scholarly journals Speaking to Power: The Problem of Enabling Subaltern Voices to Be Heard. A Case Study Concerned with Using the Arts to Engage with the Issue of Maternal Mortality in Western Kenya

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 471
Author(s):  
Jane Plastow
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Health ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Western Kenya ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Artistic Interventions ◽  
Made In

In the context of consistently poor provision of state maternity services to impoverished women in western Kenya over many decades, this article discusses the use of arts in relation to researching subaltern perspectives and enabling subaltern voices to be heard by the powerful. The argument is made that behaviour change agendas are almost always top down, while requirements for the authorities to engage with subaltern voices are minimal and frequently resisted. Case studies are offered of two artistic interventions—a play and a documentary film, made in 2018 and 2019 respectively, which sought to engage medical authorities and the middle classes regarding the consequences of the, sometimes very weak, implementation of Kenya’s excellent policies in relation to maternal health for the poor. In conclusion, the question of how to more effectively enable the powerless to speak to power is discussed.

Translation policy

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-369
Author(s):  
Alireza Jazini
Keyword(s):  
End Users ◽  
Reception Theory ◽  
Audience Reception ◽  
Policy Network ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
Made In

Abstract The translation policy model by González Núñez (2013, 475) comprises three elements, namely “translation management”, “translation practices”, and “translation beliefs”. While the first two elements of this model are straightforward and easy to study in top-down approaches, translation beliefs can relate both to policymakers and policy receivers. However, the distinction has not been clearly made in this model and the element of translation beliefs has been chiefly treated in the literature as though it comes from the top levels of policymaking, hence overlooking the bottom-up aspects of it (see González Núñez 2014, 2016; Li et al. 2017). In order to improve this model, the present paper draws on the audience reception theory (Hall 1973), and shows that the current translation policy model requires a fourth element that I would call ‘translation reception’. The paper draws on the findings of a reception-oriented case study on translation policies in provincial broadcasting in Iran. This study argues that a more inclusive model of translation policy should not only include the authority-level elements of translation management, translation practices, and translation beliefs, but also the element of translation reception on the part of policy receivers. This way, I hope, the end users’ involvement in and contribution to the translation policy network will not be overlooked in subsequent research.

scholarly journals Violence and Social Memory in Twentieth-Century Belfast: Stories of Buck Alec Robinson

2014 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 734-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean O'Connell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Made In

AbstractThis article explores the life and commemoration of Buck Alec Robinson. A feared loyalist killer in 1920s Belfast, in more recent times he has featured as a lion-keeping “character” on wall murals and in tourist guide books. Robinson is employed as a case study to investigate two separate but, in this case, interlinked historiographical debates. The first involves Norbert Elias's analysis of the decline of violence. The second relates to discussion of the analysis of social memory in working-class communities, with violence being placed therein. The article supports historical assessments suggesting that the “civilizing offensive” had an uneven impact. That point is usually made in the context of working-class men. This article extends it to political elites in Belfast and probes their flirtations with violent hard men. The case is made that it is a mistake to assume the “civilizing” dynamic is to be understood as a teleological or top-down process.

scholarly journals La légitimité politique d'une politique sociale sélective

Res Publica ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 679-696
Author(s):  
Mark Andries
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
The One ◽  
Social Security Policy ◽  
Made In

Since the beginning ofthe 1980s, successive Belgian governments have pursued a social security policy that is a combination of cutting social expenditure on the one hand and improving the plight of lower income categories among benefit recipients on the other. This has been realised by means of a strategy of 'targeting within universalism ', i.e. improving the benefits for the poor and restricting them for the better off, but without abolishing the entitlements oft he latter category completely. The Belgian experience puts inperspective the 'middle class matters' argument, which predicts that, if cuts are made in social expenditure,the middle classes will use their political resources to defend the provisions they benefit from and to diminish the benefits reserved for the poor.

Amateurs and Auditors

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Edward McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Middle Classes ◽  
Educational Structures ◽  
Listening Experience ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Diverse Audience ◽  
Early Manifestation

Between 1810 and 1835 the British musical audience expanded from the nobility and the gentry to include members of the middle classes. Using the contemporary musical festival as a case study, this chapter examines how the accommodation of this larger, more intellectually diverse audience led to an early manifestation of the modern concert-listener. This development is explored in terms of factors that aided in the creation of a physical or intellectual “listening space.” These aspects include physical structures (stages, galleries), educational structures (histories of musical festivals, commentaries for training listeners), and linguistic structures (new terms to describe listening processes). As this chapter reveals, these structures solidified a common listening experience for the larger audience, while reinforcing class distinctions within it.

scholarly journals Social Media in and Around a Temporary Large-Scale Refugee Shelter in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110249
Author(s):  
Peer Smets ◽  
Younes Younes ◽  
Marinka Dohmen ◽  
Kees Boersma ◽  
Lenie Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Crisis Communication ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Top Down ◽  
And Migration

During the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, temporary refugee shelters arose in the Netherlands to shelter the large influx of asylum seekers. The largest shelter was located in the eastern part of the country. This shelter, where tents housed nearly 3,000 asylum seekers, was managed with a firm top-down approach. However, many residents of the shelter—mainly Syrians and Eritreans—developed horizontal relations with the local receiving society, using social media to establish contact and exchange services and goods. This case study shows how various types of crisis communication played a role and how the different worlds came together. Connectivity is discussed in relation to inclusion, based on resilient (non-)humanitarian approaches that link society with social media. Moreover, we argue that the refugee crisis can be better understood by looking through the lens of connectivity, practices, and migration infrastructure instead of focusing only on state policies.

The Power of Art to Cope With Trauma: Psychosocial Intervention After the Tsunami in Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 002216782098214
Author(s):  
Tami Gavron
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Psychosocial Intervention ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Psychosocial Interventions ◽  
Kindergarten Teachers ◽  
Japanese Culture ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
The Arts

This article describes the significance of an art-based psychosocial intervention with a group of 9 head kindergarten teachers in Japan after the 2011 tsunami, as co-constructed by Japanese therapists and an Israeli arts therapist. Six core themes emerged from the analysis of a group case study: (1) mutual playfulness and joy, (2) rejuvenation and regaining control, (3) containment of a multiplicity of feelings, (4) encouragement of verbal sharing, (5) mutual closeness and support, and (6) the need to support cultural expression. These findings suggest that art making can enable coping with the aftermath of natural disasters. The co-construction underscores the value of integrating the local Japanese culture when implementing Western arts therapy approaches. It is suggested that art-based psychosocial interventions can elicit and nurture coping and resilience in a specific cultural context and that the arts and creativity can serve as a powerful humanistic form of posttraumatic care.

CSim 2

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
David Sanan ◽  
Yongwang Zhao ◽  
Shang-Wei Lin ◽  
Liu Yang
Keyword(s):  
Programming Languages ◽  
Concurrent Systems ◽  
Theorem Prover ◽  
Compositional Techniques ◽  
Machine Code ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Hol Theorem Prover ◽  
High Level ◽  
High Degree

To make feasible and scalable the verification of large and complex concurrent systems, it is necessary the use of compositional techniques even at the highest abstraction layers. When focusing on the lowest software abstraction layers, such as the implementation or the machine code, the high level of detail of those layers makes the direct verification of properties very difficult and expensive. It is therefore essential to use techniques allowing to simplify the verification on these layers. One technique to tackle this challenge is top-down verification where by means of simulation properties verified on top layers (representing abstract specifications of a system) are propagated down to the lowest layers (that are an implementation of the top layers). There is no need to say that simulation of concurrent systems implies a greater level of complexity, and having compositional techniques to check simulation between layers is also desirable when seeking for both feasibility and scalability of the refinement verification. In this article, we present CSim 2 a (compositional) rely-guarantee-based framework for the top-down verification of complex concurrent systems in the Isabelle/HOL theorem prover. CSim 2 uses CSimpl, a language with a high degree of expressiveness designed for the specification of concurrent programs. Thanks to its expressibility, CSimpl is able to model many of the features found in real world programming languages like exceptions, assertions, and procedures. CSim 2 provides a framework for the verification of rely-guarantee properties to compositionally reason on CSimpl specifications. Focusing on top-down verification, CSim 2 provides a simulation-based framework for the preservation of CSimpl rely-guarantee properties from specifications to implementations. By using the simulation framework, properties proven on the top layers (abstract specifications) are compositionally propagated down to the lowest layers (source or machine code) in each concurrent component of the system. Finally, we show the usability of CSim 2 by running a case study over two CSimpl specifications of an Arinc-653 communication service. In this case study, we prove a complex property on a specification, and we use CSim 2 to preserve the property on lower abstraction layers.

scholarly journals Non-destructive handheld XRF study of archaeological composite silver objects—the case study of the late Roman Seuso Treasure

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktória Mozgai ◽  
Bernadett Bajnóczi ◽  
Zoltán May ◽  
Zsolt Mráv
Keyword(s):  
Fluorescence Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
High Quality ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Mechanical Attachment ◽  
Non Destructive ◽  
Made In ◽  
Late Roman

AbstractThis study details the non-destructive chemical analysis of composite silver objects (ewers, situlas, amphora and casket) from one of the most significant late Roman finds, the Seuso Treasure. The Seuso Treasure consists of fourteen large silver vessels that were made in the fourth–early fifth centuries AD and used for dining during festive banquets and for washing and beautification. The measurements were systematically performed along a pre-designed grid at several points using handheld X-ray fluorescence analysis. The results demonstrate that all the objects were made from high-quality silver (above 90 wt% Ag), with the exception of the base of the Geometric Ewer B. Copper was added intentionally to improve the mechanical properties of soft silver. The gold and lead content of the objects shows constant values (less than 1 wt% Au and Pb). The chemical composition as well as the Bi/Pb ratio suggests that the parts of the composite objects were manufactured from different silver ingots. The ewers were constructed in two ways: (i) the base and the body were made separately, or (ii) the ewer was raised from a single silver sheet. The composite objects were assembled using three methods: (i) mechanical attachment; (ii) low-temperature, lead-tin soft solders; or (iii) high-temperature, copper-silver hard solders. Additionally, two types of gilding were revealed by the XRF analysis, one with remnants of mercury, i.e. fire-gilding, and another type without remnants of mercury, presumably diffusion bonding.

scholarly journals A new renaissance for creativity in technology and the arts in the context of virtual worlds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Earnshaw
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Diverse Environment ◽  
Research Environments ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaborations ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Ideas

AbstractWhere do new ideas come from and how are they generated? Which of these ideas will be potentially useful immediately, and which will be more ‘blue sky’? For the latter, their significance may not be known for a number of years, perhaps even generations. The progress of computing and digital media is a relevant and useful case study in this respect. Which visions of the future in the early days of computing have stood the test of time, and which have vanished without trace? Can this be used as guide for current and future areas of research and development? If one Internet year is equivalent to seven calendar years, are virtual worlds being utilized as an effective accelerator for these new ideas and their implementation and evaluation? The nature of digital media and its constituent parts such as electronic devices, sensors, images, audio, games, web pages, social media, e-books, and Internet of Things, provides a diverse environment which can be viewed as a testbed for current and future ideas. Individual disciplines utilise virtual worlds in different ways. As collaboration is often involved in such research environments, does the technology make these collaborations effective? Have the limits of disciplinary approaches been reached? The importance of interdisciplinary collaborations for the future is proposed and evaluated. The current enablers for progressing interdisciplinary collaborations are presented. The possibility for a new Renaissance between technology and the arts is discussed.

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