Experiencing visual impairment in a lifetime home: an interpretative phenomenological inquiry

Lifetime home standards (LTHS) are a set of standards aimed at making homes more accessible. Previous research, however, indicates that LTHS do not adequately meet the needs of those with sensory impairments. Now, with visual impairment set to increase globally and acknowledging the recognised link between quality of dwelling and wellbeing, this article aims to examine the experiences of visually impaired people living in lifetime homes. The objectives are to investigate existing lifetime homes and to identify whether LTHS meet occupants’ needs. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were carried out with six visually impaired people living in homes designed to LTHS in Northern Ireland. Collected data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis identifying three super-ordinate themes: (1) living with visual impairment; (2) design considerations and (3) coping strategies. A core theme of balance between psychological and physical needs emerged through interconnection of super-ordinate themes. Although there are benefits to living in lifetime homes, negative aspects are also apparent with occupants employing several coping strategies to overcome difficulties. Whilst residents experience negative emotions following visual impairment diagnoses, results suggest that occupants still regard their homes as key places of security and comfort in addition to then highlighting the need for greater consideration of specific individual needs within general guidelines

Queering Brexit: what’s in Brexit for sexual and gender minorities?

On 24 June 2016, many people had the feeling that they had gone to bed the night before in the United Kingdom and had woken up in Little Britain – a country prone to isolationism and protectionism, risking hurting its economic and social development for the sake of imperial nostalgia and moral panic about ‘loss of sovereignty’ and ‘mass migration’. That feeling inevitably affected many individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+). Although the possible impact of Brexit seems to have been scrutinised from most angles, there has been limited analysis of how it may affect LGBTIQ+ individuals. This contribution assesses Brexit in relation to the situation of LGBTIQ+ individuals. This is particularly timely in the light of the recent UK Supreme Court decision in Walker v Innospec Limited, where the Court relied on European Union (EU) law to hold a provision of the Equality Act 2010 unlawful for violating pension rights of same-sex couples

Post-conflict Statebuilding and State Legitimacy: From Negative to Positive Peace?

This version of this article has the following title: Statebuilding 3.0: building local legitimacy, essential security and global governance. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: ROBERTS, D., 2008. Post-conflict statebuilding and state legitimacy: from negative to positive peace? Development and Change, 39 (4), pp. 537-555, which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00495.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.This article is concerned with the potential that statebuilding interventions have to institutionalize social justice, in addition to their more immediate 'negative' peace mandates, and the impact this might have, both on local state legitimacy and the character of the 'peace' that might follow. Much recent scholarship has stressed the legitimacy of a state's behaviour in relation to conformity to global governance norms or democratic 'best practice'. Less evident is a discussion of the extent to which post-conflict polities are able to engender the societal legitimacy central to political stability. As long as this level of legitimacy is absent (and it is hard to generate), civil society is likely to remain distant from the state, and peace and stability may remain elusive. A solution to this may be to apply existing international legislation centred in the UN and the ILO to compel international organizations and national states to deliver basic needs security through their institutions. This has the effect of stimulating local-level state legitimacy while simultaneously formalizing social justice and positive peacebuilding

Free to trade? Commission autonomy in the Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations

In this article, we suggest that the degree of (dis)unity – both between the member states (MS) in the Council and within the Commission – is a key factor in affecting the balance between Commission autonomy and MS control in international trade negotiations. We shed empirical light on this issue, and on the relative influence of MS and the Commission in general, through a case study of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. We suggest that the differing preferences and priorities among MS and the relative cohesiveness of the Commission provided the Commission with quite a high degree of autonomy during all phases of the EPA negotiations. The informational and procedural advantages given by its institutional position as sole negotiator also contributed to the significant autonomy of the Commission

"The EU as an international negotiator"

In this paper we want to problematize this conventional view of the EU as a reactive, conservative international negotiator. We argue that the EU's structural features need not always result in a disadvantage for the Union in international negotiations. We also content that EU negotiation behavior to a large extent depends on contextual factors. Are negotiations symmetrical or asymmetrical? Are the intentions of the EU shams quo-oriented or change¬-oriented? All these negotiation-specific factors determine what bargaining pattern we expect to find. In addition to the EU's structural features (actor level characteristics) and the negotiation situation (interaction level characteristics), we also ask if the changing nature and character of international negotiations in general (at the systems level) may also begin to impact on the conventional view of EU as a passive and inflexible negotiator

Imitación y adquisición del lenguaje

Our work studies the early language imitation of three children in conversational situations with a familiar adult. Their spontaneous interaction at home were videotaped in sessions lasting 30/40 minutes, every 3/4 weeks. Results express the importance of imitation for one child (referential) in order to maintain communicative interaction with his mother. The process proved to be less important for the child who was clearly expressive. The third child was considered to be in an intermediate position. To conclude, we discuss the importance of adult language behaviour in relation to children�s early language use, and the strategies employed to maintain dialogue, emphasizing the use of imitation as a way of regulating child speech with adult linguistic behaviour.Este artículo estudia las imitaciones en el primer lenguaje de tres niños en situaciones conversacionales con un adulto. Las interacciones espontáneas eran registradas en vídeo en la familia en sesiones de 30 a 40 minutos cada 3/4 semanas. Los resultados expresan la importancia de la imitación para uno de los niños (referencial) en orden a mantener interacciones comunicativas con su madre. Dicho proceso era mucho menos importante para otro de los sujetos, una niña expresiva. El tercer niño aparece en una posición intermedia. Las conclusiones discuten la importancia de las conductas lingüísticas del adulto en relación al primer uso del lenguaje infantil, así como de las estrategias empleadas para mantener el diálogo, enfatizando el uso de la imitación como una forma de regular las conductas lingüísticas infantiles a las conductas lingüísticas del adulto

What makes a good EU Presidency? Italy and Ireland compared

What makes a `good EU presidency? A comparison between the two most recent Italian and Irish experiences in office can be instrumental in evaluating the crucial factors that affect presidency performance. The argument is developed in three main stages. Firstly, four key roles are selected in order to benchmark presidencies. Secondly, these roles are applied to the empirical record as criteria to devise a score-card of the two presidencies under consideration. Thirdly, presidency-specific factors are elicited and analysed, arguing that intangible assets, such as knowledge of EU affairs (process expertise, content expertise and information); political credibility and reputation; and general attitudes towards European integration, are crucial in performing the roles of president-in-office effectively and legitimately

Negotiating Transparency: The Role of Institutions

On 30 May 2001, a new regulation on public access to EU documents was presented and was heralded in the European press as a breakthrough for transparency. We argue that a focus on institutions can cast light on the negotiation processes that led to this decision, and explain the final-for realist negotiation theory puzzling-outcome. We demonstrate the importance of institutions in EU negotiations by detailing actor interests and strategies in the transparency case, and by tracing and analysing the negotiation process that resulted in the regulation. The institutions that receive particular attention are: agenda-shaping rules, decision-making procedures and voting rules, informal norms, time tables and deadlines, and intervention by institutional actors. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004.