When I say … reflexivity

As my husband and I climbed towards a mountaintop in the Bieszczady of southeast Poland, a Polish couple passed us.The man recognised our language and checked to find out whether we were indeed Dutch.He then confronted us with questions about our feelings on Dutch legislation for euthanasia, same sex marriage and abortion!We had already found ourselves confronted just by being in the high mountains, which imposed a recognition of our Dutch Otherness, given that we are used to a flat, two-dimensional landscape, but other than trying to orient to the three-dimensionality of the Polish hills, we had not necessarily felt our Dutchness that day until we were challenged to defend Dutch practices that are strongly embedded in atheist, individualist, liberal values, which are quite different from those of the person with whom we were speaking.We managed to avoid further debate about soft drugs legislation and prostitution.