Journal of Social Science Education ©JSSE 2015 Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2015 DOI 10.2390/jsse-v14-i3-1400 Jennifer Long Investigating Multiculturalism and Mono-Culturalism Through the Infrastructure of Integration in Rotterdam, the Netherlands This paper explores first-hand experiences of citizenship education specifically-designed for immigrants from the perspective of native Dutch settlement workers and volunteers in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Based on eight months of ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with settlement workers, this article explores how these ‘minor figures’ influence and inform the ‘Infrastructure of Integration’ and reinterpret national Dutch cultural values and norms on a local level. Using past understandings of multiculturalism and the current project of assimilating all non- western Muslim immigrants into Dutch society, this article investigates how these minor figures reproduce exclusionary discourses of belonging to the imagined community of the Netherlands. Keywords: within larger (state) activities, such as citizenship cour- citizenship education, minor figures, infrastructure of ses, allow them to (re)define Dutch citizenship in their integration, autochthony, Dutch multiculturalism everyday practices within the larger political context and social categories of belonging. Specifically, this paper 1 Introduction investigates how local native Dutch workers and The Netherlands has been overcome by what Dutch volunteers interpret and guide immigrants’ integration scholars call a ‘culturalization of citizenship’ in which into Dutch society. On the local level, this civic inte- “more meaning is attached to cultural participation (in gration infrastructure can be thought of as what Miller terms of norms, values, practices and traditions) [of and Rose call, “the practices of minor figures” in which individuals], either as alternative or in addition to citizen- multiple non-state actors, such as citizenship education ship as rights and socio-economic participation” and second language learning volunteers, redefine their (Tonkens, Duyvendak, & Hurenkamp, 2010, p. 7; Mosher, ideas of citizenship through their own participation in this issue). This can be seen in the popularity of right- state-informed practices (2008). This paper will also wing politicians who promise to lessen the amount of examine how actors involved in the integration process non-western immigration, the influence of the European of immigrants create and define membership to the Union, and have rekindled a sense of nationalism that national community. has been socially stifled since World War II (van Bruggen, The data presented in this paper are part of a larger 2012). Yet, this nation-building project is not just a study concerning perceptions of belonging to “the ima- practice of national or political leaders; instead, this gined community” of the Netherlands (Anderson, 1983), project can be found in the everyday practices of workers from the perspective of both the native Dutch and non- and volunteers involved in the infrastructure of integra- western immigrants. The author used a grounded theory tion. The result of this trend toward the culturalization of approach in order to examine the manner in which citizenship has created a more focused, mono-cultural native Dutch citizens reproduced exclusionary discourses society that moves well beyond what some scholars of belonging surrounding Muslims immigrants in educa- describe as the Netherlands’s multi-cultural roots. tional spaces. These spaces, as will be discussed further Integration programming for immigrants provides a below, are both within and outside of those of fruitful context to investigate the ways in which educa- integration classrooms, into what Leander, Phillips, and tion ties into projects of nationalism. This article inves- Headrick Taylor (2010) label “outside of school” settings tigates how state-supported citizen-making projects are where despite their location, the implicit guidelines that understood and produced through ‘the infrastructure of structure the relationships of the classroom are immigration’ by asking, how ordinary citizens construct embodied in these spaces (p. 333). These spaces repro- national discourses through neighborhood integration duce social, cultural, critical and political understandings projects. Therefore, the kind of ‘citizenship education’ which can then be used to explore the manner in which discussed in this paper aligns with Ong’s (1999) notion of minor figures create ‘culturally-appropriate’ perceptions cultural citizenship that focus on the process of nego- of national identities that exclude and reinforce the tiation surrounding ideas of citizenship between state difference of certain immigrants, in particular Muslim actors and individuals; a process that is inherently influ- immigrants, in the Dutch context. This focus on the inte- enced by the specific context of power and politics. Using gration of non-western Muslim immigrants, and Muslim an approach similar to Delanty (2003), this article ex- women in particular, aligns with a larger European (and plores how ordinary citizens’ ‘repeated participation’ North American) trend to focus attention on the inte- gration of non-western, non-Christian residents following Jennifer Long is a researcher and adjunct faculty attacks of terrorism by reported Islamists, the question member at Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford of Muslims’ perceived allegiance to the nation, and an campus. increasing tolerance for Islamophobic rhetoric within the 103 Darling St, Brantford, ON N3T 2K8 public sphere (Sniderman, 2007; Fekete, 2008; Allen, Email: [email protected] 2015). 43 Journal of Social Science Education ©JSSE 2015 Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2015 ISSN 1618–5293 This article focuses on the everyday practices of indivi- as a basis for ‘living together with differences’” (Fleras, duals working and volunteering in the infrastructure of 2012, p. 387); the latter phrase of which harkens back to integration in order to better understand how these the Dutch motto of “living apart, together”. Yet, while ‘minor actors’ perceive how one belongs to an ideal cultural differences were practiced and tolerated, this Dutch community today. It seeks to answer the question, approach to Dutch society did not include any cultural how are discourses of national belonging interpreted and identities that were non constitutive of the imagined acted upon by those charged with providing the edu- community of the Netherlands. This selective acceptance cation linked to this nation-making paradigm? To answer of cultural pluralism was challenged and eventually bro- such a question, this paper explores questions con- ken with the introduction of non-western immigration. cerning the future of such recently-adopted assimilative In the 1960s, the Dutch actively recruited ‘guest wor- policies as they are enacted by those individuals who are kers’ (gastarbeiders) from Italy, Spain, Turkey, and taking part as facilitators of such discourses of national Morocco in order to fill a gap in their employment sector belonging. As discussed in further detail below, inte- caused by their long history of emigration from the gration policies and practices for non-western Muslim country. These workers were not given legal citizenship immigrants living in the Netherlands have taken on an as they were expected to come in, work, and then return assimilatory approach. Through the use of in-depth and to their respective homelands once the employee shorta- ethnographic interviews with various educators and ges were over (Vink, 2007, p. 339-340). Despite a volunteers involved in local integration and settlement reduction in the number of jobs for low skilled laborers services, it becomes apparent that the idealized national throughout the 1970s, the guest worker population con- community in the Netherlands has become one where tinued to grow, mainly due to family reunification fluency in the Dutch language and the emancipation of policies. women have become particularly important. Further- Before 1979, the Dutch dealt with immigrants on an ad more, the comportment of oneself through Dutch spaces hoc basis as previous waves of immigrants were largely and the presence of these immigrants in Dutch spaces repatriates from Dutch colonies who integrated well into becomes a particularly interesting avenue for investi- society and, guest workers were assumed to be tem- gation with relation to the integration of Muslim women porary residents (Vink, 2007, p. 340). In 1979, however, immigrants into Dutch society in both a physical and the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) metaphorical stance. This paper begins with a brief released a report called Ethnic Minorities, which main- history of the concept of multiculturalism and integration tained that the Netherlands had become a land of policies in the Netherlands as a background to the Dutch immigration and that guest workers were not returning context. Next, I present my methodological approach and to their homelands as previously predicted (Vink, 2007). explore my research question using data collected during In 1983, the Minorities Memorandum was released and my doctoral research. These local experiences provide included “a number of general provisions that related to insight into first-hand accounts of nation-building from … the legal status of immigrants, most notably with front-line integration and settlement workers in order to regard to political participation and citizenship