Non‐governmental organisations and universities as transition intermediaries in sustainability transformations building on grassroots initiatives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Wolf ◽  
Julie Harboe ◽  
Catherine Sudbrack Rothbarth ◽  
Urs Gaudenz ◽  
Leyla Arsan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Grassroots Initiatives

Language, Politics and Society in the Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abeer AlNajjar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Language Politics ◽  
Road Signs ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
Language And Politics ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
Core Questions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This book aims to shed light on core questions relating to language and society, language and conflict, and language and politics, in relation to a changing Middle East. While the book focuses on Arabic, it goes way beyond a purely linguistic analysis by bringing to the fore a set of pressing questions about the relationship between Arabic and society. For example, it touches on the development of language policy via an examination of administrative mandates (top-down) in contrast to grassroots initiatives (bottom-up); the deeper layers of the linguistic landscape that highlight the connection between politics, conflict, identity, road signs and street names; Arabic studies and Arabic identity and the myriad ways countries deal simultaneously with globalisation while also seeking to strengthen local and national identity, and more.

Organic, Planned or Both: Alserkal Avenue: An Art District by Entrepreneurial Action in an Organic Evolutionary Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-118
Author(s):  
Damien D. Nouvel
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spot ◽  
Industrial Area ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
Evolutionary Context ◽  
Urban Scene ◽  
Entrepreneurial Action ◽  
The City

While Dubai's urban scene is dominated by planned and pre-designed developments, grassroots initiatives have always been present and have helped shape the trajectory of the city's evolution. In one case, an industrial area, Al Quoz, has seen the clustering of art businesses over a relatively short period turning it into a cultural destination. Accounting for most of such clustering, Alserkal Avenue became Dubai's art hot-spot that changed the cultural map of the city. This article describes the rise of Alserkal Avenue, not only as the result of the entrepreneurial action of the proprietors but also as a product of a complex melange of economic, cultural, and urban evolutionary processes that intertwine with the rise of the city itself.

Locally led adaptation: drivers for appropriate grassroots initiatives

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Westoby ◽  
Rachel Clissold ◽  
Karen E. McNamara ◽  
Istiakh Ahmed ◽  
Bernadette P. Resurrección ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Grassroots Initiatives

scholarly journals New Gatekeepers in Town: How Groups in Social Networking Sites Influence Information Flows in Russia’s Provinces

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110132
Author(s):  
Olga Dovbysh
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Professional Norms ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Local Media ◽  
Mediated Discourse ◽  
Media Space ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
Depth Interviews

The study focuses upon “city public groups” (“gorodskie pabliki,” local newsgroups on social networking sites)—the new entrants in the local media space of the Russian province that have recently become important actors of regional public communication. Such groups combine news posting and citizen discussions, report on local affairs and gossip, and entertain. Some groups are based on user-generated content; others create their own content or act as aggregators. Being non-registered and grassroots initiatives, these media enjoy higher freedom in comparison to official local newsrooms. Given the popularity of city public groups among local citizens and local authorities’ interest toward them, owners and moderators of these media are playing an influential role for local mediated discourse. Based on the gatekeeping theory and its extensions for digital space, this article explores the emerging roles of these new gatekeepers in the local communities. Based upon 28 in-depth interviews collected by the author in Russian towns in 2017–2018, the article also analyses the professional norms and values of the owners and moderators of local city groups that they employ to perform their gatekeeping function.

scholarly journals “Our Victims Define Our Borders”: Commemorating Yugoslav Partisans in the Italo-Yugoslav Borderland

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 290-310
Author(s):  
Borut Klabjan
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
World War ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Local Newspaper ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives

This article is part of the special section titled From the Iron Curtain to the Schengen Area, guest edited by Wolfgang Mueller and Libora Oates-Indruchová. This article discusses local cultures of remembrance of Yugoslav partisans fallen during World War II in Trieste, now part of Italy, and investigates the role of memory activists in managing vernacular memory over time. The author analyses the interplay between memory and the production of space, something which has been neglected in other studies of memory formation. On the basis of local newspaper articles, archival material, and oral interviews, the essay examines the ideological imprint on the local cultural landscape, contributing to a more complex understanding of memory engagement. The focus is on grassroots initiatives rather than state-sponsored heritage projects. This article argues that memory initiatives are not solely the outcome of national narratives and top–down ideological impositions. It shows that official narratives have to negotiate with vernacular forms of memory engagement in the production of a local mnemonic landscape.

Engineering Democracy

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Blaug
Keyword(s):  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Associational Life ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives

This paper presents a critical assessment of current initiatives to deepen democracy and seeks to examine why they often fail. By analysing their various, and conflicting, conceptions of participation and associational life, it argues that many of the difficulties they encounter can be attributed to a usually unexamined set of organisational assumptions. These assumptions are then inspected in order to analyse the breakdown of communication that can occur between incumbent social engineers trying to institutionalize more democracy, and those more critical and grassroots initiatives which emanate from the periphery of power. With this distinction in view, a series of recurrent problems around the institutionalization of democratic processes are investigated. Finally, the paper explores the implications of the distinction for how we can aid and deepen democracy more effectively.

scholarly journals Urban primary schools for Jewish population in the multi-cultural Częstochowa of the interwar period

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Zalas
Keyword(s):  
Primary Schools ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
The People ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The City

In the years 1918–1939, Częstochowa was a multicultural city just like the entire Second Republic was a multicultural country. Groups of people different in the aspects of their ethnic origin, speaking different languages, belonging to different religions, and also representing different cultures co-existed in it; nevertheless, it was Jews that constituted the dominant minority as far as religion was concerned. Economic development, territorial growth, and also increase in the population, observed throughout the period referred to hereinabove, and, first and foremost, a constantly increasing headcount of Jewish minority, rendered it necessary to organise social-cultural and educational institutions, the lion’s share of which were charitable and philanthropic organisations. The demographic structure in the years 1918–1939 determined the educational needs of the city as well. So as to ensure that Jewish population could undergo a compulsory education and complete it, the authorities of the city handed over three municipal primary schools (bearing the following numbers: 12, 13 and 15) to be used only and solely by the members of this very minority. The schools in question constituted an integral element of primary education in the city, and, therefore, suffered from the same difficulties with finding suitable buildings, personnel and organisation. It is, however, worth indicating that, thanks to the grassroots initiatives of the faculty in the aspect of the organisation of upbringing activities, these schools instilled the spirit of respect for the people of all confessions and nationalities, as well as for the state and local community.

scholarly journals MAKING A CHANGE FROM BELOW

Traditiones ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91
Author(s):  
Daša Ličen ◽  
Dan Podjed
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Waste Reduction ◽  
Social Transition ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
Grassroots Initiatives ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Over Time

The authors look into two environmental movements that arose from grassroots initiatives. The first is Ecologists without Borders, the leading NGO promoting waste reduction in Slovenia. The second is Critical Mass, an international cyclists’ movement that seeks more public space for urban cyclists, which the authors studied in Belgrade and Budapest. Ethnographic analysis indicates that the two movements have had certain common experiences. The authors use these cases to investigate the social transition that such movements support and shed light on how they arise, function, and change over time.

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