The matter of home: repurposed churches, heritage and belonging in Amsterdam

In this paper I look at the widespread, and often much debated, abandonment and reuse of church buildings in the Netherlands. I focus on the striking case of the Roman Catholic Chass & eacute; Church that, after years of being left abandoned, was converted into the Chass & eacute; Dance Studios and Hotel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the site, I show that the transformation process of the Chass & eacute; Church took place within a field of contestation in which different groups involved, articulated distinct modes of understanding the site and attributing it with value. I argue that these registers of valuation all centre in important ways on notions of home. Consequentially, while the repurposing of the church building represents the loss of a home for some, it has been co-opted as an instrument of home-building by others. For the latter, the site has played an important role in their quests for local belonging, feeling at home in the neighbourhood and, to some extent, delineating a national culture. By tracing such emotions of not only attachment and belonging, but also loss and nostalgia, this paper calls attention to the everyday affective dimension of processes of religious heritage making.