Bio & CV
My background has shaped my academic life and work in several ways. First, even though I was born in a small village and in a working-class milieu, I had the opportunity to go to university and study. I owe that to the labour movement. I am grateful to all those men and women who struggled for equal rights in access to higher education in the Netherlands. Without them, I would not have had the opportunity to learn and incorporate a scientific way of thinking and acting, and to know and understand more about the world.
Next, my background made me allergic to status and reputation, i.e. all those processes that close higher circles in society and academia for those without the right network or do not master class-based codes of conduct. I never felt comfortable nor motivated to become involved in such show-off practices or to invade positions of power and prestige (see my CV). I am solely intrinsically motivated, i.e. fascinated by science itself and the possibilities it offers for knowledge, understanding, and enlightenment.
Moreover, my academic interests are largely shaped by concerns about equal chances, emancipation, oppression, and discrimination. My drive is to understand how such issues work, to reveal their drivers and mechanisms, in close cooperation with the people involved. That has its spin-off in publications, teaching, and media appearances, but also in recommendations for interventions to improve the real-life situation of real people, not just numbers in statistics.
Violence, ethnicity, and Q’eqchi’
My work can be divided in two stages. First, my study and PhD project reflect a strong interest in Guatemala. I did my master research in the 1980s on the role of Catholic priests and religious people in the context of exploitation and massive violence against the indigenous population by landowners and the army. That meant visiting and interviewing these people, often in difficult circumstances. Oscar Sierra, Luís Samandú and I joined our efforts to write a book about this subject (see “publications”).
From there, my interest emerged for doing ethnographic fieldwork among a specific indigenous group, the Q’eqchi’. I spent two years with them in the early 1990s to understand something about their lifeworld, problems, challenges, and strategies on the crossroads between their own traditions and cosmovision on the one hand and global and modernizing influences on the other. There are menacing and enabling elements coming to them from both traditional and external sources. I was particularly interested in how they deal with those challenges in the context of oppression and exploitation. That fieldwork resulted in several publications, including my PhD in 1996.
Migrants, discrimination, and the labour market
After turn of the century, my focus has shifted towards ethnic diversity in organizations and unequal chances and discrimination migrants and their children face in the labour market and society, like in the Netherlands. I have carried out research projects on these issues in two ministries, two provincial and five municipal administrations, a university of applied sciences, the Dutch police, the tax administration, a consultancy firm, and supervised several other projects conducted by my students and PhDs.
Most of these projects were based on triangulation of methods, stakeholders, data, and analyses. I basically wanted to know and understand how and how often discrimination against people with a migration background occurs, how it is experienced by those involved, what its drivers and mechanisms are, and what needs to be done to prevent it or to get rid of it. I believe, I found the answers to many of those questions. Especially the project I carried out in Eindhoven municipality shows that with the right approach, organizations can solve such discrimination problems and create a safe space and equal chances. They meticulously applied my recommendations, which led to the disappearance of the discrimination we registered in the baseline study in 2017.
Findings were published in academic books and journals and provided input for my teaching as well as the development of the Master programme on diversity management at Tilburg University. They also allowed me to play an active role in public debate on these and related issues (see “in public”).
Curriculum Vitae
- 1996PhD Social Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 1989Doctoral exam Social Sciences cum laude, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 1986Candidate’s exam Contemporary History, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 2016–2024Research fellow at ReflecT, Research Institute for Flexicurity, Labour Market Dynamics and Social Cohesion, Tilburg University
- 2010–2024Associate professor (Culture Studies), Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University
- 2006–2024Member of Babylon, Centre for the Study of Superdiversity, Tilburg University
- 2004–2010Associate professor (Organization Studies), Tilburg School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Tilburg University
- 1999–2004Assistant professor, dept. General Social Sciences and Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University
- 1998Lecturer, dept. Culture, Organization and Management, Faculty of Socio-cultural Sciences, Free University Amsterdam
- 1997Research assistant, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 1991–1992Lecturer, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala
- 1990–1994PhD trainee, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 1982–1987Student assistant, Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen
- 2011–2021Director, international Master programme Management of Cultural Diversity, Tilburg University
- 2012–2016Member, Faculty Council, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences
- 2007–2011Director, interfaculty Master programme Organization of Cultural Diversity, Tilburg University
- 2005–2011Chair, Tilburg University research group of the FP6 Network of Excellence Sustainable Development in a Diverse World
- 2006–2010Member of the steering group of the Babylon network
- 2005–2006Director, Bachelor programme Organisation Studies, Tilburg University
- 2005–2006Member of departmental board, dept. Organisation Studies, Tilburg University
- 2001Director, academic career programme for practitioners Management en Organisatie, Utrecht University
- 2000–Chair of several research commissions at Tilburg University, Utrecht University and CERES
- 2018‘Factors, mechanisms and conditions of ethnic boundary construction and their alternatives in institutional settings.’ Séminaire CNRS-URMIS, Nice, 12 January 2018. Watch the recording
- 2008‘Are all citizens equal regarding public services? The poison of culture.’ 5th Quality Conference for Public Administration in the EU, organized by the French EU Presidency, Paris, 21 October 2008.
- 2004‘Social Transformation: A Conceptual Framework for Interlinking Research and Policy on Critical Issues of our Times.’ Staff meeting Social Sciences and Humanities Sector, UNESCO, Paris, 29 June 2004.
- 2004Scientific Advisory Committee and Intergovernmental Council Bureau meeting, UNESCO, Paris, 3 July 2004.
I served for four years as an associate board member of Work, Employment and Society, one of the three flagship journals of the British Sociological Association.
I reviewed on a regular basis for Human Relations, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies and Review of Social Economy, as well as for several research councils.
I managed several teaching programmes, including a number at Utrecht University and the Bachelor Organization Studies at Tilburg University. I developed the master programme Management of Cultural Diversity at Tilburg University, for which I received the Tilburg University Education Innovation Prize.
Courses taught include: Management of Cultural Diversity (introduction); Cultural Identity and Diversity; Cultural Diversity Management; Management, Organisation and Culture; Management of Cultural Diversity Research Practicum; Culture and Development; Qualitative Research; Organizational Politics; Work, Management and Organization; Policy, Organization and Society.
I was co-supervisor of four PhD projects.
I am invited on a regular basis to give lectures for companies and societal organisations on diversity management and on the problems that migrants face in the labour market and in education.
I gave advice on a regular basis on those issues to the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, the Dutch Labour Inspectorate and other organizations. I also gave various lectures and held seminars with Dutch trade unions. I am interviewed by media and publish articles in Dutch newspapers on these issues several times a year.
Fluent proficiency in Dutch, English, German, Spanish and Italian, and to a lesser extent in French.