The number of households experiencing fuel poverty is thought to have risen by at least 600,000 in the UK because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The concentration of fuel poor households in poor ...quality, energy inefficient accommodation that they have little power to improve means they are particularly negatively affected by the retreat into the home brought about by successive lockdowns and restrictions. For many such households, the home is not the place of sanctuary that it needs to be at a time like this. However, our empirical research into the lived experiences of fuel poverty reveals additional consequences for fuel poor households, chiefly associated with restricted access to third spaces and other disruptions to their usual coping strategies. Based on our evidence, we highlight three key considerations for policy on fuel poverty in the era of Covid-19: the need to rapidly upgrade the energy performance of the existing housing stock; the need to address the additional financial hardship faced by fuel poor households; and the need to prioritise access to third spaces and high-quality public spaces while restrictions last. This paper develops the concept of energy poverty by considering the role of spaces outside the home as part of the overall experience of energy poverty and the range of ways in which policy makers can mitigate its impacts.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Social media influencers are often understood as non-political actors who, due to the impact they exert on their followers' purchase decisions and brand attitudes, play an important role in marketing ...and branding. In recent years, various influencers have addressed political issues during important political events such as elections. This political aspect of social media influencing has not received much scholarly interest thus far. In one of the first exploratory studies on the topic, we surveyed over one hundred Finnish influencers and investigated the degree to which they engaged with political topics. Our results show that political topics are commonly brought up among Finnish influencers. However, many influencers also deliberately avoid addressing them because they fear what comments and conversations these topics could generate and that they could personally be targeted by aggressive internet commentators. Nevertheless, based on our findings, we argue that the digital spaces maintained by influencers can constitute a new kind of third space where the emergence of political topics can have a greater impact on the political behaviour of influencers' followers.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The agency of mapping has been an increasingly relevant area of enquiry in architecture, urbanism and landscape at the very least since James Corner published his seminal paper on the agency of ...mapping in 1999. A few projects aiming to map the commons in cities have since developed, providing critical or counter-cartographies in which information on local groups and communities, activities and other informal evidence is collated.This paper draws on the concept of urban commons as third places in the sense of being beyond market or state control and management, on the notion that commons cannot exist without commoning practices and on the idea of common spaces as distinct from public, private or communal ones. As such, urban commons should be mapped not as static or invariable but rather as dynamic entities that evolve over time. From that perspective, the agency of mapping should take into consideration both current commoning practices and places suitable for these agencies to happen. Spatial features and architectural configurations may also play a role in calling for, or hosting, those agencies.This paper proposes a methodology based on both primary and secondary data collection. The former is based on a variety of methods and tactics including psycho-geographical tours, non-interactive and interactive forms of observations and mapping. The process of mapping aims to showcase both what is already taking place and possibilities for future uses as a "hidden potential." The findings include the identification of specific places where several layers converge. These may become case studies that can be further investigated through methods such as research by design and community engagement.
The editorial of this third issue of the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change is entitled "From Duality to Complementarity," which we read as one of the central themes running through all of the ...contributions in this issue. It starts of by positioning the condition of our planet and current time as one of polycrisis, whose genesis defies being reduced to singular causes. We contend that Awareness-Based Systems Change as an inherently hybrid inter- and transdisciplinary field can support the co-creation of new action motivating narratives. To that end, and in order to conceive “the unbearable complexity of the world” this calls us to create, hold and tune-into spaces that are shaped by, produce and nurture a multiplicity of meanings and ways of knowing.,
Mentoring student teachers is a fundamental approach in teaching practice. Traditionally, teaching-practice models have been based on cognitive apprentice approaches and have been hierarchical in ...nature. Problems with finding suitable schools for teaching practice and mentoring experiences have been challenging, which has led to the implementation of collaborative partnership approaches. In South Africa, minimal research has been undertaken on the establishment of partnerships to strengthen teaching practice, with work in the third space almost non-existent. The research question under investigation in this paper is as follows: How do we move away from hierarchical models of teaching practice and establish collaborative partnerships between schools and universities? The paper is underpinned by both third space theory and border theory. The aim of the paper is, first, to explore the challenges encountered with the hierarchical models used in teaching practice. Second, we explore what collaborative educational partnerships entail and investigate the various models used internationally to establish partnerships between universities and schools to strengthen teaching practice. This non-empirical paper uses a secondary-source data design that draws on existing texts, research findings, and journal articles. A qualitative research approach has been employed as it allows a narrative description of the data collected. An interpretive approach is employed to interpret and to discuss the findings. The paper concludes by reviewing practice schools as a type of school that allows lecturers, teachers, and students to cross institutional borders and collaborate in the third space.
Unlike other areas of the Middle East, where nationalism indexes war, border disputes and the dichotomy of 'us / them', nationalism in the UAE is usually considered 'banal'. Banal nationalism, which ...refers to everyday unconscious flagging of nationalism, receives less attention than 'hot' nationalism. However, banal nationalism is not benign. Rather, chronotopic complexities in 'imagined communities' impact intercultural communication and belonging in diverse societies. With almost 90% of the UAE's population being foreign residents, many residents have loyalties and ideological habits from both their country of birth and country of residence. Here, a 'third space' often emerges whereby notions of belonging are complex and multilayered. Paradoxical discourses around the creation of 'authentic' national spaces run parallel to discourses of tolerance and cosmopolitanism. This article aims to critically assess the implications of contemporary banal, civic, and cultural nationalism to inform future research directions in the UAE setting and beyond.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Drawing on the notions of transmedia storytelling and engagement, this study investigates how practitioners engage with the process of producing and consuming boys' love (BL) audio dramas, the ...trans-directional communication and interaction between producers and consumers in the transmedia BL subcultural space, and the implications of their engagement for counterculture. We contribute to the growing field of BL studies by providing insights into how practitioners can stimulate these cultural productions as a part of gender-sexuality-related counterculture in the new media space of audio dramas. We argue that the engagement of BL audio drama producers and consumers ('prosumers') features the sense of countering the predominant heteronormativity in China by producing explicit homosexual romance, actively expanding the story elements transmedially, and bringing queer members into the BL audio drama community. In this way, built by both producers and consumers together, the BL audio drama community is no longer a female-only area, but becomes a more inclusive 'third' space constituted by people with diverse sexual identities and orientations. Given its knowledge, perspectives, and experiences, the BL audio drama community, as a countercultural group, has a certain potential to bridge the divide between the female-led BL subculture and the larger queer community.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article explores the concept of liminal spaces in Tokyo, specifically focusing on gaming arcades as transitional spaces between social isolation and integration. The decline of the once-popular ...arcades since the 1990s raises questions about their usage, accessibility, and affordability in contemporary Tokyo. After clarifying the concept of liminality and urban borderlands, the article examines various case studies in central Tokyo, argues that arcades serve diverse purposes and highlights the importance of reintegration of such liminal spaces to bring people from different backgrounds together, providing entertainment, competition, and ritualized encounters. Employing ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, and secondary data analysis, this study recognizes the gaming arcade not only as a physical but also as a mental and social space. The arcades embody the hopes, fears, and aspirations of their users, blur boundaries, offer immersive experiences, and foster a sense of community, comfort, and nostalgia. Such insights allow us to understand how identities are constructed and negotiated in these spaces. In conclusion, the article advocates for a nuanced approach to urban planning that recognizes the value of subcultural spaces like gaming arcades and emphasizes the need to preserve and integrate these spaces into the broader urban fabric. By doing so it can be understood how these liminal spaces can contribute to a diversity of social interactions, community-building, and a better understanding and revitalization of urban borderlands if integrated and managed in the right way.
We examine one innovative response to the social, spatial and environmental sustainability challenges posed by food provisioning and consumption for large-scale organisations-pop-up or mobile food ...provisioning-focusing on the specific example of a large, inner urban university campus in Melbourne, Australia. Emerging from a larger project examining sustainability and eating practices on campus, this study of pop-ups draws on a multi-method empirical investigation involving ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and digital methods. While the university's use of pop-ups in this case has been primarily as a flexible, just-in-time way of engaging with the food needs of students during a large-scale campus rebuild, we argue that the mobile and malleable nature of pop-ups may offer a more sustainable way of envisaging eating spaces in urban organisational contexts. Drawing on conceptual frameworks taken from social practice theories and theories of space, the paper conceptualises the hybrid and convivial spaces produced through the bundling of mobile food provisioning practices with the university practices as third spaces of hybrid hospitality and urban commons. We argue that through disrupting and challenging many of the temporal and spatial norms that govern mainstream food provisioning and consumption, these third spaces can enable pathways to sustainable social practices.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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