Finding Our Footing: Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic Through Urban Go-Alongs

In the restrictions to people’s whereabouts instated by the Dutch government to contain the spread of COVID-19, biopolitics become explicitly visible. This thesis examines how these measures have changed practices of everyday life in Amsterdam. A series of go-alongs with seven participants generated interview and fieldnote data exploring the ways in which they encountered, used, and experienced their urban environment differently, and how they practice the rules during the pandemic. Through tracing individual experiences of navigating the pandemic, this thesis gives insight into how networks of discipline and antidiscipline interact during the pandemic. With reference to Foucault’s mechanisms of discipline and Michel de Certeau’s theory on the politics of everyday life, this research discusses how everyday practices during the pandemic relate to articulations and negotiations of power. As such, this research contributes to our understanding of the entanglement between state strategy and the tactics of daily life in Amsterdam.