Ilja Simons is a a lecturer/researcher at the department of Leisure and Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences. She obtained her PhD at Tilburg University, conducting a qualitative study titled: The role of events in hybrid communities: an interaction ritual approach. Ilja also holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and her research interests include storytelling, narratives, interaction rituals, and communities in a tourism and leisure context. She is particularly interested in the way people construct identities, communities and places through stories and performance.

Storytelling, interaction rituals, ethnography, netnography, tourism, cultural events, place narratives, practices, performance, discourses.