Paper on the emergence of citizen collectives for care

How does social cohesion foster the development of care collectives in the Netherlands?

This question is answered in the paper ‘The Emergence of Citizen Collectives for Care: The Role of Social Cohesion‘ (BMC Public Health, vol. 24) by Kevin Wittenberg, Rense Corten, Tanja van der Lippe, and Tine De Moor. Using Dutch data from 2020, they find that stronger community ties correlate with the emergence of care collectives, particularly in areas with greater care needs, though longitudinal evidence is less conclusive. These findings highlight the potential for care collectives to address healthcare gaps.

Read the paper

Continue reading →

Community spirit in the neighborhood

Communities are the foundation of liveable neighbourhoods. On November 26, residents, experts and housing corporations came together in Pakhuis de Zwijger (Amsterdam) to discuss how strong neighbourhood communities are formed.

The program included seminars by Tine De Moor and Teun Gautier. Four initiators of citizen collectives discussed their role as an ‘active resident’ within their local community, their current challenges are how they can be better supported by housing corporations.

Learning to participate: involving citizens in decision-making and implementation

On November 14, The Flemish Association of Village Interests (Vlaamse Vereniging Dorpsbelangen) organized an online meeting and invited professor Tine De Moor to give a seminar on current types of citizen participation. First, she discussed four social trends in the relationship between citizens and the government. Then, she shared an overview of instruments for citizen involvement and zoomed in on citizen collectives as a ‘new’ form of citizen involvement, particularly in villages.

Open Seminar Talk – Federico Savini (UvA)

Dr. Federico Savini, Associate Professor of Environmental Planning, Institutions and Politics at the University of Amsterdam, gave an enlightening presentation as part of our SEICA Open Seminar Series.

During his presentation ‘Strategic planning for degrowth: what, who, how’ he first unpacked the so called ‘strategic thought’ in degrowth research. This is a research field of degrowth that is particularly concerned with the tactics and processes that bring about degrowth as a wider socio-ecological transition. What are the key challenges? Second, he argued why and how strategic spatial planning can be an important tool in this transition. Dr. Savini illustrated his arguments with the example of the so called ‘doughnut vision’ in Amsterdam. His presentation sparked an inspired conversation between attendees. Is it realistic to believe that ideological change resulting in systems of degrowth can happen?

You can find the presented paper here. The paper incited a response from dr. Yvonne Rydin, which can be found here. Dr. Savini then replied with an article that is available here.

Paper explores the evolution of common lands in 19th century Spain

Affiliate researcher José-Miguel Lana Berasain, Professor of Economic History and Institutions in Public University of Navarre, has published a paper where he dives into the transformations of common lands in Spain during the 19th century.

‘Between a rock and a hard place: the privatization or preservation of the commons in Spain in the 19th century’ was published in the Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie. The study reveals the complexity of the processes of change in property rights and the need to approach property rights as a bundle of rights and powers that could be vested in different players.

Read the paper

Continue reading →

Grant for project on data memory of citizen collectives’ movement

Professor Tine De Moor (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University) has obtained additional funding from the NWO Impact Explorer. This gives us the opportunity to take a big step in building the memory of citizen collectives.

Many network organizations lack the resources (time, manpower, finances) to manage data effectively, which hinders collaboration with scientists. That’s unfortunate, because research can lead to valuable insights that allow us to better understand this movement. It can help civil servants to formulate more targeted policies and citizen collectives to improve their working methods and use resources more efficiently.

Through knowledge exchange platform CollectieveKracht, we will deploy a knowledge broker who will identify relevant information and develop data structures to support citizen collectives in data collection and management. In this way, the knowledge broker strengthens the position of citizen collectives and lays a solid foundation for future research and policy.

Read more about this project

Open Seminar Talk – Nicolas Jager (WUR)

On September 24, dr. Nicolas Jager opened the new season of our SEICA Open Seminar Talks. Dr. Jager is Assistant Professor for the governance of sustainability transformations with the Public Administration and Policy group at Wageningen University & Research. He gave a presentation titled ‘Does public participation improve environmental governance and foster collective action? What works, when, and how?’

He discussed a meta-analysis of 305 case studies, which provides insights into how ‘more’ participatory decision-making processes compare against ‘less’ participatory ones in fostering – or hindering – strong environmental governance outputs. The presentation was based on the study “Does stakeholder participation improve environmental governance? Evidence from a meta-analysis of 305 case studies”. Find it here.

European Network for Housing Research invites Tine De Moor as speaker

How can cooperative housing be part of the solution to social, affordability and environmental challenges? On August 28, professor Tine De Moor from the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University) shares her insights during the ENHR Conference 2024.

Tine De Moor is invited as a speaker alongside Jardar Sørvoll, Research professor, University of Oslo, and guest editor of the forthcoming special issue on Housing Cooperatives in Housing Studies. The moderator of this plenary session is Darinka Czischke, Associate Professor Housing and Social Sustainability, TU Delft, and co-founder of the ENHR WG Collaborative Housing.

Continue reading →