Unpacking overtourism as a discursive formation through interdiscursivity

Purpose As tourism destinations grapple with declines in tourist arrivals due to COVID-19 measures, scholarly debate on overtourism remains active, with discussions on solutions that could be enacted to contain the excessive regrowth of tourism and the return of “overtourism”. As social science holds an important role and responsibility to inform the debate on overtourism, this paper aims to understand overtourism by examining it as a discursive formation. Design/methodology/approach The paper explores recurring thematic threads in scholarly overtourism texts, given the phrases coherence as a nodal-point is partially held in place by a collective body of texts authored by a network of scholars who have invested in it. The paper uses interdiscursivity as an interpretative framework to identify overlapping thematic trajectories found in existing discourses. Findings Overtourism, as a discursive formation, determines what can and should be said about the self-evident “truths” of excessive tourist arrivals, the changes tourists bring to destinations and the range of discursive solutions available to manage or end overtourism. As the interpellation of these thematic threads into scholarly texts is based on a sense of crisis and urgency, the authors find that the themes contain rhetoric, arguments and metaphors that problematise tourists and construct them as objects in need of control and correction. Originality/value While the persistence of the discursive formation will be determined by the degree to which scholarly and other actors recognise themselves in it, this paper may enable overtourism scholars to become aware of the limits of their discursive domain and help them to expand the discourse or weave a new one.

Circular Economy Business Models: The Complementarities with Sharing Economy and Eco-Innovations Investments

The transition from the linear economy to the circular economy exhibits some criticalities that can be solved through the identification of factors pushing and pulling the transition itself. By adopting a public good perspective in analysing the main features of the circular business models, this study underlines how the sharing economy business models are well integrated and complementary to some features of the circular economy, representing a strong pulling factor. Other loops of the circular economy need an explicit push factor, individuated in a strong impulse to eco-efficiency, to be reached through consistent incentives to invest in R&D for eco-innovations. Seven case studies are investigated in their aims, feasibility and implementation to support the interpretative framework.

Problematic Terminology in a Tentative Research Methodology for the Visual Culture of the Balkans

"The aim of this paper is to highlight and briefly discuss some of the most problematic terms and concepts that recur in art historiography: for example, the words Byzantine, post-Byzantine, Eastern, Western and Local. These concepts are used in a misleading way not only by American and Western European authors, but also by Eastern and South-Eastern European ones: in fact, the “Balkan” art historiography based itself on the Western-European one, adopting its periodisation, terminology and interpretative framework, which led to a number of methodological problems that researchers are now trying to identify, discuss and, if possible, solve. Keywords: art historiography, South-Eastern Europe, silverwork, Byzantium. "

Deep Learning Assisted Doppler Sensing for Hydrocarbon Downhole Flow Velocity Estimation

Logging hydrocarbon production potential of wells has been at the forefront of enhancing oil and gas exploration and maximize productivity from oil and gas reservoirs. A major challenge is accurate downhole fluid phases flow velocity measurements in production logging due to the criticality of mechanical spinner-based sensor devices. Ultrasonic Doppler based sensors are more robust and deployable either in wireline or logging while drilling (LWD) conditions; however, due to the different sensing physics, the measurement results may not be equivalent. We present in this work an innovative deep learning framework to estimate spinner phase velocities from Doppler based sensor velocities. Tests of the framework on a benchmark dataset displayed strong estimation results. This allows for the real-time automatic interpretative framework implementation and flow velocity estimations either in conventional wireline production logging technologies (PLTs) and potentially also in LWD conditions, when the well is flowing in underbalanced conditions.

Combining interpretative phenomenological analysis and existential hermeneutic phenomenology to reveal critical moments of managerial lived experience: a methodological guide

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer a complete guide to a qualitative method for capturing critical moments of managerial practice that combines interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and existential hermeneutic phenomenology (EHP).Design/methodology/approachThis article is based on the findings of extensive research and describes in detail the specific steps that must be taken for complete replication of research. The research uses methods of IPA and critically develops the EHP framework with an emphasis on the analysis of interpersonal relationships.FindingsDepending on the testing of the research method in practice, the article evaluates the IPA-EHP method as suitable for the research on critical moments of managerial lived experience, considering the causes of the crisis.Originality/valueThis article is based on demand from academics who would like to use this method to analyse managerial practice. Especially now, at a time associated with a number of challenging events, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, qualitative research is gaining in importance, even in management science. The original interpretative framework based on the phenomenology of Fink and Patočka is appropriate in this respect.

Scaffolding of Wikipedia translation for technology-enhanced language learning

This paper reports on the fi ndings from training on language learning of pre service language student teachers on the translation of English Wikipedia articles into Oshikwanyama and Oshindonga. The interpretative framework of scaffolding was used to conduct the training. The study involved a group of 24 pre-service language student and teachers from a university in Namibia. Data was generated through the observation of the Wikipedia translation intervention referred to above. An openended questionnaire that served as a tool for refl ection on the translation was also used. The participants made use of several mediating technological tools (computers, internet, the Wikipedia website, and online dictionaries) as well as language books and dictionaries to translate articles on the Wikipedia website from English, the students’ second language, into Oshikwanyama/Oshindonga, their home languages. The fi ndings suggest that Wikipedia is a good resource for helping student teachers integrate the use of technology into their language learning in the fi rst-language classroom. It also offers student teachers a chance to develop strategies that scaffold learning in a structured way, using both technological and language mediating tools that are accessible and convenient to use.

Exodus in Matthew’s Looking Glass: Jesus’s Flight to Egypt (Matt 2:13–18) as a Reflection Story

Matthew’s placement of Hosea 11:1 – “Out of Egypt I called my son” – following the arrival of Jesus in Egypt has been largely misinterpreted by scholars as a “premature quotation.” The Old Testament’s expanded portrayal of a symbolic Egypt, the interpretative framework of the Social Identity Approach, and the recognition of Matthew 2:13–18 as a “reflection story” add the necessary keys for understanding Hosea 11:1’s placement. Old Testament exodus stories not only advance the possibility of a symbolic interpretation of Egypt in the citation, but they favor such an interpretation. The exodus allusions in Matthew’s story endorse this symbolic interpretation of Israel as the Egyptian Other. In the looking glass of the exodus, Matthew’s Flight to Egypt story reveals both the character of the Other and that of the story’s hero.

Translating a worldview in the longue durée: The Tale of “The Bear’s Son”

<p>Translation is usually understood as the practice of rendering a text written in one language into another, a process that also requires taking into consideration the cultural similarities and differences entrenched in each language. In this chapter a set of European folktales, referred to collectively as the tale of “The Bear’s Son,” are analysed, focusing on the way that the interpretative framework utilised by storytellers and their audiences has changed over time. The chapter enters a terrain that has been little explored, engaging with and addressing not only the question of the role played by folktales in projecting cultural mindsets, but also their role in constructing, maintaining, and ultimately deconstructing a worldview that appears to have been grounded initially in the belief that humans descended from bears.</p>

Relational Quantum Mechanics and the PBR Theorem: A Peaceful Coexistence

According to Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) the wave function $$\psi$$ ψ is considered neither a concrete physical item evolving in spacetime, nor an object representing the absolute state of a certain quantum system. In this interpretative framework, $$\psi$$ ψ is defined as a computational device encoding observers’ information; hence, RQM offers a somewhat epistemic view of the wave function. This perspective seems to be at odds with the PBR theorem, a formal result excluding that wave functions represent knowledge of an underlying reality described by some ontic state. In this paper we argue that RQM is not affected by the conclusions of PBR’s argument; consequently, the alleged inconsistency can be dissolved. To do that, we will thoroughly discuss the very foundations of the PBR theorem, i.e. Harrigan and Spekkens’ categorization of ontological models, showing that their implicit assumptions about the nature of the ontic state are incompatible with the main tenets of RQM. Then, we will ask whether it is possible to derive a relational PBR-type result, answering in the negative. This conclusion shows some limitations of this theorem not yet discussed in the literature.

A Critical Analysis of Blaustein’s Polemic Against Husserl’s Method

The aim of the article is to define and investigate an interpretative framework for the philosophy of Leopold Blaustein, a student of Twardowski in Lwów (Lvov, Lviv) and Husserl in Freiburg im Breisgau. The author defends the thesis that it is justified to refer to Blaustein’s philosophy not as phenomenology sensu stricto, but as a phenomenologically-oriented descriptive psychology related but not equivalent to the project expounded by Husserl in the first edition of Logische Untersuchungen as well as in his project of phenomenological psychology (as formulated in 1925). The article traces Blaustein’s critique of Husserl’s phenomenological methods, putting it in the historical context of the discussion with Ingarden. Next, the author juxtaposes Blaustein’s understanding of psychology with Husserl’s project of 1925, which makes it possible to identify not only the differences between the two projects, but also their similarities. The article also raises questions about the scope of descriptive-psychological analyses.