The Package Next Door:
Urban Neighboring in a Dense, Diverse Setting
Jessica Warren
Research Master’s Social Sciences, GSSS Universiteit van Amsterdam 10499199
Supervisor: Dr. Fenne Pinkster
Second Reader: Dr. Paul Mepschen
For Ruby-- I hope you grow up in a better world.
I would like to thank my friends and family for their love and empathy throughout this process, particularly when life threw me curveballs that required
additional support. I am grateful to my parents, grandmother, and siblings for getting me here. I especially want to thank Britt Swartjes, who read numerous chapter drafts and whose idea for the “Understanding Amsterdam” course brought me to much of the theoretical work underpinning this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Paul Mepschen for being my second reader and Alyt Klomp for the administrative help that enabled much of this process.
Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Fenne Pinkster, without whom I have no idea how I would have made it. Fenne’s guidance not only made this work what it is, but strengthened me as a writer, a scholar, and a professional. I deeply appreciate having had such an incredible supervisor for this thesis.
Abstract
This thesis analyzes urban neighboring by investigating its relationship with imposed encounters-- namely, package exchange between neighbors-- in a dense, diverse region of Amsterdam. Through semi-structured interviews and narrative mapping, I interrogate what it means for residents, who may have no other reason to interact directly, to
complete this task for one another. The imposed encounter exemplifies urban
neighboring: it requires balancing physical proximity and relational distance, as well as the expectations those two qualities evoke. Though diverse city neighborhoods are often described as dysfunctional, the careful balances inherent to package exchange between neighbors, which operate largely unexamined by those peering into urban neighbor relations and by the residents experiencing them, suggest a more complex reality.
The Package Next Door:
Urban Neighboring in a Dense, Diverse Setting
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction… 1
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework… 4
Chapter 3: Research Design… 16
Chapter 4: To Be a Neighbor in De Baarsjes… 27
1. Good Neighboring… 27
2. Anonymity and Intimacy… 40
3. Boundary-Drawing… 52
Chapter 5: Space-Mediated Encounters… 66
1. Privacy in Hyperproxmity… 66
2. Parochial Spaces… 79
Chapter 6: Conclusion… 95
Appendix A: Descriptions of Participants… 101
Appendix B: Map of De Baarsjes and Additional Information… 103
Appendix C: Interview Procedures… 105
Appendix D: Interview Item List… 106
Works Cited… 114
1. Introduction
In the city of Amsterdam, as in the rest of the Netherlands, it is common practice for the employees of package delivery services to leave packages with a neighbor if the recipient does not appear to be home, to be picked up when the recipient returns. The practice functions as part of daily life and goes largely unquestioned by residents who partake in it.
To an outsider like myself, the activity was at first baffling. Neighbors who might otherwise have little contact with one another appear to trust each other with their possibly intimate, monetarily valuable personal possessions. In addition, postal service providers have formalized the practice, leaving behind prefabricated notes to alert residents as to their packages’ whereabouts. This practice appeared to cross the line of urban neighbor friendliness to me, particularly in my neighborhood, where neighbors often exchanged little more than hellos. To be expected to call on neighbors at their homes without having met them before, and to expect them to hold inside their homes the packages I had not been able to receive myself, felt very odd, indeed. For my Dutch neighbors, however, it appeared that nothing could have been more normal.
It has been argued that the neighborhood is no longer relevant to the social worlds of urban citizens because of increased mobility, diversity, and digitalization. The literature often portrays relations between neighbors in the urban environment as
incidental. Neighboring is seen as a vestige of a time when urban citizens were less mobile and less connected to people and things outside of their immediate
neighborhoods. As in my own neighborhood, many urban residents barely greet their neighbors. In addition, the contemporary city is often painted as a site not just of
anonymity but also of social dysfunction. Dense, diverse neighborhoods in cities like Amsterdam are seen as spaces of dissociation rather than cohesive, productive
environments. The multicultural city is viewed largely as a failure, with neighbors from different immigration backgrounds, classes, and life courses going about their days in parallel, rather than in tandem-- or, in the worst cases, in tension and conflict.
However, while residents of cities may not know and rely on their neighbors in ways they once did, neighbors' lives continue to intersect in both small and significant ways. They may now live in highly mobile, digitized worlds, but neighbors cannot escape each other completely, and neighbor relations affect the environments in which residents live and their experiences of the city. This is not to confuse meaningful effects with meaningful social relationships-- despite the impact of neighbor relations on residents' lives in a general sense, individual relationships with neighbors may still be considered weak ties.
What then do we make of activities that appear to require a careful dance of reliance and responsibility to each other not generally associated with weak ties? The activity of receiving packages from/collecting packages for neighbors is particularly interesting because it entails interactions that do not come from any perceived affinity, such as frequenting the same stores, or other similarity, such as having young children, but is based instead solely on proximity. The activity is the source of an imposed
encounter between neighbors who might otherwise have no reason to interact. However, residents are also not forced to participate in the activity, because they can decline to accept a package or choose to have packages sent to a pick-up location. The activity nonetheless continues across the neighborhoods of Amsterdam. Urban neighbors, a group with seemingly ever-decreasing ties, continue to participate in a system that
continually obliges interaction, not just as they pass on the street but by calling on each other at home. It is an occasioned activity in which people who may otherwise be strangers visibly rely on one another. An investigation of this activity would therefore provide insights into the opaque but ever-present aspect of urban social life that is neighboring.
In this research project, I aim to better understand urban neighboring by
investigating how the activity of receiving, holding, and handing over private packages between neighbors functions in the circumstances of a region of Amsterdam called De Baarsjes. I consider what relationship exists, if any, between that activity and
neighboring in the diverse, urban setting of De Baarsjes, and what that might tell us about urban social relations.
2. Theoretical Framework
In this section, I discuss some of the major theoretical themes relevant to this research. My main theoretical concept is neighboring, which I unpack into its
component parts. I then consider neighborhood diversity and imposed encounters, and I explore the theoretical and social relevance of studying neighboring in contemporary urban settings.
My theoretical approach to this thesis sits mainly within critical realism. A critical realist approach, first articulated by Bhaskar (1993), is well-suited to a study of processes, such as those of neighboring and of the neighbor-package-delivery system. Critical realism addresses an inherent flaw of positivism by acknowledging the
fragmented perspective of empirical knowledge. It also recognizes that social agents are not merely embodiments of society, but rather thinking and feeling actors. However, critical realism also offers an escape from the often tautological subjectivity of interpretivist traditions and takes seriously both the material and social conditions of actors (Fleetwood 2014). This approach is therefore appropriate to studying neighboring in the context of diverse, urban neighborhoods.
2.3 The role of neighboring
Keller describes the neighbor as neither friend, family, nor stranger, but instead “an objectively given, inescapable presence in one’s life space,” though one in which “some choice exists [...] as to what one decides to make of this relationship” (1968: 24). She argues that it is “a socially defined relationship ranging from highly formalized and institutionalized rules to highly variable, voluntary exchanges [...] among those living
near one another, however nearness is defined” (ibid: 44). 1
Urban residents help to develop the social realities of their neighborhoods through their daily neighboring activities. Neighboring affects residents’ perceptions of difference, influences their life satisfaction, and impacts their feelings of belonging (Pinkster 2016; Taniguchi and Potter 2016; Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016). Understanding neighboring is therefore critical to understanding what shapes the contemporary city and how residents experience it.
Neighboring consists of three main components: encounters between neighbors, neighboring practices, and neighbor relations. These components are to a degree
mutually constitutive; for example, encounters are partly shaped by neighbor relations and practices and, in turn, develop those relations and practices. The term neighboring also describes a normative set of understandings about what it means to be a “good neighbor.”
Some scholars argue that the neighborhood should no longer be assumed to form an important part of urban citizens' social worlds (e.g., Valentine 2008). Highly mobile urban lives surrounded by high diversity with little profound connection between groups of neighbors has indeed led citizens to live more side-by-side than together, and
therefore their relations could be largely irrelevant as a unit of analysis. The digitized ways in which we interact with “remote others” allows us to “move in and through locations while locked in the private worlds of [our] conversations” with people far away (Valentine 2008: 326). Social life may therefore no longer take place at the neighborhood level, but exclusively at higher scales.
ample evidence that neighbors maintain a significant presence in one another’s lives. A lack of strong relationships does not mean that encounters between neighbors are inconsequential to urban life, as they continue to shape the experience of living in urban neighborhoods even when face-to-face interactions are limited (van Eijk 2011).
Neighbors' activities and dispositions have social and material consequences for residents (Blokland and van Eijk 2010; Pinkster 2014; Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016). Neighbors also continue to lean on each other for various types of support (Crow et al. 2002; Pinkster 2016). Völker and Flap (2007) explain that renewed interest in the study of neighbor relations comes in part from the fact that neighborhoods are optimal
research contexts in which to study the development of relationships due to the rich and varied opportunities for contact neighboring provides.
Despite living in a mobile and flexible world, contemporary urban citizens continue to show attachments to their neighborhoods (Lupi and Musterd 2006). This may be most visible in negative situations, where tensions between neighbors jeopardize feelings of belonging and security for urban residents (Wessendorf 2013; Pinkster 2016). Attachment is also visible in new modes of neighbor encounters, where the digitization of social contact has changed neighbor interactions but has also provided new avenues for it. New social network sites and groups targeted at neighbors have emerged, an example of digital technologies potentially heightening, rather than
lessening, encounters between neighbors and offering virtual encounters between people whose relationship is based on physical proximity. Additionally, Dutch personal
networks “are quite locally oriented: more than half of the network members can be reached within 15 minutes,” refuting “the assumption that networks have become placeless nowadays” (Völker and Flap 2007: 279).
The debate over the role of neighboring in the contemporary urban setting makes its study all the more intriguing-- if neighboring is not what it used to be, what is it now? If neighboring continues to take place and to shape urban residents’ experiences and sense of belonging, what exactly constitutes contemporary urban neighboring? What does it mean to live beside people who might mean nothing to you personally, but nevertheless help to create the environment in which you live?
Though neighboring often receives less attention than other social processes in contemporary urban settings, it is one of the most complex relationships citizens negotiate, as it requires multiple ongoing considerations between people who might otherwise have no reason to interact. By analyzing how neighbors interact with and within the neighbor-package-delivery system, this study provides a greater
understanding of the complexities of neighboring as they play out in Amsterdam neighborhoods.
Elements of neighboring
Neighboring is influenced by a range of factors. Residents’ habitus guides what neighboring practices residents enact and how they categorize themselves and their neighbors (Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016). Social institutions and symbolic divisions provide or preclude opportunities for encounters between neighbors (Elias 1965; van Eijk 2012; Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016). Neighborhood and personal characteristics and histories create the conditions in which those encounters play out and how they affect neighbor relations (Keller 1968; Crow et al. 2002; Lupi and Musterd 2006). These elements create the framework in which neighboring operates in a given context.
Habitus, the “learned practices and standards that have become so much part of ourselves that they feel self-evident,” structures a large portion of our everyday
activities (Kuipers 2012: 20) The concept was first used by Elias (1939) but made most well-known by Bourdieu (1977). As a component of neighboring, habitus works to shape attitudes, expectations, and activities in ways that may be largely invisible to the neighbors who enact them, but allow residents to differentiate from or affiliate with others. Variations in personal histories, neighborhood settings, and what Bourdieu would call “capital” and Elias would call “resources” sculpt habitus differently for different residents (Elias 1965, Bourdieau 1977). At the neighborhood level, a particular ethos may shape which types of habits, skills, and dispositions make sense in
successfully navigating neighbor relations, while differing tastes or patterns of behavior amongst certain groups of neighbors may result in conflict (Elias 1965, Wessendorf 2013, Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016). Even amongst those with shared practices, manners, and cultural understandings, implicit negotiations take place (albeit undetected) during moments of exchange that allow related systems to operate inconspicuously (Bourdieu 1977). This is certainly the case with the neighbor-package-delivery system.
The neighbor-package-delivery system has become part of the habitus of most Dutch people, containing ingrained practices, dispositions, and assumptions that allow it to cease looking like a system from the inside (at least until the moment the system becomes less viable.) This does not mean that it does not involve active choices (e.g., “Will I take this very large package?;” “Will I walk it over to my neighbor's home or keep it at my apartment?;” “Should I stop for smalltalk when I go to pick up my package?”), but that the understandings on which those choices are based, the preferences they display, and the actions they direct have ceased to be conscious
calculations. Instead, they have become embodied in the ways in which residents practice neighboring through the package-delivery system. That such a system has become so ingrained in the daily life and understanding of the Dutch over the course of a little more than a decade demonstrates the mutable nature of habitus. 2
Habitus makes sense only in context, and neighborhood characteristics play a major role in neighboring. Neighborhood history, the types of housing located in the neighborhood, the physical structures and design of the neighborhood, and the demographics of the neighborhood all contribute not only to the extent to which residents engage in neighboring, but also what neighboring norms take shape and in what situations those norms are breached or challenged (Pinkster 2016; Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016).
Personal characteristics also affect the practices residents enact in neighboring and how strongly they develop neighborhood ties (Keller 1986; Lupi and Musterd 2006; Valentine 2008; Wessendorf 2013; Völker et al. 2007). Demographic characteristics like gender are pertinent to the development of neighbor relations, but so are other personal characteristics like neighborhood tenure, life course, personal histories, and access to social, economic, and symbolic forms of capital, as well as whether or not residents plan to stay in a neighborhood for an extended period of time (Keller 1968; Crow et al. 2002; Völker and Flap 2007; Pinkster 2016).
Figure 1. Conceptual framework.
Neighborhood diversity
Neighborhood diversity affects neighboring in a number of ways. Differences in personal characteristics, as well as in life histories and identities, can lead to differing ways of neighboring, which may engender tensions between residents (Keller 1968; van Eijk 2011; Wessendorf 2013; Pinkster 2016). In addition, institutional and social
categories shape the ways in which people relate to one another, and therefore affect neighbor relations (Lamont and Fournier 1992; van Eijk 2012; Reinders 2015; Tersteeg and Pinkster 2016).
It is critical that I keep in mind debates about neighborhood diversity for two reasons: first, neighboring is often scrutinized as signaling the success or failure of diverse urban neighborhoods (Blokland and van Eijk 2010). Therefore, in discussing how neighboring functions in Amsterdam, I contribute to debates on how people of various backgrounds and lifestyles co-exist in the city. Second, I must remain cognizant
of what norms exist for neighboring in the settings I analyze, to avoid what Laurier et al. would refer to as a “category error” (2002: 364). A category error would be to assess neighborhoods with very different histories and residents by the same norms of neighboring to determine the quality of neighboring in either. Van Eijk (2012) argues that such double-standards have been applied to “problem” neighborhoods and cautions us not to assume that weak neighborhood ties necessarily signal poor neighboring. Ways of neighboring appropriately may differ across settings. Thus, neighboring must be understood in relation to the particular habitus that operate within the scale of inquiry (e.g., national, urban-type areas, single neighborhood).
It would also be a category error to analyze neighboring as similar to other types of relationships. Even where positive interactions may occur, Valentine (2008) argues that contact between different social groups living in close proximity is insufficiently connective to engender respect, countering Gordon Allport's well-known “contact theory” (1954). As far back as 1968, Keller noted that studies had begun to demonstrate that physical proximity is not “sufficient to account for the formation and perpetuation of social contacts, especially of a more enduring sort” (76). According to Van Eijk (2012), we should not necessarily see this as a problem. She argues that “while the boundedness of many neighbour interactions works to maintain distinctions, it also makes possible interaction despite differences and difficulties” for the very reason that “many neighbours are neither seeking nor expecting intimacy” (ibid: 3014). Wessendorf (2013) supports that position, noting that, while prejudices may dictate who becomes a more intimate contact in private, urban residents do not view acceptance into the private life of the home as necessary to good neighboring. Because intimacy is not required, people from diverse social, economic, and cultural groups can live side-by-side on
positive, or at least not negative, terms. Therefore, neighbor relations cannot be read as expressions of broader feelings about the groups to which residents might be seen to belong, and neighborly friendliness does not necessarily translate to deeper relations in diverse neighborhoods.
Positive neighbor relations can instead be built on familiarity (van Eijk 2012). Duyvendak and Wekker note that neighbors can share a form of familiarity beyond “public familiarity” that allows them to feel more “at home” in the neighborhood, which they call “amicability” (2016: 27). The goal of amicability is not “true friendship,” but does allow for a sense of shared space in the neighborhood, even amongst the typically heterogeneous populations of urban neighborhoods (ibid). Duyvendak and Wekker propose this as an alternative framework to typical understandings of “social cohesion.”
Social cohesion is a tricky term, one that holds a fair amount of weight in Dutch politics. It is described in various ways both in the literature and in the sociopolitical sphere; social cohesion can be defined as the degree of community connectedness and solidarity, the extent of shared habitus and institutions, or the level of interpersonal trust in an area (Laurence 2011; Duyvendak and Wekker 2016). European municipalities and (inter)national governments appear eager to try to measure and increase social cohesion. Dense, diverse neighborhoods in Amsterdam are often targeted in Dutch media and policies, as well as in the literature, as sites of potential social breakdown. Perceived lack of social cohesion in diverse neighborhoods features prominently in “debates on ‘fragmented communities’ and ‘multicultural nightmares’” (van Eijk 2012). These debates typically lead to calls for increased social cohesion between neighbors, despite conflicting evidence regarding the effects of social cohesion, as well as how best to
encourage it (Forrest and Kearns 2001; van Kempen and Bolt 2009). Nevertheless, the 3
debates have had considerable effect on policy and planning at the city, national, and EU levels (Lupi and Musterd 2006; Dukes and Musterd 2012; van Eijk 2012).
Part of the difficulty of residents living in close proximity to conceptual “others” is illustrated by the old adage, “you don't choose your neighbors.” Amsterdam is
relatively diverse at the neighborhood level, at a finer grain than in many cities
(Hoekstra 2014). Those with the means to do so may make some decisions as to the type of neighborhood in which they live, but that often determines only to a small degree whether Amsterdam residents will live near people with similar backgrounds or
lifestyles, due to the variation in housing tenure and affordability within neighborhoods (Savini et al. 2016).
Differences between neighbors take the form of symbolic boundaries based on a variety of categorizations. According to Lamont and Molnár, symbolic boundaries, that is, “conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people,
practices, and even time and space,” differ from social boundaries, “objectified forms of social difference manifested in an unequal access to an unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social opportunities” (2002: 168); the former can prompt the latter when agreement over the categories’ features and values is widely shared. Social actors form their identities through categorization and distinction, i.e., who fits where. Even the category of “neighbor” itself allows residents to develop distinctions about where they fit in relation to the social world.
3 De Baarsjes has an average social cohesion score for the city of Amsterdam, which would seem to
Package delivery and imposed encounters
While studies of neighboring have interrogated everything from community center dynamics to how neighbors work together to find a lost pet, I have come across no studies that focus on mail activities in analyzing neighboring or related topics, aside from quasi-experimental methods regarding mailing lost letters or brief comments about picking up neighbors' mail as a typical “help” task of neighboring (e.g. van Eijk 2012; Koopmans and Veit 2014; Volker et al. 2016). This represents a significant gap in the literature, because mail activities offer a window into daily practices and routines around what is often an intimate facet of domestic life. The neighbor-package delivery system is a particularly rich area to investigate, as it almost literally puts residents’ trust in their neighbors’ hands.
Package delivery in the Netherlands is changing. Dutch online spending in 2018 rose 10% compared to the prior year, due largely to the sale of products (which typically require package delivery) (Thuiswinkel). As more goods are purchased online, the people, systems, and processes with which we come into contact to access those goods become a larger part of our social worlds. Market expansion of global delivery-based megacompanies appear poised to bring further changes and new technologies and strategies, such as automatic entrance for package delivery and the option for citizens to designate their homes as pick-up centers for minor compensation, mean that shifts will continue.
The neighbor-package-delivery system, however, continues to function. Issues with neighbors stealing or receiving others' packages do occur, but do not appear to be systemic issues, at least not to the extent that the system ceases to function. Though the system seems to require a number of mutual understandings and responsibilities that
dense, diverse urban neighborhoods are said to lack, it has quickly come to be viewed as a “natural” practice in the Netherlands. Investigating the neighbor-package-delivery system is therefore useful for understanding how neighboring operates in the city of Amsterdam. How we access goods in the contemporary city is changing, and those changes will affect who we encounter in our neighborhoods and how we encounter them. The neighbor-mail delivery system operates at the crux of this phenomenon and that of the changing Amsterdam neighborhood.
The neighbor-package-delivery system relies on imposed encounters between neighbors. Direct interaction between neighbors often occurs when one asks another for assistance (Keller 1968; Laurier et al. 2002). Think of the proverbial cup of sugar borrowed from a neighbor. Such encounters do not happen by chance, as with running into one another on the street, nor by relation beyond physical proximity, as with membership in the same sports league. Instead, these encounters are imposed, obliging neighbors to meet to complete a (discrete) task. Imposed encounters occur for a primary purpose beyond the sociality of the encounter itself. While imposed encounters are not exclusive to neighbors, they comprise a large amount of the encounters that take place between neighbors (ibid). Package exchange between neighbors is a prime example of an imposed encounter, as neighbors do not (typically) choose who will receive their package; the encounter is therefore based squarely on proximity and the task at hand. Neighbors cannot avoid (to some extent) interacting, creating opportunities for encounter between neighbors who might not otherwise have reason to interact (Keller 1968; Völker and Flap 2007).
3. Research Design
This chapter provides an overview of the context in which the research took place, as well as the methodological tools used to investigate neighboring and the participants involved in the project. I discuss the selection of De Baarsjes as a case and notable trends at regional, city, and national scales. I then reflect critically on
methodological choices made in the fieldwork and analysis stages. Finally, I discuss the residents interviewed and the centrality of intersecting axes of diversity to the field.
Research Question
I began this investigation with the research question: What is the relationship between neighboring and imposed encounters in a diverse, urban context? The aim of this research is to better understand how urban neighboring operates by studying its relationship with the neighbor-package-delivery system, which produces imposed encounters between neighbors, in the dense, diverse region of De Baarsjes. A number of sub-questions guide my analysis:
● What is the role of (imposed) encounters in neighboring?
● How does the mail-package-delivery system operate between neighbors? ● How are expectations about neighboring informed by particular habitus? ● How do participants experience neighbor relations in a diverse, urban
neighborhood?
Case selection
neighboring. Case studies develop our understanding not only of how particular processes and ways of being and doing (e.g., neighboring) work, but also how they work in context (Small 2009). De Baarsjes, with its unique social configurations and changing cultural and economic landscapes, shapes neighboring in specific ways that reveal how neighboring operates more generally. The workings of neighboring are therefore not lost in the background of its context, but are made visible by it.
Fieldwork took place in De Baarsjes, a region in the municipal district of Amsterdam West. Amsterdam West lies between the wealthy, celebrated, and tourist-thronged canals of central Amsterdam and the A10 highway, which circles Amsterdam and acts as a symbolic and physical barrier between more expensive central neighborhoods and less expensive outer neighborhoods. De Baarsjes sits at the Western edge of Amsterdam West, with only a park between it and the highway. Most residential buildings in De Baarsjes are three- or four-floor apartment buildings.
Figure 2. Map of Amsterdam, De Baarsjes in blue. Administratively defined neighborhood combination areas outlined (OIS 2009).
I chose De Baarsjes as the site for this study for multiple reasons. First, De Baarsjes is an example of a dense, diverse urban region. De Baarsjes currently has a mix of various immigrant populations, ethnic minority groups, and native, white Dutch people, as well as a mix of social and private housing, and rental and owner-occupied homes (Gemeente Amsterdam). As in Amsterdam generally, the diversity of De
Baarsjes is finely woven in regards to reported ethnicity, housing type, and income, with demographically differentiated categories living as next-door (or apartment-above) neighbors (Hoekstra 2014). The fine-grained nature of diversity in De Baarsjes makes it a rich site for studying symbolic and social boundaries and their relations to
neighboring. This is made all the more interesting by its extreme density-- De Baarsjes houses nearly 38 thousand residents at a density of 24,618 inhabitants per square
kilometer, the densest area in the Netherlands, placing neighbors in close proximity to the “other” and making neighboring practices and expectations all the more salient (Gemeente Amsterdam).
Table 1. De Baarsjes demographics (Gemeente Amsterdam).
The current dynamics of De Baarsjes also offer the opportunity to capture neighbor relations as they occur in the middle of accelerating gentrification, a phenomenon increasingly associated with contemporary city life. Many areas of Amsterdam are in the process of progressively rapid gentrification (Karsten 2014; Hochstenbach and Musterd 2018). A significant housing crunch, along with
socio-spatial changes in the housing market and demographic shifts have caused some neighborhoods of Amsterdam to experience increased turnover (Hochstenbach and Van Gent 2015). State- and market-sponsored gentrification via privatization of large
Amsterdam still enjoys a large social housing sector (60 percent of total housing), it has become increasingly marginalized both in the housing market and socially (Musterd 2014; Savini et al. 2016).
De Baarsjes has felt the force of these phenomena. In the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, De Baarsjes had a widespread negative reputation. Since then, housing and commercial restructuring in the area have caused it to rise in popularity and price. A snowball effect seemed to take hold during the past 5 years, transforming De Baarsjes into a hip neighborhood for young middle and upper class families. Though the average annual household income in De Baarsjes is more than 5000 euros lower than for the city of Amsterdam as a whole, the rate of growth in income from 2005 to 20164 was about
the same, 45% (Gemeente Amsterdam). The social housing share of the total housing stock in De Baarsjes/Oud-West3 decreased 23 percent between 2005 and 2017 (ibid). 4
Finally, I was a new resident to De Baarsjes myself when I began this research project. Upon receiving my first notice that a package of mine was with a neighbor, the questions that formed my initial inquiry into this research area began to form: How does this package system work in a neighborhood where my neighbors and I barely know each other, let alone know one another’s names? What am I supposed to say to this person who lives inches away from me and is holding my personal items but whom I couldn’t pick out of a crowd? Will we know each other better after this interaction, or am I meant to continue as we have been, with greetings as we leave in the morning but little other direct interaction? These personal anxieties soon transformed into larger questions about what such a system means for neighborhoods in De Baarsjes and what it could tell us about neighboring more generally.
Methodology
For my fieldwork, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 residents (as well as one participant’s partner who joined for part of the interview). Topics included experiences in the neighborhood, interactions with neighbors, and practices regarding package exchange. The interview questions could be broken down into four content areas: neighborhood background, neighbor relations, rules and practices, and encounters. As part of our discussion of encounters, I probed participants on their experiences with the neighbor-package delivery system. While not all participants received packages regularly, all routinely participated in the system by accepting packages for neighbors. I also asked a number of introductory questions about
participants' histories coming to the neighborhood and concluding questions about their future plans and what they saw for the future of De Baarsjes.
During interviews, I used narrative mapping to elicit responses. Mapping questions, in which participants drew and labelled maps of their neighborhoods, were woven throughout the approximately hour-long interviews. The maps participants drew always included a general sketch of what they consider to be their neighborhoods, as well as information on subjects like which neighbors they would consider friends and where they spend time in their neighborhoods. Participants also labelled which
neighbors had accepted packages for them and for which they had accepted packages. Participants often used the map to explain aspects of neighborhood life, pointing to areas of the map or drawing additional figures to illustrate stories or knowledge of the neighborhood. This is concordant with the framework Reinders sets out when he
and present, self and other” (Reinders 2015: 3). Narrative maps therefore allow a view into the “cultural practices through which environmental images are produced” and the ways in which “residents conceptualize and make sense of the spaces they inhabit” (ibid).
As neighboring is a particularly place-based set of relations and practices, the mapping exercise was extremely productive. Narrative mapping helped to elicit more fruitful answers from participants as to relationships and encounters with neighbors and their use and experiences of the neighborhood. It was particularly useful for collecting information on four crucial components of the interview: who participants consider neighbors, with which neighbors participants interact in exchanging packages, with which neighbors participants interact otherwise, and how participants gain information about their neighbors (e.g., by direct contact, by observation, through conversations with other neighbors, etc.). Narrative mapping is particularly useful from a relational perspective, as it recenters “the relational realm of framing thoughts and telling stories” (ibid). In addition, the mapping exercise acted as a memory aid for participants, helping them to remember neighbor encounters and relevant physical elements of the
neighborhood that they had otherwise left out of interview answers, and was useful to both participants and the researcher to visualize neighbor interactions in the context of the neighborhood. Only pieces of narrative maps are shown in this thesis to protect confidentiality.
Interviews were coded in Atlas.ti using an iterative, abductive approach to coding and analysis (see, for example, Hoddy 2018). Participant-produced maps were coded in Atlas.ti as reference material for interview transcripts; while the maps were analyzed in respect to their corresponding transcripts to understand what aspects of
neighborhood life participants chose to emphasize, they were not directly compared due to major differences in scale and objects illustrated. Variations in scale relate to how participants view what constitutes their “neighborhood;” many participants consider their neighborhood the area they would typically walk rather than use a bicycle or other form of transportation, but some drew much broader maps, particularly if they know the neighborhood less. In the interview blueprint, I wrote, “We'll call the neighborhood the 5
few streets around where you live, but please let me know if you consider your neighborhood to be a larger or smaller area;” participants interpreted this variously. Other variations across the maps were considered as part of the analysis. Though it hampered comparison, this freeform style of mapping was useful for garnering unexpected insights into how participants view and experience their neighborhoods.
Each interview began with the participant reviewing the procedures for anonymity and confidentiality, as laid out in Appendix C, and time for questions or concerns to be raised about the procedures. I obtained verbal or written confirmation of each of the participant’s agreement with the stated procedures, and assured them that the interview could be stopped or discarded at any time. All recorded and transcribed
materials were stored without names or other identifying features beyond what was mentioned during the interviews on password-protected devices and cloud storage. Recorded audio and physical copies of the narrative maps were destroyed upon completion of this project. Participants were kept abreast as technical issues caused some changes to where data was stored.
5 This may also relate to both the Dutch word “wijk” and the Dutch word “buurt” translating to
“neighborhood” in English. Buurt denotes a smaller area than wijk and is related to words like
Participants
Recruitment for this study took place across multiple arenas: flyers were passed out or posted at playgrounds and squares, community centers, grocery stores, local businesses, cafes, a local library, a local school, a community event, and on the street. Neighborhood and regional Facebook groups as well as snowballing were also used to recruit participants. See Appendix A for descriptions of each participant.
One thing this study made particularly clear is the ways in which neighborhood diversity exists across a huge range of intersecting axes. I therefore tried to avoid parsing participants into trite categories that could mask important differences and similarities between them. Also, because I did not explicitly ask participants to list the genders nor ethnicities with which they identify, I will not list those here. However, the 6
ways in which residents categorize themselves and are categorized by others are important to the social and material realities they experience in De Baarsjes. It is therefore important that I note that the group of participants I interviewed did not include people with certain sets of characteristics common in De Baarsjes. A few examples would include first generation immigrants over 60, young people without tertiary education, and people living in assisted independent living. The lack of these 7
and other perspectives is a limitation on this study. Moreover, the pool of participants I interviewed is not a representative sample of the neighborhood. As I explain further below, my own positionality played a role in the overrepresentation of participants who belong to similar social groups as I do and the underrepresentation of those who do not,
despite their presence in the neighborhood. Participants did, however, range in age, type of housing (owned home, private rental, social rental), housing tenure, class, income, education, gender, sexual orientation, life course, immigration status, self-described ethnicity, employment status, profession, country of origin (and parental country of origin), current extent of mobility, neighborhood within De Baarsjes, and whether they grew up in an urban, suburban, or rural area.
While I sought participants from diverse backgrounds and life histories that reflect the diversity of De Baarsjes, I did not attempt to match the demographics of my participant pool to that of De Baarsjes. Case-based logic calls not for a representative sample but rather for a series of research units (interviews) in which new information is decreasingly found as the number of units increase until little new information emerges with each additional unit (Small 2009). The problem with this logic is that new
information may not emerge not because of saturation but because the pool of participants is increasingly homogenous in one way or another such that it produces homogenous results. I therefore attempted to find opportunities both in recruiting and within interviews to probe for new sources of information. I then considered the resulting data in regards to its “particular characteristics that, rather than being ‘controlled away’, should be understood, developed, and incorporated into [my] understanding of the cases at hand” (ibid: 14). The data comes from participants with a diverse range of experiences and backgrounds who each come from intersecting and sometimes seemingly discordant symbolic and social groups. It in no way reflects the range of perspectives to be found in De Baarsjes.
What is more, my own positionality as a white, educated woman who was new to the neighborhood and spoke stilted and incomplete Dutch inherently affected both my
interviews and my recruiting process. These characteristics made me an outsider in many ways to some and an insider in some ways to others. My status as a foreigner allowed me to more deeply probe some practices common to the Dutch-- for instance, when I explained that it is not common practice in America for neighbors to hold each other’s packages, participants were far more forthcoming about the minutiae of the processes involved. However, my class and ethnic markers, along with my limited language skills, made recruitment of other white, English-speaking professionals much easier than that of working class, non-English speaking, or non-white residents. One example that was particularly salient in the field was that, as I speak no Turkish or any other language commonly spoken as a first language in Turkey and have limited proficiency in Dutch, my ability to recruit older, first generation Turkish migrants was limited, despite the large Turkish community in the area. My language skills also likely affected my ability to understand some of the nuances of what some participants told me, even when we spoke mostly English. My personal set of skills, characteristics, and experiences therefore shaped with whom I spoke and how.
4. To Be a Neighbor in De Baarsjes
To understand the relationship between imposed encounters and neighboring in De Baarsjes, we must first explore what neighboring means in that context. I therefore consider three areas central to neighboring in urban settings: conceptions of good and bad neighboring, the balance between anonymity and intimacy, and processes of boundary-drawing.
4.1 Good Neighboring
This neighbor was receiving so many packages [...] So, that was something where I was also like, ‘Oh, it’s you again. You just don’t give a damn about other people. You’re just like receiving, receiving.’
Jana
Neighboring is not a neutral term; as Jana’s quote shows, it comes with a set of normative understandings about appropriate behavior. Keller explains that the definition of a good neighbor is context-specific in regards to the “importance assigned to the role” and to the “values and preferences” that dictate “what a good neighbor should do” (1968: 20-21). She writes that “different conceptions of [the neighbor] role” often lead to “frictions between groups or individuals” (ibid). While what constitutes good neighboring may differ by context and individual, categorization of neighboring into “good” and “bad” is ubiquitous; this distinction and the associated expectations of neighbors function as the “rules that provide organisational features” to neighbor relations and related patterns of practice (Laurier et al. 2002: 352).
Rekening houden
In De Baarsjes, good neighboring features the common Dutch concept “rekening
houden,” to take account. The phrase was an explicit and readily available cultural trope
on which participants drew. For example, when asked what he would expect of a good neighbor, Tijn said, “Rekening houden met een ander. Yeah. You’re not alone [in] this world.” Rekening houden met elkaar/ een ander (taking account of each other/ one another) commonly entails a few distinct but related activities: watching out, managing burden, and maintaining shared space. The third activity I will address in the following chapter, but I will outline the first two here.
Eefje described how she and her family watch out for a downstairs neighbor, Finn, who sleeps during the day and works night shifts, by accepting his packages. She says that watching out for him is not just something she chooses to do, but it is in fact “kind of expected that we take his packages,” i.e., it is imposed, because he is her neighbor and needs help with this task. Her ability to enact “watching out” in this instance entails a certain amount of knowledge about his life and schedule, making watching out part of a wider set of expectations about neighboring.
Watching out for neighbors can also go beyond small favors. Finn has experienced homophobic harassment; when harassers came to his front door, Eefje’s family intervened. Because of the incident, they now “watch his house” with particular care. Kusenbach notes that this is a key difference between the neighbor setting and the broader setting of the public; in the neighborhood, “residents are much less prone to ignore any threat or discomfort a neighbor might experience” (2006: 295). Good neighboring calls for residents to see it as their responsibility to actively help neighbors in ways that other acquaintances may not.
Neighbors’ proximity to each other’s homes gives them a unique ability to help watch over one another’s well-being. Merel became worried about an elderly neighbor she did not know well when the neighbor did not come to pick up a package Merel had accepted for her and subsequently did not answer the door for multiple days when Merel tried to drop off the package. Merel began to involve other neighbors, one of whom knew the woman better and informed Merel that she was merely on vacation. Because of their residential proximity, Merel had a reason-- the package-- to realize that
something may be wrong with her neighbor and to learn more about her. Though she was not close with the woman, Merel felt compelled to go out of her way to ensure that she was okay.
Watching out extends to neighbors’ property. Stefan recalled a few times when neighbors, to whom he had recently given his phone number for building-related issues, texted him to let him know that his broken front door was open. Stefan felt a greater sense of community amongst his neighbors through this “watching out.” Participants generally described neighbors who watch out for their property and homes as good neighbors. Participants also consider neighbors to be “bad” if they do not feel they can trust them around their property; some cited neighbors who they thought had stolen from them or were otherwise threats to their property as examples of bad neighbors.
Neighbors often have access to one another’s private property. Sometimes access is offered to neighbors, as when keys are exchanged, but often access is
incidental or even imposed, as with bikes in a shared shed or with packages. Participants said they generally feel comfortable with neighbors holding their packages for them unless they have a specific conflict with the receiving neighbor or consider the neighbor somehow unstable. Similarly, very few respondents said they would refuse any package
that came to their door. Those that did had one of two reasons: either they were
suspicious of its contents because they had some (at least perceived) knowledge of illicit activities by the receiving neighbor or because it was for a more distant neighbor. Referring to the latter reason, Jacob said:
I don’t want to be responsible for something. So, I know it’s only 4 doors down, but I really don’t know anyone around there. [...] And I wouldn’t want to be responsible for taking a package that maybe my neighbors end up dealing with for someone that, yeah, I don’t know.
Jacob’s comment illustrates his reluctance to burden his immediate neighbors
unnecessarily. Jacob feel he takes responsibility for what happens to a package once he receives it, though, in this case, his main concern is not for the owner of the package, but for his immediate neighbors who might have to “deal with” the package for someone he does not know.
In addition to watching out, rekening houden typically means managing the amount to which one burdens neighbors. Burden can come in many forms, from frequent loud parties to having too many packages pile up in neighbors’ homes. In the quote opening this section, Jana looks unfavorably at a neighbor who is always
“receiving, receiving.” This is amplified by other poor neighboring practices the woman exhibits, such as not respecting Jana’s personal property. Jana also mused that part of the issue is that this neighbor “think[s] that’s okay and [does] not even say a real thank you.” The neighbor’s lack of gratitude is another form of mismanagement of burden; respondents often qualified that a burden they shouldered for a neighbor was or was not okay based on the level of appreciation they received.
Managing burden often entails adjusting one’s lifestyle to address neighbors’ needs. As with Eefje’s neighbor Finn, multiple participants specifically mentioned
neighbors working at night and sleeping during the day as something about which one should be considerate (and, accordingly, aware). Residents may also choose to pick up a package at a nearby grocery store if they feel they have relied on their neighbors too frequently to accept packages, though that differs significantly by the type of
relationship neighbors share and how frequently other assistance is offered.
Management of burden is therefore somewhat relationship-dependent, but, in most cases, involves behaving in ways that residents may not necessarily choose to would they not have their neighbors’ interests in mind. As Tijn said, good neighbors must behave as if they “are not alone [in] this world.”
This is the crux of rekening houden: being aware of your burden to others and acting accordingly, i.e., applying appropriate management strategies. Jacob spent a significant amount of money to ensure his speakers and washing machine do not cause too much noise for his neighbor. He said, “ I almost never hear her. And I feel like I should do the same. Be a good neighbor.” Mutual consideration is important to rekening
houden, and neighbors expect that, by managing their burdens on their neighbors, their
neighbors will return the consideration. Sami described his neighbors “tak[ing] care of each other” by being considerate of noise levels in the hallway, saying, “When I don’t disturb you, you should do the same.”
However, there is also an element of managing burden that involves not expecting too much of one’s neighbors. This is also critical to rekening houden. Numerous participants felt that neighbors who expect too much quiet or calm in De Baarsjes are not good neighbors because their expectations do not align with the context in which they live. Some expressed outright frustration at neighbors who complain about levels of noise and commotion that, as Eefje put it, “you have to expect here.”
When asked if her neighbors are considerate when it comes to common issues like noise and garbage, Sanne explained:
It’s a part of the city. If you don’t, if you don’t like noise, you must not live in the city, I think. That’s my— the houses are noisy. You can try your best, but you always hear something. Houd rekening met elkaar. [...] You can only do so much. And sometimes you need to let it go.
“Houd rekening” in this instance refers to managing one’s expectations when it comes to others’ activities and allowing them a certain latitude to live without having to
consider their neighbors’ preferences too much. Good neighbors therefore not only have appropriate expectations for the burdens they place on others, but for the burdens placed on them.
Helping without intruding
Participants often cited willingness to “help out” as a major feature of good neighboring. However, neighbors set boundaries as to the frequency and extent of help they offer neighbors (Pinkster 2016). To limit possible intrusions, “exchanges are often restricted to the kind of help that does not require too much personal involvement” (van Eijk 2012: 3014). Urban neighbors, in particular, separate encounters related to help and exchange from expectations of closeness (ibid).
Though the amount and type of aid seen as appropriate for a neighbor to offer differs between participants, most see small tasks and favors as normal. Common tasks include lending tools, watering plants or feeding pets during vacations, carrying boxes upstairs, and, of course, accepting packages. In addition, participants recounted
emergency situations, such as a parked car catching fire or a neighbor being locked out of her apartment before a flight, in which they helped neighbors because of their
proximity. Urban neighbors call on one another for these small or urgent tasks, but typically rely on friends and family or formalized services for larger, less immediate ones (Keller 1968).
Beyond the primary results of the task at hand, neighborly aid helps to build a general feeling of comfort and hominess in the neighborhood. As Kusenbach explains, ‘‘the practice of giving and receiving neighborly favors thus transcends individual transactions, spinning a network of mutual obligation and gratitude that in turn builds community” (2006: 293). Victor lamented that, though he was optimistic about their relationship at first because their children are the same age, his upstairs’ neighbors’ standoffish demeanor restricts possibilities for contact. The relationship has been limited because Victor feels he cannot offer help to the family; they are so self-sufficient and insular that he cannot build a relationship with them through mutual favors and acts of neighborliness. Like Victor, Jan appreciates doing small favors for neighbors, but he has had the opportunity to offer that help and to subsequently build up good relations with his immediate neighbors. Receiving packages for neighbors is a regular task that allows Jan to help his neighbors without too much effort. Jan explained that “receiving
packages [for neighbors], it’s such a natural thing. I mean, like, indeed, it’s a task— yeah, so such a minor task, you’d be more than willing to do that for a neighbor.” Jan sees small tasks like package exchange as “doing something more than helping each other out” by building a sense of mutual support.
However, neighboring is all about balance, and offering assistance to neighbors is counterbalanced by a strong need, particularly amongst urban neighbors, to maintain autonomy and privacy (van Eijk 2012). Keller notes that “the notion of the neighbor as somehow alien who must help but not intrude is a fairly general one” (1968: 29). Crow
et al. add that “a good neighbour can be described in general terms as someone who respects others’ rights to privacy but who at the same time makes herself or himself available to be called upon if necessary” (2002: 129). Most of the residents to whom I spoke echoed this sentiment. Participants condemned neighbors who visit too often, but also those who intrude with noise, smells, or other offensive sensations that penetrate the home. I will discuss the permeable nature of the home in the following chapter, but it is important to note here that “it would be a misconception to believe that neighboring is always geared toward producing mutual closeness and care” (Kussenbach 2006: 300). Instead, good neighboring requires “satisfying the requirements of proper parochial conduct” while simultaneously protecting one’s privacy (ibid). Imke’s conception of the balance between assistance and privacy was common amongst participants:
A good neighbor is, when you need them, that they’re around. And if you’re in an emergency situation they’re very helpful, or for small emergency. And that they help— yeah, but that they’re not every night, oh, knocking on your door.
Though the expectation that neighbors offer help but not intrude is common, the contours of that balance differ among participants. For some, opening doors for
neighbors, holding packages, or lending a tool if asked is enough. For others, being a good neighbor means proactively offering help and even some companionship. Sanne summed up what she feels it means to neighbor well in De Baarsjes in this way:
If you see someone needs help, like with the groceries you see them, you can ask them, yeah, ‘Can I help you?’ Those kinds of things. If you have [packages delivered] from PostNL or something, then you can have it in your home until they can come. Just those kinds of things. And just take a look. If there’s something you don’t trust, like, yeah, something dangerous or something, help each other.
Though Sanne promotes proactively helping others in this quote, she was one of the participants who most prides herself on her independence as a neighbor and values her
privacy immensely. Even neighbors who personally do not seek the help of others and do not want interference in their own lives are compelled to help their neighbors, whether proactively or when asked, to be seen as “good neighbors.” Therefore, though offering help is blunted by avoiding intrusion, isolation is also blunted by an expectation that neighbors be available for help.
This balance gets at the core of neighboring: neighbors are embedded in each other’s lives in some ways but removed in others. The act of watching out for one another’s bodily safety, personal belongings, and home space is not a dispassionate affair. Neighbors must, however, maintain a level of dispassion to manage burden for themselves and those around them. It is a tension that seems paradoxical but was reiterated confidently, and, more importantly, enacted (to varying degrees of success), by residents. The opposing forces of helping and not intruding come into play in
neighbor encounters on a daily basis. As Sanne advised, “Watch out for each other. But don’t mingle in each other’s lives.”
Overlast, conflict, and differing expectations
Neighboring well in De Baarsjes entails generally avoiding conflicts and dealing with them appropriately when they arise. Conflicts typically emerge because of
differing expectations of neighboring, such as to the maintenance of shared space. One of the issues most commonly associated with differing expectations was overlast.
Overlast is a Dutch term that generally describes nuisance, particularly in the
neighborhood. Overlast characterizes the type of burden residents try to mitigate in taking account of their neighbors (as well as the burden of which they must
accommodate a certain amount as part of living in the city). Unlike the English word nuisance, it has strong and widely shared cultural connotations. For example, the website for the Dutch police states: “Overlast often causes stress or annoyance: dog poop in the park, trash on the street, people peeing against the walls, or neighbors turning on music loudly in the middle of the night” (Politie.nl, translation mine). These exact instances of overlast came up frequently in interviews, and participants drew on the term overlast to connote the shared understanding of its forms and associated sentiments.
Sometimes, expectations differ more severely. Jana described an incident in which she realized that she and her neighbor have very different expectations regarding boundaries and personal space; once, she was at work and a neighbor, who had a key to her apartment originally given by the previous tenant, texted her to ask if she could use Jana’s shower, because her water was out. Jana told the neighbor that she was working late and suggested she shower at a sports center. She described what happened when she came home:
I went home when it was raining and I just [parked] my bike and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s raining, but it sounds very weird. Did I leave the back door to the garden [open]? I wasn’t home. No, I cannot imagine. [...] Someone’s showering in my house. Oh, wow, then it must— then she’s— then...’
Though this is a more extreme example, particularly because Jana did not know the neighbor well and was new to the area, it highlights how vastly neighbors’ expectations can differ. According to Jana, the neighbor did not think much of the incident, partly because her relationship with the previous tenant of Jana’s apartment had been such that this form of aid was acceptable.
Many participants described addressing conflicts directly with neighbors as important to good neighboring. In an attempt to mitigate potential conflict, Jana did not immediately castigate her neighbor for the invasion of her shower, but later decided to address the issue to prevent similar intrusions in the future. She and other participants commented that they encourage other neighbors to resolve issues between one another directly, as well. Stefan was dismayed by the actions of a couple living above him who sent a letter to their landlord because he had accepted packages for another neighbor and left them in the hallway. He explained:
They sent a complaint to their, to the landlord, [...] who sent me a letter [...] I sent a letter back saying, ‘Fine, it’s my mistake. I thought it was gonna be gone sooner. Sorry. But I’m also very sorry that they didn’t have the guts to just knock on my door and ask me.’ [...] That’s choosing not to be personal. 8
For Stefan, the conflict did not come from the package in the hallway as much as it did from their inappropriate reaction to that issue. He does not consider the people above him to be good neighbors because they are not “personal” about their approach to neighborly problems.
Though single incidents like the one Stefan had with his upstairs neighbors can strain relations and cause residents to see their neighbors more negatively, participants usually reserved the term “bad neighbor” for those who repeatedly cause stress. Tijn recounted issues with a couple who had lived above him and often caused noise and other overlast. He said that the couple did not speak Dutch well and were not open to communicating about the issues Tijn faced, which persisted until the neighbors were evicted for unrelated reasons. Those who do not deal with conflict appropriately, either by being too aggressive, being unduly suspicious of their neighbors, or shying from communicating entirely are often deemed asociaal.
Multiple participants said that being “asociaal” makes someone a bad neighbor.
Asociaal is a common Dutch term referring to those not properly socialized to society.
Though often translated to English as “anti-social” or “asocial,” the term, like overlast, actually carries a conceptual weight and structure much more robust than those terms would indicate. Lara, who described one way of being a bad neighbor as being asociaal, defined the term as such:
The only thing you can notice it from is either they have a heap of rubbish in front of their house, which nobody has [...] and being unfriendly, you know, not saying hello when you do. Or if you would hear a lot of arguments and fighting, that kind of gives you pain in the stomach.
The view that asociaal neighbors have untidy outsides of their homes, are unfriendly and do not greet neighbors, and bring their private, uncomfortable moments out into the public space is generally shared amongst participants who used the term.
Asociaal does not refer exclusively to neighbors, but it is often employed in
discussions of neighborhood life. In some ways, asociaal is the ultimate term for those who neighbor so inappropriately that it deserves a category in of itself. Their asociaality
affects their ability to practice other good neighboring habits, like doing favors for neighbors; for example, when Lara’s cat leapt from her balcony into the garden of
asociaal neighbors, the neighbors refused to search for the cat in their backyard.
Asociaality is also a form of instability that can make residents uneasy with a neighbor holding their package.
The term asociaal is individualizing, as it places the locus of a societal project within the individual citizen, but is often used to describe family units, rather than single bodies, whose behavior needs adjustment to match the goals of the larger community. The term is also essentializing because it does not just describe behaviors or attitudes, but also the person, and everything she does as a neighbor is viewed through that lens. In the mid-20th century, “asociaal families underwent institutionalized interventions to adjust their behavior as neighbors” (Duyvendak et al. 2016). Areas like De Baarsjes, with its working-class background and history of immigrant residents, have been targeted by interventions with the purpose of codifying and normalizing neighbor behavior (ibid). Though this project has expanded, the term asociaal and its connotations for neighboring remain part of the cultural lexicon (ibid).
The term asociaal and the fact that residents quickly draw on the term to
describe neighbors who have wronged them points to something deeper about good and bad neighboring. Bad neighbors affect your ability to feel comfortable in your
neighborhood, which is generally seen as highly important (Duyvendak and Wekker 2015). Those who infringe on that ability commit a wrong against you. Therefore, though “you feel sorry for them,” as Lara clarified, asociaal neighbors are seen very negatively in Dutch society. The expectation that people practice proper neighboring means that those who neighbor badly are deviants. The term asociaal signifies that,
despite various differences in how people neighbor, there is a dominant way of
neighboring well and ways that fall outside of it. Those who are not socialized to reflect the dominant neighboring habitus in this context are seen as not having the “common sense” to neighbor well.
Neighboring well in De Baarsjes
Despite social, cultural, and personal differences in the specifics of neighboring expectations, a set of general categories by which participants gauge their neighbors in De Baarsjes-- watching out, managing burden, balancing helping and intruding, and avoiding and handling conflict appropriately-- were mentioned across interviews and form a broad script for encounters in that context. Imposed encounters between neighbors are possible in part because neighboring comes with normative understandings of what neighbors are expected to do and be for one another.
Understanding the social script of neighboring is therefore important to understanding how imposed encounters operate.
4.2 Anonymity and Intimacy
JW: If you go over to someone’s house, what does that look like when you ring the doorbell?
Merel: Yeah, you just have a small conversation. And especially thanks for getting the package. But it’s not really more than that, more than, ‘Oh, thanks for doing that.’ It’s not more, not a big conversation. But at least you know another face connected with the house.
JW: And then that leads, again, to feeling kind of like you know the neighborhood a little bit more?
