La Crisis Research Articles

Participatory action research in critical data studies: Interrogating AI from a South–North approach

In this article, we draw inspiration from participatory action research (PAR) and the work of Latin American thinkers such as Freire and Fals Borda to interrogate artificial intelligence (AI). We propose a South-North flow by utilising PAR approaches that stem from Latin America, challenging how the North's centrality is taken for granted regarding AI epistemologies, experiences, and understandings. Conducting workshops in London with a diverse group of students, tech workers and activists, we argue that PAR can not only empower marginalised communities in the Global South; we can also learn more from its application in the Global North, in contexts where people deal with different struggles. Our analysis delves into three specific concepts around AI and data (in)justice: autonomy, empathy and dialogue. First, inspired by PAR principles, participants started to problematise what they called an empty interpretation of empathy, establishing parallels with transnational dynamics of data capitalism, which disadvantage marginalised communities in the Global South. Second, PAR offered a critical lens to analyse issues of AI and autonomy in ways that are less individualistic and more collective and politically engaged. Third, PAR's dialogical spirit enabled participants to locate various intersections between AI and dialogue. Critiquing the idea of a superior AI, participants were reminded of the possibilities offered by human intelligence and the combination of thinking, making and feeling or what Fals Borda (2003. Ante la crisis del país: I deas acción para el cambio, 1st. Ed. Bogotá: Panamericana) calls our sentipensante nature.

Impacto de la crisis económica en la actividad de un comité ético de investigación clínica; respuesta de la Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos sanitarios

Impacto de la crisis económica en la actividad de un comité ético de investigación clínica; respuesta de la Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos sanitarios

Je parle comme je suis: ce que nos mots nous disent de nous by Julie Neveux

Reviewed by: Je parle comme je suis: ce que nos mots nous disent de nous by Julie Neveux Chloe Mais Hagen Neveux, Julie. Je parle comme je suis: ce que nos mots nous disent de nous. Grasset, 2020. ISBN 978-2-246-82173-1. Pp. 293. In this lexical exploration, Neveux offers a window into twenty-first-century French society and invites us—the reader and assumed native French speaker in France—to reflect on the words we use and what they reveal about our lives. Neveux contends that our language “nous tend un miroir plus réaliste que ne le fait le selfie” and allows us to form conclusions on the changing state of the world around us (286). Her conversational, tongue-in-cheek narration mixes literary, linguistic, philosophical, and pop culture references with personal observations in an informal, broadly accessible work that distills complex social issues into bitesized lexical entries. The book is organized in eight chapters structured around a hundred lexical entries on themes ranging from technology and ecology to emotions and social connectivity. For example, the chapter “Les mots de l’homme-machine: être ou ne plus être humain” laments our growing overreliance on technology, to which we risk losing our sense of self (17). The chapter “Vrai ou fake? La crise de confiance” unpacks such terms as le fact-checking and troll(er) that polarize or lead us to question the nature of truth (211). A typical lexical entry is several pages long, describes a new word or phrase that has gained prominence in France in the past several decades, traces its etymology, gives examples in context, and addresses the often-consequential social implications of its use. As a linguist of English, Neveux is uniquely positioned to trace the etymology of loan words into French from English such as story and date, which originally came into English from French. For example, notes Neveux, the reader will be “sans doute très fier d’apprendre que ‘story’”—now reemerging in French as a descriptor of status updates on Snapchat or Instagram—came into English from the Old French “estoire” (149). Although at times emphasizing the playfulness and richness of the living French language and inviting readers to draw inspiration from it, Neveux’s frank and honest writing can come across as insensitive, especially when writing about terms linked to race or gender. The tone of the book is open, philosophical, and humorously cynical as it laments how the use of certain lexical terms, such as fake news, smombie, and like(r), disrupt the French language and reflect a cheapening of the human experience. Writing about the word smombie, a neologism derived from combining smartphone and zombie, Neveux notes that “le mot nouveau exprime un rapport à la vie réelle problématique” on both a personal and linguistic level (56). Similarly, Neveux defends written French against the insidious emoji: “le visuel impose une seule image (stylisée et réductrice) [...] nos mots valent toujours plus que leurs images” (77). For readers outside of France, Je parle comme je suis contextualizes and provides insights into popular French opinion on English loan words, current political buzzwords, written and spoken tics, and other innocuous expressions typical of twenty-first-century France. [End Page 264] Chloe Mais Hagen St. Olaf College (MN) Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French

La crisis del clima y la de la salud pública

La crisis del clima y la de la salud pública

Valeurs, volumes et partages volume prix : sur quelques questions (re)soulevées par la crise sanitaire

Valeurs, volumes et partages volume prix : sur quelques questions (re)soulevées par la crise sanitaire

Seguridad humana de los desplazados de Venezuela en Chile frente a la crisis regional y el COVID-19

The phenomenon of migration and displacement of Venezuelans to Chile will be investigated from a multidisciplinary perspective and hermeneutic, interpretative and documentary analysis. The phenomenon will be observed from various theoretical perspectives, whose central construct is migration and displacement as a phenomenon that impacts human security. The Venezuelan humanitarian emergency of the period 2017–2021 will be studied in the context of COVID-19, and the idea of a supraregional universal jurisdiction will be analyzed, in view of the obligation to protect citizens by the States in Latin America. The research question is: what are the limits of the State’s responsibility to respond to the human security of migrants and displaced persons based on the Venezuelan experience in Chile in the years 2017–2021? The author will verify the hypothesis that human security in the region is an aspiration that needs supranational actions to ensure that the human rights of migrants and displaced persons are respected and protected by the authorities of the nation-states of Latin America.

Análisis de la actividad innovadora en las MiPymes paraguayas durante la crisis del COVID-19

This article analyzes the innovative activity of Paraguayan MSMEs during the pandemic. A survey was conducted during the months of February to April 2021 to 360 owners and managers of MiPymes in the sectors of commerce, industry, construction and services. Pearson's Chi-square test and analysis of variance were applied for the quantitative analysis. A favorable innovative activity is evidenced in most of the indicators analyzed, where statistically significant increases stand out in aspects related to innovation carried out in companies that have received some type of support or subsidy, especially in the commercialization of new products or services with 84.6%, in changes or improvements in production processes that occurred in 91.2% of cases, and in innovation related to organization and management in 87.9% of participating companies.

Promoting remote workers' psychological health: Effective management practices during the COVID‐19 crisis

The aim of this study was to identify specific management practices that promote the psychological health of remote workers in the context of the COVID‐19 crisis. A two‐round Delphi study was conducted among 28 teleworkers and 22 managers. A list of 60 specific management practices was presented and participants had to identify whether each one could be used in the current remote working context and, if so, how useful it was to promote psychological health at work. Results indicate that most specific management practices usually used in a face‐to‐face setting can also be used in a remote context (85%). Practices that show consideration, establishing work structure, and allowing flexibility were also identified as the most useful to promote remote workers' psychological health during the pandemic. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge about specific management practices, remote working, and crisis management. It also suggests specific practices that managers can adopt to promote the psychological health of their employees during a period of crisis, even while managing from a distance.

Comunicación corporativa durante la pandemia Un análisis de las portadas de la prensa económica española durante el 2020 / Corporate communication during the pandemic An analysis of the front pages of the Spanish business press in 2020

La pandemia por la COVID-19 llegada en 2020 ha afectado a todo el panorama mediático y, por tanto, también a la comunicación corporativa. El propósito de esta investigación ha sido analizar los temas principales de portada de los tres diarios económicos españoles durante el 2020 para evaluar si la pandemia ha condicionado la comunicación corporativa de las organizaciones y si procede, en qué medida ha sido. El análisis se ha llevado a cabo aplicando análisis de contenido de las portadas en medios económicos españoles de referencia: quality papers (Alvarado, 2008). Los resultados obtenidos señalan que la crisis sanitaria ha absorbido los temas principales de las portadas de los diarios económicos hasta dejar sólo la mitad de cobertura disponible para otros temas. Dentro de este fenómeno de apropiación los efectos en el empleo tuvieron el mayor protagonismo con un 10% de presencia en todos los titulares analizados. Por otro lado, en el espacio no ocupado por la pandemia se observó que la cobertura sobre la fusión Caixabank – Bankia fue la más relevante en comparación con la cobertura del resto de organizaciones. La conclusión más importante que puede extraerse de esta investigación es que la comunicación corporativa de las organizaciones no desapareció durante el 2020 pese a los estragos de la pandemia aunque sí se redujo en un 50%. Este hallazgo indica que se intensificó la presión para que las organizaciones pudieran trasladar sus mensajes. De la misma forma la cobertura lograda en las portadas mantuvo un enfoque empresarial y no fue un camino para la difusión de los esfuerzos en RSC. Palabras clave: pandemia, COVID-19, comunicación corporativa, portadas, medios económicos, titularesAbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic that arrived in 2020 has affected the entire media landscape and corporate communication. This research has analysed the main topics on the front pages of the three Spanish economic newspapers during 2020: Expansión, Cinco Días and El Economista. The evaluation of the main front page topics has made it possible to quantify the extent to which the pandemic has displaced the coverage devoted to corporate communications in organizations. In addition, it has been possible to observe which organizations have successfully spreading their messages and which specific issues have been most related to the pandemic.The results obtained show that the health crisis has absorbed the main topics of the front pages of the economic newspapers, leaving only half of the coverage available for other topics. Within this phenomenon of absorption, the effects on employment had the greatest prominence with a 10% presence in all the headlines analysed. The coverage on unemployment is especially important if it is related to the tourism sector, which was the industry with the highest presence on the front pages (36.6% of all topics categorized as COVID-19). The significant presence of both topics indirectly points to the important weight of tourism in the Spanish economy. However, it is not possible to state that all related topics were negative because there was also coverage focused on economic recovery (4.4%).On the other hand, in the space not occupied by the pandemic, it was observed that the coverage of the Caixabank - Bankia merger was the most important in comparison with the coverage of the rest of the organizations. This business initiative achieved 2.65% of front-page topics since the pandemic began, in a scenario that was very limited. In general, mergers and acquisitions were the most important topic in 2020, as the second most covered specific topic was the failed merger between Banc Sabadell and BBVA. Telefonica was also among the companies with the most front-page coverage, although with a greater diversity of topics. The rest of the companies analysed also showed a wide variety of corporate topics as dividend management, cash flow movements and business diversification.It was also noted that the coverage achieved on the front pages maintained a business focus and wasn’t a vehicle for disseminating CSR efforts related to the pandemic. This is a very significant result because much recent literature has argued that during the pandemic, CSR has played an important role in the communication strategies of organizations. However, it seems that these actions have not been enough important to get a prominent position on the front page of Spanish business newspapers.The most important conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that corporate communication by organizations did not disappear during 2020 despite the ravages of the pandemic but was reduced by 50%. This reduction also shows a very important effect to take into consideration. During the year 2020 organizations had to work much harder to be in the spotlight even though the economic coverage of the analysed media did not completely disappear because of the pandemic. Keywords: pandemic, COVID-19, corporate communication, front page, business press, headlines

10 - Youth Subjectivities and Associational Life in Bamenda, Cameroon

Introductiondo young people at the margins of national citizenship make sense of their lives in local society? What mechanisms do they employ to negotiate transition to full adult status in contexts where national institutional support for them has become tenuous or disappeared completely? How do we analyse and account for the ways in which younger generations of Africans, experiencing blocked mobility, deal with their predicament on account of postcolonial elites’ continuous cling to power and resources? How, and in what contexts, are social categories (such as youth or adult) constructed, negotiated and experienced? These questions inevitably demand a critical discussion of the meanings of youth (understood in this study as a position of structural dependency), social adulthood, citizenship and social participation. This study answers the above questions by focusing on the subjectivities and activities of three associations of young men and women in Bamenda, Cameroon’s leading Anglophone city. The associations include the Chosen Sisters, the United Sisters and the Ntambag Brothers Association (NBA). Being an ethnographic study, context is essential for its appreciation. The study is set against a background of what is known popularly in Cameroon as la crise – crisis that conjures simply more than the spectres of economic and political uncertainty; indeed, understood by most as a deep moral crisis. Against this background, this study analyses the ways in which young Cameroonians create meaningful lives in local society. Clearly, youths embody the sharpening contradictions of the late capitalist era (cf. Comaroff and Comaroff 2005:23) and tend to be ‘positioned at the leading edge of many aspects of contemporary social change, and experience acutely the risks and opportunities that new social conditions entail’ (Hall, Coffey and Williamson 1999:501).

SARS-CoV2/covid-19 y la crisis de los cuidados: algunas claves para su comprensión

This article incorporates a reflection on care, as action and relationship, which operates fundamentally in the private sphere and which has historically been assigned to women. The arrival of SARS-CoV-2 -better known as COVID-19- and forced confinement intensified various inequalities associated with care, which aggravated the conditions of women. This was expressed in task overloads for women because of the lack of co-responsibility in care work, the absence of public policies, the lack of incorporation of men to this work; all these were maximized by job insecurity that many women are facing.

Staging Charisma: Anna Deavere Smith’s Black Feminist Theater of the Multitude

AbstractRecently, scholars in American studies have begun to trace the literary and cultural history of charisma, an especially slippery term which most often connotes spectacular, individual male leadership. In this article, I suggest that Anna Deavere Smith’s verbatim theatre provides an alternative notion of this term. Specifically, Smith’s plays enact a Black feminist mode of collectivist charisma, one which has been and can be transported from stage to streets and vice versa. I focus here on Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1994), a one-woman show that Smith created by interviewing and impersonating dozens of people involved in or affected by the Rodney King “riots.” While the public primarily remembers this moment through King himself, or through spokespeople such as Bill Clinton or George H. W. Bush, Smith refuses either to create protagonists or to channel individualist charisma by staging a multitude. Further, Smith’s decentered theater proffers a collective approach to remembering the broader post-civil rights ethnic and racial tensions that led to the 1992 LA Crisis. Indeed, I suggest that we experience Twilight as part of a performance history of contemporary Left protest by drawing out the similarities between Smith’s multivocal plays and today’s “leaderful,” Black-feminist-led movements for racial justice.

The Right to Safe Transport + Air Passenger Rights After COVID-19

The coronavirus crisis has been extremely disruptive for the international passenger transportation market. It has also triggered a major legal disruption in the field of passenger rights. In recent decades, the focus of air passenger policy has largely shifted from safety to rights in case of delay and cancellation, a change predominantly induced by the EU. COVID-19 has led to a major paradigm shift, with safety again becoming the number one policy target. Passengers have a wide range of tools to enforce their rights to timely travel and these remedies have made an effective contribution to a reduction in delays and cancellations in air transport. Passengers’ remedies in case of unsafe transport seem largely limited to the possibility of bringing an action in case of bodily injury, lésion corporelle, based on the Montreal Convention (MC). This contribution aims firstly to evaluate the effectiveness of this remedy as a preventive tool for increasing passenger safety. Secondly, it aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 on existing passenger rights in respect of cancellation and delay, as well as the impact of existing passenger rights policy on airlines’ operational margin for enhanced safety management. Based on this analysis, we aim to make recommendations for a more effective model for the protection of passengers’ safety, while at the same time embedding safety in the existing passenger rights policy instead of overriding it. Sommaire: La crise du coronavirus a extrêmement perturbé le marché du tra

A world of inflammation: the need for ecological solutions that co-benefit people, place and planet.

The ecology of the early environment - including microbial diversity, nutrition, nature, social interactions and the totality of exposures in the wider "exposome" - have life-long implications for all aspects of health and resilience. In particular, the emergence of "microbiome science" provides new evidence for vital relationships between biodiversity and health at every level. New perspectives of ecological interdependence connect personal and planetary health; the human health crisis cannot be separated from the social, political and economic "ecosystems" otherwise driving dysbiosis (from its etymological root, "life in distress") at every level. Adverse changes in macroscale ecology - of food systems, lifestyle behaviours, socioeconomic disadvantage and environmental degradation - all impact the microbial systems sitting at the foundations of all ecosystems. In particular, changes in the function and composition of the human-associated microbiome have been implicated in the mounting global burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), exacerbating inflammation and metabolic dysregulation through multiple pathways across the lifespan. This "dysbiotic drift" (adverse shifts in ecology at all scales) underscores the need for ecological approaches aimed at restoring symbiosis, balance and mutualism. While there is promise with supplement-based strategies (e.g. probiotics, prebiotics), it is essential to focus on upstream factors implicated in dysbiosis, including the health of wider environments, lifestyle, nature relatedness, and the social policies and practices which can facilitate or inhibit dysbiotic drift. This also calls for ambitious integrative approaches which not only define these interconnections, but also capitalize on them to create novel, collaborative and mutualistic solutions to our vast interdependent global challenges.

La gestión de las relaciones con los públicos en los festivales de música durante la pandemia. El caso de Bilbao BBK Live / The management of the relationships with music festivals publics during the pandemic. The case of Bilbao BBK Live

La crisis sanitaria y económica provocada por el coronavirus ha afectado a la totalidad de la población y de las empresas e instituciones, siendo la cultura uno de los sectores en los que esta pandemia está teniendo más impacto, en especial en las artes escénicas y en la música, sobre todo, en directo. En este artículo se ofrece un análisis de cómo la gestión de las relaciones con los públicos puede mejorar la reputación y las perspectivas de supervivencia del Bilbao BBK Live, un festival de música moderna que ha visto cómo su actividad empresarial ha quedado casi totalmente paralizada. A través de un estudio de caso, pretendemos ofrecer un análisis de las principales acciones de relaciones públicas desarrolladas en 2020 y aportar algunas propuestas para el resto del sector de los festivales en el que la actual pandemia ha tenido tanto impacto. Para ello, se ha realizado una entrevista en profundidad con la directora de comunicación de la promotora del evento, Last Tour, y se han estudiado las publicaciones en Instagram de las iniciativas puestas en marcha, a través de un análisis de contenido. Los resultados obtenidos certifican la importancia de la gestión de las relaciones con los públicos como herramienta esencial en la estrategia empresarial, incluso, en época de pandemia y con la actividad casi paralizada. Palabras claves: festivales de música, relaciones con los públicos, comunicación, Covid-19, Instagram, EspañaAbstractThe health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has affected the totality of the population, companies and institutions. One of the most affected sectors by this crisis is Culture, especially in the performing arts and, above all, in the live music sub-sector, where it is having the greatest impact. During these months of health emergency, restrictions on venues and mobility have caused live music to almost paralyse all its activity completely. Particularly significant, due to the great repercussions of the pandemic, is the music festival sub-sector, mainly large-scale festivals, which have had to postpone their editions to future years. Thus, 17% of the promoters of this type of event cancelled their edition, 56% postponed it, 21% were held on their dates and 6% took place, but the dates were modified, although they did not take place in the traditional way, neither in terms of programming nor in terms of capacity (BIME, 2020).But, despite this situation, the big Spanish festivals - and the smaller ones - have managed to keep some activity, either by organising smaller events, adjusted to health conditions, or through initiatives that are more distant from the live music activity itself. This article, through a case study, offers an analysis of how the management of public relations can enhance the reputation and survival prospects of music festivals. For this reason, we have focused on Bilbao BBK Live, a modern music festival which has seen its business activity almost completely paralysed. In this way, we aim to offer an analysis of the main public relations actions developed in 2020 and provide some proposals for the other festival sector on which the current pandemic has had such an impact. To do so, we conducted an in-depth interview with the communications manager of the promoter of the event, Last Tour, and studied the Instagram posts published and news from the website by the initiatives launched, through a content analysis. These activities have been targeting different audiences, from all kinds of suppliers to general attendees and sponsors.The results confirm the importance of public relations management as an essential tool in business strategy, even in times of pandemic and with business almost at a standstill. Thus, the different campaigns developed during the pandemic have managed to keep and strengthen the relationships with the different stakeholders of the event: attendees, sponsors, city of Bilbao public administrations and the mass media, although it has also focused special attention on suppliers and collaborators, vulnerable communities in its environment and other bodies in the sector that, for the last few months, have been joining forces to exert pressure on the authorities to demand a return to activity.In the same way, and thanks to the work developed by the communication departments of the festival and its promoter, Last Tour, Instagram has become a key tool in the work of marketing these activities, as well as to improve the engagement of its audience, according with the results obtained in previous research (Klara, 2019; Castro-Martínez, Pérez-Ordoñez, y Torres-Martín, 2020).Keywords: music festivals, public relations, communication, Covid-19, Instagram, Spain

Experiencia de doce médicos recién graduados al frente de un hotel sanitarizado durante la crisis COVID-19

Experiencia de doce médicos recién graduados al frente de un hotel sanitarizado durante la crisis COVID-19

Hurricane Maria and La Crisis Boricua on Health-Care Supply in Puerto Rico

Many medical professionals left Puerto Rico due to the financial crisis. Puerto Rico passed Act 14 in April 2017 to mitigate the exodus of physicians, reducing the flat tax on medical services to 4 percent. The same year, Puerto Rico was devastated by a Category 4 hurricane, leaving the is land without power for several months. A difference-in-difference model is used to estimate the net effects of the hurricane and Act 14 on the number of health-care providers. The number of health-care providers decreased by 6.5 percent, family physicians by 17.5 percent, and specialists by 8 percent.

Bacteriophage therapy for challenging bacterial infections: achievements, limitations and prospects for future clinical use by veterinary dermatologists.

Bacteriophages were discovered just over 100 years ago and have been used to treat bacterial infections in animals since the 1920s. The antimicrobial resistance crisis has led to a new surge of interest in the use of bacteriophage therapy as an alternative or supplement to antimicrobial therapy in humans and other animals. To describe the nature of bacteriophages and provide a critical review and update on the clinical use of bacteriophages in the treatment of challenging bacterial infections, with an emphasis on companion animal veterinary applications. The scientific literature on the subject was critically evaluated. Findings from the most pertinent papers have been presented in summary form and critiqued. Over the last 20 years there has been a considerable increase in the volume and quality of publications dealing with bacteriophage therapy. Some recent papers build on excellent work published in the 1980s and describe promising veterinary applications. Challenges related particularly to the registration and approval of phage remedies will need to be overcome before phage therapy can become a mainstream tool for use in veterinary settings. Considerably more research, particularly controlled clinical trials, needs to be done. Bacteriophage therapy is one of the most promising approaches to tackling the looming antimicrobial resistance crisis, yet substantial regulatory challenges will need to be overcome before it enters widespread use. Phage therapy also may, in the future, improve the management of challenging bacterial infections that are not necessarily multidrug-resistant.

Shame and Eviction in Juan Miguel del Castillo’s Techo y comida (2015)

In 2014, Spain’s then prime minister Mariano Rajoy declared: ‘La crisis ya es historia’. This proclamation of recovery was based solely on macro-economic indicators and reinforced a flawed hegemonic narrative equating progress with economic growth. It ignored what Labrador Méndez calls ‘historias de vida subprime’: subjective and affective accounts of the enduring eviction crisis triggered by the 2008 financial meltdown and strict austerity measures. Juan Miguel del Castillo’s film Techo y comida is one such ‘subprime’ life story. It follows Rocío, a young, unemployed, single mother facing eviction from her rental property in the absence of state or community support. Exposing the flipside to the Rajoy’s statistics, the film reveals the increasingly brutal ‘expulsions’ (Sassen) that facilitate GDP recuperation. It politicizes through affect, showing that shame functions as a mechanism for social exclusion and normalisation but also as a catalyst for altruism. Within the diegesis, Del Castillo uncovers the potent, subjective shame that conceals expulsions and allows them to proliferate. This concurrently engenders shame in the spectator, encouraging them to consider their part in sustaining these degrading processes at micro-level and pointing them towards ‘non-capitalist practices’ (Castells et al).

Is This a Dress Rehearsal?

The author focuses on republican Ramadan that can be chance for people to reflect importance of derisory and mentions noise surrounding state of war against coronavirus pandemic Topics discussed include archaism of return to the European borders, general mobilization against coronavirus that does not prove people to be ready for next and relearning efforts of washing hand