Ellen van Holstein

Dr. Ellen van Holstein

Vice Chancellor'S Postdoctoral Fellow

Details

Open to

  • Masters Research or PhD student supervision
  • Media enquiries
  • Collaborative projects

About

I am a Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies, where lead various research projects in partnership with community centres and local governments. In my fellowship project I analyse how policy and funding changes are impacting on the ways Australian commuity centres do their work and how centres’ changing ways of working affect different user groups. I lead a VicHealth Research Impact project which seeks to identify how Neighbourhood Houses can best respond to incrasingly pressing challenges of loneliness. I also lead research funded by the Australian Communication Consumers Action Network which analyses the role of Neighbourhood Houses in developing the capacity of marginalised people to develop and maintain digital skills. 

 

Before joining RMIT, I held various research positions at the University of Melbourne, including on the ARC Discovery Project 'The Disability Inclusive City' (with Ilan Wiesel, Brendan Gleeson and Christine Bigby) and on the UK Economic and Social Research funded project 'Young People at a Crossroads' (with Catherine Walker). I conducted my PhD research on the tensions between community gardeners' collective and personal interest at the University of Wollongong. 

Research fields

  • 4406 Human geography
  • 440601 Cultural geography
  • 440612 Urban geography
  • 470102 Communication technology and digital media studies
  • 330405 Public participation and community engagement

UN sustainable development goals

  • 10 Reduced Inequalities
  • 3 Good Health and Well Being

Academic positions

  • Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow
  • RMIT University
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • 28 Mar 2022 – 3 Mar 2026
  • Research Fellow
  • University of Melbourne
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • 23 Aug 2021 – 18 Feb 2022
  • Research Fellow
  • University of Melbourne
  • , Australia
  • 16 Jul 2018 – 11 Jan 2021

Non-academic positions

  • Community Capacity Building Lead
  • Brotherhood of St Laurence
  • Fitzroy, Australia
  • 11 Jan 2021 – 20 Aug 2021

Research interests

My research explores how community groups function in contemporary cities and how this is influenced by interventions such as funding regimes, participatory citizenship mechanisms, digital technologies and grassroots place-making initiatives. I approach communities as constantly emerging and changing configurations that are co-constituted by the material environment, discourse, social practice and non-human others and objects. My aim is to emphasize both the exclusionary and inclusive potential of community groups, and to reveal how and when the discourses and policies of ‘community’ serve select groups. 

 

I have developed my program of research across the three interconnected empirical fields of inclusive community spaces, inclusive environmental activism and inclusive digitisation of community services. Within these areas, I have conducted research with a wide range of commuity groups including community gardeners, social housing residents, people with disability, young people and migrants. I am committed to participatory research methods including participatory mapping, and collaboration with community researchers and reference committees.    

 

Initiatives and links

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torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.