Three Vidi grants for ESSB researchers

Why do people enjoy stereotypes in online pornography?

Dr. Samira van Bohemen, Department of Public Administration and Sociology  

Update 26 June 2024 : read more on the research at the website porn-types

Pornography has a history of relying on stereotypes to deliver its viewers sexual pleasure. On the Internet this culture industry attracts hundreds of millions of people worldwide each day. Samira will develop an interdisciplinary multi-methods approach for understanding why so many people with diverse social backgrounds enjoy watching stereotypes in online porn. Is it because they want to dominate or learn about sexual others? Or are they enjoying these stereotypes because they teach them something about themselves? She also studies how these stereotypes impact young people and how we can effectively prevent some of their harmful effects.

Perfect parents

Prof. Maartje Luijk, Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies

Raising children is a beautiful yet heavy task. Many parents experience exhaustion, which is a precursor of parental burnout. Underlying parental exhaustion and burnout are societal ideas that parenting can be done ‘right’ and that parents should be able to do it on their own. Paradoxically, although parenting advice is intended to support parents, it may exacerbate the problem by wrongly implying that perfect parenting is possible. In this project, pedagogues study how societal trends influence parental exhaustion and burnout, and will develop, in co-creation with parents, future-proof solutions to reduce parental exhaustion and burnout.

How do urban migration infrastructures facilitate irregular migrant mobility?

Dr. Thomas Swerts, Department of Public Administration and Sociology

Irregular migration has become a political priority in Europe. While European and national policies criminalize migrants who are 'in transit' to a further destination, cities and local actors are taking a more inclusive stance. However, local responses to 'transit migration' suffer from a double knowledge gap about the field of institutional and non-institutional actors providing local services to undocumented migrants and the conditions of migrants on the ground. This project addresses this deficit by comparing urban migration infrastructures in three European transit hubs and demonstrating how these infrastructures facilitate the entry, transit, settlement and exit of undocumented migrants.