space are investigated, and specifically bans in Dutch local bylaws on the
use of soft drugs in public space. Such local municipal bans first started to
appear at the turn of the millennium and multiplied in the ensuing decade,
until theRaad van Statethe highest judicial court in The Netherlands on
administrative lawdeclared the bans nugatory on 13 July 2011.^4
The aim of the overall research project is twofold: it pursues both a legal
and a sociological inquiry unto these bans. The legal inquiry pertains to the
various juridical issues surrounding the local bans. The sociological inquiry
investigates the political and social context in which these bans come about
and how these bans subsequently figure in the social life of a public space.
Consecutive to a more general desk-study, in total three case studies were
selected to research the dynamics surrounding such bans in actual public
space.^5 The present paper is limited to the fieldwork experience on one
particular site and centers on interactions with one particular group^6
amongst many represented on the site.
GETTING OTHERED DURING FIELDWORK
During fieldwork on a late afternoon on a warm summer day in
mid-August 2011, I write down the following:
I am sitting on the green bench in the south-west corner of the square, amidst a group
of teenage boys. I see ‘Tony’ approaching [I have no idea what his real name is, I never
ask for names, in my mind I call him Tony after Tony Montana from the movie
Scarface, he practices the same kind of swagger]. It is the first time I see him again in
this stretch of fieldwork. During my previous sojourn he aggressively ignored me, now
he walks straight towards me and shakes my hand. ‘Hej Ma’am, you’re back. I thought
to myself, what is a woman doing there on the square, but then I saw your car and I
knew it was you.’In 2011 I conducted fieldwork on a neighbourhood shopping-square in
Tilburg Noord calledVerdiplein, which translates into Verdi-square.^7 As a
child I lived in a town some twenty miles from this square. Nevertheless,
on the square, I was completely and ostentatiously out of place. The first
sentence ever addressed to me on the square was: ‘You are not from
around here, are you.’ There was no question mark in the communication,
it had not been meant as a polite inquiry.
I stood out onVerdipleinfor the same reason I had stood out in pre-
vious research sitessites much further removed from my natural habitat,
includingel barrio Capotillo, a slum neighbourhood in Santo Domingo,
‘You Are Not from Around Here, Are You.’ 3