sep 25, 2019 | artikel
Artikel met Femmianne Bredewold en Alke Haarsma in Urban Studies. Open access article.
“Recent work has pointed to the importance for their social inclusion of convivial encounters between people with and without disabilities, but little is known about the spatial and social conditions of the places that encourage these encounters. This paper is concerned with public places that are conducive for convivial encounters between people with and without disabilities. Drawing on extensive participative observations of four community projects and 78 interviews with people visiting or working at these projects we investigated which elements in these places encourage ‘strangers’ to move from merely co-presence to conviviality. Three conditions seem to be conducive, namely: (1) a shared purpose, (2) built-in boundaries, (3) freedom to (dis)engage. These conditions were beneficial for convivial encounters, but do not lead to friendship or long-term support. People engage in such contact because they can be sure that these contacts do not raise expectations of long-term support or friendship.”
mei 7, 2018 | artikel, Uncategorized
Recent decades have witnessed mounting attention to the theme of recognition, both in public policy and in the academic world. Scholarly debate on recognition is dominated by philosophers, while the policy debate is dominated by political and educational perspectives. A sociological perspective has scarcely been developed. In this article, we approach recognition as a sociological phenomenon with the aid of Collins’ theory of Interaction Ritual Chains. Our research is located in three Dutch sheltered workshops that aim to provide recognition through work to young men with mild intellectual disabilities. While Collins provides an interesting interactional perspective to distinguish between different situations of recognition, we add an institutional dimension by showing how individualising labour-market policies and care practices articulate a set of ‘interaction rules’ that encourage some recognition rituals and foreclose others. This demonstrates the importance of a sociological contribution to the debate on recognition, and points to ‘unintended consequences’ of policies that aim to strengthen recognition in ways that in fact cannot be achieved by those involved. Such a sociological perspective can bring out more practical and nuanced accounts of recognition, and enrich both scholarly and policy debates on this topic.
feb 20, 2018 | agenda, artikel, paticipatiesamenleving
Achter het vrolijke verhaal over participatiesamenleving gaat een onbereflecteerd wantrouwen schuil jegens formele verbanden en grotere organisaties. De participatiesamenleving is dan het informele alternatief: zelf doen, burgerinitiatieven, vrijwilligerswerk en mantelzorg. Er is te weinig aandacht voor ook schaduwzijden van informele organisatie, zoals toenemende ongelijkheid en overbelasting. Echte participatie vereist een beter evenwicht tussen formele en informele verbanden.
Lees het artikel in Samenleving & Politiek (pdf)