Relearning black presence in Amsterdam through guided tours: teaching beyond the classroom

Abstract

This article features an interview with Jennifer Tosch, the founder of Amsterdam’s Black Heritage Tours. Since 2013, Tosch has offered walking and boat tours, leading thousands of people through a colonial reading of Amsterdam’s topography and celebrated institutions. As a cultural historian, Tosch deploys ‘critical fabulation’ to redress the erasures of historical archives. These efforts are part of a wider Mapping Slavery project that brings together Dutch scholars, activists, and artists who are revealing the Netherland’s links to slavery and reclaiming early black presence. As geographers, we hope this conversation informs collaborative anti-racist work in our field (and elsewhere) and furthers anti-colonial practices in the teaching of cultural geography beyond the classroom.