Humanities & Social Sciences

This open access volume offers valuable new perspectives on the question of how mobility, locatedness and immersion in the physical world can enhance second language teaching and learning. It does so through a diverse array of empirical studies of language, literacy, and culture learning in the linguistic landscape of visible and audible public discourse. Written from conceptually rich and disciplinarily varied perspectives, its ten chapters address methodological and practical problems of relating language learning to the lived and rapidly changing places of the late modern world. Whether it is within the four walls of a school, in a nearby multilingual neighborhood, in a virtual telecollaborative space, or in any other location where languages may be learned, this volume highlights different configurations of learning spaces, the leveraging of real-world places for critical learning, and ways to productively ‘dislocate’ language learners from preconceived notions and standardized experiences. Together, these elements create conditions for a language and literacy pedagogy that can be said to be robustly spatialized: linguistically and culturally complex, geographically situated, historically informed, dialogically realized, and socially engaged.

Before new interventions can be used in disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in “field trials”, which may be complex and expensive undertakings. Descriptions of the detailed procedures and methods used in trials that have been conducted in the past have generally not been published. As a consequence, those planning such trials have few guidelines available and little access to previously accumulated knowledge. In this book the practical issues of trial design and conduct are discussed fully and in sufficient detail for the text to be used as a “toolbox” by field investigators. The toolbox has now been extensively tested through use of the first two editions and this third edition is a comprehensive revision, incorporating the many developments that have taken place with respect to trials since 1996 and involving more than 30 contributors. Most of the chapters have been extensively revised and 7 new chapters have been added.

Taking a strikingly interdisciplinary and global approach, Postcolonialism Cross-Examined reflects on the current status of postcolonial studies and attempts to break through traditional boundaries, creating a truly comparative and genuinely global phenomenon. Drawing together the field of mainstream postcolonial studies with post-Soviet postcolonial studies and studies of the late Ottoman Empire, the contributors in this volume question many of the concepts and assumptions we have become accustomed to in postcolonial studies, creating a fresh new version of the field. The volume calls the merits of the field into question, investigating how postcolonial studies may have perpetuated and normalized colonialism as an issue exclusive to Western colonial and imperial powers. The volume is the first to open a dialogue between three different areas of postcolonial scholarship that previously developed independently from one another: • the wide field of postcolonial studies working on European colonialism, • the growing field of post-Soviet postcolonial/post-imperial studies, • the still fledgling field of post-Ottoman postcolonial/post-imperial studies, supported by sideways glances at the multidirectional conditions of interaction in East Africa and the East and West Indies. Postcolonialism Cross-Examined looks at topics such as humanism, nationalism, multiculturalism, nostalgia, and the Anthropocene in order to piece together a new, broader vision for postcolonial studies in the twenty-first century. By including territories other than those covered by the postcolonial mainstream, the book strives to reframe the “postcolonial” as a genuinely global phenomenon and develop multidirectional postcolonial perspectives.

The paradigm of limits to growth has been legitimized by important contributions, both scientific and philosophical. Although it has oriented the political program of the major ecological movements, its weakness is to be "negative" (placing constraints) and paternalistic (preaching to others what it would be right to do). We evaluate the weight of these criticisms by examining Ingrid Robeyns' recent refined version of it, according to which it would be efficient and right to put an upper limit on income and wealth. We then move on to criticize the universalist ideology that has always permeated the ecological paradigm, arguing that, ultimately, Humanity will be able to awaken and jointly face the ongoing crises. Evolutionary biology helps to account for the weakness of this approach: the human species reproduces by mixing conflict and cooperation on an individual and group level. Humans have always been divided into many tribes, which can collaborate, but which sometimes exist as they defend and affirm borders and identities. It is rather empty to imagine the ecumenical convergence of all humans on the same order of priorities. Finally, we distinguish between growth and social progress. We try to formulate a definition of progress that constitutes the premise for a more adequate narration of the story of our biosphere.

The Movimento Italiano Casalinghe (MOICA) was born in Brescia on 11st November 1982 thanks to Tina Leonzi and a small group of friends. Their desire was to create an association of Christian inspiration that could give voice to the category of housewives. This book tells their history, on the background of the wider history of Italian housewife, of its actual economic and social situation, contributing to fill a gap that the social sciences in Italy have left existing too long and opening a window on the future of the housewives' condition.

The study of universities’ role in regional engagement has traditionally been focusing on exceptional cases. This book presents a reconceptualision which embraces its underlying complexity, and proposes a roadmap for a renewed research agenda. Starting from the grassroots level of universities’ "everyday" engagements, the book delves into the manifold ways in which university knowledge agents build connections with regional partners. Through eleven empirical chapters, the authors not only chart the diversity amongst case institutions, engagement mechanisms and regional contexts, but also use that diversity to advance a novel conceptual framework for unpacking university-regions’ everyday activities, taking into account the dynamic, complex and co-evolving interplay between (a) key social agents and institutions, (b) the contexts in which they are embedded, as well as (c) the historical trajectories and strategic ambitions underpinning context-specific social- arrangements and interactions that are mediated by temporal and spatial dimensions. Drawing on evolutionary economic geography, innovation studies, management and organisation studies, and historical perspectives, the volume advances a new mode of understanding university-regional engagement as a form of extendable temporary coupling, which also helps to address perennial policy and managerial questions alike of what to do with universities that do not serve local labour market needs, and/or are located in regions suffering from brain drain. The book illustrates such dynamics from diverse national contexts: Brazil, Caribbean, China, Italy, Norway, and Poland. This book will be valuable reading for advanced students, researchers and policy makers working in economic geography, regional development, innovation and higher education management.

Intermarriages, uniting partners from diverse social, ethnic, religious, or racial backgrounds, play a pivotal and perhaps conflictual role in shaping group identities. Celebrated by some for fostering social integration, they are perceived by others within ethnic minority circles as a form of acculturation or even assimilation. This volume delves into the intricate interplay between identity, kin-state identity policies, and intermarriage, particularly among national minorities. By weaving together historical analysis, autoethnography, and sociology, it aims to debunk the myth of homogeneity within European nation-states, spotlighting the rich diversity within minority groups. The book challenges the traditional view of minority groups as monolithic, instead revealing how intermarriage can blur the lines between different identities, thereby enriching our understanding of identity construction and group unity. It provides a nuanced examination of intermarriages that share citizenship yet differ in ethnic or national backgrounds—an area hitherto largely unexplored. The discussion extends to the effects of such unions on both personal and communal identities, addressing underlying tensions, stereotypes, and prejudices. The work further considers how these choices impact language, education, religious practices, and parenting within minority communities, ultimately strengthening the argument for intermarriage as a significant, transformative social practice. The collection will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Law, Sociology and Minority Studies.

Wie diagnostische Problemsekompetenzen empirisch erfasst und analysiert werden, hat der Berufspdagoge Stephan Abele in verschiedenen Studien erforscht und dargestellt. Im Fokus stand dabei, wie Menschen im Berufsalltag Probleme lsen - beispielhaft untersucht und dargestellt in der Kfz-Mechatronik. In der kumulativen Habilitation fhrt Abele die theoretische Grundlegung aus und ergnzt sie um eine Zusammenfassung und Reflexion der Ergebnisse. Weiterhin werden die theoretischen Implikationen und Grenzen der Untersuchung diskutiert. Zudem liegen die Beitrge ber die Einzelstudien als Anhang in zweiter Verffentlichung vor.

This open access book draws on ethnographic research conducted in empowerment programmes for marginalized women, in the Southeast Anatolia region, to understand how these projects operate and why they have failed. Based on interviews and observations, the book argues that everyday barriers in Turkey’s ‘gendered regime’ still impede women’s potential, and that the programmes’ own feminist agendas are undermined through their capitalist ethos of personal growth and culturalist reasoning. Particularly revealing is the state’s large-scale regional development project, the ‘Southeast Anatolia Project’, which is the priortiy and ultimately facilitates women’s structural exclusion. Situating the ongoing empowerment programmes within the larger social engineering project of the Republic of Turkey – which is long associated with emancipating women through top-down measures – this book highlights the repetition of failure in women’s liberation in the history of the country. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Studies on Olivetti, a world leader in its sector for most of the twentieth century, are constantly increasing. The Company had in great consideration human and professional growth of workers as well as ethical, aesthetic and cultural values. To understand the complexity of Olivetti is necessary to analyze how thouse values and industrial politics where developed along its history.

This volume presents a collection of the Faroese ballads about the Völsung hero Sjúrður, the pre-eminent dragon-slaying hero of the Germanic Middle Ages, in English translation accompanied by the Faroese original. The ballads show that far from being culturally isolated, the Faroe Islands were an integral part of the Germanic storytelling tradition in the Middle Ages and later. The in-depth introduction explores the Faroese storytelling tradition as preserved in the ballads, which are still danced and performed today, and highlights the vibrancy of the tradition in contemporary culture. The publication and research history of the Faroese ballads is outlined, and summaries of each ballad are provided. These translations are an essential resource for anybody interested in medieval heroic literature.

The reforms introduced in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 have had the desired effect in that banks are better capitalised, banks have higher liquidity buffers, and the share of non-performing loans is low. Macroprudential policies have been implemented, banking sector supervision has been overhauled, and the new resolution framework gives hope that bank failures will not escalate systemic risk. This book argues, however, that we still need to remain vigilant. The world has not yet recovered from the pandemic, and we are now faced with new challenges, particularly climate, technological, and geopolitical risks affecting international trade, the availability and prices of energy carriers, and the cost of capital. In this context, it asks what measures should be used to assess a commercial bank, whether as a potential shareholder, client, member of the bank’s bodies, or a supervisory institution. It provides a broad overview of bank performance measures used in contemporary investment, management, and supervisory practice in the most important areas of a bank’s activity, as well as metrics that synthetically reflect the bank’s standing. The book evaluates a commercial bank in the context of the climate crisis and risk, the growing importance of FinTech, cybersecurity, and AI technology, as well as the challenges related to the escalation of geopolitical risk. It also includes an assessment of the standing of global systemically important banks (G-SiBs) and banking sectors in Europe, indicating potential directions for changes to the tools used so far. It will find a broad audience among students, academics, and researchers in finance and banking, as well as policymakers and regulators.

Kollektive Emotionen sind im Fußball allgegenwärtig - doch bisher wenig erforscht. Michael Wetzels nimmt sich dieses Themas an und analysiert die Zusammenhänge aus wissenssoziologischer Perspektive. Mit seinem Forschungskonzept kann er zeigen, dass kollektive Emotionen, wie wir sie bisher geglaubt haben zu kennen, nicht existieren. Vielmehr stellen sie Interpretationen dar, welche erst unter bestimmten Bedingungen sicht- und erklärbar werden. Diese Erkenntnisse tragen zu einer allgemeinen Grundlagenforschung zu Kollektivität und Emotionalität bei und bieten ebenso im Anwendungsbereich des Fußballs (z.B. in der Sozialen Arbeit) Ansatzpunkte in der praktischen Arbeit mit »kollektiven Emotionen«.

Why is the capital of the United States named in part after Christopher Columbus, a Genoese explorer commissioned by Spain who never set foot on what would become the nation's mainland? Why did Spanish American nationalists in 1819 name a new independent republic "Colombia," after Columbus, the first representative of the empire from which they had recently broken free? These are only two of the introductory questions explored in The Legacy of Christopher Columbus in the Americas, a fundamental recasting of Columbus as an eminently powerful tool in imperial constructs.Bartosik-Velez seeks to explain the meaning of Christopher Columbus throughout the so-called New World, first in the British American colonies and the United States, as well as in Spanish America, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She argues that during the pre- and post-revolutionary periods, New World societies commonly imagined themselves as legitimate and powerful independent political entities by comparing themselves to the classical empires of Greece and Rome. Columbus, who had been construed as a figure of empire for centuries, fit perfectly into that framework. By adopting him as a national symbol, New World nationalists appeal to Old World notions of empire.

It has been a little over a century since the inception of interconnected networks and little has changed in the way that they are operated. Demand-supply balance methods, protection schemes, business models for electric power companies, and future development considerations have remained the same until very recently. Distributed generators, storage devices, and electric vehicles have become widespread and disrupted century-old bulk generation - bulk transmission operation. Distribution networks are no longer passive networks and now contribute to power generation. Old billing and energy trading schemes cannot accommodate this change and need revision. Furthermore, bidirectional power flow is an unprecedented phenomenon in distribution networks and traditional protection schemes require a thorough fix for proper operation. This book aims to cover new technologies, methods, and approaches developed to meet the needs of this changing field.