Wide Reflection Research Articles

Wellness in the Global Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The concept of wellness is currently seen as an important driver of growth within the hospitality and tourism industry, but the ways that the large players within the industry have engaged with wellness has been largely ignored in the academic hospitality and tourism literature, and this represents a gap in that literature. This paper looks explore corporate approaches to wellness within the tourism and hospitality industry, and as such, the paper looks to help to contribute to filling the gap in the academic literature. The paper includes an introduction to the wellness concept and to its adoption by the hospitality and tourism industry, a short literature review, an outline of the frame of reference and method of enquiry, an examination of the wellness initiatives developed by some of the major players in the global hospitality industry, some wider reflections, and a brief conclusion. Keywords: wellness, hospitality and tourism industry, customer service experiences, sustainable development, leading hotel companies

"What Kind of Court Is This?": Perceptions of International Justice Among Rohingya Refugees

ABSTRACT: In the context of mass atrocities, the legitimacy of institutions for international justice—such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice—is based on the assumption that they vindicate demands for accountability by the survivors of horrific human rights violations. Yet, notwithstanding advances in victim representation at these Hague-based courts, victim-centered justice remains elusive. This article contributes to centering the voices of survivors in their specific cultural contexts, against the backdrop of existing efforts that too often render invisible their perspectives. Through semi-structured interviews, conducted in late 2022, with 444 Rohingya survivors of genocide who have fled Myanmar to refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, we attempt to convey the priorities of these survivors situated within their cultural understanding of justice. We contextualize the empirical data gathered from the survey within Rohingyas' lived experiences of persecution in Myanmar, their cultural framings of communal justice, and their current reality of prolonged displacement in refugee camps in Bangladesh. The article concludes by describing the implications of this survey's findings on future engagement of the Rohingya in international justice processes, and a wider reflection on how grassroots perspectives can and should shape the global justice discourse.

Homosexuality in the Pontifical Biblical Commission Document "What Is Man"?

Considerable public attention has been given to the treatment of homosexuality in the recent document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, What Is Man? A Journey through Biblical Anthropology. Some reports have claimed that the document represents a shift in Catholic teaching toward the accept­ance of homosexual acts. This article assesses that claim by carefully examining the relevant sections of the document in the perspective of its wider reflections on biblical anthropology and on the biblical vision of the institution of marriage. While the document situates the biblical texts concerning homosexuality within their literary and cultural contexts and emphasises the pastoral sensitivity with which this topic must be approached, it does not promote a revision or reversal of the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

Lessons from Protests and Pedagogy: Caribbean Feminism and Radicalism, Past and Present

This article draws from a roundtable – “Protest and Gender Activism in Light of The Sir George Williams Affair: Legacies, Pedagogies, Future” – organized within Protests and Pedagogy: The Legacies of Caribbean Student Resistance and the Sir George Williams Affair, Montreal 1969, a ten-day program to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the “Sir George Williams Affair.” Recognizing that the influence of gender on Black social protest has received inadequate attention, I examine its relevance in relation to the Sir George Williams Affair and the legacy of that protest. Furthermore, complicating assumptions about the Sir George Williams Affair, this article situates the Black protest within a wider reflection on postcolonial and Caribbean revolutionary protest narratives, but also contemporary intergenerational praxis of Caribbean feminism.

The European Union – Japan Strategic Partnership in the Contested Global Order. External Relations of the EU in the Context of Economic, Normative and Security Framework

The aim of this article is to review the strategic partnership of the European Union-Japan in the context of the changing global order, exploring economic, normative and security dimensions. This leads to wider reflections allowing us to theorize international relations with regards to the concept of strategic partnerships. The research question concentrates on what the foundations of the strategic partnership between the European Union and Japan are, and how it answers the challenges in the three above indicated fields. The hypothesis is formulated from the perspective of strategic partnership theory. Methodologically, the work is based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources, as well as on qualitative methods implemented in the form of semi-structured interviews. The key findings reveal that the changing global order and international environment have pushed both partners to create a strategic partnership that has spilled over from economic relations to the normative, political and finally security fields.

Reflections from the COVID-19 pandemic on inequalities and patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in social care, health and public health research.

Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) has evolved to become widely established practice in social care, health and public health research in the UK. The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused rapid change in practice in PPIE, notably in moving from face‐to‐face meetings to virtual ones. This has opened a space for reflecting on established PPIE practice, but there is a risk this is conducted too narrowly, such as only weighing our preferences and the relative pros and cons with regard to in‐person versus virtual meetings. The pandemic has also demonstrated the wide inequalities in society, and hence, we argue that an inequalities lens ought to guide a deeper and wider reflection on PPIE practice. We do not seek to criticize practice pre‐ or during the pandemic, but to encourage using the inequalities lens as a means of encouraging debate and focusing energy on a more rigorous review of PPIE practice to widen involvement in social care, health and public health research.

Anti-Semitism, Denunciation, and the Frankfurt Trial against Rosa Luxemburg

This paper examines the largely overlooked role of denunciation in initiating the Frankfurt trial of Rosa Luxemburg in early 1914 for inciting disobedience among German soldiers, and corrects errors that have entered the scholarly literature on the topic. This is then taken as the starting point for wider reflections on the connections between denunciation, anti-Semitism, and anti-socialism in Germany in the ‘long nineteenth century’. It will be argued that the practice of denunciation, directed both against the political Left and against Jews, long preceded the now well-documented salience of denunciation in the Nazi dictatorship. Denunciation was thus an asymmetrical political weapon – it could be invoked against the political Left by their right-wing and conservative opponents in nineteenth-century Germany, but was not available to the democratic Left, nor would it have been palatable to them. The capacity of German anti-Semites to resort to denunciation of Social Democrats also highlights the extent to which anti-Semites could count on being regarded as among the ‘state-supporting’ parties in Imperial Germany.

Entrepreneurs of the air: Sprayer drones as mediators of volumetric agriculture

The article investigates in empirical detail the air-bound practices, expectations and imaginaries that arise from the development and commercialisation of the first authorised drone system in Europe for the automated application of pesticides, which has been developed and sold and is piloted by a Swiss startup company. Sprayer drones make the air relevant for agricultural practices and processes in novel, inherently functionalised and commercialised ways, such is the article's basic argument. Thus, the aerial realm is being encountered as an object of pragmatically motivated alliances and competitions, which depend on the agendas and organisational structures of the stakeholders involved. This leads to a critical discussion of the issues surrounding the increasing instrumentalisation of the air for agro-entrepreneurial purposes, and opens up a wider reflection on how agriculture relates to the air and, indeed, on how to develop a properly ‘volumetric thinking’ in contemporary rural studies.

Augusto Del Noce as a Critic of Postulatory Atheism

In this article I seek to clarify the relation between the ideas of modernity and secularization in the thought of Augusto Del Noce, thus countering the argument that he is the ‘enemy’ of modernity and secularization. Contextualizing Del Noce’s place within the wider reflection of the problem of secularization in the 20th century European and Italian philosophy, I argue that his position on modernity and secularization cannot be squeezed into the bipolar ‘modern’ vs. ‘antimodern’ opposition, as stated by some of his critiques. I conclude that Del Noce should be regarded not as the ‘enemy’ of modernity or secularization but rather as the critic of postulatory atheism that presents itself as the inevitable outcome of the modern historical process.

Scientific updating at the COVID-19 time. The daily newsletter

Since March 11, 2020, the day on which the WHO declared the coronavirus pandemic, the Infrastruttura Ricerca Formazione Innovazione - Biomedical Library Documentation Center of Azienda Ospedaliera SS Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo has been contributing to the dissemination of updated and reliable Covid-19 scientific information. The Library' staff worked with the Communication Office and the Clinical Trial Center to provide a service to stakeholders sending a daily newsletter of scientific evidences. This Working Paper is a report of the creation and development of the "daily newsletter of scientific evidence", enriched with some wider reflections.

Protection of Patient Confidentiality from a Civil Law Perspective

Abstract The paper analyses the issue of protection of patient confidentiality by means of civil law instruments. Protection of the patient’s interests related to the preservation of medical information beyond the access of unauthorized persons can be realized primarily through the protection of the patient’s right to medical secrecy and the protection of human personal interests in the form of the right to privacy. The study presents the issue of the violation of the patient’s confidentiality and the claims to be made in connection with such violation. A wider reflection is devoted to the issue of a claim for compensation for damage resulting from the violation of the patient’s rights and the infringement of his/her personal rights, as well as the effects of the co-occurring of these claims, both in the material and procedural perspectives.

Creating space to think and feel – Reflections on teaching, learning and practice in social work, with insights from social pedagogy

The stories and identities of people who use social work services are often obscured by mass media stereotypes and labels – ‘failed asylum seekers’, ‘scroungers’, ‘troubled families’. The influence of managerialism compounds this problem, with space for thinking and feeling continually under pressure. This practice paper draws on ideas from social pedagogy to reflect on the benefits of a creative attempt to connect heads and hearts in the academy. Informed by an approach used with nursing students in Australia, social work undergraduates in London (England) were encouraged to engage with a range of creative media (newspapers, films, television, plays, social media) and journal about what they noticed. Drawing on narrative ideas, students reflected on portrayals of people that were ‘thin’ – labelling and oppressive – and ‘thick’ – revealing a richer picture of people’s lives, needs and capabilities. After putting together short stories or accounts of their own, based on their journaling, students were invited to share these in a type of ‘reflecting team’ with peers. This process invited students to develop critical and ethical perspectives through thinking about what had struck them, what they had understood differently about the service user groups, what resonated with them personally, and how this might affect their practice. This small example of creative practice is considered as part of a wider reflection on the value of a rich curriculum for social work education, holding out hope for humane practice in challenging times.

Conference Report: Science and Literary Criticism, St. John’s College, Oxford, 12 April 2012.

A report on a conference held at St. John's College, Oxford, which was entitled 'Science and Literary Criticism,' with wider reflections on the so-called 'cognitive turn' in literary criticism.

A commentary on strategic land promotion in the UK

The supply of land for new housing within the UK is an important and a contested issue. Strategic land promotion, namely, the identification, acquisition, and promotion of land through the planning system, has become a major element in contributing to government targets for new housebuilding in the UK. This brief commentary paper outlines the characteristics of strategic land promotion, provides illustrations of the range of schemes land promotion companies have pursued within the UK, and concludes with some wider reflections on the process.

Leisure as a creative solution to collectively enhance the social, cultural, environmental, and economic quality of life of communities: a retrospective overview of the World Leisure International Innovation Prize

ABSTRACTThis article offers a retrospective analysis of the World Leisure Innovation Prize and, more specifically, of some of the Prize's winning projects from around the world in the period 2006–2017. These projects are observed as examples of innovative leisure practices and experiences, and put in relation with some references in the leisure innovation literature. Building on this analysis, the article provides a wider reflection on the potential of leisure as a creative solution to collectively enhance the social, cultural, environmental, and economic quality of life of communities. As regards the structure of the paper, firstly, a short introduction about the WL Innovation Prize is provided; secondly, the rationale behind the Prize is put in relation to some theoretical references on leisure and innovation; then, the analysis of the cases follows, focusing on their innovative contribution, and, finally, some conclusions are drawn.

Sketch on Paul Ricoeur’s life and writings

Abstract This study engages into a wider reflection about Paul Ricoeur. Undoubtedly, he is a remarkable personality of thought and spiritual life, being known as the “philosopher of obedience”. On the one hand, the novelty of his thinking lies in the narrative identity, in the dissociation between the same and the ipseity, diachronic and synchronic, between the socius and the neighbor. On the other hand, he reveals us a „modus vivendi”, between the rational-philosophical rigor and the Protestant religious beliefs, with regard to the depths of the confrontation between desire and choice, between understanding and explaining, between universal and singular. Nevertheless, his panoramic view of life departs from the complexity of life, from existentialism, as a radical opposition between the being itself and the being for itself or the self. As a conclusion, throughtout Paul Ricoeur’s domains-philosophy and religion-physical and psychological integrity implies by analogy a moral integrity.

Consolidation, wider reflection, and policy: Response to 'Super-recognisers: From the lab to the world and back again'.

Here, David Robertson and Markus Bindemann respond to a recent BJP Target Article on 'super-recognisers' (SRs). They outline the need to consider human factors that could influence SR performance after selection and the need for a co-ordinated effort to ensure best practice in the implementation of SRs in applied contexts.

What We Do and What Is Done to Us: Teaching Art as Culture

Carl Andre’s opposition between an activating art and a pacifying culture becomes the impetus for wider reflections on artistic autonomy and agency with special reference to how fine art is taught at college. I propose that artistic agency might better be accounted for and enacted by conceiving of it not as something set against or at a distance from culture in general, but ‘as’ culture. Through an overview of various institutional and discursive accounts of artistic production which describe the ways in which art is itself influenced and determined by external factors, and an extended analysis of Raymond Williams theory of culture as ‘collective advance’, I propose that fine art education needs to confront the question of contemporary art’s wider cultural embeddedness, and the political culture of art itself—a politics based in the nature of the social relationships art practice engenders.

Non-linear Transitions: An Intergenerational Longitudinal Study of Today’s Young Women in Education and Work

Labour markets are characterized by uncertainty and youth transitions by change. This longitudinal study of three generations of Australian women from nine families suggests something more nuanced, featuring continuities and discontinuities threaded throughout the lives of daughters, mothers, grandmothers and aunts interviewed over three decades. Discussion focuses on the most recent generation of interviewees, following some of the threads of their testimonies back through previous generations of family to reveal similarities and some differences in their navigation of education and work. The findings suggest that the pathways of women today are more fluid but no more disrupted than previous generations, urging continued wider reflection on the concept of transition in youth studies and related relational, spatial and temporal dimensions of study and working life. Though problematic, the transitions metaphor still has meaning in the non-linear journeys of women as they navigate their ways from school to post-school life.

The fly that tried to save the world: Saproxylic geographies and other-than-human ecologies.

The discovery of a rare fly in a North London cemetery marks my entry point into a wider reflection on the value and significance of urban biodiversity. Using different indices of ecological endangerment, along with a critical reading of new materialist insights, this paper explores the cultural, political, and scientific significance of saproxylic (rotten wood) invertebrate communities in an urban context. The paper brings the fields of urban ecology and post‐humanism into closer dialogue to illuminate aspects to urban nature that have not been systematically explored within existing analytical frameworks. We consider a series of intersecting worlds, both human and non‐human, as part of a glimpse into saproxylic dimensions to urban nature under a putative transition to a new geo‐environmental epoch.