338 research outputs found
A People-centered Approach to Historic Gardens: The Influence of Social, Political and Economic Factors on Management and Fruition
Historic gardens are heritage properties of great environmental, cultural, social, political and economic value, yet they are also precarious because they are composed of living elements. Their survival, in fact, depends on constant care.
This research project seeks to analyze the social, political and economic factors influencing the management and fruition of historic gardens to improve their conservation and ability to contribute to human wellbeing and quality of life. These themes are both missing from existing literature and relevant to current trends in historic garden conservation and fruition made even more evident by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Various research methodologies are applied in pursuit of the research aim, including: qualitative interviews providing a first-hand account of the motivations and struggles of those who care for historic gardens; a systematic review of the literature to trace the development of themes and trends in the research and identify significant gaps; document content analysis to make sense of the various political entities and instruments governing historic gardens; spatial analysis to investigate the potential and actual influence of heritage lists on recreational ecosystem service demand; the zonal travel cost method to assess the actual economic value of recreational ecosystem services created by an event in a historic garden.
Some of the investigations conducted as part of the dissertation use the city of Palermo (Italy) as a case study to analyze the problems affecting historic garden management and fruition. Palermo’s parks and gardens have been celebrated throughout history, and they still make up most the city’s green spaces. However, they are also recognized as being neglected and deteriorating. Palermo is also a good model for internationally relevant issues related to historic gardens, including the effect of economic and health crises on the management and fruition of green spaces, public austerity, dysfunctional bureaucracy, sustainable development and wellbeing, making the results of these investigations relevant internationally as well as locally.
The results of this research provide a people-centered perspective on the management and fruition of historic gardens. By considering the social, political and economic contexts in which they exist, the research identified developments in natural and cultural heritage practice, policy and planning that have important implications for historic garden management and fruition. Recent policy has focused on issues of sustainability and wellbeing, and consequentially put more emphasis on the experiences these heritage sites provide and on the stakeholders they involve. With this perspective, public engagement initiatives organized in historic gardens play an important role in involving the community, creating meaningful experiences and creating economic value. They are human inputs that transform potential cultural ecosystem service benefits into actual benefits.
These findings also have implications for the governance, planning management and fruition of other resources valued for their cultural ecosystem services. The research presented here can also be fruitfully applied to investigations of the various cultural ecosystem services provided by such areas as urban green spaces, cultural landscapes and nature reserves. These qualitative, spatial and economic assessments are necessary to ensure that public policy measures, investments, and private or non-profit management strategies are effective in meeting their objectives to contribute to human wellbeing and conserve resources for the future
Territorial Cohesion in Peripheralised Contexts: A Comparative Study of Integrated Territorial Development Instruments and Strategies in Germany and Romania
This dissertation offers insights into the use of ideas in policies designed to address uneven territorial development in regions outside metropolitan areas in the European Union (EU). The focus is on integrated territorial development policies which draw on the notion of territorial cohesion in two different national contexts within the EU: Germany and Romania.
The theoretical background of the thesis traces how territorial disparities are addressed in key theoretical paradigms which have influenced regional development thinking. Integrated territorial development is singled out as a key policy approach designed to overcome development disparities by tapping into underutilised endogenous assets and knowledge as part of a cross-sectoral vision within a defined space (be it an urban, rural, or regional context). Forward-thinking as this approach strives to be, it faces fundamental challenges in places which have been grappling with a rise of economic, social, and political disparities for many years. Understanding these processes through the relational concept of peripheralisation steers research towards engaging with people’s perceptions of spatial disparities and policies designed to address them.
The conceptual framework of the thesis is designed around principles which enable an interpretive analysis of public policy. This mode of inquiry is based on an anti-foudnationalist ontology and a constructivist epistemology. The cornerstone of this approach is understanding policy actions as indeterminate, prone to unintended consequences, and fundamentally shaped by the backtalk of the complex social system it seeks to influence. Policy-making and implementing is hence viewed as a setting in which disparate and contingent beliefs and actions of individuals come together to shape a temporarily concerted course of actions. Different types of policy ideas (in many cases belonging to different schools of thought) hence come together in a process of policy framing where policy substance, actors’ identities and relationships, and the policy process are shaped.
To operationalise this framework, the methodological design of this research follows an abductive mode of scientific inquiry which pursues an iterative engagement with the field and the theory. The empirical research is designed around two case study regions – the Chemnitz Region in The Free State of Saxony (one of Germany’s 16 federal states) and the North-West Region in Romania. The rationale behind the selection of the case studies was to choose regions in starkly different policy contexts, yet which are as similar as possible in terms of their socio-economic development trajectories. The study analyses three policy instruments: integrated urban development funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), integrated rural development funded through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and regional development planning initiatives. The primary data stems from 43 semi-structured expert interviews conducted with 46 policy practitioners and experts. Policy documents, local and regional strategies, and statistics have served as a source of secondary data. The analytical approach draws on principles of grounded theory for inductively developing theoretical categories and establishing causal explanations in the form of mid-level, provisional theories.
The first block of the analysis engages with the substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies, showcasing different interpretations of territorial cohesion in national contexts. Governments in both contexts view territorial cohesion as a means of strengthening the governance and coordination of policies, with a focus on local development conditions. Nonetheless, little emphasis is put on the competitive polycentric development approach, balanced development, and the environmental dimensions. In both studied contexts, polarised development is grasped as an inevitable approach for overcoming broad regional structural weaknesses.
The second analytical block engages with policy processes which underpin the implementation of integrated territorial development strategies. This serves to highlight the settings in which policy-relevant actors apply the integrated instruments available to them. The analysis centres on the separation of urban from rural development, the ownership of the goals pursued through integrated development and the ensuing impact on actors’ motivation to engage with complex policy procedures, and the role of experts in guiding policy beneficiaries
The final block of the analysis touches on the problematisation of peripheralisation in relation to integrated development instruments in four domains: demographic change, structural economic shifts, infrastructures and services of general interest, and place identity and marketing. These domains are not tied to any specific policies, but have rather emerged as salient in the inductive analysis.
The research concludes with a number of open questions and suggestions for policy makers. A key observation is that the notion of territorial cohesion itself tends to bring little value added to policy programmes, as many topics are already addressed in bespoke national normative concepts and policy programmes. Far from being an end-state, territorial cohesion comes across as a process which is shaped by contrasting perceptions on competitive and balanced development; by centralised and devolved modes of governance; by functional territorial planning or network-based development windows of opportunity. The added value of policies which draw on territorial cohesion to address territorial disparities may lay in bringing the perspective of peripheralised policy communities to the forefront of the debate and enabling innovative forms of cooperation.:Preface and acknowledgments – iii
Table of contents – vii
List of figures and tables – xi
Abbreviations – xv
Introduction – 1
PART I: THEORETICAL, CONCEPTUAL, AND METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS
1. Theoretical insights into territorial cohesion and disparities in the EU – 15
1.1. Key shifts in regional development policy thinking – 15
1.1.1. The neoliberalisation of regional and local development – 16
1.1.2. The neoliberalising logic of strategic spatial planning – 23
1.1.3. New approaches towards development policies – 24
1.2. Normative and policy dimensions of territorial cohesion – 26
1.2.1. Establishing European planning concepts – 27
1.2.2. Dimensions of territorial cohesion and its integrative role – 30
1.3. Towards a relational understanding of territorial disparities – 36
1.3.1. Understanding territorial disparities through peripheralisation – 36
1.3.2. Ideational dependency in development policies – 39
1.4. Territorial cohesion and peripheralisation: research perspectives – 40
2. Conceptual framework – 43
2.1. Policy analysis: a constructivist perspective – 44
2.1.1. The case for an anti-foundationalist ontology of public policy – 45
2.1.2. Policy analysis in an interpretive epistemology – 49
2.2. Understanding the role of prominent policy ideas – 52
2.2.1. Decentering political science – 53
2.2.2. Prominent policy ideas: an interpretive perspective – 54
2.3. Reflexive agency in public policy – 56
2.3.1. Putting travelling ideas to use in policy design processes – 56
2.3.2. Policy frames and policy framing – 61
2.4. Guiding principles – 64
3. Methodology – 67
3.1. Interpretive analysis in spatial policy research – 68
3.2. Research design – 72
3.2.1. Key principles – 72
3.2.2. Comparing two case studies – 75
3.2.3. Generating theory: principles and quality criteria – 79
3.3. Methods – 85
3.3.1. Qualitative interviewing – 85
3.3.2. Policy and document analysis – 90
3.4. Case and respondent selection – 91
3.4.1. Selecting regions in Germany and Romania – 91
3.4.2. Selecting respondents – 95
PART II: CONTEXT
4. The administrative context of integrated territorial development policies – 105
4.1. The ESI funds and the Cohesion Policy: a brief overview – 106
4.1.1. The key aims of the ESI funds – 107
4.1.2. EU priorities for the Cohesion Policy – 108
4.1.3. Integrated territorial development – 110
4.2. Planning and regional development in Saxony and Romania – 112
4.2.1. Saxony – 113
4.2.2. Romania – 114
4.3. Policy instruments for integrated territorial development – 115
4.3.1. Saxony – 115
4.3.2. Romania – 120
4.4. Policy directions – 125
5. Territorial structures of, and development trends in the studied regions – 127
5.1. Territorial structures – 127
5.1.1. The Chemnitz region in Saxony – 127
5.1.2. The North-West region in Romania – 130
5.2. Population and demography – 133
5.3. Transport infrastructure – 135
5.4. Economic profiles – 139
5.4.1. Employment concentration – 139
5.4.2. Commuting – 142
5.4.3. Economic sectors - 142
PART III: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
6. The substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies – 149
6.1. Normative positions on territorial cohesion – 149
6.1.1. Normative Positions – 150
6.1.2. Linking the storylines – 152
6.1.3. Key remarks – 153
6.2. The substance of governmental policies – 155
6.2.1. Categorising space: the inevitability of polarised development – 157
6.2.2. The role of integrated territorial development policies – 163
6.3. The substance of local and regional strategies – 169
6.3.1. Integrated Rural Development Plans – 169
6.3.2. Integrated Urban Development Plans – 174
7. Ideas in action: making sense of integrated territorial development – 189
7.1.Practical constraints and affordances of using integrated instruments – 189
7.1.1. The urban-rural split in ESI-funded instruments – 189
7.1.2. Centralising the ownership of European goals – 196
7.2. The role of experts in framing integrated responses – 203
7.2.1. Experts’ roles beyond bureaucracies – 204
7.2.2. Attuning expertise to local conditions – 204
7.2.3. Conveying expertise at a regional level and beyond – 208
7.3. From ideas to action – 210
7.3.1. Fostering motivation – 210
7.3.2. Eroding trust through complex bureaucracies – 215
8. Problematising integrated development: a local-regional perspective – 219
8.1. Demographic change – 219
8.2. Structural economic shifts – 225
8.2.1. Regional economies in transition – 226
8.2.2. Towards competitive territories – 231
8.3. Infrastructures and public services – 235
8.3.1. In-between adaptation and expansion – 236
8.3.2. Key remarks – 240
8.4. Place identity and marketing – 240
8.5. From problems to perceptions of cumulative disadvantages – 247
PART IV: CONCLUSIONS
9. Conclusions and implications – 255
9.1. Summary of the research approach. Key findings – 255
9.1.1. Research approach and theoretical anchors – 255
9.1.2 Policy ideas and their role in policy framing 258
9.2. Reflections and implications – 264
9.2.1. Methodological reflections – 265
9.2.2. Policy implications – 266
9.2.3. Perspectives for further research – 269
References – 271
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Analysed policy documents – 301
Appendix 2: Analysed strategies – 303
Appendix 3: Details about the interviews – 305
Appendix 4: List of original quotes – 31
Communicating linguistics: language, community and public engagement
Increasingly, academics are called upon to demonstrate the value of linguistics and explain their research to the wider public. In support of this agenda, Communicating Linguistics: Language, Community and Public Engagement provides an overview of the wide range of public engagement activities currently being undertaken in linguistics, as well as practically focused advice aimed at helping linguists to do public engagement well. From podcasts to popular writing, from competitions to consultancy, from language creation to community projects, there are many ways in which linguists can share their research with the public. Bringing together insights from leading linguists working in academia as well as non-university professions, this unique collection:- Provides a forum for the discussion of challenges and opportunities of public engagement in linguistics in order to shape best practice- Documents best practice through a summary of some of the many excellent public engagement projects currently taking place internationally- Celebrates the long tradition of public engagement in linguistics, a discipline which is often misunderstood despite its direct and fundamental importance to everyday lifeBreaking down long-standing divisions between universities and the wider community, this book will be of significant value to academics in linguistics but also teachers, policy makers and anyone interested in better understanding the nature and use of language in society
Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, XXV, 2023, 2
Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics is an open access philosophical journal, being published only in an electronic format.
The journal aims at promoting research and reflection, both historically and theoretically, in the field of moral and political philosophy, with no cultural preclusion or adhesion to any cultural current. Contributions should be submitted in one of these languages: Italian, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish. All essays should include an English abstract of max. 200 words. The editorial staff especially welcomes interdisciplinary contributions with special attention to the main trends of the world of practice.
The journal has an anonymous double peer review referee system. Three issues per year are expected. The copyright of the published articles remain to the authors. We ask that in any future use of them Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics be quoted as a source. All products on this site are released with a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 IT
Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge
The intersection of scholarly communication librarianship and open education offers a unique opportunity to expand knowledge of scholarly communication topics in both education and practice. Open resources can address the gap in teaching timely and critical scholarly communication topics—copyright in teaching and research environments, academic publishing, emerging modes of scholarship, impact measurement—while increasing access to resources and equitable participation in education and scholarly communication.
Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge is an open textbook and practitioner’s guide that collects theory, practice, and case studies from nearly 80 experts in scholarly communication and open education. Divided into three parts:
*What is Scholarly Communication?
*Scholarly Communication and Open Culture
*Voices from the Field: Perspectives, Intersections, and Case Studies
The book delves into the economic, social, policy, and legal aspects of scholarly communication as well as open access, open data, open education, and open science and infrastructure. Practitioners provide insight into the relationship between university presses and academic libraries, defining collection development as operational scholarly communication, and promotion and tenure and the challenge for open access.
Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge is a thorough guide meant to increase instruction on scholarly communication and open education issues and practices so library workers can continue to meet the changing needs of students and faculty. It is also a political statement about the future to which we aspire and a challenge to the industrial, commercial, capitalistic tendencies encroaching on higher education. Students, readers, educators, and adaptors of this resource can find and embrace these themes throughout the text and embody them in their work
The impact of novel people, places, and activities, in tourism
As part of an undergraduate research design class, we measured tourism experiences of 617tourists, during a day, and their potential impact, in a quantitative, cross-sectional manner. In May2023, a total of 30 tourism and experience design students teamed up from Breda University ofApplied Sciences, Netherlands, and Brigham Young University students, United States, andapproached tourists at 45 various tourist hot spots in the Rotterdam and the Amsterdam are
Knowledge on the Move: Studies on Mobile Social Education
This book draws on work undertaken by colleagues involved with the Erasmus+ project called SoMoveED, or Social Education on the Move. The broader aim of the project is to develop, implement, and disseminate innovation in the form of a model of mobile social education in higher education, of which this book makes up one small part.The project draws together institutions and organizations from ten European countries (Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), including eight universities, two non-governmental organizations and one social enterprise. Approximately 40 people are working on the project, including academic teachers and researchers, entrepreneurs, and social activists. The project’s main objective is to explore and develop ways in which the teaching process can be organized in motion, outside the university walls, with the participation of stakeholders from outside the academic community (citizens, representatives of institutions and organizations, activists, people at risk of marginalization). This model incorporates three important features into the educational process: (1) mobility; (2) participation; and (3) inclusion
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