Conceptualizing Culture in Discourses of Policy and Reform in Amsterdam Gail Meryl Zuckerwise UCL PhD I, Gail Meryl Zuckerwise confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis Abstract: This project addresses the relationship between the concept of culture in cultural policies and the culture that is attributed to the identity of Amsterdam. Culture is becoming increasingly central to discourses of policy and reform in particular ways, which are exemplified by the case of Amsterdam that is studied. I use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine four case studies. This method enables me to divide my case studies into three categories of discourses of reform: Administrative/policy discourses, Discourses of intervention and Academic discourses. I analyze each discourse separately in order to present a holistic conceptualization of culture in the context of reform. I illustrate how culture is a concept that becomes relevant and significant in discourses of reform in different ways. Thus, alongside my aim of analyzing culture as a diversely significant concept, this project also intends to present CDA as a productive method for theorizing and analyzing contemporary culture. Amsterdam presents a city where urban policies and reforms can be described as cultural policies and reforms. It is a case where we can study 1) this kind of policy and reform that are described as cultural; 2) the shift in the context of policies and reforms, in relation to a changing concept of culture. For this study of culture and cultural policy, I suggest that Foucault’s concept of governmentality is productive. This concept is derived from the terms “government” and “mentality”, offering a tool for analyzing the convergence of technologies of government work and a new political rationality. In this case, it is a concept that is productive for analyzing how discourses of reform relate to a particular rationality that is linked to the concept of culture in the city. This is achieved through case studies that analyze the governmentality of reform in relation to identities, industries, places and practices that are associated with culture in Amsterdam. 1 1. INTRODUCING CULTURE IN THIS PROJECT ............................................................ 9 1.1 INTRODUCING CULTURE: DEFINITIONS .......................................................................................... 9 1.2 INTRODUCING KEY SCHOLARSHIP: THE FOUNDATIONS OF MY APPROACH FOR RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................................... 10 1.3 INTRODUCING CULTURE: THE GOVERNMENTALITY OF CULTURAL POLICIES AND REFORMS .... 17 2. METHODOLOGY: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ............................................ 19 2.1 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 19 2.2 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: DEFINING THE TERMS ............................................................. 22 2.3 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: SELECTING CASE STUDIES ....................................................... 25 3. A POLICY/ADMINISTRATIVE DISCOURSE OF REFORM: CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF CITY MARKETING AND BRANDING ........................................................ 31 3.1 I AMSTERDAM: AN INTRODUCTION TO CITY MARKETING AND BRANDING IN AMSTERDAM .... 33 3.2 I AMSTERDAM: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STRATEGY FOR MARKETING AND BRANDING AMSTERDAM ............................................................................................................................................. 35 3.3 I AMSTERDAM: THE MAKING OF…THE CITY MARKETING OF AMSTERDAM .............................. 48 3.4 I AMSTERDAM: CONCLUDING REMARKS ....................................................................................... 68 4. A POLICY/ADMINISTRATIVE DISCOURSE OF REFORM: CULTURE IN CONTEXTS OF SOCIO-SPATIAL INTERVENTIONS ........................................................ 73 4.1 PROJECT 1012: QUALITY FOR THE HEART OF AMSTERDAM ..................................................... 74 4.2 PROJECT 1012: FUTURE PERSPECTIVES ..................................................................................... 78 4.3 PROJECT 1012: UNDER CONSTRUCTION ..................................................................................... 97 4.4 PROJECT 1012: CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................. 110 5. DISCOURSES FROM INTERVENTION: RESISTING AND RESPONDING TO CONTENT AND CONTEXTS OF POLICY AND REFORM ............................................. 117 5.1 DISCOURSES FROM INTERVENTIONS: RED A.I.R ....................................................................... 118 5.2 RED A.I.R: THE PROGRAM ......................................................................................................... 122 5.3 RED A.I.R: LAURENCE AËGERTER .............................................................................................. 126 5.4 RED A.I.R: ALEXIS BLAKE AND CONCLUDING PANEL DISCUSSION .......................................... 131 5.5 DISCOURSES FROM INTERVENTIONS: CONCLUDING REMARKS ................................................ 140 2 6. AN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE ON REFORM: “RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION” .................................................................................................................. 148 6.1 RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: AN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE ON REFORM IN AMSTERDAM’S RED LIGHT DISTRICT ................................................................................................... 148 6.2 RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: INTRODUCTION .............................................. 150 6.3 RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: PLACING PROSTITUTION ............................... 154 6.4 RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: GOVERNMENTALITY IN AMSTERDAM’S RED LIGHT DISTRICT ..................................................................................................................................... 159 6.5 RE-MAKING A LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: FROM RED LIGHT TO BLACK LIGHT ............... 162 6.6 RE-MAKING THE LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: A COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS OF REDLIGHT ART AMSTERDAM .................................................................................................................................. 166 6.7 RE-MAKING THE LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: REDLIGHT ART .......................................... 169 6.7.1 REDLIGHT ART: ACHIM LENGERER: HOLD ON, I, TOO, AM DRIFTING…(A SPEECH PERFORMANCE WITH KEVIN CREGAN) ............................................................................................................................................. 169 6.7.2 REDLIGHT ART: ALEXIS BLAKE: IN/OUT/EITHER/NEITHER, REFLECTIONS OF A CHOICE . 171 6.7.3 REDLIGHT ART: LAURENCE AËGERTER: OPENING SOON/OPENING NOW .................................... 174 6.8 RE-MAKING THE LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: AFTERWORD .............................................. 175 6.9 RE-MAKING THE LANDSCAPE OF PROSTITUTION: CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................ 178 7. CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................. 182 8. WORKS CITED .............................................................................................................. 194 APPENDIX A: IMAGES REFERRED TO IN CHAPTER 3 .............................................. 199 APPENDIX B: IMAGES REFERRED TO IN CHAPTER 4 .............................................. 201 APPENDIX C: IMAGES REFERRED TO IN CHAPTER 5 .............................................. 211 APPENDIX D: IMAGES REFERRED TO IN CHAPTER 6 .............................................. 218 3 PREFACE: THE GENESIS OF THIS PROJECT This project evolved from research that I conducted as an undergraduate student of anthropology at Amherst College. I spent four months in Amsterdam, where I first became interested in the different ways that people experienced and interacted in the Amsterdam Red Light District1. It seemed that almost everyone who engaged with this part of the city was either visiting or working in the Red Light District. While I observed canal houses along the narrow streets of the area, I was overwhelmed by the majority of people in this area who were obviously tourists, and it seemed like there were scarcely any locals populating this part of the city. In the summer of 2005, I returned to Amsterdam for my undergraduate thesis research, which focused on sex workers’ positive experiences in Amsterdam’s Red Light District (Zuckerwise, 2005). I interviewed sex workers, and I questioned how the words “liberal” and “tolerant” related to the ideas and experiences of people living in the city and those working in and around the sex industry and those visiting Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Through sex workers’ positive experiences, I also learned of the stigmatization that has always been factored into discourses on prostitution in Amsterdam. From residents, who often acknowledged the historic and economic significance of the Red Light District, I learned that it was common practice to avoid passing through the central streets of this area (even if their detours made their journeys longer). In general, the residents took pride in the history they identified with this area, and they recognized part of the city’s