Citizenship agendas, urban governance and social housing in the Netherlands: an assemblage approach

Abstract

This article combines recent conceptualizations of citizenship beyond the nation state with new perspectives on governance assemblages comprising both state and non-state actors. Focusing on Dutch social housing, this study explores how such governance assemblages produce agendas that attempt to shape citizenship. Employing an assemblage approach, this study first demonstrates how state and non-state actors amalgamate by providing a historical overview of the urban governance of social housing in the Netherlands. Second, taking account of the territory that the assemblage claims, it shows how underprivileged neighbourhoods become the spatial locus of these assemblages. Third, examining what this amalgam produces, the article shows how the assemblage imposes a citizenship agenda on the population of these neighbourhoods, distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizens. Acknowledging that citizenship agendas are produced by a multifaceted amalgam of state and non-state actors, this article emphasizes the need for rigorous academic analysis of such governance assemblages.

Keywords::

• citizenship
• social housing
• assemblage
• urban governance
• the Netherlands

Acknowledgements

Since I presented a first draft of this article at the annual conference of the American Anthropological Association in 2012, it has benefited from fruitful discussions with many different persons. In particular, I would like to thank Anouk de Koning and Rivke Jaffe for their suggestions, their support and their enthusiasm, and the two anonymous CS reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Although the political prospectus of notions such as ‘transnational citizenship’ may be to loosen ties between citizenship and territory, its current realizations, in which individuals belong to or express allegiance to different nation states, still have territorial connotations.

^2. As this study is not concerned with materiality, I will not take account of non-human actants, as ANT-inspired studies on assemblages would have (as explained by McFarlane [2011a], for example).

^3. Recently, as several representatives of housing corporations told me, there is a tendency to put the focus back on housing instead of on social tasks, mostly for financial reasons; hence, the governance assemblage keeps on changing.

Additional information

Funding

Part of my research in Overvecht was funded by the programme ‘Steigers voor Stijging’ [Scaffoldings for Social Mobility], co-financed by Utrecht University, Hogeschool Utrecht, NICIS Institute (now Platform31), Municipality of Utrecht, Mitros housing corporation and Richard Krajicek Foundation.