Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: access, identity, autonomy

In this paper, I propose that we need to develop an appropriate set of conceptual tools for examining motivational issues pertaining to linguistic diversity, mobility and social integration in a rapidly changing and expanding Europe. I begin by drawing on research that has begun to reframe the concept of integrative motivation in the context of theories of self and identity. Expanding the notion of identity, I discuss the contribution of the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio in promoting a view of motivation as the development of a plurilingual European identity and the enabling of access and mobility across a multilingual Europe. Next, I critically examine the assumption that the individual pursuit of a plurilingual identity is unproblematic, by highlighting the social context in which motivation and identity are constructed and embedded. To illuminate the role of this social context, I explore three inter-related theoretical frameworks: poststructuralist perspectives on language motivation as 'investment'; sociocultural theory; and theories of autonomy in language education. I conclude with the key message that, as with autonomy, language motivation today has an inescapably political dimension of which we need to take greater account in our research and pedagogical practice

Faking like a woman? Towards an interpretative theorization of sexual pleasure.

This article explores the possibility of developing a feminist approach to gendered and sexual embodiment which is rooted in the pragmatist/interactionist tradition derived from G.H. Mead, but which in turn develops this perspective by inflecting it through more recent feminist thinking. In so doing we seek to rebalance some of the rather abstract work on gender and embodiment by focusing on an instance of 'heterosexual' everyday/night life - the production of the female orgasm. Through engaging with feminist and interactionist work, we develop an approach to embodied sexual pleasure that emphasizes the sociality of sexual practices and of reflexive sexual selves. We argue that sexual practices and experiences must be understood in social context, taking account of the situatedness of sex as well as wider socio-cultural processes the production of sexual desire and sexual pleasure (or their non-production) always entails interpretive, interactional processes

Dynamic mapping strategies for interactive art installations: an embodied combined HCI HRI HHI approach

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for dealing with the paradigm of interactivity in new media art, and how the broad use of the term in different research fields can lead to some misunderstandings. The paper addresses a conceptual view on how we can implement interaction in new media art from an embodied approach that unites views from HCI, HRI and HHI. The focus is on an intuitive mapping of a multitude of sensor data and to extend upon this using the paradigm of (1) finite state machines (FSM) to address dynamic mapping strategies, (2) mediality to address aisthesis and (3) embodiment to address valid mapping strategies originated from natural body movements. The theory put forward is illustrated by a case study

Struggling to 'fit in': On belonging and the ethics of sharing in project teams

This paper explores the links between belonging and ethics, which remain largely underdeveloped in project studies and are overlooked in everyday practice of managing projects. It focuses on belonging as the process articulating identity-construction of an inter-organisational project team from a global management consulting firm that was working in IS design. As the team?s experienced ?sense of place?, belonging becomes the space which highlights preferred affiliations and exposes how ? individually and collectively ? ethics are played out in the context of the management of projects. Four in situ belonging-narratives (of opposition, pragmatism, reflexivity, and the habitual narrative) represent ethics as part of lived action and of a life-world that emerge from deconstructing and reconstructing ?the team? and an ideal worker in projects. The team?s struggles to ?fit in? were experienced both when resisting and when collaborating with the dominant collective narrative of belonging. Modes of belonging are constituted in the relationship between self, others, and ?otherness?, creating a situated ethical imagination of how to ?be professional?. Implications concern the politics of belonging and call for a renewed practical ethics that engages with the social nature of ?being?, to change the current view of professional identities in projects

Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct. Recommendations for Good Scientific Practice and the Consumers of VR-Technology

The goal of this article is to present a first list of ethical concerns that may arise from research and personal use of virtual reality (VR) and related technology, and to offer concrete recommendations for minimizing those risks. Many of the recommendations call for focused research initiatives. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology that motivates our concerns. In Section “Plasticity in the Human Mind,” we cover some of the main results suggesting that one’s environment can influence one’s psychological states, as well as recent work on inducing illusions of embodiment. Then, in Section “Illusions of Embodiment and Their Lasting Effect,” we go on to discuss recent evidence indicating that immersion in VR can have psychological effects that last after leaving the virtual environment. In the second part of the article, we turn to the risks and recommendations. We begin, in Section “The Research Ethics of VR,” with the research ethics of VR, covering six main topics: the limits of experimental environments, informed consent, clinical risks, dual-use, online research, and a general point about the limitations of a code of conduct for research. Then, in Section “Risks for Individuals and Society,” we turn to the risks of VR for the general public, covering four main topics: long-term immersion, neglect of the social and physical environment, risky content, and privacy. We offer concrete recommendations for each of these 10 topics, summarized in Table 1

Psychosocial Research Analysis and Scenic understanding

In this paper two researchers who position themselves within an emergent psychosocial current in the UK apply the concept to a segment of film footage of an interaction (part of an empirical qualitative research project) to explore what Alfred Lorenzer’s theory of scenic understanding can add to our existing methodological resources. The film footage shows the creation of a poem by Darren, a 16-year-old offender, and Bob, a local poet employed in a project investigating the rehabilitative potential of one-to-one creative writing sessions. The authors contrast the transcript of this encounter with a ‘scenic composition’, a device they developed to communicate to a research readership the scenic experience of watching a filmed interaction. This contrast forms the basis for bringing together a series of post-Kleinian ideas about modes of knowing (syncretistic perception, reverie, transitional space) with Lorenzer’s scenic understanding. Through the idea of provocations in the text, the authors focus on the researcher’s emotional experience to explore the psychosocial character of the meanings that emerge concerning Darren’s claim, ‘I’m not clever’, and how these meanings are communicated amongst Darren, Bob and the researcher. Through the lens of symbolised and unsymbolised emotional experience, play and triangular space, the authors consider Darren’s ambivalent relationship to the creative writing activity and conclude with a short discussion of the conceptualisation of unconscious processes suitable to a psychosocial data analytic methodology

How the sense of body ownership shapes honesty: evidence from behavioural, clinical and immersive virtual reality studies

Despite the increasing interest towards the relationship between body and morality, the evidence for a specific link remains rather controversial. One open question is whether being aware of our body signals (Body Self-Consciousness) biases our moral decisions towards dishonesty (by making us more sensitive to rewards) or honesty (by increasing the desire to preserve a moral image). In this series of studies, we focused on one of the components of Body Self-Consciousness, namely, the sense of Body Ownership. This is the feeling of having a body that belongs to the self in its entirety and its parts. Here we used different approaches to test whether body ownership could bias decisions towards honesty or dishonesty. Through a correlational study, we first investigated how the sense of ownership towards the physical body relates to moral identity and behaviour of individuals. Then, we experimentally manipulated the feelings of ownership associated to a virtual body and assessed how these modulations influenced the tendency to act (dis)honestly. Lastly, we tested a group of participants reporting long-term reductions of the sense of ownership for part of their body, which results in the desire to have that part amputated (Body Integrity Dysphoria). Specifically, participants with and without a leg-related amputation desire could communicate moral and immoral decisions by using the owned and disowned leg. The results of these studies suggest that reductions of body ownership are associated with an increase of dishonesty. This seems to highlight a role of body ownership as a way to distance the self from immorality and lessen its effects. In other words, it is possible that modulations of the sense of ownership can facilitate preservation of a moral concept of self. Thus, specific training programmes aimed at enhancing corporeal awareness may increase the occurrence of honest behaviours in everyday interactions and contexts

WRITING UTOPIA NOW: Utopian Poetics In The Work Of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

This thesis examines Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE (1982), Audience Distant Relative (1977) and Reveillé dans la Brume (Awakened in the Mist) (1977). The premise of the thesis is an exploration of the various ways in which these works both perform and gesture toward the possibility of a ‘utopian’ experience of nonalienation. In Cha’s vocabulary, this takes the form of ‘interfusion’ and is related to the role of the artist as alchemist. Cha employs formal and linguistic innovations in her text, mail art and performance works to invite active participation from her readers and audience in a gesture toward embodied intersubjectivity. Her grappling with the challenges relating to the articulation of subjectivity place her work at the centre of contemporary critical debates around subjectivity and innovative poetics. In particular, recent scholarship on race and the poetic avant-garde has called for cross-disciplinary approaches to reading DICTEE as a text that explores the intersections of subjectivity and its performance in contemporary innovative poetics. Developing a theory of Utopian Poetics from my reading of Ernst Bloch’s utopian philosophy, I explore the ways in which DICTEE and Cha’s other works perform a yearning for non-alienated subjectivity that remains necessarily open and incomplete. My reading of DICTEE, in particular, is primarily informed by my own practices of yoga and meditation, and these practices form the basis of both my scholarly and creative engagements with this research. This scholarly thesis comprises Part 1 of a two-part submission. Part 2 comprises my own creative experiments with UtopianPoetics