About the book:
Kizomba dancing originated in Angola, Africa but has been
gaining in popularity in the Netherlands since 2011. Curious
how this cultural transmission affects white Dutch notions
regarding self and other, this book examines the socio-cultural
production of difference among white Dutch in the Dutch
kizomba scene, primarily in relation to people of African
and African diasporic descent. Tying into existing literature
regarding the paradoxical state of contemporary Dutch society
regarding gender, race and ethnicity, the author explores the
balancing act between freedoms and restrictions that shape,
guide, and inform peoples behaviour. She thereby illustrates
various performative mechanisms through which difference is
reproduced. This is relevant in a time characterized by racial
ignorance on the one hand, and xenophobia and heated debate
concerning Dutchness and Otherness on the other.
Taking the body as point of departure through which gender,
sexuality, race, ethnicity and nationality are analysed, the
author demonstrates how the micro-politics of small, embodied
movements connect to larger transnational mobilities and
their macro-political contexts. The fine-grained ethnographic
descriptions navigate the reader through a highly sensitive
topic in the Netherlands and contribute to social and academic
debates in contemporary Dutch society.