The miss charme contest : empowerment through networking, knowledge enlargement and individual connections

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Title: The Miss Charme Contest

Empowerment through networking, knowledge enlargement and individual connections Name: Tamar Strietman

E-mail: Tamar_strietman@hotmail.com Student ID: 5909244

Supervisor: Rob van Ginkel

Evaluators: Irene Stengs, Vincent de Rooij

Department: Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Non-Western Societies Date: 17-05-2012

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Abstract

This research analyzes the concepts identity and empowerment. These concepts are significant in the Miss Charme contest, a grassroots organization intended to achieve the development of young women who are residents of the district Amsterdam Zuidoost, a low- and middle- income district. The Miss competitions’ aims are achieved through supporting the contestants with networking, knowledge enlargement and individual connections with career women. It further aspires to change the image of young people, especially young women, within Amsterdam Zuidoost.

I argue that diversity, movement and change are important elements of identity formation when it comes to the empowerment of young women with minority identities in relation to the norm of Dutch society. By using intersectional theory I explain how these elements can be applied in diverse social structures. The contestants of the Miss contest have identities developed from diverse identity forms. Central to this contest are gender, ethnic minorities and being young. While development could achieve social mobility for these young women, empowerment aims at social change, namely a change in the hierarchy of society.

I conclude that through the Miss competition both development and empowerment can occur in diverse manners for the contestants individually and for the young women of the district Amsterdam Zuidoost provided that room is created for diversity.

Keywords: Miss show, capital, empowerment, power, intersectional theory and identity, in particular gender and ethnic minority.

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Acknowledgement

I want to thank all the (former) contestants, career women and the organizer of the Miss Charme contest who helped me conduct my research by sharing their stories, spending their precious time with me and welcoming me in their personal environment. This thesis could not have been realized without them. Special thanks to Nadia, Miss Charme 2011, Darice and Charissa, first and second runner-up Miss Charme 2011, who involved me in their personal lives and responsibilities concerning the Miss Charme contest and Women Connect 2 Success.

I want to thank Rob van Ginkel, my thesis mentor, who guided me through the multiple stages of creating this thesis.

Furthermore, I am grateful to my parents’ support throughout my education. They always encouraged me to do what I love most, never pushed me in any direction or lost faith in me. They gave me financial support and granted me the time I needed to finish my education without ever doubting my ability. I want to thank my friends and fellow students, Marjolein Blum, Kim Out, Floor de Joncheere, Anouk van Haaster and Noelle Steneker for their time, advice and motivation related to the process of thesis writing. Special thanks goes to Floor whom without I would have never realized the final version of my thesis and who intensively supported me in my struggle with words throughout the years of both my Bachelor and Master degree.

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1. Introduction

1.1 Research Question

The ‘Miss Charme’ (Miss Charm) contest is a contest for ‘beautiful, ambitious girls that are connected with success’.1 Twenty highly educated, ambitious, beautiful young women in their early twenties present themselves in a ‘sensational show’.2 The show has a pageant-like atmosphere. Additionally, the contestants will be connected with caree r women and will participate in networking. The foundations of the contest are ‘the transfer of knowledge’, ‘social orientation’ and ‘the introduction to diverse networks’.3 The winner of the contest will acquire a function that, according to the organization’s expectations, allows for personal development, development of her environment and most importantly, development of the youth in her district of residency Amsterdam ‘Zuidoost’ (Southeast).4 This is a low- and middle- income district that has and still is experiencing socio- economic challenges.

Upon encountering this information about the Miss Charme contest on the website, I became curious about the concept and wondered if and how these forms of development would be achieved. Furthermore, I wondered if the expected development achieved through participation in the Miss Charme contest could result in empowerment. Moreover, why would a Miss show be the chosen medium to accomplish these proposed goals? Therefore, in this thesis I will address the following:

Do the Miss Charme contestants achieve empowerment and if so, how do they do so?

The elaboration of this question will demonstrate how development is framed within the Miss Charme contest and how development through the contest might allow contestants to become empowered. It will explore the dominant idea of success in the Miss Charme contest by analyzing power in relation to social capital and identity formation through different identity forms. Significant in case of the Miss Charme contest are the identity forms gender and ethnic minorities (Yuval-Davis 2006: 198). These identity forms are shared with each other by the contestants and it are these identity forms for what they want to create more space in the norm of diverse social structures. I will elaborate on this in the following chapters. Furthermore, it defines identity formation of the contestants in relation to development and empowerment.

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The Miss Charme contest can roughly be divided into three elements: network orientation and enlargement, a Miss show and individual connections between contestants and career women. All these elements work together to achieve the same goal, namely development of the contestants. Each element tries to achieve that goal in its own form. Thus, in order to address whether Miss Charme contestants achieve empowerment through development, the following matters will be discussed in three chapters:

In the first chapter I will clarify how the Miss Charme contestants achieve empowerment through network orientation and network enlargement. I will explain why networking is of significance to the contestants, career women and organizers in achieving development. They put effort into exploring diverse networks and enlarging their personal network because they expect to develop from it. The contestants are introduced to diverse networks within and outside of Zuidoost by the career women and the organization. They are introduced to networks to which the career women and the organizer are already connected. I will clarify what role networking plays in the contestants’ lives and its role in their participation in the contest. Moreover, I want to demonstrate how networking is explained as a means through which success can be achieved.

In the second chapter I will elaborate on the achievement of empowerment through the Miss show itself. This chapter explores the significance and role of public display in achieving development and empowerment. I will address the representation of young ambitious women as created by the Miss Charme contest. Furthermore, I will explain how both the contestants and the audience use this public representation and how the contestants can use this public representation for individual goals. Lastly, I will clarify how and why this element contributes to the contest, its significance for the contest and the contestants, and how it allows for development.

In the third chapter I will explore how the Miss Charme contestants achieve empowerment through individual connections with career women. I will address what takes place through these connections and why the contestants advance from them. Furthermore, the functions of both the contestants and the career women within the connections and what they bring about will be discussed. I will clarify what kind of transfer of knowledge occurs and its significance to the career women and the contestants. Lastly, I will explain why and how it could benefit the contestants.

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1.2 Argumentation

This research is formed around Miss Charme, a contest in the district Amsterdam Zuidoost, or commonly known as the Bijlmer.5 Within Dutch society it is an assumedly deprived district that has a negative image outside of the district. Zuidoost is a low- and middle-income district, a district that faces many socio-economic challenges, a high rate of criminality and people that identify through ethnic minorities (Aalbers 2010). In this thesis I therefore refer to the district as a low- and middle-income neighborhood. Grassroots organizations, local policy and local residents grant it a positive identity and try to change its negative image.

The Miss Charme contest is one of these grassroots organizations. It not only tries to change the negative image of the district, but it also attempts to create space for identity diversity and to increase women, minority ethnicity and youth visibility both within the district and outside of it. The organization wants to provide an example to all young women in the district and to let them believe in their abilities and motivate them to become more socially involved. They want to show those outside of the district that young women from Zuidoost are powerful, smart and beautiful women that can actively make a difference in society.

With this thesis I want to show how a grassroots organization in a low- and middle-income district tries to develop a section of its residents on both an individual and group level to achieve a better status, according to the social norm, for the whole district. I want to demonstrate how the organization deals with the diverse identity formations of the contestants, significant are being woman or being from an ethnic minority. These formations diversely position the organization and its participants in relation to society’s norm. Through their use of diverse forms of capital, the grassroots organization tries to help a section of its residents, young women, with their identity formation and with gaining social capital. The organization aims to inspire young women to become successful career women within diverse social structures, where they currently hold a marginal position in relation to the social norm.

The contestants in the Miss Charme contest use the power and possibilities they obtained through the contest to achieve development. These diverse forms of development are interwoven within one concept: the Miss Charme contest, which can create diverse forms of empowerment. Although the contestants’ identities are all formed differently within diverse identity forms, they do share some of these identity forms. They can form collectivities

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through which they can both increase their power as a group and change the norms of the society they find themselves in by bringing it closer to their social identities.

With this thesis I want to participate in the debate about identity and empowerment. I will analyze the following concepts, among others, in a local setting: Miss show, capital, empowerment, power, intersectional theory, identity, ethnic minority, gender and young people. These concepts are used to designate the empowerment of young women with diverse identity positions in a local urban environment. Moreover, it will examine how the individual is related to her surrounding communities. Potential outcomes of this research can be of significance to the debates on the empowerment of identity minorities like youth, women and ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. In order to do so, I will first demonstrate the contextualization of the theoretical concepts I use to clarify my argument.

1.3 Theoretical Framework

Miss Show

What I found striking about the aspirations of the Miss Charme contest is its aim to achieve development through a Miss contest, an event that seemingly focuses on superficial beauty instead of development and empowerment. The Miss Charme contest uses common elements of a Miss pageant, such as the crowning of a Miss, the use of show elements and the possibilities for personal network enlargement for the contestants. It also, however, uses uncommon elements, such as finding a representative for Zuidoost.

Miss Pageants take place almost everywhere in the world and for every reason imaginable. There are two commonalities of Miss Pageants worldwide. Firstly, both local and global audiences and contestants in Miss Pageants are diverse. Secondly, while beauty contests vary worldwide according to the environments they are found in, the performance is similar: ‘These contests showcase values, concepts and behaviors that exist at the centre of a group’s sense of itself and exhibit values of morality, gender and place’ (Ballerino Cohen, Wilk and Stoeltje 1996: 2). We seemingly live in a globalizing world where we share a lot of commonalities, but the acknowledgement and creation of local identity and culture grows in significance as well. These identities and cultures are publicly performed on stage of Miss shows (ibid.: 2).

Furthermore, Miss Pageants seem to connect the global with the local by visualizing the possibility that individuals within a society can posses an identity that is both local and global. Various Miss Pageants present contestants that are both representatives of a typical local identity, to confirm local standards, and of a global identity, to function as an example of

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modernity for the local community (Tzu-Chun Wu 1997: 8; Schröder 2004: 127; Ballerino Cohen, Wilk and Stoeltje 1996: 10). Miss Charme can be considered an example of local culture as she becomes a representative for Amsterdam Zuidoost and therefore represents the residency’s culture. Furthermore, she is described as a successful young woman, which could indicate a more global, cultural ideal about success and career.

Thus, the identity formation and the positioning of the contestants within a society can help them with development and empowerment. Giving contestants a stage where they can publicly present themselves to society gives them the opportunity to form an ideal image of how they want to be recognized by that society. Through this presentation they can increase their capital and, consequently, their development by becoming noticeable in society.

Capital

To explain how the Miss Charme contest tries to accomplish its goal, development, I will explain how capital is used in identity formation, development and empowerment. I will primarily use Bourdieu’s (1989) theories regarding the different forms of capital, namely economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. Capital can be used for the creation of power. It is material or embodied belongings that, objectively perceived, can be exchanged in the form of economic capital. Subjectively, the different forms of capital cannot be exchanged. Because their economic value is in disposition, the different forms of capital contain objective value (Bourdieu 1989: 120-123).

The contestants within the Miss Charme contest are made aware of the value of power, how it can be obtained with the use of different forms of capital and how it can help increase their individual power and their collective power. The power they share through the common goals they want to achieve.

In the context of the Miss Charme contest, social capital is valued as the central form of capital because the relations with others within a society and the capital you can gain from it are highly valued by the organizer and career women. Social capital is the potentiality of goods that is created by the connection an individual can make with a network of people. It is the degree of belonging to specific groups that an individual can create. The symbolic exchanges of individuals within that group provide the value of social capital depending on, for example, the scarcity of the good or the power someone has in a group (Bourdieu 1989: 132). Although development through gaining capital is the primary goal of the Miss Charme contest, I want to address the possible empowerment that occurs through the process.

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Empowerment could extend the gain of social capital by making changes within a society and influencing the social hierarchy.

Empowerment

Regarding the Miss Charme contest, I want to clarify what kind of investments are made to accomplish potential success by analyzing how ‘the transfer of knowledge’, ‘social orientation’ and ‘the introduction to diverse networks’ can develop the contestants. This enables me to define how this development fuels the possibilities to empowerment and how empowerment essentially occurs.6 Empowerment is a complex concept and its exact meaning is contested (Cheater 1999: 7). It is engaged in relation to a person and the circumstances in which they are located. Simply said, empowerment is equally distributed power and is about gaining power (James 1999: 19; Thomas 2012: 445).

It is important to understand the definition of power when defining the concept empowerment. Although power-to or agency is the most common perceptions of power, it is power-over that substantially clarifies the relation between power and empowerment. Power-over is generated in the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. People are interdependent on each other; power-over exists in this relation of interdependency. Just like the magnetic field of a magnet, it is the relation between persons that realizes the form of empowerment. It does not entail ‘domination of others’ and it is not something for which individuals compete (ibid.: 446-448). Whether power is empowering therefore depends on how power is formed to achieve a certain process (Gutierrez 1995: 535). We can distinguish empowerment through discourse; being political concepts, discourse and power can provide the in- and exclusion of phenomena like empowerment (Cheater 1999: 4).

Power-over helps us understand empowerment because it focuses on how someone can be empowered by being less sensitive to the influences in his or her social space rather than having power-over someone else (Thomas 2012: 458). Empowerment is, to a certain extent, related to individual choices but those individual choices are made in a socio-historical context (ibid.: 459-460).

Helping others with development or working on your own development does not necessarily bring empowerment. It is important that empowered persons create a critical consciousness about the structures of society (social, political and economic) so that they have the opportunity to take action and change these structures (Stanton-Salazar: 1091). Social

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capital can be used in empowerment through counter stratification to equalize and reshape society (ibid.: 1085).

Stanton Salazar explains the concept empowerment-social capital by concentrating on low-status youth and their social capital. He uses it to explain how they obtain social capital through the connection with institutional agents. By attributing value to change and attempting to change the awareness of those they are helping, institutional agents become empowerment agents. If institutional agents were only to help low-status youth by providing them with the necessary resources to become successful, it would only enable them to achieve more in the current structures of society, but it would not change the system overall (ibid.: 1090). I will use his concept empowerment-social capital to show how institutional agents can become empowerment agents and how the career women connected to the Miss Charme contest are related to that.

Within this thesis I want to analyze how empowerment, as defined above, occurs through the actions of the contestants in participating in the Miss Charme contest and through the relationship with institutional agents who, in this context, are the career women and organizer. I will state that empowerment can occur in different forms through the same concept, the Miss Charme contest. Diverse individuals who share various social divisions can form a group that, through the same concept, achieves different goals of development. These shared social divisions enable the sharing of common ideals about their positioning in social hierarchies and can therefore provide empowerment.

Intersectional Theory

Contestants with diverse identities, formed through social divisions, can achieve development in diverse ways through one concept, the Miss Charme contest. Moreover, Miss Charme shows how, through the use of that concept, empowerment can occur in different forms. In using intersectional theory, I want to describe how the contestants are anchored in identity politics and how they are appointed diverse formations of identity. Intersectional theory will show that these identity formations are not fixed and that they are individually diverse. Being aware of these fluent identity formations and their social divisions based construction will illustrate how different contestants in different situations define their identity in different manners. Furthermore, it shows that identity politics or social stratification can place an individual in a segregated society in a minor location. By being aware of intersectionality, an individual can make different use of social divisions, form her identity differently and can try to reshape the way she is identified.

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Through identity formation people form a sense of belonging to a specific group. Yuval-Davis (2006) complements identity formation through the use of social divisions. The four stages wherein social divisions are made, organizational, intersubjective, experiential and representational, determine how we theorize those social divisions and the connections they make (Yuval-Davis 2006: 198). Organizational social divisions are found in organizations and associations. Intersubjective social divisions are found in relations between people, such as (in) formal influential and emotional relations. Experiential social divisions highlight how individuals experience subjectivities in everyday life in form of, for example, prejudices, stigmatization or discrimination. Lastly, representational social divisions are stated in, among others, beliefs, illustrations, and symbols (ibid.: 198). Although the different social divisions have different ontological roots, that are not reducible to each other, they are fluent and have flexible borders. Furthermore, their social and political meanings can change and be reorganized through diverse socio-historical contexts. Depending on the context, different social divisions will generate different hierarchies of access to capital (ibid.: 199-201).

Through naturalizing and homogenizing social divisions, identity politics is developed through which society is segregated and a social norm is created (ibid.: 194). The dominant social norm is the benchmark of society and, in relation to that social norm, social significations are positioned in a hegemonic discourse. The naturalization of these social significations makes the divisions smaller and numerous but leaves no room to the marginally positioned people relating to a signification. Therefore, people can be positioned or rejected by others in social significations when experiencing their own position differently. Their actual position is invisible within the significations in society.

As an example, I will use gender and ethnicity. It is common to relate gender to women and ethnicity to ethnic minorities, two autonomous systems. But this binary and hierarchical positioning affects the normalization and recurrence of existing power conditions (Wekker and Lutz 2001: 3). Because these identity formations are recognized as a norm and approached as standing on their own, they exclude each other and are even directly opposed to one another. This means that gender is related to white women and ethnicity is related to ethnic minority men. People who can identify with both formations become unnoticed because it is impossible to relate the formations according the discourse of society’s norm. It is therefore important to use a more fluent form of social signification through which identity formations can interrelate and transform.

Intersectional thinking tries to make social significations ‘dynamic, shifting and multiplex constructions’ (Yuval-Davis 2006: 195). Social significations are interrelated

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structures that determinate society’s differences. It tries to overcome the inevitable exclusion in binary and hierarchical thinking and to form a solution for multifarious issues related to a ‘gender conscious’ and ‘intercultural’ society (Wekker and Lutz 2001: 24). Using intersectional thinking prevents us from linking fixed identity formations to flexible positioning processes and questioning politically created classifications (Yuval-Davis 2006: 200).

In intersectional thinking all individuals are situated at junctions and form a position that is shaped by diverse social significations. Therefore, they cannot be studied separately from other systems of meaning (Wekker and Lutz 2001: 2). It does not mean that people are randomly divided over the different social divisions. In particular historical contexts people that are positioned at one link frequently are also found at another link within the social division. For example, women are frequently poorer than men in Western societies. But these relations are fluid and can change when the historical context changes (Yuval-Davis 2006: 200). It is important to examine the construction and relations of identities, political values and places in the social divisions, their influence on each other and how they interact with each other.

With this theoretical approach in mind, I will first elaborate on the methods of research before I proceed to answer the questions I previously asked about the Miss Charme contest.

1.4 Methods

When I started my research, the extensive contest period was coming to an end and the contestants of the Miss Charme contest, who went back to their everyday life, did not meet with each other on a regular basis. Therefore, I decided to use interviewing and individual conversations as the main methodologies for my research. In this manner I could extensively ask both the contestants and the career women about their contribution to the contest. The interviews and conversations with the contestants and career women contain memories and future perspectives. We mainly reflected on their experiences during the period of the contest.

The contestants know each other through their participation. Most of them did not know each other before the contest. They first met on the selection day of the contest, which was the day that the participating contestants were enrolled in the contest. Although the willing contestants needed to individually meet with a jury to explain their interest in participating, they were all selected to participate. The jury was enthusiastic about every contestant and wanted them all to participate. The following two to three months they

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regularly met at courses, practice days and at the show. In everyday life they might coincidentally run into each other at the gym or a shopping center within the district but, generally speaking, they are not close friends. Some of the contestants did, however, form friendships through their participation in the contest. Most of the career women know each other because they move in the same professional networks but they do not meet in everyday life.

Semi-structural interviews were mostly used in my research because I wanted to assure that I would talk to all contestants and career women about similar themes and ask them similar questions. This method simultaneously allows for flexibility and leaves some space open for the interviewees to introduce subjects they wanted to talk about. Prior to the data collection, I decided on the topics I wanted to elaborate on and some questions I wanted to ask. The interviews are all recorded with a voice recorder, which enabled me to transcribe and analyze the interviews afterwards. I am aware that this might have made the interviewees more conscious about what they were saying and perhaps discouraged them from revealing any negative information. I generally felt they did not experience it as a burden because we built a sufficient rapport.

Later on during fieldwork I decided to have more open conversations with the contestants. I wanted to know what would happen if I would do so, what would change in the manner of approach and what they would tell me. Moreover, I did not use the voice recorder on these occasions. These changes made the form of the interviews more open and the information that the contestants gave me more personal, though it did not differ much in relation to the recorded interviews.

Themes I elaborated on in the interviews included charm, ambition, study, work, career, relationships, beauty, home situations, career history, the good qualities of the interviewee and prejudices about Zuidoost. Themes about the contest were also explored such as the show, the connections between the contestants and the career women, the rehearsal days preceding the show, the relationships between the contestants, the relationship with the organizer of the contest, the qualities of a Miss Charme, what the Miss Charme should do in representing Zuidoost and reasons for participation.

The interviews took place at various locations. I usually met up with the contestants in cafés or restaurants around de Poort, the biggest shopping center in Amsterdam Zuidoost. The career women usually asked me to meet them at their offices for the appointment. These surroundings might have affected the career women’s attitude towards the interviews as more professional compared to a more personal surrounding. Furthermore, the sport center Henny

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Pleizier was an important location for interviews because some of the girls were involved in

sports there and because the organizer’s office was vested in the same building. Some of the interviews as well as the meetings with the organizer were conducted there.

In addition to the interviews and conversations, I went to a variety of events that were of importance to the Miss Charme contestants and where I knew some of them would be present. These events were all organized by organizations that either had a connection with the Miss Charme contest, the organizer, or the contestants.7 I went to a total of six events. This gave me the opportunity to see how the contestants behaved, with whom they came into contact, what these contacts told them and generally to observe and participate.

An analysis of media and social media gave me information about the constructed image of the contestants and the contest. I collected and compared information the contestants and contests organization distributed, like social media pages constructed by every individual contestant where they represented themselves as Miss and the website and social media page of the Miss Charme contest. In addition, I analyzed information that was given about the contest by others, for example, in newspapers or on the news. This was useful in outlining the general image of the contest, how the contestants portrayed themselves and how others observed it.

Elaboration

I ended up speaking with eleven of the twenty contestants of Miss Charme 2011. Three of the twenty contestants dropped out of the contest before the final show. Of the three, one of them was too busy with her personal life, another thought that the contest did not fit her expectations and another simply did not show up any more at a particular moment. These three contestants all told me that they were not interested in collaborating with my research. Out of the other seventeen contestants, three told me that they were not interested in an interview and another three did not respond to my requests. I spoke with nine of the twenty career women that participated. The others either did not respond to my request or did not show an interest in being interviewed, presumably because they were too busy since all the career women have demanding professions.

I also spoke with three contestants from previous Miss Charme contests. These earlier contests differed quite a bit from how the contest is shaped now. These conversations enabled me to compare their experiences to the experiences of the contestants of the 2011 contest.

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Furthermore, they could already elaborate on the years after the Miss Charme contest. The changes within the Miss Charme contest have to do with the development the contest is undergoing and, potentially, the development the district is undergoing. Some major details of the contest have changed and I think there will be some changes again in next year’s contest. For example, at first the contest only entailed a Miss pageant and a few activities related to social involvement, whereas this year it also entailed the connection with the career women and the Women Connect 2 Success network was set up, a network wherein all the participants of Miss Charme, contestants, career women and organization, are connected with each other.8 The contest, the show and now the network will keep on growing.

The organizer, Marjorie de Cunha, was very open and interested about my research at first. This made me decide to perceive her as ‘gate keeper’ to my research field. She knows all contestants and career women well and can use her authority, accumulated through the creation of the contest, to approach the contestants and career women to partake in my research. Our relationship unfortunately did not function in the way I had hoped and in the way she initially suggested. We met two times at her office where we spoke about my research. In one of those meetings she gave me contact information of the first people I wanted to approach for participation in my research. After those two meetings, however, she did not respond to my requests by e-mail and she did not answer her phone. Although she had mentioned that she was extremely busy, which could have been the reason of her non-response, it took me by surprise that she did not respond anymore because she was so enthusiastic when we first met. During my research period, however, I sometimes ran into her at events where I always politely started a conversation with her. Once I was invited by one of the contestants to a meeting three of the top five contestants of the contests had with Marjorie de Cunha. These contestants helped her with the organization of Women Connect 2 Success events. Although she did not mind me being present at that meeting, and she never expressed any negativity towards me, she did not help me with anything concerning my research anymore.

To get in contact with my research population I therefore made extensive use of the Internet and social media. All the contestants’ and career women’s names are indicated on the Miss Charme website. I managed to find most of the career women and contestants through Facebook, LinkedIn and/or websites from the career women or the companies and organizations they worked for. All the career women and contestants who participated in my

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research were very approachable and helpful, presumably because they valued the Miss Charme contest and perceived my research as a good cause.

I spent approximately three months conducting extensive fieldwork on the Miss Charme contest. Although I neither had any relation to Amsterdam Zuidoost prior to my fieldwork nor did I participate in the contest myself, I tried to achieve an as clear and transparent description as possible of what I experienced in the field without assuming that I can fully reveal the structures of the Miss Charme contest and the communities related to it. In the following chapter I will elaborate on the settings of research and the positioning of the contestants within society.

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2. Miss Charme Connects

Formation of the Contestants’ Network

2.1 Introduction

In one of my first field encounters I participated in the audience of the Miss Charme show, a Miss pageant-like event where young women were presented to an audience and a jury. A winner was elected from the group of young women at the end of the show. She earned the title Miss Charme 2011 and would become a representative of Zuidoost. A few days earlier, I bought a ticket that gave access to the show. The information on the ticket promised some good entertainment. Not only would the young women present themselves on stage, but a famous Dutch comedian, Jörgen Raymann, would also be performing. Moreover, the presenter of the show would be Sharlely Becker, a former Dutch model now married to Boris Becker (The famous tennis player), who once participated in a Miss Charme contest herself.

In the days leading up to the event I was worried about my appearance and what to wear to the show. A dress code, namely glitter and glamour, was indicated on the ticket. It was unclear whether this dress code was intended for the contestants or for the audience. Slightly nervous, I prepared myself for the show. I knew the show would attract many people and I knew I needed to speak with them because I wanted to conduct research amongst them. Blending in with the audience would make me feel more comfortable so I decided to go semi-glamorous. I wore a glitter dress, black jeans, high heels, and I wore my hair down.

Upon entering the venue where the show took place, a huge gym in de Bijlmer, which is an area in Zuidoost, I realized that I was underdressed.2 The whole gym was filled with people, young and old, men and women, wearing the most stunning, extravagant outfits. They wore bright colors and glitter and there was an abundance of stiletto heels and suits. The audience looked very glamorous and clearly put a great deal of effort into their appearance. I felt a bit like an outsider not only because I was underdressed, but also because everyone seemed to attend the event in groups of family and friends. Everybody seemed to know each other, people were walking around, greeting each other, chit chatting and above all, having a good time.

To enter the gym you had to go down an iron stairway with holes in it, which was a little scary wearing high heels. From the top of the stairs I had a nice overview of the gym. There was a stage in a T-shape and the foot of the T formed a catwalk. There appeared to be a

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VIP section on the left side of the catwalk. The section was shut off from the rest and the chairs were different compared to those in other sections. In this VIP section I recognized some well-known people from Zuidoost like the district director, Marcel la Rose, and some Miss Charme career women, who I already spotted on the Miss Charme website.9 There was a food and beverage stand at the back of the gym selling Surinamese style food and drinks. The rest of the gym was packed with chairs, and because most of the chairs were unfortunately already occupied, I had to sit at the back of the gym.

The show started when a motorbike entered the gym and rode on the mid pathway to the stage. Arriving at the stage, the driver took off her helmet and said, ‘Welcome to Miss Charme 2011’. Although this was a cool image, a tough woman on a motorbike, the audience made comments about the smell and noise of the motorbike. Shortly afterwards, Sharlely Becker entered the stage, and with a powerful voice she exclaimed ‘women connect to success choose a new level of understanding, of who we are, of what we are, but most importantly of who we can be’. The sentence gave a powerful meaning to the Miss Charme contest and summarizes what the contestants, the organization and the career women want to emphasize by partaking in the contest.

While Sharlely Becker was talking, the contestants entered the stage from two sides and walked passed her to the runway. She passed out flyers to the contestants, who threw them into the audience, and then left the stage. The contestants started dancing to Beyoncé’s very relevant hit, ‘Run the world (girls)’. The start of the show was spectacular. The girls were dancing a powerful dance and were all wearing black shorts, a white blouse and high heels. They were also wearing a mask in the shape of a cat face. The audience responded with a loud applause. Not only Beyoncé’s opening hit was relevant to the show, but the music throughout was related to what the contestants represented: ambitious, beautiful, smart, young women. Examples include Ne-Yo’s ‘Miss Independent’ and Mariah Cary’s ‘Hero’.

After the contestants left the stage, Jörgen Raymann entered it. He joked around about stereotypes surrounding the show and Zuidoost, such as women and the Bijlmer. Based on their laughter, I think the audience loved it. Furthermore, he stated that the Bijlmer belongs to Surinamese people and switched from Dutch to Sranan Tongo. According to the audience’s reactions, the majority of the public understood what he was saying. His performance was a relaxed and funny interlude of the show.

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When the contestants reappeared on stage they were wearing business outfits. These business outfits were neat clothes and basic in comparison to the other outfits. For example, they wore skirts, blouses, fancy jackets and trousers. The contestants came on stage in groups of six and performed a small act, as if they were working. During the act, the contestants walked to the front of the runway one by one, where they performed a one-minute pitch. In this pitch the contestants presented themselves to the audience and told them why they should be Miss Charme 2011 and what they would do for Zuidoost if they became Miss Charme 2011. The overall content of the speeches did not differ much from one another. Most of the contestants said something about the positive image of Zuidoost and about giving back to the community, especially with regards to helping kids and young people to accomplish their goals. Nervousness was heard in some of the contestants’ voices and sometimes the speeches were a little vague for the same reason. Other contestants were very clear and confident and nervousness was not detected in their speeches.

In the contestants’ third appearance on stage they wore evening gowns. Accompanied by a singer, the contestants all stood at the back of the stage. When the singer started singing, the contestants would walk the catwalk one by one. The contestants looked amazing. Their evening gowns were extremely colorful and glittery. The contestants’ last appearance on stage was also stunning and colorful. They wore Moroccan style dresses, which are long, have an A line cut, long sleeves and, as a finishing touch, some glitter.10

The audience was enthusiastic throughout the entire show. They screamed, applauded and whistled. It was clear that some of the contestants brought more fans with them than others. When these contestants were on the catwalk some audience members responded more enthusiastically than with other contestants. Overall, the audience seemed to enjoy the show.

The jury elected the top five contestants when it was time for the final. Unfortunately, the jury was not very specific about the reasons for choosing those five contestants. The other contestants had their final moment on the catwalk and then, with a loud applause from the audience, disappeared backstage. The final five contestants had to answer questions from the jury. These questions were, for example, about beauty or about the ways in which they would like to change the image of Zuidoost. It was nice to hear the contestants speak and react to these questions. Finally, the jury went backstage to discuss who would be the winning contestant. This turned out to be Nadia Taaza; she was elected Miss Charme 2011. Nadia told

10_{The Moroccan style dresses were designed by ‘La Femme Chique’, two young designers who participated in a}

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me that winning the contest was an achievement she thought she would never experience and she was overwhelmed by it.

The Miss Charme show, as described above, was one of the first impressions I got of the Miss Charme contest. I have illustrated how and in which setting the Miss Charme contest presented the contestants to the public. In this chapter I will elaborate on the setting wherein the contest is positioned. Based on that impression, I will illustrate why networking is significant in the development and possible empowerment of the Miss Charme contestants.

2.2 Setting

The Miss Charme Contest

The Miss Charme contest started out as a small fashion show in a local bar in Zuidoost. Marjorie de Cunha said:

At that moment, I lived in one of the Bijlmer High-rise flats, and if you said the name

Bijlmer back then, it almost seemed to be a dirty word. I am talking about the year

1988. So then I started an idea, I wanted to do something, but it had to have a social context. And something from me as well, the fashion story. I developed a concept, yes, a Miss contest, but one that actually gave something back to the district. It had to have a social context and therefore Miss Charme, ambassadress of the district Zuidoost, with, as a goal, an added value to the positive image of the district.

Marjorie de Cunha has built up the contest from the beginning to the large event it currently is. She was born and raised in Surinam. As a young woman, Marjorie was already busy working in the entertainment and fashion industry. She immigrated to the Netherlands with various ambitions and worked hard to get them up and running. But then, she told me, she fell in love, got married and became pregnant, and for a while her focus was more on her family. At a certain moment she felt the need to start to do something with her passion and ambition for the entertainment and fashion industry again. Furthermore, she wanted to mean something for her district. Marjorie is a hardworking, enterprising woman who is talented in networking. Although Marjorie is the primary organizer of the contest, she frequently receives help from people she knows, family, friends or people from her professional network. The first Miss Charme contest was held in 1993. Since then there have been ten contests. Although the Miss Charme contest 2011 is the first time that the connections with the career women took place, there have always been social projects connected to the contest. For example, the contestants from an earlier contest once spent a day with kids from the asylum center that was vested in Zuidoost at the time, and once they held a garbage collection initiative in the district.

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The decision to connect the contestants with career women arose because it was perceived to be necessary for the young women in Zuidoost. Furthermore, the ambassadress function that comes with winning the Miss Charme contest is a positive aspect. She is always invited to diverse events in and outside of Zuidoost, where she can positively represent her district as a beautiful and ambitious young woman.

The contestants are young women in their late teens or early twenties who all live in Zuidoost. They have diverse identities. Of significance in the contest is, for example, the diverse ethnicities the contestants can relate to. The majority of the residents of Zuidoost are ‘black’ minorities such as Surinamese-Dutch, Caribbean-Dutch, Ghanaians and other Africans (Aalbers 2010: 1709). While the contestants generally reflect this demographic, other ethnic identities like Moroccan-Dutch or Dutch are represented amongst the contestants as well. Their educational level differs from MBO to WO, but what they have in common is that they all study or have been studying, and that they have ambitions for their future career.3 Most of them have a typical student life. They partake in a fulltime study and have part-time jobs, participate in extra curricular activities, participate in sports and social activities. Some live on their own, while others live with their parent(s).

The contestants enroll in the Miss Charme contest for diverse reasons, though there appeared to be three principle ones. Firstly, some contestants thought participation in the Miss Charme contest would be a step in the direction of an entertainment career. Some of them, for example, aspired to be models and thought learning how to walk on a catwalk and present yourself could be an advantage. The second main reason for participation is the connection with a career woman. This would broaden their networks and their knowhow on becoming a successful career woman. The last reason that was mentioned by various contestants was the idea that it was a new experience, a challenge, and something from which they could learn.

The career women are generally women at the heights of their career and between forty and sixty years of age. They have diverse ethnic and social identities. A larger part of the women migrated from Surinam to the Netherlands in their younger years. Furthermore, the majority of the career women lives in Zuidoost or are connected to the Zuidoost network, which I will elaborate on later in this chapter. They work in diverse fields of work and most of the career women participate in voluntary activities related to social organizations. Social involvement and the desire to help young women similar to them on the road to success constitute the primary reasons for their participation in the Miss Charme contest. They also

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like the appreciation and gratitude they receive from the contestants. Furthermore, their participation broadens their own network and social capital because of the people they meet or might already know through the Miss Charme contest.

All these women together, the organizer, contestants and career women, form the Women Connect 2 Success network. It is a network that is built on shared goals and identities like the pursuit of success, social involvement, knowledge transfer, a close relation to Zuidoost, and having minority identity, namely being a woman and having a minority ethnicity. The women are all, however, very diverse and can all be positioned differently within the network. This diversity can be seen in their reasons to participate in the network, their authority within the network, or the social capital they personally obtain (Yuval-Davis 2006). Within this network there is a social norm which all participants can relate to and position themselves in to varying degrees.

The network can be considered a ‘social support network’ that helps oppressed young people stuck in stratified society become empowered on their route to success. When young people get out of their marginal positions, they mostly do so with the help of institutional agents that can offer them a network. This provides them with the institutional help and support they need for empowerment (Stanton-Salazar 2011: 1097). The Women Connect 2 Success network offers social support for the contestants to help them within the larger Dutch society. The contestants’ social position within society is located in a specific socio-historical context and is hierarchically formulated through the diverse identities the contestants obtain (Yuval-Davis 2006).

The Netherlands

In the Dutch society it is generally thought that diverse segments in society are treated equally. In reality, however, minorities and gender divisions external to the norm are poorly positioned. Furthermore, it is commonly thought that (white) women’s emancipation has been achieved. Emancipation is something that is sorted out individually between partners and is not recognized as a collective movement that exposes and tries to counter structural inequality (Wekker and Lutz 2001: 13).

There are various signs that indicate the unequal positions of women in the Netherlands. There is still a lack of females in the highest layer of business and a shortage of female professors. The public discourse is unequally formed related to gender differences, labor and care responsibilities are still uneven and public images of successful women are highly stereotyped. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report,

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the Netherlands is ranked seventeenth when it comes to gender equality.11 This means that there is still a lot of difference in the opportunities available between women and men. While there are many highly educated women, there are not many women who hold high positions in the Netherlands.12

Ethnic identification is another form through which marginalization occurs. Stigmatization and racist actions demonstrate unequal opportunities for ethnic minorities compared to the social norm. Social problems are neglected by perceiving them as ‘racial’ or ‘cultural’ issues (Guadeloupe and Rooij de 2007: 11) For example, problems of integration are understood as cultural conditions and discrimination in education and on the labor market are not considered genuine problems (de Jong, 2007: 25). In reality, participation on the labor market is hindered through the manners in which ethnic minorities are treated (ibid.: 34). For example, the unemployment of young niet-westerse allochtonen in 2012 was 28,4 percent while for autochtonen this was 9,8 percent.13 The percentages of unemployment were, however, approximately equal between niet-westerse allochtonen women and men.14 This indicates that a larger proportion of young niet-westerse allochtonen experience problems finding a job in comparison to autochtonen.15

The relationship between gender and ethnicity is highly important because it controls and constructs the possibilities and opportunities in people’s lives:

Dominant views make use of asymmetrical hierarchical binary categories which enable the dominant sex and the dominant ethnic group to represent themselves as neutral, non-gendered and non-ethnical. That is how issues connected to power are normalized and hidden from view (Wekker and Lutz 2001: 13).

Some of the identity formations through which the Miss Charme contestants form their identity therefore do not belong to the norm in Dutch society. This directly indicates their lack of power in relation to the norm. In addition to these identity formations, the Miss Charme contestants relate to Zuidoost, their district of residency and thereby an identity formation through which the contestants identify themselves. Outsiders, however, identify it negatively.

11_{http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-gender-gap.} 12_ibid.

13_{Non-western allochtons, Autochtonous, see appendix.} 14_{Non-western allochtons, see appendix.}

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Zuidoost

The Miss Charme contest takes place in Zuidoost, a district of Amsterdam. In the eighties and nineties the district had a negative status of ‘urban despair, neighborhood decline and drug abuse’; a deprived neighborhood (Aalbers 2010: 1698). While the district experienced and still experiences difficulties, it is also an area of ‘social mobility’ and its reputation does not correspond to reality. Moreover, since the revitalization of the housing program in 1992, the district experienced significant progress. As a result, more middleclass residents stayed in and returned to the area (ibid.: 1698-1709).

Around 1975, Surinamese migrants settled in Zuidoost.16 The district was easily accessible due to its poor reputation and its abundance of housing possibilities. For similar reasons, Zuidoost residents are largely ethnic minority groups, refugees and immigrants. Approximately eighty percent of the citizens of Zuidoost are of non-Dutch descent. Due to economic, social and physical renewal plans, Zuidoost underwent a change in image from a deprived neighborhood to a basis for black culture:

At the same time that migration is problematised in all ranges of society and integration is considered a failure, the Bijlmer shows that socio-economic integration and preservation of ‘black culture’ can go hand in hand (ibid.: 1715).

Although most of the changes are successful, it is a gradual process of change and there is still room for improvement (ibid.: 1703-1711).

In general, the contestants enjoyed living in Zuidoost and did not wish to leave any time soon. Most of them had been living there for the majority of their lives, if not their whole life. One of the contestants, Nadia, moved there approximately two years ago but was very conscious of her choice to move to Zuidoost. She liked to live in a district with residents that have diverse ethnic identities. Because everybody is different, she felt as though she fit in more and was able to be herself. A few of the girls wanted to find their own place within the district but this seemed to be rather difficult. Just as any other place in Amsterdam, there is a long waiting list for social housing and other possibilities are scarce or expensive.

Due to its reputation, people outside of Zuidoost generally perceive the district differently than residents of Zuidoost. Within Zuidoost there is positive counter insurgency against the formulated reputation of the district according to the social norm. Grassroots

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organizations and district policies put a lot of effort in the development of the district and its residents.

The contestants told me diverse things about Zuidoost such as the difference between the Bijlmer and Zuidoost. The Bijlmer is officially a neighborhood of Zuidoost, just like Gein, but, in general, people use the name Bijlmer to signify Zuidoost. If you tell someone in the Netherlands that you have been to Zuidoost there is a big chance they will not know about it, whereas if you use Bijlmer, there is a big chance the person recognize it. The Bijlmer is perceived as being the most deprived neighborhood in the Netherlands. The average Dutch person may know about the Bijlmer, but they might have a completely different image about it than the average resident since it has become less of a deprived neighborhood. The term Zuidoost or Bijlmer therefore is a hybrid expression.

I asked one of the contestants, Akuosa, if the Bijlmer and Zuidoost were two different places and she answered:

A: The Bijlmer is actually smaller, I think. Bijlmer sounds so, how do you call that, ghetto.

It is actually just Zuidoost, but we say Bijlmer. T: Yes, would you say Bijlmer?

A: I say Bijlmer, yes. But for the Miss Charme contest you have to say Amsterdam Zuidoost of course, and then you cannot use Bijlmer. That really sounds wrong. T: That is not how it is supposed to be?

A: Yes.

Colloquially, I would use the names for the district in a similar fashion as Akuosa and use the name Bijlmer when I talk about the district. But during my research and in this essay, where things are more official, I use Zuidoost as a name for the district. On official occasions the situation changes and Zuidoost or Amsterdam Zuidoost will function as a name for the district. This also directly illustrates why identity formation is not a fixed entity but a fluent form that different people experience differently.

Because one of the aims of the contest is to find an ambassadress to Zuidoost, the contest might also change the contestants’ way of speaking about the district. This concept is the search for an ambassadress to Zuidoost. It presents Zuidoost in another light to the contestants. It is then not only the place where the contestants live, but also what they represent. They want to be proud of it and they want to show the good things about it. The positive features of Zuidoost are brought to the contestants’ attention through their participation in the contest because the organizer talks extensively about it with them. They

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also become familiar with the Zuidoost network, which can increase their positive image about the district even more.

Zuidoost Network

A network with which the Miss Charme contest is highly involved is, what I call, the Zuidoost network. This is a network comprised of agents who are related to the district Zuidoost through for example residency or employment. The agents have diverse ethnic minority identities and are aware of their minority positions within the larger Dutch society, but use this as an advantage in and outside of their network. Within the district, however, these agents are the norm of society. As shown above, Zuidoost is a fluid place that is differently identified by outsiders and insiders. This could be one of the reasons why there is a dense network linked to Zuidoost that offers support and positivity.

The Miss Charme contest is connected to several other organizations through the Zuidoost network. The network is not only related to Zuidoost but also to the city of Amsterdam. Most of the organizations to which it is connected are concentrated on the social development of individuals and communities in diverse ways (Aalbers 2010: 1712). Examples include organizations that represent ethnic groups, women or young people. Generally, they are all connected with each other through the Zuidoost network. The network strives to create social awareness and both social and commercial success.

The social organizations support each other in their causes. The financial organizations, the district and funding are needed as economic support for the social organizations. But the district is also needed for moral support, especially with the Miss Charme contest, which links the function of winning Miss Charme, in this case Nadia Taaza, to the district. She, for example, welcomed guests and gave a speech at the New Year’s reception of the district office. The individual collaborators are connected to the network in a number of ways such as personal interest, social awareness in the sense of giving back to society and they may have a business or social organization that could be an interesting addition to the Zuidoost network. Local organizations in a modern, urban, divided city can connect with each other and build-up collective networks (Berger, Funke and Wolfson 2011: 191).

The importance of projects such as the Miss Charme contest was highlighted through the conversations I had with career women, who indicated the partial invisibility experienced by young women within the district because they do not feel that they are acknowledged as active agents. Through the contest contestants acquire an introduction to the Zuidoost network and can thereby make themselves more visible within that network. Moreover, the contest

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focuses on young women and the contestants could be an example for other young women in the district. Through the Miss Charme contest and its participating contestants, the group of young women within the Zuidoost network can gain power and influence within the network.

The Miss Charme Contest Participants

The identity that the Miss Charme contest presents is young ambitious women who live in Zuidoost. A Miss show occurs within the contest, which is where the winner of Miss Charme 2011 is announced. The participants in the Miss Charme contest intend to represent strong individuals who are also involved in community building. The organizer and career women state that the contestants all have the potential to be successful if they are willing to work hard for it. To them and the contestants, the ideal Miss Charme contestant is nice, smart, outgoing and approachable, has a well-groomed appearance, her stage performance is glamorous and she is beautiful. Diversity is central within the Miss Charme contest; beauty, ethnicity and ambitions come in many forms and colors.

Although the main goal of the Miss Charme contest is development for its contestants and for other young women in Zuidoost, it is the organizer and career women that have the main authority to decide on the content of the contest. The organizer, for example, decides who enters the Miss Charme contest and it is the career women who decide who the contestants meet or to what networks they are introduced. The members of a community have to protect and increase the social capital that they, as a group, possess, they have to protect the borders of the community and, consequently, decide who can enter it (Bourdieu 1989: 134). This does not mean that the contestants do not contribute to the content of the contest at all, but the authority to confirm the activities within the contest lies with the career women and the organizer of the contest. Later in the contest or after the contest, when the contestants are more valued as members of the group, they receive more authority.

The organizer and the career women can be distinguished as the representatives of the contest. A community generally has a couple of representatives that can highlight or represent the communities’ social capital. When they represent the community it transcends their individual power (ibid.: 135-136). While the young woman who is elected Miss Charme will be perceived as representative of the group, this representation could be seen as a symbolic representation. Also, the contestants represent the group in a more symbolic way such as at the Miss show and at specific events. As a group, they symbolize young ambitious women from Zuidoost. I will elaborate on this symbolic representation in the following chapter.

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As stated in the introduction, I will explain why the gain and use of different forms of capital, especially social capital, is perceived as a form of development within the Miss Charme contest. The organizer and career women have experienced the power of different forms of capital within their careers and social lives. They therefore know the meaning of having and knowing how to use the different forms of capital. Consequently, they feel compelled to teach the contestants about its meaning so that they can in turn use it within the diverse social realms in their livelihood. Practices of the different forms of capital are valued according to subjective or objective approaches and their position in society. It is exactly the denial of the objective value that gives the different forms of capital their objective value. Subjectively, it is denied that there is economic capital at stake, which makes it difficult to highlight the exact amount of economic capital at play in the different forms of capital (ibid.: 120-122). Revealing the social rules of using those capitals can help the contestants to understand and use them in the socially assumed ‘correct’ way.

One of the goals of the Miss Charme contest is to provide young women with social skills to help them in their future career. The Miss Charme contest also connects the young women to the district and the Zuidoost network through social involvement. Networking plays a key role in the contest and in achieving these goals. The contestants learn that the stronger and larger your network, the more opportunities it offers you in the future. The contest exposes networking as an important factor to the obtainment of development and future success in society at large.

2.3 Networking

The content of the Miss Charme contest makes it apparent that networking is highly valued within the contest. It declares that the contest will take care of ‘social expansion and orientation’ and ‘the organization Women Connect 2 Success brings women together, young and old, national and international, with the aim to upgrade and stimulate network and networking, the transfer of knowledge and empowerment’.17 The contestants are connected with multiple networks and develop their personal network through the Miss Charme contest.

Working on a personal network increases a person’s social capital. The size of that social capital is generated from the volume of the specific group wherein exchange is possible, the quantity and quality of the relations that can be accumulated within the group, the quality of goods that can be exchanged and the quantity of goods that the individuals within the group

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‘own’ (Bourdieu 1989: 132). At first sight, achieved social capital does not directly demonstrate its value, but it can eventually increase someone’s power and objective capital (ibid.: 132). The obtainment of social capital through networking therefore provides contestants with the opportunity to increase their power and visibility within networks of interest, such as in the work field.

Zuidoost is described by one of the career women, Manoushka Zeegelaar Breeveld, as a place where the use of networking is essential if you want to establish something. She said that Zuidoost is an example of a small community within an urban environment where people can arrange what needs to be arranged if they have the right connections. Moreover, she states that the organizer of the contest is excellent at arranging things. By doing so, and by assuring the contestants that arranging is a way of works, the organizer teaches the contestants how to go about in the network connected to Zuidoost. I would like to argue that arranging could be valuable to every network wherein individuals move about. Networking and knowing people will give opportunities in a number of situations, such as in your district, family or work field. I experienced the arranging concept that was described during my fieldwork. I could observe that Marjorie de Cunha had certain things arranged because she knew certain people. Furthermore, during the interviews, I was frequently asked about whom I knew and whom I talked to for my research. I assume this was a confirmation of my positioning within particular networks.

Networking in Practice

Darice is one of the contestants in the Miss Charme contest. She became first runner-up within the Miss Charme contest. She is highly involved in the Women Connect 2 Success organization and regularly attends the events to which she is invited. Darice is twenty-three years old, petite and has long dark hair. She was born in Surinam but was raised in Zuidoost for the greater part of her childhood. Darice studies Governance and Organizational sciences and Psychology at university. She lives at home with her parents and her sister. She shared her experience of networking in the Zuidoost network with me. Through her experience, it becomes clear how the participation in the Miss Charme contest increases social capital through networking:

It is also a totally different world, because when you go to these kinds of activities you will see a bit of the same people on every event. At least in Zuidoost, you will again and again walk into the same people. And it is a bit of a closed society, because that threshold anyway yes, you will be hearing from, occasionally you hear of such