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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
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Co-design As Healing: Exploring The Experiences Of Participants Facing Mental Health Problems
This thesis is an exploration of the healing role of co-design in mental health. Although co-design projects conducted within mental health settings are rising, existing literature tends to focus on the object of design and its outcomes while the experiences of participants per se remain largely unexplored. The guiding research question of this study is not how we design things that improve mental health, but how co-designing, as an act, might do so.
The thesis presents two projects that were organized in collaboration with the mental health charity Islington Mind and the Psychosis Therapy Project (PTP) in London.
The project at Islington Mind used a structured design process inviting participants to design for wellbeing. A case study analysis provides insights on how participants were impacted, summarizing key challenges and opportunities.
The design at PTP worked towards creating a collective brief in an emergent fashion, finally culminating in a board game. The experiences of participants were explored through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), using semi-structured interview data. The analysis served to identify key themes characterising the experience of co-design such as contributing, connecting, thinking and intentioning. In addition, a mixed-methods analysis of questionnaires and interview data exploring participants' wellbeing, showed that all participants who engaged fairly consistently in the project improved after the project ended, although some participants' scores returned to baseline six months later.
Reflecting on both projects, an approach to facilitation within mental health is outlined, detailing how the dimensions of weaving and layered participation, nurturing mattering and facilitating attitudes interlace. This contribution raises awareness of tacit dimensions in the practice of facilitation, articulating the nuances of how to encourage and sustain meaningful and ethical engagement and offering insights into a range of tools. It highlights the importance of remaining reflexive in relation to attitudes and emotions and discusses practical methodological and ethical challenges and ways to resolve them which can be of benefit to researchers embarking on a similar journey.
The thesis also offers detailed insights on how methodologies from different fields were integrated into a whole, arguing for transparency and reflexivity about epistemological assumptions, and how underlying paradigms shift in an interdisciplinary context.
Based on the overall findings, the thesis makes a case for considering design as healing (or a designerly way of healing), highlighting implications at a systems, social and individual level. It makes an original contribution to our understanding of design, highlighting its healing character, and proposes a new way to support mental health. The participants in this study not only had increased their own wellbeing through co-designing, but were also empowered and contributed towards healing the world. Hence, the thesis argues for a unique, holistic perspective of design and mental health, recognizing the interconnectedness of the individual, social and systemic dimensions of the healing processes that are ignited
âMental fightâ and âseeing & writingâ in Virginia Woolf and William Blake
This thesis is the first full-length study to assess the writer and publisher Virginia Woolfâs (1882-1941) responses to the radical Romantic poet-painter, and engraver, William Blake (1757-1827). I trace Woolfâs public and private, overt and subtle references to Blake in fiction, essays, notebooks, diaries, letters and drawings. I have examined volumes in Leonard and Virginia Woolfâs library that are pertinent, directly and indirectly, to Woolfâs understanding of Blake. I focus on Woolfâs key phrases about Blake: âMental fightâ, and âseeing & writing.â
I consider the other phrases Woolf uses to think about Blake in the context of these two categories. Woolf and Blake are both interested in combining visual and verbal aesthetics (âseeing & writingâ). They are both critical of their respective cultures (âMental fightâ). Woolf mentions âseeing & writingâ in connection to Blake in a 1940 notebook. She engages with Blakeâs âMental fightâ in âThoughts on Peace in an Air Raidâ (1940).
I map late nineteenth and early twentieth-century opinion on Blake and explore Woolfâs engagement with Blake in these wider contexts. I make use of the circumstantial detail of Woolfâs friendship with the great Blake collector and scholar, Geoffrey Keynes (1887-1982), brother of Bloomsbury economist John Maynard Keynes. Woolf was party to the Blake centenary celebrations courtesy of Geoffrey Keynesâs organisation of the centenary exhibition in London in 1927.
Chapter One introduces Woolfâs explicit references to Blake and examines the record of Woolf scholarship that unites Woolf and Blake. To see how her predecessors had responded, Chapter Two examines the nineteenth-century interest in Blake and Woolfâs engagement with key nineteenth-century Blakeans. Chapter Three looks at the modernist, early twentieth-century engagement with Blake, to contextualise Woolfâs position on Blake. Chapter Four assesses how Woolf and Blake use âMental fightâ to oppose warmongering and fascist politics. Chapter Five is about what Woolf and Blake write and think about the country and the city. Chapter Six discusses Woolfâs reading of John Milton (1608-1674) in relation to her interest in Blake, drawing on the evidence of Blakeâs intense reading of Milton. Chapter Seven examines further miscellaneous continuities between Woolf and Blake. Chapter Eight proposes, in conclusion, that we can only form an impression of Woolfâs Blake.
The thesis also has three appendices. First, a chronology of key publications which chart Blakeâs reputation as well as Woolfâs allusions to Blake. Second a list all of Blakeâs poetry represented in Woolfâs library including contents page. The third lists all the other volumes in Woolfâs library that proved relevant. Although Woolfâs writing is the subject of this thesis, my project necessitates an attempt to recover how Blake was understood and misunderstood by numerous writers in the early twentieth century. The thesis argues Blake is a model radical Romantic who combines the visual and the verbal and that Woolf sees him as a kindred artist
The crisis of cultural authority in museums : contesting human remains in the collections of Britain
Museums in Britain have displayed and researched human remains since the eighteenth century. However, in the last two decades human remains in collections have become subject to claims and controversies. Firstly, human remains associated with acquisition during the colonial period have become increasingly difficult to retain and have been transfered to culturally affiliated overseas indigenous groups. Secondly, a group of British Pagans have formed to make claims on ancient human remains in collections. Thirdly, human remains that are not requested by any community group, and of all ages, have become the focus of concerns expressed about their treatment by members of the profession. A discourse arguing for 'respect' has emerged, which argues that all human remains should be treated with new care. The claims made on human remains have been vigourously but differentially contested by members of the sector, who consider the human remains to be unique research objects. This thesis charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines its construction. The academic literature tends to understand changes to museums as a result of external factors. This thesis argues that this problem is influenced by a crisis of legitimacy and establishes that there are strong internal influences. Through a weak social constructionist approach I demonstrate that the issue has been promoted by influential members of the sector as part of a broader attempt to distance themselves from their foundational role, as a consequence of a crisis of cultural authority stimulated by external and internal factors. The symbolic character of human remains in locating this problem is informed by the unique properties of dead bodies and is influenced by the significance of the body as a scientific object; its association with identity work and as a site of political struggle, in the high modem period
Photography and Aesthetics: a critical study on visual and textual narratives in the lifework of Sergio LarraĂn and its impact in 20th century Europe and Latin America
The main focus of this study is a theoretical exploration of critical approaches applicable to the work of the Chilean photographer Sergio LarraĂn (1931-2012). It presents analytical tools to contextualise and understand the importance and impact of his work in photographic studies and his portrayal of twentieth-century Latin American and European culture. It inspects in depth a large portion of his photo work, which is still only partially published and mostly reduced to his "active" period as a photojournalist, aside from the personal photographic exploration of his early and late career (C. Mena). This extended material creates a broader scope for understanding his photographs and him as a canonical photographer. This study analyses the photographer's trajectory as discourses of recollection of historical memory in time (Mauad) to trace LarraĂn's collective memory associated with his visual production. Such analysis helps decode his visual imagery and his projection and impact on the European and Latin American culture. This strategy helps solve a two fold problem: firstly, it generates an interpretive consistency to understand the Chilean's photographic practice; secondly, it explores the power of images as an aesthetic experience in the installation of nationalist ideologies and the creation of imaginaries (B. Anderson 163)
In her own words: exploring the subjectivity of Freudâs âteacherâ Anna von Lieben
This project is inspired by Roy Porter (1985), who draws attention to the patient-shaped gap in medical history, and Rita Charon (2006), who emphasises the need to bring the patientâs narrative to the fore in the practice of medicine. The principal aim was to devise a means of accessing the lived experience of a patient who is no longer alive in order to gain an understanding of her narrative. Anna von Lieben was identified as a suitable subject as she wrote a substantial quantity of autopathographical poetry suitable for analysis and her status as Freudâs patient makes her a person of significant interest to the history of medicine.
The poems were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), an idiographic and inductive method of qualitative research, based on Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology, which explores the lived experience of individuals and is committed to understanding the first-person perspective from the third-person position.
The main findings from the IPA study reveal that Anna experienced a prolonged period of malaise, starting in late adolescence which she believed to result, at least partly, from a traumatic experience which occurred at that time. The analysis also indicates that Anna suffered from deep and lasting feelings of guilt and shame. The discovery of additional family documentation enabled me to contextualise and add substance to the findings of the IPA study. Annaâs husbandâs diaries in particular reveal that Anna:
⢠had a severe and longstanding gynaecological disorder
⢠suffered from severe morphinism
⢠did not benefit from Freudâs treatment which seemed neither to ease her symptoms nor identify any cause
⢠was treated in Paris, not by Jean-Martin Charcot as previously supposed, but by a French hydrotherapist, Theodore Keller, who appears to have become a person of considerable significance in her life.
The above findings led me to investigate Annaâs comorbidities (gynaecological disease and morphinism) and to show how those could be responsible for much of the symptomatology identified by Freud as âhysteriaâ. I then explore the possibility that her psychotic-like experiences could have been iatrogenically induced by her treatment first by Keller and then by Freud. Finally, I propose a fourfold set of hypotheses as an alternative to Freudâs diagnosis of hysteria
BECOMEBECOME - A TRANSDISCIPLINARY METHODOLOGY BASED ON INFORMATION ABOUT THE OBSERVER
ABSTRACT
Andrea T. R. Traldi
BECOMEBECOME
A Transdisciplinary Methodology Based on Information about the Observer
The present research dissertation has been developed with the intention to provide practical strategies and discover new intellectual operations which can be used to generate Transdisciplinary insight. For this reason, this thesis creates access to new knowledge at different scales.
Firstly, as it pertains to the scale of new knowledge generated by those who attend Becomebecome events. The open-source nature of the Becomebecome methodology makes it possible for participants in Becomebecome workshops, training programmes and residencies to generate new insight about the specific project they are working on, which then reinforce and expand the foundational principles of the theoretical background.
Secondly, as it pertains to the scale of the Becomebecome framework, which remains independent of location and moment in time. The method proposed to access Transdisciplinary knowledge constitutes new knowledge in itself because the sequence of activities, described as physical and mental procedures and listed as essential criteria, have never been found organised
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in such a specific order before. It is indeed the order in time, i.e. the sequence of the ideas and activities proposed, which allows one to transform Disciplinary knowledge via a new Transdisciplinary frame of reference.
Lastly, new knowledge about Transdisciplinarity as a field of study is created as a consequence of the heretofore listed two processes.
The first part of the thesis is designated âBecomebecome Theoryâ and focuses on the theoretical background and the intellectual operations necessary to support the creation of new Transdisciplinary knowledge. The second part of the thesis is designated âBecomebecome Practiceâ and provides practical examples of the application of such operations. Crucially, the theoretical model described as the foundation for the Becomebecome methodology (Becomebecome Theory) is process-based and constantly checked against the insight generated through Becomebecome Practice.
To this effect, âinformation about the observerâ is proposed as a key notion which binds together Transdisciplinary resources from several studies in the hard sciences and humanities. It is a concept that enables understanding about why and how information that is generated through Becomebecome Practice is considered of paramount importance for establishing the reference parameters necessary to access Transdisciplinary insight which is meaningful to a specific project, a specific person, or a specific moment in time
AIUCD 2022 - Proceedings
Lâundicesima edizione del Convegno Nazionale dellâAIUCD-Associazione di Informatica Umanistica ha per titolo Culture digitali. Intersezioni: filosofia, arti, media. Nel titolo è presente, in maniera esplicita, la richiesta di una riflessione, metodologica e teorica, sullâinterrelazione tra tecnologie digitali, scienze dellâinformazione, discipline filosofiche, mondo delle arti e cultural studies
European food quality schemes in everyday food consumption: An exploration of sayings and doings through pragmatic regimes of engagement
While European consumers generally support the principles underpinning Food Quality Schemes (FQS) sales of
certified products remain modest. This phenomenon is known as âattitude-behaviour gapâ and considerable
scholarly and policy efforts have been geared towards âfillingâ or âbridgingâ the gap. This study aims at casting
new light on this âdiscrepancyâ between consumersâ sayings and doings through a study of everyday food
practices connected to FQS. We used a qualitative, multi-method research design comprising extensive ethnographic fieldwork data, gathered from 41 households across seven European countries, including interviews,
walk-along tours, and food diaries, in order to understand consumersâ perceptions of FQS in relation to their
everyday food consumption practices. Building on convention theory and Th´evenotâs work, we showed that food
practices can be understood through different âregimes of engagementâ, namely different ways of thinking and
behaving, following different logics corresponding to varying levels of knowledge and interest. We thus argue
that the âattitude-behaviour gapâ should be reconceptualised as the co-existence of multiple regimes of
engagement, namely a dynamic and always evolving process of adjustment through which consumers understand
and engage with FQS in everyday food practices
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