The Markener in the material: Material cultural landscape and identity construction in Marken, North-Holland. Anna Miorelli | [email protected] Student Number: 11251115 Marken, North Holland MSC Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam Advisor: Vincent de Rooij | Readers: O.G.A. Verkaaik and Rob van Ginkel Submission: 1/23/18 | Defense: 1/30/18 word count: 22,403 0 1 Abstract: The focus of this fieldwork revolved around Markener identity and the material cultural landscape of the town Marken, North-Holland. I observed the types of relationships Markeners have with their material cultural landscape. These relationships I argue are a part of processes involved in the everyday construction, through boundary maintenance (Barth,1969) of Markener identity. The method of this fieldwork was to observe the everyday activities, or ways of being (Ingold, 2000), Markeners engaged in with their built environment. Using Ingold’s theory of “Dwelling” as a lens of both observation and analysis I identify three relationships between the Marken people and their built cultural landscape. The relationships I have discerned are as follows; through an ambiguous definition of private-public spaces with regards to material landscape, through incorporating foreign iconographies as representations of a local identity in the material landscape, and through the autonomous nature of the Markener with regards to the regional material landscape. Each of these material related relationships is a part of the larger myriad of cultural processes Markeners engage in and which form components in the ongoing construction of the identity of the Markeners. (Ingold, 2000) Through self-reflexive analysis of these relationships, in each chapter, I argue that these relationships are types of processes, also known as “ways of being,” which Ingold describes as actively constructing the cultural identity of these people. I use the symbolic material iconography of the Moor of Marken, throughout this research in an ongoing vignette, to situate this research paper in the wider contextual dynamics of Marken. These being the influence of tourism, the regional history, and the autonomous nature of the Marken people with regards to governmental influence. I suggest that these embodied processes can be used to discern a web of larger societal constructions in Dutch society. Issues of race, economy and gender are discussed briefly. Keywords: Material culture, Heritage, Cultural Landscape, Processes of identification, Marken, North- Holland, the Netherlands, Wapen, Moor, Architecture, Ingold, Dwelling, Race, Economy, Gender, Tourism 2 I would like to say thank you to my family Aleida Dominguez-Miorelli, Joseph Miorelli, and Cami Miorelli for supporting me in this endeavor…. Special thanks to my supervisor Vincent de Rooij for the guidance and freedom in the process of writing this paper…. I feel blessed, grateful and closer to my roots after completing this project. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS | Reference Maps………………………………6-7 Introduction…………………………………….9 Chapter 1………………………………………22 Chapter 2………………………………………34 Chapter 3………………………………………48 Notes on culture/identity relationship…..……..63 Conclusion…………………………………….68 Bibliography…………………………………..71 Annex…………………………………………74 4 5 Maps | It is around 40 minutes to travel from Amsterdam Central to Marken by bus. It costs around 8 euros both ways. Buses run from the 8am till around 11pm on weekdays. This differs drastically from about one hundred years ago where the only way to reach the island was during strong winds, which will take half an hour from a location on the IJ. (Roodenburg, 2002: 186) Sources: Top:, Bottom: http://www.gemeentemarken.nl/marken-geschiedenis.html 6 Sources : Top: Google Maps, Bottom : http://europaenfotos.com/amsterdam/pho_mark_25.html 7 8 Introduction | Horses walking on water and tall ships sailing through grass; these are the hallucinogenic mirages imbedded into the cultural landscape of regional Waterland. The hyper- flat landscape of the polders accentuate a paradoxical reality between engineered and feral beauty. When in route from Amsterdam to Marken the speed of the bus adds a cinematic drama to the very commonplace reality of this suburban landscape. Between verdant flashes intermingled with multiple shades of blue and grey, an obvious aperture to the past can be spotted across the Markermeer. The low and wide sea-ships of the Zuiderzee are echoed in the 1800s replicas which still cruise the lake today. Waterland, in its simple strangeness, is a countryside fertile with romantic imagination. It is a place which temporally still exists and at the same time once was. Marken was once an island eclipsed by the salty water of the Zuiderzee (South sea) and now, after the engineered closure of the Zuiderzee (South sea) with the Afsluitdijk (enclosing dike) in 1950, Marken is a peninsula connected by a seawall road across the fresh water of the Markermeer. [Fig.1] While you cross the seawall, the windows of the bus act like a historic projection and for a moment, and you catch the wide brim of a black hat and faintly, the ghostly echo of fishermen dragging their nets. Marken is a place with its secrets and shadows, an intimate community, a mysterious “wax museum” to those who are not from there. “How do people live on that Island?” I have heard many native Amsterdamers remark. “The homes are so uniformed and like a museum, on display, for everyone, how can anyone live there? What do they do?” I have heard various comments like this from my fellow university colleagues about Marken. “I would prefer studying Volendam, don’t they have a history of incest there?” Comments like these were frequent throughout my research. Surprisingly, the cultural diversity in Marken is as intense as Amsterdam. Yet, this diversity has a temporal demarcation; a boundary which encases the early morning until late afternoon, when the hordes of international tourists come off of buses and descended down the well-worn historic paths of Marken. 9 [Fig.1] Maps of regional geographic context 1850(Left) to 2009(right) Source: http://www.docukit.nl/spreekbeurt/het-zuiderzeemuseum Marken recalls an imaginary illustrated best by these classic Netherlandish painters from the 17th century. These imaginary landscapes in a sense reveal the inner relationship of the Netherlandish artist, with the landscape. His imagination projects an imbedded-ness of man within the landscape. It is the land made and formed in the image of man. This concept of the Netherlandish landscape being constructed in the image of man, is not just poetic, it is somewhat literal, as Marken resides today, just on the horizon of the famous engineered polder landscape of Waterland. [Fig.3] [Fig. 2] Right: Dutch school anonymous, unknown Netherlands south. 1570. Landscape anthropomorphic, portrait of woman. Left: Herman Saftleven the Younger, 1650. Source: https://pleasantpastime.com/anthropomorphic-landscape/ , http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/the-anthropomorphic-landscapes-of-the-17th- century-or-why-being-human-is-to-see-ourselves-everywhere/ 10 In reference to this region of the Netherlands, North Holland is commonly described as a landscape shaped by man out of utilitarian necessity against the rising sea water. This utilitarian angst forms a narrative of man’s struggle with nature and it is a factual reality as the Netherlands has fabricated and engineered most of its natural landscape. (See Annex 1 for more specifics on regional context) In partnership to this factual cliché, I suggest that these paintings [Fig.2] hint at something a little deeper about the relationship between man and the landscape. What they suggest is perhaps a certain internal cultural way of being (Ingold,2000). An internal struggle, projected into the land, which becomes activated through the actions and activities man engages in with the natural environment. In regard to the various internal cultural processes of the people of Waterland, these “ways of being” (Ingold, 2000), have envisioned the natural landscape in the image of man’s necessities reflecting their struggling internal disposition. Man’s internal ways of being are in a sense activated through relationships with the land and they are continually maintained through everyday relationships with the manifested cultural landscape. (Ingold, 2000) Here is where looking to the everyday relationships of a cultural group with their material cultural landscape can be revealing about certain internal ways of being and these internal ways of being can reveal facets and processes which help construct components of a cultural groups collective identity. [Fig.3] Waterland Polder Landscape Source : http://cordablogg.blogspot.nl/2013_08_01_archive.html This deep regional connection between the material landscape and man; the constant engineering, the grappling and transformation of the land and man’s activities with the land, is 11 what made me initially curious about this specific group of perceived authentic Dutch people; the Markeners. This made me curious of their specific relationships related to their specific material landscape. What about the Marken people is imbedded in their material cultural landscape? What relationships with the material cultural landscape could be discerned, which could hint at some forms of internal, “ways of being.” (Ingold, 2000) [Fig.4] Left: Men fishing for eels around Marken, Dates: 1900 till 1920, http://www.vintag.es/2016/07/40-rare-vintage-photographs- that.html?m=1 [Fig.5] Right: Location of Buckfast bee