scholarly journals The alpine rural landscape as a cultural reserve: the case study of Teglio in Valtellina

Author(s):  
Giorgia de Pasquale ◽  
Eugenia Spinelli

AbstractThis research examines a portion of the Italian alpine landscape in order to find a comprehension mode and a strategic proposal to safeguard this rural heritage. The area is located in Valtellina, in the municipality of Teglio (Sondrio, Italy), between 700 and 1200 m a.s.l. Typical characteristic of the local landscape conformation is fragmentation, which determines a rapidly changing chequerboard depending on the rotation of seasons and cultivation. The landscape alternates wooded and cultivated areas. Cultivations mainly concern rye, buckwheat, corn, barley, alpine wheat, chestnuts and small orchards and have a wide agrobiodiversity and especially a historical and cultural value. The cultivation of buckwheat, for example nustran arrived in the valley in the XVII century and Teglio is the place where it persists more. The genotypes present are in part already classified, in part under study. The vernine crop alternated to buckwheat is mainly rye, arrived in the valley since the XV century. The local varieties formed over time are a resource of genotypes adapted to high altitude agricultural environments, they have important nutraceutical properties and they are closely associated with the local culture. The aim was to verify the persistence of traditional crops in the area, together with the cultural value of the traditional rural system, in order to analyse the feasibility of a strategy for the preservation of biocultural diversity. The research has shown how, despite the dynamics of depopulation and abandonment of agricultural fields, there is still in the area a sufficient permanence of cultural practices and social uses that can be a solid starting point for a sustainable development of the territory that focuses on agricultural and cultural biodiversity.

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Kolmer

AbstractWhich properties of a cliticization system can be borrowed relatively easily and which ones are harder to adapt due to external influence? This article examines the contact situation of the Cimbrian dialect spoken in Luserna as a starting point for a discussion of this question. It presents new data on a German variety which has been exposed to intensive contact with Italian and its local varieties over several generations. The article shows that certain peculiarities of the Cimbrian cliticization system result on the one hand from word order changes and on the other hand from the imitation and integration of the model language’s strategies for mapping information structure onto sentence form.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Nadine Waehning ◽  
Ibrahim Sirkeci ◽  
Stephan Dahl ◽  
Sinan Zeyneloglu

This case study examines and illustrates within country regional cultural differences and cross border cultural similarities across four western European countries. Drawing on the data from the World Values Survey (WVS), we refer to the Schwartz Cultural Values Inventory in the survey. The demographic variables of age, gender, education level, marital status and income vary across the regions and hence, have significant effects on the cultural value dimensions across regions. The findings help a better understanding of the homogeneity and heterogeneity of regions withinand across countries. Both researchers and managers will have to justify their sampling methods and generalisations more carefully when drawing conclusions for a whole country. This case study underlines the limited knowledge about regional within country cultural differences, while also illustrating the simplification of treating each country as culturally homogeneous. Cross-country business strategies connecting transnational regional markets based on cultural value characteristics need to take these similarities and differences into account when designating business plans.


Author(s):  
Anna Michalak

Using the promotional meeting of Dorota Masłowska’s book "More than you can eat" (16 April 2015 in the Bar Studio, Warsaw), as a case study, the article examines the role author plays in it and try to show how the author itself can become the literature. As a result of the transformation of cultural practices associated with the new media, the author’s figure has gained much greater visibility which consequently changed its meaning. In the article, Masłowska’s artistic strategy is compared to visual autofiction in conceptual art and interpreted through the role of the performance and visual representations in the creation of the image or author’s brand.


Societies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 58
Author(s):  
Placido

In this article I discuss how illegal substance consumption can act as a tool of resistance and as an identity signifier for young people through a covert ethnographic case study of a working-class subculture in Genoa, North-Western Italy. I develop my argument through a coupled reading of the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and more recent post-structural developments in the fields of youth studies and cultural critical criminology. I discuss how these apparently contrasting lines of inquiry, when jointly used, shed light on different aspects of the cultural practices of specific subcultures contributing to reflect on the study of youth cultures and subcultures in today’s society and overcoming some of the ‘dead ends’ of the opposition between the scholarly categories of subculture and post-subculture. In fact, through an analysis of the sites, socialization processes, and hedonistic ethos of the subculture, I show how within a single subculture there could be a coexistence of: resistance practices and subversive styles of expression as the CCCS research program posits; and signs of fragmentary and partial aesthetic engagements devoid of political contents and instead primarily oriented towards the affirmation of the individual, as argued by the adherents of the post-subcultural position.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-45
Author(s):  
Andreas Schmidt

AbstractThe chapter argues for a more nuanced and empirically based understanding of the discourse on law and socio-cultural norms in Old Icelandic literature on the grounds of a narratological reading of ‘Færeyinga saga’ as a case study. It has often been claimed that Icelandic sources express an ideal of freedom based on communality as guaranteed by the law. By contrast, ‘Færeyinga saga’ represents a cynical discourse on power politics that renders law as an invariable concept obsolete and works solely on the principle that ‘might is right’. This cynicism, however, is presented in a form that leaves the narrative open to interpretation, showing that regardless of its possible dating, narrative literature can serve as a starting point for social discussion. Consequently, the discourse on law in medieval Iceland must be perceived as more polyphonic than has been allowed for by previous unifying readings in scholarship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8399
Author(s):  
Sally Adofowaa Mireku ◽  
Zaid Abubakari ◽  
Javier Martinez

Urban blight functions inversely to city development and often leads to cities’ deterioration in terms of physical beauty and functionality. While the underlying causes of urban blight in the context of the global north are mainly known in the literature to be population loss, economic decline, deindustrialisation and suburbanisation, there is a research gap regarding the root causes of urban blight in the global south, specifically in prime areas. Given the differences in the property rights regimes and economic growth trajectories between the global north and south, the underlying reasons for urban blight cannot be assumed to be the same. This study, thus, employed a qualitative method and case study approach to ascertain in-depth contextual reasons and effects for urban blight in a prime area, East Legon, Accra-Ghana. Beyond economic reasons, the study found that socio-cultural practices of landholding and land transfer in Ghana play an essential role in how blighted properties emerge. In the quest to preserve cultural heritage/identity, successors of old family houses (the ancestral roots) do their best to stay in them without selling or redeveloping them. The findings highlight the less obvious but relevant functions that blighted properties play in the city core at the micro level of individual families in fostering social cohesion and alleviating the need to pay higher rents. Thus, in the global south, we conclude that there is a need to pay attention to the less obvious roles that so-called blighted properties perform and to move beyond the default negative perception that blighted properties are entirely problematic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Awadh Jasim ◽  
Laura Hanks ◽  
Katharina Borsi

AbstractToday, the concept of built heritage authenticity is a projection screen for conflicting demands and thus a ‘contested field’. Short-sighted readings started to drag the concept behind different ill-considered treatises, in which some heritage aspects loosely outweighed other aspects. Archaeological perspectives that tend to freeze heritage structures in time, such as those that are privileged upon other contemporary socio-cultural issues, while political takes also overshadowed other epistemological prospects, and vice versa. Repercussions have made inclusion of what is regarded as ‘inevitable changes’ within the built context problematic as to the re-interpretation and thus assessment of its authenticity. Despite their possible momentary threat to the latter, these changes may add to the cultural value of the context over time, granting new potential that may instead boost its authenticity. This paper investigates the potential continuity of Erbil Citadel’s Babylonian Gate as an inevitable change within the site’s built context by studying the Gate’s controversial political impacts on the context’s authenticity. This study affirms that authenticity is a transcendental value of an open-ended progressive nature, which cannot be reduced to a specific period or properties within the historical chronology of built heritage. Hence, authenticity should be approached as a meaningful existential issue, while revelation of its essence and thus its dimension entails precise scrutiny of both the tangibles and intangibles of the context. However, to be part of its authenticity, any change in the context should be adaptable and possibly incorporated as a new value within its cultural strata, thus enabling progressive support for site authenticity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062110267
Author(s):  
Karen Attar

This article addresses the challenge to make printed hidden collections known quickly without sacrificing ultimate quality. It takes as its starting point the archival mantra ‘More product, less process’ and explores its application to printed books, mindful of projects in the United States to catalogue 19th- and 20th-century printed books quickly and cheaply with the help of OCLC. A problem is lack of time or managerial inclination ever to return to ‘quick and dirty’ imports. This article is a case study concerning a collection of 18th-century English imprints, the Graveley Parish Library, at Senate House Library, University of London. Faced with the need to provide metadata as quickly as possible for digitisation purposes, Senate House Library decided, in contrast to its normal treatment of early printed books, to download records from the English Short Title Catalogue and amend them only very minimally before releasing them for public view, and to do this work from catalogue cards rather than the books themselves. The article describes the Graveley Parish collection, the project method’s rationale, and the advantages and disadvantages of sourcing the English Short Title Catalogue for metadata. It discusses the drawbacks of retrospective conversion (cataloguing from cards, not books): insufficient detail in some cases to identify the relevant book, and ignorance of the copy-specific elements of books which can constitute the main research interest. The method is compared against cataloguing similar books from photocopies of title pages, and retrospective conversion using English Short Title Catalogue is compared against retrospective conversion of early printed Continental books from cards using Library Hub Discover or OCLC. The control groups show our method’s effectiveness. The project succeeded by producing records fast that fulfilled their immediate purpose and simultaneously would obviously require revisiting. The uniform nature of the collection enabled the saving of time through global changes.


Geriatrics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Kristina Marie Kokorelias ◽  
Einat Danieli ◽  
Sheila Dunn ◽  
Sid Feldman ◽  
David Patrick Ryan ◽  
...  

The number of family caregivers to individuals with dementia is increasing. Family physicians are often the first point of access to the health care system for individuals with dementia and their caregivers. Caregivers are at an increased risk of developing negative physical, cognitive and affective health problems themselves. Caregivers also describe having unmet needs to help them sustain care in the community. Family physicians are in a unique position to help support caregivers and individuals with dementia, but often struggle with keeping up with best practice dementia service knowledge. The Dementia Wellness Questionnaire was designed to serve as a starting point for discussions between caregivers and family physicians by empowering caregivers to communicate their needs and concerns and to enhance family physicians’ access to specific dementia support information. The DWQ aims to alert physicians of caregiver and patient needs. This pilot study aimed to explore the experiences of physicians and caregivers of people using the Questionnaire in two family medicine clinics in Ontario, Canada. Interviews with physicians and caregivers collected data on their experiences using the DWQ following a 10-month data gathering period. Data was analyzed using content analysis. Results indicated that family physicians may have an improved efficacy in managing dementia by having dementia care case specific guidelines integrated within electronic medical records. By having time-efficient access to tailored supports, family physicians can better address the needs of the caregiver–patient dyad and help support family caregivers in their caregiving role. Caregivers expressed that the Questionnaire helped them remember concerns to bring up with physicians, in order to receive help in a more efficient manner.


Author(s):  
Lisa Bode

On July 14, 2019, a 3-minute 36-second video titled “Keanu Reeves Stops A ROBBERY!” was released on YouTube visual effects (VFX) channel, Corridor. The video’s click-bait title ensured it was quickly shared by users across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Comments on the video suggest that the vast majority of viewers categorised it as fiction. What seemed less universally recognised, though, was that the performer in the clip was not Keanu Reeves himself. It was voice actor and stuntman Reuben Langdon, and his face was digitally replaced with that of Reeves, through the use of an AI generated deepfake, an open access application, Faceswap, and compositing in Adobe After Effects. This article uses Corridor’s deepfake Keanu video (hereafter shorted to CDFK) as a case study which allows the fleshing out of an, as yet, under-researched area of deepfakes: the role of framing contexts in shaping how viewers evaluate, categorise, make sense of and discuss these images. This research draws on visual effects scholarship, celebrity studies, cognitive film studies, social media theory, digital rhetoric, and discourse analysis. It is intended to serve as a starting point of a larger study that will eventually map types of online manipulated media creation on a continuum from the professional to the vernacular, across different platforms, and attending to their aesthetic, ethical, cultural and reception dimensions. The focus on context (platform, creator channel, and comments) also reveals the emergence of an industrial and aesthetic category of visual effects, which I call here “platform VFX,” a key term that provides us with more nuanced frames for illuminating and analysing a range of manipulated media practices as VFX software becomes ever more accessible and lends itself to more vernacular uses, such as we see with various face swap apps


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