ESHCC graduate Maud van Roessel and Associate Professor Dr. Delia Dumitrica have recently published an article based on Maud’s master thesis (Media, Culture & Society, 2022 cohort) in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies. The article, titled ‘Living in in a world with(out) racism: everyday reflexivity among older White Dutch’, explores how older White Dutch people reflexively engage with race and racism in the context of the public controversy around the ‘Zwarte Piet’ (black Pete) tradition.
The topic was inspired by Maud’s own personal experiences:
“The public debate around ‘Zwarte Piet’ prompted me to learn more about institutional racism in the Netherlands. I started wondering how this has influenced my own life and identity as a Dutch White person growing up in the Netherlands with this tradition. As the debate was slowly leading to changes and adaptations in ‘Piet’s’ appearance across the country, opinion polls suggested older people were also gradually changing their opinions on this topic. This made me curious about how this group experienced the debate. Were their views changing in the same way as mine had? So, I decided to just ask them.”
Contribution to scientific knowledge and societal impact
Interviewing older participants was a challenge, as Maud had to actively go outside her own network of friends and colleagues to recruit participants. However, this interest in a less-studied population (at least in the context of this topic) made an important contribution to the field.
Turning the thesis into an article was a long-term process requiring additional investment from both student and supervisor. At first, Maud presented on the article in different research conferences, gathering feedback from peers in the field on the theoretical framework and the findings of the research project:
“For me, it was worth it to further improve the quality of the results and to get this research out there. I believe that there is a lot of thesis research which can contribute to overall scientific knowledge and create more societal impact. Therefore, I am very grateful that Delia encouraged and helped me to improve and disseminate mine. I really appreciate all the advice and support Delia has given me throughout and beyond this process.”
'dance of reflexivity'
Teaming up as co-authors entailed not just reducing a 20.000-word thesis to a 9.000-word article, but also a re-focusing of the findings in line with the overall line of argumentation. The paper argued that older individuals combine their own views and identities with familiar discourses about Whiteness and race in the Dutch context. This happens across three different discursive contexts: (1) generational (dis)connectedness, (2) ever-evolving public discourses, and (3) identity (re)considerations. Each of these contexts offered different opportunities for and challenges to self-reflexivity. Becoming reflexive about one’s own views on race and racism often entailed rapid shifts from critical self-reflection to falling back upon familiar hegemonic discourses on Whiteness, in what the authors have termed the ‘dance of reflexivity.’
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If interested in reading more about this research, you can read the full article here.
