Who are we
This website is part of the mission of the Foundation Critical Ethics of Care. This foundation aims at contributing to good, citizenship affirming, professionally sound, caring practices (among which healthcare, welfare and teaching practices), decent and just institutions and a society that cares for those who are vulnerable. It does so by developing knowledge on burning issues in society, using a critical, political and empirical interpretation of ethics of care. We consider caring practices to be constitutive for the possibility of living together of diverse groups and persons.
Next to the facilitation of an international research network, the foundation makes the knowledge developed accessible to a larger public through publications, masterclasses and this website.
Currently the editorial staff of the website consists of Richard Brons, Sylwin Gilles Cornielje, Madzy Dekema (webmaster), Ivonne Hoen, Silke Jacobi, Jeannet van de Kamp, and Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg (chair)
Academic exchange
New knowledge on ethics of care continues to be developed and deserves to be shared. Through Academic exchange we offer the opportunity to do so. Should you wish to contribute, mail us.
Reviews
Fiction, movies, the arts and exhibitions may in some way tell us about professional caring practices, the decency of institutions and the way society looks at caring for those most vulnerable. Through reviews we share thoughts on what we read of see. Should you wish to contribute, mail us.
Network
Care ethicists from around the world present themselves here and inform readers about the way care ethics is being addressed in their country. Should you wish to contribute, mail us.
Series
Burning issues may require multiple articles. Should this be the case we invite scholars in our network to contribute to a series, related to a particular burning issue and should you wish to contribute, Please mail us.
Honorary Member
Prof. dr. Frans Vosman
Frans was co-founder of the network Care and Contested Coherence (CCC) and the driving force behind it. He first founded this network at Tilburg University and later at the University of Humanistic Studies (NL). Over the passing years Frans Vosman participated in the Critical Ethics of Care Research Network as a great inspirator and leader on the path of political ethics of care. Frans Vosman was the founder of this website. The website later became part of the Foundation Critical Ethics of Care. As an editor Frans Vosman has always been a driving force behind this website up until mid-2019. We owe him many thanks and in appreciation appoint him as honorary member.
Prof. dr. Frans Vosman studied moral theology and philosophy at Nijmegen University and did a doctorate on economical ethics in Paris and Rome. Professor Louis Vereecke was his promotor. He was engaged in medical ethics before he took interest in the ethics of care, at Tilburg University, where he was professor ethics of care. He held a chair ethics of care at the University of Humanistics, Utrecht. He was interested in combining conceptual and empirical ethics and in the fundamental political character of the ethics of care. Together with colleagues he did research in a general hospital about patients perspectives and research with regard to people with an intellectual disability. He focused on the ethics of care as a form of fundamental political ethics, He considered the connections with other forms of political ethics, with epistemology and political forms of phenomenology to be quintessential. Frans Vosman died in June, 2020
Articles by Frans Vosman
Editorial Staff
Eveline Bolt
In August 2012, Eveline Bolt graduated from Tilburg University. Focus in her work is quality of care for elderly and homeless people and her pre-master and masterthesis focused on these subjects. Ethics of care is thereby the entrypoint for her research, development and training activities. In the town she lives in, she is part of the board advising the city council on issues in the area of care and community development.
Articles by Eveline Bolt
Jeannet van de Kamp
Jeannet van de Kamp has master’s degrees in both Theology and Ethics of Care and is currently a PhD-candidate at the VU-University of Amsterdam. In her thesis she examines, from a care-ethical perspective, how citizen-patients are seen in the context of the upcoming experience economy. More specifically, she examines how ‘patient-experience-central’ market models deal with the concepts of vulnerability and suffering. She works as a freelance pastor.
Articles by Jeannet van de Kamp
Brecht Molenaar
Brecht Molenaar has master’s degrees in Ethics of Care, Humanistic Studies and Dutch Linguistics and Literature. She has been working as a humanistic spiritual counsellor for twenty years in the domain of healthcare. Developments in the field and her profession became a matter of concern to her. Ethics of care became her primary interest, in particular the presence approach as a care ethical way of approaching people in giving care, social work and education. She is involved in a foundation that aims at contributing to this kind of practices (Dutch: Stichting Presentie). Her focus is on teaching people in such care giving and in leading such practices. She also writes and gives lectures about (religious) humanism, critical ethics of care, relational care giving and caring policies.
Articles by Brecht Molenaar
Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg (chair)
Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg graduated as a master in Ethics of Care and Policy at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) in 2015. She currently holds the position of policy advisor in the Centre on the Quality of Life and Survivorship, at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam (NL). This centre accommodates the physical/psychosocial, supportive and survivorship care for cancer patients. As a sociotherapist she worked in direct contact with patients in psychiatric clinics. Her previous experience at TAAK brought her in contact with visual artists and care institutions to whom she provided an ethics of care perspective during research and project development for the programme “Art & Care”.
Articles by Tessa Roberts-Smorenburg
Silke Jacobi
Silke Jacobi graduated as a master in Ethics of Care at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) in 2019. In her master thesis she investigated ‘late modern’, invisible power dynamics with seemingly subject-oriented, but equally neoliberal undertones: this turbulent ambiguous context influences the morally and critically concerned care-workers and has impact on institutional questions. Since 1990 she explores as a social worker the changes of the complex (institutional) care-praxis also from an inside-perspective. In addition, she worked as a supervisor for upcoming social workers at a university of applied sciences. The broad politico-ethical context for care-ethical issues is one of her concerns.
Articles by Silke Jacobi
Madzy Dekema
(webmaster)
Madzy Dekema studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam (NL). In 1989 she graduated in graphic design from the Rietveld Academy of Arts in Amsterdam. Her graduation project encompassed the rendering of the philosophical development of worldviews, based on feelings. She received a design grant in 1992 and studied in New York. She worked as an independent graphic designer for twenty years, teaching in the same field. She studied editing and writing, currently coaching debutant writers and working as a webeditor and webmaster. She published a short story and poems.
Articles by Madzy Dekema
Richard Brons
Richard Brons graduated in philosophy and literary studies at University of Amsterdam and VU Amsterdam (NL). At the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL), he completed a NWO PhD research on J.F Lyotard’s ethics of Differend, about the injustice of speechlessness. Since 2012, he is responsible for the final editing of Waardenwerk, a continuation of the Journal of Humanistic Studies. In 2016 he joined ethicsofcare.org.
Articles by Richard Brons
Ivonne Hoen
Ivonne Hoen obtained her Masters degree in Ethics of Care and Policy from the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) in 2020. During her studies she also held a position as a coach, reintegrating into work people with chronic illness and disabilities. This context was the empirical ground for her masters thesis to focus on expressing what suffering and vulnerability mean to these people as they have to participate in ‘late modern’ society as a ‘survivor’ (Vosman).
The future objective of Ivonne Hoen is to take these survivors’ voices into account in a political care-ethical way, honoring their developed emotional antennas, because of which they survive their embodied precarious practice. “Let us not ‘crip’ them any further by our ‘ideal-normal’ expectations’ and be open to really relate to ‘the other(-ness) ’.”
Sylwin Gilles Cornielje
Sylwin Gilles Cornielje has master’s degrees in Humanistic Studies at University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) and in Philosophy at Radboud University in Nijmegen (NL). Both his Master theses reflect his research on how experiences of meaning making are fundamentally affected by social and cultural conditions of late modern society and should be understood accordingly. Firstly, his research entailed conducting field research on social connectedness among older people in a rural village in the Dutch Bible Belt. Secondly, discussing an influential Dutch case of the ethics of the art of living (levenskunst) from a cultural-sociological perspective. To Sylwin, care has become a central notion for investigating and countering dominant narratives and (class) relations of power that determine what should be valued as human and meaningful in life. He currently teaches research skills to students in Art Therapy at University of Applied Sciences HAN in Nijmegen (NL).
Articles by Sylwin Gilles Cornielje
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Our Network
In our network we find people willing to contribute to the site as well as institutions we feel related to.
Our foundation
The foundation (Dutch: ‘stichting’ ) owning and promoting this website is an institution under Dutch law.
Board members are:
- Mrs. E. Bolt
- Mrs. S. Jacobi
- Mrs. T.W. Roberts-Smorenburg
The board can be reached at this address:
Foundation Critical Ethics of Care
Spuistraat 125
1012 SV Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Email: boardcec@gmail.com
Registered in the Netherlands Chambre of Commerce (KvK) 64607771