dr. YGD (Yosha) Wijngaarden

Biography

Yosha Wijngaarden is Assistant Professor of Media and Creative Industries in the Media and Communication Department at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research examines work, innovation, and inequalities in the creative industries, focusing on how work practices, earnings, and technological developments shape creativity and livelihoods.

She currently leads the NWO-funded OC-XS project on musicians’ adaptation to AI, collaborating with Thunderboom Records. The project investigates how musicians engage with AI tools during real-time jam sessions and co-creative processes, exploring how they adapt, make sense of, and reshape their creative practices in response to new technologies.

Yosha led the NWO-KIEM project MATCH: Matching Art and TeCH for more inclusive cultural policy (with Carolina Dalla Chiesa and Ellen Loots), which examined how public and private matchfunding can best support freelancers and SMEs, and developed a practical toolkit for funding partners. She has collaborated on other projects funded by Instituut Gak, Platform Ellae, and the European Commission, investigating earnings, resilience, and funding practices in the creative industries.

Besides her work on the creative industries, Yosha co-authored the book A Sociology of Awkwardness (with Pauwke Berkers), the first comprehensive sociological analysis of awkwardness. The book shows how discomfort arises from social interactions rather than individual failings and explores how people navigate and manage awkward situations in daily life.

Yosha completed her PhD on innovation in the creative industries at Erasmus University Rotterdam, receiving the Boekman/NWO Dissertation Award and NeFCA Dissertation Award, and has held positions at Radboud University and ESHCC Arts and Culture Studies.

She supervises PhD students researching creative industries, media, and music, and teaches a range of courses on creative industries, sociology, media, and research methods. Yosha serves as academic coordinator of the MA Media and Creative Industries and is co-lead of the ERMeCHS research cluster Music, Industry, Culture, Society (MICS), and has collaborated with cultural organizations, funding bodies, and industry partners such as Voordekunst and BAM! Popauteurs to connect research, teaching, and practice.