My research is based on interviews in sparsely populated areas about incoming migrants and lifestyle entrepreneurs’ contributions to rural development.
My research is situated on the crossroads between lifestyle migration, tourism micro entrepreneurship and rural community development. I am involved in the EU Horizon research project ‘Arctic Knows’, in another project on the international tourism labour market in rural Arctic Sweden (funded by the Kamprad Family Foundation), and a collaboration with Kramfors municipality studying sustainable meeting places in the countryside (funded by FORMAS). I am further co-supervising a PhD student investigating ‘invisible’ second homes in collaboration with Umeå University’s industrial doctoral school and Region 10.
For Bachelor and Master theses, I am constantly looking for external partners to collaborate with on topics like migration, tourism and rural development. A current example is Umeå kommun’s interest in rural (unstaffed) grocery stores. This collaboration also stems from my role as the University’s delegate in the municipal committee for rural development.
Examples of outreach activities are two conferences I co-organised: one in collaboration with the international lifestyle migration hub (network) and another combining geographical migration studies and economic geography (in the frame of the International Geographical Union).
I completed my PhD in 2013 at Örebro University in Sweden, studying Dutch families in the rural Bergslagen area (Sweden), their migration decisions and post-migration everyday realities. I have a Master's degree in area studies (completed in 2002) from Utrecht University and a Bachelor's degree in European Studies (2006) from The Hague University of Applied Science, both in the Netherlands.
Teaching in English both at the Master program in Spatial Planning and Sustainability and the Master program in Tourism and Sustainable Development. This regards the courses Local and Regional Development, Sustainability, Destinations and Regional Development as well as Population, Migration and Mobility. I also supervise students writing their Master thesis in these programs.