scholarly journals Collaborative Confusion among DIY Makers

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-119
Author(s):  
Eeva Berglund ◽  
Cindy Kohtala

Eco-oriented makers and grassroots subcultures experimenting with digital fabrication technologies, and other activists designing sustainable futures, are increasingly the subject of research. As they address problems of environmental sustainability beyond institutional contexts, their work may appear vague, even confused, yet their activities are underpinned by intense and principled commitment. Working through their confusion, many maker communities build new understandings about what ‘sustainability’ could mean. We argue that herein lie important resources for new knowledge, and further that ethnography is the ideal way to track these processes of learning and knowledge production. The ethnographer participates in local confusion, over values and the definitions of sustainability, but also about what constitutes useful knowledge. Supported by STS (and other) literature on environmental expertise, we argue that maker communities' own acknowledgement of this vagueness actually makes possible a position from which epistemological authority can be reasserted.

Author(s):  
Joseph Winters

This chapter engages humanism and its fundamental assumptions by working through critical theory, black feminism, and black studies. It contends that there is a tension at the heart of humanism—while the ideal human appears to be the most widespread and available category, it has been constructed over and against certain qualities, beings, and threats. To elaborate on this tension, this chapter revisits the work of authors like Karl Marx and Michel Foucault. Marx acknowledges that the human is a site of conflict and antagonism even as his thought betrays a lingering commitment to progress and humanism. Foucault goes further than Marx by underscoring the fabricated quality of man and the ways in which racism functions to draw lines between those who must live and those who must die. In response to Marx and Foucault’s tendency to privilege Europe, this chapter engages black feminism and Afro-pessimism—Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, and Frank Wilderson—who show how the figure of the human within humanism is defined in opposition to blackness.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147332502199086
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Wahab ◽  
Gita R Mehrotra ◽  
Kelly E Myers

Expediency, efficiency, and rapid production within compressed time frames represent markers for research and scholarship within the neoliberal academe. Scholars who wish to resist these practices of knowledge production have articulated the need for Slow scholarship—a slower pace to make room for thinking, creativity, and useful knowledge. While these calls are important for drawing attention to the costs and problems of the neoliberal academy, many scholars have moved beyond “slow” as being uniquely referencing pace and duration, by calling for the different conceptualizations of time, space, and knowing. Guided by post-structural feminisms, we engaged in a research project that moved at the pace of trust in the integrity of our ideas and relationships. Our case study aimed to better understand the ways macro forces such as neoliberalism, criminalization and professionalization shape domestic violence work. This article discusses our praxis of Slow scholarship by showcasing four specific key markers of Slow scholarship in our research; time reimagined, a relational ontology, moving inside and towards complexity, and embodiment. We discuss how Slow scholarship complicates how we understand constructs of productivity and knowledge production, as well as map the ways Slow scholarship offers a praxis of resistance for generating power from the epistemic margins within social work and the neoliberal academy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5519
Author(s):  
Rui Carvalho ◽  
Alberto Rodrigues da Silva

Sustainable development was defined by the UN in 1987 as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and this is a core concept in this paper. This work acknowledges the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., economic, social, and environmental, but its focus is on this last one. A digital twin (DT) is frequently described as a physical entity with a virtual counterpart, and the data, connections between the two, implying the existence of connectors and blocks for efficient and effective data communication. This paper provides a meta systematic literature review (SLR) (i.e., an SLR of SLRs) regarding the sustainability requirements of DT-based systems. Numerous papers on the subject of DT were also selected because they cited the analyzed SLRs and were considered relevant to the purposes of this research. From the selection and analysis of 29 papers, several limitations and challenges were identified: the perceived benefits of DTs are not clearly understood; DTs across the product life cycle or the DT life cycle are not sufficiently studied; it is not clear how DTs can contribute to reducing costs or supporting decision-making; technical implementation of DTs must be improved and better integrated in the context of the IoT; the level of fidelity of DTs is not entirely evaluated in terms of their parameters, accuracy, and level of abstraction; and the ownership of data stored within DTs should be better understood. Furthermore, from our research, it was not possible to find a paper discussing DTs only in regard to environmental sustainability.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 599-609
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Edsall

Passive immunization has existed for over 70 years, ever since Von Behring and Kitasato demonstrated its effectiveness in neutralizing diphtheria toxin. In fact, at first glance one might think that there was little new to say on this subject. However, the very fact that its concepts and practices have been so long accepted and–in the minds of many–have fallen into the pattern of purely routine procedures, is in itself sufficient justification to re-examine the subject. In addition, moreover, there have been a number of changes in the range of diseases for which passive immunization may be employed, the type of antiserum used, and the guiding principles for use of such preparations. Therefore, it may be timely to deal with some of the present considerations that apply to passive immunization, its prospects, its scope, and its limitations. At the risk of repeating old and familiar cliches it appears desirable to summarize, at first, the guiding principles which apply to the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of passive immunization. First of all, it is well established that some techniques of passive immunization are highly effective–e.g., diphtheria prophylaxis with antitoxin; some are very useful but fall short of the ideal of routine success with the purpose intended–e.g., the use of gamma-globulin for the modification of measles; whereas others are of relatively uncertain value so that their usefulness in medical practice still continues to be debated–e.g., gas gangrene antitoxin. The reasons for such great disparity in the efficacy of different antisera cannot easily be put into generalizations, but surely the varied pathogenesis of the diseases in question must be a major factor, as well as the fact that high antibody titers can readily be obtained for some such sera, whereas they are difficult or impossible to achieve with others.


2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 347-355
Author(s):  
Tom Baker ◽  
Ryan Jones ◽  
Michael Mann ◽  
Nick Lewis

Drawing on observations at the 2017 Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) – a global conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand – this paper examines the significance of localised event spaces in shaping economic subjects and, by extension, economic sectors. Conferences such as the SEWF are sites and moments that provide access to new knowledge, foster collective action and shape the subjectivities of economic actors. We describe how the SEWF cultivated sympathetic affective responses towards social enterprise and the subject position of the social entrepreneur, and demonstrate how the local specificities of Christchurch, as a place, were key to the cultivation of social-entrepreneurial subjectivity at the SEWF.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth De Souza Oliveira ◽  
Marizete Lucini

In this article, we will analyze the narratives about the natural resources indicated as conducive to cultivation in Brazilian soil present in the reading book Cousas Brasileiras (1896) as instructors of useful knowledge for the ideal republican man between 1890 and 1896. Therefore, we will dialogue from decolonial concepts and, when selecting the speeches, we will carry out the analyzes to highlight the educational purposes of the period that were immersed in liberal ideas, intending to point out the ideal citizen. With this, when developing the study we will present the effort undertaken by the author to form modern values that are directly linked to the formation of the colonizing aspects. Situating within the scope of qualitative research in Education, of documentary type, with procedures for discourse analysis, thus, we will demonstrate how the formation of the values of modernity was inherent to the formation of the colonizing aspects as an initiative of political-ideological affirmation for the development of Brazilian nationality and its economic progress.


1866 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-149
Author(s):  
A. De Morgan
Keyword(s):  

The present paper is a continuation of that in the Companion for 1840, on the application of Barrett's method of calculating Me contingencies. No tables were then published for contingencies involving two lives; but since that time Mr. Jones's tables have appeared, in his work on the subject in the Library of Useful Knowledge. It may therefore be worth while to collect and describe the formulæ relative to two lives which are most likely to be useful in practice; with some other matters, which may partly interest the actuary and partly the commencing; student.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-163
Author(s):  
Daniel Renfrew ◽  
Thomas W. Pearson

This article examines the social life of PFAS contamination (a class of several thousand synthetic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and maps the growing research in the social sciences on the unique conundrums and complex travels of the “forever chemical.” We explore social, political, and cultural dimensions of PFAS toxicity, especially how PFAS move from unseen sites into individual bodies and into the public eye in late industrial contexts; how toxicity is comprehended, experienced, and imagined; the factors shaping regulatory action and ignorance; and how PFAS have been the subject of competing forms of knowledge production. Lastly, we highlight how people mobilize collectively, or become demobilized, in response to PFAS pollution/ toxicity. We argue that PFAS exposure experiences, perceptions, and responses move dynamically through a “toxicity continuum” spanning invisibility, suffering, resignation, and refusal. We off er the concept of the “toxic event” as a way to make sense of the contexts and conditions by which otherwise invisible pollution/toxicity turns into public, mass-mediated, and political episodes. We ground our review in our ongoing multisited ethnographic research on the PFAS exposure experience.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101
Author(s):  
Bakhtawer Nasrullah ◽  
Ghulam Fatima ◽  
Dur e Nayab

This qualitative study was planned to identify the curiosity enhancing strategies (CES) and explore the challenges faced by teachers during the use of strategies at primary school students in the subject of science. Curiosity is the desire to acquire new knowledge through exploration in order to grow and expand understanding. Curiosity refers to the tendency of children to ask, investigate, and find out the new knowledge obtained from their environment. The researchers did not find a study in the literature that specifically examined identification of curiosity related strategies used by teachers in Pakistan. This research study was conducted to identify the curiosity related strategies used by the public sector school teachers in teaching Science to students enrolled in primary classes in Lahore. Purposive sampling technique was used for selection of the participants of the study. Data was collected from teachers and students of primary school (5th grade) level in science subject. Data from teachers was collected personally and on telephone. Data from students was collected through interviews by visiting the respective schools and after taking consent of the school principal. Two semi structured interview protocols were developed for taking responses at primary school level teachers and students. Data was analyzed by using thematic analysis technique. Findings of the study reflected that primary school teachers of the study were using different strategies for enhancing curiosity in students in the subject of Science. During the use of these strategies public sector primary school teachers faced many challenges like lack of resources, large strength of students in a classroom, lack of students attention, lack of parents cooperation. This study recommended that teachers and parents may use these strategies for enhancing curiosity in students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Fatchun Nikmah

Abstract  Stigma in today's society considers more sex workers as the dregs of society who only regarded as an immoral person who violates the norms of religion and society, so they are not appreciated. A prostitute is almost the majority have families, both parents, brother, husband or child. Communities usually negative view sex workers family and those views may influence the psychological development of child prostitutes. This study aims to determine the child's self-concept of prostitutes who live in the community.This study uses a qualitative case study approach, which is a special phenomenon that is present in a limited context, although the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not entirely clear. Determination techniques are the subject of the researchers used snowball sampling or chain sampling. The research was conducted in two villages that are within the scope of the district in one district on the island of Java. The subject of this study were children and adolescents aged prostitute who is still undergoing formal schooling.This study found that the first subject has a good self concept. There is not much of a gap between the basic self-concept and ideal self-concept on the subject. The first subject has a perceptual self-concept is not good because the subject is not satisfied with the current physical condition and there are gaps in the basic perceptual components and ideal self-concept. As for the conceptual and attitudinal self concept self concept can be considered a good subject because there is no gap between the conceptual and attitudinal components of the basic categories and ideal self-concept. While the second subject has a poor self-concept, as there are many gaps between the basic self-concept and ideal self concept on the subject. The subject has a perceptual selfconcept is not good, because the subject was not satisfied with his physical condition and his subjects make the situation as a benchmark of the ideal situation for him. In addition, the subject has attitudinal poor self concept.  Keywords: Self-concept, children, sex workers, society, qualitative


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