Small Stories to rethink Large Issues

(Photo by Merijn Soeters)

I am Associate Professor of Urban Politics and Planning at the University of Amsterdam. Connecting my background in Anthropology and Political Science, I now work in Urban Planning where I study the interactions between citizens and the state to rethink how cities could be more just and democratic. After obtaining my PhD in Political Science in 2015 (Cum Laude), I moved to the Department of Geography and Planning to teach students how to better understand the conflicts that emerge when citizens shape cities from the bottom-up and local governments govern and plan top-down. My work is built on two premises. First, I believe that learning about conflicts requires to be able to take perspectives that crosscut institutional and cultural contexts and contradicting belief systems. Second, although conflicts may challenge human and democratic values, I study how they can turn into productive opportunities for equitable change. For that purpose, I am committed to making societally relevant contributions that lead to actionable practices for dealing with conflict. Over the past ten years, I have done so in the following ways:

Learning about conflict across disciplinary, societal, and institutional contexts

My research takes place across the Global South and North, but also across local, regional, and national governments, as well as among citizens from diverse classes, ideologies, and knowledge backgrounds. In my research, I ethnographically immerse into these different worlds to understand how they overlap and contradict, leading to situations of conflict:

• My academic work has been published in various fields in the social sciences; Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Built Environment, Current Sociology, Political Geography, Urban Studies, Public Administration.
• Since 2022, I have been Chief Editor of Beleid en Maatschappy (Policy and Society), a Dutch peer-reviewed academic journal committed to crossing disciplinary boundaries and making societally relevant contributions.
• Between March and August 2023, I was Visiting Professor at CIDER, Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. I developed an annual summercourse on Planning for Inclusive Cities with colleagues of Los Andes, Toronto University and the UvA.
• My VENI grant (2020 – 2024), funded by the Dutch Research Council, allowed me to undertake comparative ethnographic fieldwork in Bogota, Colombia, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There, I studied the contradicting experiences of planners, politicians, and diverse citizen groups during participatory planning conflicts.
• In 2020, Luca Bertolini and I edited the volume Seeing the City. Interdisciplinary Perspectives the Study of the Urban (Amsterdam University Press).
• For my innovative ethnographic approach to public conflicts, I received the Van Poelje Prijs for best dissertation in Public Administration in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Commitment to societally relevant academic practice

Scientific research can greatly value society and government if scientists are willing to broaden their repertoires to engage with professionals, citizens, and politicians in long-term collaborations. I am committed to sharing my academic results through training professionals, politicians, and citizen groups, translating academic work into popular scientific and policy publications, and taking a role in the public debate:

• In 2024-2025, I lead the Impact Explorer Project for which I received funding from the Dutch Research Council and collaborate with the Municipality of Amsterdam as well as the Platform of Participation to translate my academic results in better policies and practice for contested processes of citizen participation.
• I serve as a senior researcher and impact developer in the NWA-funded research project Crafting Resilience, where I work with researchers and professionals to translate findings into actionable practice.
• Since 2022, I serve as Dean of ‘Metropool’, a post graduate program for senior civil servants working on metropolitan challenges at the Dutch School of Public Policy (NSOB) in The Hague.
• In 2024, I am a member of RLi advisory committee to the Dutch Government on System Failures in Dutch Public Policy.
• In 2023, I gave the annual Van Slingelandt Lecture for the Dutch Society of Public Administration entitled, ‘Through the eyes of the citizen: critical reflections on the relationship between citizens, the state and public administration.’ This lecture is published in Bestuurskunde (Public Administration), it can de listened to as Podcast, a shortened public version can be found on nl
• Since 2016, I serve on the editorial board of the Dutch popular scientific Journal for Societal Issues (Sociale Vraagstukken).
• In 2020-2021, I was an Urban Citizen Fellow at NIAS/KNAW and the Municipality of Amsterdam, where I researched how Amsterdam could depoliticize citizen participation processes. I worked closely with civil servants and local politicians, and my advice was used to develop the municipality’s current participation policy.