The research in this dissertation explores the social significance of local memory websites. Local memory websites offer local residents a platform where they collect and share memories about particular places or experiences in their neighbourhoods and districts. Following a systematic review and a broad field study, a narrative approach is developed to study collective levels of empowerment within the ‘Memory of East’ and the ‘Memory of West’, both in Amsterdam. Two empirical questions steer a double case study: 1) ‘How does the organizational development influence the online dynamics?’ and 2) ‘What collective empowerment do the online dynamics express?’ With its stronger social capital, the Memory of East is more likely to resist official memory intuitions, commercial popular culture and local politics than the Memory of West. On the other hand, with its more inclusive character, the Memory of West is more representative for the broad cultural backgrounds of its inhabitants than the Memory of East. These findings are shown to be related to five organizational continuums on which both websites are plotted to indicate their crucial organizational differences. Apart from a claim about the theoretical value of this model, it is illustrated how it functions as a discursive tool for the core groups behind both websites.
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Background: Empowerment is expected to have a beneficial effect on a woman’s well-being during the perinatal period and her readiness to face the challenges of motherhood. In the literature on pregnancy and childbirth, empowerment is used widely in different contexts, with different connotations and often without a definition, thus indicating a lack of clarity of what is actually meant by the concept. Objective: To report an analysis of the concept of women’s empowerment in the context of the perinatal period. Methods: We used the concept analysis framework of Walker and Avant to analyse the concept of women’s empowerment during pregnancy and childbirth. In July 2018, we did a systematic search in EBSCOhost, including the database MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES and SocINDEX, using keywords: empower, women, childbirth and their synonyms. All selected papers were analysed for definitions of empowerment, defining attributes, antecedents and consequences. Results: Ninety-seven scientific papers from all continents were included in the analysis. Defining attributes, antecedents, consequences and empirical referents are discussed, and a model case as well as related and contrary cases are presented. Conclusion: Attributes, external and internal to the woman, were identified. Both types of attributes need to be considered within the broader socio-cultural-economic-political landscape of the individual woman, in conjunction with a woman’s belief in herself and her meaningful interconnectedness with carers. Relevance: This study resulted in an understanding of empowerment in the context of pregnancy and childbirth that can be used in research and for the development of interventions preparing women for childbirth and their subsequent transition to motherhood.
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Empowerment has become a hegemonic moral horizon and key modality of governance across the global South and the global North. Whether in the realm of development or in that of welfare and urban governance, a broad range of actors, from local NGOs to social professionals and international donors, now envision the empowerment of local communities as a crucial condition and means for achieving good governance and social justice (Cruikshank 1999; Rose 1996). Anthropologists and development scholars – including ourselves – often find themselves ambivalently positioned in relation to such projects of empowerment. In this essay, we turn to the hesitancies and experimental practices of our research interlocuters in two urban settings saturated by a ‘will to empower’ (Cruikshank 1999). During ten months in the year 2017, Anick followed the everyday practices of family workers in three community centers and neighborhood associations in the northeast of Paris, who were tasked to help working-class and migrant-background parents regain confidence and agency vis-à-vis state institutions. Like the parents with whom they worked, many of these family workers hailed from the banlieue themselves and were of migrant backgrounds. Naomi worked with 15 male former gang leaders in Mombasa (Kenya) who sought to reform themselves to escape police violence. Naomi’s interlocutors were between 16 and 28 years old and worked closely with their friend Hasso during 2019 and 2022. In this period, Naomi conducted eight months of ethnographic fieldwork with these young men and with Hasso, during which she observed their weekly meetings and the individual lives of several group members, and she conducted life history interviews with five of them. These two cases thus figure actors who were differently positioned in relation to the will to empower.
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"Lifestyle and Digital Sovereignty, a new-media arts approach to collective technological empowerment for holistic care" is een praktijkgericht artistiek onderzoekstraject dat een nieuwe mediakunstinterventie creëert in het domein van de gezondheidszorg. Dit project onderzoekt hoe artistieke interventies die technologische processen integreren kennis kunnen genereren die kan worden toegepast in een bredere context, namelijk het verhogen van gezonde levensstijlgewoonten bij de bevolking. Het onderzoekt hoe artistiek onderzoek de digitale geletterdheid kan vergroten en deelnemers in staat kan stellen hun levensstijlgewoonten te beheren met behulp van kunstmatige intelligentie, waardoor ze op een soevereine manier kunnen interageren met technologische sensoren en systemen. Het project omvat een mensgerichte benadering van AI, in overeenstemming met de ethische en morele vereisten ervan. Het zal veldonderzoek toepassen in de vorm van AT-LABS: een ruimte in kaart gebracht door middel van technologie en artistiek geïntervenieerd door middel van geluid, licht en choreografie, om een optimale bodem te creëren voor artistiek onderzoek naar gemeenschapsvorming, technologisch gemedieerde interactie, digitale geletterdheid en performatieve praktijk, die een interdisciplinaire aanpak mogelijk maakt. De AT-LAB's vinden iteratief plaats tijdens het vierjarige doctoraatstraject. De informatie die bij elke interventie wordt verzameld, zal leiden tot aanpassingen en verbeteringen in de volgende iteraties. De tweede onderzoekslijn zal de artistieke mogelijkheden van nieuwe mediakunst in deze context bekijken en onderzoeken. Het project wordt uitgevoerd binnen het Consortium Healthy Living as a Service (HLaS), een programma geleid door het Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen (UMCG). Verder zal worden samengewerkt met V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, en ARC in het Noorden. Het wordt begeleid door Prof. Dr. Anke Coumans van de onderzoeksgroep Image in Context van de Hanze Hogeschool en Dr. Bianca Herlo, UDK Berlin, Design Research Group. Secundaire professionele begeleiders zijn Dr. Michel Dartel, V2_ Avans Hogeschool, en Prof. Dr. Claudine Lamoth, UMCG, en leider van het HLaS project.
With the help of sensors that made data collection and processing possible, many products around us have become “smarter”. The situation that our car, refrigerator, or umbrella communicating with us and each other is no longer a future scenario; it is increasingly a shared reality. There are good examples of such connectedness such as lifestyle monitoring of elderly persons or waste management in a smart city. Yet, many other smart products are designed just for the sake of embedding a chip in something without thinking through what kind of value they add everyday life. In other words, the design of these systems have mainly been driven by technology until now and little studies have been carried out on how the design of such systems helps citizens to improve or maintain the quality of their individual and collective lives. The CREATE-IT research center creates new solutions and methodologies in “digital design” that contribute to the quality of life of citizens. Correspondingly, this proposal focuses on one type of digital design—smart products—and investigate the concept of empowerment in relation to the design of smart products. In particular, the proposal aims to develop a model with its supplementary tools and methods for designing such products better. By following a research-through-design methodology, the proposal intends to offer a critical understanding on designing smart products. Along with its theoretical contribution, the proposal will also aid the students of ICT and design, and professionals such as designers and engineers to create smart products that will empower people and the industry to develop products grounded in a clear user experience and business model.
