The shifting fortunes of women in the Zambian music industry: independence to present day

People working in the music industry report significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population, but to date, studies have not explored the differences between professional musicians and those who perform music primarily for recreation. In this study, 254 musicians from 13 countries completed measures of anxiety, depression, and wellbeing as well as answering questions about their professional status, level of success, and income. Across the whole sample, we found that over half had high levels of anxiety, and a third were experiencing depression. We showed that musicians who viewed music as their main career were more likely to have poor mental wellbeing and had significantly higher levels of clinical depression. Status as a solo or lead artist and perceived level of success also significantly predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression, and lower levels of positive wellbeing. We conclude that low mental wellbeing in musicians is the result of working as a professional musician, as opposed to being an inherent trait. Future work should explore underlying beliefs and perceptions of career musicians alongside other key factors, such as health behaviors and social support, with the aim of making specific recommendations to the music industries and educators.

How are gender identities negotiated within Irish Mormonism, and does this intersect with trends identifiable within Mormonism more generally? In this paper I use the examples of modern Ireland and modern Mormonism to speculate regarding the nature of gendered identities online. I suggest that Irish and Mormon cultures are both confronting serious challenges to traditional essentialist interpretations of femininity that have long dominated their cultural landscapes. I also suggest that social media (SM) and online spaces are facilitating these challenges. However, I observe that online spaces are also used in Irish Mormonism to conform to hegemonic Mormon understandings of gender identity. This is in keeping with international trends where we can see that Mormon SM and online engagement are often used to maintain traditional gender roles within the religion.Few people in Ireland are aware that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church) has a relatively long history there. Although many Irish may associate the LDS Church with a variety of non-Catholic religions that first took hold on Irish shores in the twentieth century, the first missionaries arrived in Down in the 1840s and in Dublin in 1850. However, fervent opposition both from Catholic clergy and Irish Protestants prevented the LDS Church from strong growth. Since these shaky origins, the LDS Church has struggled to increase its representation amongst the general Irish population. Recent census figures calculate the Mormon population to be 0.03 percent of the general population, spread across the country in just thirteen congregations.1What is the gendered experience of Mormonism in Ireland? The Irish census illustrates marginally more female than male members.2 I have noted elsewhere that the gendered differences between Mormon men and women in Ireland regarding work and caring3 are comparable to the general population.4 Thus, it is not correct to say that this aspect of Mormon gender roles is out of step with Irish society more generally. Contemporary gender in Ireland, like in other social locations, is heavily informed by historical influences, and history is essential. Women's historical role in Irish society has been well documented and is beyond the scope of this paper to encapsulate fully here.5 In summary, the Catholic Church and Irish state deliberately constructed a traditional and limited role for women to support the establishment of a Catholic Ireland in the aftermath of independence from the British in the early twentieth century. Thus, women's role was and still is intimately connected to Irish understandings of nationhood, citizenship, and morality. Ireland's 1937 Constitution provided a limited and specific duty centered around home duties.6 This articulation may remind us of the words of the LDS Church on a similar issue of delineated gender roles provided for by the church: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”7 This “solidification of gendered spheres”8 within Mormonism has ensured that female Irish adherents are surrounded by both a religious and a national culture that have been informed by remarkably similar gendered ideals that emphasized limited and traditional roles for women.However, in contemporary times, the transformation in the position of women in Irish society and culture is clear, as the roles of women in Irish society have vastly expanded. Concomitantly, a growing consumerist, individualist, and competitive culture has also emerged in contemporary Irish society, shaping Irish identities in ways that conflict with the LDS Church's priorities.9 This societal change has transformed the position of women in Irish society but also affected how modern Irish women experience their social identities, including in online spaces. Many Irish women no longer feel constrained by community or religion to conform to essentialist gender roles that are rooted in religious ideologies about appropriate femininity. Young women have been socialized into their gender roles in an era of globalized communications that allow international cultural influences to form part of Irish women's identity creation. SM has facilitated spaces where Irish women can negotiate their own self presentation, both challenging and confirming gendered expectations.10Evaluating these trends, we can see there is a historical truth to the association of women with family and home in Ireland that continues to provide a contemporary legacy. Yet there also exists an individualist postfeminist discourse that encourages women to shape their identities through consumerism, to see themselves as independent individuals disconnected from family, community, or obligations, and to dis-identify with feminism as something that is unnecessary or outdated.11 This reconstruction of modern Irish femininity appears at first to conflict with more traditional understandings of Irish womanhood, but in fact young Irish women are engaged in an integration of the traditional and the modern through a continuing need to identify with Ireland's traditional understanding of womanhood as self-sacrificing, caring, and nurturing.12 That such opposing representations of womanhood exist in Ireland simultaneously creates multifaceted feminine identifications and provides us with a fascinating cultural landscape in which to explore how Mormon understandings of gender relate to this gendered milieu.The remainder of this essay will discuss the role of online spaces and SM in shaping feminine identities, how Mormon and Irish femininities are experienced online, and explain how SM and life online illuminates what at first may appear unclear: the commonalities across Irish and Mormon femininities in a global digital age. Within the European Union, Eurostat13 tells us that 57 percent of EU adults used SM in 2020, up from 36 percent in 2011. Amongst the sixteen-to-twenty-four age group, SM usage is becoming ubiquitous, currently at 86 percent. In Ireland, 61 percent of the population uses SM. Women are the predominant users of many of the most influential SM platforms, though men's use of such platforms is increasing.14 Thus, SM is a gendered landscape, and among younger generations, it is a taken for granted part of their everyday lives. It cannot be overlooked if we are to truly understand how young religious adherents experience their gendered religious identities.Why should we be interested in SM and online platforms to understand contemporary religious and gendered identities? One important issue is that of the negotiation of identity that online technologies and spaces allow. Such identity negotiation undermines essentialist interpretations of gender that have been in evidence in Mormonism and in Irish culture. Of course, this has always happened within religious cultures, and digital spaces are just facilitating these processes of identity in interesting ways, but nonetheless it is clear that participation within digital spaces can lead to adaptations of identity that challenge essentialism.15Within Mormonism, research finds that 19 percent of a sample of Mormon feminists online were male, 81 percent were attending church at least two to three times a month, and 70 percent held a church calling.16 It also shows that Mormon feminists are much more diverse than stereotypes allow and that they deliberately gather online to carve out a space where their Mormon and feminist identities can be reconciled. These samples are subverting the caricatured identity of a “Mormon feminist” by not conforming to expectations of being uniformly female, embittered, and/or inactive church members. Online activism and community building has allowed strict gender roles within Mormonism to be challenged in interesting ways,17 such as through engagement with Mormon feminist blogs.18 Yet these feminists sought out online spaces rather than offline spaces for their activism, which inadvertently may have caused their divergence from hegemonic Mormon culture to be less apparent in their offline lives. From this example we can see that digital spaces allow “conventional” members of the LDS Church to express the “unconventional” aspects of their Mormon identity and negotiate alternative expressions of their identities.Similar use of online spaces to confront essentialist understandings of female identity are also underway in Ireland. Irish feminists’ online activism strongly fueled Ireland's recent campaign to introduce limited legal access to abortion. These activists used digital storytelling to legitimize the marginalized experiences of women who had undergone abortions; to educate the public about the complexity of women, motherhood, and pregnancy; and to illuminate the role of Irish history in shaping our attitudes toward those same topics.19 This illustrates that online spaces are increasingly used by feminists to create community and organize in ways that side-step traditional challenges to face-to-face activism. The research from Jessica Finnegan and Nancy Ross demonstrates that within Mormonism, too, online strategies and spaces are tools to make change and to express aspects of oneself that the everyday culture does not accommodate or understand.As online and offline lives continue to blur, traditional forms of authority on gender both inside and outside religious institutions begin to break down, with potentially significant consequences for both religion and gender. In Ireland, the Catholic Church has lost the power to advise the population on a wide range of social and moral issues as a result of multiple state investigations into widespread abuse and exploitation. This diminishing power was evident during Ireland's recent abortion debates where the Catholic Church's voice was relegated to merely advocating for the continuing ban on abortion through known conservative Catholic public commentators rather than directly through church leadership. Though the Irish Catholic Church did make its position on the issue clear, their presence in the public debate preceding the referendum was more muted than we might have expected.Within Mormonism, too, the influence of SM and other platforms facilitates the emergence of new voices of authority within and outside of Mormonism. Live-tweeting by adherents during the Latter-day Saint general conference, and use of blogs, Facebook, and other platforms to express personal faith, is considered as digital ritual and recreates ordinary members as sources of authority with the power to communicate to wide audiences.20 Those who have left or oppose the LDS Church are also are free to publicize their interpretations of church doctrine and rhetoric instantaneously to wide audiences. We have seen evidence of this on Twitter as the LDS Church attempts (and often fails) to control the narrative regarding the position of LGBTQ members.Online spaces are not just used as locations to develop counter-cultural Mormon identities. They are also used as a powerful tool to facilitate conformity to hegemonic understandings of Mormon gendered identity. Evidence of this comes from Laura Thain, who argues that Mormon “modest fashion” blogs often center around performing appropriate Mormon femininity through clothing and reinforce gendered tradition through cultural production.21 Female-orientated blogs about Mormon family and the “Mormon Mom” SM phenomenon are a now central part of dominant Mormon culture, supporting constructions of Mormon women as home- and family-orientated that Mormons and non-Mormons aspire to.22 Analysis of the LDS Church's high profile “I'm a Mormon” online campaign also illustrates that while the church does makes an effort to show a diverse representation of women, it nonetheless reaffirms traditional gender roles as it primarily emphasizes stay-at-home motherhood above other female identities.23The loosening restrictions on missionaries’ use of SM has also created online opportunities for young Mormon women and men to conform to dominant understandings of a gendered Mormon identity. During the 2020 and 2021 COVID-19 pandemic, missionary SM accounts were vital to the continuation of proselytizing during lockdown restrictions. In Ireland, various missionary online contributions are often centrally distributed through the “Come unto Christ in the RoI” Facebook page for the LDS Church. On Mother's Day 2021, the page posted “Happy Women's Day” along with the hashtags “#mothersday” and “#womensday.” This may have been an attempt to avoid causing offense to female members in Ireland who are not mothers and who feel that the LDS Church's idealization of motherhood is exclusionary. Yet I could not help but feel that the intermingling of the categories of “woman” and “mother” in their post showed no awareness of the distinctiveness of the categories and thus reproduced assumptions within Mormon and Irish culture that to be female is to be a mother, or at least an aspiring mother. This alludes to an essentialist interpretation of womanhood that contradicts the diversity of gendered religious identities we see in Ireland, both inside and outside of Mormonism. A similar post from the Dublin Stake Facebook page in honor of International Women's Day 2021 included the hashtag “#womenspower” alongside “#mothers” “#daughters” “#sisters” “#wives” and “#fiancée.” This appears to imply that women derive their power through their status in relation to someone else, rather than through their own selves and their achievements.Young Irish women must perform a local version of femininity online that simultaneously reflects traditional Irish values of female sacrifice and motherhood alongside trend-driven representations of contemporary femininity through globalized fashion and pop culture.24 Within Mormon culture too, the Mormon Mom blog and SM phenomenon alongside personal and missionary SM profiles allow women to present their religious identities in new ways while still conforming to the dominant values of the culture that surrounds them. That the most successful Mormon SM influencers often use corporate sponsorship to earn incomes, raise their online visibility, and increase their power is also further evidence that a broader reevaluation of what modern femininity is, and should be, is underway within Mormonism as in Ireland and elsewhere.How has the LDS Church responded to these changes and what they represent? Gavin Stuart Feller notes that “it is clear that media function as the material and metaphysical infrastructure of the religion and the interface through which Mormonism positions itself in relation to the world.”25 He observes that the LDS Church has moved from viewing the development of the Internet as an opportunity on par with the development of radio or TV as a means to carry information to a more nuanced evaluation of online engagements, recognizing how such technology also has the capacity to underline and subvert official messaging. The LDS Church's fears in this regard are perhaps evident in the 2018 request by President Nelson that that adherents engage in a ten day “Social Media fast.”26 That this call was issued during the Women's Session of General Conference is highly significant and reveals much about how the LDS Church fears the effects of SM on female adherents specifically. Further evidence of this fear may be apparent in the words of Elder Ballard twenty years ago, who said that “today's popular culture, which is preached by every form of media from the silver screen to the Internet, celebrates the sexy, saucy, socially aggressive woman. These distortions are seeping into the thinking of some of our own women.”27 The use of the phrase “our own women” strikes me as possessive and proprietary. We must hope that perhaps the language used in 2001 would not be used today.However, it seems clear that despite the LDS Church's recent embrace of the potential of SM, there are also concerns about how members’ understandings of their own and others’ femininities may adapt due to the influences that the Internet has facilitated.28 In Ireland, the culture is grappling with rapidly changing understandings of gender that Irish Mormons must navigate as they also work through similar adaptations within their church. The degree to which Irish Mormon women turn to online spaces as a way to proclaim their own interpretations remains to be seen, but undoubtedly we must consider the relationship between gender and Mormonism online if we are to understand gender and Mormonism offline.

In some musical genres, professional performers play live shows many times a week. Arduous touring schedules bring encounters with wildly diverse audiences across many different performance ecologies. We investigate the kinds of creativity involved in such repeated live performance, kinds of creativity that are quite unlike songwriting and recording, and examine the central factors that influence musicians’ wellbeing over the course of a tour. The perspective of the professional musician has been underrepresented in research on relations between music and wellbeing, with little attention given to the experience of touring. In this case study, we investigate influences on positive and negative performance experiences for the four professional musicians of Australian pop/rock band Cloud Control. Geeves conducted intensive cognitive ethnographic fieldwork with Cloud Control members over a two-week national Australian tour for their second album, Dream Cave (2013). Adapting a Grounded Theory approach to data analysis, we found the level of wellbeing musicians reported and displayed on tour to be intimately linked to their creative performance experiences through the two emergent, overarching and interdependent themes of Performance Headspace (PH) and Connection with Audience (CA). We explore these themes in detail and provide examples to demonstrate how PH and CA can feed off each other in virtuous ways that positively shape musicians’ wellbeing, or loop in vicious ways that negatively shape musicians’ wellbeing. We argue that their creative practice, in thus re-enacting musical performance afresh in each venue’s distinctive setting, emerges within unique constraints each night, and is in a sense a co-creation of the crowd and the band.

Kenya’s 2010 constitution introduced devolution as a transformative governance framework intended to enhance equity, public participation, territorial inclusion and grassroots engagement and visibility. Spatial and economic planning were positioned as key instruments for managing development, addressing historical inequalities, and fostering social cohesion across diverse cultural and ecological landscapes. Yet, despite a progressively articulated legal and policy architecture, spatial planning in Kenya continues to expose a persistent gap between constitutional aspirations and lived realities. Territorial planning remains largely technocratic, sectoral, and administratively constrained, with limited engagement with Indigenous and local knowledge systems, cultural identity, and socio-ecological interdependencies that transcend county boundaries. This paradox raises critical questions about the capacity of Kenya’s devolved planning system to support social cohesion in a culturally heterogeneous, socio-economically diverse and ecologically interconnected nation. This paper explores how cultural identity can be recentred within Kenya’s territorial planning frameworks to strengthen social cohesion and enable context-responsive development. It contends that contemporary spatial planning approaches marginalise the socio-cultural dimensions of territory, treating identity as peripheral rather than foundational to spatial governance. Existing planning scholarship in Kenya largely focuses on development control, urbanisation, service delivery, and institutional reform, while offering limited empirical insight into how planning decisions shape inter-community relations, place identity, and socio-ecological resilience. Research on ecological systems such as watersheds, rangelands, and pastoral corridors remains largely sectoral, obscuring how devolved governance structures fragment landscapes historically managed through shared cultural and ecological logics. Conceptually, the paper draws on territorial planning, participatory governance, spatial justice, cultural landscape and decolonial planning, to illustrate how post-colonial planning systems often reproduce Eurocentric spatial logics that marginalise Indigenous territorialities and relational understandings of land. In Kenya, these dynamics are reinforced by devolution, which has intensified administrative fragmentation, competitive territoriality, and misalignment between governance boundaries and socio-ecological systems. The paper therefore frames territorial planning not as a purely technical coordination exercise, but as a socio-political process through which identity, power, and belonging are negotiated. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, exploratory-descriptive approach, drawing on comparative case studies across sixteen Kenyan counties with ratified County Spatial Plans. Data was generated through semi-structured interviews with planners, economists, environmental officers, policymakers, and community leaders, complemented by focus group discussions and participant observation in planning forums. These were supported by systematic analysis of County Spatial Plans, County Integrated Development Plans, sectoral strategies, and relevant national policy and legal instruments to examine institutional practices and implementation dynamics. The findings reveal four interrelated patterns. Firstly, cultural identity and Indigenous and local knowledge systems are weakly integrated into county planning frameworks. Whereas cultural landscapes and heritage are often acknowledged rhetorically, they are seldom operationalised as organising principles for territorial governance. Secondly, devolution has inadvertently reinforced administrative silos, with counties planning infrastructure, urban expansion, and resource use largely within their jurisdictions, destabilising shared river basins, biodiversity corridors, pastoral mobility routes, and cultural landscapes. This has undermined long-standing interdependencies that historically supported ecological resilience and social cohesion. Thirdly, institutional gaps within Kenya’s devolved planning architecture exacerbate fragmentation. The sidelining of Regional Development Authorities; originally conceived as basin-based institutions for coordinating development across major river systems and transboundary ecosystems; has weakened planning at ecologically meaningful scales. Post-2010 reforms and the omission of these authorities from key planning legislation have left them institutionally ambiguous, with jurisdictional tensions, chronic underfunding, and limited political support constraining their effectiveness. Finally, participatory innovations such as participatory GIS and community-led mapping initiatives demonstrate potential for amplifying marginalised voices. Yet, their impact remains limited in the absence of enabling policy frameworks, institutional capacity, and recognition of decentralised knowledge systems. Building on these findings, the paper advances a conceptual contribution that positions cultural identity as critical infrastructure for social cohesion within territorial planning. It proposes an inclusive planning framework grounded in participatory governance, adaptive hybridity, and equitable resource distribution. Hybrid approaches that integrate Indigenous and local knowledge systems with formal planning tools; such as GIS, ecosystem-based management, and circular economy principles; offer pathways for reconciling ecological sustainability with cultural continuity. Realising this potential, however, requires institutional reforms capable of recognising, resourcing, and legitimising Indigenous custodianship and context-specific governance practices. The paper concludes that addressing Kenya’s territorial planning challenges demands more than procedural participation or technical coordination. It requires reorienting planning practice toward humanising urban–rural linkages, validating cultural diversity, and enabling planning at scales aligned with socio-ecological systems rather than administrative convenience. By foregrounding the centrality of cultural identity and territorial development to social cohesion, this study contributes to broader debates on decolonial planning, spatial justice, and governance in the Global South, offering insights relevant to other devolved and post-colonial contexts grappling with the tensions between institutional reform and lived territorial realities.

The purpose of the article is to review changes in worldview and artistic expressions in fixing the cultural landscape of Norway; to trace the reasons in the formation of the style of romanticism, where research function in reflecting nature and culture had a big role; to analyze the features of the local artistic tradition and forms of stylistic transformations that led to the evolution of the cultural landscape vision. To achieve the goal, the analyses from the works of J. Flintoe, J.C. Dahl, N. Astrup, C. Krog, E. Munch, G. Mynthe, E. Werenskiold, K. Kielland, H. Sohlberg, B.Ness, N. Krantz. This made it possible to focus on figurative diversity in the interpretation of the cultural landscape. The research methodology is based on the application of theoretical methods, art analysis, and systematization of works that correspond to this topic. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the actualization of artistic possibilities in capturing changes in the cultural landscape. Conclusions. Paintings are becoming a part of the scientific documentation for the present day. This leads to a new perspective, where painting becomes historical evidence and valuable material for modern architects, restorers, historians, archaeologists. According to the results of the research, it was proved that in the period from the 1820s to the 1920s the most expressive and active development of the cultural landscape theme, was realized by using art as a document. Various clarifications have been developed, such as the mood of romanticism transforms into the style of modernism, and how the compositional constructions of the Middle Age are actualized in the style Art Nouveau. This strengthens the idea of using works of art as a tool for analyzing the evolution of the cultural landscape, due to its potential informative content. One of the main conclusions of the study is based on the idea of relations towards the environment while creating an artistic image of the cultural landscape. In the Norwegian context, the cultural landscape, as a human environment, has been transformed from a panoramic landscape of nature interspersed with human footprints; through the application of man to scale, as a staff, as a romantic hero, a social character. The image of cities has evolved from the documental historical place form to the conflict inside the environment, and like blended color textures. According to the results of the study, it is concluded that art is an active element in fixing the cultural landscape. It is proved that works of art of previous epochs are invaluable material in interdisciplinary research in the reality of contemporary. The comprehensive and systematic experience of Norwegian researchers should be implemented in similar assignments in Ukrainian realities.

Geological history of the territory of the Slovak Republic resulted in the evolution of many features and sites of national and international importance that contribute to the geodiversity of the country. Within the national framework, these locations can be considered as geoheritage of Slovakia. As many of such places have been used by humans for hundreds of years, human activity significantly affected or contributed to changes in recent georelief. Recognition of importance and uniqueness of such places, both geoheritage sites and historical and cultural sites related to landscape and landforms in Slovakia, has led to their protection which has a relatively long tradition from the thirteenth century. However, until the present day, there is no specific protection of this heritage and these sites or locations are protected within a wider framework—Act No. 543/2002 on the Protection of Nature and Landscape enabling to establish protected areas, protect caves, waterfalls, minerals, morphological features, etc. Adopting legal, conceptual and other documents, directly and indirectly, helps conservation and sustainable development of this heritage. Additionally, various civic organizations and geopark management teams contribute to the protection and preservation of geoheritage and related cultural-historical heritage in Slovakia. Thanks to such activities, protection of geological heritage and the cultural and historical landscape are more effective so they can be preserved and appreciated not only by recent but future generations too.KeywordsGeoheritageGeoconservationCultural and historical landscapeProtectionSlovakia

This work is about music as a transforming agent in the individual’s life, a study that includes a reflection of how Christian and secular music is viewed and the possible contributions of this context to understand more about their differences. And it had as general objective: to analyze the musical formation received in the evangelical churches and as specific objectives: to understand how the evangelical churches, has generated professional musicians for the labor market, to investigate the advantages of music teaching in evangelical churches as well as to analyze the challenges faced by evangelical musicians in their professional performance. The methodology applied was qualitative and developed in two moments: in the first moment documentary analysis and in the second moment, interview through a questionnaire with five evangelical musicians. According to the interviewees and in their reflections, it was allowed to understand the initial formation until the life of a professional musician, we observed that there is a great opening in the music market for these professional musicians called evangelical Christians that has naturally been growing and contributing to supply the bands in general as professional and competent musicians.

Examining the symbolic dimension of Aleppo's historical landmarks

Among the professional roles in the recording industry, studio musicians have received relatively little academic attention. The present study explores the work realities of professional studio musicians in Germany, one of the largest music industries in the world, and is based on interviews with six pop musicians; guitarists, bassists, keyboardists and drummers who are between 27 and 66 years old. The findings show how changes in the recording industry - most notably dwindling budgets, the rise of project studios and virtual collaboration - have affected working practices, skill requirements and business models. The findings indicate that in Germany it is hardly possible to make a living from studio work as a professional musician. This is true even for leading session players. Sinking fees and the lack of access to royalties pose a problem that is not tackled due to fierce competition and the risk of damaging one’s reputation.

PROTOCOL: The Effects Of Economic Self‐Help Group Programs On Women's Empowerment: A Systematic Review

Lal Bagh Palace in Indore, India, stands as an architectural marvel and a symbol of the region's rich cultural heritage. This research paper delves into the multifaceted endeavor of conserving Lal Bagh Palace as a cultural and heritage landscape. Through archival research, site documentation, stakeholder consultations, and community engagement, the study explores the historical significance, architectural features, and socio-cultural context of Lal Bagh Palace. It examines the challenges facing its conservation, including urban development pressures, environmental degradation, and the need for sustainable tourism management. The research also evaluates conservation initiatives undertaken to preserve the palace's integrity and authenticity while enhancing its accessibility and relevance to diverse audiences. By synthesizing insights from cultural and heritage conservation, landscape management, and community involvement, the paper proposes holistic strategies for sustaining Lal Bagh Palace as a vibrant cultural asset. This study contributes to the broader discourse on cultural and heritage landscape conservation by offering practical lessons and recommendations applicable to similar historic sites. Keywords: Cultural heritage preservation, Landscape conservation, Cultural roots, Heritage landscapes, Preservation strategies, Community involvement, Conservation practices, Cultural identity, Historical significance, Sustainable development, Cultural landscapes, Traditional knowledge, Indigenous heritage, Conservation policies, Interdisciplinary approach, Cultural stewardship, Ethnographic research, Cultural sustainability, Landscape management, Preservation challenges.

Performance anxiety is a significant professional problem among musicians. A psychoanalytically oriented qualitative research design was employed to explore the psychological realities of six professional musicians from various genres, including classical, folk, jazz, and crossover music. Each participant took part in three unstructured hour‐long interviews. Analysis focused on the integration of conscious and unconscious elements in order to provide some insight into participants' internal worlds. Three interrelated themes emerged from the data: 1. ‘The masquerade’, conveying the idea of a covering up of the visible signs of anxiety, and a simulation of confidence on stage; 2. ‘The lair of the beast’, describing the backdrop of the music industry, experienced as a threatening underworld; and 3. ‘The ghost’, reflecting a sense of the overhang of anxiety from earlier generations. Emergent themes were linked to psychoanalytic concepts, including Winnicott's concept of a false self and Freud's discussion of the uncanny. The multifaceted nature of performance anxiety, as evidenced in the material brought by participants in this study, is explored within the discussion. Directions for further research and clinical implications in relation to the culture of the music industry and working with performance anxiety in a psychotherapeutic context, are also outlined.

This paper explores the conflict between conservatism and modern society in Israel, focusing on the ideological divide between secular and ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) communities. Drawing on conservatism theory, modernization theory, and conflict theory, the study analyzes how these forces shape political, social, and cultural landscapes. The persistence of Haredi conservatism, rooted in traditional values and religious autonomy, contrasts with the progressive demands of a modernizing Israeli society, creating tensions that manifest in governance challenges, military service exemptions, and debates over public policy. The analysis highlights how conservatism provides stability and identity while resisting transformative pressures, while modernization drives gradual integration through workforce participation, education, and economic shifts. Conflict theory underscores the societal polarization and competition for power between ideological groups, complicating efforts to foster inclusivity and unity. By examining the Israeli context, the paper offers broader insights into the global dynamics of conservatism and modernity, emphasizing the importance of adaptive governance, equitable representation, and inclusive dialogue to address these tensions and promote societal cohesion. By examining the interactions between tradition and progress, these frameworks underscore the necessity of finding a balance between preserving cultural identity and embracing the demands of modernity to achieve long-term stability and inclusivity.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate trombonist Andy Martin. He has not received enough recognition for his talents as a trombonist, soloist, and studio musician. The aim of this thesis paper was to investigate and represent a portion of his work through transcription and analysis; talk about the influences on his trombone playing from the past to the present day with a brief history of the jazz trombone; and list the recordings that he has done as a solo artist and a sideman. Four of Andy's solos were transcribed and analyzed in detail with respect to the following elements and issues: "special effects" on the trombone, use of repeated triplets, the ability to play fast double-time licks, the use of the blues scale, neighboring tones, use of chromatic enclosures, and a comparison of his transcriptions to two other trombonists that have influenced him: Frank Rosolino and Carl Fontana. These results will show that Andy Martin indeed is a talented trombonist and why he is one of the most in-demand trombonists today.

This chapter will demonstrate that Third Theatre communities continue to celebrate and offer a ‘time’ and ‘place’ - a way of being together - to diverse, foreign and unruly theatre practices. From the 1970s to the present day, Third Theatre has refined itself as a multifarious, transnational entity, comprised of groups and solo artists across the world (but primarily in Europe and Latin America) making theatre in a laboratory environment in which training is generally an essential aspect of the practice. Many of these artists are border-crossers, working with colleagues from an array of different countries and backgrounds, often gathering periodically in order to reaffirm a collective identity and replenish themselves artistically. It will draw on Delueze’s Three syntheses of time: the living present; the pure past; and the drive to the future as a means of situating three different practitioners and their modes of training. Methodologically, the chapter will be informed by case studies drawn from the Third Theatre community. The training developed by three Third Theatre performers affiliated to Nordiskteaterlaboritorium (NTL) will be explored. These artists are: Luis Alonso, an Afro-Cuban practitioner and member of Oco Teatro Laboratorio- as well as a member of Bridge of Winds – here the first synthesis will be employed: the difference underpinning habits in the “living present” actively (re)-determines processes in the past and the future by synthesising them in novel ways in the here and now. Carolina Pizaro, a freelance Chilean performance, who has trained in India, developed her own particular performer style and dynamic and currently trains and performs with Odin Teatret. Here the second synthesis will be applied: in the “pure past”, memory fails, and rather than visual representations (which are only ever partial, secondary approximations of past processes), it is abstract differences or becomings which are shown to be working incessantly on the present, engulfing it constantly. Finally, Mia Theil Have, a Danish performer who was a laboratory worker with NTL before moving to London to set up her own theatre company, Riotous Theatre. Her training is discussed in relation to the third synthesis; here the future is a novel event, the result of a defining “cut” or caesura made possible by the on-going “eternal return” of pure difference in the present, which allows for constantly differing orders and assemblages of repeated processes.