Stepping to the fore: The promotion of Irish dance in Australia

Scene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Jeanette Mollenhauer
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Irish People ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Concert Dance ◽  
Global And Local

This article contributes to scant literature on Irish dance praxis in Australia by demonstrating how the confluence of global and local factors have permitted Irish dance in Australia to step to the fore. Irish step dance is a globally recognizable genre that has dispersed through, first, the migration of Irish people throughout the world and, more recently, through itinerant theatrical troupes. In Australia, a significant node of the Irish diaspora, Irish step dance has managed to achieve unusual prominence in a dance landscape that has traditionally been dominated by genres from within the Western concert dance canon. Drawing on both extant literature and ethnographic data, this article examines three threads from the narrative of Irish dance in Australia. First, the general choreographic landscape of the nation is described, showing that the preferences of Australian dance audiences have been shaped to privilege styles that are popular onstage and on-screen, with the resulting marginalization of culturally-specific genera. Second, localized effects of the global contagion instigated by the development of the stage show Riverdance are explored. Here, the domains of aesthetics and decisive marketing strategies are discussed, showing how engagement with Australian audiences was achieved. Finally, the article introduces an idiosyncratic localized influence, the children’s musical group The Wiggles, which was conceived independently but which also promoted interest and enthusiasm for Irish dance in Australia by engaging with young children and presenting propriety of Irish dance as available to all, regardless of cultural ancestry.

scholarly journals ‘I was really, really shocked’: A sociological exploration of the transition experiences of English Youth Academy male footballers from school to work

2021 ◽  
pp. 101269022110054
Author(s):  
Nicola Hague ◽  
Graeme Law
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
School To Work ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
Professional Experiences ◽  
Transitional Experiences ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types

The world of football arguably brings together and unites people in support of their teams and countries, while inspiring young children and adolescents to dream of a professional career. Existing research in the field has sought to begin to understand what professional footballers experience on their journey through the game. However, much of this UK-based research has focused on first team players and their professional experiences, including transitions from youth team to first team and to retirement. This study, therefore, aimed to examine players during their youth academy scholarship at one English Championship club. This study focused on the transitional experiences of youth players from school to the academy and their resulting embodying of a footballer’s identity. Twelve semi-structured interviews with players aged 17–19, were conducted and then analysed by thematic analysis using figurational sociology concepts. Three different types of transition were identified. Among other reasons, early specialisation in football was a prevalent factor that partly influenced the way the players experienced their transition. The transition into the academy coincided with the transition from youth to adulthood that was arguably anything but linear as players managed the dominant sub-cultures present in the club.

scholarly journals Best interests: The ‘best’ way for courts to decide if young children should act as bone marrow donors?

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shih-Ning Then
Keyword(s):  
Bone Marrow ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Potential Donor ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Potential Child ◽  
The World ◽  
Psychological Harm ◽  
Continued Use

Young children who are called upon to donate regenerative tissue – most commonly bone marrow – to save the life of a sick relative are in a unique position. The harvest of tissue from them is non-therapeutic and carries the risk of physical and psychological harm. However, paediatric donation is relatively common medical practice around the world. Where some doubt exists over the legality of allowing a child to donate, courts can be asked to authorize the procedure and in doing so will apply the ‘best interests’ test in making their decision. How are a young child’s rights recognized in such a situation? This article considers whether the best interests test is the ‘best’ test to be applied by courts when cases of potential child donors come before it. The approach of courts in three jurisdictions is analysed, and problems in the application of the test in this context are discussed. While the continued use of the test by courts is supported, the way the test has been used by courts is critiqued and recommendations made to better respect the rights of the potential donor child.

scholarly journals The weirdest people in the world?

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 61-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Henrich ◽  
Steven J. Heine ◽  
Ara Norenzayan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Spatial Reasoning ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
The World ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Behavioral Phenomenon

AbstractBehavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population. Are these assumptions justified? Here, our review of the comparative database from across the behavioral sciences suggests both that there is substantial variability in experimental results across populations and that WEIRD subjects are particularly unusual compared with the rest of the species – frequent outliers. The domains reviewed include visual perception, fairness, cooperation, spatial reasoning, categorization and inferential induction, moral reasoning, reasoning styles, self-concepts and related motivations, and the heritability of IQ. The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obviousa priorigrounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation. Overall, these empirical patterns suggests that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions ofhumannature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity. We close by proposing ways to structurally re-organize the behavioral sciences to best tackle these challenges.

Global and local factors behind the authigenesis of Fe-silicates (Glauconite/Chamosite) in Miocene strata of Northern Tunisia

2021 ◽  
pp. 104342
Author(s):  
Abdelbasset Tounekti ◽  
Kamel Boukhalfa ◽  
Tathagata Roy Choudhury ◽  
Mohamed Soussi ◽  
Santanu Banerjee
Keyword(s):  
Northern Tunisia ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
Global And Local

Synagogue as Infrastructure in Everyday Life of Batumi Jewish Community

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 323-338
Author(s):  
Nino Abakelia
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Sacred Place ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
And Function

Abstract The subject under scrutiny is Sephardic and Ashkenazi synagogues in Batumi (the Black Sea Region of Georgia) that reveal both universal and culturally specific forms. The paper is based on ethnographic data gathered during fieldwork in Batumi, in 2019, and on the theoretical postulates of anthropology of infrastructure. The article argues that the Batumi synagogues could be viewed and understood as ‘infrastructure’ in their own right, as they serve as objects through which other objects, people, and ideas operate and function as a system. The paper attempts to demonstrate how the sacred edifices change their trajectory according to modern conditions and how the sacred place is inserted and coexists inside a network of touristic infrastructure.

Immigrant Populations and Sanctuary Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Patel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young Children ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Populations ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The World

In the summer months of 2018, the world watched as thousands of young children were separated from their families and detained by immigration officials at the border between the United States and Mexico. On television screens and smartphone updates, it seemed the world collectively gasped at this cruel familial trauma and asked, “what can we do? How can we be in solidarity?” In this essay, I situate this state practice in a long-standing tradition of governance of who has rights and who does not. I also provide specific challenges for material solidarity that reaches beyond media soundbites.

scholarly journals The Unbearable Lightness of Trust: Trade, conviviality, and the life-world of Indian export agents in Yiwu, China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Filippo Osella
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Export Trade ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Life World ◽  
Extreme Caution ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
World Centre

Abstract Drawing on ethnographic data collected in China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India, this article explores the life-world and practices of small-scale Indian export agents based in Yiwu, China, the world centre for the export of small commodities. It shows that in a market overdetermined by fast-moving goods, short-term gains, and low margins, export agents have to steer their way between acting with extreme caution or taking risks with their clients and suppliers. These apparently contradictory dispositions or orientations are negotiated by the judicious exercise of mistrust and suspicion. The article suggests not only that mistrust is valued and cultivated as an indispensable practical resource for success in Yiwu's export trade, but that contingent relations of trust between market players emerge at the interstices of a generalized mutual mistrust, via the mobilization of practices of hospitality, commensality, and masculine conviviality. Indeed, feelings of amity and mutuality elicited by the performance of modalities of social intimacy become the affective terrain upon which divergent economic interests might be reconciled and taken forward. That is, mistrust might not lead to generalized distrust, instead a situational or contingent trust might actually emerge through the judicious exercise of mistrust.

scholarly journals Children being children: the value of an “importance filter”

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr Jonathon Sargeant
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Internal Information ◽  
Processing Mechanism

The perspectives of young children are of considerable interest to the community yet remains largely misunderstood. This paper posits that children demonstrate an optimistic view of the world and the future that is also encased in a deeper understanding of key global, local, and social issues than previously thought. This study challenges the notion that children are either adversely affected by knowledge or ignorant of global issues outside their control. The effects of external media and the reputed social decay of society and the pessimistic worldview reportedly held by young children are questioned. In acknowledging the children’s understanding of key issues, this research identifies that children engage in an internal metacognitive processing of information that allows them to maintain their optimistic view of the world. This paper introduces the concept of an Importance Filter, an internal information processing mechanism that assists children in making sense of their world.

scholarly journals Aftershocks: Globalism and the Future of Democracy

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Resilience ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The University ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

This digital publication consists of a selection of 56 papers presented at the 16th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), held at the University of Zaragoza, 2-5 July 2019, the general theme of which was ‘Aftershocks: Globalism and the Future of Democracy’. Sponsored by The Aragonese Association of Sociology, the conference was well-attended – 170 participants from 28 countries met to discuss a wide variety of topics in 29 workshops. The feedback we received from participants confirmed that they had greatly enjoyed the venue of the conference, that they appreciated the warm welcome they had received and the congenial social atmosphere and opportunity to attend workshops on subjects that were not only in their own field of expertise. No one, of course, could have predicted that our world – our work and life as individuals, as communities and as nations – would change so suddenly and radically eighteen months after the conference, with the rapid and devastating spread of the Convid-19 pandemic. The current deepening global crisis along with the challenge of climate change and growing international tensions are a stark reminder of how vulnerable our societies, our civilization, and our species are. The shocks and aftershocks of these crises are felt today in every corner of the world and in every aspect of our global and local economies, and most obviously in the sociopolitical arena. As several of the conference workshops on the multiple crises Europe and the world face today – from the migrant crisis to the rise of populism and deepening inequality between rich and poor – showed – and as the Covid-19 pandemic has so cruelly brought home to us – we simply cannot take the achievements of human civilization for granted and must find ways to meet the fundamental social and political needs of human beings not only in our own neighborhoods, cities and countries, but ultimately in the world as a whole: their living conditions, livelihoods, social services, education and healthcare, human rights and political representation. Several of the workshops, as I mentioned, directly addressed these issues and emphasized the need for building social resilience based on tolerance, solidarity and equity. This too is why, as academics, we should continue to initiate and engage in collective reflection and debate on how to foster and strengthen human communities and human solidarity. Finally, I want to thank the participants and workshop chairs for their contribution to the success of the conference. It was a pleasure for me to work with the university organizing team and with ISSEI’s team in bringing this about, and I am particularly proud that my university and the city of Zaragoza hosted this conference.

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