Suchergebnisse

There is growing interest globally in the potential of urban farming to respond to a breadth of urban sustainability challenges. Yet it is also recognised that the policy and implementation of this nature-based strategy is influenced by an underlying science-policy-practice community. The aim of this paper is to understand how different actors and knowledges come together to form a science-policy-practice community for a citywide urban farming initiative-Taipei Garden City. The result shows that the science-policy-practice community was formed in a dynamic 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' process. This allows long-term public-private partnership to be developed and enables different knowledges and experiences to co-exist in policies and practices. This study argues that in-between spaces and actors, who can cut across different fora, are vital to make urban farming interventions happen. Nonetheless, we also question the extent to which embodied and experiential knowledge is sufficient to support environmentally and socially appropriate outcomes for attaining urban sustainability.

Abstract
A growing body of research highlights how patients' use of the Internet, including constructing, sharing personal stories, and accessing knowledge online, gives rise to a new form of lay expertise, which may further challenge the expertise of medical professionals. Accentuating patients' perspectives, this paper investigates the variety of positions Chinese cancer patients articulate and adopt regarding knowledge and expertise within an online support group. My analyses demonstrate that, despite being highly proactive and reflexive, these patients actually reproduce and reinforce the dualistic positioning of doctor and patient within broader discourses of scientific knowledge and authoritarian hierarchies, which eventually disempower them. I then provide an explanation of this dualism by underlining the unique reality of China in terms of the co-existence of Western scientific medicine (WSM) and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and doctor-patient hierarchies. Finally, I outline the implications of this positioning for cancer care and discuss possible solutions drawing on recent humanistic models from the West.

AbstractThis study challenges existing literature which maintains that technology latecomers usually depend on imported technologies to develop emerging high‐tech sectors. This paper argues that the domestic institutional environment in facilitating networking might be more important for developing academia‐industry (A‐I) networks. The co‐evolution of institutions and the knowledge transfer process in the Taiwanese Biopharmaceutical Innovation System (TBPIS) is a case in point. Far from relying purely on foreign technologies, several important institutional and policy changes, which transform the institutional environment from prohibiting A‐I intertwining into encouraging A‐I collaborations, have enabled domestic research institutes to influence the acquisition, creation, and diffusion of knowledge in the innovation network. Nonetheless, the country continues to struggle in commercializing domestic scientific research to step into a knowledge‐based economy. Therefore, this paper suggests that more productive strategies would be helpful to advance domestic academic research, sustain A‐I networks, and strengthen the innovation system.

The article confronts Cornelius Castoriadis's philosophy of 'the imaginary institution of society' with issues of innovation in a knowledge society and outlines a new notion of innovation as creative organization. It will take a critical approach to innovation from a historical perspective of postwar systems theory and introduce Castoriadis's philosophy as an interesting option in this regard. It proceeds in four parts: (a) First, it debates the limits of the commonplace metaphor of diffusion and adoption in today's debate on innovation. (b) Second, it will present aspects of Castoriadis's thought as an alternative, in particular his debate on imagination and the proto-institution of legein/teukhein -- ordered action. (c) On this background it will treat a case from the Danish innovation industry, the firm Zentropa WorkZ's programme of 'Dramatic Innovation' as an interesting example of an innovation format addressing creativity. (d) In conclusion, it will briefly debate creative knowledge formation in a knowledge society by pondering relations between innovation and current science. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications and Thesis Eleven Co-op Ltd, copyright 2009.]

Social innovations are usually understood as new ideas, initiatives, or solutions that make it possible to meet the challenges of societies in fields such as social security, education, employment, culture, health, environment, housing, and economic development. On the one hand, many citizen science activities serve to achieve scientific as well as social and educational goals. Thus, these actions are opening an arena for introducing social innovations. On the other hand, some social innovations are further developed, adapted, or altered after the involvement of scientist-supervised citizens (laypeople or volunteers) in research and with the use of the citizen science tools and methods such as action research, crowdsourcing, and community-based participatory research. Such approaches are increasingly recognized as crucial for gathering data, addressing community needs, and creating engagement and cooperation between citizens and professional scientists. However, there are also various barriers to both citizen science and social innovation. For example, management, quality and protection of data, funding difficulties, non-recognition of citizens' contributions, and limited inclusion of innovative research approaches in public policies. In this volume, we open theoretical as well as empirically-based discussion, including examples, practices, and case studies of at least three types of relations between citizen science and social innovation: (1) domination of the citizen science features over social innovation aspects; (2) domination of the social innovation features over the citizen science aspects; and (3) the ways to achieve balance and integration between the social innovation and citizen science features. Each of these relationships highlights factors that influence the development of the main scales of sustainability of innovations in the practice. These innovations are contributing to a new paradigm of learning and sharing knowledge as well as interactions and socio-psychological development of participants. Also, there are factors that influence the development of platforms, ecosystems, and sustainability of innovations such as broad use of the information and communications technologies (ICTs) including robotics and automation; emerging healthcare and health promotion models; advancements in the development and governance of smart, green, inclusive and age-friendly cities and communities; new online learning centers; agri-food, cohousing or mobility platforms; and engagement of citizens into co-creation or co-production of services delivered by public, private, non-governmental (NGOs) organizations as well as non-formal entities.

In der transdifferenten Lehre wird die kulturell heterogene Situation des zeitgenössischen akademischen Lehrbetriebs nicht als Hemmnis, sondern als didaktischer Ausgangspunkt angesehen und aktiv genutzt. Transdifferente Lehre wird nicht als ein Transfer kanonisierten Wissens verstanden, sondern als eine Form der Wissensproduktion im Seminar, zu der alle Beteiligten beitragen: durch den Einsatz der erkannten eigenen Andersheit.In das interdisziplinäre Konzept fließen Erkenntnisse aus den Bereichen der Hochschuldidaktik und der (interkulturellen) Literaturwissenschaft hinein. Antonina Balfanz schließt damit an die Differenzforschung an und schlägt vor, diese für den didaktischen Umgang mit Heterogenität in der akademischen Lehre zu nutzen.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the research question of how human actors and technology interact together in practices in the context of a sharing economy. The theoretical foundation of this paper is based on the existing literature about the sharing economy and studies that have been carried out examining value co-creation and sociomateriality.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a qualitative case study method for the empirical investigation. Using theoretical sampling, Xbed, an internet, unmanned and self-service hotel platform based in Guangzhou, China, was chosen for the empirical investigation. The case was built on multiple sources of data, including archival materials, on-site fieldwork and in-depth interviews. Then, the case was interpreted based on a number of theoretical concepts, with a particular emphasis on the sociomaterial perspective.FindingsThis paper shows how human actors and technology interact with one another in a number of interrelated ways, which collectively result in the value co-creation necessary for creating a sharing economy. The authors have found that various forms of sociomateriality (the intersection between technology, work and organization) play a key role in co-creation and that interactions between these sociomaterial assemblages (assemblage-to-assemblage (A2A)) drive the development of a sharing economy. These sociomaterial assemblages have dynamic and evolving characteristics.Practical implicationsThe authors argue that the key to the success of a sharing economy lies in how to engage participating actors with material entities (e.g. technology applications) to form action-enabling sociomaterial assemblages, as well as in determining how these assemblages can be systematically arranged to collectively form a larger assemblage. We suggest that managers need to conceive how relations between the social and the material realms can be structured by adopting a service logic that aims to help the beneficiary function better. The authors also suggest that managers have to consider what assemblages are necessary and how they are connected, to construct a full access-based service.Originality/valueThis paper conceptualizes the sharing economy as a system of value co-creation practices and empirically examines such practices from a sociomaterial perspective. This paper adopts the concept of sociomaterial assemblages to investigate sharing practices, through which the knowledge of the role of technology in the development of a sharing economy is enhanced. This paper also expands the knowledge of service-dominant logic by using a microfoundation perspective to look at the value co-creation that emerges as a result of the interaction between sociomaterial assemblages. These assemblages also act as constitutive elements of a service ecosystem.

This article challenge research political assumptions of research interests as context specific phenomena predefined by researchers and others in case study research on sports. By adopting a Deleuzian perspective of materiality, the aim is to overturn academic power dimensions as well as anthropocentric focuses and instead explore how research interests emerge in case-assemblages. This is a radical shift that re-theorizes the production of research interests as co-produced capacities in researching bodies. The analysis is done by mapping territorializing, deterritorializing, and reterritorializing affects as well as molar and molecular affects. We use these affects to explore how our research interest evolved in a case study on a swimming event. We conclude by extending this critical exploration to the production of research interests in general and the exaggerated belief that research interests are attributes of specific human bodies (researchers) that precede studies.

The 2019 Lyric Theatre and Dublin Theatre Festival co-production of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907), directed by Oonagh Murphy, encouraged an abstract reading of the play in new political contexts. Set in the 1980s at the Derry / Donegal border and performed in Northern Irish accents, it was haunted by references to the area's history of deprivation, powerlessness, the violence and victims of the conflict, the Disappeared, the communal trauma, and the current threat posed by Brexit. This essay explores how Murphy's production highlighted spectres of fiction in the play, haunted not only by historical dramaturgical traditions and by the ghosts of the Northern Irish conflict but also by the ghosts of ancient wandering Irish bards. It offers a contemporary approach that situates the play's preoccupation with fiction within an international context of the "social realities" of populist propaganda.

AbstractIn many parts of the world, people access consumer goods mainly via informal economic networks. In this article, I analyse the governance of petty commodity chains through a case study of Chinese fashion jewellery produced for the Ghanaian market. 'Petty commodity chains' denotes a particular type of global value chain, where production, trade, and distribution are carried out by small, unregistered businesses, between which personalized relationships and informal infrastructure enable transactions. These chains are neither controlled by lead firms at the production or distribution ends, nor made up of pure market linkages. Weak formal institutions and an intensely competitive commercial environment encourage business actors to establish enduring relationships. Credit relations run through long stretches of the chain and create mutual dependencies. The concept of 'beholden value chains' is introduced to describe the co‐dependency between business actors and the coordination of activities in petty commodity chains.

The article analyses participation in five types of training (formal on-site, formal off-site, informal co-worker training, learning by watching and learning by doing) and self-assessed skill acquisition in young Flemish workers' first job. A skill production function is estimated whereby the simultaneity of participation in the different types of training and skill acquisition is taken into account. The results clearly demonstrate the importance of informal training. Formal training participation is found to be only a fraction of total training participation. Moreover, the determinants of total training participation and skill acquisition differ from those of formal training participation. While some training types are complementary, others are clearly substitutes. Finally, most types of training generate additional skills. Nonetheless, learning by doing is found to be complementary to formal education in the production of both specific and general skills, whereas formal training serves as a substitute.

Interprets changes in the spatial structure of global industry & their economic & social effects on the capitalist center & periphery. Fordist industrialization in the periphery was founded on the transnational strategy of import substitution. This favored high levels of internal inequality & disintegration while supporting the development of industrial centers in Third World countries. The transition to a post-Fordist accumulation regime has involved new technolgies & forms of production organization, including just-in-time production, co-makership, & global sourcing. Effects include the development of a new international division of labor, which has led to greater socioeconomic integration in some regions of the periphery (eg Southeast Asia) & growing socioeconomic differentiation in most countries. There has also been a rise in informal economic activity. Fordist forms of regulation (eg national laws, labor unions) have weakened, suggesting a greater future role for nongovernmental organizations. 3 Tables. Adapted from the source document.

Dieser Bericht enthält die Ergebnisse der im Projekt RIVAS durchgeführten vergleichenden Analyse von 14 internationalen Fallbeispielen regionaler integrierter Vulnerabilitätsassessments. Konzept und Methodik der Projektanalyse werden in Kapitel 2 erläutert. Kapitel 3 enthält die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der projektspezifischen Analyse in Form von projektbezogenen Zusammenfassungen, während in Kapitel 4 Ergebnisse des projektübergreifenden Vergleichs für wichtige Vergleichsdimensionen dargestellt und diskutiert werden. Am Ende der Sub-Kapitel zu jeder Vergleichsdimension findet sich eine Zusammenfassung und kurze Bewertung der Analysebefunde. In Kapitel 5 werden wesentliche Herausforderungen bei der Planung und Durchführung von partizipativen regionalen Vulnerabilitätsanalysen sowie Einsichten und Lösungsansätze zu deren Überwindung im Sinne einer Materialsammlung zusammengestellt. Im weiteren Projektverlauf dienen diese Inhalte als Basis zur weiteren Entwicklung der abschließenden Schlussfolgerungen und Empfehlungen. Mit Ausnahme der projektspezifischen Zusammenfassungen in Kapitel 3 ist dieser Bericht in deutscher Sprache verfasst, weil sich das Projekt RIVAS vorrangig an österreichische Zielgruppen wendet. Die "Executive Summaries" wurden auf Englisch verfasst, weil ein beträchtlicher Teil der herangezogenen Literatur in englischer Sprache vorliegt. Für die AutorInnen sollte diese Vorgangsweise in weiterer Folge die wissenschaftliche Publikationstätigkeit erleichtern.