Revolucionarios Cosmopolitas: Masculinidad, Migración y Performatividad de Género en el Londres Latinoamericano

This article explores the relational dynamics by which a particular group of young Colombian men strategically construct and perform masculinity within context of Latin American London. Focusing on quotidian experience and seeking to move beyond stereotypical narratives of masculine “loss” or “adjustment” relating to machismo, it demonstrates how “traditional” hegemonic norms are resourced as constitutive elements in the articulation of new modalities of gendered orientation. Observing that with migration Latin American men are often placed under contradictory pressure to both conform to and subvert cultural stereotypes of machismo and hegemonic masculinity, here young male Colombian migrants are seen to harness vernacular cosmopolitanism as an important moral orientation through which to creatively rearticulate machismo, dynamically reframing their subjectivities in ways that meaningfully engage with their life predicaments. What emerges are expressions of a subject position referred to here as the ‘cosmopolitan revolutionary,’ a performative orientation that encourages the expression of masculine authority and decisiveness while also emphasising anti-authoritarian and egalitarian principles of positive reciprocity and worldly care.Este artículo explora la dinámica relacional mediante la cual un grupo de jóvenes colombianos construye y realiza estratégicamente su masculinidad dentro del contexto de Londres. Se centra en la experiencia cotidiana y busca ir más allá de las narraciones estereotipadas de la “pérdida” o “ajuste” masculino relacionado con el machismo. El artículo demuestra cómo las normas hegemónicas “tradicionales” cuentan con recursos como elementos constitutivos en la articulación de nuevas modalidades de orientación de género. Observa que con la migración, los hombres latinoamericanos a menudo se ven sometidos a una presión contradictoria para conformarse y subvertir los estereotipos culturales del machismo y la masculinidad hegemónica. En este estudio, se considera que los migrantes colombianos aprovechan el cosmopolitismo vernáculo como una orientación moral importante a través de la cual rearticular creativamente el machismo y reformular dinámicamente sus subjetividades de manera que se involucren significativamente con sus dificultades de la vida. Lo que emerge son expresiones de una subjetividad a la que se hace referencia aquí como el “revolucionario cosmopolita”. Esta es una orientación performativa que fomenta la expresión de la autoridad y la decisión masculinas, al tiempo que enfatiza los principios antiautoritarios e igualitarios de reciprocidad positiva y cuidado mundano

Women Starting Up in the Digital Creative Industries in China

The pervasive digital technologies and the state’s promotion of “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation” have facilitated changes in China’s creative economy. This thesis examines the role and lived experience of women entrepreneurs who set up their own business (i.e., start-ups) in China’s digital creative industries by using in-depth interview, observations and document analysis. This study makes contribution to both the scholarship of gender and creative work, and precarity in creative economy in the context of China

Bodies against modernity: politics of slum rehabilitations in India

India continues to modernize, and the legacy of political modernity rooted in the European Enlightenment continues to reify itself in India through the performative practices of the body politic. The body politic is a totalized conceptualization of a society imagined in the form of a body, with real exclusionary effects on those without citizenship rights. This body politic is made real through performances of popular sovereignty, bureaucratic state practices and liberal democratic electoral procedures performed during urban development processes. Ethnographic accounts of politics of slum rehabilitations in Pune show that the modern body politic is indeed performatively practised, and reshaped, by the very bodies that are expected to be alienated for the making of the body politic. Bodies meet one another in different spaces and times and generate the possibility of reshaping the liberal body politic into relational and affective bodily politics. Together, bodies become both the site and the means through which political modernity is reshaped in India

Immersive Participation:Futuring, Training Simulation and Dance and Virtual Reality

Dance knowledge can inform the development of scenario design in immersive digital simulation environments by strengthening a participant’s capacity to learn through the body. This study engages with processes of participatory practice that question how the transmission and transfer of dance knowledge/embodied knowledge in immersive digital environments is activated and applied in new contexts. These questions are relevant in both arts and industry and have the potential to add value and knowledge through crossdisciplinary collaboration and exchange. This thesis consists of three different research projects all focused on observation, participation, and interviews with experts on embodiment in digital simulation. The projects were chosen to provide a range of perspectives across dance, industry and futures studies. Theories of embodied cognition, in particular the notions of the extended body, distributed cognition, enactment and mindfulness, offer critical lenses through which to explore the relationship of embodied integration and participation within immersive digital environments. These areas of inquiry lead to the consideration of how language from the field of computer science can assist in describing somatic experience in digital worlds through a discussion of the emerging concepts of mindfulness, wayfinding, guided movement and digital kinship. These terms serve as an example of how the mutability of language became part of the process as terms applied in disparate disciplines were understood within varying contexts. The analytic tools focus on applying a posthuman view, speculation through a futures ethnography, and a cognitive ethnographical approach to my research project. These approaches allowed me to examine an ecology of practices in order to identify methods and processes that can facilitate the transmission and transfer of embodied knowledge within a community of practice. The ecological components include dance, healthcare, transport, education and human/computer interaction. These fields drove the data collection from a range of sources including academic papers, texts, specialists’ reports, scientific papers, interviews and conversations with experts and artists.The aim of my research is to contribute both a theoretical and a speculative understanding of processes, as well as tools applicable in the transmission of embodied knowledge in virtual dance and arts environments as well as digital simulation across industry. Processes were understood theoretically through established studies in embodied cognition applied to workbased training, reinterpreted through my own movement study. Futures methodologies paved the way for speculative processes and analysis. Tools to choreograph scenario design in immersive digital environments were identified through the recognition of cross purpose language such as mindfulness, wayfinding, guided movement and digital kinship. Put together, the major contribution of this research is a greater understanding of the value of dance knowledge applied to simulation developed through theoretical and transformational processes and creative tools

Performance and Dialogue – An Ethnographic Study into Police Liaison Teams

Scholarly discussions on public-order policing often centre on the role of paramilitary policing tactics, only recently has the role of dialogue become more prominent within the field. This thesis primarily focuses upon a dialogue-focused public-order policing tactic – the Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) – operating within the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in London, England. The thesis draws on data collected over a 13-month ethnographic immersion in the MPS’ public-order unit. This data was gathered during a doctoral studentship within the MPS over the period of 2015-2017. This thesis is fundamentally concerned with understanding how dialogue impacts social order within a public-order policing setting. From a micro-sociological perspective, the research seeks to understand the structures behind dialogic behaviours that Police Liaison Officers (PLOs) engage in when attempting to establish a form of ‘order’. The aim of the research is to consider the role dialogue plays during police-citizen interaction at public order policing events – specifically protests and a street-based carnival. This will be understood primarily through the perspective of uniformed officers and, more specifically, officers occupying the tactical role of PLO. Though reference will also be made to officers within other public order policing roles. Applying a dramaturgical conceptual framework, this thesis provides new insights into a lesser studied area of public-order policing. Within PLT-citizen interaction the significance of performance when interpreting actions is central. Framing the interpretation of police work using Goffman’s theories facilitates a more nuanced investigation into the ‘everyday’ behaviours within policing. My research develops our conceptual understanding of the policing of crowds still further, exploring on a micro level police-citizen interaction and the communicative structures that govern this

Reinventing the retail sector with Virtual Fitting Rooms: Consumer Perception

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Marketing Research and CRMVirtual Fitting Rooms (VFRs) have emerged as a promising technology for the eyewear industry, offering consumers the opportunity to try on glasses virtually before purchasing them. However, little is known about consumers' perception towards VFRs, especially in the context of eyewear. This thesis aims to explore consumers' assessment of VFRs for eyewear using a mixed-methods approach, including an experiment, in-depth interviews, and observation method. The sample consisted of 219 participants from NOVA IMS. The experiment aimed to measure the degree of acceptance of potential privacy issues involved and the willingness to use VFRs. The in-depth interviews aimed to explore the reasons behind participants' assessments towards VFRs, while the observation method was used to analyse the behavior and interaction between the participants and the VFR. The results indicate that concerns regarding potential privacy issues involved in VFRs were higher among the personalized sample. Additionally, younger, and male consumers were more likely to be accepting of potential privacy issues and more responsive to VFRs. Participants were less likely to use VFRs if it required uploading a video but were moderately likely to use VFRs if it required uploading a photo. However, participants were likely to use VFRs if it required entering measurements. Finally, a high proportion of the sample indicated that they would consider or certainly buy after the VFR experience. This study contributes to the literature on consumer’s perception towards VFRs by providing insights of NOVA IMS consumers’ perceptions towards VFRs for eyewear. The findings have important implications for eyewear retailers and manufacturers who are considering the implementation of VFR technology

Field sketching and the interpretation of landscape : exploring the benefits of fieldwork and drawing in contemporary landscape practice

This thesis explores potential roles for field sketching in, landscape observation and assessment, landscape planning and design, landscape representation, and in addressing the experiential dimension of the landscape.The research seeks to define and legitimise the old technique of field sketching, and the use and development of field sketches by students and practitioners of landscape architecture, and other landscape disciplines. The wider values of, fieldwork, hand -generated field notations, drawing as an interactive dialogue with others, and the sketch as a type of landscape representation, are also recognised.Whilst accurate representation and precise geometrical definition of the landscape can now be achieved quickly with photographs and by semi - automated digital means, interpretation requires careful observation. Sketching involves an observer stopping and looking and interpreting slowly and carefully. Field sketching and the uses of the field sketch are proposed as bringing an effectiveness to landscape work, valuable because of the interpretation it involves, and the time it does take: timeless because of its simplicity.A personal way of working is investigated, based on a Grounded Theory approach. Systematic analysis of case studies is made through reflection-on-practice. Practice observations (data) are collated and interpreted by practical sorting tasks, to propose a series of how to do and why important principles regarding field sketching. External support for the research findings is sought from literature, considering the broad themes of: fieldwork and the experience of landscapes, field sketching and drawing as craft and expression, and developing and using field sketches.Applications for field sketching to meet contemporary needs in landscape architecture are proposed: the sketch as a designer's tool, sketch-based visualisations as interpretive images, and field sketching as a participative technique that can be used to engage the inquirer, collaborators, and the public with landscape experience -grounded decisions