People who come to visit the Netherlands are struck by the Dutch openess of women and gay men. Author unravels the national values and characteristics, in which tolerance can carry opposite meanings, through a consideration of the work of environmental activist and immigrant authors, such as Ellen Ombre. A subtle understanding of the vexed, interdisciplinary, paradoxical issue of representation in the dominant institution is needed for a plural society and for a theory of migratory art practices.
The reconstruction of both the killing and the marital history of a Turkish Muslim couple is illustrative of the cultural discourse on violence against women (VAW) among Muslim minorities that is currently evolving in a multi-cultural society that is facing increasingly discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Stereotypical images of “culturally” based violence are growing in popularity and contribute to the discursive construction of Muslim minorities as particularly violent, especially towards women, and notably as more violent than the native Dutch. This paper critically addresses how this tendency is playing out in Dutch research.