scholarly journals The COVID-19 Disappeared: From Traumatic to Ambiguous Loss and the Role of the Internet for the Bereaved in Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Testoni ◽  
Claudia Azzola ◽  
Noemi Tribbia ◽  
Gianmarco Biancalani ◽  
Erika Iacona ◽  
...  

In Italy, in the very first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a dramatic rise in mortality. However, families were forbidden because of lockdown regulations to be with their loved ones at their deathbeds or to hold funerals. This qualitative study examined bereavement experiences among family members, how they processed their grief, and how they used social networks in particular by uploading photographs during the working-through of bereavement. The sample was composed of 40 individuals aged 23–63 (80% women) from different Italian cities severely impacted by the virus, including a subgroup from the province of Bergamo, which was the city with the highest mortality rate during that time. All interviews were conducted by phone, Skype, or Zoom. Then, the transcriptions underwent a thematic analysis using Atlas.ti. The main themes that emerged were: abandonment anger and guilt, dehumanized disappeared, derealization and constant rumination, and social support and the importance of sharing photos on Facebook. Importantly, the use of social networks proved to be a valuable source of support and photographs were a powerful tool in facilitating the process of mourning by encouraging narration and sharing. Grief had a complex profile: on the one hand, it was traumatic and characterized by all the risk factors causing mourners to experience prolonged grief, but on the other, some features were similar to ambiguous loss (that occurs without closure and clear understanding) because of the impossibility to be with their relatives in their final moments. The possible relationships between ambiguous loss, the use of internet, and the risk of prolonged grief are discussed.

Author(s):  
Yannis M. Ioannides

This chapter considers the prospect of a deeper understanding of social interactions in urban settings as well as their significance for the functioning and future role of cities and regions. It introduces broader sets of tools for exploring the properties of urban networks, from the lowest microscale up to the highest levels of aggregation. Graph theory, for example, offers a promising means of elucidating the urban social fabric and the interactions that define it, and more specifically the link between urban infrastructure and aspatial social networks. The chapter also compares individuals and their social interactions to an archipelago, a metaphor that offers a picture of the magic of the city. It concludes by emphasizing the interdependence between the creation of cities over physical space, on the one hand, and the urban archipelago and its internal social and economic structures, which are man-made, on the other.


Author(s):  
Encarnación Soriano-Ayala ◽  
Adán Hermosilla-Rivera ◽  
Verónica C. Cala ◽  
Rachida Dalouh

ABSTRACT This work addresses the risk that adolescents face when they misuse the Internet. The results of an investigation carried out with 206 adolescents about the use of Internet, cyberbullying and sexting are presented. The results showed that parents of adolescents are unaware of their children's use of social networks, girls practice sexting more than boys, and there are more boys who practice cyberbullying in the role of executioner, while girls star in it as the victim.RESUMENEste trabajo aborda el riesgo que corren los adolescentes cuando hacen un mal uso de Internet. Se exponen los resultados de una investigación llevada a cabo con 206 adolescentes en los que se analiza el uso de Internet, el ciber acoso (ciberbullying) y el sexting. En los resultados señalamos que los padres de los chicos y las chicas adolescentes desconocen el uso que hacen sus hijos de las redes sociales, las chicas practican más el sexting que los chicos en la adolescencia, siendo el sexting una nueva forma de sexismo impulsado por las tecnologías, y son más los chicos que practican el ciberbullying en el rol de verdugo, mientras que las chicas lo protagonizan desde el papel de víctima.


2009 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Marco Solimene

- The present contribution examines the rootedness of a community of xoraxané romá in the city of Rome; rather than simply the continuity of presence in a specific territory, under consideration is the development and maintenance of social networks with the Roman population, specifically in the territories romá reside and/or work in. Further on, the paper describes how rootedness may be conjugated with some forms of mobility: on the one hand, the continuity in specific areas (of work and in some cases of residence), can be maintained through practices of urban circulation; on the other hand, especially when mobility turns on national and transnational scale, the presence - although mobile and changing - of romá who belong to the same social network, spread among different territories, enables singular domestic units to maintain, despite mobility, a continuity with several non-rom realities.


space&FORM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2020 (46) ◽  
pp. 165-186
Author(s):  
Wojciech Skórzewski ◽  

Local spatial development plans, are one of the most important urban landscaping tools. Their goal is, on the one hand, to protect urban space including, inter alia, prevention of creation of illconsidered developments, that are bad to the urban landscape, the environment or the local communities. For this purpose, there is a number of restrictions introduced into local spatial development plans. On the other hand, the role of local plans is also creating the space, so they should be conducive to projects with high-quality architecture, that are often unconventional and innovative, adding new value to the architectural landscape of the city, which could be blocked by too strict regulations. The trick is to create regulations in a way that can help reconcile that two goals.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natacha Quintero

Intended as a contribution to the debate on inclusive cities, this paper proposes that the re-imagination of new city landscapes lies on the integrative sum of its parts. Considering that knowledge about infor- mal systems continues to be a challenge in achieving integrated land- scapes, this study explores how the linking of the fields of urban ecol- ogy and urban informality can lead to systematic approaches towards understanding urban informal ecosystems. In that way, this think- piece theorises on alternatives to approach the socio-natural processes taking place in informal settlements to demonstrate their capacity to adapt to prescribed ecological frameworks and ease their way into ecological scrutiny. Using a mixed-method approach in which the the- oretical framework and the empirical work functioned in a cyclical manner, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, was investigated. The analy- sis led to the discovery of ties and processes that navigate in and out of the informal city, and revealed that informal areas can be scaled, inventoried, and re-imagined from a systems perspective. The paper therefore recommends a rethinking of the two intersections that play a role in most of the new scenarios of change seen in the contemporary urban hybrids of developing countries. Specifically, the intersection that concerns the formal vs informal dichotomy, exploring the spatial and virtual role of the urban informal in the city, and the one concern- ing the city vs nature dichotomy, and the assumption that as part of the city, the informal is also a constituent of a greater urban ecosystem with impacts and evolutionary capacities.


Author(s):  
Irina Lukina ◽  
Angelina Selivanova ◽  
B. Temirsultanova

Excessive increase in the size of the main urban development objects on the one hand, and the creation of abstract volumes of the urban environment that do not have any familiar details comparable to the size of a person on the other hand, creates an architecture completely divorced from people and hostile to them. Therefore, there was a need to justify the use of landscape components to create a medium-scale human environment. The natural environment is that component of the spatial planning structure of the city, which, if properly placed, will absorb the negative psychological effect of the perception of huge undifferentiated abstract arrays of buildings in a re-compacted urban environment. The main criterion for the psychological comfort of a city dweller is the visual contact of a person in the house with the street, the ability to see the details and, most importantly, understand what they are in relation to the person. Along with small architectural forms, such elements will be trees, shrubs, benches, information boards, which have constant and understandable ergonomic dimensions. This is what is always referred to in the term anthropocentrism in architecture. The article proposes to clarify the concept of “human scale” on the basis of a systematic understanding of scale in architecture, and then this category of scale is considered not as a compositional means of aesthetic expressiveness of the urban environment, but as a factor in biological safety and physical survival of a person in conditions of total urbanization.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Coletta ◽  
Liam Heaphy ◽  
Rob Kitchin

While there is a relatively extensive literature concerning the nature of smart cities in general, the roles of corporate actors in their production, and the development and deployment of specific smart city technologies, to date there have been relatively few studies that have examined the situated practices as to how the smart city as a whole unfolds in specific places. In this paper, we chart the smart city ecosystem in Dublin, Ireland, and examine how the four city authorities have actively collaborated to progressively frame and mobilise an articulated vision of Dublin as a smart city. In particular, we focus on the work of ‘Smart Dublin’, a shared unit established to coordinate, manage and promote Dublin’s smart city initiatives. We argue that Smart Dublin has on the one hand sought to corral smart city initiatives within a common framework, and on the other has acted to boost the city-region’s smart city activities, especially with respect to economic development. Our analysis highlights the value of undertaking a holistic mapping of a smart city in formation, and the role of political and administrative geographies and specialist smart city units in shaping that formation.


Author(s):  
Stephan De Beer

This essay is informed by five different but interrelated conversations all focusing on the relationship between the city and the university. Suggesting the clown as metaphor, I explore the particular role of the activist scholar, and in particular the liberation theologian that is based at the public university, in his or her engagement with the city. Considering the shackles of the city of capital and its twin, the neoliberal university, on the one hand, and the city of vulnerability on the other, I then propose three clown-like postures of solidarity, mutuality and prophecy to resist the shackles of culture and to imagine and embody daring alternatives.


2020 ◽  
pp. 380-411
Author(s):  
Voula Tsouna

“Aristippus of Cyrene” re-evaluates the evidence concerning, on the one hand, Aristippus’ alleged hedonism and, on the other, his affiliation with Socrates and the Socratic circle. The central thesis of the chapter is this: even though some sources attribute to Aristippus the sort of ethical hedonism that we know to have been held by his grandson (Aristippus the Younger), there is strong evidence that in fact Aristippus of Cyrene was not an ethical hedonist but endorsed Socratic concerns and values. These latter include philosophical inquiry focused on ethics, the paramount importance of philosophy for education and the care of one’s soul, concern to develop the virtues and assess the relative value of external goods, the crucial role of reason and prudence in ethical conduct, the ethical implications of systematically pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, and the rationalism that should determine one’s attitudes toward relatives, acquaintances, fellow-citizens, and the city itself.


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