Research Methods
- Ethnography
- (Ethnographic) Interviews
- Focus Groups
- Collaborative Workshops
- Methdological innovation
Current Research Projects
Within the project ‘Clean as a good’, my work focuses on how households figure in the care for water quality. I take as a starting point that cleaning here often means dirtying water elsewhere. I conduct ethnographic observations and interviews in people’s homes, with a focuson the practices of everyday use and discarding of water and on interventions that seek to alter these (e.g. research or behavioural interventions). I demonstrate how attempts to act upon water pollution differently stage relations between households and other relevant actors (incl. drinking water companies, water government) and associated responsibilities, and with what consequences. My work highlights the precarity of practices that serve ecological cleanliness and the cost of the absence of support to keep them up.
My project takes place within the NWO-funded research project ‘Clean as a good’ that explores how, in living with and working on water pollution in the Netherlands, different ‘goods’ that are in tension are navigated. We conduct ethnographic research with various actors, ranging from water professionals to swimmers, ‘green doctors,’ and household cleaners in professional and everyday practices, in order to learn from those who seek to improve water quality in the Netherlands through prevention, improvement of water treatment technologies, and developing interventions to change domestic water usage. The aim is to understand the diverse goods at stake in each site, and how they are known, navigated, and coordinated in practices of living with and caring for different kinds of problems related to water quality management. Theoretically, the project contributes to valuation studies by analysing how different notions of ‘clean’ are assessed, prioritised, and, at times, neglected in practice. Practically, the aim is to open up problems to do with water pollution and related issues and improve coordination between different domains that attempt to act upon them.
Research Grants & Honours
2020-2022 Research Fellowship “Learning for improvement from experiences of Intensive Care with COVID19 through patient and family members’ narratives", funded by The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS institute), part of the University of Cambridge.
In collaboration with the University of Oxford/Health Experiences Research Group). £119,985.
July 2017 Brocher Residency (1 month for a team of four researchers). ‘The labelling of mental disease: Towards responsible labelling practices’. Co-applicants: S. Spruit; E. Van Duin & S. de Knecht
Borgstrom, E., Driessen, A., Krawczyk, M., Kirby, E., MacArtney, J., & Almack, K. (2024). Grieving academic grant rejections: Examining funding failure and experiences of loss. Sociological Review, 72(5), 998-1017.