Law in the present future : approaching the legal imaginary of smart cities with science (and) fiction

This doctoral research concerns smart cities, describing digital solutions and social issues related to their innovative technologies, adopted models, and major projects around the world. The many perspectives mentioned in it were identified by online tools used for the textual analysis of two databases that were built from relevant publications on the main subject by authors coming from media and academia. Expected legal elements emerged from the applied process, such as privacy, security, transparency, participation, accountability, and governance. A general review was produced on the information available about the public policies of Big Data in the two municipal cases of Rio de Janeiro and Montréal, and their regulation in the Brazilian and Canadian contexts. The combined approaches from science and literature were explored to reflect on the normative concerns represented by the global challenges and local risks brought by urban surveillance, climate change, and other neoliberal conditions. Cyberpunk Science Fiction reveals itself useful for engaging with the shared problems that need to be faced in the present time, all involving democracy. The results achieved reveal that this work was, in fact, about the complex network of practices and senses between (post)modern law and the imaginary of the future.Cette recherche doctorale centrée sur les villes intelligentes met en évidence les solutions numériques et les questionnements sociétaux qui ont trait aux technologies innovantes, ainsi qu’aux principaux modèles et projets développés autour d’elles à travers le monde. Des perspectives multiples en lien avec ces développements ont été identifiées à l’aide d’outils en ligne qui ont permis l’analyse textuelle de deux bases de données comprenant des publications scientifiques et des écrits médiatiques. De ce processus analytique ont émergé des éléments juridiques relatifs aux questions de vie privée, de sécurité, de transparence, de participation, d’imputabilité et de gouvernance. De plus, à partir de ces informations a été réalisée une revue des politiques publiques relatives aux mégadonnées dans les villes de Rio de Janeiro et de Montréal, ainsi que des réglementations nationales du Canada et du Brésil en lien avec ce sujet. Finalement, à travers l’exploration d’écrits scientifiques et fictionnels de la littérature, les principaux enjeux normatifs soulevés localement et mondialement par la surveillance urbaine, les changements climatiques et les politiques néolibérales ont pu être mis à jour. Le courant cyberpunk de la science-fiction s’est avéré particulièrement utile pour révéler les principaux problèmes politiques, en lien avec la préservation de la démocratie, auxquelles sont confrontées nos sociétés présentement. Les résultats de la recherche démontrent finalement la présence d’un réseau de pratiques et de significations entre le droit (post)moderne et les représentations imaginaires du futur

Preaching in the \u27Hear\u27 and Now: Justification, Development, and Assessment of \u27Parabolic Engagement\u27 Pedogogy in French-Speaking Missionary Settings

This thesis argues the utility of ‘parabolic engagement’ method for preachers and listeners in the French Antillean context. The opening chapter defines key terms and clarifies how this imaged sermonic style addresses the listening habits of targeted audiences. It explains that figured delivery is often context-interpretive, involving a more personal, experiential decoding by the listener. Engagement technique increases auditor involvement and creates unique communicative rapport. The chapter points out that the entire experimental process validates the usefulness of the pedagogy. Part One addresses the theological rationale for ‘parabolic engagement’ method. Chapter Two reviews appropriate literature with respect to engagement. Chapter Three argues the biblical basis for creating a method of figured preaching. Chapter Four discusses how precise homiletic situations demand a circumstantial approach to engaging delivery. Part Two attempts to synthesize a broad range of image-creation methodologies and make them suitable for teaching among oral peoples. Chapter Five shows the necessity of a grammar for figured proclamation pedagogy. Chapter Six develops simplified classical methods for finding the illustrative crux of an idea or text. Chapter Seven shows the need to then engage the listener by means of analogous correspondence with the concrete world. Chapter Eight explores how circumstantial factors encourage the transformation of engaging analogies into extended narratives. Part Three validates the thesis within the missionary setting. Chapter Nine describes the suitability of ‘parabolic engagement’ method among Creoles and European French on the island of Martinique. Chapter Ten establishes an experimental design by specifying components, clarifying how the hypotheses were tested, justifying data collection methods, and explaining the use of participatory action research and educational ethnography. Chapter Eleven details the implementation, measurement, and success of engagement strategies. Lastly, Chapter Twelve argues for the utility of ‘parabolic engagement’ and posits generalizations by summarizing the merits, conclusions, and limitations of the model

Dialogical practices : diving into the poetic movement exploring ‘supervision’ and ‘therapy’

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctorate in Systemic Practice of the University of BedfordshireThis thesis explores a dialogical approach – in relation to supervision, therapy and research. I have as supervisor inquired into my relationship with groups of supervisees who were training to become family therapists or systemic practitioners. Through my doctoral portfolio, I speak from within my practice and I show in some detail the micro processes in relational encounters which help dialogue to evolve. I also address grand narratives about what it means to be a human being, and show how perceiving a human being as dialogical has extensive and governing consequences for how we think about a person’s movements in the world, how we think about them as person, in relation to other people, and how we understand problems, and approach problem solving. My research has been a doing, an experiencing and a creation of knowing in a reflexive flow. My research philosophy, mode of approaching my practice as therapist and supervisor (and as a person in the world) has reflexively been created through my being in practice. I show how an embodied belief in fluidity and complexity, enables me as supervisor to contribute to a space in the context of supervision which welcomes the freedom of a kind of orientation which is open towards situated, emerging, novel and provisional understanding. By attending to here-and-now interactions, becoming answerable in the moment and by embracing intuition, ambiguity and relational compassion, we have been able to welcome risk-taking and improvisation. This mode of dialogical supervision demonstrates a willingness to spontaneously dive into the uniqueness of every new encounter and every new movement. I see this as the poetics of the dialogical meeting. I have experienced how this space has opened up quite unexpected aspects of the supervisees’ experiences and has served as an incitement for them to question different aspects of their relationship to life. This has reflexively created a certain spirit and atmosphere that has invited us all to be bolder in our sharing and exploration of our lives, practice and our ideas. This thesis makes a contribution concerning: how we can be with people in ways that opens up more understanding and creates a sense of belonging and liberation; challenging and transgressively exploring discursive boundaries which attempt to define and fix what research is, what therapy is, what supervision is, and welcomes the infinity of opportunities and possibilities life may offer us. Thus I suggest that it may become significant for the profession to review the usefulness and legitimacy of distinct categorization between therapy and supervision. Through my choice of genre I offer the reader a possibility to respond emotionally as well as intellectually to my writing. I believe the way I have chosen to re-present my research through a mix of genre and evocative texts not ‘frozen’ findings, permits and anticipates novel ways of going on in relation to research in a manner that I don’t believe have been described in this way before within the community of family therapy and systemic practice

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Research on Teaching and Learning In Biology, Chemistry and Physics In ESERA 2013 Conference

This paper provides an overview of the topics in educational research that were published in the ESERA 2013 conference proceedings. The aim of the research was to identify what aspects of the teacher-student-content interaction were investigated frequently and what have been studied rarely. We used the categorization system developed by Kinnunen, Lampiselkä, Malmi and Meisalo (2016) and altogether 184 articles were analyzed. The analysis focused on secondary and tertiary level biology, chemistry, physics, and science education. The results showed that most of the studies focus on either the teacher’s pedagogical actions or on the student - content relationship. All other aspects were studied considerably less. For example, the teachers’ thoughts about the students’ perceptions and attitudes towards the goals and the content, and the teachers’ conceptions of the students’ actions towards achieving the goals were studied only rarely. Discussion about the scope and the coverage of the research in science education in Europe is needed.Peer reviewe

The Micro Geopolitics of (Eco)Tourism: Competing Discourses and Collaboration in New Zealand and Brazil

DVD Slideshow disc of supplementary material available with the print copy of this thesis, held at the University of Waikato Library.This social science, interdisciplinary research deals with 'competing discourses' and 'collaboration'. The thesis examines issues of power in (eco)tourism development as manifested in the discursive construction and positionality of local stakeholders. It then inquires whether collaborative schemes can bridge the various interest groups dealing with nature tourism activities in a way that they can expand social, economic and environmental benefits. The language they use, the context they live in, and their relationships and interactions are systematically deconstructed to unveil possible collaborative models for conflict resolution that can advance the practices of (eco)tourism as well as bring collective gains regionally. The study maps the micro geopolitics that exist in all levels of ecotourism development: in its conceptualisation, design, planning and management. Focusing on nodes of conflict and nodes of collaboration, case studies were chosen in New Zealand and in Brazil that encompass public and private actors in (eco)tourism such as government agencies and small-scale tour operators. The 100% Pure New Zealand campaign, Kuaka New Zealand Education Travel, and Silves and Itacar in Brazil are investigated in depth. The researcher is concerned with the values, perceptions and attitudes of local actors about the role and importance of (eco)tourism as a concentration area for conservationist networks. The author is skeptical about the constructions of (eco)tourism outside the context of local stakeholders that are 'imported' or imposed on them in a way that it increases pre-existing tensions and conflicts. With many cases in the literature showing that (eco)tourism lacks an institutional archetype to deliver all its promises, it is plausible to talk about nature-based tourism instead. However, the claim is not that simple, because ecotourism entails contentious issues; it is a complex activity as one takes it for social inclusion and as a tool for regional economic development. The author advocates that representative collaboration and partnerships can ease the move from destructive to constructive conflicts in (eco)tourism. Ecotourism is a complex activity as one uses it for social inclusion and as a tool for regional economic development. The author argues that the way (eco)tourism has been envisaged demands participatory managing structures such as local environmental governance (LEG) and deliberative associational spaces. One of the assumptions is that '(eco)tourism' can become even more meaningful and functional in its conservationist mission if locally discursively constructed, negotiated, and consensually implemented. For deconstructing the cases, 'critical contextual discourse analysis' (CCDA) was developed. It is a methodological approach and tool used to shed light on textual production (written or spoken), consumption and interpretation, and its influences on social practices within a specific regional context. Social constructionism and theory of collaboration conceptually introduce the case. The author adopted a 'critical realist' stand. In the analysis, collaborative adaptive management, triple bottom line, corporate social responsibility, accreditation programmes, and the importance of environmental education for human attachment to nature are discussed as a background. On the whole, 17 interviewees in New Zealand and 42 in Brazil contributed to this study. Yet, in order to contrast statements on the ground, questionnaires were sent to 37 tour operators in New Zealand. Secondary qualitative and quantitative data significantly added to the investigation, helping to validate or refute preliminary assumptions

The Machine as Art/ The Machine as Artist

The articles collected in this volume from the two companion Arts Special Issues, “The Machine as Art (in the 20th Century)” and “The Machine as Artist (in the 21st Century)”, represent a unique scholarly resource: analyses by artists, scientists, and engineers, as well as art historians, covering not only the current (and astounding) rapprochement between art and technology but also the vital post-World War II period that has led up to it; this collection is also distinguished by several of the contributors being prominent individuals within their own fields, or as artists who have actually participated in the still unfolding events with which it is concerne

Orality in Medieval Drama: Speech-Like Features in the Middle English Comic Mystery Plays

Da die historische Sprachwissenschaft ausschließlich über geschriebene Texte als Datenbasis verfügt, wurden insbesondere im Forschungsgebiet der historischen Pragmatik bestimmte Genres identifiziert, die Aufschluss über die Sprechsprachlichkeit vergangener Sprachstufen bieten können. Dem dramatischen Genre der Komödie wird in der sprachhistorischen Forschung eine besondere Nähe zur gesprochenen Sprache zugesprochen. Das Korpus dieser Dissertation umfasst insgesamt 46 Stücke der spätmittelenglischen Mystery Plays, die biblische Episoden von der Erschaffung der Welt bis zum Jüngsten Gericht (komisch) in Szene setzen. Neben der quantitativen und qualitativen Analyse von acht nähesprachlichen Merkmalen (u. a. Anredepronomina, Fragen, Diskursmarker) beinhaltet die Arbeit eine Klassifizierung der komischen Szenen in den Mystery Plays sowie eine Untersuchung der literatur- und kulturhistorischen Kontextfaktoren, die eine Annäherung an Sprechsprachlichkeit in den Texten bedingt haben könnten.:1 Introduction 1.1 Premises and aims 1.2 Outline of the study 2 Comedy play texts as a speech-related genre 2.1 Speech-like genres and 'communicative immediacy' 2.2 Play texts vs. 'real' spoken discourse 2.3 Conclusions 3 'Comedy' in the mystery cycles 3.1 The medieval sense of 'comedy' 3.2 Medieval attitudes to laughter 3.3 Laughter and the comic in the mystery cycles 3.3.1 Humiles personae – sympathetic laughter 3.3.2 Divine triumph over evil – Schadenfreude 3.3.3 Funny games of violence – grim irony 3.4 The potential for 'communicative immediacy' in the mystery 'comedies' 3.4.1 Context and sources 3.4.2 Stylistic guidelines 3.5 Conclusions 4 Speech-like features in the mystery 'comedies' 4.1 Methodological premises 4.1.1 The data 4.1.2 Speech-like characteristics and linguistic features 4.1.3 Challenges and obstacles 4.2 Interactivity in pronominal address – (im)politeness, power and dominance 4.2.1 Second-person pronouns 4.2.1.1 Overall distribution 4.2.1.2 Family relationships 4.2.1.3 'Official' relationships 4.2.1.4 A special case: address in funny games of violence 4.2.2 Summary 4.3 Interactivity in pair structures – cooperation and conflict 4.3.1 Questions 4.3.1.1 Overall distribution 4.3.1.2 Functional analysis 4.3.1.3 Discussion of results 4.3.2 Imperatives 4.3.2.1 Overall distribution 4.3.2.2 Functional analysis 4.3.2.3 Discussion of results 4.3.3 Lexical repetition 4.3.3.1 Overall distribution 4.3.3.2 Functional Analysis 4.3.3.3 Discussion of results 4.3.4 Turn-initial discourse markers 4.3.4.1 Overall distribution 4.3.4.2 Interactional uses 4.3.4.3 Discussion of results 4.3.5 Summary 4.4 Features of sharedness and function – emotion and emphasis 4.4.1 Interjections 4.4.1.1 Overall distribution 4.4.1.2 Emotive-expressive uses 4.4.1.3 A special case: swearing 4.4.2 Vocatives: Terms of endearment and abuse 4.4.2.1 Overall distribution 4.4.2.2 Analysis 4.4.3 Demonstrative pronouns and deictic reference 4.4.3.1 Overall distribution 4.4.3.2 Analysis 4.4.4 Summary 4.5. Discussion: Speech-like features in the Middle English mystery plays 5 Final remarks 6 Bibliography 7 List of abbreviations 8 List of tables 9 List of figure

Critical enchantments: reading fictionality in the contemporary novel

This thesis examines the resurgence of an enchanted idiom in the contemporary novel and shows how it frames questions about the type of enchantment that reading fiction can lay claim to, ranging from unresolved mysteries to authors who call themselves mediums. With reference to novels by J. M. Coetzee, Toni Morrison and Ali Smith, Critical Enchantments makes an intervention into the study of contemporary writing by reinstating the importance of the distinction between ‘the novel’ and ‘fiction’ at a time when the critical and political function of fictionality is deeply contested. In the introduction I delineate the logic that enchantment and fictionality share – their invitation to recognise artifice and yet maintain a readerly investment in the artwork. The project is then organised around three lines of enquiry. Chapter one surveys the recent re-enchantment of literary reading practices: through a discussion of the recent work of critics such as Rita Felski and Timothy Bewes (and their Ricourean, Lukácian forbears), I locate an idiom of mystery and magic that structures Smith’s experiments with the idea of too-close reading as surveillance. The second chapter appraises the construction of fictional ‘belief’ that figures centrally both in Coetzee’s late fiction and, with recourse to novel and narrative theories of fictionality (particularly Catherine Gallagher’s), illustrates how concerns about belief find articulation in Coetzee’s recurring figure of the secretarial reader. The final chapter reads Morrison’s fiction alongside the reflexive critical trends that have formed in response to her creative and critical corpus; reversing my previous focus on fictional readers, I demonstrate the enchanting effects that Morrison’s extra-fictional anticipation of being read has on her readers. Taken together, these scenes of critical enchantment tell a story about how the contemporary novel trades on the genre’s tradition of engaging with the mystifying effects of fiction on both readers and writers, and reveals how this mystification is indexical to a performance of authorship that anticipates critically adept readers