Spirituality: A Way to Alternate Subjectivity?

This paper emphasizes the contribution of Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot to discussions of workplace spirituality. It is argued that their understanding of spirituality differs significantly from the mainstream management contributions: they view spirituality as a distinct form of post-modern subjectivity in organizations and regard the subject as continuous flow emerging and being constructed not so much at the crossroad of institutions and macro-structures but from within, with the help of self-formation practices. We term the latter spirituality and argue, firstly, that there are strong (albeit controversial) connections between spiritual practices, the history of Christianity, and the philosophy of antiquity. Secondly, we suggest that spirituality as a relationship of the self to the self can only take place once the individual removes him/herself from the demands of the future or the shackles of the past and focuses entirely on the present with the help of technologies of the self

Cultural animation in health research:An innovative methodology for patient and public involvement and engagement

Background A significant challenge in Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in health research is to include a wide range of opinions and experiences, including from those who repeatedly find themselves at the margins of society. Objective To contribute to the debate around PPIE by introducing a bottom‐up methodology: cultural animation (CA). Cultural Animation is an arts‐based methodology of knowledge co‐production and community engagement which employs a variety of creative and participatory exercises to help build trusting relationships between diverse participants (expert and non‐experts) and democratize the process of research. Design Three CA full‐day workshops for the research project “A Picture of Health.” Participants Each workshop was attended by 20‐25 participants including 4 academics, 5 retired health professionals who volunteered in the local community and 15 community members. Participants ranged in age from 25 to 75 years, and 80% of the participants were women over the age of 60. Results The CA workshops unearthed a diversity of hidden assets, increased human connectivity, led to rethinking of and co‐creating new health indicators and enabled participants to think of community health in a positive way and to consider what can be developed. Discussion Cultural animation encourages participants to imagine and create ideal pictures of health by experimenting with new ways of working together. Conclusion We conclude by highlighting the main advantages to PPIE as follows: CA provides a route to co‐produce research agendas, empowers the public to engage actively with health professionals and make a positive contribution to their community

Re-asserting paradigm plurality: pragmatism and co-production in management and organisation studies

Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) paradigm model has made an enduring impact on management and organisation studies (MOS). Indeed, in a review of its influence and on-going relevance for MOS scholars, Hassard and Cox (2013) reply in the affirmative, extending ‘the Burrell and Morgan framework to account for a third-order paradigm based on post-structuralism and postmodernism’. In particular, Hassard and Cox (2013) acknowledge the ‘paradigm soup’ (Buchanan & Bryman, 2009, p. 4) that has been cooked up within organization theory, and seek to provide a classificatory framework for the contemporary multiplicity of competing paradigms within MOS. Hassard and Cox (2013) is a noteworthy contribution that continues to sustain academic debate about paradigms in general, and Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) seminal paradigm framework in particular

Bridging community resilience and sustainable tourism development via post-disaster education tourism in rural Japan

Post-disaster tourism is an important reconstruction strategy for communities affected by natural disasters. In shrinking rural communities that also experience depopulation and aging as general trends, the need to develop proactive resilient practices for disaster management and sustainable development is a pressing requirement. Our longitudinal, multi-method study carried out in a Japanese rural coastal town affected by the 2011 Tsunami sheds light on the attributes and mechanisms by which a post-disaster education tourism initiative which was led and co-delivered by the community in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders enhanced community resilience and led to sustainable practices of post-disaster reconstruction. We provide empirical insights into how community resilience and sustainable tourism development were achieved through the careful development and balancing of economic, social and environmental capital. Our study contributes to existing debates regarding the relationship between community resilience and sustainability in the tourism field by illustrating how community resilience and sustainability are mutually re-enforcing dimensions which can be achieved via post-disaster education tourism

More Than a ‘Little Act of Kindness’? Towards a Typology of Volunteering as Unpaid Work

Definitions of volunteering are widespread and complex, yet relatively little attention is given to volunteering as unpaid work, even though it intersects with the worlds of paid employment and the domestic sphere, cutting across individual/collective and public/private spaces. This article advances a typology of volunteering work (altruistic, instrumental, militant and forced volunteering/’voluntolding’) that illuminates the complexity and dynamism of volunteering. Using qualitative data from a study of 30 volunteers to explore practices of volunteering as they unfold in daily life, the typology provides much-needed conceptual building blocks for a theory of ‘volunteering as unpaid work’. This perspective helps transcend the binaries prevalent in the sociology of work and provides a lens to rethink what counts as work in contemporary society. It also invites further research about the effects of ‘voluntolding’ on individuals and society, and on the complex relationship between volunteering work and outcomes at a personal and collective level

Co-producing community and individual change through theatrical interventions

This article sheds light on the role of co-produced creative methods in creating change, with particular reference to marginalized communities and taboo topics. In doing so, the paper offers a vignette of a day-long theatrical outreach event exploring the topic of female genital mutilation (FGM). Our paper offers discussion of how creative methods can facilitate individual and collective change surrounding taboo topics, such as FGM, rather than the often discussed relationship between creative methods and organizational change. Furthermore, we suggest that co-produced creative methods are beneficial in providing communities with opportunities to approach taboo societal issues in new and inclusive ways

Ways to care: forms and possibilities for compassion within UK food banks

Food banks are organizations which occupy an uncomfortable position being seen both as a manifestation of caring communities as well as an undesirable feature of neoliberal government. By focusing on the encounters between volunteers and food bank users within these organisations, we excavate their caring side to find three forms of compassion: compassion 'for', compassion 'with' and compassion 'within'. We show that while compassion 'for' can lead to countless selfless acts, it remains embedded within neoliberal discourses. This can serve to reinforce distance and inequalities between giver (volunteer) and receiver (food bank user), creating a chain of indebtedness as compassion becomes part of a transactional exchange offered to those seen as worthy. Compassion 'with' others focuses on the person rather than problem of food poverty and manifests itself in expressions of connection and responsibility which can, however, become possessive at times. Compassion 'within' is a form of compassion that, although less visible and demonstrative in response to the immediate suffering of others, provokes ethical and political reflection for individual volunteers who at times may challenge the very need for food banks. By grounding compassion in a specific social and organizational context, we highlight its relational nature and the dynamic and uncomfortable relation between different forms of compassion in the context of UK food banks. We conclude that compassion is a socially embedded and differentiated relationship which can activate affective, ethical and political responses to food poverty

Food, Ethics and Community: Using Cultural Animation to Develop a Food Vision for North Staffordshire

Eating ethically involves a plethora of activities, being both a contingent and a challenging practice (Williams et al, 2015). The desire to be more ethical in our food choices is connected to anxieties over food consumption, including how and what we should be eating (Ashley et al, 2004), the conditions of production and distribution, highlighted through various food scares from BSE to horse meat in burgers (Jackson, 2010) and the amount of food that gets wasted in the process (Evans, 2014). Such are the range of issues that it becomes hard for consumers to identify a precise focus for the anxiety beyond a general ‘lack of confidence in food’ (Osowski et al, 2012:58) with the result that they feel unsure as to how to respond (Benson,1997)

Herediter spherocytosis a marosvásárhelyi gyermekhematológia osztály tapasztalatában = Hereditary spherocytosis in the experience of two pediatric clinics from Targu Mures

Absztrakt: Bevezetés: A herediter spherocytosis egy öröklött heterogén tünetcsoport, melyre jellemző a kis átmérőjű, gömb alakú vörösvértestek jelenléte a perifériás kenetben haemolysissel társulva. Célkitűzés: Röviden és áttekinthetően összefoglalni a herediter spherocytosis klinikai laboratóriumi jellemzőit, összefüggéseket keresni a saját beteganyagunk adataiból, majd megfigyeléseinket összehasonlítani a szakirodalom eredményeivel. Módszer: Tanulmányunkban retrospektív módon a Marosvásárhelyi 1. és 2. Sz. Gyermekgyógyászati Klinika Hemato-onkológia Osztályának hatéves beteganyagát (2012 és 2017 között) néztük át a klinikai tünetek, a laboratóriumi vizsgálatok és a szövődmények szempontjából. Eredmények: Betegeink között 27 lány és 20 fiú volt. Az anamnézisből kiderült, hogy a 47 gyerekből 20 gyereknek volt pozitív családi kórelőzménye. A perifériás kenetben a sphaerocyták %-os aránya 5–20% között volt a leggyakoribb. A máj megnagyobbodását 31 betegnél, splenomegalia jelenlétét 44 betegnél mutattuk ki. A leggyakrabban előforduló komplikáció a haemolyticus krízis volt (23 eset), mely 8 esetben társult aplasztikus krízissel, illetve 5 esetben epehólyag-gyulladással is. 7 betegünknél epekőbetegség alakult ki, négy páciensnél végeztek epehólyag-eltávolítást. Következtetés: A haemolyticus anaemiák patológiájának leggyakoribb képviselője a herediter spherocytosis. A diagnózis felállításának fő elemei az anamnézis, a klinikai tünetek és a laboratóriumi eredmények, illetve a családi kórelőzmények elemzése. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(45): 1798–1803. | Abstract: Introduction: Hereditary spherocytosis is a genetically determined familial hemolytic anemia. Clinically it is ranged from an asymptomatic condition to severe hemolytic anemia. The major complications are aplastic or megaloblastic crisis, hemolytic crisis, cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. Aim: To shortly summarize the most characteristic symptoms of hereditary spherocytosis from the prism of our centers in order to help primary care-physicians or pediatricians in this affection recognition. Method: In our retrospective study, we processed a period of 6 years between 2012–2017, we studied the clinical signs, laboratory and imagistical findings, evolution and complications. Results: In this period, 47 cases were admitted with hereditary spherocytosis diagnosis to our departments. The most frequent symptoms were jaundice, hepato- and splenomegaly. The observed complications were: hemolytic crisis, aplastic crisis, cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. Conclusion: The main diagnostic elements are anamnesis, clinical signs, laboratory findings and anamnestic data. Early diagnosis is extremely important in order to provide substitution therapy and correct imagistic and hematologic controls. Orv Hetil. 2019; 160(45): 1798–1803

Hospital corridors as lived spaces: The reconfiguration of social boundaries during the early stages of the Covid pandemic

This article explores the meanings and uses of a hospital corridor through 98 diary entries produced by the staff of an English specialist hospital during the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Drawing on Lefebvre's (1991, The production of space. Blackwell) threefold theorisation of space, corridors are seen as conceived, perceived and lived spaces, produced through and enabling the reconfiguration and reinterpretation of social interactions. The diaries depict two distinct versions of the central hospital corridor: its ‘normal’ operation prior to the pandemic when it was perceived as a social and symbolic space for collective sensemaking and the ‘COVID‐19 empty corridor’ described as a haunting place that divided hospital staff along ostensibly new social and moral boundaries that impacted negatively on lived work experiences and staff relationships. The mobilisation of the central hospital corridor in the daily social construction of meaning and experience during a period of organisational and societal crisis suggests that corridors should not be only seen as a material backdrop for work relationships but as social entities that come into being and are maintained and reproduced through the (lack of) performance of social relations