New Economics Books

A wide ranged Editor Selection of economic books published within the last 3 months by the publishers (for now; Edward Elgar, Springer, and World Scientific) which are reached out “the consensus of no copyright infringement exists” could be found under this title. Afterwards, JEL will continue to publish the economic books published within the last 3 months as listing them in its quarter edition. This is expected to enable the journal readers to follow the related literature and be aware of the new books. The list will continue to expand as accepting the books of new co-operated publishers and personal applications. The list order is organized according to book titles’ alphabetic priority

Critical indirectness as a design approach in participatory practice: Spatialities of multivocal estrangement in three engagements with public cultural institutions around participatory projects in Gothenburg

Contributing across the domains of open transdisciplinary inquiry and transdisciplinary- and practice-oriented architectural and urbanism research engaging critically with participation in urban contexts, this research proposes critical indirectness as a multivocal design approach in participatory practice, developed through conceptual-analytical inquiry into three cases involving engagements between external art and design practitioners and public cultural institutions around participatory projects in Gothenburg. It joins with calls for art and design practitioners\u27 greater engagement with public sector institutions as way of working towards a more durable and wider impact, with calls to model a more de-centered \u27urban-combinatory\u27 practice on the plurality, hybridity, discontinuities, and contingencies of the contemporary city, and with calls for more multiple, contradictory approaches. Its methodological approach, open transdisciplinary turn-taking, likewise pursued these aims via alternating engagements between institutional and external actors, my own and others\u27 practices, and theory from multiple fields. The primary aim is to explore how art and design practitioners (including researchers and institutional actors) can develop greater capacity to critically wayfind within the complexities of engagements with public cultural institutions in and around participatory processes. This is supported by two interrelated inquiries, the first reworks monovocal understandings of participation, critique, institutions, and actors as multivocal—simultaneously collective, complex, and involving actors\u27 critical and creative trajectories of agency. The second conceptualizes multivocal relations as having their own critical efficacy through potentially estranging effects, which can be both reflexively perceived by practitioners and furthered by design. These two inquiries combine in the use, in case analyses, of alternating voices, transversing voices, and wavering voices—conceptual-analytical lenses enabling focus on the critical and creative potentials of spatialities of multivocal estrangement generated by differential interrelations between \u27voices\u27

Creating a Framework for Participatory Practice

Public participation has become highly relevant in the practice of urban and regional planning, as well as within a number of planning-related disciplines. A broad body of research has been developed on how to more effectively involve the public in a participatory planning process, and recent decades have seen the rapid development of a wide range of methods for doing so. This proliferation of various participation methods presents a number of organizational challenges that may hinder the practitioner’s ability to select participatory methods effectively. In order to better understand these challenges, this dissertation explores the history of how planning literature has addressed participatory practice, highlighting publication of participation-focused articles as exemplified by two major planning journals from their inception. We then analyze categorization schemes for participatory methods, highlighting five different ways that categorization for methods has been approached: level-, objective-, method-, stage-, and participant-based schemes. Finally, we explore the development of an integrated, comprehensive and hierarchical scheme for organizing participatory practices that can serve as decision-making support for planners and other professionals. By examining the past, present and potential future evolution of participatory planning methods, as well as the articulation between participatory theory and practice, this research aims to lay the initial groundwork for strengthening the relationship between participatory research and practical application, and more broadly, to understand how participatory programs can be planned more effectively to create more effective and representative plans and policies

Children and young people's participation in planning and regeneration: a final report to the Ecorys Research Programme 2010-11

This briefing paper summarises the findings from research carried out by Ecorys (formerly ECOTEC) and Loughborough University. The study set out to examine children and young people's roles in planning, design and regeneration in the UK and internationally; to map and assess different models of practice, and to locate these practices within wider debates about children's participation and citizenship. It also aimed to review the methods used to measure impact and outcomes in this area. The work was carried out between June 2010 and January 2011, and funded through the 2010-11 Round of the Ecorys Research Programme1. The methodology comprised a review of UK and international research literature, adopting the principles of a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA)2; an analysis of selected UK policy and strategy documents, and a small number of exploratory stakeholder interviews. The research team was supported by an Advisory Group with representatives from policy and academia. The report concludes that the spatial aspects of children's participation crosscut the wider participation agenda, but have too often been overlooked within a service-driven approach to policymaking. There is evidence from research and practice that children and young people can play a significant role within planning and regeneration processes, with potential benefits at individual, peer group and community levels. A stronger evidence base is clearly needed to understand the longer-term impacts in this area. The recent change in government and emerging policies present both opportunities and challenges for children and young people's participation within the UK. There has been a renewed focus on citizenship of sorts, whilst the Localism agenda and Big Society place an emphasis on municipal leadership, which is a characteristic feature of many rights-based programmes worldwide. However, public sector funding cuts, coupled with the dismantlement of the national planning framework arguably run the risk of leaving children more vulnerable to exclusion from local planning decisions that affect their lives. The authors argue that developing a more outward-facing approach, and engaging with the various transnational networks of good practice that have been established around the CRC agenda should be a priority

Lessons learned from eco-district pilot projects : the importance of stakeholder relations

Le changement climatique devenant de plus en plus une réalité à laquelle les villes du monde entier sont confrontées, les menaces environnementales globales et locales à celles-ci soulignent la nécessité d'un nouveau paradigme dans les disciplines du cadre bâti, un nouveau paradigme autant en termes des processus de conception et de planification que des résultats construits. Afin de répondre à cet appel en faveur d'un développement urbain plus durable et plus résilient, au cours de la dernière décennie, un nombre croissant d’outils de quartiers durables ont vu le jour. Alors que plusieurs études ont cherché à comprendre le contenu, la forme et la structure des outils de quartiers durables, il existe encore des lacunes importantes concernant le « comment » de ces outils : Comment les outils de quartiers durables mènent-ils à de meilleures pratiques dans les domaines de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme? Comment ces outils sont-ils mis en oeuvre et quelles leçons peut-on en tirer ? Comment contribuent-ils à briser les silos professionnels pour favoriser une réflexion plus intégrée et collaborative ? Cette thèse vise à expliquer comment les outils de quartiers durables sont utilisés dans la pratique et dans quelle mesure ils contribuent à l'évolution vers un paradigme plus régénératif et résilient. Ce projet de recherche de nature qualitative repose sur trois études de cas approfondies de projets pilotes d'éco-quartiers qui ont expérimenté avec des outils de quartiers durables : d'abord, les projets pilotes « EcoDistricts » à Portland en Oregon ; deuxièmement, le projet pilote « BREEAM-Communities » à Malmö en Suède ; et troisièmement, le projet pilote « superîlot » et l’outil « Urbanisme Écologique » à Barcelone, en Espagne. Le projet de recherche utilise une stratégie exploratoire dans laquelle des entrevues semi-structurées avec les parties prenantes impliquées dans ces projets pilotes permettent de construire un cadre théorique fondé sur le processus. Les résultats démontrent les nombreuses façons dont les outils de quartiers durables ont un impact sur la pratique, en particulier à l'égard des quatre volets suivantes : la collaboration, la participation citoyenne, les relations entre les parties prenantes et la communication visuelle. Les résultats de l'étude de cas ont également mis en lumière les écarts entre les attentes des outils de quartiers durables et la réalité de leur mise en oeuvre. En effet, les études de cas identifient des obstacles externes et internes qui expliquent la raison pour laquelle le nouveau paradigme se manifeste de façon marginale, par l'entremise des outils. Les résultats servent à rappeler que les outils de quartiers durables ne peuvent être compris en vase clos. Au contraire, comment et quand ils sont utilisés et comment ils sont encadrés sont tout aussi importants. L’application réussie de ces outils dépend de diverses conditions qui peuvent conduire à une meilleure collaboration, participation citoyenne, relations entre les parties prenantes et communication visuelle. Celles-ci incluent, par exemple, l’alignement des atouts, des actions et des attentes des parties prenantes ; favoriser les attributs internes dans les équipes de planification, tels que la capacité renforcée, le leadership fort et la confiance dans le processus ; disposer de mécanismes de résolution des conflits ; et en veillant à ce que la participation de la communauté soit non seulement profonde mais suffisamment précoce pour avoir un impact sur la prise de décision. Sur la base de ces résultats, le projet propose un « cadre de soutien aux parties prenantes » pour les outils de quartiers durables de troisième génération. Au niveau macro, il propose trois principes directeurs pour les outils de quartiers durables. À une échelle plus fine, il fournit une série de concepts et de boîtes à outils pour aider les dirigeants d'éco-districts à développer des processus plus régénératifs, résilients et justes.As climate change becomes more and more a reality that cities around the world face, global and local environmental threats to cities highlight the need for a new paradigm in built environment disciplines, a new paradigm as much in terms of design and planning processes as built outcomes. In order to help answer this call for more sustainable and resilient urban development, over the past decade or so, a rapidly increasing number of neighbourhood sustainability frameworks have emerged. While several studies have aimed at understanding the content, form and structure of neighbourhood sustainability frameworks, important knowledge gaps exist concerning the ‘hows’ of these frameworks: How are neighbourhood sustainability frameworks leading to better practice? How are these frameworks being implemented, and what can be learned from this? How are they contributing to breaking down professional silos to foster integrated and collaborative thinking? This dissertation aims at explaining how neighbourhood sustainability frameworks are used in practice and to what extent they are contributing to the shift towards a more regenerative and resilient paradigm for the built environment. This qualitative research project is based on three in-depth case studies of ecodistrict pilot projects that have experimented with neighbourhood sustainability frameworks: first, the EcoDistricts pilot projects in Portland, Oregon; second, the BREEAM-Communities Masthusen pilot project in Malmö, Sweden; and third, the superblock pilot project and the Ecological Urbanism framework in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona, Spain. The research project uses a qualitative, exploratory approach in which semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in the pilot projects helped to construct an analytical framework – the ‘process-based approach.’ The results show the number of ways in which the neighbourhood sustainability frameworks impact practice, specifically in terms of four dimensions: collaboration, community participation, stakeholder relations and visual communication. The case study results also shed light on the gaps between the expectations of the frameworks and the reality of how they are implemented. Indeed, external and internal barriers are identified in the case studies, which serve to explain why the frameworks are making only modest progress in the shift to a new paradigm. The results serve as a reminder that neighbourhood sustainability frameworks cannot be understood in a vacuum. On the contrary, how and when they are used, and how they are framed are equally important. The successful application of these frameworks depends on a variety of conditions that can lead to better collaboration, community participation, stakeholders relations and visual communication. These include for instance, the alignment of stakeholder assets, actions and expectations; fostering internal attributes in the planning teams; having conflict resolution mechanisms in place; and ensuring that community participation be not only deep but also early on enough to impact decisionmaking. Based on these results, the project proposes a “stakeholder support framework” for third generation neighbourhood sustainability frameworks. At a macrolevel, it proposes three guiding principles for neighbourhood sustainability frameworks. At a finer-grain scale, it provides a series of concepts and toolkits to help eco-district leaders develop more regenerative, resilient, and just processes

[email protected] : unsanctioned social network site connections between youth work practitioners and young people

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Professional Doctorate.Social network sites are online spaces that can be used for interaction between young people and youth work practitioners. The focus of this thesis is social network site interaction that falls outside the guidance of the local authority, through unsanctioned interaction on practitioners’ personal but also work profiles. Twenty one practitioners and fourteen young people were interviewed, using a semi-structured interview guide. Three inter-linked themes emerged through the research process; space and place; trust development and boundary management. Young people wanted to interact with some practitioners through the practitioners' personal profiles but the majority of practitioners would rather interact with young people through work profiles. Young people viewed and trusted these practitioners as friends and were willing to share their personal, but also socially intimate information with them. Most practitioners viewed their relationship with young people as a professional relationship and aimed to maintain personal and professional boundaries. However, practitioners did not extend this same awareness to the boundaries of young people. This was further confirmed by the practice of client searching through a variety of profiles to access socially intimate information of young people. Where practitioners and volunteers lived and worked in the same geographical spaces, these multiple relationships increased uncertainty with regards to unsanctioned SNS interaction. Other practitioners were either fearful or opportunistic of these relationships and used them to gain further socially intimate information about young people or turned a blind eye to these relationships due to uncertainty of how to respond. This thesis extends knowledge and theory concerning youth work practice at a time of change, and also new spaces for interaction online. Civic courage and incentives that outweigh deterrents lead to unsanctioned connections for practitioners. For young people this interaction was based on the type of friendship they perceived they had with practitioners. Studying perceptions regarding this interaction revealed cycles of perpetual negative practice, personal and socially intimate boundaries and different views on the type of relationship that young people and practitioners developed with each other

Defying Control: Aspects of caring engagement between divergent knowledge practices

In recent years, the notion Anthropocene has been celebrated for its potential to bridge modern divides between nature and culture as well as critiqued for embedding the fallacy of human control in its nub. Building on these recent debates, and using insights on ontological pluralism from anthropology and philosophy of science, I outline four conceptual aspects for enacting caring engagement between divergent practices. These aspects are: a) egalitarian commitment to sharing epistemological authority between practices; b) ontological sensitivity, by letting other practices define their own relational bases of knowing and making; c) non-subsumptive learning from other practices; and d) affinity in alterity, developed across widening divergence between practices. I argue that caring engagement may be central to transforming ‘modernist’ techno-scientific practices that are constituted by an ethos of control and by disqualification of diverse ways of knowing/ making. Relinquishing control and disqualification, modernist practices may undergo transformations to become minoritarian practices that admit uncertainty, ignorance, ambiguity, fluidity and fragility. In mutual engagement with each other, transforming minoritarian practices may become generative of diversity in the form of novel knowing/making practices immanent to their own heterogeneous worlds composed of human and nonhuman forces. Such unbounded ontological pluralism will not be realised by adopting aspects of caring engagement as fully-formed principles, but rather by admitting and reworking the aspects as open questions that find relevance in ongoing natural-cultural struggles for sustainability and emancipation