scholarly journals Rejuvenation in rural Ireland in response to the COVID-19 induced urban-to-rural migration phenomenon

Author(s):  
Shreya Sen

The aim of this paper is to discuss the paradigm shift in residential choices induced by the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Firstly, the resilience of the rural regions belonging to the Northern Periphery and Arctic Program will be explored—the challenges brought about by COVID-19 within their tourism sectors, and the opportunities for rural revival generated by the current shifts in workplace mobility. The paper will then delve deeper into the case study of Ireland. The pre-existing issue of Ireland’s one-off housing and suburban sprawl will be explored, and the extent to which the regional plan “Our Rural Future” will tackle these issues by optimizing building density and dwelling typology in the post-COVID-19 era.

Author(s):  
Amber Colibaba ◽  
Mark W. Skinner ◽  
Elizabeth Russell

Abstract During large-scale crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the precarity of older people and older volunteers can become exacerbated, especially in under-serviced rural regions and small towns. To understand how the pandemic has affected “older voluntarism”, this article presents a case study of three volunteer-based programs in rural Ontario, Canada. Interviews with 34 volunteers and administrators reveal both challenging and growth-oriented experiences of volunteers and the programs during the first wave of COVID-19. The findings demonstrate the vulnerability and resiliency of older volunteers and the adaptability and uncertainty of programs that rely on older voluntarism, as the community and its older residents navigate pandemic-related changes. The article advances a framework for understanding the pandemic’s impacts on older voluntarism in relation to personal, program, and community dimensions of sustainable rural aging. Further, it explores ways that older volunteers, organizations that depend on them, and communities experiencing population aging can persevere post-pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuchih Ernest Chang ◽  
YiChian Chen

BACKGROUND Blockchain technology is leveraging its innovative potential in various sectors and its transformation of business-related processes has drawn much attention. Topics of research interest have focused on medical and health care applications, while research implications have generally concluded in system design, literature reviews, and case studies. However, a general overview and knowledge about the impact on the health care ecosystem is limited. OBJECTIVE This paper explores a potential paradigm shift and ecosystem evolution in health care utilizing blockchain technology. METHODS A literature review with a case study on a pioneering initiative was conducted. With a systematic life cycle analysis, this study sheds light on the evolutionary development of blockchain in health care scenarios and its interactive relationship among stakeholders. RESULTS Four stages—birth, expansion, leadership, and self-renewal or death—in the life cycle of the business ecosystem were explored to elucidate the evolving trajectories of blockchain-based health care implementation. Focused impacts on the traditional health care industry are highlighted within each stage to further support the potential health care paradigm shift in the future. CONCLUSIONS This paper enriches the existing body of literature in this field by illustrating the potential of blockchain in fulfilling stakeholders’ needs and elucidating the phenomenon of coevolution within the health care ecosystem. Blockchain not only catalyzes the interactions among players but also facilitates the formation of the ecosystem life cycle. The collaborative network linked by blockchain may play a critical role on value creation, transfer, and sharing among the health care community. Future efforts may focus on empirical or case studies to validate the proposed evolution of the health care ecosystem.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 393
Author(s):  
Giedrė Kvieskienė ◽  
Ilze Ivanova ◽  
Karmen Trasberg ◽  
Viktorija Stasytytė ◽  
Eglė Celiešienė

NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) youth rates in Europe are generally higher in rural regions than in urban areas and the share in rural regions is constantly increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, young people became even more vulnerable as they experienced social exclusion and mental health problems. The objective of this paper is to analyse NEET youth-related statistics in Europe and distinguish positive initiatives for young people in rural areas of the Baltic countries to encourage positive emotions and willingness to learn. Statistical analysis and case study methods were employed. Data on youth unemployment, NEET youth by age and gender, and poverty and social exclusion of young people, is analysed. Social policy initiatives in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, mainly from rural municipalities, are presented and discussed. This research determines the key issues related to NEET youth and proposes initiatives to overcome existing problems among young people. Such social initiatives aim to promote positive social emotions of youth, promote their inclusion in society, and foster regional sustainability.


Author(s):  
Alexios Brailas ◽  
Stella-Maria Avani ◽  
Christina Gkini ◽  
Maria-Afroditi Deilogkou ◽  
Konstantinos Koskinas ◽  
...  

In this paper, we describe a case study of an undergraduate course on research methodology, in which lecture was reduced to a minimum and replaced with experiential learning activities. The course design was project-based and spiraled through four phases: a mini-lecture on a given research method, an “early practice” activity, and “reflection on practice” tutor-guided small group collaborations which led to deeper understanding of the given research method. This particular course design constitutes a paradigm shift in comparison to the predominant in Greek higher education didactic pedagogical model. How this paradigm shift was received and experienced by the participating students? In order to get rich insights into the lived experiences of the participants (N=15), we adopted a blended qualitative research approach: thematic analysis combined with students’ critical reflections on their experience, aiming to produce a thick description of our intervention. The course design and implementation positioned students and their tutors as knowledgeable actors able to contribute research insights through their transactions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Trudeau

This article examines the governance dynamics surrounding the development of sustainable neighborhoods in United States metropolitan contexts characterized as suburban sprawl. Drawing on original case study research of three distinct applications of New Urbanism design principles, the article argues for understanding the relative power of municipal authorities to incorporate social justice imperatives into the practice of sustainable development in suburban contexts. Moreover, key to prioritizing social imperatives is the way in which development processes respond to the “suburban ideal”, which is a view of suburbs as an exclusive bourgeois utopia that constrains the ability to connect so-called sustainable development with social justice. Case study research shows how deference to the suburban ideal limits sustainable development to embracing growth and greening interests only and peripheralizing or denying social justice. The article discusses how sustainable development endeavors can address such constraints in the effort to create alternatives to suburban sprawl that integrate the pursuit of social justice with environmental protection and economic growth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 236 ◽  
pp. 05059
Author(s):  
Xian Li ◽  
Eakachat Joneurairatana ◽  
Veerawat Sirivesmas

Architects and designers realize that new buildings cannot completely replace old buildings in the process of urbanization in the world. To establish a method of the new building and the old building coexist and to create the new paradigm of the new building construction in the old district is the responsibility faced by the contemporary architects. This paper first analyzes the old building renovation projects in Berlin and Paris in the 1980s and puts forward the symbiotic relationship between the old and the new buildings in the new era, thus obtaining the research objectives, trying to redefine new buildings and old districts, and creating the new paradigm of contemporary building construction in old districts. Using workshop as an exploration method, this paper conducts data research and sampling analyses on the Chinatown area in Bangkok, and explores the combination mode and paradigm transformation of new buildings and old districts in the city, aiming to seek solutions utilizing art exploration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Kinga Szabó ◽  
Gauri Shankar Gupta

Rapid growth of sharing economy in the last two decades is the outcome of a paradigm shift in global capitalism and societal values. Based on digital identity and the Trust and Reputation Index, IT platforms have brought together strangers who under new social construct, share under-utilized capacities and assets with those who need them. Radius of trust which was initially confined to family and friends; now encompasses strangers who speak no common language and who live oceans apart. Hungary is no exception to this global shift. Sharing economy in Hungary has registered healthy growth specially in the areas of transportation and accommodation. Oszkár, a long-distance car-sharing company presents a good example of this paradigm shift in societal values and sharing with strangers. This platform has recorded impressive growth of over 67% between 2015-2018 with very positive customer reviews. Moreover, this represents an environmentally-friendly sustainable practice which successfully reduces carbon foot-print and traffic congestion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135918352110696
Author(s):  
Ruth B. Phillips

This article seeks to step back from the long-standing debate between art and artifact—aesthetics and science-- understood as terms that reference central concerns of the quintessentially modern Western disciplines of art history and anthropology. In their landmark edited volume The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, George Marcus and Fred Myers explored the growing convergences exhibited by the concerns and methods of practitioners of the two disciplines, both in the academy and the museum. By training our attention on contemporary artworlds—understood as systems-- they illuminated the exchanges of aesthetic and conceptual ideas and forms that have brought Western and non-Western arts into shared discursive and real spaces. Yet in the quarter century since the book’s publication there has been a noticeable retreat from attempts by the proponents of visual studies and an expanded visual anthropology to actualize disciplinary convergences. The boundaries that separate art and anthropology have not been dissolved. Art historians and anthropologists continue to ask different questions and to support different regimes of value. From the author’s vantage point in a settler society currently directing considerable energies to institutional projects of decolonization the old debates have rapidly been receding as a new ‘third term’ – Indigenous Studies-- intrudes itself on the well trodden terrain. Not (yet) definable as a discipline but, rather, maintaining itself as an orientation, Indigenous Studies nevertheless renders the earlier disciplinary debates moot. Place, rather than time-based, collective rather than individual, holistic rather than either disciplinary or interdisciplinary, Indigenous Studies formulations exert decolonizing pressures on institutions that are rapidly mounting. Using Anishinaabeg: Art and Power, a show in 2017 at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), as a case study, this article shows how an exhibition moved representation away from the art/artifact dichotomy as well as from contested strategies of ‘inclusion’ and pro forma recognitions of ‘Indigenous ontology’ toward a genuine paradigm shift.


2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cao Wei ◽  
Zhou Shenglu ◽  
Wu Shaohua

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