Mandy Ridderhof de Wilde

Mandy Ridderhof de Wilde (1981) obtained an MA in Art History and an MSc in Sociology (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam and the International School for Humanities and Social Sciences. The main research object during her study was on active citizenship, resulting in a master thesis on the role of citizen initiatives and neighbourhood institutions in the disadvantaged neighbourhood of Kanaleneiland (Utrecht), called Citizen Initiatives and Social Entrepreneurial Housing Corporations: Micro Processes of Active Citizenship in a Deprived Urban Neighbourhood. A Case Study of Kanaleneiland, Utrecht.

After graduating, she worked as a policy advisor for the Labour-party (PvdA) council in Amsterdam.

In 2009 Mandy started to participate in the research programme on Responsible, Engaged Citizens and Inviting, Bridging Institutions (funded by VSB Fonds) supervised by Prof. Dr. Evelien Tonkens. Her phd-project, Overcoming the Janus-faced Tensions within Active Citizenship: On the Role of Citizen Participation and Inviting Institutions in Developing Deliberative Democracy in Deprived Urban Neighbourhoods, focuses on why and how engaged citizens and inviting institutions develop and participate in new forms of citizen involvement in deprived urban neighbourhoods. The central proposition of the research proposal revolves around the notion that participatory mechanisms have a tendency to reflect and reproduce wider social conditions of homogeneity and inequality that structure (civil) society, instead of transforming them. Engaged citizens get caught up in issues of social conflict and struggle over resources which hinder a fair, effective and inclusive form of participation. Therefore the facilitating role of inviting institutions is important for counteracting unequal tendencies under the civic minded citizenry. However, organizations are increasingly more qualified by hybrid organizational logics like quasi-market governance and quasi-market participation which provoke diffuse accountability structures. This can eventually obstruct the facilitating role of professionals in the participation field; primarily in the field of welfare organizations. On the other hand, it can also offer new possibilities for facilitating engaged citizens; especially in the field of housing corporations. This will be put in relation to the central issue on how to organize active citizenship into a tool for social change and possibilities for new forms of deliberative, empowered democracy in the process.