Early triadic interactions in the first year of life: a systematic review on object-mediated shared encounters

Infants’ early interactions with adults and everyday objects are key to socio-communicative development, but their emergence and development are still under debate. Aiming at describing the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches on triadicity during the first year of life, we conducted a systematic and qualitative review of recent literature. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we explored the scientific production of recent decades on triadic interactions up to 12 months of age. We initially screened 1943 items from which we obtained a final sample of 51 publications. Studies are usually conducted in laboratory settings, while ecological research is becoming increasingly common, especially in home settings. According to a thematic analysis of the data, we discussed the different perspectives on the origin and conceptualization of triadic interactions, and how they contribute to structuring and facilitating other developmental phenomena, such as the children’s communicative gestures and uses of objects. Prior to the origin of intentional communication, adults facilitate early forms of triadicity based on fostering opportunities for infants’ communication and engagement with both adults and materiality. However, there is a need for further research that explore the potential of early triadic interactions for parenting and early childhood education practises

Difficult forms: critical practices of design and research

As a kind of 'criticism from within', conceptual and critical design inquire into what design is about – how the market operates, what is considered 'good design', and how the design and development of technology typically works. Tracing relations of conceptual and critical design to (post-)critical architecture and anti-design, we discuss a series of issues related to the operational and intellectual basis for 'critical practice', and how these might open up for a new kind of development of the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of design. Rather than prescribing a practice on the basis of theoretical considerations, these critical practices seem to build an intellectual basis for design on the basis of its own modes of operation, a kind of theoretical development that happens through, and from within, design practice and not by means of external descriptions or analyses of its practices and products

Pragmatist Perspectives on Theological and Religious Realism

This essay first applies the general issue of realism vs. antirealism to theology and the philosophy of religion, distinguishing between several different ”levels’ of the realism dispute in this context. A pragmatic approach to the problem of realism regarding religion and theology is sketched and tentatively defended. The similarities and differences of scientific realism, on the one hand, and religious and/or theological realism, on the other hand, are thereby also illuminated. The concept of recognition is shown to be crucially relevant to the issue of realism especially in its pragmatist articulation

Artistic participatory video-making for science engagement

This paper uses theatre to frame reflexive discussions on the use of participatory video making for science engagement. The ‘JuxtaLearn’ research project is presented as a case-study that focuses on performance concepts such as audience, purpose, improvisation or final production as a lens for supporting technology-enabled creative exploration. Three different approaches were taken to creative participatory video making processes: co-creation by learners, as a communication tool for researchers and as a public engagement tool. Differing expectations about the timing and aim of the research process created considerable debate among the research team regarding the control of and purpose of filmmaking. It was not the topic of debate within the film that was deemed controversial, but more who, when and in what ways these debates occurred. Theatrical and HCI concepts of audience, performance ownership, improvisation and storyboarding, boundary object creation, participation and boundary creatures are foci of debate within the project

A return to materialism? Putting social history back into place

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Bloomsbury Academic in New Directions in Cultural and Social History on 22 February 2018, available online at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/new-directions-in-social-and-cultural-history-9781472580818/. The Accepted Manuscript is under embargo until 22 August 2019.Peer reviewe

A polyocular framework for research on multifunctional farming and rural development

The paradox of multifunctionality is that, on the one hand, the specialized functionalities of agriculture only arise because of the functional differentiation of social systems and scientific disciplines and, on the other hand, multifunctionality can only enter as a way to mediate between conflicts, interests and fragmented knowledge when different functions and observations of functions combine. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a theoretical and methodological platform for multidisciplinary research on multifunctional farming. With the notions of polyocular cognition and polyocular communication we introduce a second order, interdisciplinary communication process that can meet the challenge of creating a shared view on multifunctional farming. Polyocular communication must be based on other rules than the rules of the involved disciplines. Whereas disciplinary communication is about providing consistent, efficient and precise knowledge in the context of a sharply delimited research world, polyocular communication is about extending a multidimensional space of understanding

Introduction: Legal Form and Cultural Symbol – Music, Copyright and Information Studies

Writers in information and communication studies often assume the stability of objects under investigation: network nodes, databases, information. Legal writers in the intellectual property tradition often assume that cultural artefacts exist as objects prior to being governed by copyright law. Both assumptions are fallacious. This introduction conceptualises the relationship of legal form and cultural symbol. Starting from an understanding of copyright law as part of systems of production (in the sense of Peterson 1976), it is argued that copyright law constructs the artefacts it seeks to regulate as objects that can be bought and sold. In doing so, the legal and aesthetic logic of cultural symbols may clash, as in the case of digital music (the central focus of this special issue)

Illuminating the possibilities for social learning in the management of Scotland’s water

Our research explores the context of water management in Scotland as it existed in late 2003. We took as a key question: Is the Scottish policy context conducive to the emergence of “social learning” as a purposeful policy option in the future management of water, and in the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive in particular? Data generated by several means, including semistructured interviews with key stakeholders, tested the explanatory potential of a SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and sustainable use of water) heuristic concerned with how changes in understanding and practices can transform situations to produce social learning. Our research demonstrates how the historical context, including initial starting conditions; conducive institutions, especially political devolution, and policies; facilitation; building stakeholding; and the use of learning processes together can create the possibilities for social learning. The processes that went on through the development of the Scottish Water Bill exemplify how social learning as concerted action emerged, but it did not do so from any overall purposeful design. A major challenge is to create purposefully the conditions for social learning as a deliberate policy or governance mechanism

Changing perspectives on early childhood: theory, research and policy

Early childhood policies and practices are shaped by competing images and discourses of the young child. This paper reviews four core perspectives that have been most influential. 1. A developmental perspective emphasizes regularities in young children’s physical and psychosocial growth during early childhood, as well as their dependencies and vulnerabilities during this formative, phase of their lives. 2. A political and economic perspective is informed by developmental principles, translated into social and educational interventions, and underpinned by economic models of human capital. 3. A social and cultural perspective draws attention to respects in which early childhood is a constructed status and to the diversities of ways it is understood and practised, for, with and by young children, with implications for how goals, models and standards are defined, and by whom. 4. A human rights perspective reframes conventional approaches to theory, research policy and practice in ways that fully respect young children’s dignity, their entitlements and their capacities to contribute to their own development and to the development of services. For each of these overarching perspectives, the paper outlines a cluster of specific theoretical, research and policy themes, summarizes major areas of controversy, and identifies a range of alternative visions for early childhood

Repatriation, doxa, and contested heritages: the return of the Altai princess in an international perspective

Using Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and doxa, the authors analyze the contested heritage debates surrounding the sensational Scythian burial discovery of the Altai Princess, also called the Ice Maiden, on the Ukok plateau. Her 2012 repatriation to a special Gazprom-funded museum in the Altai Republic of Russia is politically contextualized and compared to cases of the Kennewick Man in the United States and the Lake Mungo Burials of Australia. The authors stress the importance of "heritage in the making" and conclude that diverse approaches to the Altai Princess must be understood through the historically constituted dispositions of various agents and their interaction with the structures governing society