Residential action to cope with overtourism The case of De Wallen MASTER THESIS Human Geography | Cultural Geography and Tourism Max Stoffels | S1027491 Supervisor: Huib Ernste 13th November, 2019 Author Max Stoffels | S1027491 Supervisor Huib Ernste Radboud University Nijmegen Human Geography | Cultural Geography and Tourism Master Thesis Cover Oudekerksplein, Amsterdam (Own photo, 2019) ii Preface: Right in front of you lies the master thesis that will enable me to graduate from the Human Geography master program Cultural Geography and Tourism at the Radboud University in Nij- megen, the Netherlands. Completion of the master thesis means that my comfortable student life will come to an end and that I will have to find a new path to follow. Conducting this research helped me to find my personal interests in the field of the study and beyond as well as further developed my research and writing skills. Writing the thesis can be described as a chal- lenging process characterized by difficulties and stress. However, in the end, I am very proud of the work I delivered and the final product that came out of it. I am very grateful for all the people who helped me during the process. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Huib Ernste, for providing me constructive feed- back and new ideas to keep working on. Furthermore, I could not have written this thesis with- out the cooperation of my eleven respondents who helped me to conduct this research by providing a vast amount of information and insights. Additionally, I want to thank my family and friends who lifted my spirits when needed and kept me motivated if I lost interest. My mother deserves a particular note of thanks: her encouraging words and council have, as always, served me well. I hope you enjoy reading my thesis! Max Stoffels November 13th 2019, Amsterdam iii Summary: In recent years, visitor numbers have increased significantly in De Wallen, one of Amsterdam’s major tourist attractions (Chapuis, 2017). Residents who live in this part of the city are affected disproportionally by negative tourism impacts and experience nuisance on a daily basis. As a result, the area has come under increasing pressure due to tension between residents and visitors (Van Aalst and Van Liempt, 2018). This master thesis focused on the topic of residential action in De Wallen. The objective was to gain in-depth knowledge concerning the ways residents cope with contemporary tourism-related problems in their living environment, such as noise, waste, and crowding. The knowledge gained through this research provides insights into the ‘self-help’ of residents of De Wallen in their fight against nuisance. Therefore, the actions through which residents try to reshape and impact their living environment were analyzed to find an answer to the following research question: “What can be learned from the (everyday) actions through which residents of De Wallen try to maintain control over their living environ- ment?”. To answer this question, data were gathered by analyzing policy documents from the municipality of Amsterdam, observations, and semi-structured interviews. The data were merged together to create an overall story describing the residential tactical and strategic actions in De Wallen. This story captures the main characteristics of how residents cope with tourism- related problems and how they try to keep their neighborhood livable. In order to cope with contemporary tourism-related problems, residents develop various tactics and strategies of which some lead to more satisfying results than others. The most suc- cessful ways of coping with tourism-related problems are achieved by strategic actions in which residents work together to reach shared objectives. Through strategic actions, residents are able to transfer local information successfully to the municipality and to take collective responsibil- ity by asking attention for specific problems and looking for solutions. Tactical actions mainly lead to short-term improvements and take place in the form of adaptation. These tactics demon- strate that the interests of residents concerning mobility and nuisance do not receive enough attention and demand strategic solutions. This research also led to some recommendations for further research. A similar but larger designed research could be designed to take into account a more varied number of stories to include the more anonymous residents as well. Furthermore, it might be useful to comple- ment this qualitative story with some quantitative data to find out how often specific strategies and tactics are applied and to measure actual residential involvement in the neighborhood. iv Table of contents: Preface: .................................................................................................................................................................. iii Summary: ............................................................................................................................................................... iv 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Societal relevance .......................................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Scientific relevance ....................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Research objective and research question ..................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Methods ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Literature review ................................................................................................................................................. 7 2.1 The right to the city ....................................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 The production of space ................................................................................................................................ 8 2.3 Tactics and strategies .................................................................................................................................... 9 2.4 Public space and identifiability with the living environment ...................................................................... 10 2.4.1 Familiarity ............................................................................................................................................ 11 2.4.2 Adaptability .......................................................................................................................................... 12 2.4.3 Sense of safety...................................................................................................................................... 13 2.5 Conceptual model........................................................................................................................................ 14 3. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 16 3.1 Research design ........................................................................................................................................... 16 3.2 Research methods........................................................................................................................................ 17 3.2.1 Policy analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 17 3.2.2 Observations ......................................................................................................................................... 18 3.2.3 Semi-structured interviewing ............................................................................................................... 20 3.3 Analysis and reporting of findings .............................................................................................................. 21 3.4 Challenges of ethnography .......................................................................................................................... 22 4. Results ............................................................................................................................................................... 25 4.1 Municipal strategies .................................................................................................................................... 25 4.1.1 Project 1012 ......................................................................................................................................... 25 4.1.2 Current municipal policy ...................................................................................................................... 26 4.1.3 Involving citizens ................................................................................................................................. 29 4.2 Residential strategies to ensure familiarity.................................................................................................. 31 4.3 Residential tactics of adaptability and