Panel 1.3 – chair Roselinde Supheert
Vluchtelingen: van massa naar mens
– Iris Huisman (ICC Master alumna, Utrecht)
Het doel van mijn scriptieonderzoek is de representatie van en het discours over vluchtelingen in Nederlandse kranten in kaart te brengen en tevens inzicht te bieden in de werking van kranten en bewustzijn te creëren met betrekking tot de invloed die deze kunnen hebben. Aan de basis van het onderzoek liggen theorieën over representatie, discours en ideologieën , framing , de rol van (papieren) media en discursief racisme 1 2 3 in de media 4. Voor het onderzoek werden 105 krantenartikelen uit de vier grootste landelijke dagbladen (NRC Handelsblad, De Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad en De Telegraaf) uit de maand september 2015 door middel van een kritische discoursanalyse5 onderzocht. Een lexicatie-analyse ging na op welke manier er in de artikelen naar vluchtelingen wordt verwezen. Met een predicatie-analyse werd onderzocht welke eigenschappen er aan vluchtelingen worden toegewezen, waarna deze in categorieën werden onderverdeeld. Door een analyse van verbale processen werd onderzocht wie er aan het woord komt (en wie niet). Tot slot werd nagegaan in hoeverre de representatie overeenkomt met de sociale praktijk waarin de krantenartikelen tot stand zijn gekomen.
Op basis van de resultaten werd geconcludeerd dat de representatie minder negatief is dan verwacht werd op basis van eerder onderzoek en literatuur6. Er is sprake van een verdeeld discours, hetgeen een afspiegeling is van uiteenlopende gevoelens in de maatschappij. Zo is er aan de ene kant angst en onbegrip voor vluchtelingen die in grote getale komen, en aan de andere kant aandacht voor de vluchteling als persoon en als slachtoffer. Dit tweede beeld kan bijdragen aan erkenning van de vluchtelingen als mens en gelijke.
How to anticipate on the variety of cultural rituals concerning death as a photographer for Make a Memory Foundation?
– Maaike Aans, Wieke Eefting and Jan ten Thije (UiL-OTS, Utrecht)
Make a Memory Foundation (MaM) offers parents who suffer the loss of a child (from 23 weeks up to age 17), a photo series of their terminally ill, dying or deceased child. These series are made by a professional photographer and are free of charge. The photo series offer parents a consolation. This lasting memory of their child can be very valuable in the mourning process.
In line with the global trend, The Netherlands is increasingly becoming a multicultural society. Consequently, the photographers who volunteer for the Make a Memory Foundation, have to deal with a wide variety of cultural rituals concerning death on the one hand, and the personal aspects of grief on the other hand.
Presently, at Utrecht University we are carrying out a study on the experience of the photographers, the strategies they use to cope with the diversity they encounter, how it influences their behavior and choices they make with respect to the photos that are presented to the parents. On the other hand, the point of view of the parents will be explored. Interviews with ten photographers, several parents and professional religious caretakers (such as a priest and an imam) are the basis for this study.
In this presentation, we will explain how Make a Memory works. Further, we will elaborate on the increasing cultural diversity we encounter and on how the knowledge available at ICC such as the Face theory of Goffman (1967) and the superdiversity theory of Vertovec (2007) can help us to keep up with the needs of parents with more and more different cultural and religious backgrounds.
Panel 2.3 – chair Gandolfo Cascio
Linguistic advantages of bilingualism: Positive transfer in the acquisition of Dutch grammatical gender
– Elena Tribushinina and Pim Mak (UiL-OTS, Utrecht)
In this talk we will report two experiments testing the bilingual bootstrapping hypothesis. More specifically, we test the prediction that knowledge of a language with a salient and transparent gender system (e.g. Russian, Limburgisch) may facilitate the acquisition of pronominal gender in Dutch. In Experiment 1, we compare pronoun use in narratives produced by monolingual Dutch-speaking children and age-matched Russian-Dutch (simultaneous and early sequential) bilinguals. The results demonstrate that monolingual children aged 7 are still in the process of acquiring feminine pronouns and tend to use masculine pronouns across the board. In contrast, bilinguals use both masculine and feminine pronouns. The performance of simultaneous bilinguals is not significantly different from that of L1 adults, whereas early sequential bilinguals use more feminine pronouns than Dutch adults.
In Experiment 2, we use eye-tracking to compare the online processing of gender-marked definite determiners and pronouns by 4-year-old Dutch-speaking monolinguals and age-matched Dutch-Limburgisch bilinguals. Both monolinguals and bilinguals looked at the female referent upon hearing the feminine pronoun, which indicates that they are sensitive to pronoun gender. This said, only bilinguals were able to predict the upcoming noun based on the determiner. We conclude that bilinguals have an advantage in the acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch if their other language has a more salient and transparent gender system.
Talking about ethnicity, nationality and culture in police interrogations
– Tessa van Charldorp (UiL-OTS, Utrecht)
Using ethnic categories can be a delicate matter in various institutional settings, such as the police context. In this paper, we uncover how ethnicity, nationality and culture play a role in one-on-one interaction between officer(s) and suspect by analyzing how these concepts are made relevant in interaction. Using conversation analysis we studied the interaction between officer(s) and suspect in 15 Dutch police interrogations.
Speakers use ethnic labels when they tell stories about what happened, give accounts, or complain (Stokoe and Edwards, 2007; Whitehead and Lerner, 2009). Sometimes, ethnicity becomes the topic of the conversation, but often, ethnic labels are used in passing. Whitehead and Lerner (2009) speak of ‘descriptive adequacy’ to explain why people use labels when they do not appear to have anything to do with the topic of the conversation. They show that participants take race for granted, unless speakers refer to a person who is not part of the taken-for-granted category. In those cases, an ethnic label is used for descriptive adequacy.
Our analyses thus far show that both officers and suspects try to be descriptively accurate but also use these categories to: 1) build a relationship; 2) describe a person casually or solve a misunderstanding; 3) ask for or give police-relevant descriptions; 4) teach suspects a lesson. In this presentation we will show examples of these four ways in which police officers and suspects use delicate terms without causing any trouble between the speakers, who are often of different nationalities, cultures and ethnicities.
References
Stokoe, E. & Edwards, D. (2007). ‘Black this, black that’: racial insults and reported speech in neighbour complaints and police interrogations. Discourse & Society, 18(3) pp. 337-372.
Whitehead, K. & Lerner, G. (2009). ‘When are persons ‘white’?: on some practical asymmetries of racial reference in talk-in-interaction’. Discourse & Society, 20(5), pp. 613-641.
Panel 3.3 – chair Olivier Sécardin
The Representation of National Cultures in Disney Classics and their Live-Action Adaptations
– Azra Alagic (ICC Master student, Utrecht)
In recent years, Disney’s animated classics[1], have become even more popular as modern television shows and live-action adaptations, such as Once Upon a Time (2011), Maleficent (2014), and Cinderella (2015), have re-introduced various of the beloved Disney characters that many viewers came to love while growing up. The hype continues to grow as the upcoming live-action movies Beauty and the Beast and Mulan are to be released in 2017/2018. Nevertheless, researchers have recently criticized Disney’s representations of national cultures, which are often portrayed by using stereotypical depictions of race. Although extensive research has been conducted on the representation of national cultures within animated Disney classics, relatively little research has been conducted on the representation of national cultures within Disney’s newer live-action adaptations of these classics[2]. Therefore, this research will look into how national cultures are represented within the original Disney classic Cinderella (1950), and whether the representation of these national cultures has changed within its live-action adaptations Cinderella (1997) and Cinderella (2015).
This particular animated Disney classic was chosen for the two following reasons: firstly, this film has been widely researched in terms of the representation of female identity. However, research on the representation of national cultures within this specific film remains limited. Secondly, it is interesting to look Cinderella, as the original tale has been adapted globally according to various cultural contexts over the centuries.
Thus, this research aims to provide new insights within the field of Imagology by looking into the representation of national cultures in the animated Disney classic Cinderella and its live-action adaptations, and to research whether the representation of these national cultures has changed within the newer films. It is important to conduct research in this particular field to gain more understanding into how the media can influence audiences’ perceptions of various cultures, and whether these representations are adapted according to current societal changes.
[1] These are films that are completely drawn by hand without using any computer animation.
[2] These are films that feature real actors rather than computer-generated effects or drawn animations.
Doing digital migration studies. Young connected migrants: encapsulation and cosmopolitanization
– Koen Leurs (ICON – Genderstudies, Utrecht)
During the so-called “European refugee crisis,’ the dichotomies of bodies that were naturalized into technology usage and the bodies that remain alienated from it betrayed the geographic, racial, and gendered discriminations that digital technologies, despite their claims at neutrality and flatness, continue to espouse. In this moment of crisis, the digitally connected migrant was getting a lot of flak, which is exemplary of “high-tech Orientalism” (Chun, 2008, p. 73). News headlines and social media tropes commonly questioned Syrian refugees who arrived in Europe carrying smart phones. For example, a frontpage headline on the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad questioned, “Why do those refugees take selfies all the time?” (Rosman & van Mersbergen, 2016) while right-wing social media memes depicted refugees carrying smart phones as bogus asylum seekers. So far the relationships between media and migration have mostly been considered from the perspective of news framing, representation and meaning making.
However, digital media use provides a timely entry-point to explore the migrant condition from the perspective of migrants themselves: migration and digital technologies are both characterized by paradoxical experiences of space and time. This presentation will share experiences of young forced migrants – particularly young Syrians – living in the Netherlands. Their smart-phone use was taken as a main entry point to study processes and perceptions of identification, learning, affectivity and human rights. Drawing on ongoing in-depth interviews, digital ethnography and participatory research, the smart phone is operationalized as a personal pocket archive. In my research, publications and dissemination I invited participants to reflect on the content of their own pocket archives. As part of this project, I am working on an interactive installation consisting of short video-portraits where young connected migrants reflect upon and curate their own pocket archives consisting of photos, videos, music play-list and app preferences. Experiences of young connected refugees shed a particular light on mobility and immobility, borders, unbelonging, cultural memory, changing representations of cultural groups, and identity formation. In this presentation I will theorize and empirically sustain a dialectical understanding of how connected migrants are always involved in simultaneous processes of “encapsulation” – maintaining a sense of collective identity with fellow members of a bounded diasporic community – and “cosmopolitanization” – bridging local intercultural differences by engaging with various communities different to their own.
Panel 4.3 – chair Jan ten Thije
Opvang van kinderen van vluchtelingen (EDINA-project)
– Sergio Baauw (UiL-OTS, Utrecht)
Onderzoek naar recente migrantenkinderen (NAMS) die afkomstig zijn van een speciale ontvangstschool, toont aan dat deze kinderen na overgang naar het reguliere onderwijs, op verschillende vaardigheden zoals spelling, begrijpend lezen, technisch lezen en rekenen en wiskunde, even goed scoorden als hun klasgenoten, en evenmin afweken van het landelijk gemiddelde. Echter, deze NAMS stroomden structureel in lagere klassen in dan waar zij op grond van hun leeftijd terecht zouden moeten komen. Het EDINA-project probeert verbetering te brengen in deze situatie. In het kader van het EDINA-project zijn een drietal instrumenten ontwikkeld die al doel hebben leraren handvatten te bieden bij de omgang met NAMS. Het programma bevat een module om specifieke leerkracht-vaardigheden te ontwikkelen, een module om actieve differentiatie binnen het klaslokaal aan te moedigen, en een toolset en hulpbronnen om de ontvangst, observatie en transitieprocessen van NAMS te optimaliseren. Tijdens deze lezing zullen verschillende onderdelen van de toolset worden besproken.
Wat migratie met je identiteit kan doen
– Elisa Candido (ICC Master alumna, PHD, Udine)
Migratie is een welbekend fenomeen voor de Albanese bevolking. Sommigen beweren zelfs dat de helft van alle Albanezen in het buitenland woonachtig is ( Morozzo della Rocca, 2001). Italië is daarbij een geliefde bestemming. Tussen de 14e en 16e eeuw emigreerden velen naar Venetië, vanwege de grote werkgelegenheid die de stad bood. De Turkse invasies, die het balkanische land tussen de het eind van de 14e eeuw en de 18e eeuw teisterden, bracht wederom een migratiestroom in de richting van Italië op gang.
In een meer recentelijk verleden bracht het vallen van het communistische en totalitaire bewind, begin jaren ’90 van de vorige eeuw, een reeks van migratiegolven in de richting van het Zuid-Europese land op gang. De sociaalhistorische context, de Italiaanse taal- en migratiepolitiek, de macht van de Italiaanse media, het zijn slechts een aantal factoren, die veel Albanese emigranten ertoe hebben gebracht hun identiteit en taalgedrag vergaand – zo niet radicaal – aan de nieuwe samenleving aan te passen.
Het sociolinguïstische onderzoek – met als hoofdvraag Who speaks what language to whom, when, why, where, and what will it lead to? – richt zich niet alleen op deze factoren en het resultaat van dit (taal)gedrag, maar staat ook stil bij de aspecten, die de maatschappelijke integratie van deze groep migranten uiteindelijk tot een groot succes hebben gemaakt.