Belonging in the Kinkerbuurt a Qualitative Study on Feeling at Home and Place Making in a Gentrifying Neighbourhood
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Belonging in the Kinkerbuurt A qualitative study on feeling at home and place making in a gentrifying neighbourhood © Carly Wollaert, 2017 Nathalie Sijbrands 10553789 Master Sociology, Track: Urban Sociology 08-07-2019 Word count: 18889 Supervisor: mw. dr. L.J. (Linda) van de Kamp Second reader: mw. dr. O.A. (Adeola) Enigbokan University of Amsterdam Master Thesis Urban Sociology Table of Contents BELONGING IN THE CHANGING KINKERBUURT ............................................................ 3 1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 6 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................................................... 9 2.1 GENTRIFICATION ......................................................................................................................................... 9 State-led gentrification and social mixing in Amsterdam ................................................................ 10 Role of consumption in gentrification ..................................................................................................... 12 Authenticity and branding .......................................................................................................................... 13 2.2 BELONGING: FEELING AT HOME AND DOING PLACE ............................................................................... 15 Definitions of belonging ............................................................................................................................... 16 2.3 COMMUNITY AND PLACE AS URBAN PRACTICES ...................................................................................... 19 Community ...................................................................................................................................................... 19 Place making ................................................................................................................................................... 21 3 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................... 23 3.1 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH .......................................................................................................................... 23 3.2 RESEARCH POPULATION ............................................................................................................................ 23 The final sample ............................................................................................................................................. 25 3.3 RESEARCH METHODS ................................................................................................................................ 28 Exploration ...................................................................................................................................................... 28 Interviews ......................................................................................................................................................... 28 Observations ................................................................................................................................................... 29 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................................................... 30 3.5 REFLECTION ON OWN ROLE WITHIN RESEARCH ..................................................................................... 30 3.6 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY .................................................................................................................... 32 4 FEELING AT HOME IN THE CHANGING KINKERBUURT .............................................. 33 4.1 CHANGES IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD ........................................................................................................ 33 4.2 THE KINKERBUURT AS A HOME ................................................................................................................ 34 4.3 DIMENSIONS OF HOME .............................................................................................................................. 37 Long-time residents and feelings at home ............................................................................................. 37 Short-time residents and feeling at home .............................................................................................. 39 Safety .................................................................................................................................................................. 41 4.4 DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL MIXING ............................................................................................................... 42 5 COMMUNITY AND PLACES AS URBAN PRACTICES ...................................................... 45 5.1 COMMUNITIES ........................................................................................................................................... 45 5.2 PLACE MAKING ........................................................................................................................................... 46 Kinkerstraat and Ten Kate market .......................................................................................................... 46 Community centre: De Klinker & De Havelaar .................................................................................... 48 Cafes and bars ................................................................................................................................................. 49 6 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................. 53 Future research and policy .......................................................................................................................... 53 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................ 54 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 56 8 APPENDIX: LIST OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .............................................................. 61 2 Belonging in the changing Kinkerbuurt This qualitative case study on the gentrifying Kinkerbuurt in Amsterdam West explores how residents of the neighbourhood experience belonging in various ways. Studies on belonging in changing neighbourhoods show that even though there is not so much physical displacement of people due to gentrification in the Netherlands, long-time residents can still feel cultural displacement, which can reduce their feelings of belonging. Belonging is for this case divided into two subcategories. Firstly, the passive feelings of home, for which ‘home as a haven’, ‘home as a heaven’ and safety are found to be important elements. Secondly, the more active practices of community and place that shape people’s views of (spaces in) the neighbourhood. In-depth interviews, short conversations and observations give insight into feelings of belonging of residents of the Kinkerbuurt and have found that even though the neighbourhood is changing, interviewees do still feel very much at home. The Kinkerbuurt offers a huge variety of places that people feel at home at and it seems like the street scene and it stores, cafes and restaurants are still mixed enough for everyone to feel like they still belong there. The question for future research is if this will stay this way. 3 Photo 1: Kinkerstraat in the 1900’s. © SERC. Photo 2: Kinkerstraat in 1932. © SERC. 4 Photo 3: De Clercqstraat in 2019. © N.Sijbrands Photo 4: Kinkerstraat in 2019. © N.Sijbrands 5 1 Introduction The Kinkerbuurt used to be a quiet working-class neighbourhood with tall trees and people playing music on the streets. Today, the neighbourhood is characterized by busy traffic in the main streets and houses a diversity of people, shops and restaurants. The Kinkerstraat, one of the main streets of the area, is an eclectic mix of telephone stores, hipster clothing stores, Turkish bakeries, expensive coffee bars and a branch of the Dutch retail chain HEMA. The traffic can be chaotic and busy and there are bikes everywhere on the sidewalk. Turn right or left anywhere on the Kinkerstraat and you find small streets behind all this hustle and bustle: almost like an oasis of peace where many people from all sorts of classes, ages and ethnicities live together in a small space. Generally speaking, houses in this area are small and rents have skyrocketed over the past years, especially in the private sector (Pinkster, 2014; Savini, et.al. 2016). What used to be a shop for cheese and milk became a Moroccan delicacy store and has now turned into a hip coffee bar selling matcha lattes with soy milk for four euros, as one of the long-time residents described it (Jan, 01-05-2019; see further below). The city of Amsterdam has been dealing with increasing gentrification over the years (Hochstenbach & Van Gent, 2015). Gentrification is the economic and cultural appreciation of city areas that were formerly disinvested and devalued by the affluent middle class (Lees, 2008). For this reason, increasing numbers of young urban professionals and students with a higher socio-economic status have come to live in the neighbourhood over the past decade, changing the imagery of the neighbourhood (Butler,