From the fast-food industry to the sharing economy, precarious work has become the norm in contemporary capitalism, like the anti-globalization movement predicted it would. This book describes how the precariat came into being under neoliberalism and how it has radicalized in response to crisis and austerity. It investigates the political economy of precarity and the historical sociology of the precariat, and discusses movements of precarious youth against oligopoly and oligarchy in Europe, America, and East Asia. Foti covers the three fundamental dates of recent history: the financial crisis of 2008, the political revolutions of 2011, and the national-populist backlash of 2016, to present his class theory of the precariat and the ideology of left-populist movements. Building a theory of capitalist crisis to understand the aftermath of the Great Recession, he outlines political scenarios where the precariat can successfully fight for emancipation, and reverse inequality and environmental destruction. Written by the activist who put precarity on the map of radical thinking, this is the first work proposing a complete theory of the precariat in its actuality and potentiality.
MULTIFILE
When engaging in social interaction, people rely on their ability to reason about unobservable mental content of others, which includes goals, intentions, and beliefs. This so-called theory of mind ability allows them to more easily understand, predict, and influence the behavior of others. People even use their theory of mind to reason about the theory of mind of others, which allows them to understand sentences like Alice believes that Bob does not know about the surprise party'. But while the use of higher orders of theory of mind is apparent in many social interactions, empirical evidence so far suggests that people do not use this ability spontaneously when playing strategic games, even when doing so would be highly beneficial. In this paper, we attempt to encourage participants to engage in higher-order theory of mind reasoning by letting them play a game against computational agents. Since previous research suggests that competitive games may encourage the use of theory of mind, we investigate a particular competitive game, the Mod game, which can be seen as a much larger variant of the well-known rock-paper-scissors game. By using a combination of computational agents and Bayesian model selection, we simultaneously determine to what extent people make use of higher-order theory of mind reasoning, as well as to what extent computational agents can encourage the use of higher-order theory of mind in their human opponents. Our results show that participants who play the Mod game against computational theory of mind agents adjust their level of theory of mind reasoning to that of their computer opponent. Earlier experiments with other strategic games show that participants only engage in low orders of theory of mind reasoning. Surprisingly, we find that participants who knowingly play against second- and third-order theory of mind agents apply up to fourth-order theory of mind themselves, and achieve higher scores as a result.
Behaviour change design has much to gain with the integration of insights from the behavioural sciences in the design process. However, this integration needs to be done without hampering the creative process. In two rich design cases aimed at health and safety behaviour change, we describe our efforts to develop a method for theory driven design based on the Double Diamond. Our method attempts to integrate insights from the Persuasive by Design-model (PbD) for behaviour change into the entire design process. Our case studies demonstrate that our method indeed augments the integration of theory and evidence in our designs, but only if the Double Diamond process model is complemented with an evaluation phase, and insights from the PbD-model are derived using rich, well developed tools.
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
The pressure on the European health care system is increasing considerably: more elderly people and patients with chronic diseases in need of (rehabilitation) care, a diminishing work force and health care costs continuing to rise. Several measures to counteract this are proposed, such as reduction of the length of stay in hospitals or rehabilitation centres by improving interprofessional and person-centred collaboration between health and social care professionals. Although there is a lot of attention for interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP), the consortium senses a gap between competence levels of future professionals and the levels needed in rehabilitation practice. Therefore, the transfer from tertiary education to practice concerning IPECP in rehabilitation is the central theme of the project. Regional bonds between higher education institutions and rehabilitation centres will be strengthened in order to align IPECP. On the one hand we deliver a set of basic and advanced modules on functioning according to the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and a set of (assessment) tools on interprofessional skills training. Also, applications of this theory in promising approaches, both in education and in rehabilitation practice, are regionally being piloted and adapted for use in other regions. Field visits by professionals from practice to exchange experiences is included in this work package. We aim to deliver a range of learning materials, from modules on theory to guidelines on how to set up and run a student-run interprofessional learning ward in a rehabilitation centre. All tested outputs will be published on the INPRO-website and made available to be implemented in the core curricula in tertiary education and for lifelong learning in health care practice. This will ultimately contribute to improve functioning and health outcomes and quality of life of patients in rehabilitation centres and beyond.
Due to their diverse funding sources, theatres are under increasing pressure to demonstrate impact on society. The Raad voor Cultuur (2023) for example advised the secretary of state to include societal impact as an additional evaluation measure next to artistic value. Many theaters, such as the Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters, have reformulated their missions to focus on impact of performances on visitors. This is a profound transformation from merely selling tickets and filling seats, and requires new measurement instruments to monitor, manage, and improve impact. Currently available instruments are insufficient, and effective monitoring is crucial to larger future projects that theaters are currently planning to systematically broaden impacts of performances on their communities. The specific goal of this project is to empower theaters to monitor and improve impact by developing a brief experience impact questionnaire, taking existing data from student projects conducted at the Chassé Theater about performing arts experiences on one hand, and experience impact theory innovations on the other, as starting points. We will develop potential items to measure and benchmark against established measures of valued societal outcomes, such as subjective well-being and quality of life. These will be measured in questionnaires developed with project partners Chassé Theater and Parkstad Limburg Theaters and administered before and after performances across a wide range of genres. The resulting data will enable comparison of new questionnaire items with benchmarked measures of valued societal outcomes. The final product of the project will be a brief impact questionnaire, which within several brief self-report instruments and just a few minutes can effectively be used to quantify the impact of a performing arts experience. A workshop and practice-oriented article will make this questionnaire implementable, thereby mobilizing the key enabling methodology of monitoring and impact measurement in the performing arts sector.
