PhD defence Jacoba Johanna (Coline) van Everdingen-Bongers

Keywords: Ecosystem approach, Human rights, Social learning processes, Resilience

"Fair Space: Social pathways toward thriving for all"

The Netherlands is a prosperous country. An extensive healthcare system aims to guarantee the conditions for a healthy, dignified existence. Despite extensive knowledge, it is not possible to create reasonable life prospects for everyone. 

This dissertation examines how we can improve the conditions for development and growth in society. The research focuses on homeless people in social shelters. It looks at the interaction between shelter users and their environment from different perspectives.

Shelter users experience many problems in different areas of life. Despite good intentions, local service networks are unable to meet the essential needs of shelter users. This leads to all kinds of conflicts with their environment. The research shows the systematic nature of the system's failure. At the same time, it shows how joint learning processes in meaningful relationships can contribute to strengthening the possibilities and resilience in networks.

This dissertation sheds new light on our social challenges. The approach developed offers concrete tools to give substance and direction to joint learning processes that strengthen the resilience of people and the networks around them. The data was collected among shelter users, but the pattern-oriented approach reveals universal processes in social interactions.

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