The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS), the Waalse Kerk, and NIAS-fellows Luisa Schneider and Ed Schwarzschild invite you to a Freedom Lunch on 7 May. On this day our regular fellows lunch is open to the public and will be held next to NIAS in the Waalse Kerk.
Usually held on Liberation Day on 5 May, Freedom Meals focus on open conversation among citizens about the meaning of freedom. The NIAS Freedom Lunch is an informal gathering on the 7th of May and aims to shed light on homelessness and housing insecurity. NIAS fellow anthropologist Luisa Schneider will give a table speech on this important topic. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Special thanks to NIAS fellow Ed Schwarzschild, member of our research theme group Reimagining security labor. Besides being a creative writing professor and a renowned writer, known for his extraordinary novels about the security industry, Schwarzschild is also a musician with the band Doctor Baker. On this special occasion he will perform the song Trespassers for us.
Below we share a story that will appear in the street newspaper Z on 3 May and can be bought from homeless vendors in supermarkets and other locations throughout the city.
Luisa Schneider is an extraordinary scholar. One who walks off the beaten track. She spent five years on the streets of the German city of Leipzig, with people without homes. To find out what homelessness really means. At NIAS, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, she now gets to concentrate on her research for five months. With a roof over her head.
She herself prefers to call it houselessness. She is headstrong. She determines the direction of her research in close cooperation with houseless people. Together, they choose the topics they research, how they conduct the research and how they share the results with others.
Thanks to the input of these experts by experience, she got closer to the core. Fundamental human rights are there for everyone, you would think. But the reality is that they often depend on whether you have a home or not.
Think of the right to privacy and intimacy, enshrined in human rights and national laws because it is so important. But all those laws assume a clear boundary between private and public space. And sometimes there isn’t.
Without the four walls of a room or flat, you have no or a limited form of privacy. Or consider domestic violence. Can you be a victim of domestic violence if you don’t have a place of your own? For someone who lives on the street, it is impossible to protect themselves using an area or contact ban.
Think about how stable housing is often a prerequisite for child custody. Or how basic activities such as sleeping, sex or taking a shower are restricted in public places. Even during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, measures such as contact restrictions assume that you can retreat to your own home.
Without a fixed address, you run a high risk of being cut off from support, benefits and even the ability to vote. More and more people face unstable housing. While we have built a society where access to social needs, basic human rights and protection are closely linked to housing.
What happens when someone lives without the walls needed to meet their basic needs? How does that affect your relationships, family dynamics and well-being? Important questions because human rights are for everyone and we can prevent homelessness.
On 7 May, we at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) invite you to a Freedom Lunch with our fellows. Fellows are researchers who are given temporary residence at NIAS so that they can fully indulge their curiosity. Taking a break from the rat race, they are given time to find out more about the subject they care about. Our fellows always enjoy lunch together on weekdays and on this special day they would like to welcome you in their midst.
Special thanks to NIAS fellow Ed Schwarzschild, member of our research theme group Reimagining security labor. Besides being a creative writing professor and a renowned writer, known for his extraordinary novels about the security industry, Schwarzschild is also a musician with the band Doctor Baker. On this special occasion he will perform the song Trespassers for us.
NIAS Freedom Lunch at the Waalse Kerk (located next to NIAS)
7 May, 12.30 pm
Walenpleintje 157-159
Free and no need to sign up
This Freedom Lunch is made possible by the vfonds, the Nederlandse Boekengids, the Amsterdam 4 and 5 May Committee, National Committee 4 and 5 May, the Waalse Kerk, caterer Rond het Fornuis and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS).