The trigger was when I had exactly the same description used by two
respondents on opposite ends of the spectrum. That description was: ‘It’s
just like the marketplace in Morocco here’. The one respondent used this
to express what a wonderful placeVerdipleinwas; the other respondent
used this comparison to convey the total degeneracy of the square. To be
clear, neither respondent was Moroccan or part of the ‘street corner boy
society’. Both were representative of the ‘ordinary’ inhabitants of the
Stokhasselt neighbourhood.
This double meaning of the description ‘it is just like the marketplace in
Morocco here’ neatly summarizes the wide variation in appreciation of the
square. The variation lies not so much in the perception of the dynamics of
the square, but in the subsequent valuation of the perception. In other
words, a certain situation is interpreted in completely different ways by dif-
ferent people, dependent on the characteristics they pull to the forefront.
The formal rules regulating the space, prohibiting the gathering with three
or more people and banning the use of alcohol and qat, reflect the senti-
ment of only part of the users of the square. The bans convey the percep-
tion that the boisterous congregation of men, predominantly young and fit,
predominantly non-native Dutch, is nuisance.^17 The bans do not relate to
the factor ofgezelligheidexperienced in those congregations. Put differ-
ently, the codified norms onVerdipleinare cultural norms on proper beha-
viour versus undesirable behaviour in public space: they example the
mechanism of ‘cultural imperialism’, as defined by Iris Marion Young.
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
According to Young, cultural imperialism involves ‘the universalization of
a dominant group’s experience and culture, and its establishment as the
norm’(2011, p. 59).Young defined her concept working on feminist theory
from an angle of critical theory. Her understanding of culture is not limited
to or even dominated by the ethnic connotations often present in anthropo-
logical lenses. The dominant group in Young’s work consists initially of
those who share ‘the particularity of white, male, bourgeois experience and
ideals’ (Allen, 2011, p. x), who are moreover heterosexual, able-bodied and
‘not-old’ (Young, 2011, p. 14). Whilst Young’s particular interest is
the position of women, her work also reaches out to the social position of
other dominated groups. The projection of the dominant group of their
12 DANIELLE CHEVALIER