ManneqKit Cards:A Kinesthetic Empathic Design Tool Communicating Depression Experiences

While depression is a mood disorder with significant societal impact, the experiences of people living with depression are yet not easy to access. HCI’s tenet to understand users, particularly addressed by the empathic design approach, has prioritized verbal communication of such experiences. We introduce ManneqKit, a kinesthetic empathic design tool consisting of 15 cards with bodily postures and vignettes leveraging the nonverbal aspects of depression experiences. We report ManneqKit’s co-design with 10 therapists, its piloting with 4 therapists and 10 non-therapists, and evaluation through design workshops with 9 interaction designers. Findings indicate cards’ ability to elicit non-therapists’ increased empathy, and richer emotional depictions when compared to text-based description of depression symptoms. We discuss the value of these findings for interaction design in supporting richer understanding of vulnerable users experiencing depression, for more sensitive conceptual designs in the ideation stage, and more nuanced ethical values underpinning the overall design process

REMix: The university as an advocate for responsible education about migration in Europe: Inclusive societies: A textbook for interdisciplinary migration studies

With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Unio

Sven-Olof Olsson (ed.), Managing Crises and De-globalization. Nordic foreign trade and exchange 1919-39 (New York: Routledge, 2014 pbk.)

A review of the book: Sven-Olof Olsson (ed.), Managing Crises and De-globalization. Nordic foreign trade and exchange 191-39 (New York: Routledge, 2014 pbk. [original hardcover edition: 2010]

Pieter Bevelander & Bo Petersson (eds.), Crisis and Migration. Implications of the Eurozone Crisis for Perceptions, Politics, and Policies on Migration (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2014)

Review of the following book: Pieter Bevelander & Bo Petersson (eds.), Crisis and Migration. Implications of the Eurozone Crisis for Perceptions, Politics, and Policies on Migration, Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 201

Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment (London: The Bodley Head, 2017)

A review of the book: Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room. My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment (London: The Bodley Head, 2017

Richard Rorty, a sophist without a soap-box

En este artículo voy a desafiar la utopía liberal de Richard Rorty, tal y como él define su empresa ética y política en Contingencia, Ironía y Solidaridad. Me centraré en dos nociones cruciales presentadas en relación con esto: etnocentrismo e ironía liberal. La primera describe la versión refinada del relativismo cultural, a saber, su creencia de que todas las formas de justificación racional san inherentemente circulares y rela-tivas al ettcnos en el que se originan. La segunda indica el núcleo de la filosofía política y moral de Rorty, a saber, una égida de contingencia radical y solidaridad social. Con respecto a la primera, mostraré cuán poco clara e inaplicable es la noción de Rorty de ethnos: argumentaré que apenas se puede aplicar este concepto a ninguna comunidad social existente. Con respecto a la segunda, ilustraré cuán imposible y autorrebajado-ra es al mismo tiempo su defensa tanto de la ironía liberal como de la solidaridad social: en verdad, son políticamente irreconciliables. En conclusión, esbozaré cómo el liberalismo de Rorty en realidad conlleva una justificación no-circular no declarada, en la cual se fundamenta todo su proyecto

Review of “Vilfredo Pareto: An Intellectual Biography III. From Liberty to Science (1898-1923)” by Fiorenzo Mornati

Review of “Vilfredo Pareto: An Intellectual Biography III. From Liberty to Science (1898-1923)” by Fiorenzo Mornat

Religious Belief, Human Rights, and Social Democracy: Catholic Reflections on Abortion in Iceland

Terms such as “pro-life” and “pro-choice” evoke animated responses in the Anglophone world and can even win, or lose, major elections to political parties, candidates and movements. In the Nordic countries, however, the same terms and related responses are generally perceived as academic, at best, or as American, at worst. The issue of abortion seems to have been settled long ago in the Nordic context, both legally and, above all, socially. Does it mean that it has also been settled ethically? I argue that this is far from being the case and present an Iceland-based approach to the issue that, while leaving women’s rights and freedoms untouched, can accommodate to an extent the defence of Scandinavian-style social democracy as well as the traditional Catholic defence of human life

Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.), Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: Border Crossings, Transformations and Planetary Realizations (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)

A review of the book: Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.), Pragmatism, Spirituality and Society: Border Crossings, Transformations and Planetary Realizations (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

Enemies of Interculturalism: The Economic Crisis in Light of Xenophobia, Liberal Cruelties and Human Rights

This paper contains a slightly enlarged version of the key-note speech given by its author at the final IDIN conference, held at the University of Bergen, Norway, 21st-23rd August 2014. In it, the issues of xenophobia, liberalism and cruelty are discussed, especially in the specific context of Iceland during the 2000s, i.e. the nation’s hot-money-induced boom in the early years of the century, its world-famous bust in 2008, and a less-known recovery over the years 2009-2013