28.09 -  Group

Group Meeting: What should we focus on? Ruralism? Moluccans?

We were unsure what we would like to focus on because it was hard to find a common ground in our group. We were split between the two main topics we wanted to place our work in between of - displacement of people and discplacement of nature. Ruralism as a topic seemed interesting to some of our group members, focusing more on the nature part while others were more interested in minorities and social issues. Therefore, we explored the topic of the displacement of Moluccan in the Netherlands. 

Parts of the Moluccan history:
- Indonesian people in Holland. Kept their rural roots.
- How are displaced people situated once arrived?
- 12,500 Moluccan soldiers and their families were placed in former Nazi concentration camps.  
- Displaced people become violent – paramilitary groups, terrorist actions due to government interaction.

At that point we were totally lost and we were trying to decide on a topic. With the help of Rosa we finally settled on the Ijselmeer and the displacement of fishing communities due to the builing of the dam. So, we found a good sweet spot between the two grand topics “people” and “nature” because we are looking at how the way nature was shaped by people discplaced other people.

We planned to do field research on the city of Enkhuizen. Simon said to us that “When digging for gold you first have to go through the dirt” which really helped the group realize that even if we weren’t super excited about a tiny fishing village, when we go searching for it we will find something that we find interesting.