Sensorial Design as a Mediating Practice in Leisure Events: Atmospheres of Engagement at the Boom Festival in Portugal

This study explores the localised substance use perceptions, practices and experiences of a sample of socioeconomically disadvantaged young people in a South-Yorkshire town in England. The study investigates how young people assess and understand the risks, harms and pleasures of substance use, and how these understandings, as well as the broader dilemmas of contemporary life, shape substance use. The study examines the contexts, meanings, motivations and consequences of tobacco, alcohol, illegal drug and novel psychoactive substance use, capturing both established and emergent practices across the participants’ leisure spaces. Data was obtained through interviews, participant observations (in street-based leisure spaces), and a targeted survey across an underexplored and ‘hard-to-reach’ cohort of young people aged between 16 and 24. The participants’ perceptions of risk, harm and pleasure were fluid and shaped by experience and exposure to substances, social and cultural norms, and access to trusted and valued knowledge sources. Risk was evaluated through a conceptualisation of the potential for experiencing harm. However, the participants were found to focus on immediate, acute, tangible, visible and social harms in their risk assessments, rather than potential chronic and long-term health harms. The substances and practices which were not perceived to be associated with such immediate issues were differentiated as less risky, irrespective of their potential for long-term harm. The participants appeared to hold potentially erroneous beliefs around their abilities to control and manage substance use, and to avoid negative and long-term harms. Such beliefs shaped substance use practices, the implementation and adherence to harm reduction strategies, and perceptions around how current and future substance use would be managed. The participants’ socioeconomic disadvantage, ‘troubled’ transitional routes and social situations resulted in many being financially, culturally and geographically excluded from ‘adult’ activities and spaces, with this shaping their leisure and substance use practices. The study highlights the enduring relationships between socioeconomic disadvantage, health inequality, and young people’s substance use. Importantly, the findings undermine and unsettle dominant discourses which characterise disadvantaged and disengaged youth as ‘reckless’ and ‘uninformed’ substance users, as well as ‘feckless’ and ‘workless’ individuals.

From a geographical point of view, the scientific approach to leisure space is still emerging in connection with its incorporation and significance within the range of values characteristic of postmodern society. In turn, evaluations on quality of life of the population have barely advanced with respect to leisure as to other traditional dimensions. In this sense, we find fertile grounds on which we can contribute to the construction of knowledge about the overall treatment of leisure space and quality of life.

Making the invisible body visible. Bone scans, osteoporosis and women's bodily experiences

El espacio vivido constituye una dimensión subjetiva del espacio geográfico, estructurada por las vivencias de los individuos en sociedad y en relación con el medio físico. Los lugares históricos y aquellos destinados al ocio, funcionan como componentes relevantes en el contexto de la planificación y gestión urbana contemporánea. El objetivo que guía esta investigación consiste en analizar las representaciones y relaciones que se dan en el espacio vivido de los residentes de la ciudad de Bahía Blanca (Rep. Argentina), en torno a los espacios patrimoniales y de ocio, considerados como elementos clave en el ámbito de las urbes. La metodología se desarrolla a partir de un enfoque mixto, basado en técnicas cualitativas y cuantitativas (entrevistas, cuestionarios, realización de mapas cognitivos y técnica de afloramiento de significados), aplicadas según grupos demográficos y a partir de las delegaciones municipales que constituyen la ciudad. Como resultado, se afirma que el espacio vivido por los pobladores de la localidad se define a partir de espacios de ocio, en detrimento de aquellos espacios patrimoniales, cargados de historia y que forman parte del acervo cultural local. Se presenta entonces una dicotomía entre lo contemporáneo y lo histórico, que se traduce en un espacio vivido en el que se margina gran parte del patrimonio material e inmaterial que configura el territorio bahiense.

<p><b>This design led research thesis explores the relations between interior and landscape, in particular how processes of framing may produce interiority as a way of intensifying bodily experiences of landscape and the forces of the earth. The research explores ‘framing’ as interior-making; in both the theoretical sense and practical tactic for interior architecture practice. The volcanic site of White Island was chosen as the site for this research. The incredible qualities and forces of the landscape of White Island offer a rich testing ground for the exploration of creating interior experiences in the landscape. Framing as interior making is explored in three different ways: framing as cut or separation, framing as view or selection, and framing as contrast or relation. The aim of this research is to explore how the intensification of the bodily experience of the natural landscape may be produced and generated through these acts of framing. The question of how interior practices and techniques can be implemented to intensify bodily experience of the landscape is the primary intention of this thesis.</b></p> <p> This research explores these notions through the design of a visitor centre and thermal bath and spa on the site of White Island. Experimenting on the framing of moments and journey from the points of arrival, observation, to the moment of contemplation, this thesis proposes a series of intensified bodily experience through the design of the visitor centre and thermal bath and spa that reveals natural theatre events and objects down into personal and public lived-in space. Establishing a relationship among the acts of framing: as cut, view, and contrast, the network of recomposed bodily experience of the landscape through the design of thermal bath and spa programming that is emerged within the notion of volcanic activity is thus generated. Reflecting on the design process, framing as cut and view promote the acts of contextualizing while framing as a contrast sets up the relationship and intensification of bodily experience of the landscape. Returning to an event of vulnerability helps to contemplate what it might be like to inhabit this encounter of interiority within human made properties and the natural theatre attest to this.</p> <p> Three interrelated processes – framing as cut or separation, framing as view or selection, and framing as contrast or relation engage site’s visual material and develop an alternative form and framework for spatial propositions. These three framings of interior and landscape relation will be considered: first, a consideration of the forces of the natural landscape, with the volcanic site as a specific context of its mechanism; and second, a consideration of temporality as the reflection on the anthropocene as the era in which human intervention is considered as the dominant influence on the geological, atmospheric and ecological shifts and transformation, with the existing ruins of sulphur factory as a critical part of its properties. These two considerations emphasize speculations about how framing interiority enable production which deals with two-time scales: one of is devastating and uncontrollable and one of the outside the concept of entropy in which human activity can influence. Within the anthropocene, the continuous transformation demands the understanding of forces as poetic brief that does not produce objects but rather interiority, relationships to context – intensification within interior and landscape.</p>

Post Traumatic Growth in Radiation Medicine Following the COVID-19 Outbreak

Horses currently play a leading role in many leisure events worldwide. However, their involvement in leisure activities raises various ethical questions. Based on a posthumanist approach, this study sought to explore the use and treatment of horses in a leisure event in Mexico. A participant observation method was adopted to conduct the research, revealing that horses become quite instrumental and commodified for humans, fulfilling intersecting entertainment, economic and cultural purposes. These results thus provide evidence of the prevailing anthropocentric and speciesist nature of horse-human interactions in leisure events. The findings include that, when horse-human relations become highly commercialised and are institutionally recognised as cultural heritage, a complete embracement of posthumanism is needed to dissolve basic horse-human dichotomies, but this remains a utopian ideal in tourism and leisure practices.

This article discusses how the Sustainable Village Project (SVP), developed in a peripheral region of Curitiba-Paraná-Brazil, enables residents to take ownership of different leisure spaces autonomously. The study’s concern was to situate how SVP was set and its actions in the neighbourhood, to understand how leisure spaces influence or provide mobilisations, and to support the interventions of this project. As social ethnographic research (that used the techniques of participant observation, field diaries, and open and structured interviews as research instruments), we sought to know the different interlocutors and describe and interpret various phenomena to share meanings with others. The SVP was created by the Municipal Environment Secretariat of Curitiba and aimed to collectively establish sustainability practices as a process that allowed people to decide on their own choices, combining individual and collective well-being with the conservation of the physical environment. The proposal developed mainly in this community’s leisure time allows us to conclude that the experiences lived in the context of leisure can be decisive for human emancipation. Such experiences can promote, through dialogue, critical reflection and collective construction, the observation and resistance to injustice, giving us conditions to modify the reality in which we are inserted.

由於台灣經濟起飛、國民消費能力隨著增加，使消費社會逐漸形成。這意謂我們進入以消費「符號」、消費「空間」為特色的大眾消費社會，同時也象徵消費時代來臨。在消費時代逐漸形成趨勢的同時，文化消費空間結合了各種東西方元素。消費空間與「生活風格」具有極大的關聯，透過各種品牌的推銷與形塑，空間文化移植了這些符號與暗示。隨著消費時代的來臨，讓人們逐漸體會居家風格的差異性，並顛覆傳統消費者對「家」的意象與期待，在此過程中建構自我及生活風格意象。「家」除了扮演避風港的用途外，其包括自我認同、生活風格展現、品味的秀異等不同層面的意涵。 本研究以文化消費空間、Baudrillard與Bourdieu所提出之消費相關論述作為理論視野，以選擇知名家飾傢俱品牌：無印良品與宜家家居為研究個案，運用內容分析、二手資料分析及參與觀察法，針對無印良品與宜家家居的現場展示空間進行分析，以描繪隱含其中的生活風格及家的意象。 本研究發現，無印良品在空間符號的使用上著重於感性的、簡單俐落的、現代的、自由的、寂靜的；生活風格則展現「簡約無華的日本樣貌」、「平淡無色的生活智慧」、「商品會說話」、「生活中的建議者」、「意義深遠的禪道哲學」；因此對無印良品而言，家是寧靜的靜心場所、個人省思空間以及充份再現日本文化下的禪美學。宜家家居在空間符號的運用上強調感性的、多元複雜、傳統的、歡樂的；生活風格則呈現「正統的北歐瑞典血統」、「平民美學的生活哲學」、「你就是最好的設計師」、「不只是賣傢俱，是賣家」及「兒童的遊樂場」；因此對宜家家居而言，家是製造快樂的歡樂場所、全家人維持關的空間及延伸北歐文化下的自由風格。 承上述，本研究主要在探討空間中所呈現家的意義，從無印良品與宜家家居兩者的消費空間來反映意義與事實，藉由該過程詮釋各自不同家的樣貌，嘗試從符號消費、文化品味、階層區分的角度，來了解文化消費空間的更深意涵：展場空間的主要消費人口－中產階級、展場空間代表流行文化與休閒文化的象徵、中心�邊緣關係的文化擴散之關係。

流動的水圳空間造就許多不同的文化現象，彰化縣八堡圳為台灣三大古圳之一，因此水圳與農村風貌形成彰化縣特有的田園景觀。過去農民與水圳空間密不可分，國家透過農田水利會來掌控農民，此時期是獨占的水權掌控；由於社會組織型態與農業經濟結構快速變遷，其事業範圍呈現日益衰減之危機，農田水利會正積極朝向多角化產業轉型的型態發展，因此近年來所強調的樂活生活，使原本失去功能的水圳轉變成為自然與結合人工的休憩空間，水權掌控也間接轉變為共享的，此轉型除了對農業經營產生直接效益外，並兼具生態機能及生活機能的間接效益，對地方產生重大的影響。 本研究以彰化縣八堡圳二水段作為研究對象，二水地區為八堡圳之源頭地區，長期以來水圳與地方居民產生各式的互動行為，建構出多元且豐富的水圳空間文化，因此藉由文獻與深入訪談方式來觀察，農田水利會如何透過公法人享有的權力，與農村社會中的農民產生聯繫關係。 利用水圳給予空間的「生產」、「生活」、與「生態」三類概念，探討農業灌溉時期，農田水利會如何掌握水圳空間並在無形中形成擁有政治權力的身體。然而此權力亦隨著水的流動轉移，農田水利會除了依賴政府有限的補助款，也配合政府政策進行圳路週邊環境美化工程及生態保育維護，其所附屬之工作站紛紛自行認養與維護二水地區公有設施並進行環境美化，具現代化的自行車道逐漸成為二水地區獨特生活景觀。透過二水地區水域空間權力的掌握與轉移，造成空間與人之間在不同時期產生不同的身體經驗，最終目的在於：探討水圳空間從獨占到共享過程中，如何使二水地區產生人與水圳間獨特的場所感。

This study focuses on the tourism experience of people with visual impairments, which is further marginalized from tourism research in people with disabilities, in order to understand whether people with visual impairments have a need and want, as well as how to enjoy travel. Using a phenomenological approach, this paper investigates the structure and comprehension of the meaning of their travel experiences. Individual interviews, participant observation, and a literature review were used to generate the final 23 themes and ten essential themes, which were based on van Manen's four existential themes (lived body, lived space, lived relation, and lived time). Despite the fact that people with visual impairments are invisible, they have formed a tourism experience by imaging the place and object through other body sensory organs such as smell, touch, and hearing, and tourism has become a very important link for the blind to expand their radius of life and meet their new self and world. Tourism is essential in broadening their life radius and space, as well as providing a path to meet a new self and the world. The results also showed that congenital visual impairment perceived the threshold of travel more strongly than acquired visual impairment. They can, however, perceive travel satisfaction, value, and positive effects more than anyone else, increasing self-independence and well-being. The findings of the study presented the academic significance of the tourism experience for individuals with visual impairments, which has been excluded from tourism research, as well as the fundamental rights of tourism for all and the implications for achieving tourism justice.

This research examines the role oficts (Information and Communication Technologies) in blurring work-leisure boundaries among a recent wave of Chinese migrants in Britain, identifying a rising mode ofict-mediated diasporic sociality. In particular, it examines an emergingict-sustained after-work culture that extends their labor process into the leisure setting. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, the findings demonstrate how the limited human and social capital Chinese migrants possess encourages them to seek help for work and building client relationships within co-ethnic social ties through leisure events in non-working hours. This type of after-hours labor is discursively constructed as leisure and is characterized by itsict-savvy sociality.本文指出一種由傳播科技中介的新興離散社群社交形式，分析傳播科技如何在新一代的中國移民中模糊他們工作與休閒的界線。透過訪談與參與觀察，本文的研究發現指出中國專業工作者由於其移民的經驗而有較為受限的人力資本和社會資本，這使得他們傾向利用非勞動工時在同族裔的專業工作者之中尋求社會資本。這些下班後的離散社交實踐具有幾種特點，包括：將勞動包裝為休閒並延伸至消費主義式的場景中、傳播科技在這些社交實踐之中的象徵性功能、以及扁平化的資訊傳播結構。 (This article is in English).

This paper aims to address a conceptual gap in the understanding of 20th-century modernist literature where on the one hand, it was associated with a sensibility of death, frustration, crisis, and social dissonance. On the other hand, the literature of the times was proliferated with social spaces and public gatherings which not just acted as spaces of leisure but had a politics of their own. By developing on this inherent contradiction, this paper studies the impact of the built environment of the party space on the construction of the modernist subject through urban theorist Henry Lefebvre’s idea of the “lived space.” Party here is a reference to any social gathering, a celebratory occasion, and does not have any political affiliation. Through this theoretical framework, the paper identifies space not as a physical structure or a medium but as a milieu formed through human actions and interactions with each other and the surroundings. Moreover, to study the ambience of the modernist party the paper draws inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s idea of “party consciousness” which elucidates the impact of the imping of spatial consciousness of the party through its developments which either “make things much more real or much less real.” Through this understanding, the paper studies Virginia Woolf’s short story collection Mrs Dalloway’s Party (2012) wherein the ideological binaries of race, class, and gender collapse to reveal party as a third space of open-ended possibilities. In a larger context, this study recognizes humans as inherently spatial beings made and re-made continually through socio-political and economic factors. Therefore, the impressive impact of city life which has stirred multiple consciousnesses and has realized the significance of leisure time makes it a relevant study in the present times.

This article examines the impact of global change and post-Soviet political transformation on diasporic youth cultural practices and experience in Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia. While young Armenians’ leisure spaces are characterized by inclusive notions of ethnic plurality and tolerance, sometimes individuals are racialized or ethnicized when they pass through public spaces. Young Armenians’ leisure spaces are ethnically structured, but not ethnically exclusive. This article challenges the view that young people from ethnic minorities are passive recipients of everyday racism. Instead, it is suggested that young Armenians have routinized their responses to racism and xenophobia in their everyday practices, and so are able to undermine the dominant political discourse.

In this paper I argue that transformative fieldwork can and should be a pillar of an undergraduate education in anthropology. By transformative fieldwork, I mean long- or medium-term immersive participant observation that challenges the investigator’s beliefs, bodily experience (embodiment), and/or ethics, prompting adaptive responses that, collectively over time, fundamentally alter their experience of the world. My proposal has two parts. First, I advance the “senior thesis” – an in-depth research project undertaken in the final year of undergraduate study – as a viable placeholder for substantive fieldwork in an undergraduate curriculum. Such fieldwork, carried out locally or online, has advantages in accessibility, affordability, and authenticity relative to the conventional undergraduate gateway to fieldwork experience: methodological “field school.” Second, addressing a significant challenge to doing fieldwork on local (culturally familiar) terrain, I argue that such fieldwork can be transformative, and not merely a replication of familiar experiences, if students and their advisors design participant observation projects that carry significant consequences for the student’s beliefs, bodily experience, and/or ethics. I outline strategies for designing such projects, illustrated by examples drawn from my own students’ senior theses. The concluding section addresses three potential reservations about undergraduates undertaking “consequential” research.