dr. B. (Bettina) van Hoven

Birthdate:        30 August 1972

Birthplace:       Bramsche (Germany)

Nationalities:   Dutch/ German

Marital Status: married (2 children: 2005, 2009)

Research Summary 

My research in past years has focused on the experienced dimensions of wellbeing and liveability, predominantly for marginalised groups in urban spaces. I employ a qualitative methodology and include participants actively throughout the research. In an effort to find better ways to access the life-worlds of different groups of people, and to connect knowledge production to wider audiences, I recently have gained experience working at the intersection of science and arts. 

Education/qualification

In 1999 I obtained my PhD based on the research “Made in the GDR- the changing geographies of women in the post- socialist rural society in Mecklenburg-  Westpommerania”, University of Plymouth, UK.

However, my academic training also includes the study of Biology and Physical Geography . I studied at the University of Osnabrück in Germany and graduated at the University of Plymouth in the UK.

Research 

I am Associate Professor in Cultural Geography. In a nutshell, I study the role of places in the wellbeing of people, especially marginalized groups. Here I look at the experience of place, feeling at home, the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in the physical, social and affective environment of people, and the way people are committed to maintaining and improving their place. My approach is characterized by a participatory, qualitative methodology including walking interviews, collecting visual data and translating outcomes, not only for scientific journals, but also a wider audience. I have a great interest in collaborative work in order to develop case studies across different geographic locations and contexts and in so doing contribute to theory development though analytical generalisation. My research can be described as focussing on three main issues:

-The role of people, place and process in developing place making and place attachment

- The impact of place attachment on wellbeing

- The production of knowledge, i.e. the impact of methodologies on knowledge incl. the relevance of non-human actors.

In the past years, my research has mostly taken place within the University societal themes of Healthy Ageing and Sustainable Society. Examples are PhD projects I co-supervised on youth in rural Estonia (Elen-Maarja Trell, 2013), and on older adults in urban neighbourhoods (Debbie Lager, 2015), on the role of arts in resilience in coastal areas (Gwenda van der Vaart), and on experiences related to (forced and voluntary) migration (Clemens Bernardt, Rik Huizinga, Laura Kapinga). In addition, I have worked with local communities in Groningen on accessible and age-friendly neighbourhoods. In this project older participants are trained as co-researchers.

A research area that crosses the social and natural sciences, and the arts and humanities addresses the role of nature/ animals in the human experience of environments (e.g. the Great Bear Rainforest project, a project on animals in care settings, the AHRC/ NWO funded network on Tidal Cultures’, Angelica Caiza’s PhD project on ‘becoming bat’. In relation to this, see also the International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies conference I organised in 2013, http://www.rug.nl/research/ursi/events/emospa/ , and the WaddenAcademy’s Sense of Place symposium I co-organised, see http://www.waddenacademie.nl/en/organisation/symposia/symposiumsense-of-place/)

Past PhD supervision:

2022 Reza Ardekani Shaker. Encountering the Other: Everyday embodied Othering experiences of young Muslims in the Netherlands.

2022 Lili Gonzales Hernadez. Factors influencing household action on climate change.

2022 Rik Huizinga. Making home in forced displacement: young Syrian men navigating everyday geographies of migration, belonging and masculinities in the Netherlands.

2021 Laura Kapinga. A place for religion: a geographical perspective on young Muslims' experiences, changing religious identities and wellbeing.

2019 Anna Martini. Geographies of affect in places of death and disaster: Tohoku, Japan, after 3.11.

2018 Gwenda van der Vaart. Arts and resilience in a rural community: The value of arts-based community activities in resilience-building in Pingjum, northern Netherlands.

2015 Debbie Lager. Perspectives on ageing in place: Older adults' experiences of everyday life in urban neighbourhoods

2013 Elen-Maarja Trell. Rural Realities. Everyday places and practices of young people in rural Estonia

2006 Louise Meijering (Title: ‘Making a place of their own’) (Promotor: Prof. Paulus Huigen, University of Groningen)