‘Don’t be rude on the road’: cycle blogging, trolling and lifestyle

This article examines hostile noise on the UK Guardian’s Bike Blog. Like the Internet, the bicycle has been framed as a redemptive technology at the heart of new forms of urbanity and citizenship. The article examines these struggles, concentrating on how accusations of trolling police the boundaries between cycling as a sphere of autonomous play and a more ‘ethical’ disposition that links cycling to environmental and social responsibility. It argues that a sense of community is established through the embattled relationship with a ‘petrolhead’ mode of online writing which asserts the pleasures of unrestrained lifestyle-as-fun and contests the claims to good citizenship made by pro-cycle bloggers. The article asks whether cycle blogging is constituted by its games of taste and its defensive response to trolling, or if conjoined strategies of netiquette and on-road etiquette framed in terms of ‘responsibility’, offer a route to legitimacy

Beyond ‘peer pressure’: rethinking drug use and ‘youth culture’

The study of drug use by young people in the West has been transformed over the last decade by the development of sociological approaches to drug use which take serious account of the cultural context in which young people encounter drugs. One consequence is that the notion of ‘peer pressure’, as the primary articulation of the engagement between youth culture and drug use, has been displaced by that of ‘normalisation’, which envisages ‘recreational’ drug use as one expression of consumer-based youth cultural lifestyles. In stark contrast, academic discussion of drug use in Russia remains primarily concerned with the prevalence and health consequences of (intravenous) drug use while explanations of rising rates of drug use focus on structural factors related to the expansion of drugs supply and, to a lesser extent, post-Soviet social and economic dislocation. In this article, original empirical research in Russia is used to develop an understanding of young people's drug use that synthesises structural and cultural explanations of it. It does this by situating young people's narratives of their drugs choices in the context of local drugs markets and broader socio-economic processes. However, it attempts to go beyond seeing structural location as simply a ‘constraint’ on individual choice by adopting an understanding of ‘youth culture’ as a range of youth cultural practices and formations that simultaneously embody, reproduce and negotiate the structural locations of their subjects

Community experiences of organised crime in Scotland

The research explored community experiences of serious organised crime in Scotland (SOC). The report provides information on the nature and extent of the impact of SOC on everyday life in the community, as well as offering suggestions for policy development. The study sought to answer the following questions: 1)What are the relationships that exist between SOC and communities in Scotland? 2)What are the experiences and perceptions of residents, stakeholders and organisations of the scope and nature of SOC within their local area? and 3)How does SOC impact on community wellbeing, and to what extent can the harms associated with SOC be mitigated

The future of social is personal: the potential of the personal data store

This chapter argues that technical architectures that facilitate the longitudinal, decentralised and individual-centric personal collection and curation of data will be an important, but partial, response to the pressing problem of the autonomy of the data subject, and the asymmetry of power between the subject and large scale service providers/data consumers. Towards framing the scope and role of such Personal Data Stores (PDSes), the legalistic notion of personal data is examined, and it is argued that a more inclusive, intuitive notion expresses more accurately what individuals require in order to preserve their autonomy in a data-driven world of large aggregators. Six challenges towards realising the PDS vision are set out: the requirement to store data for long periods; the difficulties of managing data for individuals; the need to reconsider the regulatory basis for third-party access to data; the need to comply with international data handling standards; the need to integrate privacy-enhancing technologies; and the need to future-proof data gathering against the evolution of social norms. The open experimental PDS platform INDX is introduced and described, as a means of beginning to address at least some of these six challenges

The Role Of Digital Spaces in Caring For Children With Feeding Tubes: Home, Family, and Community Reconsidered

Abstract This dissertation draws from feminist geographic research to critically examine the landscapes of care traversed by family caregivers of children with feeding tubes and complex medical and long-term care needs. Drawing from theories and methodologies from feminist disability and digital geographies, in combination with feminist science technology studies (STS), I explore the impact of neoliberal policy changes on daily caregiving tasks and how families, in response to these policy changes, (re)create digital spaces and relationships to satisfy their unmet needs. This research examines the growing and shifting roles of digital spaces in the everyday lives of marginalized and/or vulnerable communities to determine how digital spaces are (re)created by family caregivers and reflect how community relationships and digital activities impact family caregivers’ ability to give care within precarious situations. A comprehensive examination of the Feeding Tube Awareness Foundation’s (FTAF) online resources accessed by family caregivers serves as a case study for this project. I argue that digital spaces, like FTAF, are essential places in family caregivers’ everyday geographies and are constituted by co-constructed relationships shaped and maintained by the digitally mediated activities of community actors (human and non-human) across multiple spaces and times. By incorporating Science and Technology Studies\u27 theoretical and methodological insights, rare in the digital geography literature, this project attends to the diversity, structure, and internal dynamics within and among digital relationships in maintaining and transforming these digital communities, particularly deep web places like FAFT’s Facebook group and the fluidity of user subjectivity across multiple digital places

Introduction: Transformation of nationalism and diaspora in the digital age

This introduction to the four papers that make up the themed section locates them in the wider theoretical, comparative and historical perspectives from which they originate. First, it places the study of communalist or sectarian identities in the Middle East in broader comparative debates about the study of ethnic and nationalist identities. It then examines the causalities underpinning the shifting relationship between these different identities in the Middle East. Taking modernity as a starting point, it looks at the integration of the region into a global capitalist market from the mid‐19th century and the consequences of this transformation. It then examines the external imposition and growth in coherence and capacity of geographically delineated states. It details the influence that neo‐liberal policy prescriptions have had on those states and their relationship to society. Finally, it examines the role that a series of extended wars played in the forging of and competition between different sets of identities, trans‐state Arab nationalism, state‐based nationalism and religious and ethnic identities

Reconceptualising product life-cycle theory as stakeholder engagement with non-profit organization

The paper critically re-examines product life-cycle (PLC) theory, developed over fifty years ago. Despite prevalence in marketing pedagogy and continued popularity within empirical research, PLC is seldom challenged. The paper identifies the organisation-centric construct underpinning the theory and highlights a disconnection between PLC theory and the recent academic insight around customer engagement. It reconceptualises the life-cycle concept based on engagement between stakeholder and non-profit organisation (NPO), structured upon both the market orientation and social exchange constructs. The revised framework maps stakeholder engagement with the NPO through the five stages of incubation, interaction, involvement, immersion, and incapacitation. The paper concludes with identifying a roadmap for future empirical research to develop and validate the re-envisaged conceptual model. The methodology used is narrative literature review supported by secondary research from specialist practitioner reports

Community Experiences of Serious Organised Crime in Scotland

This summary sets out key findings from a research project that aimed to explore the community experiences of serious organised crime ( SOC) in Scotland. The study sought to answer the following questions: 1) What are the relationships that exist between SOC and communities in Scotland? 2) What are the experiences and perceptions of residents, stakeholders and organisations of the scope and nature of SOC within their local area? and 3) How does SOC impact on community wellbeing, and to what extent can the harms associated with SOC be mitigated? The work involved in-depth qualitative research, to understand both direct and indirect forms of harm. Key points pertaining to the research and its results are as follows: - The study involved the selection of three community case study sites based on a typology of ' SOC-affected' communities. These sites were based in varying urban and semi-urban settings. - The impact of SOC at a more 'diffuse' national level was explored via research in a range of smaller case study sites and via interviews with national stakeholders. This included a consideration of SOC impacts in rural and remote areas, and on populations that were not concentrated in any defined geographic community. - The case study areas were selected on the basis of pre-existing academic and policy literature, an initial set of interviews with key experts, and on the basis of aggregated and anonymised intelligence summaries provided by Police Scotland. - 188 individuals participated in the study, which mostly involved semi-structured qualitative interviews, but also a small number of focus groups, unstructured interviews and observational research. Interviews were conducted with residents, local businesses, service providers, community groups, and national organisations, as well as with a small number of individuals with lived experience of SOC. - Interviews comprised of questions about: the relationship between SOC and communities; the experiences and perceptions of residents and local service providers as to the nature and extent of SOC; and the impact of SOC on community wellbeing. - Preliminary findings were presented back to a sub-sample of 33 community residents and representatives, across three of the case study areas, through a feedback method called 'co-inquiry'. This involved the organisation of events designed to assess the integrity of the findings, and elicit reflections on the implications of the findings for potential actions