The research group Dutch ethnology focuses on the daily behaviour of people in the Netherlands and on the image that is created as a result of this behaviour. The aim of the research is to gain insight into everyday life and the cultural phenomena connected with this. This does not only concern traditions, but also emerging and disappearing rituals. These traditions and rituals are familiar and obvious at first sight, but nevertheless they have a large impact on the society we live in. The study of old and new cultural phenomena in the Netherlands contributes to a better insight into the dynamics of the multicultural society.

Over the past decades, the Netherlands have faced several different migration waves. These have led to the development of new forms of culture, both among the foreign and the indigenous population groups. Moreover we can see an increase in the interest in our ‘own identity’. The research group Dutch ethnology displays these processes of cultural formation from the basis, by focusing on human actions. The perspective is both historical, comparative and international. Aspects like social class, religion and gender play an important part, but this can also be said of concepts like tradition, heritage, identity and authenticity.