L Van Praag
Biographic Data
| ID | 48022 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L Van Praag |
| GIVEN NAMES | L |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Praag |
| SIGNATURE | VAN PRAAG L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Erasmus University Rotterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2861-7523 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 73 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
‘No one to help us when the rains don’t come’
Rural Morocco is increasingly affected by climate variability, including rising temperatures, irregular rainfall, and frequent droughts, which threaten agricultural livelihoods and food security. These environmental stresses interact with existing social inequalities, such as limited access to land and employment for women and rigid gender norms, making households, especially women, more vulnerable. Drawing on two focus group discussions, this re…
“The weather feels familiar”
Climate change not only affects the environments we live in but also shapes how we are attached to them. These place attachments are the emotional bonds individuals form with specific places, encompassing affective, behavioral, and cognitive connections. Migrants and other mobile communities maintain dual attachments to both their countries of origin and their new environments. This study focuses on Moroccan migrants living in Tenerife, Canary Is…
The Role of Glocal Celebrities and Diaspora Organizations in Environmental Change in Tenerife and Morocco
Recently, growing attention has been paid to the importance of intangible remittances for climate adaptation, including the exchange of knowledge, cultural practices, and normative frameworks within transnational networks. Most studies assume these concerns mainly involve knowledge exchange, but less is known about how such exchanges are embedded in normative structures. This latter concept is crucial to understand how remittances reflect and eve…
We are already strong, do we really need to prove that again?” Migrantised women’s situated meanings of “gender empowerment” in Belgium
Many governments, civil society organisations (CSOs), and policy makers promote “gender empowerment,” as part of larger policies on gender equality, inclusion, and equal opportunities in society. In Belgium, civil society organisations are prominent actors to realise such empowerment. However, less is known about the situated meanings of the concept of “empowerment.” This study investigates how migrantised women participating in civil society org…
Navigating (De)Conversion While Maintaining Social Relations Across Different Religions in Flanders (Belgium)
Religious (de)conversion trajectories often involve shifts in social networks, both within and outside religious communities. This paper explores two key aspects: first, the strategies used by (de)converts in Flanders (Belgium) to communicate their (de)conversion, and second, how they experienced the reactions of their social networks, shaped by the organization of their religious groups. Based on 43 in-depth interviews with individuals who have …
We always ask about the weather”
The objective of this study is to investigate how transnational and translocal migrant networks contribute to knowledge acquisition, resource sharing, and collaborations related to environmental change adaptation. By using a combination of qualitative interviews and novel visual mapping techniques, this study seeks to understand how and by whom remittances are shared, including digital mobilities (e.g., social media and other forms of digital com…
Feeling responsible for reducing climate change
Feelings of being responsible for reducing climate change can stimulate climate action. These feelings may depend on the broader cultural (e.g. religious) and social context (e.g. social and environmental welfare expenditure) in which one lives, as well as on individual beliefs and attitudes, such as religiosity, religion and welfare attitudes. This study analyses data from the European Social Survey Round 8 to gain a better understanding of how …
Gendered dynamics in Moroccan transnational migrant networks in Tenerife
The concept of transnational knowledge networks has entered the field of study of environmental mobility. Yet, how these networks play a role in adaptation to environmental change remains understudied. Power dynamics and familial ties impact the functioning of transnational networks and intricately shape responses to environmental challenges, with gender serving as a salient factor. This research aims to theorize and empirically study how gender …
Methodological reflections on visually mapping intangible remittances amidst environmental change
Emerging debates underscore the importance of advancing intangible remittances (IRs) research, particularly given the challenges of capturing nuanced exchanges within transnational migrant networks. This paper introduces visual mapping techniques as a new methodological tool for studying IRs in the context of environmental change to demonstrate how visual mapping can enable the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and practices within migrant networks. …
“A beacon of hope
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for structurally informed mental health services that are sensitive to social inequalities and cultural differences. Community-level services and organisations are often referred to as having the potential to play a key role in providing such services to migrants, yet not many studies have documented how these types of services have been experienced during the pandemic. The objective of our case stud…
Millions of climate refugees are coming!’ A critical media discourse analysis on climate change-induced migrants in Flemish press
The rise in research, policy and news on climate change-induced migration has grown exponentially over the last two decades. Migration related to global warming is increasingly portrayed as inevitable and used to mobilise people to act immediately against climate change. By analysing the discourse of two Flemish news media journals (De Standaard and Het Laatste Nieuws) and the Belgian national news agency (Belga), indexed by the GoPress database …
Navigating tomorrow’s horizons
Despite the growth of research in environmental migration, less research has been done on how migrants consider environmental change and weather events when making future migration decisions. Furthermore, little is known about how transnational ties are considered in this process. In this study, 36 migrants living in the Netherlands and Belgium participated in an individual or group interview or in a focus group discussion. In accordance with the…
Examining the role of the diaspora in addressing the interconnections between human health and environmental change
Diaspora communities are a growing source of external assistance and resources to meet unmet needs and to strengthen existing health systems in their home countries. Although a growing number of articles have been published in this realm, very few have looked at diaspora communities' role and the place translocal communities give to health (care) in the various remittance dynamics, whilst including power relationships and environmental change. Th…
Local community leaders on social resilience to environmental disasters
This study aims to investigate how community leaders of Lurigancho-Chosica, in Lima-Perú, perceive environmental (im)mobility in their community, because of El Niño-Southern Oscillation [ENSO]. ENSO is a recurrent climate event that will likely worsen with rising world temperatures. Lurigancho-Chosica is a highly vulnerable area and one of the most affected by ENSO in the country because of landslides. Using a qualitative approach, interviews wer…
School staff's views on causes of early school leaving in regular secondary and adult education
Understanding early school leaving (ESL) remains a key issue on political and academic agendas. Most research focuses on the experiences of young people who intend to leave or have left school early without a qualification from secondary education. In addition, most studies focus on regular secondary schools. We aim to add to this literature by studying how school staff in regular secondary and adult education schools explain ESL, and to understa…
Navigating spatial inequalities
The COVID-19 pandemic and its multiple lockdowns disrupted city life, while restrictions on physical distancing and urban activities highlighted the importance of our living environment and its links to our well-being. As part of the COVINFORM research project, this case study uses a micro-political lens to explore the specific spatial challenges which migrants faced in two of the more socially deprived neighbourhoods in Antwerp, Antwerpen-Noord …
Feminisation of agriculture and the role of environmental changes
In the present study, we aim to examine how slow-onset environmental changes are intertwined with the feminisation of agriculture and how these environmental changes impact gender relations in the rural Souss-Massa region-a predominantly agricultural region in Morocco. We do so by firstly studying the perspectives of rural inhabitants on broader household, kinship, land ownership and community-based gender relations in rural regions in the Souss-…
Can participation in learning abroad mobility support pro-European Union attitudes among youth
The role of education in the development of pro-EU attitudes is often examined by focusing on the association of educational attainment and the development of pro-EU attitudes. However, student exchanges and youth mobility have also become pillars of the foundation of the European Higher Education Area, figuring out the Maastricht Treaty and the Bologna Declaration. Accordingly, based on a utilitarian approach, the current study investigates the …
Explanatory Models of (Mental) Health Among Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Belgium
You Can't Even Predict the Rain Anymore”
In the current study, we depart from migration biographies of first-generation Moroccan migrants living in Belgium to understand how environmental factors interfere in migration decision making and how its importance varies over life stages. Most Moroccan migrants came to Belgium as labor migrants or family “reunifers,” so little research has inquired whether and how environmental changes have played a role in making migration more appealing, at …
A capital theory approach to migrants' views and engagement with climate adaptation in the region of origin
Combining insights from migration and climate adaptation studies, this study examines how migrants living in Belgium contribute to climate adaptation in their region of origin, based on 29 qualitative interviews with migrants in Belgium. The findings varied considerably, depending on the region of origin, the main driver of migration and the possibility of returning. The results show that both the knowledge and capacity to contribute to climate a…
Bringing migrants' perspectives in 'migration as an adaptation strategy' discourses
Over the last few years, migration is increasingly being framed as an adaptation strategy to deal with climate change, to move away from apocalyptic representations of migration in debates on climate change. While acknowledging the merit of this discourse, this commentary calls for more attention to include migrants' perspectives in debates on environmental migration and reflecting on how such discourses work out in practice. As most studies have…
Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic affects different people unequally, and migrants are frequently among the groups considered particularly vulnerable. However, conceptualizations of 'vulnerability' are often ambiguous and poorly defined. Using critical discourse analysis methods, this article analyses the academic use of the term 'vulnerable' applied to migrants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across public health and social science disciplines. Our …
Gender, Environmental Change, and Migration Aspirations and Abilities in Tangier and Tinghir, Morocco
The role of environmental factors and other migration drivers from the perspective of Moroccan and Congolese migrants in Belgium
This manuscript describes findings from 53 interviews conducted with Moroccan and migrants from The Democratic Republique of the Congo living in Belgium, with an emphasis on discussing the extent to which environmental factors in the migrants’ home countries may or may not have influenced their migration decisions. A comparative approach clarifies and disentangles the relationship between natural environmental factors and other drivers of migrati…
Oh, this is really great work—especially for a Turk’
Students of Turkish descent suffer various forms of discrimination in education in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium). Nevertheless, few studies have documented how these discrimination experiences are situated within structures of ethnic inequality in education. Adopting a critical race theory approach, experiences of Turkish Belgian university students were analysed to expose deficit assumptions towards ethnic minorities and push against i…
Environmental migration and displacement
Migration has existed in all times and places and people have migrated for a variety of (combined) reasons: environmental, economic, political, humanitarian, social and cultural. While social and political conflicts that have arisen out of environmental changes are not new, environmental changes have placed some living conditions and other reasons for migration under even more pressure. In this paper, we combine insights from two approaches to th…
How humor makes or breaks student-teacher relationships
You Have to Integrate to Belong Here
While substantial attention has been given to the integration processes of ethnic minority groups across Western Europe, few studies have focused on how students in higher education engage with and make sense of these processes. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 25 female university students of Turkish and Belgian descent to shed light on students’ acculturation meanings. Our analyses show that both student groups reiterate…
Bringing migrants' perspectives in 'migration as an adaptation strategy' discourses
Over the last few years, migration is increasingly being framed as an adaptation strategy to deal with climate change, to move away from apocalyptic representations of migration in debates on climate change. While acknowledging the merit of this discourse, this commentary calls for more attention to include migrants' perspectives in debates on environmental migration and reflecting on how such discourses work out in practice. As most studies have…
The role of environmental factors and other migration drivers from the perspective of Moroccan and Congolese migrants in Belgium
This manuscript describes findings from 53 interviews conducted with Moroccan and migrants from The Democratic Republique of the Congo living in Belgium, with an emphasis on discussing the extent to which environmental factors in the migrants’ home countries may or may not have influenced their migration decisions. A comparative approach clarifies and disentangles the relationship between natural environmental factors and other drivers of migrati…
Mental health in a gendered context
Going to work without educational qualifications
Risks of exclusion can occur in multiple forms and start early in life. Early school leavers are especially at risk of social exclusion as this is strongly related to turbulent school-to-work-transitions. These young people often find themselves in low-qualified work or unemployment. In this article, we explore the labour market experiences of early school leavers in Flanders, Belgium. In total, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with nine ear…
A qualitative study of how exclusion processes shape friendship development among Turkish-Belgian university students
Feminisation of agriculture and the role of environmental changes
In the present study, we aim to examine how slow-onset environmental changes are intertwined with the feminisation of agriculture and how these environmental changes impact gender relations in the rural Souss-Massa region-a predominantly agricultural region in Morocco. We do so by firstly studying the perspectives of rural inhabitants on broader household, kinship, land ownership and community-based gender relations in rural regions in the Souss-…
Gendered dynamics in Moroccan transnational migrant networks in Tenerife
The concept of transnational knowledge networks has entered the field of study of environmental mobility. Yet, how these networks play a role in adaptation to environmental change remains understudied. Power dynamics and familial ties impact the functioning of transnational networks and intricately shape responses to environmental challenges, with gender serving as a salient factor. This research aims to theorize and empirically study how gender …
Navigating tomorrow’s horizons
Despite the growth of research in environmental migration, less research has been done on how migrants consider environmental change and weather events when making future migration decisions. Furthermore, little is known about how transnational ties are considered in this process. In this study, 36 migrants living in the Netherlands and Belgium participated in an individual or group interview or in a focus group discussion. In accordance with the…
Examining the role of the diaspora in addressing the interconnections between human health and environmental change
Diaspora communities are a growing source of external assistance and resources to meet unmet needs and to strengthen existing health systems in their home countries. Although a growing number of articles have been published in this realm, very few have looked at diaspora communities' role and the place translocal communities give to health (care) in the various remittance dynamics, whilst including power relationships and environmental change. Th…
Navigating spatial inequalities
The COVID-19 pandemic and its multiple lockdowns disrupted city life, while restrictions on physical distancing and urban activities highlighted the importance of our living environment and its links to our well-being. As part of the COVINFORM research project, this case study uses a micro-political lens to explore the specific spatial challenges which migrants faced in two of the more socially deprived neighbourhoods in Antwerp, Antwerpen-Noord …
A capital theory approach to migrants' views and engagement with climate adaptation in the region of origin
Combining insights from migration and climate adaptation studies, this study examines how migrants living in Belgium contribute to climate adaptation in their region of origin, based on 29 qualitative interviews with migrants in Belgium. The findings varied considerably, depending on the region of origin, the main driver of migration and the possibility of returning. The results show that both the knowledge and capacity to contribute to climate a…
Age is more than just a number! The role of age and maturity in the processes leading to early school leaving in Flanders (Belgium)
In many educational systems, age is used as a criterion to organise education. Children's age is used to group students together and indicate entry into particular programmes. The use of age for organisational purposes in education stems from the idea that age provides an indication of the development of children, which is associated with teaching and learning. However, more far‐reaching consequences of age‐related educational practices are insuf…
Mental health in a gendered context
How humor makes or breaks student-teacher relationships
A Migration Project in Retrospect
In the twentieth century, Emirdağ (Turkey) witnessed extensive emigration and is now home to the ‘zero generation’: a group of elderly people who stayed behind when their children moved abroad. We investigate how these elderly people, with at least one child who left the country, evaluate their situation as they have grown older. Using fieldwork observations and in-depth interviews, we found that this group mainly associated the migration of thei…
Age is more than just a number! The role of age and maturity in the processes leading to early school leaving in Flanders (Belgium)
In many educational systems, age is used as a criterion to organise education. Children's age is used to group students together and indicate entry into particular programmes. The use of age for organisational purposes in education stems from the idea that age provides an indication of the development of children, which is associated with teaching and learning. However, more far‐reaching consequences of age‐related educational practices are insuf…
Environmental migration and displacement
Migration has existed in all times and places and people have migrated for a variety of (combined) reasons: environmental, economic, political, humanitarian, social and cultural. While social and political conflicts that have arisen out of environmental changes are not new, environmental changes have placed some living conditions and other reasons for migration under even more pressure. In this paper, we combine insights from two approaches to th…
Going to work without educational qualifications
Risks of exclusion can occur in multiple forms and start early in life. Early school leavers are especially at risk of social exclusion as this is strongly related to turbulent school-to-work-transitions. These young people often find themselves in low-qualified work or unemployment. In this article, we explore the labour market experiences of early school leavers in Flanders, Belgium. In total, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted with nine ear…
A qualitative study of how exclusion processes shape friendship development among Turkish-Belgian university students
Oh, this is really great work—especially for a Turk’
Students of Turkish descent suffer various forms of discrimination in education in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium). Nevertheless, few studies have documented how these discrimination experiences are situated within structures of ethnic inequality in education. Adopting a critical race theory approach, experiences of Turkish Belgian university students were analysed to expose deficit assumptions towards ethnic minorities and push against i…
Merging Top-Down and Bottom-Up Influences on Fitting in at School. The Role of Ethnic Congruence in Overall and Interethnic Friendship Formation
This study assesses whether ethnic congruence associates with students’ share of cross-group friendships and number of overall friendships. We investigate differences between natives, Western-European immigrants, and non-Western European immigrants. Multilevel analyses on 11,759 students across 83 Flemish secondary schools demonstrated that, for natives and Western-European immigrants, higher congruence linearly related to lower shares of cross-g…
A Qualitative Study on How Perceptions of Environmental Changes are Linked to Migration in Morocco, Senegal, and DR Congo
Environmental migration is a growing concern of academics and policymakers, who foresee a rise in the number of such migrants. However, most prevailing academic and policy discourses ignore the variety of perceptions of environmental changes among people living in highly affected areas across the world. We examine the perceptions of environmental changes and how these are seen to be relevant to migration in Senegal, DR Congo, and Morocco. In tota…
Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic affects different people unequally, and migrants are frequently among the groups considered particularly vulnerable. However, conceptualizations of 'vulnerability' are often ambiguous and poorly defined. Using critical discourse analysis methods, this article analyses the academic use of the term 'vulnerable' applied to migrants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across public health and social science disciplines. Our …
Gender, Environmental Change, and Migration Aspirations and Abilities in Tangier and Tinghir, Morocco
The role of environmental factors and other migration drivers from the perspective of Moroccan and Congolese migrants in Belgium
This manuscript describes findings from 53 interviews conducted with Moroccan and migrants from The Democratic Republique of the Congo living in Belgium, with an emphasis on discussing the extent to which environmental factors in the migrants’ home countries may or may not have influenced their migration decisions. A comparative approach clarifies and disentangles the relationship between natural environmental factors and other drivers of migrati…
You Have to Integrate to Belong Here
While substantial attention has been given to the integration processes of ethnic minority groups across Western Europe, few studies have focused on how students in higher education engage with and make sense of these processes. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 25 female university students of Turkish and Belgian descent to shed light on students’ acculturation meanings. Our analyses show that both student groups reiterate…
Can participation in learning abroad mobility support pro-European Union attitudes among youth
The role of education in the development of pro-EU attitudes is often examined by focusing on the association of educational attainment and the development of pro-EU attitudes. However, student exchanges and youth mobility have also become pillars of the foundation of the European Higher Education Area, figuring out the Maastricht Treaty and the Bologna Declaration. Accordingly, based on a utilitarian approach, the current study investigates the …
Explanatory Models of (Mental) Health Among Sub-Saharan African Migrants in Belgium
You Can't Even Predict the Rain Anymore”
In the current study, we depart from migration biographies of first-generation Moroccan migrants living in Belgium to understand how environmental factors interfere in migration decision making and how its importance varies over life stages. Most Moroccan migrants came to Belgium as labor migrants or family “reunifers,” so little research has inquired whether and how environmental changes have played a role in making migration more appealing, at …
A capital theory approach to migrants' views and engagement with climate adaptation in the region of origin
Combining insights from migration and climate adaptation studies, this study examines how migrants living in Belgium contribute to climate adaptation in their region of origin, based on 29 qualitative interviews with migrants in Belgium. The findings varied considerably, depending on the region of origin, the main driver of migration and the possibility of returning. The results show that both the knowledge and capacity to contribute to climate a…
Bringing migrants' perspectives in 'migration as an adaptation strategy' discourses
Over the last few years, migration is increasingly being framed as an adaptation strategy to deal with climate change, to move away from apocalyptic representations of migration in debates on climate change. While acknowledging the merit of this discourse, this commentary calls for more attention to include migrants' perspectives in debates on environmental migration and reflecting on how such discourses work out in practice. As most studies have…
“A beacon of hope
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for structurally informed mental health services that are sensitive to social inequalities and cultural differences. Community-level services and organisations are often referred to as having the potential to play a key role in providing such services to migrants, yet not many studies have documented how these types of services have been experienced during the pandemic. The objective of our case stud…
Millions of climate refugees are coming!’ A critical media discourse analysis on climate change-induced migrants in Flemish press
The rise in research, policy and news on climate change-induced migration has grown exponentially over the last two decades. Migration related to global warming is increasingly portrayed as inevitable and used to mobilise people to act immediately against climate change. By analysing the discourse of two Flemish news media journals (De Standaard and Het Laatste Nieuws) and the Belgian national news agency (Belga), indexed by the GoPress database …
Navigating tomorrow’s horizons
Despite the growth of research in environmental migration, less research has been done on how migrants consider environmental change and weather events when making future migration decisions. Furthermore, little is known about how transnational ties are considered in this process. In this study, 36 migrants living in the Netherlands and Belgium participated in an individual or group interview or in a focus group discussion. In accordance with the…
Examining the role of the diaspora in addressing the interconnections between human health and environmental change
Diaspora communities are a growing source of external assistance and resources to meet unmet needs and to strengthen existing health systems in their home countries. Although a growing number of articles have been published in this realm, very few have looked at diaspora communities' role and the place translocal communities give to health (care) in the various remittance dynamics, whilst including power relationships and environmental change. Th…
Local community leaders on social resilience to environmental disasters
This study aims to investigate how community leaders of Lurigancho-Chosica, in Lima-Perú, perceive environmental (im)mobility in their community, because of El Niño-Southern Oscillation [ENSO]. ENSO is a recurrent climate event that will likely worsen with rising world temperatures. Lurigancho-Chosica is a highly vulnerable area and one of the most affected by ENSO in the country because of landslides. Using a qualitative approach, interviews wer…
School staff's views on causes of early school leaving in regular secondary and adult education
Understanding early school leaving (ESL) remains a key issue on political and academic agendas. Most research focuses on the experiences of young people who intend to leave or have left school early without a qualification from secondary education. In addition, most studies focus on regular secondary schools. We aim to add to this literature by studying how school staff in regular secondary and adult education schools explain ESL, and to understa…
Sociology (26 works) · Political science (22 works) · Geography (19 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration (17 works) · Economic growth (12 works) · Economics (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Climate change (10 works) · Disaster Management and Resilience (8 works)