Enregisterment into Dutchness: integrational discourses in volunteer-run Dutch language classes

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the discursive construction of refugees within the process of civic integration in the Netherlands. The study–that uses interpretive ethnographic means of data collection and analysis–takes as its case in point the Common Room, a communal building belonging to a regionally supported foundation meant to facilitate–through the support of volunteers–the integration of refugees in the South of the Netherlands. Following the discourse practices present among both managers and volunteers there, our analysis argues that the Dutch language courses held at the Common Room work toward the discursive enregisterment of refugees into a broader sense of Dutchness, that is, into an ideological meta-pragmatic discursive apparatus that spells out how and what someone should do in order to be(come) Dutch. These bottom-up integrational practices are used as a point of reflection for drawing considerations on the body of top-down policies that have been authored and authorized by the Dutch government in the past decade in order to achieve refugees’ integration into Dutch society.