ETHNIC AMSTERDAM: IMMIGRANTS AND URBAN CHANGE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

edited by Liza Nell and Jan Rath

Solidarity and identity Series
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009
Paperback, ca. 208 pp.
ISBN 978 90 8964 168 7
List price EUR 51,20
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SUMMARY

The interplay between immigrants and the host society is a multilayered process, covering many societal spheres, including the economic, socio-political and cultural ones. As this book makes clear, this interplay is highly dynamic and a two-way process. The fate of immigrants is shaped by the institutional make-up of the host society, but at the same time immigrants – the vox populi notwithstanding – leave their ineradicable mark on the host society. This book explores how migrants change the city in which they settle. It traces how inward migration has transformed Amsterdam in the 20th century and how migrant activities in domains as diverse as religion, sports, language and food have contributed to the cosmopolitan character of Amsterdam as a world city. In doing so, Ethnic Amsterdam: Immigrants and Urban Change in the Twentieth Century shows how immigrants have marked Amsterdam as a city sometimes clearly visible, but sometimes also invisible for the general public. Some migrant habits have been adapted by the native population, others remain ‘ethnic’ as a niche for a specific group; others finally are invisible, since these changes basically take place behind closed doors.

CONTENTS

Preface

1 Am I Amsterdam? Immigrant integration and urban change
Liza Nell & Jan Rath

2 Ethnic groups in Amsterdam’s public spaces
Thaddeus Müller

3 Eating out ‘ethnic’ in Amsterdam from the 1920s to the present
Anneke H. van Otterloo

4 Living Amsterdam: tangible homes behind Amsterdam’s facades
Hilje van der Horst

5 Housing and population: spatial mobility in twentieth-century Amsterdam
Hans van Amersfoort & Cees Cortie †

6 Towards cultural diversity in Amsterdam’s arts
Christine Delhaye

7 Multilingual Amsterdam
Folkert Kuiken

8 Immigrant organisations in Amsterdam
Floris Vermeulen & Anja van Heelsum

9 Houses of worship and the politics of space in Amsterdam
Thijl Sunier

10 The integration of migrants into the Amsterdam sport pattern
Ruud Stokvis

11 Social boundaries in movement
Liza Nell & Jan Rath

About the contributors
References
Index