Local French Food Initiatives in Practice: The Emergence of a Social Movement

This article analyses the development of local food systems from a social movement perspective. It examines the case study of a farm market located in France and considers whether and how local initiatives in food distribution can be viewed as a social movement, using social theory as the conceptual framework

'Merguez Capitale': The merguez sausage as a discursive construction of cosmopolitan branding, colonial memory and local flavour in Marseille

© The Author(s) 2015. Official cultural sectors increasingly deploy cosmopolitan branding efforts, based on the diversity of migrant populations, to market a city as attractive and open. These strategies, meanwhile, continue to coexist with attachments to place as well as a sense of local identification and belonging. In this paper I refer to the way food, and in particular the merguez sausage, is used as a marker to evoke both the cosmopolitan and the local specificities of the city of Marseille, once celebrated as the gateway to France's empire. This work examines cultural initiatives, city streets, film and published Pied-Noir testimonials to argue that the merguez, a spicy sausage associated with North African cuisine, is used as a discursive construction of cosmopolitan branding, attached to a colonial memory, notably Algerian, while coexisting with the formation of local specificities in Marseille

Mentoring students’ intercultural learning during study abroad

Globally, study abroad programmes in the university sector have grown markedly over the last two decades, alongside the increased mobility of capital, goods, and people across the world (Block, Gray, and Holborow 2012, Duchêne and Heller 2012). The higher education sector has introduced various initiatives in order to address these ‘new times’ (New London Group 1996), including internationalised curricula with an intercultural dimension, and the option to study abroad for a component of a degree. Indeed, the opportunity to incorporate study abroad experiences into degree programmes is attractive for individuals seeking professional qualifications to work in internationally connected space

The Queer Stopover: How Queer Travels in the Language Classroom

Over the last decade or so, developments in queer theory and queer perspectives have resulted in changes to the way that identities are viewed. However, the implications for foreign language classrooms are yet to be fully explored. This paper focuses on the challenges involved in introducing queer theory to the foreign language classroom. Specifically, it seeks to respond to the question How does queer travel to the French, Italian and Japanese classrooms in an Australian university? In doing so, it considers the challenges which emerge due to the structures of the languages, the sociocultural context and the teaching materials used in the classroom. It is written by experienced teachers as they considered, and in some cases trialled, how to integrate queer perspectives into their teaching. The challenges addressed here are not exhaustive, but represent those the authors consider as the most salient at the initial steps of the journe

Soliton spectra of random water waves in shallow basins

Interpretation of random wave field on a shallow water in terms of Fourier spectra is not adequate, when wave amplitudes are not infinitesimally small. A nonlinearity of wave fields leads to the harmonic interactions and random variation of Fourier spectra. As has been shown by Osborne and his co-authors, a more adequate analysis can be performed in terms of nonlinear modes representing cnoidal waves; a spectrum of such modes remains unchanged even in the process of nonlinear mode interactions. Here we show that there is an alternative and more simple analysis of random wave fields on shallow water, which can be presented in terms of interacting Korteweg - de Vries solitons. The data processing of random wave field is developed on the basis of inverse scattering method. The soliton component obscured in a random wave field is determined and a corresponding distribution function of number of solitons on their amplitudes is constructed. The approach developed is illustrated by means of artificially generated quasi-random wave field and applied to the real data interpretation of wind waves generated in the laboratory wind tank.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figure

Enacting Alternatives to Nationalist Essentialising in Language Learning: Students' Voices

Researchers examining nationalistic conceptions of language learning argue that nationalist essentialism often shapes the way languages are taught by educators and understood by learners. While numerous studies focus on how frameworks underpinned by Critical Discourse Analysis and intercultural education offer alternative approaches to national stereotyping, these studies tend to focus on theoretical approaches, teacher perspectives or innovative teaching and learning resources. The literature to date, however, does not provide case studies on student responses to activities designed by the teacher to open up the classroom with opportunities that challenge essentialist representations. This paper responds to the need for such scholarship by identifying some of the ways students enact and reflect upon alternatives to nationalist essentialising. Through a case study involving tertiary students in an Italian language and culture subject and underpinned by a CDA framework, the findings suggest that students enacted alternatives to nationalist essentialism through skills and attitudes such as curiosity, the challenging of stereotypical representations, subjectivities and their connections with broader social contexts. Some of the data also indicate student engagement in critical inquiry and potential for social agency

Sustaining the future through virtual worlds

Virtual worlds (VWs) continue to be used extensively in Australia and New Zealand higher education institutions although the tendency towards making unrealistic claims of efficacy and popularity appears to be over. Some educators at higher education institutions continue to use VWs in the same way as they have done in the past; others are exploring a range of different VWs or using them in new ways; whilst some are opting out altogether. This paper presents an overview of how 46 educators from some 26 institutions see VWs as an opportunity to sustain higher education. The positives and negatives of using VWs are discussed

Virtual worlds in Australian and New Zealand higher education: Remembering the past, Understanding the present and imagining the future

3D virtual reality, including the current generation of multi-user virtual worlds, has had a long history of use in education and training, and it experienced a surge of renewed interest with the advent of Second Life in 2003. What followed shortly after were several years marked by considerable hype around the use of virtual worlds for teaching, learning and research in higher education. For the moment, uptake of the technology seems to have plateaued, with academics either maintaining the status quo and continuing to use virtual worlds as they have previously done or choosing to opt out altogether. This paper presents a brief review of the use of virtual worlds in the Australian and New Zealand higher education sector in the past and reports on its use in the sector at the present time, based on input from members of the Australian and New Zealand Virtual Worlds Working Group. It then adopts a forward-looking perspective amid the current climate of uncertainty, musing on future directions and offering suggestions for potential new applications in light of recent technological developments and innovations in the area