I am a Research Fellow in Urban Geographer at the University of Melbourne. I have a PhD in Cultural Geography from the University of Wollongong, a MA in Archaeology, Art and Urban History, a MSc In Cultural Geography (cum laude) and a BA in Art History from the University of Groningen.
In 2018 I held a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Melbourne in association with the ARC Discovery Project ‘Sustainability and climate change adaption: unlocking the potential of ethnic diversity’.
My research explores the emergence of community in contemporary cities through interventions such as community engagement policies, participatory citizenship mechanisms, digital technologies and grassroots placemaking initiatives. I approach communities as constantly emerging and changing configurations that are co-constituted by the material environment, discourse, social practice and non-human others and objects. My aim is to emphasize both the exclusionary and inclusive potential of community groups, and to reveal how and when the discourses and policies of ‘community’ serve select groups.
I am currently working on the ARC Discovery Project ‘The Disability Inclusive City’. With Ilan Wiesel, Brendan Gleeson and Christine Bigby, I analyze the barriers experienced by people with intellectual disability when accessing and participating in community services and places. Focusing our fieldwork in North Eastern Melbourne, Geelong, Western Sydney and Newcastle, we ask what adjustments are occurring or necessary to make Australian cities more inclusive and empowering for people with intellectual disability.
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Ellen van Holstein's highlights
FEATURED Journal article
Feasibility and the care-full just city: Overlaps and contrasts in the views of people with disability and local government officers on social inclusion
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Credentials
Positions
Research Fellow In Urban Geography
Geography
Education
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Wollongong
Art, Architectural History and Archaeology
University of Groningen
Cultural Geography
University of Groningen
Art and Architectural History
University of Groningen