Search results

A set of articles analyzing transitions to democracy is introduced. The origin & evolution of the discipline of transitology are surveyed. The diversity of transitional experiences has called for adjustments to analytical models. The articles -- focusing of Chilean & Eastern European cases -- are abstracted. E. Taylor

The fall of the Berlin wall is deemed to have passed unaware in Chile, overshadowed by the urging issue of putting an end to the dictatorship by the way of the presidential election called to decide who would succeed General Pinochet. The paper explores the gap between the impact of the event, as it can be tracked in the journals & newspapers of the time, & its apparent "oblivion" by those who lived it. The analysis shows that the crisis of real socialism well & truly crystallized the divorce between the two most important factions of the Chilean left: the Socialist Party of Chile & the Communist Party. It recounts the process by which a widening rift surged between the political discourses circulating in the public sphere & the private appraisal of what was occurring in the political arena. Adapted from the source document.

This paper was presented as a keynote address to the Canadian Women's Studies Association in a SSHRCC sponsored session entitled "Resisting the Neo-Conservative Agenda Globally and Locally: Economy, Representation and Feminist Praxis." The author speaks as a Quebec feminist as she argues for serious feminist participation in the political restructuring of Canada.

It is contended that, in a time when culture is being homogenized & nations are joining to form supranational entities, the decision of states like Slovakia to seek national sovereignty goes against the trend. The details of Slovakia's separation from the Czech Republic are reviewed, & it is argued that, in this case at least, the relationship between nationalism & democracy can lead to the acceptance of new responsibilities & accelerate the transition toward pluralistic democratic talks on the renunciation of defensive unity & identity tensions. Hope is expressed that the Slovaks, like the Czechs, will seek national identity through an open stance toward the rest of the world. Adapted from the source document.

Urban protests in the twentieth century marked a social and political change that altered the way we transform our cities, or at least should have, so that we design urban spaces for people, but mostly with people. Today, it seems clear that participation and bottom-up processes are central to the urban project. In this context, our current research focuses on creating a methodology with new strategies (information and communication technologies, fun tools such as urban sketching and tactical planning). In this research, we analyse recent case studies, in which the final recipients of urban planning, its users, co-design the project. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the method we use in TEA / OSW (Taller Espacios Abiertos / Open spaces Workshop). This method follows the idea of urban action or urban DIY and has been studied at two levels: first, as a mechanism of participation and second as a new way of teaching architecture, with urban actions at a scale of 1:1. This case study examines the transformation of the old railway station into a cultural centre, which took place through co-creation workshops, assemblies, evolutive models and, above all, self-build workshops. To obtain the results, we used quantitative and qualitative evaluation. The results show that the workshop was successful not only as a participative tool, but also as a social process and a way of learning in design and architecture. Keywords: participation, pop-up urbanism, tactical urbanism, bottom-up, self-build ; Protestos urbanos no século XX marcaram uma mudança social e política que mudou a maneira como transformamos nossas cidades, ou pelo menos deveria: projetar os espaços urbanos para as pessoas, mas principalmente com as pessoas. Hoje, parece muito claro que a participação e os processos de baixo para cima se tornaram uma preocupação central no projeto urbano. Nesse novo contexto, nossa pesquisa atual propõe a criação de uma metodologia com novas estratégias (ICT, ferramentas lúdicas como desenho urbano, planejamento tático). Isso implica a análise do presente em vários estudos de caso, nos quais os destinatários finais do planejamento urbano - seus usuários - co-projetam o projeto. O principal objetivo deste artigo é avaliar o método que usamos no TEA (Taller Espacios Abiertos). Esse método, que segue a ideia de ação urbana ou DIY urbano, tem sido estudado em dois níveis: primeiro, como mecanismo de participação e segundo como nova forma de ensinar arquitetura, com ações urbanas em escala 1/1. Neste estudo de caso, a transformação da antiga estação ferroviária em um centro cultural foi articulada com oficinas de co-criação, assembléias, modelos evolutivos, mas principalmente oficinas de autoconstrução. Para obter os resultados, utilizamos uma avaliação doble: quantitativa e qualitativa. Os resultados mostram que ele foi bem-sucedido não apenas como uma ferramenta participativa, mas também como um processo social e como uma forma de aprender projetos em design e arquitetura. Palavras Chave: Participação, urbanismo pop-up, urbanismo tático, bottom-up, autoconstrução.