‘A commitment to cultural pluralism’. Diversity practices in two Amsterdam venues: Paradiso and De Meervaart

Abstract

Cultural policy has traditionally had close ties with the construction of the society as a nation state, which has been marked by its built-in tendency towards cultural homogenisation. Post-World War II, multicultural societies pose profound challenges to these traditional forms of cultural policy. Although, in the last decades, western democracies have been designing cultural diversity plans, this does not mean that governmental policies have successfully been translated in institutional practice. In the Netherlands, mainly established cultural institutions have failed to integrate diversity into their core business. Yet, there have been a few exceptions that continue to make attempts to adapt their programmes to address new populations. In this article, we use Parekh’s view of a multiculturalism that reconciles unity and diversity, as a heuristic device that allows us to explore and examine the bottom-up diversity policies and practices of two Amsterdam-based cultural institutions: Paradiso and De Meervaart.

Keywords:

• cultural policy
• cultural diversity
• multiculturalism
• post-migration
• Amsterdam
• cultural institutions

Notes

1. 1. We use the term native-born as a translation of the Dutch term ‘autochtoon’ that refers to a person whose both parents were born in the Netherlands, regardless of the country in which he himself is born. The term migrant background, in Dutch ‘allochtoon’, refers to a person of whom at least one parent is born abroad. A western allochtoon is a person from Europe (excluding Turkey), North America, Oceania, Indonesia and Japan; a non-western allochtoon is defined as a person from Turkey, Africa, Latin American and the rest of Asia.

2. 2. For a more elaborate analysis of national and municipal cultural policy, see Delhaye (2008).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Delhaye

CHRISTINE DELHAYE is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Religion and Cultural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam.

Victor van de Ven

VICTOR VAN DE VEN is Research Assistant in the Department of Art, Religion and Cultural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam.