Research into citizenship, diversity and the arts.​

Research agency Urban Paradoxes is founded and run by Sandra Trienekens, human geographer (MA) and cultural sociologist (PhD). Since 1999 she has contributed to research and theory on citizenship, participation, diversity and the arts. In her work, she integrates her scientific and applied knowledge of the cultural sector and the changing social context.

Urban Paradoxes research combines questions on artistic form renewal, sector change, collaboration and on what works (methodology) in building a future-oriented, participatory and inclusive cultural sector. Currently, a prominent research question at Urban Paradoxes is: (How) does the concept of ‘cultural democracy’ offer us tools to truly move forward on the issues of cultural participation and diversity in cultural policy and in the publicly funded arts sector?

Trienekens worked at universities in Tilburg, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Manchester and London between 1999 and 2007. From 2007 to 2011 she was professor of applied science in ‘Citizenship and Cultural Dynamics’ at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science (HvA). Since 2011, she is fulltime committed to Urban Paradoxes.

To speed up the search process, as most of the work is in Dutch, below the links to Urban Paradoxes publications in English.

PUBLICATIONS