Contemporary Projects Research Articles

Como o Uso de Ferramentas de Gerenciamento de Projetos é Ensinado em Cursos Superiores de Computação: Um Panorama das Instituições de Ensino Brasileiras

Devido à complexidade dos projetos de software contemporâneos, o Gerenciamento de Projetos (GP) é impraticável sem o apoio de ferramentas de software. Assim, o uso destas ferramentas também precisa ser abordado no ensino de GP em cursos superiores de computação. Mesmo existindo bastante literatura sobre o ensino de GP em geral – principalmente do ensino de conceitos e métodos, não se encontra muita informação sobre como ensinar o uso destas ferramentas. Com o propósito de compreender como atualmente esta competência é ensinada, a presente pesquisa busca caracterizar o ensino das ferramentas de GP nos cursos superiores de computação em instituições de ensino brasileiras. Para isto, foi conduzido um survey com objetivo de identificar: (a) quais ferramentas de gerenciamento de projetos são ensinadas; (b) como são definidas as unidades instrucionais; e (c) como são avaliadas. Foram convidados 590 professores de disciplinas de GP e engenharia de software no Brasil, e obtidas 92 respostas. Os dados coletados são sintetizados e apresentados, mostrando um panorama da situação atual nas instituições de ensino brasileiras. Os resultados podem ser aproveitados por professores da engenharia de software em relação às suas disciplinas, e também por pesquisadores, apontando oportunidades para melhorar o ensino deste conteúdo de forma mais eficaz e eficiente.

Interactive environmental planning: creating utopias and storylines within a mobilities planning project

This article presents a research project on mobility management in Danish municipalities aimed at creating more sustainable mobilities. The project, called Formula M (2011–2014), worked within sciences, public and private sectors, and civil society. Often contemporary projects in both planning and designing sustainable mobilities fall short when it comes to changing praxis to limit CO2 emissions, where they just concentrate on technocratic elements. They often neglect the ‘why’ and ‘for what’ which is needed in order to drive such change. In the Formula M project, focus has been on supporting the planners involved in the project on their ‘why’ and ‘for what’. Based on a theoretical understanding of relational and collaborative planning the article contributes to an understanding of which approaches and methods can be used to facilitate the relationships and dialogues between many actors. Methodologically, this has been sought through a specific focus on the role of utopias as a tool for storytelling.

Indigenous Digital Art as Politics in Australia

ABSTRACTThis essay contributes to discussions about Indigenous politics and debates about contemporary democracy. It uses a case study of video art produced by young indigenous people and a community development organisation in the Pilbara, Australia. Those involved in the project use digital media under the auspices of the Big hART Yijala Yala Project to produce an interactive comic series. The essay addresses the following questions: Do contemporary community development projects play a conservatising role serving the interests of a neoliberal polity? Given the long-standing practice of representing modern media as a vehicle for western domination what, if anything, do these projects imply about the political relations between Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians? Are Indigenous media and cultural work inherently political? What conceptions of the political are at stake in such arguments? We focus on how certain groups of young people use new media, and how their activities are political. The argument is that Indigenous media like these are ‘inherently political’ because they are about efforts to reclaim the images of indigenous peoples for themselves.

Vajazzled!!! Pursuits for the hirsute

Abstract Pubic hair has long been a contentious subject for women, and, in relation to constructions of psychoanalytical Otherness. Indeed, from Freud’s assertion that female pubic hair conceals a ‘lack’, natural genital hair growth has been a site of simultaneous shame and control, an intimate feature requiring habitual clipping, preening and restraint. Feminists have aligned this bodily restraint with social constraint, as men rarely pluck, shave or dye their pubic hair, and control over such ‘hidden’ areas heightens and perpetuates women’s ‘shame’. Consequently, as Germaine Greer acknowledges, stereotypical women pluck, shave and wax their bikini lines, and somewhat ironically, unfettered pubic hair by the 1980s had become a sign of the unfeminine feminist. In a post-feminist era, pubic hair, or the lack of it, remains a site of discourse. From fashions in waxing (the Brazilian and the Hollywood) to shaping and dyeing, pubic hair has become commodified, a beauty essential, removed aggressively from its political roots. This article is concerned with vajazzling, the removal of pubic hair and its replacement with diamante sparkles and other ‘jewellery’. Focusing on the celebration of excess body modification and the quest for ‘beauty’ via luxury consumption exemplified in this series, this article questions and investigates the historical significance of the lack of pubic hair and its beaded replacement in contemporary body projects.

Please do not sit? The display of contemporary furniture in historic locations

The display of contemporary artworks at historic locations has become widespread. Contemporary art projects that resonate with a historic context provide an opportunity for creative interpretation ...

Islam and Good Practice: Constructing Indigenous Muslim Identity in Cameroon

The paper looks at modern indigenous identity construction in contemporary Cameroon with a special emphasis on how religion is incorporated in this process. It focuses on the Muslim Mbororo Fulani, traditionally known as pastoralists, and their development association MBOSCUDA (the Mbororo Social and Cultural Development Association of Cameroon) that was founded in 1992. The status of the Mbororo as indigenous people has been recognized by such transnational bodies as the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the African Commission of Human and People's Rights (ACHPR). MBOSCUDA has respectively attained international visibility e.g. through its Special Consultative Status in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The paper links the contemporary identity construction project among the Mbororo with a broader socio-religious change which is related to an increasing outside pressure put on the Mbororo to transform and refine their culture. It looks at how the MBOSCUDA activists deal with this pressure by striving to reshape certain Mbororo sociocultural practices and get rid of others. A special focus is on the notion of Islam and “good practice” which in the MBOSCUDA discourse is seen as the opposite of “negative cultures” and which forms a central constituent of the specific Mbororo ethnic identity launched by the association. The paper explores the differing, or even conflicting, motivations that instruct people's views concerning various debated Mbororo practices. As the discussion shows, there are, on the one hand, those who are motivated by a need to cleanse the Mbororo identity of socially and culturally backward customs that are hindering progress and deflecting people's attention from educational activities, whether these customs are seen as “purely” indigenous or resulting from a negative mixture of tradition and “imperfectly” understood Islam. On the other hand, a large number of MBOSCUDA officers see the protection of the Muslim identity – which they regard as the only imaginable one for the Mbororo – through the eradication of heathen practices as the chief goal of the organisation. In order to examine the divergent viewpoints within MBOSCUDA the paper takes a closer look at several debated Mbororo practices, including the youth dance (wamarde), arranged marriages (nangaaru) and the women's milk selling rounds (sippal). As the paper concludes, the differing views on these practices should be seen against the overall project of transforming the Mbororo self-perception towards one that would better be in tune with, and adjust itself to, the requirements of the contemporary society. The discussion is mainly based on interviews that the author has conducted among the MBOSCUDA activists in Cameroon in 2009–2015. It also draws from her extensive anthropological fieldwork in the country since 1994.

The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.

Collecting, Collections, and Cultural Heritage in the Cameroon Grassfields

Collecting, Collections, and Cultural Heritage in the Cameroon Grassfields

Within the heart's darkness: The role of emotions in Arendt's political thought.

Interest in the political relevance of the emotions is growing rapidly. In light of this, Hannah Arendt's claim that the emotions are apolitical has come under renewed fire. But many critics have misunderstood her views on the relationship between individuals, emotions and the political. This paper addresses this issue by reconstructing the conceptual framework through which Arendt understands the emotions. Arendt often describes the heart - where the emotions reside - as a place of darkness. I begin by tracing this metaphor through her work to demonstrate that it is meant to convey the inherently uncertain nature of emotions rather than a devaluation of them. I proceed to challenge the notion that Arendt adopts the Enlightenment dichotomy between reason and emotion. In fact, she rejects both as a basis for politics. However, she does identify some constructive roles for the emotions. I argue that fear is intrinsically connected to courage - the principal political virtue - in Arendt's philosophy. In light of my discussion, I then reinterpret the role of compassion and pity in On Revolution, concluding that Arendt's insights can help us avoid the potential pitfalls of the contemporary project to recuperate the emotions in politics.

Remembering the Slave Rebellion of Coro: Historical Memory and Politics in Venezuela

Abstract This article analyzes the construction and circulation of historical memories of the Coro slave rebellion in Venezuela between 1795 and 2014. We show how historical interpreters have inscribed divergent representations of this rebellion in documents, landscapes, historiographies, monuments, and music. In a political climate defined by ethnoracial and political tensions, colonial elites saw in the rebellion the republican ideology and racial violence of the Haitian Revolution. Fearing the persistence of social divisions and political resentment, nineteenth-century republican leaders all but effaced the rebellion from the nation’s historical memory. This episode was finally recovered by historians at the beginning of the twentieth century, and since the 1950s teachers, guerrilla members, and social activists have linked the rebellion to political discourses of ethnoracial struggle, cultural syncretism, bodily suffering, and social exclusion. Recently, communal organizations in the region have begun to connect it to contemporary anti-imperialist and socialist projects. We argue that historical memories have mobilized political identities at different times and imagined regional genealogies of struggle against imperialism and political oppression.

Challenges, motivations, and desires of downtown revitalizers

Purpose This study aims to identify the motivations, challenges and desires of the various actors working in contemporary downtown revitalization in mid-sized cities. Design/methodology/approach Using Spokane, Washington, as a case study, 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key players in downtown redevelopment, including public administrators, private developers and non-profit representatives. Findings Results indicate that those conducting renewal projects are primarily motivated by economics, but additionally cite heritage preservation values and community development as significant factors. Moreover, contemporary renewal projects are found to be small-scale endeavours, undertaken by individual private investors, as government involvement has significantly diminished. Revitalizers tended to express frustration with a lack of investor and public awareness regarding renewal opportunities, suggesting that increased information dissemination might promote further renewal work within mid-sized urban downtowns. Originality/value Findings provide insight into issues with neoliberal policies in addressing contemporary urban issues, and suggest a more nuanced understanding of contemporary urban development processes beyond the narrowly defined profit-driven paradigm.

Tony Lawson's Essays on the nature and state of modern economics. London: Routledge, 2015, 262 pp.

Review of Tony Lawson's Essays on the nature and state of economics. London: Routledge, 2015, 262 pp.The book by Tony Lawson entitled Essays on the nature and state of economics comes at a particularly fitting time in the history of the economic academic discipline. After what has been regarded by many as one of its major setbacks-namely the failure to predict the 2008 global financial crisis-economics has been severely shaken, marginally challenged, but ultimately left untouched by the debates on its conditions that have sparked in the last few years. Therefore, Lawson's choice to assemble a number of previously published papers and a new one into this collection constitutes an important and welcome contribution to the methodology and philosophy of economics literature.The point of departure for Lawson's book is the idea that economics lies in a state of intellectual disarray due to the detachment from social reality, its lack of explanatory and predictive successes, and more generally the absence of a sense of direction. The unhealthy state of the discipline, Lawson notes in the introductory chapter, has been recognised by both heterodox and mainstream contributors, but despite this bipartisan acknowledgement, criticisms and discussions have been mostly superficial and unable to steer the course of economics back onto its tracks. Lawson's collection of papers tackles precisely this issue: it is aimed primarily at filling the gaps in our understanding of the contemporary history of economic thought, including the reasons behind its recent failures, and secondly at evaluating possible alternatives to the contemporary mainstream paradigm.As Mark Blaug (cited in Lawson 2015, 174) bluntly and concisely put it in a passage cited multiple times by Lawson, modern economics is sick. According to the author, the causes of economics' bad state should not be located in recent events and theoretical developments. Instead, it emerged decades ago as the culmination of a process that originated in the past century with the growing mathematisation of the discipline. Therefore, we should not give in to the temptation to consider the failure to predict a single episode (i.e., the recent global financial crisis) as the proof that economics is in need for thorough reconsideration. Economic phenomena, and more generally social ones, are indeed characterised by a degree of contingency so high that, according to Lawson, successful event prediction is typically not much more creditable than winning a lottery (p. 3). Had the crisis been predicted through the application of mathematical models, so Lawson's argument runs, it would have meant little more than a stroke of luck, and would not reduce the urgency of a substantial readjustment of the discipline.The argument that we should consider central in Lawson's book is perhaps that the contemporary mainstream project is characterised by a continuing practice of ontological neglect. The latter is a concept previously employed by Lawson (2003; 2007), and further developed in his last effort, based on the idea that the application of mathematical techniques to the study of social phenomena is inappropriate. Given such incompatibility, mainstream economics' persistence in universally applying only formalistic models to the study of all types of phenomena implies that the former neglects the nature of social phenomena themselves (i.e., their ontology). A major part of the book deals with the nature and historical origins of this neglect, the causes of its perpetuation, and its consequences-all of which I will now attempt to summarise.Why does the application of mathematical formalism within economics imply the neglect of social ontology? Why are the two incompatible? Lawson's answer to these questions, which provides an explanation to the fact that economics has continually failed on its own terms (p. 112), rests on the fact that stable correlations between economic variables have not and cannot succeed. …

Artspace: Contemporary Art Projects, Peterborough, written by Terra dos Chinês Curio Shop: Karen Tam

Artspace: Contemporary Art Projects, Peterborough, written by Terra dos Chinês Curio Shop: Karen Tam

The Construction of Soviet Ethnography and “The Peoples of Siberia”

The multi-generation book project "The Peoples of Siberia" enabled a group of Leningrad-based scholars to reshape their museum into a Soviet ethnographic community. This article analyses the face-to-face performances, the legalistic stenographic documentation, the collective crafting of a single authoritative style, and a unique temporal frame as an important background to understand a hallmark volume in Siberian studies. The authors argue that the published volume indexes nearly thirty years of scholarly debates as much as it indexes the peoples it represents. The article concludes with a critical discussion of how this volume was translated and received by a Euro-American readership influencing the perception of Siberian peoples internationally. It also links the volume to contemporary post-Soviet publication projects which seem to retrace the same path. The article is based on extensive archival work and references collections recently discovered and which are presented for publication here for the first time.

How the West came to rule

Alex Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Global Capitalism, Pluto, London, 2015; 400 pp: 0745336159, 24.99 [pounds sterling] (pbk) Introduction Eight hundred years of global history explained! Anievas and Nijancioglu's book is an ambitious attempt to amalgamate discussions in the fields of international relations, global history, Marxism, world-systems theory and historical sociology into a great machine of explanation, the side of which is stamped with the newly repainted letters 'Uneven and Combined Development'. The Trotskyist theory, re-outlined by IR theorists and displayed for discussion and reassemblage, now provides the screen across which the past of the global proletariat can unscroll, and on which to better project the future that awaits it. Through post-colonial and political theory, the Introduction argues persuasively for an ever more complex understanding of capitalism (p. 9), but also firmly attempts to swat away two erroneous and yet arguably dominant Marxist stories of capitalism's development. In order to battle these theories, the authors draw on the work of a wide breadth of global scholars, slowing down the centripetal force of Europe on world history to understand the dynamics of other agents instead--whether of control or rebellion--in the expansive universe of capitalism's ascendency. Leon Trotsky's theory of 'combined and uneven development' is given a robust defence in Chapter 2. Terms such as 'the whip of external necessity', 'substitutionalism' and 'privilege of backwardness' are put back into a history of party politics and the Bolshevik general's marshaling of his terminology, along with his troops and coterie. The authors do not shrink from providing some obvious criticisms. This includes explaining the theory's reliance on the teleological terms of 'advanced' and 'backward' societies (p. 56), reinterpreting these instead as 'asymmetries and 'imbalances' between societies, rather a directional flow. These opening chapters thus make clear that this is an autocritical work in which the authors wish to correct the racist and patriarchal mistakes of Marxist theory, incorporating not only the histories of production beyond the European frontier, but also the analyses by feminist and non-European scholars. This is an extraordinary ambition: surely few contemporary projects of historical writing have quite so audacious a mission or scope. Chapter 3 begins the historical journey with the nomadic mode of production on the Mongol grasslands, moving across the trade routes, with the Black Death upon them, into feudal Europe and the demographic crisis which, the authors claim, catapulted Europe into capitalism. Chapter 4 argues for the distinction between tributary and feudal modes of production. The authors then claim that that it was the superior army of the Ottoman tributary mode that halted European expansionism, forcing European powers to look elsewhere--the East and West Indies--for necessary feudal agricultural expansion and merchant trade. In both chapters, Europe reaps the 'privileges of backwardness' in relation to other modes of production. Chapter 5 moves overseas with the merchant adventurers, first through the Spanish legal theories of Amerindians and the influence of New World map-making on European's conceptions of their home territory, and then the twin rise of New World slavery and industrial capitalism, these last as combined and mutually intertwined systems of production and circulation. Chapter 6 works as a moment of repose in the global whirlwind, turning back to the conflicts within Europe which had begun to be outlined in Chapter 4, and arguing that it was the preoccupation of the majority of European powers either with New World expansionism or battling the Ottoman Empire that allowed Holland and England the geopolitical space' (p. 184) for the political primacy of merchant capital and the early appearance of bourgeois revolutions. …

After Images of the Present: Utopian imagination in contemporary art practices

While discussions on utopia in contemporary art generally revolve around socially and politically charged issues of utopian thinking, I will focus on alternative vision of utopia in art. Instead of artworks which propose politically »motivated« utopian projects, putting forward either manifestoes or collaborative actions with a particular aim in mind, I will take into account those artistic perspectives which through carefully constructed and perceptually manipulated artistic environments engender utopia as a state of mind. In these cases we do not speak about utopian themes, related to a particular historic place, time and context, but rather about images of utopia which bring about characteristic aspects of the utopian such as hope, imagination and a possibility of change. I discuss such utopian potency through selected projects of James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson and Anthony Gormley, whose work establish phenomenal environments which can elicit utopian projections. Differently to traditional utopian visions, avantgarde utopian projects and in contrast to microutopian concerns and participatory strategies of most contemporary utopian art projects, these works do not propose models of alternative ways of being, coming out of discomfort in a global world status quo . On the contrary, here utopian visions are produced on an abstract level - as mental images embodied in a real, »sensorial« space, which can function as a metaphor and as a projecting place of utopian seeing. Utopian in these works resides in the perceptual engagement with the work, that is in the experiental situation itself, which by challenging participant's perceptions leads her/him into a different state of being, in which she/he can undertake a spiritual, emotional and intellectual transformation.

Interactive multimedia installation art development using recycled input and sensing devices

Contemporary interactive art-technology projects often employ diversified and complex sensing mechanisms. As sensor integration introduces increased hardware cost, engineering and time constraints, artists are either forced to limit the intended project's functionality, increase its budget or allow more time for development. This work introduces the recycled sensor replacement (RSR) approach, designed to enable the use of alternative sensing mechanisms that conform to the original system input-specification demands. In other words, sensors sourced from various devices may be reprogrammed and reused within new interactive projects. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated via practical application over a number of interactive new-media art case studies presenting scenarios of varying complexity. Clearly, artists are presented with a novel sensor-development approach that offers design flexibility and cost reduction.

Vernacular architecture as codified model for the contemporary sustainable project

Vernacular settlements present a high degree of flexibility and a good capacity of adaptation to the environmental, social, economic and cultural conditions of the contexts in which they develop. The “VerSus. Lessons from Vernacular Heritage to Sustainable Architecture” research project, financed within the European Culture 2007-2013 project, is aimed at the codification of the lessons of environmental, socio-economic and socio-cultural lessons derived from the vernacular heritage, with the purpose of establishing strategies, solutions and good practices that may be adapted and used in an innovative way in the recovery of historical centres and in the design and planning of an appropriate and resilient architecture capable of responding to the requirements of contemporary life.

Symptoms and Driving Factors of Contemporary Earth Warming and Projections for the Future

Abstract This paper outlines the symptoms of contemporary global warming, reviews its possible driving factors and presents some projections for future. Key among the symptoms are those related to temperature, with the increase in average global temperature since 1880 now reaching a value of 0.85°C. While warming has encompassed almost the whole world, the high latitudes have warmed more than the low, and maximum temperature has increased more than average temperature. Warming has been causing sea level rise, thanks to both the thermal expansion of warming water and the melting of ice on land. The other consequence of warming is a change in precipitation pattern, manifesting itself in higher precipitation in certain parts of the world (generally at low and high latitudes), but also lower precipitation in other parts (mainly the Tropics); as well as in changes in the intraannual course characterising precipitation (with more falling in winter and less in summer), and in the frequency and intensity of rainfall (more intense heavy-precipitation events and higher variability where the frequency of precipitation is concerned). Among the possible driving factors, the most important are those related to the increase of CO2 and mixing ratios of other greenhouse gases in the troposphere. Land-use changes and emissions of aerosols to the atmosphere also exert a major impact on temperature. These are mainly anthropogenic factors. While natural drivers also modulate the climate markedly, they tend to warm and cool the globe alternately, stepping up warming when they are in a warming phase, but slowing down or even offsetting warming during a cooling phase. Projections for the future are entirely dependent on socio-economic scenarios of future development. All the (economically) realistic scenarios point to a continuation of the warming trend, with a further intense sea-level rise and precipitation changes, albeit with the rate of change varying in line with the rate of increase in concentrations of the greenhouse gases. The realistic range of values for average rise in global temperature is between 2 and even 6 degrees Celsius.

On The Rise of the Aesthetic Mind: Archaeology and Philosophy

Moving from a critical assessment of some recent attempts to define the arts in terms of adaptations, spandrels, by-products and, moreover, calling into question the continued development of the concept of the in the frame of contemporary interdisciplinary research projects, the main aim of this paper is to highlight some of the ways in which archaeological objects can, at least in some respects, testify to the manifestation of the modern aesthetic mind.