Claiming the right to belong: de-stigmatisation strategies among Turkish-Dutch Muslims

Abstract

This article examines ‘de-stigmatisation strategies’ of Turkish-Dutch youth. Our in-depth interviews and observations revealed three strategies to negotiate belonging in the Netherlands, particularly to resist dominant Dutch characterisations of Turks and Muslims as backwards, disloyal and unintegrated: (1) confronting by asserting their right to cultural distinctiveness, (2) convincing by relocating cultural achievements in their heritage, and (3) contextualising: embracing ideological and political positions calibrated to country-specific contexts. We found that students’ de-stigmatisation strategies–which are learnt, contested and first performed within secure in-group settings–mobilise multiple, context-dependent identifications. Although students are often critical of the assumptions embedded in Dutch nativist discourse, their strategies also partly reproduce them, showing the pervasiveness of nativism within current political debates on culture, identity, belonging and nationality.