Koen Leurs

Printing my dissertation and sending it to members of my committee

2012-03-19T14:58:00.001+01:00

Right now I'm printing my dissertation to send it to the members of my committee.

Presenting @ NOG // Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Transgenerational Perspectives

2012-03-09T12:37:00.000+01:00

Today I have presented at the Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Transgenerational Perspectives

National Research Day for PhD students in the field of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Diversity

Friday March 9, 2012 – Radboud University Nijmegen

Click here for more information.

Abstract:

In this presentation I focussed on spatial hierarchies, a dynamic that I observed across different internet platforms. Critical sociologist Nirwal Puwar explains that every space has its own template. She studied institutionalized spaces in Britain and noted that bodies of a certain race or genders are considered as “out of place”. Thus, she adds, a space is guided by its own protocols, holding “privileged and reserved positions”. Puwar argues there is now an ‘increased presence of women and racialised minorities into spaces in the public realm which have been predominantly been occupied by white men” such as the parliament, civil service and academia. But she argues, they sometimes remain “space invaders” when confronted with the dominant norms. Templates and norms are most often oriented towards “white male bodies of a specific habitus” she notes (2004, p. 141). I extend her focus to empirically study and transform our thinking about hierarchies in spaces on the Internet.

New publication: Digital Multiculturalism in the Netherlands: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Positioning by Moroccan-Dutch Youth

2012-02-22T18:27:00.000+01:00

Digital Multiculturalism in the Netherlands: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Positioning by Moroccan-Dutch Youth

Koen Leurs, Eva Midden, Sandra Ponzanesi

Abstract This article focuses on digital practices of Moroccan-Dutch adolescents in the Netherlands. The digital sphere is still rather understudied in the Netherlands. However, it offers a unique, entry to intersecting issues of religiosity, ethnicity and gender as well as to their implications for thinking about multiculturalism from new vantage points. What do digital practices such as online discussion board participation tell us about identity and multiculturalism? The three forms of position acquisition under discussion (gender, religion and ethnic positioning) show that neither religion, ethnicity, nor gender cease to exist in the digital realm but are constantly negotiated, reimagined and relocated. Drawing from the work of Modood, Gilroy and other critics of gender, media, multiculturalism and postcoloniality, we argue that online activities of the Moroccan-Dutch youth not only offer an important critique of mainstream media debates on multiculturalism, but also create space for alternative bottom-up interpretations of everyday practices of multiculturalism in the Netherlands.

The journal Religion and Gender is open-access, you can access the article here:
http://www.religionandgender.org/index.php/rg/article/view/36

New publication, bookchapter in anthology Cyberfeminism 2.0

2012-02-14T14:42:00.003+01:00

On March 1, the book Cyberfeminism, edited by Radhika Gajjala and Yeon Ju Oh, will be released by Peter Lang.

I have a bookchapter forthcoming in this anthology:

Leurs, K. (2012). Migrant youth invading digital spaces: Intersectional

performativity of self in socio-technological networks. In R. Gajalla & Yeon,
J.O. (Eds.), Cyberfeminism 2.0, (pp. 295-313). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

See the book on Amazon and Peter Lang.

NRC Next artikel over de commerciële exploitatie van onze imago constructie op Facebook

2011-12-16T11:41:00.003+01:00

In de NRC Next van 15 December schreef Kelli van der Waals over hoe mensen werken aan hun imago op profielpagina's op bijvoorbeeld Facebook. Ik ben geïnterviewd voor dit artikel over de sociale implicaties van 'user-generated content', oftewel de informatie die we op onze profiel pagina's zetten om een beeld van onszelf te scheppen een vorm van 'virtual labor' / 'immaterial labor' / 'free labor' is die platform eigenaren monitoren, kanaliseren en commercieel uitbuiten.

Een citaat uit het stuk:

"Maar misschien ziet deze ‘zorgvuldige’ generatie toch een ander bezwaar over het hoofd: terwijl jij op Facebook al dan niet bewust een merk bouwt, verbind je dat merk aan Facebook en ben je minstens zo hard aan het werk voor meneer Zuckerberg als voor jezelf. Samen met je digitale vrienden breng je namelijk waardevolle informatie in kaart voor derde partijen. Die partijen betalen daar graag voor, maar aan de eigenaren van de sociaalnetwerksites en niet aan jou. Leurs: „Je werkt aan jezelf, maar in dienst van wat?”"

Afkomstig uit NRC Next, 15 December 2011.

Publication update - bookchapter - Migrant youth invading digital spaces: Intersectional performativity of self in socio-technological networks; out February 2012 @ Peter Lang

2011-12-02T14:38:00.001+01:00

Last edits for bookchapter on "Migrant youth invading digital spaces: Intersectional performativity of self in socio-technological networks". I am glad to say that, with this very last proofreading, the edited volume on "where have all the cyberfeminists gone" edited by Radhika Gajalla and Yeon Ju Oh will come out in February 2012 with Peter Lang.

Written contribution to forthcoming Dutch book for 'Zinzoekers op het web' project.

2011-11-23T15:18:00.000+01:00

Fadi Hirzalla, Liesbeth van Zoonen and I have written an explorative article on the emancipatory potential of digital media for Muslim minority youth in the Netherlands and elsewhere, entitled "Where muslim youth can pave their own path". The chapter is forthcoming, in Dutch, early 2012 with Uitgeverij Skandalon.

Korte beschrijving in het Nederlands:

Waar moslimjongeren een eigen koers kunnen varen

Hoe minderheden het internet en andere digitale media gebruiken voor zelfrepresentatie, discussie en protest is inmiddels ruim besproken in de wetenschappelijke literatuur. In dit artikel zullen we nader toelichten hoe deze literatuur inzichtelijk maakt hoe specifiek jonge moslims, primair in Nederland maar ook elders, verschillende internetapplicaties gebruiken om een eigen koers te varen in de vorming van drie dimensies van hun identiteit: religie, etniciteit en gender. Deze drie dimensies bieden elk een andere invalshoek op de vraag waarom, en in welke context, het eigenlijk vooral van belang is dat jongeren dit kunnen doen

Het artikel vormt een onderdeel van een publicatie die tot stand komt in het kader van het Zinzoekers op het Web project.

Article published in Feminist Review, now out!

2011-11-09T12:10:00.000+01:00

The article "communicative spaces of their own: migrant girls performing selves using instant messaging software" I wrote together with Sandra Ponzanesi has been published in Feminist Review, isse 99 on 'Media Transformations'.

Special issue description:

How is gender authorship and use manifest in the engagement within communication technologies and networks in a global media environment? In this special issue, edited by Lizzie Thynne and Nadje Al-Ali, theorizations of globalized media are interrogated through studies of actual media use in transnational contexts, including bloggers in the Iranian diaspora and young Moroccan-Dutch women creating their own spaces through instant messaging. Leading documentary-maker Kim Longinotto also discusses how she creates feminist interventions in the media landscape.

Abstract:

In this article, we argue how instant messaging (IM) is actively made into a communicative space of their own among migrant girls. Triangulating data gathered through large-scale surveys, interviews and textual analysis of IM transcripts, we focus on Moroccan-Dutch girls who use instant messaging as a space where they can negotiate several issues at the crossroads of national, ethnic, racial, age and linguistic specificities. We take an intersectional perspective to disentangle how they perform differential selves using IM both as an ‘onstage’ activity through which they express their communal, public and global youth cultural belongings and as a ‘backstage’ activity through which they articulate their individual, private and intimate identity expression. Instant messaging appears to be a space where they can strategically (re-)position themselves. The relationship between the online world of IM and the off-line world is shown to be intricate and complex; at certain points, both worlds overlap and at others they diverge. Despite all existing constraints that are both related to gender restrictions, often disenfranchised family backgrounds, religious dictums, and surveillance by parents, siblings and peers, which affect Moroccan-Dutch girls in specific ways, IM is also understood as a unique space for exerting their agency in autonomous, playful and intimate ways.

Keywords:
adolescent migrant girls; Moroccan-Dutch youth; instant messaging; communicative space; intersectionality; performativity of self

Click here to download the article if you or your library have a subscription to the journal:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v99/n1/abs/fr201139a.html

Alternatively, email me for a copy of the article!

Participating in panel - Anthropology and Social media: hopes and panics @ Antropologen Beroeps Vereniging conferentie, 18/19 November, Utrecht

2011-11-03T10:21:00.004+01:00

Panel: Anthropology and Social media: hopes and panics

Chair: Lenie Brouwer (VU); Discussant Johan Roeland (VU)
Since its rise in the early nineties, the internet has been a central object to many social fears, as well as social hopes. Utopian dreams predicted the end of political, physical, ethnical and racial borders, as well as the upsurge of ‘true’ community, due to the fact that virtual connectedness would replace the differentiating connectedness that characterizes the ‘ordinary’, physical world. Others have ventilated dystopian fears for individualization, social isolation, and political and religious radicalization, which would be inherent to the medium. Such opposite visions on the Internet ask for in depth research on the use and meaning of the Internet, and the social and cultural meaning of websites, blogs, forums and social media. For this panel, three researchers from different disciplines will reflect on these debates, on the basis of their own research.

Koen Leurs (UU, Dpt of Media and Culture Studies);
Title: Space invaders? Internetworked identifications of Moroccan-Dutch youth

Intensified patterns of migration and advanced forms of digital technology are reconfiguring the interface between the local and the global. Migrant youth are a privileged site to study these interactions as they also negotiate between different generations and national belongings while creating alternative modalities for self-expression. The analysis will focus on how these negotiations among multiple axes of belonging and creative self positioning takes place online as the internet is considered to be a place of virtual connectivity beyond physical and political borders and of liberation from markers of otherness, such as race, ethnicity, gender, which are particularly relevant in defining the migrant condition. Exploring how migrant youth become “space invaders“ (Purwar, 2004) of the digital realm an assessment is made of the ways in which old gaps have been abolished and how new divides have re-established themselves in the light of new technological innovations and corporate interests. The talk will report on how young Moroccan-Dutch' use various digital media applications to setup alternative interactive spaces that cut across cultures of origin and immigration, transnational diasporas and youth cultures.

Willem de Koster (EUR, Centre for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology);
http://www.willemdekoster.nl/

Title: Contextualizing Virtual Togetherness. Beyond Dichotomous Debates on the Social Significance of Online Interactions

Ever since its early days, the interdisciplinary field of ‘internet studies’ has been characterized by a marked interest in virtual communities. The scholarly debate is dominated by descriptive questions of whether communities can exist online and whether specific online forums qualify as communities. Building on multiple case studies on the question of how different types of virtual togetherness can be understood in relation to offline social life, this paper moves beyond these prevailing dichotomous questions and presents an empirically-informed typology of virtual togetherness. Four types of virtual togetherness are distinguished among members of three theoretically selected online forums: they have constructed a refuge, a springboard, a social movement and a neo-tribe online, each with a specific relationship with offline social life. This typology is employed to shed light on various other dichotomous debates on the social significance of online interactions. When it comes to the alleged fleetingness of online interactions, ‘cyber-balkanization’, and the online-offline distinction, scholars tend to make one-sided statements about the Internet as an undifferentiated whole. The contextualized understanding of virtual togetherness developed in this paper demonstrates that it is unfruitful to try to determine which position is valid in general. Instead, it provides a way out of the deadlocks in which these dichotomous debates inevitably end up by suggesting in which instances online interactions are likely to display certain characteristics.

Lenie Brouwer (VU, Dpt Social and Cultural Anthropology);
Title: Arab Spring in Morocco: more than a facebook generation?

The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, also called the Arab Spring, provided youths in Morocco the political opportunity to mobilize the felt discontent in society to collective action. In authoritarian Morocco with restricted freedom of speech facebook provided them an excellent space for lively debates and expressions of opinions. Although Morocco has a long history of social protests, the recent protests have a different character. Big manifestations were spread over the whole country, organized in more than fifty cities by the so-called February 20th movement, named after their first big demonstration organised on that date. In their first call for a demonstration facebook played a significant role, as the media was not covering the calls. In order to understand the meaning of this February 20th movement and the role of social media, insights of anthropologists and social scientists on the study of social movements will be used, in particular of new social movements focusing on identity and meaning in the network society (Castells in Salman & Assies, 2007).

About the conference (in Dutch:)

Thema ABv-congres 2011

Antropologie en de toekomst

18 en 19 november 2011

Wat heeft antropologie met de toekomst? Op het eerste gezicht misschien niet veel, maar schijn bedriegt want een groot deel van de antropologische onderneming is direct of indirect altijd gestuurd geweest door de toekomst.

Forthcoming publication in journal Religion and Gender

2011-11-03T10:13:00.001+01:00

Together with Eva Midden and Sandra Ponzanesi I have written a journal article on

Digital multiculturalism in the Netherlands: Religious, ethnic, and gender positioning by Moroccan-Dutch youth

This article will be published in the 2nd volume of the journal Religion and Gender. Forthcoming in December 2011, the special issue in which the paper will be published will address the theme 'Religion, Gender and Multiculturalism'.

Feel free to contact me if you would like me to send you the article.

Another writing update: 2 more chapters of my dissertation

2011-11-03T10:03:00.002+01:00

I have handed in chapters 4 A communicative space of their own: instant messaging software and 5 Photographical and hypertextual narratives of selves on social networking sites.

These are the questions I address in these chapters:

Chapter 4 A communicative space of their own: instant messaging software

-How and why is the private side or “backstage” of instant messaging (IM) appropriated as a relatively safe playground for under-the-radar identity-forming processes, seeking validation of their feelings and cementing relationships and why does this matter?

- How and why do Moroccan-Dutch adolescents combine gender, diasporic, religious and internet cultural affiliations, as well as references to global youth culture, and by doing so claim diverse group-memberships and belongingness in the more public “onstage” of IM?

Chapter 5 Photographical and hypertextual narratives of selves

on social networking sites

-How and why are social-networking site profile photos imbued with gender and sexuality among Moroccan-Dutch youth?

-Through articulating hypertextual selves, do Moroccan-Dutch youth homogenously emphasize their ethnic backgrounds on their profiles and corroborate dominant views of failed multiculturalism and ethnic segregation or do they rather express heterogeneous selves and identify beyond ethnic positions and why does this matter?

Postcolonial Cinema Studies book out

2011-11-03T09:57:00.000+01:00

I assisted in the preparation of the manuscript for the Postcolonial Cinema Studies book edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Waller. The book is now out, published by Routledge.

Click here for more information about the book

Another writing update: 2 chapters of my dissertation & new version of a bookchapter and journal article

2011-10-06T16:36:00.001+02:00

The month of September was all about writing for me.

I have written a draft of a chapter for my dissertation on online discussion forums.

I have written a draft of a chapter for my dissertation on the use of YouTube.

I have rewritten a bookchapter for a collection Radhika Gajalla is editing for

Peter Lang on Where have all the cyberfeminists gone?

My bookchapter is entitled:

Migrant Youth Invading Digital Spaces:

Intersectional Performativity of Self in Socio-Technological Networks

And I have rewritten together with Eva Midden and Sandra Ponzanesi a journal article on

Voices from the Margins as Bottom-up Multiculturalism: Moroccan-Dutch Youths’ Religious, Ethnic and Gender Position Acquisition through Digital Media.
This article will be published in the 2nd volume of the journal Religion and Gender.

Also for Mig@Net I have participated in a workshop in Bologna in preparation of my study on diversity, migration and gender issues in education and knowledge production in Utrecht University, on the Dutch Wikipedia and on online forums.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective

2011-09-16T10:29:00.001+02:00

To celebrate the nearing completion of our research for Wired Up we are organizing a conference which might be of interest to you.

Koen.

*Apologies for cross-posting*
CALL FOR PAPERS: Digital Crossroads: Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective

28-30 June, 2012
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Conference website: http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl/.

Deadline for abstract submission and panel proposals: January 10, 2012

Conference chair: Sandra Ponzanesi

Conference coordinator: Fadi Hirzalla

Because of the disjunctive and unstable interplay of commerce, media, national policies, and consumer fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has now become a global force, forever slipping in and through the cracks between states and borders - Appadurai 1996, p. 41, Modernity at Large

Keynote speakers:

Shakuntala Banaji
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Kirsten Drotner
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Radhika Gajjala
Bowling Green State University, USA

Eva Lam
University of Northwestern, USA

Lisa Nakamura
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

Liesbet van Zoonen
Loughborough University, UK and Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands

The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, coming to signify imaginaries on the move which are not necessarily linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to address the relationship between migration and digital technologies across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of the local and global paradoxes that also pertain to digital media with their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural categories.

The conference will consider the following questions, among others: How has the development of new digital technologies changed the experience of migration? Conversely, how has the reality of migration impacted on the use, development and distribution of new media technologies? How does the use of media differ among different migrant generations? How does media literacy impact on issues of integration and socialization in a hosting country? What are the differences in media access, diffusion and use among different migrant communities across the world? How are race, gender, age, class, ethnicity and other markers of identity recodified online? How are transnational relationships and resources arrayed in networks? How do ideas and practices move across these networks? How is the notion of home or community, which is no longer locatable with a "here" and "there" reconceptualised through digital diasporas? How do these developments impact on the spaces for learning and education, which are no longer limited to place-based classrooms and curricula? How can learning processes and networks be conceptualised when these networks expand larger geographical distances, and multiple communities are crossed? What resources of identity do migrants draw on and how are these resources hybridized in practice, and related to their learning and socialization processes? In short, how are digital crossroads created, distributed and experienced in the context of migration, diaspora and transnationalism?

The conference will explore three inter-related strands of the relationships between media and migration:

Identity and diaspora (Strand 1)

- identity and performativity
- gender, race, ethnicity, religion and online communities

- digital borders, digital diasporas

- imagined communities, transnationalism and mobility

- digital divides (generational, access, skills, user-generated content)

- cultural industry, participatory culture and social media

Migrant networks (Strand 2)

- mediated spatialities

- relations between online and offline worlds

- affinity networks and intimacy

- media literacy and migration

- comparative perspectives on digital media practices

Learning in a globalized world (Strand 3)

- informal learning in the digital space

- network approaches to learning

- immigrant learning

- globalization and learning

- learning & identity

- socialization in transnational families

Please send 300-word abstracts for papers or 500-word panel proposals for 3 to 4 presentations by 10 January 2012. Submission should be made online via http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl/. See further submission instructions on the website.

Notification of acceptance will be given by 20 February, 2012.

For more information or questions please send an e-mail to info@digitalcrossroads.nl.

The conference comes at the end of a five-year High Potential project, entitled "Wired Up: Digital media as innovative socialization practices for migrant youth", carried out by the Faculty of Humanities (project leader Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (project leader Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan) at Utrecht University in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, USA (Dr. Kevin Leander, Peabody College for Education). The project was funded by the Executive Board of Utrecht University to stimulate interdisciplinary research. See http://www.uu.nl/wiredup.

Organization Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi: conference chair
Dr. Fadi Hirzalla: conference coordinator
Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan: scientific committee
Dr. Kevin Leander: scientific committee
Dr. Fleur Prinsen: conference committee
Dr. Lisa Schwartz: conference committe
Koen Leurs, MA: conference committee
Asli Ünlosoy, MSC: conference committee

Submitted book chapter Transcoding difference and sameness. An intersectional approach to digital position acquisition processes by Dutch ethnic minority youth

2011-08-02T13:34:00.001+02:00

Today, I have submitted the bookchapter 'Transcoding difference and sameness. An intersectional approach to digital position acquisition processes by Dutch ethnic minority youth'. I co-authored the chapter with Sandra Ponzanesi and Eva Midden. The chapter is under review for the book, The Intersectional Internet: Race, Gender, and Culture Online edited by André Brock (University of Iowa). Read more about the bookproject here

Global citizenship in a European Context Summer School & publicatie over kruispuntdenken

2011-07-29T16:57:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present my PhD research to the students participating in the City University (UK) and Utrecht University summer school on Global Citizenship in a European Context. http://www.utrechtsummerschool.nl/index.php?type=courses&code=C13

It was a brilliant day, smart and well-prepared students who engaged in a lively debate on the topic of digital media, identity and social cohesion.

In the afternoon we discussed the fascinating and heart wrenching documentary Burma VJ.

---------------------

Also, the website http://www.nieuwwij.nl
published my response "Kruispuntdenken". See my response here: http://www.nieuwwij.nl/index.php?pageID=13&messageID=6422

You can also read it here:

Onderzoekers van het DSTS zwengelen wekelijks de discussie aan. Deze maand wordt er gereageerd op de stelling "Integreren is: niet meer op vakantie naar Marokko". Eerder deze maand kon u de reacties lezen van DSTS-onderzoeker Nora Asrami, arabist Jan Jaap de Ruiter en DSTS-onderzoeker Pieter Dronkers. Vandaag reageert Koen Leurs, promovendus aan de Universiteit van Utrecht.

De stelling 'Integreren is: niet meer op vakantie naar Marokko' illustreert een voor mij achterhaalde manier van denken over identiteit, aangezien deze impliceert dat het op vakantie gaan naar Marokko voor Marokkaanse Nederlanders niet samen zou kunnen gaan met een verbondenheid aan Nederland. Onderzoekers hebben in de afgelopen jaren echter veelvuldig aangetoond dat identiteiten niet gezien moeten worden als rotsvaste, eendimensionale categoriseringen. Het is realistischer te spreken over actieve processen van identiteitsconstructie, processen die verschillende dimensies kunnen omvatten. Dit inzicht vormt naar mijn mening een belangrijke interventie in het debat dat in Nederland gevoerd wordt met betrekking tot integratie van etnische minderheden.

Een belangrijk concept op dit gebied is het zogenaamde ‘kruispuntdenken’. Kruispuntdenken veronderstelt dat identiteitsconstructie gebaseerd is op verschillende door anderen opgelegde factoren enerzijds en door zelf te beïnvloeden factoren anderzijds. Ieder mens bevindt zich zo op een kruispunt van factoren als bijvoorbeeld gender, ‘ras’, etniciteit, leeftijd, sociaal-economische klasse, religie en generatie. Dit wil ik illustreren aan de hand van een voorbeeld uit mijn promotieonderzoek uitgevoerd in de context van Wired Up, een onderzoeksproject over internetgebruik onder jongeren uit etnische minderheidsgroepen, aan de Universiteit Utrecht. In mijn onderzoek focus ik op processen van digitale identiteitsvorming onder Marokkaans-Nederlandse jongeren in de leeftijd van 12 tot 18 jaar op sociale media platformen als MSN, Hyves.nl, discussie fora en YouTube.com.

Eén van mijn informanten - een tweede generatie, 13-jarig Marrokaans-Nederlands meisje – is op de Nederlandse sociale netwerk site Hyves lid van een grote diversiteit aan Hyves-groepjes. Wanneer je lid wordt van een dergelijk groepje, verschijnt er een icoon op je profiel pagina. Met dergelijke iconen kun je je affiniteiten tonen aan je vrienden op Hyves. Zo is ze lid van etnisch georiënteerde groepjes als “Marokkaanse thee junks”, “Marokkanen met Brainssss”, “Marokkaanse Jurken 2009” en “Moroccan Male Hotties”. Ook is ze lid van religieus georiënteerde groepjes als “Islam = peace”, “Respect is wat ik vraag voor de hoofddoek die ik draag” en “HyaabStyle”. Daarnaast toont ze gender gerelateerde groepjes zoals “Vrouwen zijn de baas” en “Marokkaanse meiden Hyves”. Daarnaast toont ze verbondenheid met verschillende internationale keukens zoals “McDonalds” en “de Marokkaanse en Turkse Keuken”, internationale jeugdcultuur en mode door de groepen “Skinny Jeans ♥” en “H&M”. En tenslotte de groepen “Laat zien dat je voor Vrijheid kiest” en “I ♥ Holland”.

Dergelijke groepen binnen sociale netwerksites bieden jongeren een platform voor toegeëigende (in plaats van toegeschreven) identiteitsvorming en interculturele ontmoetingen. Ze vormen een voorbeeld van hoe online jeugdcultuur tegenwicht kan bieden tegen polarisering en racisme in ons huidige grimmige politieke klimaat. Offline is het echter niet anders. Het vieren van vakantie in Marokko kan gezien worden als een facet van iemands’ identiteitconstructie, maar het kan niet opgeblazen worden zodat het gezien wordt als iets dat een mens volledig kenmerkt, aangezien kruispuntdenken ons laat inzien dat altijd meerdere processen een rol spelen, bijvoorbeeld op het gebied van gender, ‘ras’, religie, generatie, leeftijd en klasse.

Lees verder:
- Brouwer, Lenie. (2006) ‘Giving voice to Dutch Moroccan girls on the Internet’ Global Media Journal, Vol. 5, No. 9. Online publicatie, click hier.
- Gazzah, Miriam. (2008) Rhythms and Rhymes of Life. Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth. Amsterdam: AUP.
- Leurs, Koen en Sandra Ponzanesi. (2011). ‘Mediated crossroads: youthful digital
diasporas’. M/C Journal thema nummer over ‘Diaspora’ vol. 14, n. 2.
Online publicatie, click hier.
- Serkei, Carmelita en Susan Bink (2011) 'De emanciperende werking van online media'. Mira Media. Online publicatie, click hier.
- Wekker, Gloria. (2009) ‘Where the girls are: some hidden gendered and
ethnicized aspects of higher education in the Netherlands’ in: Vandayar, S.
and Nkomo, M. (2009), Thinking Diversity, Building Cohesion: A
Transnational Dialogue on Education. Amsterdam: Rozenberg.

Submitted article "Bottom-up Multiculturalism"

2011-07-20T16:49:00.000+02:00

This month we have submitted a journal-article I co-authored with Eva Midden and Sandra Ponzanesi on "Bottom-up Multiculturalism".

Proofreading Feminist Review contribution

2011-07-14T15:26:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I received a note from the Feminist Review collective, our article communicative spaces of their own: migrant girls performing selves using instant messaging software

forthcoming this fall in a special issue on Media Transformations is ready for proofreading. So excited to see this article is nearing completion!

Interview published in the Ethnicity and Race in Communication Newsletter

2011-05-30T10:23:00.000+02:00

Some of my thoughts on the International Communication Association's Ethnicity and Race division were published online, see
http://ericdivision.wordpress.com/

Participating in Media in Transition 7 @ MiT, Boston, USA

2011-05-13T22:50:00.000+02:00

Sandra Ponzanesi and I will present on "Mind the Gap: Space Invaders! Migrant Youth Online and the ‘Internetworked’ Experiences of Transition" at the MiT (Media in Transition) 7 conference taking place this weekend in Boston.

We will present in the panel on Youth, Power and Media, this Sunday, at 9 am!

Abstract: Intensified patterns of migration and advanced forms of digital technology are reconfiguring the interface between the local and the global. Migrant youth are a privileged site to study these interactions as they also negotiate between different generations and national belongings while creating alternative modalities for self-expression. Our analysis will focus on how these negotiations among multiple axes of belonging and creative self positioning takes place online as the internet is considered to be a place of virtual connectivity beyond physical and political borders and of liberation from markers of otherness, such as race, ethnicity, gender, which are particularly relevant in defining the migrant condition. We will explore how migrant youth become “space invaders“ (Purwar, 2004) of the digital realm. Drawing on empirical survey and interview findings from our Utrecht University research project Wired Up , we make a plea to approach conjunctures of transition of digital media and immigration from a postcolonial and intersectional perspective. A focus on intersectional socio-cultural configurations of subordination and empowerment enables us to ask ‘the other question’ (Matsuda, 1991: 1189), highlighting how various hidden axes of differentiation – such as diaspora, adolescence, gender, generation, and religion – may impact differently upon the (digitally mediated) lives and identities of immigrant youth.

See http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit7/index.html

Article has just been published: Mediated Crossroads: Youthful Digital Diasporas

2011-05-02T12:10:00.002+02:00

I'm happy to be able to provide you a link to the article written by Sandra Ponzanesi and myself called Mediated Crossroads: Youthful Digital Diasporas, which has appeared online @ M/C Journal. It was published in a special issue on 'Diaspora', edited by Leanne Pearce and Kath Woodward.

Click here to read the article: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/324

Introduction to the special issue by the editors:
"This conference, which was the culmination of the AHRC-funded project “Moving Manchester: Literature/Migration/Place (2006-10)”, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on urgent and topical debates concerning mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century and the strand “Networked Diasporas” was one of the best represented on the program. Attracting papers on broadcast media as well as the new digital technologies, the strand was strikingly international in terms of the speakers’ countries of origin, as is this special issue which brings together research from six European countries, Australia and the Indian subcontinent.

The “case-studies” represented in these articles may therefore be seen to constitute something of a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of how Appadurai’s “glocal imaginary” is being lived out across the globe in the early years of the twenty-first century. In this respect, the collection proves that his hunch with regards to the signal importance of the “mass-media” in redefining our spatial and temporal coordinates of being and belonging was correct:

The third and final factor to be addressed here is the role of the mass-media, especially in its electronic forms, in creating new sorts of disjuncture between spatial and virtual neighborhoods. This disjuncture has both utopian and dystopian potentials, and there is no easy way to tell how these may play themselves out in the future of the production of locality. (194)" More here: http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/373

We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts/comments/ideas/criticism!

Rewriting forthcoming Feminist Review journal article and writing paper for Media in Transitions 7

2011-04-27T15:30:00.001+02:00

After going through a time of personal turbulence, I am trying to get back to do some work. Currently I am rewriting a forthcoming article by Sandra Ponzanesi and myself entitled "Communicative spaces of their own: migrant girls performing selves using instant messaging software". It is forthcoming this fall in a special issue of Feminist Review, called Media Transformations. The special issues is edited by Lizzie Thynne and Nadje Al-Ali.

Read more about it here: Feminist Review website

***************

Also I am preparing the talk Sandra Ponzanesi and I will be giving at Media in Transitions 7, a conference held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 13-15 May, see http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit7/index.html.

***************

I have recently assisted Marguerite Waller and Sandra Ponzanesi in the editorial process for the fortcoming book Postcolonial Cinema Studies, to be published by Routledge, see http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415782296/

Publication 'Gendering the construction of Instant Messaging spaces'

2011-04-05T17:46:00.001+02:00

Today, I found a new book in the mail, finally got the chance to read my bookchapter on 'Gendering the construction of Instant Messaging spaces' in print. The chapter appears in Women and Language: Essays on Gendered Communication Across Media edited by Melissa Ames and Sarah Himsel Burcon. The book is published by MacFarland Press.

Parts of the chapter can be read via Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=Mt87IdMmP6oC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rewriting article "Mediated Crossroads: Youthful Digital Diasporas"

2011-03-21T20:16:00.001+01:00

I'm currently rewriting my article "Mediated Crossroads: Youthful Digital Diasporas", based on a presentation I held at the Glocal Imaginaries conference in Manchester. See http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/movingmanchester/conference.htm. The organizers of the stream in which I participated on networked diasporas have put together a special issue on the theme of 'diaspora' for M/C Journal. I have to submit my rewritten version before April 1st.

Still wondering whether I should update the title to "Remediated Crossroads"...

This is what the editors write about the special issue:
This special issue of M/C Journal has its origins in the international conference, 'Glocal Imaginaries: Writing / Migration / Place', that was held at Lancaster University and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, in September 2009. The conference, which attracted abstracts from over two hundred delegates from thirty-five different countries, constituted a unique opportunity to gain an international, cross-disciplinary perspective on the urgent debates concerning mobility, migration and displacement in the early twenty-first century.
Moreover, with its focus on writing practice and textual production, Glocal Imaginaries distinguished itself from a good many other conferences that have taken migration, post-colonialism (in its various guises) and /or g/locality as their themes. In other words, this was a conference that attended to writers, film-makers and artists as actors who create and shape, as well as respond to, the discourse(s) of migration, and whose participants (from across the disciplines and representative of interdisciplinarity) suggested ways of (re)imagining mobility of all kinds in the contemporary world.
Within, and alongside, this general remit of 'writing/migration/place' in a g/localized world, we received a large number of papers focussing on the ways in which diasporas are produced and transformed through traditional broadcasting and new media technologies and practices. For the purposes of the conference, these papers were brought together in a stream entitled 'networked diasporas', and a selection of these papers will constitute the core of this issue of M/C Journal. One of the great achievements of the 'Glocal Imaginaries' conference was that it brought a truly international perspective to bear upon the mobilities of contemporary diasporas and this trans-nationalism is represented in the diversity of papers presented here. Together, these papers may be seen to constitute a 'state-of-the-art' snapshot of how both traditional broadcasting and more recent voices such as that of Al-Jazeera, as well as digital networking, are re-defining the way in which diasporas 'network' in the early twenty-first century.
In addition to the papers selected from the Glocal Imaginaries conference, we invite further submissions which address these themes.

Details

Article deadline: 4 Mar. 2011
Release date: 4 May 2011
Editors: Lynne Pearce and Kath Woodward

The special issue will go live on 4 May 2011. See http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#diaspora

Participating in Postcolonial Europe: phantasmatic spaces, imagined identities workshop

2011-03-17T09:31:00.000+01:00

Workshop

Postcolonial Europe: Phantasmatic Spaces, Imagined Identities.

Speakers:

Mireille Rosello (UvA), Paulo de Medeiros (UU), Sandra Ponzanesi (UU), Birgit Kaiser (UU), Emmanuelle Radar (UU)

Date: March 17

Time: 9.30-17.00

Location: Drift 21, Sweelinckzaal/from 15.30 Ravenstijnzaal

In collaboration with OSL/NOV

Synopsis:

The scope of this workshop is to apply the tools of postcolonial critique to specific historical and geo-political formations in Europe, which have remained a blind spot in postcolonial critique. We will discuss what makes Europe postcolonial and why the notion of Europe is more contested than ever, both internally (through the proliferations of ethnic, religious, regional differences) and externally (Europe expanding its boundaries but closing its borders). Major debates in contemporary Europe on citizenship, migration, secularism and multiculturalism will be explored from a variety of perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds.

In the afternoon, I will present my ongoing research on Dutch-Moroccan video fandom @ YouTube.

See http://www.postcolonialstudies.nl/p/agenda_10.html for more information

Video Vortex 6 presentation

2011-03-14T14:32:00.005+01:00

Read a blog entry on my presentation on the Video Vortex Website, click here.

And this is the video of my talk on YouTube videos

KOEN LEURS (NL): Vernacular Spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan Youth on YouTube from network cultures on Vimeo.

Presentation for the Video Vortex conference

2011-03-10T13:26:00.002+01:00

Vernacular Spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan Youth on YouTube

Presentation at the Video Vortex Conference which took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. spoke in a panel on Country reports.

See http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/6amsterdam/program#Country%20Reports

Koen Leurs - Video Vortext

Preparing talk for Video Vortex 6

2011-03-04T15:46:00.000+01:00

I have been accepted to present my work at the Institute of Network Cultures Video Vortex 6 Conference, to be held at Trouw Amsterdam, March 11 & 12, 2011. I will be talking about the ways in which Dutch-Moroccan youth make use of YouTube.

Abstract
Vernacular spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan youth on YouTube
Youth born in the Netherlands from parents who migrated from Morocco, experience various junctions in their transitional journeys of adolescence and diaspora. Multiple intersecting issues of age, generation, class, education, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and nationality become invoked. These journeys give rise to the question whether Dutch-Moroccan youth engage in multiply located self positioning or attach to homogenized identity models circulating across online/offline spaces. Triangulating large-scale data of surveys completed in Dutch secondary school settings as part of the Utrecht University Wired Up research project, with in-depth interviews, and critical discourse analysis of YouTube material; I set out whether we can observe something like a specific Dutch-Moroccan video-fandom practice. I explore whether YouTube is primarily used to consume ‘videos of affinity’ (Lange, 2009) and ‘vernacular spectacles’-niche (Androutsopoulos, 2010) (i.e. ethnic-cultural-religious) content that is unavailable elsewhere, or whether YouTube is rather used to consume mainstream global popular culture videos.

My talk will include a discussion of the initiative Munt.

I have subtitled a brief news item about the video

You can watch the whole film here:

Preparing presentation NOV PhD National Research Day ‘Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Discovering the Global in the Local’

2011-02-16T10:39:00.005+01:00

This friday, February 18, the NOV Research Day 'Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Discovering the Global in the Local' is taking place in Utrecht.

I'm presenting my preliminary analysis of online forum discussion use among Dutch-Moroccan youth, based on results from a large scale survey we have conducted with the Wired Up team and on the basis of 43 in-depth interviews I have carried out.
Koen Leurs - Online Hush Harbors and Countering Publics

See
http://www.genderstudies.nl/
http://www.uu.nl/faculty/humanities/NL/Actueel/Agenda/Pages/20110218-national-research-day.aspx

Preparing article on gender, religion and multiculturalism online/offline in the Netherlands

2011-01-26T10:15:00.002+01:00

Together with Eva Midden and Sandra Ponzanesi I am currently preparing a journal submission on the topic of gender, religion and multiculturalism online/offline in the Netherlands.

2011-01-21T17:10:00.001+01:00

Stop de afbraak van onderzoek & onderwijs in Nederland

Poster for Etmaal 2011: Dutch-Moroccan Youth Engaging With Online Discussion Forums

2011-01-17T11:02:00.008+01:00

See below the poster I have created (thanks for your help Asli and Fadi) for the Etmaal 2011 conference.

Koen Leurs - Dutch-Moroccan Youth Engaging With Online Discussion Forums

For more info on Etmaal 2011, go to http://www.etmaal2011.eu/

Attending Digital Diasporas: Migration, ICTs and transnationalism in Cambridge

2011-01-14T13:14:00.002+01:00

The conference will address the convergence of two parallel developments: global migration and the flow of symbolic forms and digital interactive media, which are having profound consequences for our transnational world. New developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as the internet and mobile phones combined with a collapse in the cost of international communication are together transforming the experience of migration with implications for family life, sociality and intimacy, identity and political involvement. The conference will assess the impact of digital media on the following crucial aspects of migration:

The political: representation, visibility, participation;
Migrant socialities;
Culture, identity and belonging;
Family separation and long distance communication; and,
Patterns of migration and policy implications.

January 13 & 14, Cambridge, UK.
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1328/

Accepted at Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap 2011, Enschede, 24/25 January 2011

2010-12-23T15:24:00.004+01:00

My proposal on Community, voice and visibility: Dutch-Moroccan youth using online discussion boards has been accepted to be presented in a poster format at Etmaal 2011, Nacht van de Communicatiewetenschap, to be held in Enschede, on 24/25 January 2011.

Abstract
Earlier studies have found that in the context of the Netherlands and Belgium, discussion sites are especially popular among Dutch-Moroccan youth (Boumans, 2002; Brouwer, 2005 & 2006; Brouwer & Wyma, 2006; Borghuis et. al. 2010)
The relative anonymity of online discussion sites has attracted a large number of Dutch-Moroccan youth to articulate their position themselves dialogically, using their own terms and making pleas for their own needs. Intersecting concerns of identity, adolescence, religiosity, sexuality, racism, radicalization, multiculturalism and other current affairs, are often at the centre of discussions. In mainstream Dutch society, voices of Dutch-Moroccan youth are often either ignored, commodified and/or othered. I explore how online discussion forums are employed on a day to day basis to re-articulate marginalized positions. Therefore, I zoom in on the (re)construction of Dutch-Moroccan communities online, the issue of voice and offline/online politics of recognition.
The following question leads my inquiry: To what extent are Dutch-Moroccan discussion sites taken up to establish a community? I will assess to what extent do Dutch-Moroccan youth use discussion sites to assert their voice in a (counter) public sphere, and make visible their position in larger debates. But I also want to remain attentive to the structuring principles at work in the various sites(commercial incentives, moderation, and reification of gender, ethnic and religious roles) by exploring how these are experienced/negotiated? Triangulating quantitative and qualitative data, this paper explores how Dutch-Moroccan youth take up discussion sites. In my answering of this question, I will draw from various sources of data. Findings from a survey we have conducted in the Netherlands among over 350 Dutch-Moroccan youth are triangulated with insights gained from in-depth interviews and excerpts of discussions taken from online discussion boards mentioned by our interviewees.
Youth born from parents who migrated to the Netherlands from Morocco, experience various junctions in their everyday, transitional journeys of adolescence and diaspora. Multiple intersecting issues of age, generation, class, education, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and nationality become invoked. By bringing into creative collision ideas from feminist technoscience, postcolonial theory, intersectional thinking and new media studies an innovative perspective is developed to interpret and theorize how Dutch-Moroccan youth (re)mediate their everyday identifications using ordinary Internet applications. Attention is paid to the ways in which the internet is mutually co-constructed in youth’ online practices, paying attention on the one hand to the medium specific, structuring principles of the internet and inscriptions left by incentives of the global cultural industry as well as on the other hand opportunities for appropriation and subversion.
I will describe the demographic composition in our sample of young people who frequent discussion sites. From our survey we learn that a variety of discussion boards is frequented, such as the broad oriented maroc.nl and marokko.nl, the Berber-culture oriented amazigh.nl, girls oriented chaima.nl and religion oriented islaam.nl discussion boards. The most important discussion site remains marokko.nl. Interviewees describe the site as the virtual equivalent of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands (Tweede Kamer). It is experienced as a moderated safe space, where youth actively discuss current events and speak back against stereotypes. Alternative forms of knowledge production and consumption become apparent, female interviewees report to circulate for instance recipes for Moroccan dishes. Additionally, conflicting experiences of traveling to the ‘homeland’ are commonly discussed. While remaining aware of the economic motives of the owners who run these sites, I tease out which gatekeeping practices are at work, how authors gain status on the site, which collective identities are claimed, which actors are excluded/included in the process, and what (if any) essentializing tendencies are observable in the multi-layered and hyperlinked discussion threads of online discussion forums. Besides the ways in which these sites are made into viable counterpublics – I will explain how through the posted discussions, stories, and poems a counter pubic sphere is fed from below on these site. I aim to prompt a deeper reflection about intersecting parameters of difference such as gender, age, generation and diaspora that come together in the performativity of self of Dutch-Moroccan youth engaging with discussion sites.

Etmaal 2011 website

Accepted at the Video Vortex Conference Amsterdam & NOV National Research Day

2010-12-16T11:33:00.016+01:00

Conference update:

Got the news I have been accepted to present my work at the Institute of Network Cultures Video Vortex 6 Conference, to be held at Trouw Amsterdam, March 11 & 12, 2011. I will be talking about the ways in which Dutch-Moroccan youth make use of YouTube.

Abstract
Vernacular spectacles? Dutch-Moroccan youth on YouTube
Youth born in the Netherlands from parents who migrated from Morocco, experience various junctions in their transitional journeys of adolescence and diaspora. Multiple intersecting issues of age, generation, class, education, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and nationality become invoked. These journeys give rise to the question whether Dutch-Moroccan youth engage in multiply located self positioning or attach to homogenized identity models circulating across online/offline spaces. Triangulating large-scale data of surveys completed in Dutch secondary school settings as part of the Utrecht University Wired Up research project, with in-depth interviews, and critical discourse analysis of YouTube material; I set out whether we can observe something like a specific Dutch-Moroccan video-fandom practice. I explore whether YouTube is primarily used to consume ‘videos of affinity’ (Lange, 2009) and ‘vernacular spectacles’-niche (Androutsopoulos, 2010) (i.e. ethnic-cultural-religious) content that is unavailable elsewhere, or whether YouTube is rather used to consume mainstream global popular culture videos.

********************************************************************************************
Also, I will be presenting parts of my dissertation research on the use of discussion boards at the NOV (Nederlandse Onderzoeksschool Vrouwenstudies) National Research Day, to be held Friday February 18, 2011.

Abstract
Community and voice: Dutch-Moroccan youth using online discussion boards
Youth born in the Netherlands from parents who migrated from Morocco experience various junctions in their everyday, transitional journeys of adolescence and diaspora. “Symbolical grammars of difference” (Wekker, 2009, p. 153) such as age, generation, class, education, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ‘race’, religion and nationality become invoked. By bringing into creative collision feminist technoscience, postcolonial theory, intersectional thinking and new media studies I interpret how Dutch-Moroccan youth (re)mediate their everyday identifications using Internet applications. In the Netherlands, discussion sites are popular among Dutch-Moroccan youth (Boumans, 2002; Brouwer, 2005 & 2006; Brouwer & Wyma, 2006; Borghuis et al., 2010; Van Stekelenburg et al., 2011). The relative anonymity of online discussion sites has attracted a large number of youth to articulate their position dialogically, using their own terms and making pleas for their own needs. Intersecting ‘glocal’ concerns of identity, adolescence, religiosity, sexuality, racism, radicalization, multiculturalism and other current affairs, are often at the centre of discussions. In mainstream Dutch society, voices of Dutch-Moroccan youth are often either ignored, othered and/or commodified. I explore how online discussion forums are employed on a day to day basis as a “hush harbor” (Byrne, 2008) where marginalized positions can be re-articulated. I zoom in on the (re)construction of Dutch-Moroccan communities online, and the issue of voice.
I will assess to what extent Dutch-Moroccan youth use discussion sites to assert their voice in a (counter) public sphere, and make visible their position in larger debates. But I also want to remain attentive to the structuring principles at work (commercial incentives, moderation, and reification of gender, ethnic and religious roles). Findings from a survey we have conducted in the Netherlands among over 350 Dutch-Moroccan youth are triangulated with insights gained from in-depth interviews and excerpts taken from online discussion boards.

Fieldwork, transcriptions, copy-editing and moving!

2010-12-14T14:33:00.007+01:00

The last months I have been busy with fieldwork. I have done interviews across the Netherlands, and I am currently transcribing them. That really can take time, sometimes one hour of interview takes me 4 hours of transcribing.

Furthermore, I'm helping Sandra Ponzanesi with copy-editing a collected volume she is preparing on Postcolonial Film (forthcoming, Routledge).

The holiday is right around the corner, but first I have to prepare and sort out all my stuff, as I'm moving office from the PhD attic at Janskerkhof 13 to de Muntstraat!

Furthermore, friday dec. 10 I attended 'de Moi Studiedag 2010'. http://www.moistudies.nl/Welkom.html. "De Nederlandse Vereniging voor de Studie van het Midden-Oosten en de Islam(MOI) organiseert op vrijdag 10 december 2010 een studiedag in Amsterdam:'Verbinding, Verbeelding en Vertier. Moslims en Multimedia’".

Interesting talks:
*Carmen Becker – Onderzoek naar de salafiya op internet: theoretische benaderingen, methoden en ethische vraagstukken
*Farida Vis - Fitna the video battle: An overview of reactions on YouTube
*Dirk Oegema – De schreeuwspiraal: wisselwerking tussen politiek, media en publiek
*Martijn de Koning – Hier ben ik! Continue bekering en prediking door middel van muziek en blogs

Mix-in conferentie

2010-07-14T12:34:00.000+02:00

Report (in Dutch)

Oxford Internet Institute Summer School 2010 Oii SDP 2010

2010-07-14T12:23:00.003+02:00

At the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Programme, 5-17 July 2010 @ Oxford

Digital diaspora bibliography

2009-10-08T11:34:00.005+02:00

Books
-Christensen, N. B. (2003). Inuit in Cyberspace. Embedding Offline Identities Online. Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press.
-Everett, A. (2009). Digital Diaspora. A Race for Cyberspace. Albany, SUNY.
-Georgiou, M. (2006). Diaspora, identity and the media: diasporic transnationailsm and mediated spatialities. Creskill, Hampton Press.
-Miller, D. and D. Slater (2001). The internet: an ethnographic approach. Oxford, Berg Publishers.

Scholarly articles
-Bos, M. v. d. (2006). "Landmarks for 'Nowhereland': scratching the surface of transnational Dutch-Iranian hyperlink networks." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12(3): 643-661.
-Hiller, H. H. H. and T. M. Franz (2004). "New ties, old ties and lost ties: the use of the internet in diaspora." New Media & Society 6(6): 731-752.
-Loukili, A. (2007). Moroccan diaspora, Internet and national imagination
Building a community online through the Internet portal Yabiladi. Nordic Africa Days Uppsala.
-Mallapragada, M. (2006). "Home, homeland, homepage: belonging and the Indian-American web." New Media & Society 8(2): 207-227.

Did this reading among other things for a submission I was preparing for a special issue forthcoming in M/C Journal see http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#diaspora

Koen in de krant: Gelderlander: Asielzoekerscentrum als getto

2009-10-08T11:24:00.001+02:00

Getto
Ik wil bij deze mijn grote angst uitspreken voor de populistische, problematische en racistische omschrijving van het asielzoekerscentrum als een 'getto' of 'getto'-vormend. Zo'n uitspraak zegt meer over de persoon van raadslid Piet Vollenberg en zijn beperkte visie op de wereld dan de werkelijkheid. Zeer verontrustend dat iemand zo'n mening heeft, maar nog verontrustender als hij zegt als politicus te spreken voor andere Gravenaren. Een voorbeeld van kortzichtig kijken naar een eigen hachje. Binnen de sociologie is er de 'not in my backyard' theorie om dergelijke processen te kunnen snappen. In deze tijden van hyperindividualisme zijn daar helaas veel voorbeelden van. Individualisme gaat voor menswaardigheid en solidariteit. Door een muur van retorische negativiteit te metselen om de asielzoeker trekken figuren als Vollenberg anderen mee. Stemmingmakerij. Uiterst racistisch ook.
Vollenberg wil geen nieuw azc, letterlijk bij hem in de straat gepland. Vergeet niet dat deze mensen, ja het zijn mensen, vaak een verschrikkelijk verleden met zich mee zeulen. Een verleden van moord, verkrachting, politieke vervolging en discriminatie.
Ze komen bij ons in de winkel, op school, op het sportveld. Hoe leggen we ze uit dat ze niet welkom zijn? 'Grave wil jullie niet meer hebben': is dat het nieuwe uithangbord?
De vergelijking met een getto is verschrikkelijk, gelet op het lot van Joden die in 'Joodse getto's' samengebracht werden.
Wellicht gesteund door het blijkbaar ineens acceptabele, open racisme waar Geert Wilders levens mee verzuurt, hoopt deze politicus op steun van Graafse burgers. Wat dacht hij: mooi statement, het jaar voor de verkiezingen? Ik hoop dat vele Gravenaren hier over nadenken. Ons leven draait niet enkel om ons eigen hachje. Wij willen niet bijdragen aan het xenofobe, racistische klimaat, of wel soms?

Koen in de krant: U-blad: Gmail-plan gekraakt.

2009-04-14T12:16:00.001+02:00

Samen met Mirko Schaefer stuurde ik een kritiek op een aangekondigd plan van UU ict-beheer om de universitaire studenten-mail over te schakelen op gmail.

Deze kritiek is verwerkt en gepubliceerd in het U-blad van 09.04.09:

Gmail-plan gekraakt

Het ICT-plan om het universitaire mailverkeer via G-mail te laten verlopen, druist in tegen het ideaal van academische vrijheid en autonomie. Dat zeggen Mirko Schaefer, Universitair Docent Media Studies, en Koen Leurs, Aio Onderzoeksinstituut Geschiedenis en Cultuur.
Schaefer en Leurs schrijven in een brief aan het Ublad dat het solismailsysteem “achterhaald aandoet”. Maar tegelijkertijd merken zij op dat er bij een mogelijke overstap naar Gmail ‘een aantal zwaarwegende problematische aspecten zijn die aandacht verdienen’. Is het plan bijvoorbeeld wel gestoeld op onderzoek naar de behoeftes van studenten?
Ineke Molenaars, directeur Informatica & Communicatie Technologie, licht toe dat de ICT-directie onderzoek heeft gedaan naar de mailwensen van studenten: “Deze wensen blijken heel divers te zijn.” Zo wil de een bijvoorbeeld het e-mailadres @students.uu.nl behouden, de ander wil meer opslagruimte. De ICT-directie, zegt Molenaars, wil aan deze diversiteit van wensen tegemoet komen door een Gmail-account aan te bieden.
Toch zien Schaefer en Leurs het plan niet zitten omdat de externe partij er bekend om staat de amiluitwisselingen te scannen: “Neem als voorbeeld een e-mailuitwisseling tussen docent en student. Naast praktische zaken schrijven onze studenten in hun e-mails ook over het onderzoek dat zij verrichten; wij vinden dat dit “none of Google's business” is.” Molenaars stelt gerust: “Voor studenten die niet wensen over te gaan naar Gmail zal de universiteit een alternatief bieden.”
Wat dat alternatief zal zijn, is nog onbekend. Tijl van der Velden, Informaticastudent en secretaris van studievereniging Sticky, ziet in deze mogelijkheid tot een alternatief weinig heil: “Dat betekent dat de UU twee systemen moet gaan onderhouden. Dat gaat geheid mis: solismail ligt er nu al geregeld uit.”
Schaefer en Leurs hopen dat het voorstel kritisch onderzocht zal worden. Ze noemen het “jammer” dat de UU geen ICT-infrastructuur kan bieden die door de universiteit zelf beheerd wordt. Ze besluiten de brief met de opmerking dat er “te weinig aandacht is voor hoe de UU zich verhoudt tot uitbesteding van haar infrastructuur aan een commerciële aanbieder wiens privacy policy erg controversieel is”.
Het Gmailplan wordt vermoedelijk deze of volgende maand aan het college van bestuur voorgelegd.
RvV
Verschenen op 09-04-2009 in Ublad 26,

Zie http://www.ublad.uu.nl/WebObjects/UOL.woa/3/wa/Ublad?id=1035775

Koen in de krant: NRC: De lezer schrijft over vermelden etniciteit

2009-04-11T12:17:00.002+02:00

De lezer schrijft over vermelden etniciteit
Graag wil ik weten wat de drijfveren van de redactie van deze krant zijn betreffende het weglaten van de etnische achtergrond van de deze week overleden soldaat in Kamp Holland in Afghanistan. Die achtergrond ontbreekt in het voorpaginabericht van 7 april, de achtergrondartikelen op pagina 3 en het persoonlijk overzicht van de overleden soldaat Azdin Chadli.

Het viel mij op dat generaal Peter van Uhm er ook niet van repte. Dit in tegenstelling tot andere berichten waarin bijvoorbeeld regelmatig geschreven wordt over Marokkaans-Nederlandse overlastbezorgers. Kan iemand met een (tweede generatie) migrantenachtergrond dus pas volledig geintegreerd zijn wanneer hij/zij iets goeds doet voor de samenleving? Wanneer hij/zij iets slechts doet, wordt de etnische achtergrond vaak benadrukt, maar wanneer hij/zij iets goeds doet wordt die achtergrond klaarblijkelijk geneutraliseerd.

Koen Leurs
Utrecht

De krant antwoordt

Op deze vraag is een kort en een lang antwoord te geven. Het korte antwoord luidt: we weten het niet.
Defensie heeft niet bekendgemaakt wat de achtergrond is van de overleden soldaat, vanuit de redenering dat dit niet uitmaakt: een soldaat is een soldaat. Hij was een Nederlander in Nederlandse dienst en het is niet aan ons om iets over zijn achtergrond te zeggenâ€, aldus een woordvoerder van Defensie. Dus ook als wij dat zouden hebben gewild, hadden we het niet kunnen melden.

Op de redactie is wel discussie geweest over de vraag: als we zijn achtergrond te weten kunnen komen, moeten we die dan melden? De regel volgens ons Stijlboek is dat burgers als individuen moeten worden benaderd en dat stigmatiseren en groepsdenken vermeden moeten worden. Daarom wordt de etnische afkomst van mensen in de nieuwsverslaggeving alleen vermeld als dit relevant is. Dat wil zeggen, als de afkomst nauw samenhangt met het onderwerp of leidt tot een beter begrip daarvan.

In dit geval speelde de afkomst van de militair geen directe rol bij het nieuwsfeit dat hij omkwam. Hij is niet omgekomen omdat hij (vermoedelijk) van Marokkaanse origine is. Daarom zouden we zijn afkomst ook niet hebben gemeld in de eerste berichtgeving, als deze door Defensie zou zijn vrijgegeven. Toch zijn we de dag nadat we het nieuws meldden, teruggekomen op de afkomst van de omgekomen militair, omdat het inmiddels een verhit gespreksonderwerp was geworden op diverse internetfora. Daar betoogden bezoekers, net als de lezer, dat het hypocriet is dat er, nu het gaat om iemand die iets goed doet voor de samenleving, niets wordt gezegd over zijn vermoedelijk Marokkaanse achtergrond. Als het negatieve berichtgeving was, werd er vast bij gezegd dat hij een Marokkaan was, maar nu deze Marokkaan zijn leven heeft gegeven voor Nederland, spreekt men over een Nederlander, meent een bezoeker van marokko.nl.

Die internetdiscussie is interessant, omdat ze veel zegt over het integratiedebat in Nederland. In de Verenigde Staten, bijvoorbeeld, spreekt het vanzelf dat in Irak en Afghanistan gesneuvelde soldaten ook Arabische namen hebben. Ook op de oorlogskerkhoven in Frankrijk bevinden zich vele stenen met Arabische namen. In het integratiedebat hebben wij als krant een verantwoordelijkheid. Voor ons blijft gelden dat we afkomst melden indien dit relevant is, of de berichtgeving nu positief is of negatief.

Het leidde ons wel tot een vervolgvraag: hoeveel Nederlandse militairen zijn van buitenlandse afkomst en speelt dat in het leger een rol? Wordt er, zoals bij de politie, actief geworven onder allochtone Nederlanders? Als het antwoord op die laatste twee vragen bevestigend is, zult u in deze krant hierover binnenkort meer lezen.

Birgit Donker
Hoofdredacteur

Zie http://weblogs3.nrc.nl/lezerschrijft/2009/04/11/de-lezer-schrijft-over-vermelden-etniciteit/

Maxime verhagen reageert op Twitter

2009-04-09T13:03:00.001+02:00

Sterven voor het nieuwe vaderland

2009-04-08T10:25:00.002+02:00

Graag wil ik de drijfveren weten voor de keuze gemaakt door de NRC redactie voor het weglaten van de etnische achtergrond van de gisteren overleden soldaat op Kamp Holland in Afghanistan. In zowel het voorpagina bericht alswel de achtergrond artikelen op pagina 3 alswel het persoonlijk overzicht van overleden soldaat Azdin Chadli. Het viel me op dat generaal Peter van Uhm er ook niet over repte. Dit in groot contrast tot andere nieuwsberichten waar bijvoorbeeld regelmatig geschreven wordt over Marokkaans-Nederlandse overlast bezorgers. Kan iemand met een (2e generatie) migranten-achtergrond dus pas volledig geïntegreerd zijn wanneer hij of zij iets goeds doet voor de samenleving? Wanneer hij of zij iets slechts doet wordt een etnische achtergrond vaak benadrukt, maar wanneer hij of zij iets goeds doet wordt het klaarblijkelijk geneutraliseerd? Het moet natuurlijk onderstreept worden dat dit een verschrikkelijke gebeurtenis is voor achterblijvende familie en vrienden, maar het blijft vreemd dat sterven voor het nieuwe vaderland losgekoppeld wordt van iemands persoonlijke achtergrond.

Gmail als studenten e-mail?

2009-04-05T11:44:00.000+02:00

Graag willen wij via deze weg onze onvrede kenbaar maken aangaande het plan om Gmail te gaan gebruiken ter vervanging van de huidige studentenmail. Allereerst beamen we het dat het solis-mail systeem, gebaseerd op Microsoft Exchange Servers soms achterhaald aandoet. Echter, er zijn een aantal zwaarwegende problematische aspecten die aandacht verdienen. Allereerst komt de vraag op in hoeverre dit plan gestoeld is op onderzoek naar daadwerkelijke behoeftes van studenten en docenten. Maar veel belangrijker is dat dit plan pijnlijk aantoont hoe wij, als Universitair instituut, onze autonomie meer en meer kwijraken aan externe partijen. De veranderingen die op het moment in de universitaire ICT infrastructuur aan de gang zijn spreken de huidige trend van decentralisatie volledig tegen. Publieke instituties kijken immers steeds vaker naar open-source oplossingen; en centralisering wordt niet meer als de oplossing van ICT problemen gezien. Daarnaast druist het plan duidelijk in tegen het ideaal van academische vrijheid en autonomie. Neem als voorbeeld een student – docent e-mail uitwisseling. Naast praktische zaken schrijven onze studenten in hun e-mails ook over het onderzoek dat zij verrichten; wij vinden dat dit “none of Google's business” is. Die inhouden kunnen immers interessant zijn voor Google. Tevens dient ICT beleidsmedwerker Van Eijden stellingname’ dat studenten e-mails door Google gescand zullen worden, maar dat dit binnen “Safe Harbor Rules” valt scherp genuanceerd te worden. Hier wordt voorbij gegaan aan het feit dat Google in zijn zakenmodel juist profiteert, niet van het doorverkopen van gegevens aan derden, maar van het koppelen en uitbuiten van gegevens door de vele applicaties die het beheerd binnen het eigen genetwerkte systeem (denk aan Blogger, Picasa, GoogleEarth, DoubleClick, YouTube, Gmail en binnenkort waarschijnlijk Twitter). Doordat het bedrijf binnen al die domeinen een diversiteit aan gegevens binnenhaalt, kan het zijn marktaandeel blijven vergroten door potentiële consumenten steeds preciezer te koppelen aan bepaalde adverterende klanten. Het problematische is natuurlijk dat een instituut zoals de Universiteit Utrecht hier niet aan mee zou moeten willen werken. Daarnaast is het trouwens erg jammer dat een Universiteit studenten niet een ICT infrastructuur meer kan bieden die door de Universiteit zelf beheerd wordt.

Koen Leurs, MA, Aio Onderzoeksinstituut Geschiedenis en Cultuur
Dr. Mirko Schaefer, Universitair Docent Media Studies

Ingezonden brief naar het Ublad (website)

In English: this is a piece sent in to the University weekly paper http://www.ublad.uu.nl questioning the idea of using Gmail for student e-mail accounts. Questions of autonomy and privacy are raised.

Burgemeester creëert angstbeeld over asielzoekers

2009-04-05T11:38:00.001+02:00

De afgelopen week pronkte de naam van Graafs’ burgemeester Delissen in chocolaletters in de Gelderlander en de Graafsche Courant. Ze zal er trots op geweest zijn. ‘Grave wil veiligheid’ was haar boodschap. Daartoe stuurde ze tevens brieven naar het Landelijk Centrum Opvang Asielzoekers (COA) als de minister van Justitie. Ze wil meer controle over de bewoners van het AZC. Er waren onder de vluchtelingen, veelal afkomstig uit conflictgebieden, schermutselingen ontstaan. Er viel een gewonde. Daarop zegt ze “Het is wachten tot het een keer helemaal afloopt” “Er moet een tandje bij” “Wat mij betreft mag er best preventief gefouilleerd worden. Of maak eens een kofferbak open”. Door in haar roep om repressieve aanpak alle bewoners van het centrum over een kam te scheren als gevaarlijke gekken die alle kansen zullen aangrijpen elkaar nek om te draaien creëert, bevestigd en vergroot ze voorheen onbestaande verschillen tussen de “brave blanke Gravenaar” en de “woeste ontembare Niet-Nederlandse barbaar”. Als burgemeester heeft ze de macht meningen te vormen en wereldbeelden te scheppen. Dit heeft ze niet door of ze is droevig populistisch, want de manier waarop ze bewoners van het AZC Grave schoffeert is zeer problematisch. Pure racisme en haatzaaierij. Als bestuurder roepen dat de wereld onveiliger wordt en zo angst oproepen over een bepaalde groep mensen die hard aangepakt moeten worden lijkt daadkrachtig. Maar dit is het slechts voor een zeer selecte groep mensen (namelijk “blanke autochtone Nederlanders”).Het schept geen basis voor solidariteit. In plaats van repressief na te denken over het verbeteren van veiligheid (enkel de veiligheid van niet-asielzoekers, over de asielzoekers zelf wordt geen woord gesproken) dient ze aandacht te besteden aan het zoeken van oplossingen voor de problemen van deze mensen. Deze mensen, ja het zijn mensen, zijn naar Nederland gevlucht uit angst voor achtervolging, repressie en onderdrukking. Op zoek naar een beter leven. Het is absurd deze mensen in een gevangenis achtige setting te plaatsen, afgescheiden en apart van het Hollandse levendje. Er moeten manieren gezocht worden om uitwisseling en participatie te bevorderen. Pas dan zou deze “burgemeester” in dienst van alle Gravenaren operen.

Maart, 2009

What is this about: this letter provides a critiques the rhetoric used by a local government official. It was published in the Graafsche Courant, a small town newspaper and a regional newspaper, De Gelderlander in March, 2009.