Avoiding the 'easy route': young peoples' socio-spatial experience of the outdoors in the absence of digital technology

Over-use of smartphones and under-engagement in outdoor pursuits are popularly touted as inter-dependent phenomena with various implications for the health and well-being of young people. At the same time, there has been a relative lack of social scientific scrutiny on the topic which, we contend, has been stifled by the imperative to avoid ontological distinctions between the ‘technological/virtual’ and the ‘real’, as well as deterministic renditions on the role of technology in social life. In this paper we provide evidence to reanimate this discussion by drawing into focus that, from the perspectives of young people themselves, there are and remain discernible differences in the socio-spatial relationships mediated by the presence/absence of technology in different settings. The empirical material draws on participant observation, walking- and group-interviews with young people taking part in the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which requires them to undertake outdoor expeditions without their smartphones. We use the metaphor of ‘avoiding the easy route’ to emphasise the differences in experience that manifest themselves for young people during co-present, and often more challenging, embodied encounters. We argue that co-present encounters with places and others are often fuller in terms of the breadth of embodied sensory experience, and often more difficult in terms of i) the kinaesthetic experience of place and ii) the non-selectivity of social relationships. The combination and sharing of these difficulties, we further argue, has a moral and political function in ordering young people's environmental and social values

The more-than-economic dimensions of cooperation in food production

Moving forwards from an extensive literature on farmers' cooperatives, this Special Issue aims to explore the interaction and interdependence of multiple material and immaterial benefits associated with cooperation. The eight papers gathered here address a range of contexts to explore the inseparability of a set of ‘more-than-economic’ benefits of cooperation and consider the wider implications of viewing cooperation in such light. Responding to their insights, this editorial reflects upon the ontological ambiguity of concepts of economy and the political potentiality of cooperative activities. In addition, we highlight three key themes raised by the papers, which emphasize the complexity of processes and values included in cooperation: Relatedness and Embeddedness; Institutions and Formalisation; Histories and Futures. Reflecting on the transformative capacities of cooperation described in this collection, we argue that valuing cooperation as a process rather than a means to fixed-ends can carry its own emancipatory potential, given the ways in which this can work to counter the compartmentalising tendencies of capitalism. However, we conclude by cautioning that the addressing of more pervasive structural impediments needs to be integrated into cooperative endeavours if such potential is to be fully realised

Avoided Critical Behavior in O(n) Systems

Long-range frustrating interactions, even if their strength is infinitesimal, can give rise to a dramatic proliferations of ground or near-ground states. As a consequence, the ordering temperature can exhibit a discontinuous drop as a function of the frustration. A simple model of the doped Mott insulator, where the short-range tendency of the holes to phase separate competes with long-range Coulomb effects, exhibits this "avoided critical" behavior. This model may serve as a paradigm for many other systems.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

The types of Mott insulator

There are two classes of Mott insulators in nature, distinguished by their responses to weak doping. With increasing chemical potential, Type I Mott insulators undergo a first order phase transition from the undoped to the doped phase. In the presence of long-range Coulomb interactions, this leads to an inhomogeneous state exhibiting ``micro-phase separation.'' In contrast, in Type II Mott insulators charges go in continuously above a critical chemical potential. We show that if the insulating state has a broken symmetry, this increases the likelihood that it will be Type I. There exists a close analogy between these two types of Mott insulators and the familiar Type I and Type II superconductors

Topological doping and the stability of stripe phases

We analyze the properties of a general Ginzburg-Landau free energy with competing order parameters, long-range interactions, and global constraints (e.g., a fixed value of a total ``charge'') to address the physics of stripe phases in underdoped high-Tc and related materials. For a local free energy limited to quadratic terms of the gradient expansion, only uniform or phase-separated configurations are thermodynamically stable. ``Stripe'' or other non-uniform phases can be stabilized by long-range forces, but can only have non-topological (in-phase) domain walls where the components of the antiferromagnetic order parameter never change sign, and the periods of charge and spin density waves coincide. The antiphase domain walls observed experimentally require physics on an intermediate lengthscale, and they are absent from a model that involves only long-distance physics. Dense stripe phases can be stable even in the absence of long-range forces, but domain walls always attract at large distances, i.e., there is a ubiquitous tendency to phase separation at small doping. The implications for the phase diagram of underdoped cuprates are discussed.Comment: 18 two-column pages, 2 figures, revtex+eps