YAG PhD projects 2023

Thereza Langeler

'The Netherlands aren't the Netherlands anymore'. Frames of the heartland and place resentment

Tialda Haartsen (FSS / Cultural Geography), Léonie de Jonge (Arts / European Politics and Society), Sander van Lanen (FSS / Cultural Geography), Koen Salemink (FSS / Cultural Geography)

 Not one, but two Dutch elections in 2023 have been won by political parties who use remarkably rural and nostalgic representations of the Netherlands to win hearts and minds – not just in rural and peripheral parts of the country, but in urban areas as well. Each in their own way, the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB, FarmerCitizenMovement), Nieuw Sociaal Contract (NSC, New Social Contract) and Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Freedom Party) discursively create an antithesis between an ideal Netherlands, home of the good people, and an immoral elite oppressing this ideal country from the government seat in The Hague.

This research project aims to shed more light on each of these parties' specific discourses about an ideal, Dutch 'heartland', and to investigate if and how these heartland representations resonate with inhabitants of the Northern Netherlands through interviews and ethnography.