article demonstrates that the meaningsattributed to interethnic contact at projects for intercultural understanding
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and tolerance may be intimately linked to the local, socio-political context.In the case of the ‘We Amsterdammers’ campaign, many volunteers turnedto projects for uncontroversial interpersonal encounters out of unease withthe politicised ways in which other social and political actors were handlingthis crisis. In these projects, contact under optimal conditions was seen as atool to foster a natural process of recognition of either fundamental same-ness or superficial differences. Since both outcomes are uncontroversial andassumed to take place by itself when barriers are removed, an engagementwith interethnic contact becomes a uniquely uncontroversial way to addressinterethnic tensions in an otherwise polarized political climate.
At the same time, this conceptualisation of interethnic contact limited thekinds of structures that could be imposed on the interactions between partic-ipants. ‘Optimal conditions’ for interethnic contact could only be guaranteedby imposing no structure or limitations on the kinds of people that partici-pated in a project, who talked to whom or what they talked about. Despitethis apparent freedom, however, only a limited number of subject positionswere available to participants. Interpersonal encounters between differentcultural communities were constructed as a tool to fight prejudice by reduc-ing the ignorance of the white majority regarding ethnic minorities. The lat-ter were expected to present their cultural differences to the prejudicedmembers of the white Dutch majority.
These conclusions have a number of implications for the academicstudy of interethnic contact. First of all, the variety of projects found inthe ‘We Amsterdammers’ campaign illustrates the need to avoid conceptu-alising interethnic contact in generic terms. Studying ‘interethnic contactunder optimal conditions’ as a single homogeneous social process obscuresthe different processes and negotiations that may go under this name indifferent projects. Second, particular social, historical and political contextsmay have a homogenizing effect on projects that arrange interethnic con-tact. In the Dutch context of the aftermath of the murder of a public Islamcritic, a particular discourse about the meaning of contact inspired remark-able similarities in design and execution between ostensibly different pro-jects. A third point is related to the emphasis in this particular discourseon the recognition of sameness and the recognition of difference. Hall andHeld (1990) have argued that these the challenges of contemporary liberaland ethnically diverse societies revolve specifically around the dilemmabetween the needs for equality and the recognition of difference in multi-ethnic societies. A dominant discourse that constructs interethnic contact asa tool for the dual recognition of sameness and difference may wellcontribute to its appeal among policymakers. At the same time, however,this dualism excludes the recognition of more complex issues. Most impor-tantly, the focus on the reductions of prejudice through both forms ofrecognition suppresses the recognition of the structural causes for prejudiceand discrimination and the possibility of real conflicts of interest.
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The stimulation of interethnic contact will clearly remain a centralapproach in anti-racism and multicultural integration for the years to come.It is important that future research is grounded in the awareness that aca-demics, policymakers, organizers, volunteers and participants themselves allparticipate in the production of the meaning and effects of interethnic con-tact. A sustained critical effort is necessary to develop our awareness of theworkings and implications of all of the practices that are currently beingundertaken in the name of ‘making contact.’
Notes1. Interpersonal contact is understood here as (non-)verbal exchanges between indi-
viduals that are in each others’ physical presence.2. Similar campaigns have been launched in London after terrorist attacks. A com-
parison between the Amsterdam campaign and the London campaign, is part ofa follow up study on this paper (Müller 2011).
3. Participatory observations also confirmed that especially among organizers andvolunteers, ethnic minorities were strongly in the minority, to the point of com-plete absence in many of the weekly editions of the Speakerstone project.
4. Geert Wilders is a Dutch extreme right politician who is mainly concerned withthe perceived threat of Islam to the Dutch nation. After the murder of Theo vanGogh he received extensive police protection because it was feared would beassassinated. He has recently commented that the Netherlands is under threatfrom a ‘Tsunami of Islamization.’
5. Only the official discourse of the ‘Spreeksteen’ deviated from these accounts byemphasizing the role of the project in the promotion of the freedom of expres-sion and debate. However, in interviews with the volunteers working at the pro-ject, it became clear that they too subscribed to the belief that interpersonalcontact and dialogue would improve understanding between different groups.
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