scholarly journals Socially engaged creative practices : a transdisciplinary study of Woza Moya

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Khaya Jean Mchunu
Keyword(s):  
Bodily Pain ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Holistic Health ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Community Organisation ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Craft Community

Woza Moya is an arts and craft community organisation which was officially established in 2002. It is one of two economic empowerment projects of the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust in KwaZulu-Natal which were initiated to form part of the Trust’s context-specific holistic health care approach. While Woza Moya sells a diverse range of products, it is well known for the Woza beadwork style. The Director of the project coined that term as a tribute to the custom of naming beadwork styles in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The present study investigates the socially engaged creative beadwork practices at Woza Moya. The study is framed by transdisciplinarity and presents eight vignettes that analyse the design and creation processes. The study is positioned in the interpretivist paradigm and draws upon transdisciplinary discourse from scholars such as Nicolescu (2010), McGregor (2015) as well as Ross and Mitchell (2018) and others. The study focuses on integration and collaboration, which are considered core characteristics of the transdisciplinary methodology (Morin 1999; Nicolescu 2010). Vignettes are promoted as a clear and rich way of deepening our understanding of collaborative, heterogeneous and complex design processes. The use of transdisciplinarity as a framework contributes to tracing both open and hidden activities which form part of the design process, and which embrace the transdisciplinary logic of inclusion and transformation, where creative designs form part of a holistic community care model. These vignettes are analysed according to themes. The themes which straddle the vignettes are: (1) interplay of beading, time and bodily pain, (2) creativity as contagious and viral, (3) men’s active role in beadmaking with women as mentors to men, (4) increased community action, (5) transformed and deepened understanding of others, (6) the ikhaya metaphor for the agora, zone of non-resistance and space of the included middle, and (7) building a home as progress and improvement. These themes combine to form a rich and descriptive rendering of the design and creation process. The central thesis presented in this study is that arts and craft community organisations such as Woza Moya are sites of strong and transformative transdisciplinarity (Ross and Mitchell 2018), which fits with McGregor’s (2015) call for transdisciplinary entrepreneurship.

scholarly journals Why developmental niche construction is not selective niche construction: and why it matters

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 20160157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karola Stotz
Keyword(s):  
Niche Construction ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Evolutionary Significance ◽  
Heritable Variation ◽  
Developmentally Regulated ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Developmental Niche ◽  
Constructed Environment ◽  
Selective Environment

In the last decade, niche construction has been heralded as the neglected process in evolution. But niche construction is just one way in which the organism's interaction with and construction of the environment can have potential evolutionary significance. The constructed environment does not just select for , it also produces new variation. Nearly 3 decades ago, and in parallel with Odling-Smee's article ‘Niche-constructing phenotypes', West and King introduced the ‘ontogenetic niche’ to give the phenomena of exo genetic inheritance a formal name. Since then, a range of fields in the life sciences and medicine has amassed evidence that parents influence their offspring by means other than DNA (parental effects), and proposed mechanisms for how heritable variation can be environmentally induced and developmentally regulated. The concept of ‘developmental niche construction’ (DNC) elucidates how a diverse range of mechanisms contributes to the transgenerational transfer of developmental resources. My most central of claims is that whereas the selective niche of niche construction theory is primarily used to explain the active role of the organism in its selective environment, DNC is meant to indicate the active role of the organism in its developmental environment. The paper highlights the differences between the construction of the selective and the developmental niche, and explores the overall significance of DNC for evolutionary theory.

scholarly journals Personal exploration: Serendipity and intentionality as altering positions in a creative process

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarit Mäkelä
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Creative Mind ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Ceramic Art

Artists and designers have recently begun to take an active role in contextualising the creative process in relation to their practice. Thus, understanding how the creative mind proceeds has been supplemented with knowledge obtained inside the creative process. In this way, the spheres of knowledge, material thinking and experience that are fostered through creative work have become entangled and embedded as elemental parts of the research process. This article is based on documentation and reflection of the author’s creative practice in contemporary ceramic art at the beginning of 2015. The article discusses how the creative process proceeds by alternating between two positions: serendipity and intentionality. By describing the different phases of the process, it reveals the interplay between the diverse range of activities and how these gradually construct the creative process

Whatsappsport: Using Whatsapp While Viewing Sports Events

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-296
Author(s):  
Ilan Tamir
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Sports Fans ◽  
World Cup ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
Integral Element

Viewing sports events was always qualitatively different from the viewing experience of other genres. The social experience and emotional investment of sports viewers created unique viewing habits, in which second screens and social media effectively extend the experience of the millions of concurrent sports viewers wishing to share their feelings with each other. The enormous popularity of Whatsapp groups in recent years, and especially sports-focused groups, has made this app an integral element in event viewing, and created a unique viewing dynamic. This study analyzes the discourse in Whatsapp sports groups in Israel as its members view the 2018 World Cup soccer games, in an effort to identify the new role of second screens during sports broadcasts. An analysis of group messages shared by Whatsapp sports groups whose members cover a diverse range of ages and geographic locations basically shows that, in contrast to other media genres in which second screening is not necessarily related to the content broadcast on the primary screen, sports fans demonstrate an absolute commitment to the primary broadcast when second screening. On a deeper level, this study identified four main functions of Whatsapp groups during sports broadcasts: a social agent that supervises and controls the nature and quality of the primary screen broadcast, the generator of discourse that extols viewers’ expertise and effectively challenges traditional sport hierarchies, an active role in game management as fans attempt to influence game outcomes, and a means for extending fans’ celebrations of victory beyond the boundaries of the game.

Using ArcGIS Portal to inform decision making for Integrated Coastal Management, KwaZulu-Natal

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 12-18
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Goble ◽  
Trevor Hill ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Coastal Management ◽  
Coastal Environment ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Institutional Knowledge ◽  
Kwazulu Natal

The coastal environment is one of the most utilised for human activities; providing a diverse range of goods and services such as fisheries, water purification and coastal erosion protection. This results in the need for effective, ongoing management and informed decision making, to ensure long-term sustainability of the coastal environment. However, Goble et al. (2017) highlight that institutional knowledge and capacity are currently limited to achieve the objectives of effective coastal management. This research considers the use of ArcGIS Portal as a component of a Decision Support System (or Info-portal) for coastal management in KwaZulu-Natal, through the development of an online, interactive mapping platform. This platform offers a portal to decision makers to access and interrogate data and information, thus informing decision making. The development of this tool followed a participatory approach, and engagement with end-users throughout the process to ensure that the tool meets users’ requirements. To date, the info-portal has been well utilised by both decision makers and members of the public that are interested in the coast. It offers an excellent example of the power of a spatial tool in improving decision making.

Climate change, environmental justice and the unusual capacities of posthumans

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (0) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Nick J Fox ◽  
Pam Alldred
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
White Male ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Global North ◽  
Context Specific

In this article, we theorize and develop a posthumanist and new materialist approach to sustainable development policy. We trace a humanist and anthropocentric emphasis in policy discussions of ‘sustainable’ development that reaches back almost 50 years, and still underpins recent United Nations (UN) statements. This UN approach has tied policies to counter environmental challenges such as anthropogenic climate change firmly to sustaining and extending future human prosperity. By contrast, we chart a path beyond humanism and anthropocentrism, to establish a posthumanist environmentalism. This acknowledges human matter as an integral (rather than opposed) element within an all-encompassing ‘environment’. Posthumanism simultaneously rejects the homogeneity implied by terms such as ‘humanity’ or ‘human species’, as based on a stereotypical ‘human’ that turns out to be white, male and from the global North. Instead, ‘posthumans’ are heterogeneous, gaining a diverse range of context-specific capacities with other matter. Some of these capacities (such as empathy, altruism, conceptual thinking and modelling futures) are highly unusual and – paradoxically – may be key to addressing the current crises of environmental degradation and anthropogenic climate change.

Zero Tolerance in South Australia: A Statewide Community Initiative

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Community Services ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Women And Children

The Zero Tolerance Campaign against violence to women and children is a hard hitting, controversial campaign designed to raise public awareness and provoke debate about male abuse of power in the areas of domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, and child sexual abuse. Zero Tolerance is also an example of best practice in cross sectoral co-operation. The campaign comprises a statewide initiative involving the Health Promotion Unit of the South Australian Health Commission, the Domestic Violence Resource Unit, Family and Community Services, community health workers and local community action groups throughout the state. The process of bringing together a wide range of individuals from very different backgrounds and differing perspectives to work collaboratively on a controversial, innovative project led to extensive examination and defining of the issues involved. The planning process included a microcosm of the debate which Zero Tolerance intends to generate in the community. Resolution of the issues raised, employed many of the strategies developed and identified as best practice in the field of primary health care. The paper explores the challenges and rewards in the context of working collaboratively through the planning of a controversial initiative and identifies the merits of a campaign which has built on a diverse range of knowledge. Zero Tolerance, as a campaign, has the scope to be adapted in a variety of culturally and socially diverse initiatives as it becomes identified as an example of international best practice developed to stop violence against women and children.

scholarly journals Public Engagement Events and the Management of External Stakeholders: Artifacts as Boundary Objects or Tools of Discipline and Control?

2020 ◽  
pp. 875697282094047
Author(s):  
Vivien Chow ◽  
Roine Leiringer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Flow ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Boundary Objects ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Material Artifacts ◽  
And Control

Public engagement is founded on idealistic principles of democratic decision making and public stewardship. Yet, the logistical realities of managing these processes are fraught with difficulties. In this article, we explore the ways in which material artifacts are used in formal public engagement proceedings on urban development projects in Hong Kong. The findings show that material artifacts used—in addition to serving as boundary objects that facilitate communication across knowledge boundaries—form part of a network that directs, controls, and manages the information flow among participants. These artifacts thus play an active role in managing the divergent interests of external stakeholders on projects.

scholarly journals Using ArcGIS Portal to inform decision making for Integrated Coastal Management, KwaZulu-Natal

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Bronwyn Goble ◽  
Trevor Hill
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Coastal Management ◽  
Coastal Environment ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Institutional Knowledge ◽  
Kwazulu Natal

The coastal environment is one of the most utilised for human activities; providing a diverse range of goods and services such as fisheries, water purification and coastal erosion protection. This results in the need for effective, ongoing management and informed decision making, to ensure long-term sustainability of the coastal environment. However, Goble et al. (2017) highlight that institutional knowledge and capacity are currently limited to achieve the objectives of effective coastal management. This research considers the use of ArcGIS Portal as a component of a Decision Support System (or Info-portal) for coastal management in KwaZulu-Natal, through the development of an online, interactive mapping platform. This platform offers a portal to decision makers to access and interrogate data and information, thus informing decision making. The development of this tool followed a participatory approach, and engagement with end-users throughout the process to ensure that the tool meets users’ requirements. To date, the info-portal has been well utilised by both decision makers and members of the public that are interested in the coast. It offers an excellent example of the power of a spatial tool in improving decision making.

scholarly journals Going Beyond the Point Neuron: Active Dendrites and Sparse Representations for Continual Learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karan Grewal ◽  
Jeremy Forest ◽  
Ben Cohen ◽  
Subutai Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Neuron Model ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Biological Properties ◽  
Linear Functions ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Dendritic Networks ◽  
New Information ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Continual Learning

Biological neurons integrate their inputs on dendrites using a diverse range of non-linear functions. However the majority of artificial neural networks (ANNs) ignore biological neurons' structural complexity and instead use simplified point neurons. Can dendritic properties add value to ANNs? In this paper we investigate this question in the context of continual learning, an area where ANNs suffer from catastrophic forgetting (i.e., ANNs are unable to learn new information without erasing what they previously learned). We propose that dendritic properties can help neurons learn context-specific patterns and invoke highly sparse context-specific subnetworks. Within a continual learning scenario, these task-specific subnetworks interfere minimally with each other and, as a result, the network remembers previous tasks significantly better than standard ANNs. We then show that by combining dendritic networks with Synaptic Intelligence (a biologically motivated method for complex weights) we can achieve significant resilience to catastrophic forgetting, more than either technique can achieve on its own. Our neuron model is directly inspired by the biophysics of sustained depolarization following dendritic NMDA spikes. Our research sheds light on how biological properties of neurons can be used to solve scenarios that are typically impossible for traditional ANNs to solve.

scholarly journals Management of cryptococcal meningitis in a district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal: A clinical audit

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin O. Adeyemi ◽  
Andrew Ross
Keyword(s):  
Amphotericin B ◽  
Cryptococcal Meningitis ◽  
District Hospital ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Routine Practice ◽  
Urban District ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Clinical Records ◽  
The Impact

Background: Despite the development of context-specific guidelines, cryptococcal meningitis (CCM) remains a leading cause of death amongst HIV-infected patients. Results from clinical audits in routine practice have shown critical gaps in clinicians’ adherence to recommendations regarding the management of CCM.Aim: The aim of this study was to review the acute management of CCM at an urban district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa with a view to making recommendations for improving care.Setting: An urban district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.Methods: A retrospective audit was performed on clinical records of all patients (age > 13 years) admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of CCM between June 2011 and December 2012.Results: Measurement of cerebrospinal fluid opening pressure at initial lumbar puncture (LP) was done rarely and only 23.4% of patients had therapeutic LPs. The majority of patients (117/127; 92.1%) received amphotericin B, however, only 19 of the 117 patients (16.2%) completed the 14-day treatment target. Amphotericin B-toxicity monitoring and prevention was suboptimal; however, in-patient referral for HIV counselling and testing was excellent.Conclusions: The quality of care of CCM based on selected process criteria showed gaps in routine care at the hospital despite the availability of context-specific guidelines. An action plan for improving care was developed based on stakeholders’ feedback. A repeat audit should be conducted in the future in order to evaluate the impact of this plan and to ensure that improvements are sustained.

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