VU Research Portal Tracing Slavery. An Ethnography of Diaspora, Affect, and Cultural Heritage in Amsterdam Balkenhol, M. 2014 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Balkenhol, M. (2014). Tracing Slavery. An Ethnography of Diaspora, Affect, and Cultural Heritage in Amsterdam. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 03. Oct. 2021 tracing slavery. an ethnography of diaspora, affect, and cultural heritage in amsterdam This dissertation is part of the research project Heritage Dynamics. Politics of Authentication and Aesthetics of Persuasion in Brazil, Ghana, South Africa and the Netherlands, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Cover design and layout: Via Bertha Cover photograph: women at a private birthday party in Amsterdam Zuidoost, by Markus Balkenhol Printed by: Ridderprint © 2014 Markus Balkenhol VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Tracing Slavery. An Ethnography of Diaspora, Affect, and Cultural Heritage in Amsterdam ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr. F.A. van der Duyn Schouten, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen op vrijdag 16 mei 2014 om 11.45 uur in de aula van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 door Markus Balkenhol geboren te Heidelberg, Duitsland promotor: prof.dr. H.W. Roodenburg copromotoren: dr. I.L. Stengs dr. F.E. Guadeloupe For Nola and Elyn Contents Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 Heritage dynamics 21 Embodied histories 23 Cultural memory and subjectivation 28 Collective memory, trauma, and affect 33 On ethnographers and experience 39 An ethnography of past matters 45 Part One – Diaspora 51 Chapter One. Diaspora, Territory, Place 52 Approaching Amsterdam Zuidoost 59 Blackness and danger – racializing Amsterdam Zuidoost 63 Sex and the other 68 Negotiating race, blurring boundaries 70 Race and urban restructuring 74 Conclusion 79 Chapter Two. Practices of Diaspora 80 The political context 82 Conflict and ambiguity 85 Cultural heritage 90 Tracing Africa 93 Conclusion 100 Part Two – Affect 103 Chapter Three. Silence and the Politics of Compassion 104 Presences 114 Politics of compassion 117 The limits of compassion 123 Appeals to solidarity? 127 Compassion and the location of ‘us’ and ‘them’ 130 Conclusion 134 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Four. Affective Formations 136 Affective formations of whiteness 139 White anger 140 Learning and unlearning to feel white 143 Articulating black emotion 145 Articulating blackness, articulating pain 146 Emotional migrants 150 Affective complexities of blackness 155 Learning to feel it 159 The management of emotions 161 Conclusion 168 Part Three – Heritage Dynamics 171 Chapter Five. Kaskawina – Politics of a Lower Frequency 172 Kaskawina’s changing frequencies 178 Politics of a lower frequency – origins 179 Race and immediacy 183 Spirituality, race, and the political 188 Kaskawina and the aesthetics of reticence 190 Incorporating kaskawina 194 Veiled stories and moral groundings 196 Class and the politics of distinction 200 Conclusion 201 Chapter Six. Doing cultural heritage. Race, Gender, and the Politics of Authenticity 203 Heritage politics 206 Blackness, whiteness, and the gender of cultural heritage 211 Women spirits and spirited women 216 Subjecthood, citizenship, and belonging 218 Masculinity 220 Politics of authenticity 222 Conclusion 226 Epilogue 228 Samenvatting 233 Notes 237 References 258 Acknowledgements The debts I have incurred during the course of this project are without doubt too large to acknowledge here in any adequate or comprehensive way. First and foremost, I want to thank those people who agreed to share their knowledge and feelings with me, both in Suriname and in the Netherlands. Most of these people must remain anonymous in this dissertation, but without them, quite simply there would have been no project. I want to thank one person in particular, who has given shape to this project like no other, and who is present throughout this text in ways that are at times apparent not even to me. Thank you, Roy Ristie, for your wisdom, humor, and friendship. I am honored to know you. I also want to thank explicitly Edouard and Yvette, whose real names will not be disclosed, but who have welcomed me in their homes to do research in Amsterdam Zuidoost. In the Netherlands, I want to thank explicitly Amy Abdou, Barryl Biekman, Aspha Bijnaar, Angelo Bromet, Maureen Caupain, Glenn Codfried, Jessy D’Abreu, Frank Dragtenstein, Lia Feller and the women (and men) of Afi Yuru (formerly Mama Yuru), Helga Fredison, Quinsy Gario, Bigi Ten, Glenn Helberg, Heloise Holband, Joseph Jordan, Kaikusi, Maria Karg-Reinders, Romeo Kotzebue, Peres Long Joy, Nana Markelo, Jetty Mathurin, Nana Mbroh, Jules Rijssen, Lotta Ruskamp, Valika Smeulders, Alex van Stipriaan, and Zuster Vianen. I thank Gisèle Roos La Diosa Misteriosa for her help, her company and for sharing her network. Thank you Virginia Sussenbach, may you rest in peace. In Suriname, I want to thank Trusnelda Blackson, Eartha Boerleider, Hillary de Bruin at Cultuurstudies, Ka’tje, Winston Kout, Cynthia McLeod and the staff of Sweet Merodia, Henny Panka and NAKS, Glenn Polimé, Celestine Raalte, Kortensia Sumter-Griffith, Claudette Toney, Erwin de Vries, Iwan Wijngaarde, and Armand Zunder. I also want to thank my supervisors Herman Roodenburg, Irene Stengs, and Francio Guadeloupe for their support, which began long before this project. Thank you for believing in me and my ideas. Thank you also for the incredibly meticulous, tireless, 10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and extensive reading of my text, for being there in late-night moments of panic, and for your friendship during challenging times. I also wish to thank my colleagues and friends of the heritage dynamics research group and the seminar on ‘religion, media, and the body’ at Meertens Institute, in particular Maria Paula Adinolfi, André Bakker, Duane Jethro, Maja Lovrenovic, Birgit Meyer, Mattijs van de Port, Jojada Verrips, and Marleen de Witte for commenting on various versions of the manuscript. Daan Beekers and Paul Mepschen, I am deeply grateful for our reading club where we discussed many versions of the text. I thank you for your friendship and support. I thank Gloria Wekker for giving so much of her time to give the manuscript an amazingly close reading and discussing the text extensively with me. Thanks to all of you, the text has improved immeasurably. Any remaining errors and inconsistencies are entirely my own. I also wish to thank the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University for their support and patience during a postdoctoral fellowship when this project was still in its final phase. In particular, I want to thank Rosi Braidotti, Ernst van den Hemel, Tobijn de Graauw for their kindness and the intellectual freedom they provided. I have institutional debts, as well. This research project was financed by the NWO as part of the Heritage Dynamics research project, for which I am grateful. I also want to thank VU University and the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology for their support. The Meertens Institute, my home base, has generously supported this project throughout the entire process in many ways. Lieke Michiels van Kessenich, this project would not have materialized if it was not for your love and seemingly endless patience. Without you – nothing. I dedicate this book to our daughters Nola Emilie and Elyn Ann, who had to endure the stress of a father in panic trying to complete his dissertation when they had barely even arrived in this world. Introduction On our way to the groceries, Yvette and I passed the statue of Anton de Kom, one of the most heatedly debated objects of cultural heritage in Amsterdam Zuidoost. De Kom (1898-1945) is one of the greatest Afro-Surinamese heroes who ‘called on all Surinamese for unity and equality, turned against colonial rule, and was active in the Dutch resistance 1940-1945.’1 Yvette, however, was brief about the statue: ‘It does not look like him,’ Yvette declared curtly, and that was all she had to say about the matter. As we drove on, Yvette swiftly turned her attention back to the task at hand – grocery shopping. Would they have all we needed at the shop, and would we be able to carry the heavy shopping trolley back up to the apartment? It is not that Yvette was unaware of the struggles about the statue of Anton de Kom. An initiative of local residents at the end of the 1990s, the statue had been a presence in the public sphere ever since. Calling for a ‘dignified statue for Anton de Kom’, the group of residents had argued that De Kom ought to become part of a shared body of cultural heritage: ‘Suriname and the Netherlands have a shared history. In recent years, a growing awareness seems to develop among both scientists and politi- cians that this shared history can no longer be stashed away, but that it ought to have a prominent place within Dutch Culture [sic]. … In view of this process, this seems to us a timely moment for the rehabilitation of Anton de Kom.’ The initiative had been received enthusiastically across the board, and the public had repeatedly been asked to get involved in the creation of the statue.