Everything has its place, everything takes place

There are places where we feel well, with which we can identify ourselves, and where we can be ourselves. Places where we are welcome, places where we can feel at home. But sometimes it is difficult to find one’s place or we feels at home in many different places, and, therefore, feel a bit place-less. It is not always given that we are accepted at a place. Sometimes we are explicitly excluded from certain places. We also cannot always ‘make’ or ‘create’ our own place, or are ‘outplaced’ by others. There is a politics of place.

This, in a certain way, was also the main topic of a recent PhD thesis by Dr. Emiel Maliepaard in our group under the supervision of Dr. Roos Pijpers, and Prof. Huib Ernste on the ‘Bisexual Rhapsody: On the everyday sexual identity negotiations of bisexual people in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and the productions of bisexual spaces. The first PhD-thesis addressing this issue in the Netherlands and as such a path-breaking work.