3,700 research outputs found

    Limits of inclusion: multimodal action-nets and the challenge of communication technologies for disability

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    This paper investigates the effects that the extensive use of communication technologies, fostered by the pandemic, has on organizational inclusion. It is an explorative study that offers theoretical reflections supported by analysis of interviews and journalistic reports of disabled people’s experience with communication technologies and assistive devices. We argue that such technology, although able to foster unexpected changes in work activities, is not inclusive in itself, as it can also produce errors, malfunctions, frustrations, misnarration. Therefore, we propose a relational approach that sees inclusion not in terms of the adoption of single accessibility devices, nor of specific policies in HR management, but rather as a dynamic process characterized by multimodal action-nets, composed of multiple socio-material agents and nodes, both human and non-human, and complex interdependencies between individuals, public and private organizations, technological artifacts, design, IT services and data processing, hiring policies, knowledge and narratives. Such an approach highlights the fruitful connection between inclusion and resilience

    Museums and Community Engagement: The Politics of Practice within Museum Organisations

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    Community engagement (CE) is a key focus of UK museum policy and practice, increasingly used as a strategy to democratise museums and position them as social agents. However, the practices of CE have not evolved far beyond what I call the ‘contributory museum’, which focuses on how communities can benefit the museum. In this thesis I propose the distributed museum as an alternative contribution to museological theory and practice, and call for a conceptual and practical reconfiguration that focuses on how museums can benefit communities. This concept arises from a deep investigation of the politics of CE practice at Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. The research takes a unique organisational perspective, focusing on museum professionals’ perspectives to examine how CE is constructed and managed across the museum’s different departments, and highlighting varying practices, competing meanings and discourses, and the operational and cultural barriers to this work. Using a novel collaborative-ethnographic methodology, the research examines how the museum’s Outreach Team negotiates institutional barriers, and how their practices have evolved towards more collaborative ways of working with community organisations and localities. Arising from this close examination of practice, the thesis finds evidence for the distributed museum in some elements of current Outreach practice, but it is yet to be realised across the whole museum institution. It suggests that two distinctive practices make the distributed museum: care and craft. These practices are analysed drawing on the geographies of care literatures, and actor-network and assemblages theories. Critically, this thesis presents a politics of practice that works from within the logics of the museum and therefore attends to the competing demands that are currently placed on museums. I argue that if CE is reconfigured in these ways – as a practice of care and as craft – then community engagement will enable a new basis for collaborative practice with communities. The thesis ends with implications for museum policy and practice, and further research

    Embodying difference : hybrid geographies of deaf people's technological experience

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    EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

    A proposal for the establishment of Hellenic Theatre in Education (TiE): possibilities and problems in developing aspects of the British TiE experience in Greece towards the provision of professional theatre with an educational purpose in pre-school and primary education

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    This thesis attempts to identify the potential of establishing Theatre in Education, a professional theatre work with an educational purpose, as an effective medium for children in pre-school and primary education in Greece. It examines the possibilities and problems inherent in this potential given the current circumstances in theatre, education and the wider social context of contemporary Greece. Original data was gathered using survey questionnaires, interviews and through observation of Greek children's theatre productions and British TiE programmes. This research study extracts lessons from the British experience towards the introduction of Hellenic TiE by overviewing the political factors that affected the British TiE medium in its short history. It investigates how Theatre Education is practiced in Greek schools; if the current children's theatre practice in Greece is developing aspects of TiE; how these aspects could develop into something closer to TiE; and how Hellenic TiE could contribute to the provision of professional theatre experiences in education. The present research study offers a pragmatic approach to the emergence of Hellenic TiE. The nature of Hellenic TiE is envisaged and defined as something that borrows elements from the British TiE previous and more recent practice and combines both British and Greek theatre elements. This thesis concludes with a proposal addressed to theatre practitioners and theatre companies in Greece who might want to initiate TiE, where it discusses the politics of introducing TiE to Greece and a series of problematics that the emerging TiE teams would need to cope. It envisages how TiE is happening in Greece by arguing for the learning potential of the TiE medium and proposes solutions to some problems for the establishment of Greek TiE companies. Practical recommendations are finally made for the implementation of a pilot TiE programme within regional public theatres (DHPETHE) and private companies in both the immediate term and the long-term perspective

    Reinventing the non-profit theatre: a study of the growth of educational work in British non-profit theatres from the 1990s to the present

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    This thesis examines why non-profit theatres in Britain have become increasingly involved in educational work since the 1990s, from an historical and institutional perspective. With an assumption that this sector-wide organisational change has been caused by a shift in institutional environments of the arts sector, the thesis proposes an institutional framework, where three different institutional logics - artworld, market and policy - coexist and tend to dominate the institutional context at different times. Using this theoretical framework, the thesis demonstrates that arts policy and management during the post-war period were shaped by the artworld logic. However, the two decades since 1979 have seen the environments become complicated because the institutional logics of the market and policy gained currency. Criticising the limitation of marketisation theory that has so far dominated most analyses of recent cultural policy, the thesis sheds light on the fact that active intervention by the state has replaced the arm’s length principle and the arts - especially arts education and participatory arts activities - are increasingly used for explicit social policy objectives. This phenomenon is defined as ‘politicisation’ of the arts. The rapid growth of educational work since the 1990s is conceptualised as an organisational adaptation of theatres to such environments. The case study of four English theatres demonstrates that although the theatres have expanded education under unprecedented political pressure, they also try to implicitly resist external intervention and to maximise autonomy. This implies that politicisation is a complicated process of institutional change: whilst new rules, norms and expectations have been developed under the policy logic, the sector’s romantic view of the arts has been reformulated and old ways of working have persisted. Thus, the recent institutional change in the non-profit arts sector is better understood as an integration of different institutional logics, not as colonisation of the arts world by the market or politics. In these dynamics environments, the non-profit theatre can reinvent itself as a creative educator and social impact generator without fundamental transformation in its artistic and management sides

    Landscapes of blindness and visual impairment : sight, touch and laughter in the English countryside

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    Through ethnographic research acting as a sighted guide for members of specialist walking groups who visit areas of the Lake District and Peak District, in this thesis I illustrate how people with blindness experience and talk about their landscape encounters. Building on work on landscape and the body, in the wake of `nonrepresentational theory', a distinct approach to interpreting landscape experience is advocated, where these experiences are understood to exist in reciprocal `becomings' which draw variably from the possible material, embodied and discursive domains of landscape. Attention is also given to limits of personal testimony about embodied experiences of landscape and the contribution that neurobiological research might make to better understanding embodied experience. These dynamics of interview testimony and processes of landscape experience are illustrated in the thesis through recourse to interview material, ethnographic field-notes, photographic, video data and secondary research material. Specific attention is given to the inter-corporeal and inter-subjective processes of vision, touch and laughter which are found to be key elements in blind walkers' encounters with and talk of, the material landscapes of the Lakes and Peaks. These representations of blind walkers' landscape experiences are important because they help to off set the rather `ablist' literature which has tended to be evident in representations of countryside users and representations of landscape as a form of distant and objectifying visual apprehension.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEconomic and Social Research CouncilGBUnited Kingdo

    Volume 13, Nos. 3 and 4

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    PapersCalling the tune in social care information, Bryan Glastonbury.Using on-line technology to teach controversial issues, Lesley Cooper.Empowerment, disability and new technologies: bridging the gap in training, Liz Dimond and Boh Davis.Experiencing practice complexities via computer: multimedia innovation in social work education, Stuart Evans, Melissa Petrakis and Phillip Swain.Integrating geographcial information systems in social work education programs, Debra Gohagan.Book reviewsManaging technological change - strategies for colleges and university leaders, review by Sue Orton.Human service technology: understanding, designing, and 57implementing computer and internet applications in the social services, review by David Colombi

    Transforming our World through Universal Design for Human Development

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    An environment, or any building product or service in it, should ideally be designed to meet the needs of all those who wish to use it. Universal Design is the design and composition of environments, products, and services so that they can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. It creates products, services and environments that meet people’s needs. In short, Universal Design is good design. This book presents the proceedings of UD2022, the 6th International Conference on Universal Design, held from 7 - 9 September 2022 in Brescia, Italy.The conference is targeted at professionals and academics interested in the theme of universal design as related to the built environment and the wellbeing of users, but also covers mobility and urban environments, knowledge, and information transfer, bringing together research knowledge and best practice from all over the world. The book contains 72 papers from 13 countries, grouped into 8 sections and covering topics including the design of inclusive natural environments and urban spaces, communities, neighborhoods and cities; housing; healthcare; mobility and transport systems; and universally- designed learning environments, work places, cultural and recreational spaces. One section is devoted to universal design and cultural heritage, which had a particular focus at this edition of the conference. The book reflects the professional and disciplinary diversity represented in the UD movement, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves inclusive design
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