Multiple Visions Research Articles

“A Great Injustice”: Urban Capitalism and the Limits of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century New York City

Seneca Village was the largest African American landowning community in New York City until it was destroyed to build Central Park. Although it has largely been overlooked, Seneca Village reframes the early history of American capitalism at the intersection of race, freedom, and urban development, diversifying the narrative to place African American city-dwellers as actors at the center of the narrative. Real estate capitalism made Seneca Village possible, with residents using it as a means to social, political, and economic advancement, but it also destroyed Seneca Village. That paradox reveals how an emerging American urban commercial capitalism consolidated power in places Seneca Villagers could not access even when they tried. These men and women played critical, yet unacknowledged, roles as the whole nation struggled to navigate multiple visions of capitalism, their inherent inequalities, and their implications for the future.

“Gesto: memoria de un cuerpo en oscuridad”

Gesto: memoria de un cuerpo en oscuridad es un performance art que nace de esa exploración constante entre el adentro y el afuera, entre la identidad y el N. N., entre los miedos y las liberaciones, pero siempre cavilando en la incesante pregunta sobre la existencia (yo soy), al mismo tiempo que se está experimentando el aquí y el ahora. Se trata de una muestra artística relacionada con el estudio del proceso personal emocional, afectivo y creativo-discursivo (autoinvestigación), mediante los lenguajes corpóreos escénicos, filosóficos y plásticos propios de la danza butoh. Como investigadora, parto de las constantes incomodidades que promueve lo desconocido ante nuestro cuerpo/psiquis en relación con la vida, desarrollándolos por medio de laboratorios de indagación, experimentación y experiencias de epistemología corporal y entrenamiento técnico propio de la estética butohka, para ofrendar un performance art como muestra y resultado final. Durante el proceso, al llevar a cabo un diario de campo de registro en torno al autoestudio y al presentar el performance art a los asistentes, se retroalimentan múltiples visiones del yo soy, proyectados y reflejados en los otros, se despliegan concepciones comunes de identidad y de hallazgos propios alrededor de la primera infancia. Dentro de los procesos del desarrollo humano, es importante hacer consciencia de la existencia propia mediante el cuerpo, las emociones, gestar espacios que retroalimenten la memoria colectiva e indagar esos procesos de sanación colectivos que permitan transformar las vivencias propias en torno al arte comunitario en la cultura y los territorios.

Concepciones del espacio y ordenamiento territorial. Hacia una renovación de las estrategias de conservación en áreas protegidas

En tiempos recientes se han vuelto evidentes la incapacidad de generar modelos adecuados de uso del espacio para las áreas protegidas y las consecuencias que esto acarrea para el alcance de los objetivos de conservación. Hay indicios de la necesidad de renovar las estrategias de conservación y de incorporar las visiones de las ciencias sociales y las humanidades. El desafío actual nos lleva a cuestionarnos cuál podría ser el verdadero aporte de estas ciencias en la conservación y cómo lograr incorporar la dimensión humana para alcanzar el verdadero potencial de transformación de los paradigmas vigentes. Mediante un análisis conceptual crítico se propuso el objetivo de reinterpretar los conceptos de espacio y ordenamiento territorial, y realizar una contribución al debate global sobre la renovación en las estrategias tradicionales de conservación de la biodiversidad. Estos análisis fueron orientados a repensar el espacio de las áreas protegidas como un espacio complejo que debe dar respuesta a múltiples visiones y necesidades. Los resultados permitieron clarificar cuál podría ser el rol de las ciencias sociales en este proceso de renovación. Además, han permitido realizar una serie de propuestas y premisas para repensar las formas actuales de intervención y manejo de estos espacios.

Theorizing many Europes: a four-fold taxonomy

ABSTRACT This article puts forward a four-fold taxonomy on European multiplicity including the radial subcategories of Thin, Thick, Global and Parochial Europes that are ideal types deriving from the complex interplays of distinct ordering dynamics, namely, territorial segmentation, functional differentiation, and stratification. The article explains their distinct characteristics in detail and discuss their differences from the existing ways of thinking about European divisions and multiple logics driving European transformations. Furthermore, it advances the category of Global Europe in order to establish a missing link between European and extra-European dynamics. Following the proposed taxonomy, the study offers the case of Brexit that demonstrates struggle, competition and unlikely alliance among four distinct visions of Europe. Rather than a mere struggle between Eurosceptics and Europhiles, the pro- and anti-Brexit discourses in Britain reflected a hegemonic struggle among multiple visions on Europe. Overall, this article lays out an innovative four-fold taxonomy that helps to better grasp the multiplicity of competing visions about the political crises and changes facing Europe in a global context.

Reviewing the interface of bioeconomy and ecosystem service research

The bioeconomy is currently being globally promoted as a sustainability avenue involving several societal actors. While the bioeconomy is broadly about the substitution of fossil resources with bio-based ones, three main (competing or complementary) bioeconomy visions are emerging in scientific literature: resource, biotechnology, and agroecology. The implementation of one or more of these visions into strategies implies changes to land use and thus ecosystem services delivery, with notable trade-offs. This review aims to explore the interdisciplinary space at the interface of these two concepts. We reviewed scientific publications explicitly referring to bioeconomy and ecosystem services in their title, abstract, or keywords, with 45 documents identified as relevant. The literature appeared to be emerging and fragmented but eight themes were discernible (in order of decreasing occurrence frequency in the literature): a. technical and economic feasibility of biomass extraction and use; b. potential and challenges of the bioeconomy; c. frameworks and tools; d. sustainability of bio-based processes, products, and services; e. environmental sustainability of the bioeconomy; f. governance of the bioeconomy; g. biosecurity; h. bioremediation. Approximately half of the documents aligned to a resource vision of the bioeconomy, with emphasis on biomass production. Agroecology and biotechnology visions were less frequently found, but multiple visions generally tended to occur in each document. The discussion highlights gaps in the current research on the topic and argues for communication between the ecosystem services and bioeconomy communities to forward both research areas in the context of sustainability science.

“From Sagebrush to Symphony”

This article explores the founding of the Hollywood Bowl and the multiple visions of its founding generation, tracing the cultural negotiations they engaged in between 1918 and 1926. These aims included disseminating high culture to ordinary citizens, democratizing access to music, providing spiritual uplift, unifying Hollywood’s diverse populace, and offering legitimacy to Hollywood as an emerging symbol of the U.S. film industry. By 1926, the Hollywood Bowl that emerged from a contentious planning process reflected aspects of all of the founders’ goals, but did not entirely fulfill those of any one of them. I argue that, despite their disagreements, the Bowl’s founders believed that their collective cultural enterprise had the potential to encourage a sense of cohesion and community among Hollywood’s—and more generally Los Angeles’s—inhabitants. The Hollywood Bowl was the first of many large-scale efforts to give culture permanence in Los Angeles, and its success helped redefine its urban identity by replacing negative images of the region with a growing reputation as a noteworthy cultural metropolis.

Visions of international law: An interdisciplinary retrospective

AbstractTaking the opportunity of this LJIL special lecture, Professor Alter provides an interdisciplinary retrospective that explains, defends and critiques six common visions of international law: The naïve political scientist’s expectations about international law as a fixed reflection of political choices; the legal formalist and structural theorist who believes that formal rules, institutions, and processes should generate similar outcomes in different parts of the world; the Western centric scholar’s notion that one can draw general lessons based on European and American experiences; the liberal internationalist who believes that multilateral processes generate consent based agreements and outcomes; the law and society scholar whose focus on the local can minimize international structural elements; and the international legal sociologist who believes that meanings and practices constitute international law. After reflecting on what each vision captures and misses about international law, Professor Alter identifies the policy stakes of residing within a vision. While we need to draw from multiple visions to understand the hybridity of international law, we also need to understand the implicit presumptions of each vision, as these presumptions generate contradictory prescriptive recommendations.

Scheduling of Air Conditioning and Thermal Energy Storage Systems Considering Demand Response Programs

The high penetration rate of renewable energy sources (RESs) in smart energy systems has both threat and opportunity consequences. On the positive side, it is inevitable that RESs are beneficial with respect to conventional energy resources from the environmental aspects. On the negative side, the RESs are a great source of uncertainty, which will make challenges for the system operators to cope with. To tackle the issues of the negative side, there are several methods to deal with intermittent RESs, such as electrical and thermal energy storage systems (TESSs). In fact, pairing RESs to electrical energy storage systems (ESSs) has favorable economic opportunities for the facility owners and power grid operators (PGO), simultaneously. Moreover, the application of demand-side management approaches, such as demand response programs (DRPs) on flexible loads, specifically thermal loads, is an effective solution through the system operation. To this end, in this work, an air conditioning system (A/C system) with a TESS has been studied as a way of volatility compensation of the wind farm forecast-errors (WFFEs). Additionally, the WFFEs are investigated from multiple visions to assist the dispatch of the storage facilities. The operation design is presented for the A/C systems in both day-ahead and real-time operations based on the specifications of WFFEs. Analyzing the output results, the main aims of the work, in terms of applying DRPs and make-up of WFFEs to the scheduling of A/C system and TESS, will be evaluated. The dispatched cooling and base loads show the superiority of the proposed method, which has a smoother curve compared to the original curve. Further, the WFFEs application has proved and demonstrated a way better function than the other uncertainty management techniques by committing and compensating the forecast errors of cooling loads.

Make China great again: The blood-based view of Chineseness in Hong Kong

Hong Kong, as a former colony of the United Kingdom, is characterised as a hybrid of East and West. Its colonial history is commonly seen as establishing many positive aspects of Hong Kong and shaping good qualities of its people, such as the value of rule of law, free speech, freedom of the press, and fluency in English. Yet the majority of people in both Hong Kong and China share Han Chinese ethnicity, which has been used by both the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to promote a blood-based idea of Chinese identity for decades. This paper explores “Chineseness", or Chinese identity, as promoted by the Hong Kong government. It first explores the concept of Chineseness, elaborating on a blood-based view that connects with ethnic-nationalism, in contrast with a pluralistic view of identity in the Hong Kong context. The paper then examines how Hong Kong government officials promote Chineseness through major outlets, on government websites and in speeches captured in media. As we show, the government tends to advocate a blood-based view of Chineseness akin to ethnic-nationalism. A more inclusive and pluralistic view which recognises the dynamic nature and multiple visions of Chinese identity better fits Hong Kong’s multicultural context.

Clash of Visions: Analysing Practices of Politicizing the Future

Clashes between visions of the future politicize the future of urgent societal transformations. In the political economy, visions and their promises become resources and their implementation turns into capacities that serve to increase value. Our paper argues that visions as political-economic means influence the transformation processes responding to grand challenges, guide them in certain directions, promote or even hinder them. To shed light on this correlation, we adopt the vision assessment approach of technology assessment (TA), and substantiate and suggest modifications of its analytical perspective to make it suitable for analysing interactions between multiple visions as formative elements in societal transformations on the one hand and as political-economic resources and capacities on the other. Our hypothesis is that the relationship between visions, political economies and transformation can only be examined by looking at power constellations that change through clashes and interactions of multiple and competing visionary practices.

Monuments of Poetry: On the Publication History of Avrom Sutzkever's Sibir

In 1937, the Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever published a long poem entitled "Shtern in shney" ["Stars in the Snow"] in Warsaw. Over a decade later, the text was revised, refined, and republished in Jerusalem, where it appeared as the stand-alone book Sibir [Siberia]. Published first in Hebrew (1952) and then Yiddish (1953), the volumes boasted original drawings by Marc Chagall. Nearly ten years later, the work was translated into English in London, this time with the support of UNESCO and alongside a new preface by Chagall and a translator's note by Jacob Sonntag. Finally, it appeared as the opening poem of Sutzkever's collected works in 1963. The work would go on to be praised across languages as the signature text of Sutzkever's career. Yet while praise for each iteration was uniform, the texts themselves diverged in form, scope, and agenda. The following article examines the relationship between these complementary and competing iterations of Sutzkever's work—referred to here collectively as "Sibir." Doing so reveals "Sibir" to be a reflection of the poet's strategic modes of self-fashioning and the vicissitudes of the publishing process that both permitted and denied Sutzkever interpretive control. The history of "Sibir," I demonstrate, is the history of multiple visions and re-visions of what it means write as, publish under, and garner fame through the name "Sutzkever"—in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English.

DOMINATION OF VIOLENCE NEWS IN THE MEDIA: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY IN MEDIA PROCESSING

This analytical study discusses how the media is dealing with the violence news. The problem is that there are multiple treatments and different visions of the violence nature. Violence often leads to more violence, if promoted in an impartial manner. Therefore, the study aims at discussing the media treatment of violence news, analyzing the news treatments used by the media with the issues of violence, and showing the images of violence through the media. Through the descriptive analytical method, the topic was discussed in three sections. The main results were: exaggerating the presentation of news and scenes of violence; , And the degree of excitement of journalistic treatment, the level of moral responsibility in journalistic treatment of violence has declined. Keywords media, violence, terrorism

Dreams within a dream: Multiple visions and organizational structure

SummaryResearch has long recognized the potential benefits of vision communicated at all levels of organizations. Despite this recognition, our understanding of the dynamics surrounding suborganizational visions remains limited. In this paper, we aim to explore these dynamics by investigating the role of organizational structure in the use of suborganizational visions. Although research has begun exploring the implications of structure for vision, it has done so on a limited basis in the context of vertical hierarchies. We take a more comprehensive view, exploring the role of both vertical and horizontal dimensions of structure, with specific interest in the relationship between organizational and suborganizational visions. Our findings suggest not only that structural distance moderates the relationship between organizational and suborganizational visions but also that horizontal distance from the organizational core provides the conditions under which suborganizational units communicate distinct visions that are decoupled from the organizational vision. Furthermore, we find a series of coordinating mechanisms that serve to encourage both the vertical nesting and horizontal complementarity of visions, ensuring alignment, even in the presence of decoupling from the organizational vision. Finally, in describing these findings, we elucidate the role of institutions in both providing content for and ensuring the complementarity of suborganizational visions.

Exploring the ‘in-between’ in Nicosia’s Buffer Zone: Local practices of de-bordering

ABSTRACT Nicosia’s Buffer Zone, the boundary dividing the Cypriot capital, has been for decades considered a ‘no man’s land’, ‘dead’ and unchanging. This paper examines a prominent shift in local socio-spatial practices following the reinstatement of controlled mobility on the island in 2003. Since then, diverse local initiatives have reclaimed Buffer Zone space, offering pregnant analytical moments to problematize the historical relevance of bordering and de-bordering in Nicosia. Through this exploration, the boundary emerges as a dynamic social construct, accommodating multiple visions of and for the city, thus contributing to a reconceptualization of the notion of ‘in-between’ borders and boundaries.

A scholarly backcasting approach to a novel model for smart sustainable cities of the future: strategic problem orientation

Sustainable cities have, since the early 1990s, been the leading global paradigm of urban planning and development thanks to the different models of sustainable urban form proposed as new frameworks for redesigning and restructuring urban places to achieve sustainability. Indeed, huge advances in some areas of sustainability knowledge and a multitude of exemplary practical initiatives have been realized, thereby raising the profile of sustainable cities worldwide. The change is still inspiring and the challenge continues to induce scholars and practitioners to enhance existing, and propose new, models. Especially, sustainable urban forms have been problematic, whether in theory or practice, so is yet knowing to what extent progress has been made towards sustainable cities. They are associated with a number of problems, issues, and challenges and thus much more needs to be done considering the very fragmented, conflicting picture that arises of change on the ground in the face of the expanding urbanization. This involves the question of how they should be monitored, understood, analyzed, planned, and even integrated so as to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to sustainability. This brings us to the issue of sustainable cities and smart cities being extremely fragmented as landscapes and weakly connected as approaches, despite the proven role and untapped potential of advanced ICT, especially big data technology, for advancing sustainability under what is labeled ‘smart sustainable cities.’ Essentially, there are multiple visions of, and pathways to achieving, such cities, which depends on how they can be conceptualized. This paper details the two parts of strategic problem orientation by answering the guiding questions for Steps 1 and 2 of the futures study being conducted. This study aims to analyze, investigate, and develop a novel model for smart sustainable cities of the future using backcasting as a scholarly approach. It involves a series of papers of which this paper is the first one. We argue that a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted processes of change or the interplay between social, technological, and scientific solutions is required to achieve more sustainable cities. Visionary images of a long-term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the long-term goals of sustainability. The proposed model is believed to be the first of its kind and thus has not been, to the best of one’s knowledge, produced, nor is it being currently investigated, elsewhere.

Generating a vision for smart sustainable cities of the future: a scholarly backcasting approach

Sustainable cities have been the leading global paradigm of urbanism. Undoubtedly, sustainable development has, since its widespread diffusion in the early 1990s, positively influenced city planning and development. This pertains to the immense opportunities that have been explored and the enormous benefits that have been realized in relation to sustainable urban forms, especially compact cities and eco-cities. However, such forms are still associated with a number of problems, issues, and challenges. This mainly involves the question of how they should be monitored, understood, analyzed, and planned to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to sustainability and thus to overcome the kind of wicked problems, unsettled issues, and complex challenges they embody. This in turn brings us to the current question related to the weak connection between and the extreme fragmentation of sustainable cities and smart cities as approaches and landscapes, respectively, despite the proven role of advanced ICT, coupled with the untapped potential of big data technology and its novel applications, in supporting sustainable cities as to enhancing and optimizing their performance under what is labeled “smart sustainable cities.” In this respect, there has recently been a conscious push for sustainable cities to become smart and thus more sustainable by particularly embracing what big data technology and its novel applications has to offer in the hopes of reaching the optimal level of sustainability. In the meantime, we are in the midst of an expansion of time horizons in city planning and development. In this context, sustainable cities across the globe have adopted ambitious smart goals that extend far into the future. Essentially, there are multiple visions of, and pathways to achieving, smart sustainable cities based on how they can be conceptualized and operationalized. The aim of this paper is to generate a vision for smart sustainable cities of the future by answering the 6 guiding questions for step 3 of the futures study being conducted. This study aims to analyze, investigate, and develop a novel model for smart sustainable cities of the future using backcasting as a scholarly approach. It involves a series of papers of which this paper is the second one, following the earlier papers with steps 1 and 2. Visionary images of a long-term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the long-term goals of sustainability. The proposed model is believed to be the first of its kind and thus has not been, to the best of one’s knowledge, produced, nor is it being currently investigated, elsewhere.

“To Do Nothing Would be to Dig Our Own Graves: Student Activism in the Republic of Vietnam”

During the Vietnam War, South Vietnamese students were some of the most vocal activists asserting multiple visions for Vietnam’s future. Students’ attitudes spanned the political spectrum from staunchly anti-Communist to supportive of the National Liberation Front. Like young people throughout the world in the 1960s, students in South Vietnam embodied the spirit of the global Sixties as a hopeful moment in which the possibility of freedom energized those demanding political change. South Vietnam’s university students staged protests, wrote letters, and drew up plans of action that tried to unite the disparate political interests among the nation’s young people as politicians and generals in Saigon attempted to establish a viable national government. South Vietnamese government officials and U.S. advisors paid close attention to student activism hoping to identify and cultivate sources of support for the Saigon regime. While some students were willing to work with Americans, others argued that foreign intervention of any kind was bad for Vietnam. The Saigon government’s repressive tactics for dealing with political protest drove away students who otherwise might have supported it.

Multiple visions of the future and major environmental scenarios

Scientific programming in environmental science often relies on short-term (3 to 5 years) trend-based projections for contextual elements like the demography or the economy to construct or justify its choice of priorities. However, this approach does not take into account numerous factors of change or disruption over a longer term (10 to 20, or even 50 years), although a decade or two are needed to effectively deal with the stakes of research. These stakes become more acute over the long term, as consequences of predicted changes (e. g. climate) or other factors such as pollution, biodiversity erosion, reduction of ecosystemic services.... This complex question justifies turning to a foresight approach. Because it enables tipping points to be envisaged for some key variables of the system studied (in this case, the environment), the scenario method seems well adapted to proposing several contrasting visions of the future.. The research question is: how a large screening of international studies on environmental scenarios can help framing the reflection on research priorities about environment? To help take its strategic reflection forward, in June 2015 the French national research alliance for the environment (AllEnvi) commissioned its transversal foresight group to identify the major families of scenarios described in foresight studies dealing with the environment since 2000. The summary of the 307 scenarios produced by analyzing 99 international studies highlighted 11 possible societal and environmental pathways. Analyzing these families of scenarios thus makes it easier to clarify the multiple roles that science can play, according to contrasting dynamics. Consequently, this study shows how a systematic review of foresight studies and their related visions of the future of environment can stimulate and enlighten the reflection on the ways societies can (re)define their future, by combining environmental, governance and social sciences. .

A participatory scenario method to explore the future of marine social‐ecological systems

AbstractAnticipating future changes in marine social‐ecological systems (MSES) several decades into the future is essential in the context of accelerating global change. This is challenging in situations where actors do not share common understandings, practices, or visions about the future. We introduce a dedicated scenario method for the development of MSES scenarios in a participatory context. The objective is to allow different actors to jointly develop scenarios which contain their multiple visions of the future. The method starts from four perspectives: “fisheries management,” “ecosystem,” “ocean climate,” and “global context and governance” for which current status and recent trends are summarized. Contrasted scenarios about possible futures are elaborated for each of the four single perspectives before being integrated into multiple‐perspective scenarios. Selected scenarios are then developed into storylines. Focusing on individual perspectives until near the end allows actors with diverse cultures, interests and horizons to confront their own notions of the future. We illustrate the method with the exploration of the futures of the Barents Sea MSES by 2050. We emphasize the following lessons learned: first, many actors are not familiar with scenario building and attention must be paid to explaining the purpose, methodology, and benefits of scenarios exercises. Second, although the Barents Sea MSES is relatively well understood, uncertainties about its future are significant. Third, it is important to focus on unlikely events. Fourth, all perspectives should be treated equally. Fifth, as MSES are continuously changing, we can only be prepared for future changes if we collectively keep preparing.

TOWARDS A RECOGNITION OF THE PLURALITY OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIAL WORK

Social work as a profession has undergone significant change in recent decades, modulated by the various social, political, and organizational transformations of the society in which it evolves. Today, there is increasingly diversified research encompassing a number of coexisting visions of social work. These multiple visions come hand in hand with values, principles, as well as ideologies, some of which are dominant, and others that are marginal. Indigenous Peoples are among the most marginalized groups in society and so are Indigenous worldviews within the profession. Currently, there seems to be a willingness to recognize the plurality of knowledge in the area of social work. In line with this objective, the purpose of this article is to present the Indigenous research paradigm. This is a theoretical contemplation centered around the historical context that led to the paradigm’s creation, a description of what it consists of, as well as a presentation of a few examples of its use by social work researchers. Finally, the paper brings up certain persistent issues related to the recognition of the Indigenous paradigm within the profession.