Story About the Dutch Golden Age
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(His)-story about the Dutch Golden Age A case study about the interpretations of heritage sites, related to colonial and slavery events, in Amsterdam Neringa Kavaliauskaite 1 (His)-story about the Dutch Golden Age A case study about the interpretations of heritage sites, related to colonial and slavery events, in Amsterdam by Neringa Kavaliauskaite A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Science at Wageningen University and Research Master Thesis: Leisure, Tourism & Environment Student: Neringa Kavaliauskaite Registration number: 930720425180 Course number: GEO-80436 Supervisors: Dr Meghann Ormond and Dr Martijn Duineveld Examiner: Prof Dr René van der Duim Wageningen University and Research Cultural Geography Chairgroup Wageningen, May 2018 ii Summary An influence of colonial and slavery events in various touristic destinations has been a topic nowadays. Scholars have been researching actual after-effects of colonial past, how it has re-shaped certain destinations tourism industry or the image of destination itself, but most of the research focusses on former colonized countries rather than on former colonizing countries. In this case study I wanted to focus on the city of Amsterdam and see how topics such as the Dutch Golden Age, colonialism and slavery are adressed and depicted in heritage sites. Tour guides are the ones who are presenting various sites in destinations to tourists, their narratives influence the way how tourists and locals perceive the city or country in general. Therefore, the first part of this research focusses on ‘free walking’ and ‘thematic’ tours and how they interpreted heritage sites such as the Dam Square, the Royal Palace, the University of Amsterdam heritage sites and a topic about Dutch Golden Age. In order to understand characteristics of heritage, several concepts as heritage and its uses, distinction between heritage, history and past as well as heritage construction were needed to analyse. Another essential concept was interpretation and how through an effective interpretation people can gain more knowledge, change their attitude or even behaviour. In order to see what kind of interpretations visitors gained and if it was a successful interpretation, my second research part focused on six university students, who attended a ‘Black heritage tour’ – a tour, in which slavery and colonialism are main topics. Only qualitative data was collected by conducting seven semi-structured interviews with the tour guides. In addition, I participated in their guided tours as an observer. This helped me to understand what is being told during their tour, what places they are visiting, what are audience reactions. Focus group method was used together with six students from Wageningen University. We had one meeting before attending a ‘Black heritage tour’ and a second meeting afterwards to see what are their experiences and perceptions, what has been changed concerning their knowledge or attitudes. Also, a photo elicitation method was used by all focus group participants. All data was analysed by using both open and axial coding. The results from the tour guides showed a variety of interpretations, regarding three heritage sites and the Dutch Golden age topic. The tour guides’ narratives illustrated the selectivity of their chosen information that depended on audience age, origins and interests. None of the guides excluded colonialism or slavery topics from their narratives, however, it was difficult to ‘measure’ when it could be said that their narratives were fully involving those stories. The data showed that tour guides’ ethnic backgrounds were an influencer on how they told their stories. This was especially noticeable at the ‘Black heritage tour’, in which the narrative was comprehensively shaped by the guide’s ethnic and racial backgrounds. The results from the focus group meetings with students provided information on how they saw those three heritage sites. The effectiveness of interpretation was combined with a decoding/encoding model, which showed that students, who had a dominant view, through interpretation process were satisfied with the tour, gained sufficient amount of information, were reflecting on given information, perceived tour guide’s interpretations and their attitude shifted towards seeing more symbols and evidence about the black presence in the city of Amsterdam. On the contrary, a student, having an oppositional view enjoyed the guided tour less since she did not agree with the tour guide’s ‘one-sided’ story that contained some judgements about Dutch culture and history. This clearly exemplified how she adopted less information and her attitude only changed towards the essence of the tour (looking and noticing more about hidden symbols in the city) rather than about the content of the tour (the black presence in Amsterdam). Finally, a high influence of ethnic background on student’s perceptions was found. iii Acknowledgements The process of writing thesis takes quite a long time. The topic of thesis you want to make it as personal and interesting for you as possible. I already knew my interests in heritage studies, however it took a bit of time to finally specify whole idea of this project. The idea, proposed by my first thesis supervisor, Meghann Ormond, to attend to a ‘Black heritage tour’ on my own helped me to discover city of Amsterdam alternatively, which consequently shaped my thesis project and showed how many interesting stories are hidden in that city! Therefore, I would like to thank to Meghann for ensuring the support throughout this thesis project till the moment she could supervise me. From the start I was secured and comfortable working with Meghann and I was also excited to join one of her organized research collectives (‘Heritage from below’), where I had a chance to meet new people, who are passionate about the work they do. Many thanks for Martijn Duineveld who took over Meghann’s supervision and guide me till the end this thesis were finished. I am grateful for the support of my boyfriend Joost. Since we both were in the process of writing our thesis, we were supportive to each other, motivating and reminding the deadlines of finishing thesis! Your role in ‘miauw’ing, was always charming and cheerful! I am thankful for my mother, who I’m sure will not read this thesis in English, but anyways, she was always there for me and considered about this thesis tough life. As well as my brother – sharing about our academia and personal life was cheerful for both of us. Thanks for Anna, my authentic Hungarian friend, with whom studying times in library and outside of it was always fun and supportive! Finally, I am thankful for many students from Forum library – together we are stronger in reaching the high level of science! I was always inspired to study harder if I would see somebody sleeping in the corner of the library. Despite these people, during cold winter or autumn days, I could not imagine my days without the company of ‘Grey’s anatomy’, ‘Shameless’, and ‘Stranger things’ actors. Even maybe partially because of you, the process of writing thesis prolonged, anyways – you made my day guys! iv Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. The Dutch Golden Age and remembrance of the history of slavery and colonial past ............ 1 1.2. Interpretations of Dutch Golden Age historical narratives during guided tours in Amsterdam 2 1.3. Relevance of the study ............................................................................................................... 3 1.4. Problem statement and research questions .............................................................................. 4 1.5. Thesis structure .......................................................................................................................... 5 2. Literature review and conceptual framework .................................................................................. 6 2.1. Representations of colonial and slavery heritage sites ............................................................. 6 2.2. The meanings and uses of heritage ........................................................................................... 7 2.3. Heritage, history and past .......................................................................................................... 9 2.4. The construction of heritage ..................................................................................................... 10 2.4.1. The influence of learnt history and self-identity on heritage construction .................... 10 2.4.2. Understanding the relation between histories and racial identities ............................... 10 2.4.3. Understanding the relation between histories and ethnic identities ............................... 11 2.5. Heritage interpretation .............................................................................................................. 11 2.5.1. Encoding and decoding heritage interpretations ............................................................. 12 2.5.2. Assessment of the effectiveness of interpretation ............................................................ 13 3. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 15 3.1. Research design ........................................................................................................................