960 research outputs found

    Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce and Distribute Food That\u27s Not For Sale

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    Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing so. In this dissertation, I investigate the persistent pervasiveness of non-market food practices in Vermont. To go beyond explanations that rely on individual motivation, I examine the roles these practices play in society. First, I investigate the prevalence of non-market food practices. Several surveys with large, representative samples reveal that more than half of Vermont households grow, hunt, fish, or gather some of their own food. Respondents estimate that they acquire 14% of the food they consume through non-market means, on average. For reference, commercial local food makes up about the same portion of total consumption. Then, drawing on the words of 94 non-market food practitioners I interviewed, I demonstrate that these practices serve functions that markets cannot. Interviewees attested that non-market distribution is special because it feeds the hungry, strengthens relationships, builds resilience, puts edible-but-unsellable food to use, and aligns with a desired future in which food is not for sale. Hunters, fishers, foragers, scavengers, and homesteaders said that these activities contribute to their long-run food security as a skills-based safety net. Self-provisioning allows them to eat from the landscape despite disruptions to their ability to access market food such as job loss, supply chain problems, or a global pandemic. Additional evidence from vegetable growers suggests that non-market settings liberate production from financial discipline, making space for work that is meaningful, playful, educational, and therapeutic. Non-market food practices mend holes in the social fabric torn by the commodification of everyday life. Finally, I synthesize scholarly critiques of markets as institutions for organizing the production and distribution of food. Markets send food toward money rather than hunger. Producing for market compels farmers to prioritize financial viability over other values such as stewardship. Historically, people rarely if ever sell each other food until external authorities coerce them to do so through taxation, indebtedness, cutting off access to the means of subsistence, or extinguishing non-market institutions. Today, more humans than ever suffer from chronic undernourishment even as the scale of commercial agriculture pushes environmental pressures past critical thresholds of planetary sustainability. This research substantiates that alternatives to markets exist and have the potential to address their shortcomings

    Proceedings of the 10th International congress on architectural technology (ICAT 2024): architectural technology transformation.

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    The profession of architectural technology is influential in the transformation of the built environment regionally, nationally, and internationally. The congress provides a platform for industry, educators, researchers, and the next generation of built environment students and professionals to showcase where their influence is transforming the built environment through novel ideas, businesses, leadership, innovation, digital transformation, research and development, and sustainable forward-thinking technological and construction assembly design

    A Critical Review Of Post-Secondary Education Writing During A 21st Century Education Revolution

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    Educational materials are effective instruments which provide information and report new discoveries uncovered by researchers in specific areas of academia. Higher education, like other education institutions, rely on instructional materials to inform its practice of educating adult learners. In post-secondary education, developmental English programs are tasked with meeting the needs of dynamic populations, thus there is a continuous need for research in this area to support its changing landscape. However, the majority of scholarly thought in this area centers on K-12 reading and writing. This paucity presents a phenomenon to the post-secondary community. This research study uses a qualitative content analysis to examine peer-reviewed journals from 2003-2017, developmental online websites, and a government issued document directed toward reforming post-secondary developmental education programs. These highly relevant sources aid educators in discovering informational support to apply best practices for student success. Developmental education serves the purpose of addressing literacy gaps for students transitioning to college-level work. The findings here illuminate the dearth of material offered to developmental educators. This study suggests the field of literacy research is fragmented and highlights an apparent blind spot in scholarly literature with regard to English writing instruction. This poses a quandary for post-secondary literacy researchers in the 21st century and establishes the necessity for the literacy research community to commit future scholarship toward equipping college educators teaching writing instruction to underprepared adult learners

    Posthuman Creative Styling can a creative writer’s style of writing be described as procedural?

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    This thesis is about creative styling — the styling a creative writer might use to make their writing unique. It addresses the question as to whether such styling can be described as procedural. Creative styling is part of the technique a creative writer uses when writing. It is how they make the text more ‘lively’ by use of tips and tricks they have either learned or discovered. In essence these are rules, ones the writer accrues over time by their practice. The thesis argues that the use and invention of these rules can be set as procedures. and so describe creative styling as procedural. The thesis follows from questioning why it is that machines or algorithms have, so far, been incapable of producing creative writing which has value. Machine-written novels do not abound on the bookshelves and writing styled by computers is, on the whole, dull in comparison to human-crafted literature. It came about by thinking how it would be possible to reach a point where writing by people and procedural writing are considered to have equal value. For this reason the thesis is set in a posthuman context, where the differences between machines and people are erased. The thesis uses practice to inform an original conceptual space model, based on quality dimensions and dynamic-inter operation of spaces. This model gives an example of the procedures which a posthuman creative writer uses when engaged in creative styling. It suggests an original formulation for the conceptual blending of conceptual spaces, based on the casting of qualities from one space to another. In support of and informing its arguments are ninety-nine examples of creative writing practice which show the procedures by which style has been applied, created and assessed. It provides a route forward for further joint research into both computational and human-coded creative writing

    Grounds for a Third Place : The Starbucks Experience, Sirens, and Space

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    My goal in this dissertation is to help demystify or “filter” the “Starbucks Experience” for a post-pandemic world, taking stock of how a multi-national company has long outgrown its humble beginnings as a wholesale coffee bean supplier to become a digitally-integrated and hypermodern cafĂ©. I look at the role Starbucks plays within the larger cultural history of the coffee house and also consider how Starbucks has been idyllically described in corporate discourse as a comfortable and discursive “third place” for informal gathering, a term that also prescribes its own radical ethos as a globally recognized customer service platform. Attempting to square Starbucks’ iconography and rhetoric with a new critical methodology, in a series of interdisciplinary case studies, I examine the role Starbucks’ “third place” philosophy plays within larger conversations about urban space and commodity culture, analyze Starbucks advertising, architecture and art, and trace the mythical rise of the Starbucks Siren (and the reiterations and re-imaginings of the Starbucks Siren in art and media). While in corporate rhetoric Starbucks’ “third place” is depicted as an enthralling adventure, full of play, discovery, authenticity, or “romance,” I draw on critical theory to discuss how it operates today as a space of distraction, isolation, and loss

    The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000

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    The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000). This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline

    Developmental Bootstrapping of AIs

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    Although some current AIs surpass human abilities in closed artificial worlds such as board games, their abilities in the real world are limited. They make strange mistakes and do not notice them. They cannot be instructed easily, fail to use common sense, and lack curiosity. They do not make good collaborators. Mainstream approaches for creating AIs are the traditional manually-constructed symbolic AI approach and generative and deep learning AI approaches including large language models (LLMs). These systems are not well suited for creating robust and trustworthy AIs. Although it is outside of the mainstream, the developmental bootstrapping approach has more potential. In developmental bootstrapping, AIs develop competences like human children do. They start with innate competences. They interact with the environment and learn from their interactions. They incrementally extend their innate competences with self-developed competences. They interact and learn from people and establish perceptual, cognitive, and common grounding. They acquire the competences they need through bootstrapping. However, developmental robotics has not yet produced AIs with robust adult-level competences. Projects have typically stopped at the Toddler Barrier corresponding to human infant development at about two years of age, before their speech is fluent. They also do not bridge the Reading Barrier, to skillfully and skeptically draw on the socially developed information resources that power current LLMs. The next competences in human cognitive development involve intrinsic motivation, imitation learning, imagination, coordination, and communication. This position paper lays out the logic, prospects, gaps, and challenges for extending the practice of developmental bootstrapping to acquire further competences and create robust, resilient, and human-compatible AIs.Comment: 102 pages, 29 figure

    Connected World:Insights from 100 academics on how to build better connections

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    'A hidden art form' the value of sound in UK television idents (1982-2022)

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    Television idents are hidden in plain sight. Their creativity is often undervalued by industry practitioners and viewers alike, designated a ‘hidden art form’ by creative executive Charlie Mawer (2020). The sound worlds of idents are doubly overlooked, often ignored in visually-centric discourse on idents in industry journals and in media and cultural studies. In the production process, composers are often peripheral to the project, involved only towards the end. This thesis inverts such hierarchies and adopts a sound-oriented perspective towards idents. The approach brings together previously disparate strands across musicology, art and design history, and media studies, aiming to highlight the value of sound in idents as well as the hitherto-neglected creative labour of composers in the promotion of television channels. The scope is confined mainly to the UK, examining idents produced for broadcasters and streaming platforms between 1982 and 2022. This thesis addresses a central question: What is the value of music and sound in television idents? To answer this question, it combines textual analyses of idents with evidence from practitioner interviews. Musicological concepts and theories are employed in the analysis of idents, highlighting the aesthetic character and functions of the music and sounds. The method of reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) applied to the interviews produced new insights into the working environments of the composers and their creative colleagues, exploring themes of identity, collaboration, creative process, and artistic value. The first three chapters set out the aim of this thesis, academic contexts, and methodological approach respectively. Chapter 4 contains a musicological analysis of idents, tracing transformations in the aesthetic character and roles of sound in connection with the changing experience of watching television between 1982 and 2022. Chapter 5 expands on the arguments set out in Chapter 4 by focussing on production contexts, unpacking themes derived from the qualitative analysis of the interviews. Chapter 6 synthesises the conclusions and findings from Chapters 4 and 5 and discusses the commercial, artistic, and cultural value of the music and sound of idents. This thesis culminates with an exploration of future avenues of research and the implications of this research for practitioners and educators. In sum, this thesis argues that the artistic labour of ident production and the valuable role of musical creativity within this commercial and temporally constraining context deserve greater recognition and attention
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