Ask the ancestors: reflections on the Avebury Project

A chapter on Walter's contribution to The Avebury Project, a site-oriented project supporting creative responses to Avebury Henge in Wiltshire. Walters documents visits to the site with other artists involved and the practice which resulted, considering the way in which rich heritage sites like Avebury might constitute places of enchantment that can spark both "ethical generosity" in Jane Bennett's sense and progressive forms of heritage in action at a time of climate emergency. Walters considers a broader notion of ancestry, neither solely familial nor entirely species specific, as a valuable concept that might inform a more holistic notion of sustainability

Sociocultural pressures, internalization and body esteem in congenitally blind, late-blind and sighted men and women

Introduction: Visual experience has a substantial effect on how individuals construct a template of their own bodies in space. Whether the absence of total or partial visual exposure in individuals of both genders allows the buffering of harmful effects has yet to be tested. This study examined the role of vision among congenitally blind and later blind subjects for the expression of body esteem and sociocultural attitudes toward appearance. Methods: Participants comprised 101 subjects, 53 sighted and 48 visually impaired men and women. For the purpose of the study, we took into consideration congenitally blind, late blind, and typically sighted individuals. The Sociocultural Attitudes toward Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3) and the Body-Esteem Scale Questionnaire (BESQ) were used as measures. Results: Although congenitally blind, late blind, and typically sighted individuals showed similar awareness of media content and beauty ideals, typically sighted women displayed higher pressure to conform and had higher levels of social comparison. Congenitally blind women placed less emphasis on mass media as an influential aspect of their body perception and showed reduced internalization of beauty ideals and higher levels of body esteem. Moreover, men with visual impairments considered siblings and family to be the most influential information sources for their own body perception, while showing reduced levels of athlete internalization. Discussion: In this research, it was identified that the absence of sight influences an individual's body image beyond its physical, metric representation. Susceptibility to detrimental messages linked to sociocultural standards of attractiveness is interiorized by individuals with and without visual impairments, regardless of their gender. Implications for Practitioners: Further studies on body esteem and sociocultural pressures could enable practitioners to better understand how to support individuals with visual impairments in coping with an unhealthy social environment and with feelings of unhappiness related to their appearance

Against dystopias with ecological literacy

The longstanding dismissal of the ecological in civilisations that have developed dramatic ecology-altering and planetary boundary crossing technologies is at the crux of contemporary planetary polycrisis. Desirable and even viable futures depend on the design of new ways of living on the planet based on understanding humans in dynamic entanglement with the more-than-human context. Prioritising ecological relations is a fundamental break with assumptions of modernity and associated technologies, social practices, and future visions. We bring design and ecological knowledge together to describe foundational work in designing transitions to Ecocene Protopias, i.e., places of continuous ecological transition. As our springboard, we identify defuturing work in particular formulations of utopian thought. By describing future visions that accelerate ecological harms, we draw attention to the ecology-denying assumptions underlying techno-utopian stories and ideologies. This paper presents ecological literacy as a foundational critical and imaginative capacity to avoid dystopias emerging from traditions that dismiss the ecological. Sustainable and regenerative design practice depends on bolstering designers’ ecological literacies to enable more effective collective reimagining and redesigning future ways of living within planetary boundaries

Changes in teacher education provision: comparative experiences internationally

Many changes have taken place in initial teacher education (ITE) programmes over the last number of years in countries such as Israel, Portugal, Jamaica, Ontario (Canada), and England. This paper outlines some of these changes, why they occurred, and to the extent possible, how effective these changes have been from the experience of the teacher educators who have written this paper. In particular, they describe one significant change that would greatly improve ITE in their respective jurisdictions. In the latter part of the paper, the writers discuss current trends and possible directions for teacher education across international contexts. With its contrasting accounts of ITE in different national contexts across the world, this article argues for high quality initial teacher education to provide a global educational workforce in which teachers and learners can flourish within an equal, yet diverse and decolonialised ecosystem

Global class actions: towards a blockchain-based dispute resolution system

Mass injuries caused by the violations of multinational firms are becoming more and more common in today’s globalised economy as goods and services are sold worldwide, and the harm these goods and services cause affects many widely scattered victims in different countries. Even if the same or almost identical factual situations injure consumers worldwide, whether they obtain any remedies varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as each country designs its class action procedure differently. In order to overcome jurisdictional variations and compensate consumers with small claims in a more effective and efficient manner, this article deliberates on the idea of incorporating blockchain-based dispute resolution methods into class action proceedings. In this light, the article discusses to what extent blockchain-based dispute resolution systems can be used in class actions to provide better access to justice to consumers at the global level

The best way to bury your husband

Sally never meant to cave her husband's head in with a skillet. Or at least she didn't until suddenly, she did. But Sally isn't the only woman in town being pushed to breaking point. When coincidence brings four strangers together, a surprising solidarity is formed. So can they find the best way to bury their husbands - and get away with it

A personalised approach to initial professional development: the Needs Analysis at UWE Bristol

The Needs Analysis was a personalised initial professional development intervention developed in 2022 by the Academic Practice Directorate (APD) at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). It was designed especially for new academic staff at UWE, principally probationary lecturers and senior lecturers. It centred on each participant having a 30-minute one-to-one meeting with a facilitator from the APD. They discussed the participant’s academic practice to date and looked to the new colleague’s development over approximately the next year. Meetings included bespoke signposting to professional development activities relevant to that individual’s needs and interests, including the most appropriate pathway through UWE’s Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. New academics were encouraged to attend a meeting as soon as possible after starting employment. It was a remarkably successful intervention which far exceeded our expectations. We ran 98 meetings across September 2022 to February 2023. 95% of participants agreed that the meeting was helpful, and 95% also thought that the meeting would influence their professional development (see Table 1). The highly positive comment which opened this article is remarkably pithy, but it aligns to common themes in participant feedback

Fifth of July: hybrid genre texts and a story in a mind: on hybridity as creative practice

This project explores modes of hybridity in creative and critical writing. Fifth of July is a collection of hybrid genre texts: prose forms that range from short lyrics to longer narrative essays. The backbone of the book is a sequence that unfolds over the course of a single day (the speaker's 30th birthday), while shorter, interleaved texts spin off to examine the speaker's relationship with her obsessions and her own mind. A Story in a Mind engages both with the craft of the creative work and, through exploring the relationship between hybridity and creative practice, the mind that produced it. The introduction orients the reader to a lineage of hybrid genre writing and proposes the idea of the author's mind as the self-referential arbiter of the project. The subsequent three essays examine three kinds of relationships in hybrid genre writing: between writer and reader, in 'Lecture Halls and Labyrinths: On Digression'; between form and tone, in 'Anyway, Back to the Critic: On Metaphor.' In addition to the creative artefact itself (by which is meant both Fifth of July and the essays comprising A Story in a Mind), this project contributes to new knowledge in the field of creative writing by providing a model for writers to access and employ hybridity not just at the level of content and form, but at the level of creative practice. This research (by which is meant both A Story in a Mind and the texts comprising Fifth of July) suggests that perceiving, naming, and even insisting on relationships is the foundational exercise of hybridity in writing. Further, this exercise of bringing together seemingly disparate genres, modes of expression, tonal registers, ideas, images, and disciplines is a type metaphorical thinking. Ultimately, this work contends that the act of metaphor-making is more than craft strategy; it is a creative practice that is central to the impetus of the mind to understand itself