Richardson, Yolanda

Profile Picture
Position / Title
Lecturer
Contact Information
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Navigating identities
Degrees
General research area(s)
Last updated July 8, 2025
Introduction
Expertise
Biography
Yolanda Richardson has been a lecturer in the Organization, Governance, and Management Program of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Aruba since 2010. During her first years at the University, Mrs. Richardson was the coordinator of Professional and Society Practice for the BA programs Social Work and Development and Organization, Governance and Management. Since August 2014, Yolanda has been a full-time faculty member of the Organization, Governance, and Management Program. In her capacity as a lecturer, Mrs. Richardson took the initiative to take students to conferences and educational excursions in Curaçao and Washington DC. Furthermore, she also is a Member OGM Program Committee. Yolanda also holds various teaching certifications including Certificate in Education ('Eerstegraads bevoegdheid' or PdG), Academic learning certificate (ALC), Basic Qualification Technology (BKT), and FAS Minitraining. Her focus on research is in this area of identity, migration, representation of English-speaking Arubans, and in the area of teaching and digitization in education. Furthermore, her research methods center around qualitative research and action research. Mrs. Richardson obtained a degree in Political Science at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She worked for the Island Territory of St. Maarten and for the National Government of Aruba between 1995 and 2002. She was involved and responsible for the reorganization of different government services in St. Maarten as well as in Aruba. In 2002 after earning a teaching degree Mrs. Richardson went to work for the Community College (EPI) in Aruba at the Department of Health Care and Social Work. In 2008 Mrs. Richardson was on the board of the foundation responsible for the Exposition on the Heritage of Slavery in Aruba. In 2009 she was the curator of the first temporary exposition of the National Archeological Museum Aruba: "Rancho; Nos Bario". Her research was used for the publication of the information and educational booklet for the exposition. In 2017 Mrs. Richardson also supported the research project that led to the publication of the book Sense of Belonging. Mrs. Richardson is a trainer in various areas. She was on the board of the Union of Cultural Organization (UNOCA) for more than 10 years.

Filters

2024 - 20254
Reset filters

Settings

Citations

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Nine houses, nine families: Oral history in the Rancho neighborhood
    (Brill, 2024) Richardson, Yolanda; Allen, Rose Mary; Bala, Struti
    Using oral historical research interviews with forty-two long-term residents of the Aruban neighborhood of Rancho, this contribution presents glimpses from the social history of a closely knit, enterprising, matrifocal community. The research formed the- basis of an exhibition held in 2009 at the National Archaeological Museum in Aruba, located in Rancho. The exhibition sought to challenge hardwired stereotypes about the area being a derelict drug den by foregrounding the daily lives of its resilient and enterprising community members, the memories of people’s involvements in political and labor struggles in the 1940s and 1950s as well as the unique relations of the community to the coastline. The contribution charts how the socioeconomic transformations during the twentieth century impacted the daily lives of Rancho residents.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    UA Research & Expertise - Yolanda Richardson
    (2024) Richardson, Yolanda
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    How island researchers navigate the wicked nature of small island research. A conversation continued
    (2025-06) Mertens, Anouk; Acevedo, Diego; Arens, Patrick; Becker, Tatiana; Brinklow, Laurie; de Scisciolo, Tobia; Drew, Ryan; Facun, Kryss; Hall, Iain; Halliday, Andrew Mark; John, Nigel; López Márquez, Violeta; McDonald, Anne; Mitchell, Jean; Moncada, Stefano; Noll, Dominik; Richardson, Yolanda; Sultan, Salys; van Veghel, Amber; Werleman, Stephanie; Mijts, Eric
    Small islands across the globe face the direct consequences of climate change and alarming biodiversity loss. In this context, islands and islanders are sometimes framed as a “litmus test” or “the ideal laboratory” for experiments to advise larger continental areas on how to address the effects of climate change and the biodiversity crisis. Due to the specific island context, islanders are the primary problem solvers in addressing and mitigating these challenges, and finding ways to adapt to them; however, in the first place, to protect their territories, populations, ecosystems, and cultures. It is therefore crucial and urgent to adopt and integrate inter- and transdisciplinary scientific knowledge embedded within the local contexts. Given their leadership role, island-centred research by the local island-based knowledge institutes and researchers is key. Island-centred research should play a pivotal role in generating contextualized knowledge and solutions, whether or not embedded in reciprocal international partnerships with other knowledge institutes. In this presentation, we will dive deeper into the island researchers’ operating space for such island-centred research, based on insights from semi-structured interviews and interactive sessions with island researchers from a wide range of contexts and disciplines. Our data reveal that despite the many challenges of conducting research from within the islands (incl. availability and accessibility of data, or technical and logistic challenges, funding, etc.), island researchers have found an array of ways to overcome these challenges and to produce valuable and impactful results for their societies and the rest of the world. This contribution aims to be a conversation starter amongst island researchers from insular and continental (institutional) contexts to further strengthen productive and equal collaborations in island-centred research.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Navigating Identity and Nation-building in the Dutch Caribbean in the Wake of Hurricanes
    (2025-06) Richardson, Yolanda
    Migration, nation-building, belongingness, and identity are common research themes in the Dutch Caribbean. Studies in these areas generally focus on identity and belongingness for the Islanders who move to the metropole or on immigration to the periphery and the related socio-economic dynamics. In the case of identity themes, these studies often focus on the recurring debate between who is “yiu di tera” (a child of the soil/native) and who is not. That which is seldom considered is the intraregional migration from Dutch Leeward Islanders to Aruba or Curacao and possible identity formation issues. This study, which is part of a broader research on nation-building called Navigating Identities, will focus on the influence of the governance structure and constitutional arrangement of the Dutch Caribbean on national identity formation dynamics and nation-building. It grapples with questions on how the Dutch English-speaking intra-regional migrants self-identify and what are the characteristics of identity formation playing field due to the governance structures, a colonial history, and nation-building processes based on the one-nation notion. Acknowledging that climate change has an impact on cultural heritage, discourses of citizens and politicians centering the message of one-ness with “our people” after hurricanes Luis (1995), Irma, and Maria (2017) are analyzed. This discursive oneness and reimagination of borders illustrate the potential to unveil the fluidity of the islanders' identity, even while insularism is often highlighted as an omnipresent source of dysfunctionality between the islands and an impediment to structural administrative collaboration.