Safe in Unsafe Places: Leisure, Passionate Avocations, and the Problematizing of Everyday Public Life

1996 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Leffler ◽  
Elinor Lerner ◽  
Dair L. Gillespie

AbstractLeisure is often distingtrished frorn and considered subsidiary to some other world, the "real" world. This paper explores how participation in passionate avocations _ leisure pursuits both generating and requiring heavy personal identity investments_ affects the public interface between the "real " world and the alternate world of the passionate avocation. We use the world of dog sport enthusiasts to problematize polar conceptualizations of certain important aspects of social life. In particular, we examine shifting experiential definitions of "safe" and "unsafe" public places by looking at how participation in dog sports shapes both the possibility of certain kinds of public interactions and also participants' public identities _ how they define themselves and are defined in public. The data come from four major sources. First, since 1992 we have interviewed approximately 50 enthusiasts in various dog sports. Second, by training and showing our own dogs, we enjoy participant observer access to a variety of dog-related activities and people. Third, we are involved in several Internet groups about dogs. Finally, using a technique Denzin (1989) terms "auto -ethnography, " two of the authors toured the country for nine months, attending dog sports events and training sessions and conducting interviews.

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-251
Author(s):  
Anthony Pavlik

Fantasy other worlds are often seen as alternative, wholly ‘other’ locations that operate as critiques of the ‘real’ world, or provide spaces where child protagonists can take advantage of the otherness they encounter in their own process of growth. Rather than consider fantasy fiction's presentations of ‘other’ worlds in this way, this article proposes reading them as potential thirdspaces of performance and activity that are neutral rather than confrontational such that, in fantasy other world fiction for children and young adults, the putative ‘other’ world may not, in fact, be ‘other’ at all.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-300
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Gao ◽  
Yixing Li ◽  
Zhengxin Wang

AbstractThe recently concluded 2019 World Swimming Championships was another major swimming competition that witnessed some great progresses achieved by human athletes in many events. However, some world records created 10 years ago back in the era of high-tech swimsuits remained untouched. With the advancements in technical skills and training methods in the past decade, the inability to break those world records is a strong indication that records with the swimsuit bonus cannot reflect the real progressions achieved by human athletes in history. Many swimming professionals and enthusiasts are eager to know a measure of the real world records had the high-tech swimsuits never been allowed. This paper attempts to restore the real world records in Men’s swimming without high-tech swimsuits by integrating various advanced methods in probabilistic modeling and optimization. Through the modeling and separation of swimsuit bias, natural improvement, and athletes’ intrinsic performance, the result of this paper provides the optimal estimates and the 95% confidence intervals for the real world records. The proposed methodology can also be applied to a variety of similar studies with multi-factor considerations.


We the Gamers ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Karen Schrier

Chapter 5 describes how games can support real-world action and change. How can knowledge be applied to the public sphere and serve communities? Why and how should games be used to enable ethics- and civics-in-action? What are the best practices and strategies for supporting connections among civics, ethics, and the real world using games? The chapter includes an overview of why it is necessary to engage in real-world action. It describes the benefits of applying learning to real-world contexts and processes, and why games may support this. It also includes the limitations of using games to apply knowledge, and how to minimize those limitations. Finally, it reviews strategies that teachers can take to use games to take action and make change. It opens with the example EteRNA, and also shares five examples-in-action: Reliving the Revolution, 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, Community PlanIt, Bay Area Regional Planner, and Thunderbird Strike.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Serena Ferrando ◽  
Mark Wardecker

Noisefest! is an interactive, multisensory experience centered around a small Maine town and rooted in the sounds and noise of its streets. Comprising a Virtual Reality tour, soundwalks and remixes, a 2D laser cut geographical map with Arduino controllers, and a Futuristic noise intoner, one of the objectives of this collaborative, transdisciplinary, and theory-based project is to create concrete opportunities for students to participate in the “real” world and engage with the materiality of noise and its manifestations by interacting with the soundscape through novel, interactive, and multisensory practices. Noisefest! is also an example of how one can creatively and artistically extend the reach of the digital humanities beyond the borders of academia and into the public realm.


2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel D. Gosling

An imbalance is identified in social psychology between controlled experimental studies (which are common) and real-world, ecologically valid studies (which are rare). The preponderance of experimental studies (which provide mere existence proofs and lack realism) helps fuel social psychology's fault-finding focus. Laboratory experiments and ecological studies should be pursued jointly to examine social life in the real world.


2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waheed Hussain

The efficiency argument for profit maximization says that corporations and their managers should maximize profits because this is the course of action that will lead to an ‘economically efficient’ or ‘welfare maximizing’ outcome (see e.g. Jensen 2001, 2002). In this paper, I argue that the fundamental problem with this argument is not that markets in the real world are less than perfect, but rather that the argument does not properly acknowledge the personal sphere. Morality allows each of us a sphere in which we are free to pursue our personal interests, even if these are not optimal from the social point of view. But the efficiency argument does not come to terms with this feature of social life.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2095252
Author(s):  
Liz Giuffre

When a nationwide lockdown was declared in Australia in March 2020, the role of the ABC as the public broadcaster became vital. Unprecedented pressure was placed on parents and carers as families were cut off from their physical networks and communities beyond immediate household groups. This article focuses on the specialist material created and curated by the ABC to entertain, educate and continue to provide cultural connection for households with children and young adults, particularly broadcast and post-broadcast outlets ABC Kids, ABC ME and Triple J. Notably, these outlets were able to provide both a connection to the ‘real world’ and ‘real events’ happening outside during this time, but they were also able to provide materials to escape and appease audience anxiety pitched at a level that is age appropriate.


Humanus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Imas Maryanah

AbstractThe changing dynamic of human lives makes most of them ignorant to the values of right and wrong. Truth, freedom, and justice have become scarce and beyond real.Cruelty has caused fear, restlessness, and misery. In order to be free from excruciatingpressure, Kalatidha describes a picture of how someone has lived in his dream happily.The dreams and goals he is been longing for are only enjoyed in that surreal world, theworld freed from norms, ideas, and public opinion. “Running away” is the word used todescribe how people lock themselves away from the real world.  For him, the real world he understands is the world that can give him joy,happiness, and cheerfulness. Things that are immoral in the eyes of the public are noshame to him. One thing he is sure of, that life is a journey, and how he live it. Emptinessis no longer misery, but a process that has to be passed through the journey. Kalatidhahas become a picture of how inner unrest becomes a focus of deceitful real life pantings.Deceit and dishonesty are stupid, and craziness is an act of hopelessness.  Key words : Dream, Journey, Deceit AbstrakDinamika gambaran kehidupan manusia yang terus-menerus berubah menyebabkan sebagian manusia tidak mengindahkan lagi, mana yang harus dilakukanmana yang dilarang. Kebenaran, kebebasan, keadilan menjadi barang langka yanghanya menjadi impian belaka. Kekejaman telah memunculkan ketakutan, kegelisahan,kesengsaraan. Agar terbebas dari tekanan yang menyiksa, Kalatidha menyajikan sebuahpotret bagaimana seseorang telah hidup di alam khayalnya dengan bahagia. Impian dancita-cita yang selama ini didambakan, hanya dapat dinikmati di alam “sana”. Alamyang  terbebas dari norma, ide, pendapat masyarakat. “Lari” itulah kata yang tepatuntuk menggambarkan bagaimana seseorang telah memenjarakan dirinya darikehidupan nyata.  Kehidupan nyata yang ia pahami hanyalah dunia yang dapat memberinyakesenangan, kegembiraan dan keceriaan. Hal-hal aneh yang dianggap menyimpang olehmasyarakat pada umumnya bukan merupakan celaan baginya. Satu hal yang ia yakinibahwa hidup ini adalah sebuah perjalanan, dan bagaimana ia menjalankannya. Kekosongan dan kehampaan bukan lagi siksaan, tapi sebuah proses yang harus dilewatidalam menempuh perjalanan. Kalatidha telah menjadi sebuah potret bagaimanapergolakan batin menjadi fokus sebuah lukisan kenyataan semu. Kepalsuan dan kepurapuraanadalahhalbodoh,dankegilaanadalahtindakandarisuatukeputusasaan.Key words : Impian, Perjalanan, Semu


Author(s):  
Hannah Le

Though there is much to gain through technological development, it is also necessary to critique the ubiquitous presence of devices in social life and the overstimulation they bring. The increasing mediation of reality through applications such as Instagram could blur the division between the ‘real’ world of everyday life and a ‘hyperreality’ fostered by such applications. Using concepts from theorists Jean Baudrillard and Georg Simmel, this paper presents a critique of the overstimulation of information through social media. With continuous and repetitive material being recycled online, it is discussed how a blasé attitude is used to protect oneself from being informationally overwhelmed.  


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.A. Dudareva

Апофатика русского языка и культуры, проявляющаяся на концептуальном уровне языка, составила проблемное поле исследования, цель которого заключается в выявлении апофатических идей, заключенных в стихотворении Н. С. Гумилева Жираф . Материалом для исследования послужил текст данного произведения, а также работы российских и зарубежных культурологов и литературоведов. Методология сводится к целостному анализу художественного текста с применением структурно-типологического и сравнительно-сопоставительного методов исследования. Автор отмечает присутствие в стихотворном тексте двух топосов: мира, в котором пребывают герои, и далекого мира Африки. Этот мир создает в произведении фольклорную сакральную реальность, которая не может быть описана иначе, чем через отрицание категорий реального мира. Идеальная африканская страна света, иное царство , доступна только при абсолютном доверии, вере в ее существование, и в этом проявляется апофатичность описанной поэтом ситуации.The article considers the problem of the apophatics of the Russian language and culture, which manifests itself at the conceptual level of the language. The aim of the study is to identify apophatic ideas contained in Gumilyovs poem The Giraffe. The material for the study was the text of this work, as well as the works of Russian and foreign cultural scientists and literary scholars. The methodology is reduced to a holistic analysis of a literary text using structural, typological and comparative methods of research. These methods allow studying the features of the penetration of the folklore tradition (and with it the tanatological complex) into a work of art. The author points out the connection of adjectives bearing the semantics of the inexplicable with the apophatic picture of the world, which finds expression in philological studies, especially those related to mortal problems. In popular culture, ideas related to the other world acquire the status of the unknown, and this world appears as the inverse correlate of the real world. In close connection with this, two topoi in the text of the studied poem are noted: the world in which the characters live and the distant world of Africa. The latter world creates a folklore reality in the work. The poet compares the image of a giraffe with the Moon, which occupied one of the main places in the traditional cosmogony of the peoples of Africa. Mythological consciousness often identifies animals with celestial objects, so it can be assumed that Gumilyov rethought the plot about the Moon disguised in the skin of an animal. The far Lake Chad is an image of the other world, an ideal land, and the image of a giraffe symbolizes a breakthrough from darkness to light. In this context, the narrator of the poem, turning to his beloved, appears as a priest prophesying about the sacred reality. He cannot describe this reality to the heroine other than by denying the categories of the real world, and this manifests the apophaticity of the situation. The heroines crying is perceived as catharsis, also revealing the sacred sphere. The folkloristic commentary and analysis of the lexical units of the text led to the conclusion that the heroes of the poem (the narrator and his silent listener) are physically in one space, but metaphysically belong to different worlds. The paradox of the space is that the ideal African country of the light, another kingdom, is accessible only with absolute trust, faith in its existence. This is the apophatic effect in Gumilyovs poem The Giraffe.


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