The Birth of the Foreign : A Digital Conceptual History of Buitenland in Dutch newspapers 1815-1914
Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis studies the concept of “buitenland” (“the foreign”) in a broad sample of Dutch newspapers in\nthe period 1815-1914. It seeks to broaden our understanding of the conceptual underpinnings of\nglobalization. Research into globalization is mostly focused on the material developments. Cultural and\nconceptual dimensions that constitute today’s global ‘mindset’ are, however, largely neglected. This\nresearch aims to contribute to our understanding of the ‘semantic circumference’ of globalization by\nreconstructing the history of one of the spatial concepts that underlies historical and contemporary\n‘mental geographies’: buitenland. It does so firstly by a frequency-based approached to words related to\nthe concept. Specific contexts ‘hosted’ buitenland and through (clustered) word sequences (n-grams) it\nis shown how these contexts evolved over time. Also, concepts that ‘surrounded’ buitenland are\nconsidered. Particular attention is paid to parallel and counter concepts such as “the domestic”,\n“national”, “strange” and “international” that left their mark on the change in the meaning and role of\nbuitenland. Lastly, the research investigates into the associations that attached themselves to the\nconcept. Distance, scale, instability and temporality were important semantic properties that invested the\nconcept of buitenland with meanings that are still present today. Ideas of “the foreign” as a singular,\nunstable and threatening space closely related to the current day conceptualization of globalization as a\ndangerous ‘global’ development.
Author: R.S. Ros
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2965053432