Academic Aeromobility in the Global Periphery

Academics are part of a small minority that are responsible for disproportionate air travel emissions. Responding to high aviation emissions requires that the complexities of academic air travel practices are understood in specific geographical and institutional contexts. This chapter addresses the work-sociology of academic aeromobility in the context of the global periphery. We report on a programme of interviews conducted prior to COVID-19 with academics at the University of Otago (Aotearoa/New Zealand), where the aeromobility practices of academics are uniquely shaped by extreme geographical distance. Our empirical contribution is presented in the four themes that emerged from our analysis: complex drivers; selective substitution; ‘Don’t weaken me!’ and assorted scalar accountabilities. We then discuss aspects of resistance to change but also avenues of opportunity to reimagine academic air travel practices, which have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We specifically address the emergence of a post-COVID ‘new normal’ and conclude with the urgent need for collective action that is coordinated among individual academics, institutions, disciplinary associations and conference organisers. Entrenching the ‘new normal’ will be critical to resolving the unsustainable aeromobilities of academics and institutions that are globally distant.

The selfie production model: Rethinking selfie taking, editing, and posting practices

With the rise of digital technologies, selfies are a contemporary and popular form of digitally produced self-expression for Saudi women. Informed by Goffman’s (1959) self-presentation theory and Hall’s (1966) proxemics theory, this study explores the process of producing and posting selfies on Instagram and Snapchat platforms, and examines how these practices are shaped by cultural norms and platform affordances. Methodologically, an ethnographic approach was employed to observe selfie practices involving: focus groups, face-to-face interviews, online observation, and photo-elicitation interviews. The sample consisted of 35 Saudi women between 18-57 years old. The results were used to develop a framework for understanding selfie production consisting of six processes: the motivation process, pre-photo process, platform affordances process, audience customization process, assessment of cultural norms process, and the process of reposting selfie. Also, the study identified a number of strategies practiced by Saudi women to present a more desirable self, including: digitally editing the selfie using beautifying filters, arranging the background, retaking the selfie, and adding digital makeup. Cultural norms were found to heavily influence selfie practices, as selfie takers carefully select particular audiences with whom to share the selfie, while blocking others from viewing the selfie using “virtual walls” depending on veiling practices, habitual proximity, and the appropriateness of the content. The model and the identified strategies make an important empirical contribution that provides a new way of thinking about selfie practices outside Euromerica.

Resilience and Change in Opera Theatres: Travelling the Edge of Tradition and Contemporaneity

ABSTRACTOver the last century, the opera has changed dramatically and on several levels. This chapter maps out the major changes of the opera since its origin in its country of birth, Italy, discussing whether this evolution displays a form of transformative resilience. As a theoretical contribution, this case allows to challenge the resilience framework presented in Chapter 1, by raising several prominent questions for the conceptual advancement and empirical grounding of resilience. We ask: To what extent can an entity change in order to be considered a persisting entity and not a different entity? Or in other words: How much continuity is necessary to recognize resilience in the same entity? We add: How are different levels of resilience (institutional, organizational and individual) nested one into another, and therefore, how is the ‘agency of resilience’ played out? As an empirical contribution, this chapter sketches an empirical reconstruction of the history of the opera in a holistic longitudinal perspective.

EXPRESS: STRUGGLING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL: THE EMOTIONAL PROCESS OF SENSEMAKING FOLLOWING AN EXTREME INCIDENT

Organizations operating in extreme contexts regularly face dangerous incidents they can neither prevent nor easily control. In such circumstances, successful sensemaking can mean the difference between life and death. But what happens afterwards? Our study of emergency management practitioners following a major bushfire reveals a process of post-incident sensemaking during which practitioners continue to make sense of the incident after it ends, during the subsequent public inquiry, and as they try to implement the inquiry’s recommendations. Different varieties of sensemaking arise during this process as practitioners rely on different forms of coping to develop and share new understandings, which not only make sense of the original incident, but also enable changes to help the organization deal with future incidents. Our study also shows that practitioners experience a range of emotions during this process, some of which inhibit sensemaking while others – particularly different forms of anxiety – can facilitate it. Our study makes an important empirical contribution to recent theoretical work on varieties of sensemaking and provides new insights into the complex role of emotions in sensemaking in extreme contexts.

In search of alternatives for individualised workers: A comparative study of freelance organisations

This article contributes to the debate on the enterprise culture, which is characterised by the celebration of risk-taking and self-realisation, which in turn also implies self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce. It does so by investigating organisations created with the aim of finding alternatives for freelancers, who epitomise the processes of individualisation typical of late capitalism. The organisations studied, both companies and cooperatives, aim to enable freelancers to combine autonomy in running their business with access to labour and social rights and inclusion in a collective. Drawing on a multiple case study conducted in France and Italy, the article investigates how organisations can counteract the processes of self-responsibilisation and atomisation of the workforce by enacting principles typical of alternative organisations. This study thus provides a twofold contribution to critical organisational theory and sociological literature on the individualisation of work and feasible alternatives to it. Our findings show, first, that the enterprise culture can be challenged through alternative organising even when freelancers – a category of workers embodying the contemporary processes of individualisation – are at stake. Second, the study of these emerging organisations also contributes to the flourishing debate on alternative organisations by adding an original empirical contribution to ongoing reflections on alternatives to market capitalism.

Análise entre países do boca a boca do consumidor online: o papel da lealdade de ação no Brasil e na Suécia

This study intends to further expand the research on the connection between word-of-mouth (WOM) and customer loyalty, observing the effect of action loyalty on WOM of e-consumer in Este estudo pretende ampliar as pesquisas sobre a conexão entre boca a boca (WOM) e fidelização de clientes, observando o efeito da lealdade de ação sobre o WOM do consumidor online, em uma análise entre brasileiros e suecos. Usamos um método quantitativo por meio de survey, com consumidores residentes na Suécia e no Brasil. O teste de hipóteses foi realizado por meio de análise de regressão. Embora os países pesquisados ​​tenham diferentes estágios de industrialização e de desenvolvimento econômico, cada um com características únicas em relação às suas culturas nacionais, não há evidências de diferenças no WOM no efeito moderador da lealdade de ação. A principal contribuição deste estudo é o desenvolvimento e análise do efeito da lealdade de ação sobre o WOM e a respectiva diferença entre Brasil e Suécia. Os resultados são úteis para que os profissionais de varejo concentrem seus recursos no WOM entre os clientes que têm uma conexão pessoal entre si, a fim de fidelizar os clientes. Assim, este trabalho representa uma nova contribuição empírica para o campo do WOM, principalmente devido à abordagem da fidelização do cliente de consumidores online, especificamente quanto ao nível da lealdade (comportamento) apresentada.a cross-country analysis, between Brazilians and Swedes. We use a quantitative method by collecting answers from a survey, with consumers living in Sweden and in Brazil. The hypotheses test was realized by regression analysis. Although the countries surveyed have different stages of industrialization and economic development, each with unique characteristics in relation to their national cultures, there is no evidence of differences on WOM in the moderating effect of action loyalty. The main contribution of this study is the development and analysis of the effect of loyalty on WOM and the respective difference between Brazil and Sweden. The results are useful for retail professionals to focus their resources on WOM among customers who have a personal connection with each other, in order to gain customer loyalty. Thus, this work represents a new empirical contribution to the WOM field, mainly due to the approach being in online consumers, and to customer loyalty, specifically as the loyalty to the action (behavior) displayed by the customers.

Intensification, discovery and abandonment: Unearthing global ecologies of dis/connection in pandemic times

This article explores how people have reconfigured their dis/connective repertoires during COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns. Relying on a media ecology approach and on 45 interviews carried out in different parts of the world, it tackles two limitations of the digital disconnection literature, namely social media reductionism and universalism, advancing a theoretical and empirical contribution. Firstly, it explores and unfolds dis/connective practices in relation to an intricate multiplicity of old and new practices, technologies, platforms and formats, foregrounding three key dynamics in the reconfiguration of dis/connective repertoires: intensification, (re)discovery and abandonment. Then, it critically drills down into the uneven power relations, divides and inequalities that traverse these three dynamics. This article demonstrates that dis/connective practices are carried out across variable configurations of devices, formats and platforms and shaped by privileges and imbalances that are particularly severe in the context of the Global South. In doing so, this article complexifies taken-for-granted assumptions regarding the meanings of dis/connection, establishing a dialogue with digital inequality and labour studies, hence unfolding new horizons of inquiry for digital disconnection studies.

A living journals approach for the remote study of young children’s digital practices in Azerbaijan

This article proposes the living journals method for remotely studying participants, elevating participant agency in the data generation process and minimising or completely removing the need for a researcher to be physically present in the field. Employing this method, the paper describes how the method was used to explore 5-year-old children’s digital practices in five families in Azerbaijan. Mothers were assigned as ‘proxy’ researchers to generate the data following prompts sent through a smartphone application. Mothers’ answers were used to create journals, and subsequently, fathers separately, and mothers and children together were requested to interpret their own journals and those of other participant children. Allowing other families to comment on one another’s journals further revealed their attitudes towards using digital technologies and enriched the data, emphasising its multivocality and metatextuality. The article describes the living journals method in detail, highlighting its affordances for researchers to generate data from a distance in other contexts. The article also discusses the methodological and empirical contribution of the method to this study about young children’s engagements with digital media at home. By decentring the researcher in the data generation process, the method allows researchers to generate both visually and textually complex and rich data. The visual and personal nature of the method goes beyond text-based research accounts to bring the data to life, allowing the researcher to generate multimodal, multivocal, metatextual and multifunctional data.

Pertumbuhan Ekonomi dan Kemiskinan Indonesia: Analisis Dampak Liberalisasi Perdagangan pada Mitra Dagang Utama

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the effect of trade liberalization on Indonesia's exports by involving the three (South Korea, Japan, and China) major trading partner countries. Research Methodology: This study used the concept of a gravity model, with panel data samples from 1996 - 2019. This study used independent variables such as tariffs, level of openness, exchange rates, poverty, economic growth (GDP), inflation, and distance. Results: The study results found that tariffs and the level of openness have a significant effect on exports. It can be said that trade liberalization has an effect on exports. In addition, the variables GDP, poverty, and the exchange rate also have a significant effect on exports. Meanwhile, the two variables of inflation and distance have no effect on Indonesian exports. This condition shows the same thing among the three trading partner countries. Limitations: Other elements were not included in this study, such as digitalization and international trade technology. Contribution: The theoretical contribution of this research provides scientific contributions in the field of economic liberalization and poverty, and the empirical contribution shows that Indonesia's macroeconomic conditions are still dependent on trade with neighboring countries.