Zoekresultaten

Towards a Natural Social Contract

This open access book states that the endemic societal faultlines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security and sustainability of our societies. It states that new ways of inhabiting and cultivating our planet are needed to keep it healthy for future generations. This requires a fundamental shift from the current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented social contract to a more ecocentric and regenerative natural social contract. The author posits that in a natural social contract, society cannot rely on the market or state alone for solutions to grand societal challenges, nor leave them to individual responsibility. Rather, these problems need to be solved through transformative social-ecological innovation (TSEI), which involves systemic changes that affect sustainability, health and justice. The TSEI framework presented in this book helps to diagnose and advance innovation and change across sectors and disciplines, and at different levels of governance. It identifies intervention points and helps formulate sustainable solutions for policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens and professionals in moving towards a more just and equitable society.

Social Media for Development

This PhD research project is about how Dutch development NGOs use social media for their development projects. For this, the following research question has been investigated: how do Dutch development NGOs use social media to further the development activities of their organisations? The purpose of this study is to understand how development NGOs are trying to get to grips with social media. Given the exploratory nature of this research, a qualitative research approach was adopted. Both case studies and the grounded theory method were used for this study. This combination is ideal because with a case study one tries to understand, or explore a phenomenon, whereas, in grounded theory studies, one tries to build theory. Given that this study is concerned with how Dutch development NGOs perceive social media for their development projects, an interpretive paradigm seems appropriate. The grounded theory methodology for this research is consistent with the epistemology of interpretivism. The combination of case study research and grounded theory works well for theory building and has been applied in Information Systems and ICT for Development studies before. As the use of theory before data collection is in opposition to the principle idea of the grounded theory methodology, in which theory emerges from the data, this needs to be addressed when combining case studies and grounded theory. This issue was resolved by using an initial highlevel conceptual framework as a guiding instrument for both the noncommittal literature research and for the conceptualisation of the research problem, whilst not distorting the emergence of theory from the data. This study focuses on formally organised development NGOs who receive funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their development projects. From the approximately 100 organisations, fourteen NGOs were selected for this study. The choice of fourteen NGOs was driven by a theoretical sampling strategy. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews with 18 respondents and field-notes of meetings or events of 14 development NGOs. The data was analysed using the Glaserian coding procedure of grounded theory, starting with open coding, followed by selective coding, and ending with theoretical coding. Three major themes (or core categories as they are called in the grounded theory method), were identified. This study's first contribution is captured in the theme ‘NGO Enacting Values in Development’. This is about how an organisation’s values are enacted in the context of international development. The organisational mixture of development mind-sets influences organisational activities in development. The ideological trends that are stimulated by societal and technological changes have an impact on the organisation’s development strategy and the strategic collaboration network of development NGOs. The second contribution of this study is captured in the theme ‘NGO’s Views on Social Media Use’. This core category discusses the organisation’s view on the meaning of social media and includes the four following categories: technological, individual, collective and contextual views attributed to organisational social media. The four categories empirically demonstrate the concept of affordance clusters and the connections between them. The study’s third contribution is captured in the theme ‘NGO’s Use of Social Media in Development’, encompassing the social media activities of the studied development NGOs in their development projects. This has led to an assessment framework of organisational social media use by development NGOs, constructed by cross-referencing the organisational goals of development NGOs to the social media activity areas in the context of development. These themes represented by three core categories are inter-related. Feedback loops between NGO’s values in development, views on social media, and the actual uses of social media for development purposes have been discerned. This grounded theory study aims to build an initial theory of how NGOs might approach the use of social media in a development context. This qualitative study has produced some new concepts. This study has led to a substantive theory in the context of international development. Furthermore, this substantive theory is compared with three theory lenses, when applied on the data collected for this PhD research, in their ability to identify similar concepts as reached with the substantive theory following the grounded theory method. Finally, the thesis presents some avenues for future research that may help expand the substantive theory that has been developed under this research to formal theory

Veranderingen social work in internationaal perspectief

Column over de vraag: wil het Nederlandse “sociaal werk” nog wel een internationaal perspectief? Onder de titel "Social work in een international perspectief" is deze column uitgesproken tijdens het symposium “Samenleven is geen privézaak” op 29 maart 2012, ter gelegenheid van het afscheid Hans van Ewijk (lector sociale innovatie).

From the City as a Service to The City as a License

Television’s undoing of social distancing

At this critical moment in time, April 2020, when we are living with the cataclysmic event of Covid-19, television – a medium declared almost dead at the beginning of this millennium – has become a vital resource for solace, daydreaming, social ritual, knowledge and storytelling. In conditions of lockdown, we turn towards television, not away from it (Ellis, 2020; Negra, 2020). We are checking news on national channels, and tuning to live broadcasting for campaigns to help the health services and communities in need, such as with the globally broadcast One World: Together At Home special. We are curling up on the sofa to engage with gripping drama, like Ozark streaming on Netflix, re-watching favourite series from the beginning, such as Buffy or Breaking Bad, and taking part in television quiz shows like Pointless, even watching repeats, to recreate a pub quiz atmosphere in the living room. On a darker note, we are also overloaded with corona news; the ritual evening news bulletin can be a source of anxiety and a cause of sleeplessness. Television infrastructure can break down, from broken satellite dishes to lost remote controls, which are tricky to fix when technicians are not so readily available to help; and television can be an economic burden. The cost of streaming Breaking Bad can push the limits of monthly contracts and data packages. Television both lightens and darkens the mood of domestic spaces and social relations in lockdown culture.

Podcast: Stedelijke aanpak voor netwerkondersteuning bij dak- en thuisloosheid.

In deze podcast presenteren we de initiële resultaten van ons tweejarig onderzoek genaamd 'Social Network First?'. We bieden een alternatieve kijk op de netwerken van daklozen en thuislozen. We delen hoe een netwerkondersteuner deze netwerken benadert en laten ook een cliënt aan het woord die zijn perspectief op zijn eigen netwerk deelt. Deze podcast is gemaakt door het Lectoraat Empowerment & Professionalisering van Hogeschool Inholland, HvO-Querido en Hogeschool van Amsterdam.