Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news

In this paper, we analyse how news images of the 2015 Syrian refugee ‘crisis’ visualise refugees and how, in so doing, they mobilise various forms of moral responsibility in ‘our’ mediated public life – various practical dispositions of action towards the misfortunes of migrants and refugees at Europe’s border. On the basis of empirical material from European news (June-December 2015), we construct a typology of visibilities of the ‘crisis’, each of which situates refugees within a different regime of visibility and claim to action: i) visibility as biological life, associated with monitorial action; ii) visibility as empathy associated with charitable action; iii) visibility as threat, associated with state security; iv) visibility as hospitality, associated with political activism; and v) visibility as selfreflexivity, associated with a post-humanitarian engagement with people like ‘us’. In conclusion, we argue that, important as these five categories of visibility are in introducing public dispositions to action towards the vulnerable, they nonetheless ultimately fail to humanise migrants and refugees. This failure to portray them as human beings with lives that are worth sharing should compel us, we urge, to radically re-think how we understand the media’s responsibility towards vulnerable others

First Test Results of the Trans-Impedance Amplifier Stage of the Ultra-fast HPSoC ASIC

We present the first results from the HPSoC ASIC designed for readout of Ultra-fast Silicon Detectors. The 4-channel ASIC manufactured in 65 nm CMOS by TSMC has been optimized for 50 um thick AC-LGAD. The evaluation of the analog front end with \b{eta}-particles impinging on 3x3 AC-LGAD arrays (500 um pitch, 200x200 um2 metal) confirms a fast output rise time of 600 ps and good timing performance with a jitter of 45 ps. Further calibration experiments and TCT laser studies indicate some gain limitations that are being investigated and are driving the design of the second-generation pre-amplification stages to reach a jitter of 15 ps.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Generation tourism: towards a common identity

The purpose of this article is to highlight the implications of the indiscipline of tourism academia for a new generation of tourism academics. Generation Tourism is characterised by scholars with a multi-disciplinary education associated with a broad field of study and commonly considered to lack the advantages of a discipline-focused education with its strong theoretical and methodological foundations. The problem this article addresses relates to how new generations of scholars and their views on knowledge creation achieve ascendancy in ways that move on from existing paradigms and earlier cohorts of scholars. Our main argument is that Generation Tourism scholars would benefit from a more clearly developed and common academic identity. To begin the critical conversation around the identity of Generation Tourism we outline five possible points of departure. These points are: (1) learning from historical developments in parent disciplines; (2) spearheading inter-disciplinary scholarship; (3) working towards theoretical developments; (4) embracing mediating methodologies and (5) forming tourism nodes and networks. Recognising these as starting points rather than final statements, we hope that the conversation about Generation Tourism identity will continue in other forums

Effective practices of international volunteering for health : perspectives from partner organizations

Abstract: The demand for international volunteer experiences to promote global health and nutrition is increasing and numerous studies have documented the experiences of the international volunteers who travel abroad; however, little is known about effective practices from the perspective of partner organizations. This study aims to understand how variables such as the skill-level of volunteers, the duration of service, cultural and language training, and other key variables affect partner organizations’ perceptions of volunteer effectiveness at promoting healthcare and nutrition..

'Poor children on Tinder' and their Barbie Saviours: towards a feminist political economy of volunteer tourism

Barbie Saviours is a satirical Instagram account and linked Facebook page that depict white western Barbies volunteering in Africa with the bio, 'Jesus. Adventures. Africa. Two worlds. One love. Babies. Beauty. Not qualified. Called. 20 years old. It's not about me... but it kind of is'. Drawing on emerging theories of feminist political economy, we address the growing backlash against volunteer tourism in the popular media and argue that critiques against these images reflect an anti-hegemonic project that highlights the role of sentimental colonialism in contemporary forms of international popular humanitarianism. Widely described as a critique against the "White Saviour Complex", Barbie Saviour is used to popularize a negative image of western female volunteer tourists which currently comprise more than 75 percent of the industry. These critiques question the morality and legitimacy of female volunteer tourists as well as related spaces of western forms of development in the global south. These satires shine a spotlight on the neo-colonial aura of the practice. However, we argue that while this critique is a productive reminder of the symbolic violence of racialized inequality, the critique itself also, albeit inadvertently, perpetuates the ahistorical and apolitical racial, ethnic, gender and class-based binary thinking that it seeks to condemn

Working towards sincere encounters in volunteer tourism : an ethnographic examination of key management issues at a Nordic eco-village

This article explores host–guest dynamics at Sólheimar eco-village, Iceland tocontribute to the conceptualization of transformative learning in volunteertourism. At the eco-village, the host and volunteers come together to sharesimilar goals and meaningful experiences. This interaction gets complicated,however: the eco-village exists within the global capitalist system and mustoperate using market norms. The idealist and educational expectations ofthe volunteers often clash with the practical short-term goals of thecommunity: there are also cultural and experiential differences between theparties. This clash is used to discuss the importance of sincerity in volunteertourism at the eco-village. Data were collected through fieldwork, primarilyincluding participant observations and interviews, to help interpret thepatterns of behaviors and perceptions of both parties in relation to the aim.Ultimately, the experience that binds host and guests cannot solely beabout learning to do things alternatively and sustainably; it requiressincerity, using Taylor’s 2001 sincerity concept, to tackle the difficulties inworking alternatively and sustainably to attain this experience. It is arguedthat transformative learning during the volunteer experience in alternativespaces should be conceptualized to include the promotion of sincereencounters, and adjusted to concern both the host and its guests