Turkish summer? Protests, politics and media – eyewitness analysis

This is the second part of Esra Dogramaci’s eye-witness account of the protests in Turky and her political analysis of what it means and where it is headed. Read the first part here. Here she starts off by looking at the role of the media

Not a Turkish spring – eyewitness analysis of the protests with pix

This article is by Esra Dogramaci – a journalist and LSE graduate student who has been in Turkey during the protests. It’s a long read but it gives you a detailed first hand narrative of the protests and some analysis of its significance and context from a Turkish point of view. More to follow. She is on Twitter as @Esra

Close to the Field: The Artistic Portrayal of Seasonal Workers in Germany

This article examines contemporary artistic engagement with the theme of Eastern European seasonal migration in German agriculture. Seasonal labor of Eastern European workers in agriculture has been an integral part of German history since at least the 19th century. Migrant workers from what is now Poland in particular have provided seasonal help during harvest times. The advantage for the farms was (and remains today) that the workers did not have to be employed permanently, especially not in winter, but were hired and paid specifically for the harvest season. It was not until the current pandemic that the public became aware of the situation of temporarily migrating harvest workers, due to the high numbers of infections on asparagus farms, for example. This article enquires into art’s specific approaches to the subject: recent works by the artist Andrea Büttner and the photographer Irina Ruppert, who have dealt with harvest workers and their work in recent years, were selected. In this essay, the social and historical contexts are put into perspective as are the artistic and photographic traditions within which Büttner and Ruppert operate. The guiding question is how artistic means are used to make visible a practice that is socially invisible or marginalized, such as seasonal labor migration. Dicht am Feld: Saisonarbeiter*innen in Deutschland im Blick zeitgenössischer Kunst und Fotografie Dieser Beitrag untersucht zeitgenössische künstlerische Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Thema der osteuropäischen saisonalen Migration in der deutschen Landwirtschaft. Die Saisonarbeit osteuropäischer Arbeitskräfte ist mindestens seit dem 19. Jahrhundert ein fester Bestandteil der deutschen Geschichte. Vor allem Arbeitsmigrant*innen aus dem heutigen Polen halfen in der Erntezeit aus. Der Vorteil für die Betriebe war (und ist auch heute noch), dass die Arbeiter*innen nicht dauerhaft, vor allem nicht im Winter, beschäftigt werden mussten, sondern gezielt für die Erntezeit eingestellt und bezahlt wurden. Erst im Zuge der aktuellen Pandemie wurde die Öffentlichkeit durch die hohen Infektionszahlen, z.B. auf Spargelhöfen, auf die Situation der temporär migrierenden Erntehelfer*innen aufmerksam. Der Beitrag fragt nach den spezifischen Zugängen der Kunst zu diesem Thema: Ausgewählt wurden aktuelle Arbeiten der Künstlerin Andrea Büttner und der Fotografin Irina Ruppert, die sich in den letzten Jahren mit Erntehelfer*innen und ihrer Arbeit auseinandersetzten. In diesem Essay werden die sozialen und historischen Kontexte ebenso diskutiert wie die künstlerischen und fotografischen Traditionen, in denen sich Büttner und Ruppert bewegen. Zentral ist dabei die Frage, wie mit künstlerischen Mitteln eine gesellschaftlich unsichtbare oder marginalisierte Praxis wie die saisonale Arbeitsmigration sichtbar gemacht wird

Time-motion analysis of international and national level futsal

Futsal is the Fèdèration de Internationale Football Association's officially recognized fivea-side indoor soccer, which although increasing in popularity worldwide, lacks the Australian or other English language research necessary to enable the growth of the sport. The purpose of this study was to establish a comprehensive overview of the demands of futsal by a time-motion analysis on 8 Australian National Team players and 10 State League Team players over 4 futsal matches. The study analyzed 6 locomotor activity categories, focusing on total distance covered, total duration of activities, total frequency of activities, effort distance, and effort duration. The national team covered a 42% greater overall distance than the state league team. In terms of relative data normalized for match duration, only the standing duration value was significantly different between the teams. Furthermore, futsal players of elite and subelite level in Australia perform a change in activity every 8-9 seconds on the court, and the national team athletes attained a higher, yet nonsignificant, average match-play velocity. This may be because of the national futsal athletes participating in an extended game duration, potentially suggesting that higher levels of competition facilitate a higher intensity of match play and greater physiological demands on individual players. Apart from the differences in timing structure and overall metabolic work, there was no real difference between the levels of competition within the Australian futsal analysis, although at higher levels of competition, there may be a need for more recovery because of the elevated intensity of the match. When comparing the data with other countries, however, Australian futsal players produce less distance and duration than Spanish futsal players. © 2011 National Strength and Conditioning Association