The subtitle of this paper reads: Getting othered in participant observa-
tion. What I have tried to demonstrate is that by getting othered by my
field, I came to analytical insights that took me above and beyond the
unconscious presuppositions I had first carried with me into the field. By
explicitly recounting my own experience, I aim to clarify and substantialize
my analysis of and report on the field and issues I research.
NOTES
- The fresh leaves of the qat plant have a mild stimulating effect when chewed
on. In the Netherlands qat is used predominantly by the Somali community. At the
time of the fieldwork it was not an illegal substance in The Netherlands. - The research is a Ph.D. project at the University of Amsterdam, jointly
carried by the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences. - For a good, in-depth treatise on juridification, seeBlichner and Molander
(2008). - TheRaadvan Statedeclared the municipal bans nugatory on the grounds
that the use of soft drugs is already prohibited by the national Opium Act (LJN:
BR1425, Raad van State, 201009884/1/H3). In short, the ruling states that a lower
authority cannot duplicate an act from a higher authority. This is not changed by
the fact that the Opium Act is matched by a national directive that all instances of
possession (and hence use) of a maximum of 5 grams of soft drugs are automatically
exempt from prosecution. Per 1 January 2013 this national directive has been
adjusted, enabling prosecution in designated instances. - The three research sites were situated in Amsterdam, Spakenburg and
Tilburg. The present paper is limited to fieldwork conducted in Tilburg. - I expand on my ostensible nonchalant use of the concept ‘group’ in Note 15.
- Tilburg is the sixth city of The Netherlands with a population of just over
200,000 inhabitants. Verdiplein is central to Stokhasselt, an archetypical post-war
built, low-income, high ethnicstratification borough situated at the north side of
Tilburg. The borough holds the largest community of Somalis in The Netherlands,
their official number is 1,255 per 1 January 2012 (municipal records), their unofficial
count is thought to be much higher. - I have been made attentive to the fact that for the native English speaker the
term ‘boy’ can have strong negative connotations, especially when used in relation
to ethnic minorities. Hence in other texts I use ‘young male adolescents’. The Dutch
word for ‘boys’ isjongensand isto my knowledgeonly derogative in terms of
age and maturity. - ‘Edward’ is the name he gave me and as I have good reason to believe this is
not his real name (when I referred to him as Edward to his wife she did not under-
stand who I was talking about) I call him Edward here. Edward originates from
Curacao.
10.Rustigcan be translated into ‘quiet’, ‘peaceful’, ‘untroubled’. Edward consis-
tently used the phrase for ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’.
‘You Are Not from Around Here, Are You.’ 15