Shift In Perspective Research Articles

Unlearning clubs: creating environments of cultural safety, anti-racism, and trustworthiness in population and public health

BackgroundUnlearning is a necessary practice for disrupting the deeply ingrained colonial narratives and racialized assumptions that sustain racism in Canada. We created and implemented an “Unlearning Club” in British Columbia’s Office of the Provincial Health Officer (OPHO). It is a structured and on-going space where public health professionals and trainees critically engage with Indigenous rights, anti-racism, anti-white supremacy, and cultural safety.MethodsThe Unlearning Club and the reflective research presented in this paper draw on the frameworks of Dr. Camara Jones and Jody Wilson-Raybould to guide three key processes: naming racism and white supremacy (LEARN), asking, how are they operating here (UNDERSTAND), and organizing and strategizing to act (ACT). To document teachings and reflections, we used two approaches. Participants completed a structured rapid reflection tool (n = 67) after each session to capture experiences and insights. Second, Unlearning Club hosts engaged in a relational reflection process, allowing for deeper discussion on lessons learned and future directions.Pragmatic reflections(1) Spotlighting Land Acknowledgement: starting each session with a more in-depth land acknowledgments allowed participants to ground their unlearning in the place-based inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples. (2) Relational Accountability: Unlearning Club nurtured solidarity and accountability among colleagues, giving tools needed to move into action. (3) Sustained Unlearning: The process of unlearning led to profound shifts in perspective, as individuals were unable to “unsee” pervasive ways in which white supremacy operates, moving individuals beyond feeling paralyzed by injustice. (4) Collective Responsibility: The cohort model allowed relationship-building and fostered shared commitment to addressing racism and white supremacy, creating a stronger group-wide sense of purpose and accountability. (5) Counters Resistance: Eagerness and gratitude was widespread among participants; individuals were willing to invest the time and effort necessary to engage deeply in the unlearning process. (6) Moving to Action: Participants highlighted the effectiveness of the “Learn, Understand, Act” framework in preventing stagnation. This structured approach offered clear pathways to translate new insights into tangible actions.ConclusionThe Unlearning Club has emerged as a pivotal strategy for fostering environments of cultural safety, anti-racism, and trustworthiness within our public health office. Sustained engagement in anti-racist education, supported by strong leadership and an inclusive structure, can significantly reduce resistance to anti-racism initiatives.

From Universal to Pluriversal: Transforming Human Rights Education Policies in Colombia

This paper examines Colombia’s National Plan for Human Rights Education (Plan Nacional de Educación en Derechos Humanos, PLANEDH) as a case study to discuss how positivistic, Eurocentric, and Western constructions have influenced a hegemonic understanding of human rights education. While the PLANEDH policy aligns with the United Nations human rights education mandates, its implementation remains largely symbolic, with minimal territorial impact and limited community participation. This paper encourages a shift of perspectives applying the Pluriversal Rights Education framework. It discusses the importance of integrating diverse ways of knowing into human rights education dialogues and fostering participatory, community-driven policy design. The analysis offers recommendations to reenvision a more plural implementation of the PLANEDH policy in the Colombian education system.

Embodiment in virtual reality: an experiment on how visual and aural First- and Third-person modes affect embodiment and mindfulness

Immersion as an umbrella experience and embodiment are regarded as primary advantages of virtual reality and its capability to lead to other reflective experiences. Beyond the basis of stereoscopic head-mounted displays, however, there is paucity of research on altered ways of experiencing virtual reality with regards to the possibilities afforded by this medium. To address this gap, we explore the effects of perspective shifts, both in terms of the visual and aural modalities, on embodiment and embodied mindfulness. Using a virtual reality application that administers a body-scan meditation using different visual- and aural perspectives, we investigate the effects these perspectives have on embodiment and embodied mindfulness. Our results indicate that a first-person visual perspective positively influenced a change in perceived body schema, but not in acceptance of virtual body ownership or control/agency of a virtual body, nor do they suggest an effect of audio-based perspective on these outcomes. Investigation into the moderating effects of mindfulness- and immersive tendencies on these factors suggest that participants with low immersive tendencies experienced a greater change in their body schema in the visual first-person condition compared to the third-person condition. A qualitative content analysis on participants’ experiences indicate that few participants were able to express their experience in terms of audio. Our results contribute to the body of work on altered self-representations for mindfulness and extends on this concept with the notion of listening perspective as well as more generally to the design of sound, perspective, and embodiment in virtual reality.

Motor somatotopy impacts imagery strategy success in human intracortical brain–computer interfaces

Objective:The notion of a somatotopically organized motor cortex, with movements of different body parts being controlled by spatially distinct areas of cortex, is well known. However, recent studies have challenged this notion and suggested a more distributed representation of movement control. This shift in perspective has significant implications, particularly when considering the implantation location of electrode arrays for intracortical brain-computer interfaces (iBCIs). We sought to evaluate whether the location of neural recordings from the precentral gyrus, and thus the underlying somatotopy, has any impact on the imagery strategies that can enable successful iBCI control.Approach:Three individuals with a spinal cord injury were enrolled in an ongoing clinical trial of an iBCI. Participants had two intracortical microelectrode arrays implanted in the arm and/or hand areas of the precentral gyrus based on presurgical functional imaging. Neural data were recorded while participants attempted to perform movements of the hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder.Main results:We found that electrode arrays that were located more medially recorded significantly more activity during attempted proximal arm movements (elbow, shoulder) than did lateral arrays, which captured more activity related to attempted distal arm movements (hand, wrist). We also evaluated the relative contribution from the two arrays implanted in each participant to decoding accuracy during calibration of an iBCI decoder for translation and grasping tasks. For both task types, imagery strategy (e.g. reaching vs wrist movements) had a significant impact on the relative contributions of each array to decoding. Overall, we found some evidence of broad tuning to arm and hand movements; however, there was a clear bias in the amount of information accessible about each movement type in spatially distinct areas of cortex.Significance:These results demonstrate that classical concepts of somatotopy can have real consequences for iBCI use, and highlight the importance of considering somatotopy when planning iBCI implantation.

Reassessing the goals of musical activities for people living with dementia: Supporting joint agency, selfhood and couplehood with an embodied and relational approach

Reassessing the goals of musical activities for people living with dementia: Supporting joint agency, selfhood and couplehood with an embodied and relational approach

Narratives From Female Siblings of Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: A Photovoice Study on Identity and Growth Experiences in South Korea.

This study sought a holistic understanding of lived experiences of individuals with a sibling who has intellectual and developmental disabilities using photovoice. Seven adult female siblings of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in South Korea engaged in six weekly photovoice sessions, including an orientation session, phototaking on participant-driven themes, and four group discussion sessions in which they shared their photos. Thirteen subthemes related to four primary themes highlighted their experiences. Although these siblings faced pressure from the responsibilities of caregiving, they described growth and reflection on their identities, subsequent shifts in perspectives, and finding a balance between self-care and fulfilling responsibilities to maintain their love for their sibling. Social work professionals should acknowledge their challenges and growth and help them find balance in their life and caregiving role. It is also important to address their unique needs by considering the intersection of gender, culture, and disability.

From setback to breakthroughs: The shift in financial investment balance perspectives for disaster risk and management in Brazil

From setback to breakthroughs: The shift in financial investment balance perspectives for disaster risk and management in Brazil

“충분히 좋은” 헤겔: 위니컷-비온 정신분석과 치유적 변증법

Günther Dellbrügger’s Das Erkennen schlägt die Wunde und heilt sie provides a perspective on interpreting Hegel’s philosophy from the standpoint of healing under the theme of “the problem of cognition as the source of both illness and health.” Interpreting Hegel from a clinical perspective, Donald Winnicott’s concept of the “good enough mother” serves as the key idea of what may be termed the “good enough Hegel,” another name for clinical Hegel. Winnicott argues that the ‘good enough mother’ is not a perfect mother but rather an imperfect one who harbors inner conflicts, paradoxically making her a healthier and more creative mother for the child. The state of being “good enough,” freed from the obsession with perfection, paradoxically leads to a more authentic form of perfection. In the context of the “good enough” Hegel, inspired by Winnicott’s thought, the Absolute in a clinical sense does not signify the culmination of a powerful force that resolves all contradictions. Rather, it refers to love and spirituality actualized through the movement of self-emptying and the true infinite—the Absolute that includes the finite within itself and realizes itself within the entirety of the finite. Moreover, the reconciliation in the “good enough” Hegel is not a reconciliation that is achieved only when contradiction and fragmentation are completely resolved, but rather one that takes place when contradiction and fragmentation are no longer viewed as sources of suffering, but as a driving force of becoming that enacts connection as a relation of non-relation, emerging from a shift in perspective. From this perspective, this paper explores the clinical potential of Hegel’s philosophy as a discourse of therapy and growth through the productive integration of psychoanalysis and Hegelian thought. To this end, the psychoanalytic implications of Winnicott’s concept of “good enough” are integrated with Hegel’s dialectics. Within the “good enough” Hegelian world, Hegel’s dialectics is transformed into a therapeutic dialectics, which in turn serves as a theoretical foundation for enriching the Bionian psychoanalytic concepts of truth drive and intersubjectivity. By reinterpreting these central axes of Bion’s psychoanalysis—the truth drive as an emotional connection and intersubjectivity—from a clinical Hegelian perspective, this paper demonstrates that Bion’s concept of becoming-O through authentic becoming-myself resonates with the “good enough” Hegel and can be conceptualized as the “good enough” becoming-O.

A Study on the Experience of Participating in a University-Industry Collaboration-Based Class for Solving Social Problems : Focusing on POSCO’s Sustainability Management and ESG Course

This study investigates the experiences of students participating in a university-industry collaboration project conducted within the liberal arts course ‘Social Innovation Methodology’ at Seoul Women’s University, in conjunction with the POSCO Group’s ‘Sustainability Management and ESG’ program. The course, offered during the first semester of 2024, involved 17 undergraduate students collaborating with POSCO Group’s subsidiary, eNtoB, to address the company’s ESG initiative, ‘Designing Educational Content to Promote Awareness of Circular Resources for Future Generations’. Through this course, students explored topics such as the role of corporations as agents of social innovation, ESG principles, circular resources, and design thinking methodologies, applying these concepts to a real-world project.This study employs thematic analysis of students’ project journey maps and reflection essays submitted by the students, focusing on their experiences within the context of university-industry collaboration. The findings highlight the unique characteristics of this pedagogical approach, particularly those stemming from working on real-world corporate tasks. Four key themes emerged from the analysis: ‘collaboration with diverse stakeholders’, ‘enhanced expertise and perspective shifts through feedback and lectures’, ‘practical skill development applicable to real-world settings’, and ‘proposing actionable ideas with consideration of commercialization’. This study demonstrates that university-industry collaboration programs within liberal arts courses can serve as effective educational models for fostering interdisciplinary thinking, professional expertise, and practical skills. Based on these findings, the study emphasizes the need for future research to comprehensively examine the educational, social, and economic impacts of such programs on universities, corporations, and society.

Metaverse, implemented. A philosophical perspective on agenda-setting ethical tools for the development of immersive technologies

The specific application of immersive technologies known as metaverse emerges as a potential substitute for current social networks. Given the social and anthropological effects we have been able to observe as a consequence of the mass adoption of social networks, the following work aims to provide the initial sketch of a framework for structuring an approach to the design and deployment of the metaverse that safeguards the values of transparency, justice and fairness, avoiding simplistic but potentially distorting drifts already suggested by major actors. The reflection works on a definition of the metaverse as an object endowed by both the features of a space and the ones of a tool, exploring a shift of perspective that, drawing on the theory of affordances, sees an important role of ethical thinking not just in the design of the metaverse, but in its deployment and implementation too.

Diasporic medical tourism and home-is-safer-than-abroad: how to recover in times of uncertainty?

PurposeThe home-is-safer-than-abroad bias is quite substantial in tourism. In times of uncertainty, home-like, domestic, and what is known is much more trusted. This paper explores how the diaspora population might be instrumental in rebuilding medical tourism for countries with migration-intense populations.Design/methodology/approachTheory-based adaptation leading to the shift of perspective in medical tourism. Scientific evidence, international organisation reports and media outlets’ publications were analysed. This work is a continuity of ongoing diasporic medical tourism (DMT) research.FindingsDiasporic medical tourism represents a group of “hidden consumers” that pioneered medical tourism in certain countries. They are non-negligent in volume, continue to travel to visit friends and relatives (VFR tourism category) despite economic and societal upheavals, and often follow a “home-is-safer-than-abroad” bias. Therefore, they represent a substantial group of potential consumers, especially in times of uncertainty.Practical implicationsMedical tourism has become very competitive. Countries and companies need to look for post-pandemic consumers’ new behaviours and new avenues to develop medical tourism.Originality/valueDespite the diaspora being even a majority of medical travellers in certain countries, this sub-segment has not been adequately addressed in academia. This paper highlights the importance of DMT in uncertain times (post-pandemics, fragile economic environment) and the opportunities and constraints it presents, thus addressing a critical gap in the literature.

Experiencing Posthuman Technoculture in Virtual Reality: A Theatrical Exploration of Kuro Tanino’s Emergency Rework

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted performing artists, compelling them to rethink how to create and present works. Many artists turned to digital technologies, maintaining a connection with audiences despite physical distancing. Virtual events emerged as a crucial platform, where performers engaged with audiences through video-sharing platforms and telecommunication services. However, this shift to digital performance lacked the human closeness that characterises in-person experiences. To bridge this gap and recreate the intimate connection between artists and audiences, virtual reality (VR) offers a promising solution to preserve the sense of intimacy and allows for reimagining the concept of “technoculture”, placing the audience in the performer’s perspective and fostering a deeper immersive engagement. This perspective paper explores VR’s potential to transform theatrical experiences, focusing on the adaptation of the play The Dark Master by the Japanese psychiatrist-turned-director/playwright Kuro Tanino. The paper will argue how VR can create a symbiotic relationship between the audience and the artist, enabling a fluid shift in perspective through the lens of posthuman practices. By analysing this performance, the paper seeks to underscore how integrating technology into the performing arts can offer fresh insights into societal and individual conditions. In updating the 1960s-70s immersive performances of Terayama Shūji and Kara Jūrō interpreted as political statements about the people’s need to reconnect with their senses and disconsolate unresolved feelings, Kuro connects to them by creating a cultural geography where the disfiguration is a main concern with its sensibility leading to sense irruption that plays with the senses to generate a psychic disturbance.

Engagement

AbstractCommunity engagement, an often‐repeated phrase across academic and government sectors, is a deceptively simple, pretty phrase. Frequently it is discussed as a practice anyone can do and a nice add‐on to an existing project. However, practicing community engagement in research in a meaningful way requires a perspective shift in the way the research is done, a series of commitments to ethical relations with the communities involved and impacted by a project and its outcomes, and the solo and collective work of reflection. This article offers a look into community engagement from the perspective of a graduate student learning what it means to do this kind of work in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic. I outline how community engagement is defined and practiced by scholars in anthropology and other fields and discuss the performance and institutionalization of community engagement. Guided by Juanita Sundberg's concept of homework, I reflect on lessons learned in the process of conducting community‐engaged research that can have an impact.

Empowering parents to regulate child screen media use through strength-based coaching: interpretative phenomenological analysis

ABSTRACT In the contemporary digital age, the need for parental mediation interventions are highlighted in the literature. However, little is known about how parents experience those interventions. Grounded in self-determination theory of motivation and wellbeing, this study explores the impact of strength-based coaching in regulating digital media use in children aged 8–11. Five UK-based parents participated individually in three online coaching sessions. Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the data coming from semi-structured interviews, four key themes emerged: increased self-awareness; a shift in perspective, emotional state and behaviour; stronger parent–child bonds; and improved coping strategies. The study indicates how strength-based coaching may inform an autonomy-supportive parenting style which contributes to effective child screen media regulation. Implications for practitioners Educators, parents, positive psychology practitioners, parenting coaches and school psychologists may benefit from the experience of the participants of this study. The primary contribution that this submission makes to coaching theory and practice is that it will deepen the understanding of the role of strength-based coaching for parents, particularly in this subject area. Education organisations may consider offering strength-based coaching as a development and problem-solving tool for parents and educators.

“Time without you”: Transition to widowhood and its impact on time perspective and attitudes toward the future

Widowhood is a significant life event that can profoundly alter an individual’s perception of time. Those who have lost a spouse often find themselves reflecting on past memories, while simultaneously feeling disconnected from the present. However, the impact of widowhood on one’s experience and perception of time has not been thoroughly explored. In this study, we investigate changes in time perspective during the transition to widowhood using a multidimensional approach to temporal experience. This perspective enriches the existing literature, which has primarily focused on the predictive role of time perspective by providing new insights into how major life events can reshape an individual’s experience of time. The sample was drawn from seven measurement points between 2009 and 2023 in the Aging-as-Future longitudinal study. It consisted of 1357 participants aged 50 and older who either remained married throughout the study period (n = 1270) or transitioned to widowhood (n = 87). We assessed four facets of time perspective: past-orientation, feelings of obsolescence, concreteness of the future time, and attitudes toward life’s finitude as well as subjective life expectancy. While the transition to widowhood predicted an increase in past-orientation and in feelings of obsolescence, it predicted a decrease in concreteness of the future. Spousal loss did not influence individuals’ attitudes toward finitude, but those experiencing widowhood reported a decrease in their perceived remaining lifetime. Our study showed that widowhood may lead to shifts in time perspective. Findings underscore the value of considering time perspective as a key indicator of an individual’s adjustment and functioning in response to a major life event.

Interception History Drives Colloid Transport Variance in Porous Media.

Colloid transport in porous media is traditionally predicted using the principle of constant fractional removal for each grain passed, such that concentrations decrease exponentially with transport distance. This approach successfully describes transport when repulsive barriers to attachment are absent. However, repulsive barriers characterize environmental contexts wherein attachment upon grain interception is inhibited, causing colloid concentrations to decay nonexponentially with distance from the source and thwarting prediction. The pervasiveness of these nonexponential trends across wide-ranging experiments suggests that a fundamental process is at play. Here, we propose a paradigm shift by considering constant fractional loss with each interception rather than with each grain passed. We show that by recognizing the history of grain interceptions, a pathway is revealed toward a simple and predictive framework in which nonexponential trends emerge. This shift in perspective offers the possibility of colloid transport prediction in settings that were previously infeasible using classic filtration theory, with potential applications in contexts ranging from environmental (e.g., groundwater aquifer protection) to biomedical (e.g., drug delivery).

Ideology on Trial. Attitudes toward Sexual Politics among Latin American Legislators

This paper examines Latin American legislators' attitudes toward sexuality politics. Utilizing comprehensive PELA-USAL survey data collected from 17 countries, the analysis focuses on three critical dimensions: gender equality, reproductive rights, and LGBT+ issues. The findings reveal that left-right ideological divisions remain the primary drivers of support for gender equality and reproductive rights policies, with state-market preferences playing a secondary but noteworthy role. Religion proves to be a significant factor, as Evangelicals consistently oppose such measures, while Catholic legislators exhibit a broader and more varied ideological range. Female legislators emerge as key and prominent advocates for these causes, and younger cohorts show stronger support for LGBT+ rights, clearly reflecting generational shifts in perspectives. By analyzing the interplay of cultural, economic, and ideological influences, this study sheds valuable light on the hybrid nature of sexuality politics, which transcends traditional ideological boundaries and redefines political discourse in Latin America.

Reframing the filter bubble through diverse scale effects in online music consumption

The impact of platforms’ algorithmic curation devices on users’ consumption diversity has long since been the subject of debate in popular culture and academia alike. In recent years, methods to concretely appraise this debate have taken a comparative turn, with emerging research strands seeking to assess the influence of algorithmic recommendations relative to users’ organic behaviour (i.e. those with a relative lack of algorithmic influence). Nevertheless, as the contribution of this work clearly shows, contradictory findings that algorithmic devices may both foster “bubbly” confinement dynamics and diverse exploration appear to stem, at least in part, from tensions surrounding information representation and scale. Taking into account various scales, affordances, and diversity measures, the contribution of this work conducts an empirical analysis of approximately 50,000 Deezer users’ artist consumption histories across different affordances offering various degrees of algorithmic assistance. Transitioning through three scales of increasing aggregation—intra-sessions, inter-sessions and inter-affordances—our work underscores how shifts in perspective, particularly in information representation, can yield markedly different conclusions concerning the role of algorithmic devices in fostering diversity. However, when considered collectively, these perspectives coalesce to provide a nuanced update to the seminal filter bubble narrative: algorithmic curation devices may introduce more novelty than what users’ achieve organically, yet concurrently, this novelty is more semantically confined. Consequently, our research significantly contributes towards an enriched understanding of the intricate dynamics surrounding on-platform algorithmic devices.

Beyond the classroom: The transformative experience of short rural immersion programs for health professional students: A narrative review.

Rural areas house nearly half the global population yet face a significant shortage of skilled health professionals, exacerbating health inequities. Short-term rural immersion programs offer a cost-effective approach to exposing health professional students to the unique challenges of rural healthcare. Transformative learning theory is well suited to examining how these programs foster critical reflection and perspective shifts in students. To explore the potentially transformative impact of short-term (<6 weeks) rural immersion programs on health professional students through the lens of transformative learning theory. This review synthesised findings from various studies on the impact of rural immersion programs. Comprehensive searches were conducted across multiple databases, identifying 17 studies published between 2001 and 2024. Data extraction and thematic synthesis were guided by Mezirow's transformative learning framework, identifying key patterns and insights through an iterative process. Rural immersion programs deepen students' understanding of the unique health needs of rural and remote communities. These experiences promote personal and professional growth, enhance critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, cultural competence and social accountability and foster a commitment to serving underserved populations. The collaborative role of the community, student cohort and academic staff in facilitating transformative learning is emphasised. Short-term rural immersion programs offer invaluable and transformative educational opportunities that extend beyond traditional learning environments.

Looking at Viewpoint in ASL Through a Cognitive Linguistics Lens.

Central to how signed languages such as American Sign Language (ASL) express the viewpoint of a signer is the space surrounding the signer's body, and primarily that in front of the signer. Perspective-taking, in its most basic form, is physical and perceptual in nature, where signers might map a scene experienced in the past onto their present surrounding space as they engage in narrative discourse. But beyond this, signers also express conceptual viewpoint in terms of how they view, subjectively, more abstract ideas, for example expressing a particular stance toward someone's actions, and space frequently plays a role here too. The expression of viewpoint affects linguistic structure in a variety of ways, for example, when the perspective shifts from one story character to another, referring to various entities must be tracked, for which ASL has particular linguistic mechanisms that signers employ. At an abstract level, ASL has certain constructions that reflect viewpoint, one example of which is topic-comment constructions, where a topic phrase is subjectively chosen (often paradigmatically) as a means of framing a state of affairs, which is one kind of conceptual viewpoint, whereas the comment that follows is a construction containing, pragmatically, the signer's belief or stance regarding that state of affairs. Through a cognitive linguistics lens, we can see how aspects of viewpoint in ASL involve instances of conceptual blends, relying on metaphor and metonymy, body partitioning, and image schemas.