Et Al.: New Voices in Arts Management

Et Al. imagines kaleidoscopic possibilities for the stewardship of culture and land as decolonizing practices. Culture and the arts can enhance society by strengthening our connections to each other and to the earth. This arts management book was born during a racial reckoning and accelerated by a global pandemic. What exactly is the business of no-business-as-usual? The ethical challenge for arts management is far more complex than asking how to get things done; we must also ask who gets to do things, where, and with what resources? Our task is to generate cultures that refuse to annihilate themselves or each other, much less the planet. Et Al. contributes to the conversation about arts and cultural management by providing rare, behind-the-scenes insights on justice-centered arts management praxis — ideas tied to action. The book makes space for people to publicly reflect, write, and share insights about their own ideas and ways of working. Its polyphonic voices speak to pragmatic strategies for arts management across cultures, genres, and spaces. Its stories are told from the perspective of individuals and families, micro businesses, artist collectives, and civic institutions. As a digital publication, the platform lends itself to multi-media knowledge objects; the experiences documented within it include ethnographies, qualitative social research, personal and communal manifestos, dialogues between peers, visual essays, videos, and audio tracks. This open source, multimedia book is structured into six streams which are numbered for their exponential powers: Stream¹ : Center is Everywhere; Stream² : Gathering Community; Stream³ : Honoring Histories; Stream⁴ : Shifting Research; Stream⁵ : Forging Paths; Stream⁶ : Generative Practice. The book discusses imaginative ways of generating cultural equity in praxis, and is an invitation for further imagination, conversation, and connection. Et Al. presents an interactive landscape for readers, thinkers, and creators to engage with multimedia and intergenerational essays by Amy Shimshon-Santo, Genevieve Kaplan, Gerlie Collado, Abraham Ferrer, Julie House, Britt Campbell, Delia Xóchitl Chávez, Sean Cheng, Yvonne Farrow, Allen Kwabena Frimpong, Kayla Jackson, Erika Karina Jiménez Flores, Cobi Krieger, Loreto Lopez, Cynthia Martínez Benavides, Christy McCarthy, Janice Ngan, Cailin Nolte, Michaela Paulette Shirley, Robin Sukhadia, Katrina Sullivan, and Tatiana Vahan.

Traumatic brain injury and coping processes – improving outcomes by involving family in the rehabilitation process

Following a traumatic brain injury, many patients struggle to cope with daily activities and experiences, both at the physical and psychological level. In addition to the patient's own coping process, the family's involvement in the heal-ing process is extremely important. Acute care is usually provided by family members and has the potential to either support or hinder rehabilitation and adaptation processes. In addition to new limits of self-care and complaints caused by brain damage, patients face far-reaching psychosocial problems. Despite increasing interest in the management of brain damage and processing of the disease, there is a lack of health-promoting concepts designed to address the impairments and psychosocial relationship difficul-ties suffered by people after traumatic brain injury. In this study, rehabilitation potential was identified by analyzing the results of biographical narrative interviews with men who had suffered a traumatic brain injury in an industrial accident, and their relatives. The selection and qualitative analysis of the rehabilitation process of traumatic brain injury patients reveals the potential for intervention and the need for a holistic integration process between the patient, relatives and physicians, which can be further supported by integrating family members into the treatment process. Keywords: rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury, qualitative social research, reintegration, relatives

Theorising ‘Good Personhood’ in Rural Kosovo: Inconspicuous Coexistence and Local Serb Responses to Security and Identity Dilemmas

This paper explores the everyday experiences, perceptions, and practices of Kosovo Serbs residing in the rural fabric of Southeast Kosovo with regard to security-related issues. Building on previous qualitative social research conducted in Central Kosovo, it particularly investigates how local responses of ordinary Serbs reflect a certain pragmatic performativity in the face of Kosovo Albanians. In-depth interviews and focus groups were held with locals, while field observation was conducted to construct locally nuanced knowledge about the relations between ordinary Serbs, their identity, and the surrounding landscape. Similar to the Central Kosovo study’s findings, the results confirm that in Southeast Kosovo, local Serbs neither displayed nor unfolded forms of vernacularism or disloyalty toward Kosovo Albanians. Conversely, they were found reflecting on potential creative solutions for tackling poverty and underdevelopment in the hope of avoiding replications of post-1999 Kosovo War ideologies emanated by respective national media coverages and political rhetoric. Moreover, it is argued that security experts have de facto overlooked untapped processes of present-day interethnic coexistence and resilience between Serbs and Albanians in the rural fabric by largely giving salience to the tense atmosphere in the Serb-majority urban clusters of North Kosovo. In fact, results also show that Kosovo Serbs pragmatically perform an account of quotidian practices for restoring a sense and self-image of ‘personhood’ in the eyes of the ‘ethnic other’. Employing a research approach that aimed at avoiding unnecessary ethnicisation, this paper sheds light on a peace potential and true civic responsibility that emerged spontaneously from Kosovo Serb voices. Overall, the paper lays the ground for debating the notion of ‘personhood’ as a lens through which to unravel inconspicuous yet present interethnic coexistence in post-conflict Kosovo.

Post-legislative Domestic Violence Situation and Socio-cultural Status of Women in Punjab: An Objective Hermeneutics Analysis

Violence against Women (VAW) occurs in different societies in assorted ways in the world. It can be seen from the different lens starting from family structure to the workplaces of women. In Pakistan women experience violence from their own family members even after the promulgation of legislation at national as well as at provincial level. There is variety of existing literature which explains the prevalence of violence in different countries around the globe but mere to find the literature that shows the post-legislative status of women in a country. This paper aims at describing the status of women after filing a case under the PPWAV Act, 2016 in Punjab. To explain and describe the said issue, the following study followed descriptive analysis and was based on qualitative social research methodology, followed by narrative approach. Relying on saturation of data, thirteen interviewees were interviewed for the said study. For analyzing the narratives, the objective hermeneutics as explained by flick (2014) was used to present data analysis. Major themes derived from the data were violence bringing women from four walls of the house, filing a case of domestic violence: violation of society values and Post case filed domestic problems. It is concluded that the said law does not harmonizes with the family values prevailing in Pakistani social structure hence is unable to eliminate the problem of domestic violence from Punjab.

Pragmatism As A Research Paradigm In The Social Study Of Children

The purpose of this paper was to examine to what extent social researchers who study children, either quantitatively or qualitatively, can be observant of the philosophical assumptions that underpin the methodological approaches they undertake. Primarily, the philosophical underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative social research, especially as they pertain to the social study of children, were delineated. Then, two systematic literature reviews of peer-reviewed articles that report on empirical studies published in the past year were conducted. One review focused on qualitative studies and the other on quantitative studies. The findings of these reviews suggest that strict adherences to the philosophical underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative social research are nearly impossible. In view of the findings, and in consideration of the unique limitations associated with the social study of children, pragmatism is suggested as an appropriate social research paradigm.

Pragmatism As A Research Paradigm In The Social Study Of Children

The purpose of this paper was to examine to what extent social researchers who study children, either quantitatively or qualitatively, can be observant of the philosophical assumptions that underpin the methodological approaches they undertake. Primarily, the philosophical underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative social research, especially as they pertain to the social study of children, were delineated. Then, two systematic literature reviews of peer-reviewed articles that report on empirical studies published in the past year were conducted. One review focused on qualitative studies and the other on quantitative studies. The findings of these reviews suggest that strict adherences to the philosophical underpinnings of quantitative and qualitative social research are nearly impossible. In view of the findings, and in consideration of the unique limitations associated with the social study of children, pragmatism is suggested as an appropriate social research paradigm.

Extended Case Method (ECM) in Social and Cultural Research

This article aims to introduce the Extended Case Method (ECM) as an approach to qualitative social research. As an approach, the ECM rooted in the ethnography approach in the anthropological tradition and developed in the sociological tradition research. With reference to Michael Buroway (1998) as a developer of ECM and some articles that used ECM as a method, this paper outlines the basic concepts of ECM, their advantages and infirmity, and the application of theories in social research by using ECM. As an extended case, there are four aspects that extend on ECM, namely intervention, processes, structuration, and reconstruction (theory). The advantage of ECM is their four extending. Rather than the infirmity of ECM rooted from their advantage, namely domination, silencing, objectification, and normalization. The use of theory in ECM was carried out from the beginning to the end of the study. Base on their characteristics, ECM very feasible to use to understanding borderless society and ambiguity of case study on research of social science in general, and ethnography especially.

Co-Interviewing in Qualitative Social Research: Prospects, Merits and Considerations

In this paper, we seek to open a dialogue about the approach of co-interviewing, which, to our surprise, has not received much attention in the realm of qualitative social research. The co-interviewing approach stands apart from ‘multiple’ interviewing, in which two or more researchers are tasked with conducting interviews in a single research study. Instead, this approach involves two researchers actively taking part in the same interview. In a qualitative grounded theory study that sought to explore doctoral students’ emotional well-being, we adopted the approach of co-interviewing each of our participants. This process involved us sharing the responsibilities of asking questions, probing, note taking and making observations. Our experience has led us to critically examine this unique approach to interviewing, and here, in this paper, we offer insights about its potential to enhance the generation of data and the research process. In doing so, we draw on literature, whilst reflecting on key concepts including power, reflexivity and well-being, by considering the positions of participants and researchers alike.

Thick Concepts in Social Research: What, Why, and How?

Thick concepts are concepts that describe and evaluate at once. Academic discussion on thick concepts originated in meta-ethics, but thick concepts increasingly draw attention from qualitative researchers working in the social sciences, too. However, these scholars work in relative isolation from each other, and an overview of their ideas is missing. This article has two aims. The first is to provide such an overview, by bringing together these disparate voices on why thick concepts matter for the social sciences and how to work with them in qualitative social research. The second aim is to reflect on the methodological difficulties of working with thick concepts, by thinking through the example of my research on a specific thick concept—the concept of dependency. The article argues that thick concepts are invoked by social researchers for either epistemological or methodological purposes. It then goes on to claim that if we want to take thick concepts as our sensitizing concepts or as our objects of research, these two purposes really ought to be considered in unison: any methodological approach involving thick concepts must factor in the epistemological challenge thick concepts pose to social-scientific research. To show why—and to consider what this requires from qualitative researchers—I draw on insights acquired during my study on dependency. I end with practical recommendations for working with thick concepts in social research.

VALUE CREATION THROUGH APPRECIATION? AN EXPLORATION OF THE PERCEPTION OF DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT IN A TRANSNATIONAL AVIATION GROUP

In view of certain socio-cultural and economic meta-processes, workforce diversity or diversity management become an increasingly important entrepreneurial success factor. Yet, the scholarly examination of diversity in the tourism and hospitality sector is still in its infancy, a fact that applies to qualitative studies in particular. This paper addresses the perception of diversity and diversity management within one of the world’s leading aviation corporations, the Lufthansa Group. Following the methodological principles of qualitative social research, this study reports the results of a survey of Lufthansa flight attendants, a stakeholder group that interacts like no other in the area of overlap between the corporation and its customers. Specifically, the survey focuses on Lufthansa’s diversity strategy – based on the principle of ‘value creation through appreciation’ – and how it is perceived by representatives of the cabin crew, in an attempt to identify potential conflicts and prejudices that may arise in the face of employee heterogeneity.