Send message to Author

Paper long abstract

This poster discusses ongoing research into the ways in which the rural past and present are shaped in a podcast called ‘de Nedersaksen’ (The Low Saxons). The podcast, hosted both in Dutch and the minority language of Low Saxon, has hosted over 50 Dutch cultural- and policy makers to talk about the Low Saxon region, its identity, history and language.

In recent years, the (mostly rural) Low Saxon speaking region in the Netherlands has seen increased migrations of people moving in from urban areas. Additionally, political developments regarding emissions and sustainable farming practices in the Dutch countryside led to national farmers’ protests. The rural way of living is perceived to be at stake. Many people living in the region describe a gap between the urban areas in the western Netherlands and the rural regions in the rest of the country. Conversations often steer towards a ‘Low Saxon way of looking at the world’, or a ‘Low Saxon’ nature of the people, which is often presented as distinctly different from the nature of the people in the (mostly urban) west of the country.

This poster explores the way the podcast presents a Low Saxon identity, both as what it is, but also as what it is not. By doing so, this research seeks to understand the way perceived boundaries between the ‘authentic’ rural and the ‘modern’ urban, global and local, nature and culture, center and periphery, all are employed in shaping a new identity; that of the Low Saxon.