Identity construction and ‘coincidental’ entrepreneurship among gay Filipino guesthouse owners in Amsterdam

This article centralizes gay Filipino entrepreneurs in the guesthouse industry in the city of Amsterdam, drawing on the narratives and trajectories of five of them. The article highlights the common threads of experiences of these immigrant entrepreneurs, as these provide interesting insights into the processes of their identity (re)construction and social embedding in the Netherlands and the role of their entrepreneurial involvement in these processes. In addition, the article describes how they relate to their home country, the wider Filipino community in the Netherlands, and the wider Dutch gay community. It will be shown that these experiences and relations sit uneasily with established positions in debates on home and belonging within transnational migration studies and queer studies, notably the idea that moving to western countries of destination cannot be treated as equivalent to moving to ‘queer cultural homelands.’ In addition, the article shows that immigrant entrepreneurship does not revolve around ethnicity per se in the sense that entrepreneurial practices cannot be understood separately from other identity forming structures such as sexuality and class.     

The widespread occurrence of Celtic field systems in the central part of the Netherlands

The detailed elevation model based on airborne laser altimetry (AHN) proved to be a reliable tool to detect well-developed Celtic field systems, characteristic arable plots of the Iron Age. They were detected in the central part of the Netherlands, where only a limited number of Celtic field systems have been recognized in the past. Most of these previously detected systems were identified in the northern part of the Netherlands or in the southern part, but not in this zone. About 1200 ha of well-developed systems could be identified by AHN in the central part of the Netherlands, of which only 136 ha were registered as an archaeological monument. Another 335 ha of archaeologically identified Celtic field systems were not accepted or recognized by AHN, because they were morphologically less well-developed. Most of the around 1050 ha new discoveries occur in rough vegetations and forested areas, and can hardly be identified with previously used geodetic methods and aerial photography. Less well-developed or preserved systems were even more extensive and remnants were traced as fossil arable layers below plaggen soils or on lower slopes incorporated in mediaeval reclamations. The newly identified Celtic field systems, therefore, can be considered as remnants of much larger areas once covered with these arable plots. In the central part of the Netherlands, the estimated area once covered was at least around 4500 ha, more than enough to supply 10,000 people with cereals. Well-developed Celtic field systems started to develop in the late Iron Age with formation intensifying during the early Roman Period. The central part of the Netherlands is situated just north of the river Rhine, the former boundary of the Roman Empire, the Limes. The newly discovered extent of Celtic field systems will have influenced the interaction between different cultures on the border of the Roman Empire in the early Roman Period, about which very little is known. This perspective underscores the need for an integrated conservation policy and in-depth research through excavations in the near future.