Becoming a foreigner in my own language

I’ve been living and working in the Netherlands for three years now, learning the language because I think it’s important, but slowly because, well, life. I’m a much better ‘passive’ user of the language than active – reading and listening reasonable, speaking and writing something just short of Jip en Janneke taal, simple language named after characters in a famous series of childrens’ books. What’s … Continue reading Becoming a foreigner in my own language

‘Bricking it’ Part 2: the results

Five months ago I wrote about an intrepid group of Honours students taking their first steps into the wonderful world of Lego Serious Play. Well, the work is done and the report is in – and the team has allowed me to share it here. Not only that, but they produced a podcast too! I have some reflections on what happened, but have a look … Continue reading ‘Bricking it’ Part 2: the results

Bricking it: teaching and researching with Lego

I love my job, but there are times when I really, really love it. And despite corona restrictions forcing us out of classrooms and onto Zoom, I’m having one of those ‘really, really’ times right now. It’s teaching a group of Honours students in the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at Maastricht how to use Lego Serious Play to conduct research. And, of course, … Continue reading Bricking it: teaching and researching with Lego

Some learnings from the gifting space

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about language and communication lately, particularly the largely-unexamined assumptions about language that lurk in the background of my particular branch of democratic theory. I’ll write something longer about that shortly, but broadly speaking I think of language in rather anthropological terms as fluid systems of social meaning-making, not as fixed systems for conveying pre-linguistic truth. Despite that, … Continue reading Some learnings from the gifting space

A new job in Europe!

Followers of my social media feeds will already know this, but on 1 January 2019 I take up a new position as Professor of Social and Political Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. It’s a rather exciting opportunity because the whole faculty works in a very boundary-crossing way.    The department itself has … Continue reading A new job in Europe!