A narrative review was conducted to develop more coherent awareness and knowledge regarding emotional experiences of qualitative researchers studying sensitive topics or vulnerable groups, as discussions about this topic are currently fragmented and scattered. Qualitative researchers experience many painful as well as enjoyable emotions, which can influence their personal, social and professional lives. These emotions are recurrently reported in relation to the unpredictability of qualitative research and the different roles of qualitative researchers. More structural and individual attention for emotional experiences of qualitative researchers is necessary, for instance, in academic (doctoral) training and general handbooks on qualitative research.

In this article we report on an ethnographic research project conducted in 2014-2015 at a school for ‘Assistant in Care and Wellbeing’, a school for secondary vocational training that is part of a large regional education center in the metropolitan area of the Randstad. The main incentive for our research was that some researchers assumed that in this ‘super-diverse’ environment, where students with an immigrant background were a vast majority, many tensions and conflicts were caused by ethnic and religious differences between students. However, after about 100 hours of observations in the classes of fourteen teachers, 36 interviews with teachers and other staff, and focus group discussions with teachers and students, we found that for most students diversity wasn’t a big issue at all. Rather than ethnic or religious differences many irritations and conflicts were triggered by the constantly changing organisational setting and institutional context of the school. In this article, we will corroborate this finding with a detailed analysis of some cases of classroom interaction, and draw conclusions about the usefulness and limits of superdiversity as a heuristic tool.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) within Dutch civil society provide material and immaterial assistance to unauthorized migrants in the Netherlands. Based on long-term qualitative fieldwork in the life worlds of unauthorized migrants, the authors describe how the migrants experience these NGOs as a safe haven where they feel at home and secure for the risks of apprehension and deportation. We argue that these safe havens are also beneficial for the society at large. These NGOs contribute to preventing unauthorized migrants from sleeping in public places and employing illegitimate survival strategies. In addition, the NGOs’ empowerment of these migrants is advantageous for their willingness to access healthcare and employ legal rights. Recent attempts of the Dutch government to restrict the number of these NGOs, lead amongst other things to NGOs who are increasingly focusing on the unauthorized migrants’ return. We argue that these governmental efforts of controlling unauthorized migration through NGOs, will result in unauthorized migrants loosing trust in these safe havens. Ultimately, this governmental control through NGOs will have a negative impact on feelings of security in the society at large as it fundamentally diminishes the significance of these NGOs in civil society for unauthorized migrants without offering an alternative.

GHB is an anaesthetic that in Netherlands since the 1990s is used as a drug by various groups. Although GHB is often defined as a ‘party drug’, particularly in rural areas it is also used in street cultures. GHB is mainly used recreationally, but a minority uses the drug frequently and/or becomes addicted. GHB use and associated problems are disproportionately spread across the Netherlands and are concentrated in certain rural areas (‘trouble spots’), especially in low SES villages or neighbourhoods. Predominantly based on qualitative research, this article describes supply and use of GHB in rural ‘trouble spots’. The profile of experienced current GHB users in rural areas is characterized by a wide age range, a low level of education, often multiple psychosocial problems and poly drug use. They are almost exclusively ‘white’, in majority male users, of whom a large part has been arrested on several occasions. From a supply perspective, GHB could spread quickly because of the short distribution chain, the limited social distance between dealers and users, as well as the closeness an reticence of user groups. Even though as a drug GHB is very different from methamphetamine, there are striking similarities in set and setting characteristics between rural GHB use in the Netherlands and rural methamphetamine use in the US.

This article analyses a criminal family. It is not the individual, but the family as a social entity that is central to this approach. The Van D.’s are a family of eleven brothers with a collective history of crime. Raised with anti-authoritarian norms, violence, alcohol and a strong sense of loyalty, they were known as an ‘army of brothers’ dominating the streets of H-town. The criminal family as object of study proves valuable in understanding the influence of contextual factors, subculture, and stigmatization. In the case of the Van D.’s, blood ties create cohesion and conflict at the same time.