Academy Early Career Partnerships grant for interdisciplinary meetings

Future care for the elderly in the Netherlands

Organised by Lander Vermeerbergen, Assistant Professor at Radboud University

How do we look after the elderly? How do we offer them the care they need and deserve, while staff shortages are increasing and budgets are shrinking? The 'Future Search' meeting held in Nijmegen in March brought together 72 experts from a range of disciplines to brainstorm about the care communities of the future. During the two-day session, it was not only researchers but also elderly people themselves, policymakers, healthcare professionals, and others who explored the future of intensive care for the elderly. The ultimate aim was to shape the healthcare communities of the future. 

One of the issues raised at the meeting was the need for a new social contract in which citizens, organizations, academics, and the government collaborate. Key questions during these conversations centred around 'What perspective can we offer to the elderly in the future?' and 'How do we make it sustainable and future-oriented?' Another area of concern about the future is the specialised structure of care, with a great deal taking place in self-contained ‘silos’, which creates a risk of duplication. Preferably, we should work towards care communities where care extends beyond the four walls.

Participants organized themselves into action groups during the two-day event, working at both the national and local levels. Meander Zorggroep, Vilente, and ZZG Zorggroep played a crucial role as local actors and co-initiators. On October 30, Vermeerbergen, together with enthusiastic participants from the two-day event and under the expert guidance of Prepared Mind, organized a follow-up day. On this day, they reflected on the actions determined during the two-day event. They observed significant local developments and discussed how to further address these issues locally while ensuring national scalability.

Tourism, Memory and Heritage: Geographies of cultural production, cultural memory and commemoration

Organised by Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong, Assistant Professor, Wageningen University & Research

Stories are an important component of a cultural identity. But what kind of stories do we tell to tourists, especially when colonial heritage and the history of slavery are concerned? This two-day conference brought together more than 60 participants to discuss how tourism studies can contribute to discussion of slavery and colonial heritage – particularly in the Ghana-Suriname-Netherlands triangle. The group comprised academics, policymakers, people working in the tourism or cultural sector, entrepreneurs, administrators, and journalists from Ghana, Suriname, the UK, Serbia, Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands. 

Those attending gathered at the International Institute of Social History on Day 1 and the Trippenhuis on Day 2. Participants took part in ‘Memre Waka’ (Memory Walk) commemorative march and a Black Heritage Tour of Amsterdam to explore the 'hidden history' of the early black presence in the city. The meeting highlighted 'the power of stories' and the role that the heritage sites and other cultural initiatives have in conveying this history and memories of it to a wide audience. There was also discussion on the importance of debunking myths and misrepresentations of the history of slavery, and the need to highlight resistance to slavery. The violence and dehumanisation committed by former European slaveowners are still regularly minimised by cultural institutions and the tourism industry.

The meeting yielded many new observations that deserve more extensive research. As a result of the conference, a thematic issue is therefore being prepared, as well as a position paper. This can be signed by all participants who wish to do so, as testimony to the importance of broadening and deepening research in the interdisciplinary field of tourism, heritage and memory, especially with regard to traces of slavery and colonialism. A formal network will also be created so that all attendees can continue to share relevant knowledge and news, and form teams to draw up funding applications and research proposals.

The KNAW Early Career Partnership grant offered me wonderfully unique opportunity to bring into conversation a wide range of researchers and practitioners in the area of tourism, memory and heritage in a conference setting. The grant made possible bringing key actors from Ghana and Suriname to the Netherlands to hear from them directly. Thus instead of simply talking ‘about’ them and their work in slavery heritage tourism, the conference facilitated listening, learning and talking ‘with’ them. -Adu-Ampong

For detailed coverage of the meeting, see the report by Carol Ann Dixon, education consultant and academic researcher with interests in African and Caribbean diaspora histories and a participant at the meeting.