Growing Your Own And Growing Social Cohesion? A Study of the Social and Civic Dividends of Urban Agriculture (UA) Initiatives: Dublin and Belfast

This study explores the social and civic dividends of allotment gardening in two diverse urban contexts: Dublin, Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Traditionally, allotments were associated with older men and lower socio-economic groups. A demonstrable rise in urban agriculture (UA) initiatives in recent years has seen a significant shift in the traditional demographics engaging in practice. Those investing are increasingly younger, from the middle classes, and include more and more women. Drawing on empirical investigations in both cities between 2011- 2013, this thesis argues that the revival of the urban allotment represents a form of resistance to the dis-embedding processes associated with post-modern lifestyles. Urban gardening represents an explicit attempt by urban dwellers to (re)connect with traditional forms of knowledge, the land, and practice. UA enables urban dwellers to (re)connect with others, (re)generate a sense of community, and to restore a sense of belonging in the city. The rise in demand for UA in Belfast also represents an explicit attempt by urban dwellers to engage in bridge-building across the community divide, ameliorate residual ethno-religious/national divisions in the city and transcend the politicization of everyday urban life. Indeed, in both cities, allotment gardening creates a form of social levelling that contributes to social integration and localised forms of social cohesion. The study develops an innovative typology of allotment gardeners, and introduces the concepts of agrarian habitus and aspirational habitus to explain the complex relationships between ecological goals and beliefs and actual cultivation practices. An extensive archive of photographs is drawn upon to illustrate the physical, social, ecological and aesthetic dimensions of allotment gardening. Finally, the study makes a number of recommendations for how policy makers might better integrate UA practices into everyday life in the city

A Labor of Love

Chuck and Jay Ames have transformed the campus where they first met on a blind date more than 50 years ago

A (mid)Life Worth Living

For Baby Boomers, middle age can become a crossroads, providing the chance to discover our true gifts

Women and maternity care providers experiences of planned home birth in Northern Ireland: A descriptive survey

Background: Where a woman gives birth impacts both her postnatal outcomes and experiences. However, for women who plan home birth in Northern Ireland, their experiences and that of their maternity care providers are rarely sought. Aim: This study examined women's and maternity care providers’ experiences and perceptions of home birth service provision in Northern Ireland. Methods: Online surveys were used to investigate the experiences of women (n = 62) who had experienced a home birth or had a view on planned home birth and maternity care providers (n = 77) who offered home birth services in Northern Ireland between November 2018 and November 2020. The surveys were analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings: The women were all multigravida, with 39 experiencing a planned home birth and three having an intrapartum transfer. Most of the women (61.3 %; n = 38/62) knew about home birth services through social media or friends and 91% (n = 57/62) discussed their plans for home birth with their maternity care providers antenatally. Maternity care providers were mostly supportive (64.9 %; n = 50/77) of women having a choice about place of birth. Midwives were mostly confident (52 %; n = 13/25) or very confident (28 %; n = 7) about caring for women having a planned home birth but did not always feel supported by colleagues. Discussion: Most women rated their care as excellent or very good. Midwives reported limited support from colleagues for home birth provision. Conclusion: There is a need to support women in their birthplace choice and empower maternity care providers to facilitate this through a fully resourced home birth service infrastructure and collegial support

Audit Firm Rotation Concerns And Considerations

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued a concept release in 2011 which proposes a mandatory audit firm rotation. However, PCAOB indicates that there is a limited amount of empirical data and research evidence on the potential costs and benefits of such mandatory audit firm rotation. This study provides some empirical evidences related to PCAOBs concerns. Specifically, we find that the largest clients audited by Big 4 accounting firms have few material internal control weaknesses and accounting restatements. In addition, accounting restatements are often reported within four years after the beginning of accounting errors and are reported by the same auditor during the restatement period. These findings cast doubt on the benefit of mandatory audit firm rotation. We also find that the largest audit clients on average represent over 20% of the audit revenues of local offices of Big 4 accounting firms. Thus, mandatory audit firm rotations could significantly disrupt the normal operations of public accounting firms if audit clients are required to change auditors periodically

Lived residencies, experiential learning and thick geographies: how artists produce knowledge(s) in the social studio

This practice-based research articulates how contemporary artists learn from their peers and others within social studio, or group, artists’ residency (SSAR), and ways in which the disruption of one’s habitus contributes to processual learning. I ask, when undergoing a durational place-based residency event, how does an individual artist’s practice shift, and how does conversation and “hanging out” work towards this shift? I conduct this examination in part by doing residency as a means to study them. My principal research aims are to better understand and determine how peer-led experiential learning in situ and over time affects the creative process and imagination inside the SSAR, and how this is situated inside the arts ecology both globally and regionally. To do so, I draw from the immersive learning approach unfolding from Black Mountain College (1933-1956) as a key democratic model in reimagining the place and possible futures of residency. A recent cadre of self-organised residency initiatives reflects horizontal knowledge exchange evidenced in this and other artist-run initiatives, underpinned by social constructivist, pragmatic and non-representational theories (Dewey, Ingold, Manning). However, the perception of art residencies as merely exotic getaways for artists and an escape from everyday preoccupations persists. To address these misperceptions, my research seeks to (1) determine what knowledges are produced and how meaning is co-constructed through various intensities of experience and polytemporality in SSAR; (2) articulate how artists in residency affect and are affected by itinerancy, building and dwelling, and construction of the public sphere; and (3) by centering the artist, assess the degree to which the fracturing of traditional artistic methods engenders a new essential art practice. My methodology evolves from Practice-as-Research and Participant Observation. Through my experiential art practice, I created four itinerant residency events with a cohort of international transdisciplinary peer artists, each 3-4 weeks in duration and making place in both urban and rural settings centred in Edinburgh (SCOT) and Minneapolis (USA). Secondly, I conducted fieldwork at established SSAR case studies in Scotland in order to investigate closely how these spaces function, resources are distributed, and geographies affect residents. This thesis examines host and resident experiences through semi-structured interviews with artists and residency administrators, documentation photography, videography, fieldnotes, binaural sound recordings on site, and reflective narrative. Outcomes of the study show how SSARs can engender a social contract of place-keeping and hospitality, and triangulate trust amongst artists, hosts, and publics; this, in turn, does affect practice and thickening of place. Furthermore, my research contribution to the field proposes the doing of SSAR can engender a new artistic research methodology in itself: the Live Residency, which can be deployed by other researchers and applied across disciplines