Mijts, Eric

Position / Title

Senior Coordinator SISSTEM and Coordinator of UA Research Center

Department

Faculty of Arts and Science

Email Address

eric.mijts@ua.aw

ORCID

0000-0002-5055-8067

Fields of Specialization

Multilingualism
Language policy and planning
Education for sustainable development
Inclusion/exclusion processes
Islandness

Last updated May 27, 2026

Biography

Eric Mijts is a senior researcher at the University of Aruba (UA) and the head of the University of Aruba Research Center (UARC). As a linguist he has been involved in studies in sociolinguistics and decolonial development in the former Dutch Caribbean islands Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Statia and St Martin over the past 25 years. He is (co-)author of numerous publications at the intersection of language, education, law, policy and development in the Caribbean and is the founder of the Caribbean Association for Dutch Studies (CARAN). Dr. Mijts has developed and taught a wide variety of courses in different programs of the UA and as a guest lecturer at institutes in the Caribbean, Americas and Europe. Eric Mijts has built a wide multidisciplinary network in and beyond the Caribbean region as the co-founder and developer of the Academic Foundation Year (AFY), co-founder of the EU funded Sustainable Islands Solutions through STEM project (SISSTEM), and as facilitator of international student research exchange programs.

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 230

Open Access
Institutional Repositories in Small Island States - The Open Knowledge Repository of the University of Aruba
(2026-06-08) Plomp, Esther; Mijts, Eric; Veenendaal, Pauline
Presentation by Esther Plomp for the 21st International Conference on Open Repositories, OR2026 on 8 June 2026 for the Lightning talk session. For Small Island States (SIS), digital preservation is constrained by limited institutional and financial resources, technological infrastructure, and human capacity. This affects accessibility of data and research outputs. This lightning talk discusses the case of the Open Knowledge Repository maintained by the University of Aruba, Aruba. Taking back control of digital preservation of research outputs from University of Aruba staff is a privilege as it allows for dissemination and maintenance of our research outputs, but it is also a costly endeavor due to the small scale of the institute. Compared to countries from the Global North that are well-resourced, such as the Netherlands, the University of Aruba has access to limited staffing and financial resources to maintain the Open Knowledge Repository - despite Aruba falling into the category of a high income country. While the content of the repository is maintained by the University of Aruba, the University still relies on external experts and technical maintenance to keep the repository running. This contribution illustrates the tensions between the desire for local agency over digital preservation, and the realities of sustaining these efforts under precarious conditions even in high income countries - highlighting the uneven costs of digital preservation and the challenges of limited human capacity.
Metadata only
Turning the Tide: Climate Change, Social Change, and Islandness
(2026-05-20) Mitchell, Jean; Brinklow, Laurie; Mertens, Anouk; Mijts, Eric
Turning the Tide: Climate Change, Social Change, and Islandness In this webinar, the editors of a new interdisciplinary volume of essays will highlight the local experiences of Islanders around the world who are now situated at the forefront of climate change. Offering multiple perspectives from 13 small island nations, Island territories and Canadian sub-national jurisdictions, this discussion will touch upon place-based innovative actions, including creative responses to climate change, the strength of islanders’ dynamic knowledge systems to weather climate impacts, the desire to move towards food sovereignty, and institutional responses to climate change that include culturally informed solutions. While recognizing that the scope of climate change is planetary and global, Turning the Tide brings the conversation down to earth by navigating climate futures through an island lens. About the Editors Jean Mitchell is a professor in Anthropology and the UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability at the University of Prince Edward Island. Laurie Brinklow is a poet and assistant professor of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island. Eric Mijts is a researcher, educator, and manager at the University of Aruba who focuses on sustainable development in small island states. Anouk Mertens is the former project manager of the EU-funded SISSTEM Project, who has a particular interest in the intersection between sustainability and islandness.
Open Access
Language-in-education policy in Aruba: Ideologies, classroom realities and linguistic justice in secondary schools
(11th Spring Research Conference on Multilingual Acquisition, 2026-04-24) van Donselaar, Bart; Van Oss, Victoria; Mijts, Eric; Surmont, Jill
Aruba’s sociolinguistic context is marked by a striking contrast: while Papiamento dominates as the home language of the majority, Dutch is the primary medium of instruction in most secondary schools (Mijts, 2021). This contrast raises critical questions about language-in education policies and practices. The goal is to understand: (1) what ideologies underlie language-in-education policies and practices in Aruba (Mijts, 2021), and (2) what implications these policies and practices have for language acquisition and linguistic justice (Piller, 2016).
Open Access
Language ideologies and policy in Aruban secondary education: A qualitative analysis
(Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2026-04-22) van Donselaar, Bart; Van Oss, Victoria; Mijts, Eric; Surmont, Jill
Aruba’s sociolinguistic landscape comes with many challenges and opportunities for language-in-education policy. One point of contention is that there is a discrepancy between the most common home language (Papiamento) and the language of instruction throughout most of the education systems (Dutch). The central objective is to analyze existing policy documents, assessing their presence, absence, and implications. The focus of the analysis is on the underlying language ideologies and their implications for institutional practices. It considers how current language policies relate to colonial and decolonial influences, partly in relation to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the European Union. The study then explores how monolingual ideologies perpetuate linguistic hierarchies. As such, the main research question is, “How are Aruban language-in-education policies indicative of underlying (colonial and decolonial) language ideologies?” The study is conducted as part of the Horizon Europe Pluridentities project.
Metadata only
REEFLECT - Proyecto local y cooperacion internacional uni pa proteccion di nos naturalesa
(2026-04-11) Mijts, Eric
Open Access
UAUCUU 2026 symposium
(2026-04-10) Mijts, Eric
Each year, students from the University of Aruba (UA) and from Utrecht University (UU) carry out empirical research in and about Aruba. Like previous cohorts, this year’s students defined their own guiding principles and goals for their participation in the project. Their ideas reflect a shared aspiration to work in ways that are meaningful to the community as well as to themselves. At the upcoming public symposium, the students will share their preliminary findings with the Aruban community in brief PechaKucha presentations and during a poster session. The students are from different programs: UA’s Sustainable Island Solutions through STEM (SISSTEM) and UU’s University College Utrecht(UCU) as well as Global Sustainability Science (GSS) and Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) at UU.
Open Access
Van Macro naar Micro: Taal-in-Onderwijs Beleidslandschappen (Pluridentities Beleidsnota 1)
(Pluridentities, 2026-03-25) Van Oss, Victoria; van Donselaar, Bart; Surmont, Jill; Mijts, Eric
Deze beleidsnota vat de voorbarige resultaten samen van het Project: ‘Pluridentities: Protecting and stimulating plurilingual identities in learners in Europe via inclusive policies and classroom practices,’ gesubsidiëerd door het Horizon 2020 onderzoeks- en innovatieprogramma van de Europese Unie (No. 101178914). Het richt zich op beleidsstukken, verzameld in Aruba, België, Spanje, Zweden en Nederland als onderdeel van Werkpakket 3. Dit is een Nederlandstalige vertaling van het Engelstalige origineel.
Open Access
Perspectives on language competence and languaging in multilingual societies
(2026-03-09) Mijts, Eric
Open Access
Pluridentities in Aruba: De lopende onderzoeksfase en onze onderzoeksproducten
(Zenodo, 2026-03-06) van Donselaar, Bart; Mijts, Eric
Deze presentatie over het Pluridentities project, gefinancieerd door Horizon Europe, werd op 6 maart 2026 gegeven aan het Algemeen Voortgezet Onderwijs (AVO) platform in Aruba. Dit platform bestaat uit de schoolbesturen in Aruba die VO-scholen besturen. In de presentatie werd het project en de onderzoeksloop in Aruba en daarbuiten beschreven, alsook de noden en eventuele producten voor het Arubaanse voortgezet onderwijs. Daarnaast werden de eerste resultaten uit dataverzameling in 2025 gedeeld, en werd er voor deelname aan de volgende onderzoeksfase verzocht.
Open Access
Taligheid in de meertalige samenleving
(2026-03-06) Mijts, Eric