Estudiar el ocio a través de ejercicios teatrales. Una aproximación al tiempo libre

El tema del ocio, estudiado desde la perspectiva de la psicosociología del tiempo libre (Munné, 1980), establece la necesidad de estimular el comportamiento autocondicionado y las habilidades para superar los heterocondicionamientos deeste tiempo social (Casas y Codina, 1998). Esto sugiere la búsqueda de herramientas metodológicas que permitan el desarrollo de la persona a través del autoconocimiento, proceso éste en el que la noción de sí mismo (self) adquiere unpapel preponderante.Si, dentro del ocio, se considera el aspecto contrafuncional de lo creativo (Munné, ibídem), como un elemento que permite transitar del tiempo liberador al tiempo liberado (Munné y Codina, 1996), podrían utilizarse los ejercicios teatrales paraindagar los procesos que conducen al tiempo libre. En psicología social, el uso de estas herramientas ha estado considerado, fundamentalmente, dentro de las perspectivas del psicodrama iniciado por Moreno, ciertos enfoques de lasdenominadas teorías del rol, y más recientemente como una expresión del denominado ocio serio (Stebbins, 1992).En esta comunicación se analizan las ventajas y desventajas de cada una de estas tres perspectivas, y se sugiere cómo podrían aplicarse los ejercicios teatrales en los estudios de ocio; a esto último se añade la consideración de nuevas epistemologías como las teorías de la complejidad en lo que respecta al tiempo libre y al sí mismo (Munné, 1997; Codina, 1998, 1999a, 1999b), derivándose de todo esto una posible alternativa en la intervención psicosocial desde los estudios de ocio.

Niin metsä vastaa : työtapoja koreografian ja tanssiteatterin tekemiseen

Käsittelen työssäni sitä, miten tanssitaustaisena teatteri-ilmaisun ohjaajana toimin koreografina ja tanssiteatterin tekijänä. Pyrin kartoittamaan taiteellisen työni, tanssiteatteriteoksen Niin metsä vastaa, valossa minkälaisen synteesin nuoruusvuosien laajat tanssiopintoni ja nyt päättyvät esittävän taiteen opintoni ovat muodostaneet. Pohdin paikkaani nykyisellä ammattitanssin kentällä verraten omia työtapojani ja ajatuksiani muutamaan nykykoreografiin sekä kahteen tanssin väitöskirjaan. Lähestyn työssä tanssiteatterin tekemistä tanssin ja liikkeen suunnasta, koska se on omin ja vahvin taitoalueeni. Oman teokseni syntyprosessia ja lopputulosta tarkastelemalla olen hahmottanut viisi löytämääni työtapaa tanssiteatterin tekemiseen. Selkeästi koreografian tekemiseen rajautuva väline on oman liikkeen hakeminen. Oman tarinan etsiminen liittyy vastaavasti teoksen käsikirjoituksen ja dramaturgian rakentumiseen. En tiedä -asenne, yhteistyö ja tiladramaturginen ajattelu ovat laajempia, yleisesti näyttämöteoksen tekemiseen liittyviä työtapoja. Useat näistä työtavoista ovat saaneet kimmokkeensa esittävän taiteen opinnoistani Stadiassa. Käyttämieni työtapojen kautta olen oppinut paljon itsestäni niin yksityisenä ihmisenä kuin taiteilijanakin. Toivon voivani jatkaa löytämieni työtapojen ja oman maailmani tutkimista ja syventämistä tulevissa töissäni. Näen itseni tasavertaisena, omanlaisenani taiteilijana muiden tanssin ammattilaisten joukossa. Koen vahvuuksinani monipuoliset työkalut tanssin ja teatterin yhdistämiseen sekä kyvyn ja halun hahmottaa asioita monista näkökulmista. Tanssiteatterin tekijänä totean työskentelyni määrittyvän ja etenevän pitkälti teoksen mukaan eli kovin kiinteitä rakenteita en voi työtavoissani sanoa vielä olevan, enkä sitä toivokaan. Rajattomuus on tanssiteatterini voima.

El Pigmalión de Shaw, manifiesto teatral de la lingüística

La comedia Pigmalión, que Bernard Shaw escribió en 1912 y estrenó al año siguiente, es una proclamación artística de la lingüística. A pesar de la popularidad de la obra, es un acontecimiento que se conoce como una anécdota extravagante. El extraordinario mérito de Pigmalión ha pasado desapercibido para la historia de la lingüística. Su mérito estriba en la calidad teatral, la capacidad prospectiva de Shaw y la intención social de su mensaje. Shaw anuncia la utilidad de la lingüística en facetas que, décadas después, se conocerán como sociolingüística, planificación lingüística y logopedia. Por otra parte, se ha relacionado de modo simplista el personaje del profesor Higgins al fonetista H. Sweet. The play Pygmalion, that Bernard Shaw wrote in 1912 and released the following year, is an artistic proclamation of Linguistics. Despite the popularity of the play, this event is known as an extravagant story. The History of Linguistics does not recognize the extraordinary merit of Pygmalion. Its merit lays in the theatrical quality ant the social intention of the message. Shaw announces the usefulness of Linguistics in facets that will be known as Sociolinguistics, Language Planning and Speech Therapy. And furthermore, in a simplistic way, the character of Professor Higgins has been linked to the phonetician H. Sweet.

Access Management Awareness Program Phase II Report, TR-402, 1997

This report presents the results of a number of detailed Iowa access management case studies. Case studies were selected to provide a cross-section of locations and community sizes in Iowa as well as a variety of project types. Generally, access management projects completed during the mid-1990s were chosen as case studies. Projects ranging from driveway consolidation to full raised medians were analyzed on a before and after basis in terms of traffic safety, traffic operations, and adjacent business vitality. Sources of information used for the case study analysis included: road project files; traffic accident records; state sales tax records; and personal interviews of business owners, business customers, and local officials. The case study results from Iowa essentially confirm results of previous access management research from around the nation. Recent access in Iowa had significant, positive impacts in terms of traffic safety. The average reduction of annual accidents and accident rates on improved roadways was approximately 40%. Improvements in access management also led to significantly better roadway operations for most case studies. Although a small number of individual businesses do report sales losses and/or customer complaints once projects have been completed, access management projects in Iowa have not had an adverse impact on the majority of businesses located along them. In fact, some access management projects in Iowa seem to have contributed to an improved business environment along the corridors that have been improved. The results from the Iowa case studies presented in this report will be used to develop access management education materials for Iowa transportation professionals and other audiences interested in the impacts of access management.

"Ruddigore o la nissaga maleïda", un prodigi d'Egos Teatre

Treball que prova d'esbrinar el perquè de l'èxit del primer muntatge teatral d'una companyia novell catalana que repren una obra de Gilbert & Sullivan i la transforma a la seva manera.

Transferència científica a l'Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals : anàlisi de la vinculació universitat - societat

Aquest projecte ha estat impulsat per l’Observatori de la Divulgació de la Ciència (ODC) de la UAB i dut a terme a l’Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA). Està emmarcat dins el marc del nou Programa Europeu Horizon 2020 i més específicament dels conceptes establerts per la RRI. L’objectiu d’aquest projecte és analitzar la comunicació científica que duu a terme l’ICTA cap a al societat i conèixer la filosofia, els incentius i la motivació de l’ICTA i els seus investigadors per donar a conèixer la seva recerca a la ciutadania. L’anàlisi de la comunicació de l’ICTA consta d’un anàlisi del contingut de la pàgina web del centre de recerca, una entrevista feta a la directora de l’institut i un qüestionari realitzat a 14 investigadors Les formes de comunicació que més utilitzen són els articles científics en revistes dirigides a públic acadèmic. Respecte la comunicació no acadèmica, s’ha pogut observar que la majoria dels investigadors, tot i la manca de facilitats realitzaven activitats per interès personal, molts cops però, no comuniquen la seva recerca, principalment perquè tenen altres tasques de docència, de recerca i gestió per atendre. Hi ha una minoria que es refereix a la comunicació científica com un “estil essencialment vocacional”. Per tal d’impulsar i promoure una estratègia contínua i efectiva de comunicació científica cal definir un pla de comunicació a nivell institucional que contribueixi a millorar les capacitats divulgatives, comunicatives i educatives de l’ICTA per tal d’ajudar a les persones que hi fan recerca a apropar la seva tasca a la societat a la que pertanyen.

Can the impact of bed closure in intensive care units be reliably monitored?

OBJECTIVE: To assess the properties of various indicators aimed at monitoring the impact on the activity and patient outcome of a bed closure in a surgical intensive care unit (ICU). DESIGN: Comparison before and after the intervention. SETTING: A surgical ICU at a university hospital. PATIENTS: All patients admitted to the unit over two periods of 10 months. INTERVENTION: Closure of one bed out of 17. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Activity and outcome indicators in the ICU and the structures upstream from it (emergency department, operative theater, recovery room) and downstream from it (intermediate care units). After the bed closure, the monthly medians of admitted patients and ICU hospital days increased from 107 (interquartile range 94-112) to 113 (106-121, P=0.07) and from 360 (325-443) to 395 (345-436, P=0.48), respectively, along with the linear trend observed in our institution. All indicators of workload, patient severity, and outcome remained stable except for SAPS II score, emergency admissions, and ICU readmissions, which increased not only transiently but also on a mid-term basis (10 months), indicating that the process of patient care delivery was no longer predictable. CONCLUSIONS: Health care systems, including ICUs, are extraordinary flexible, and can adapt to multiple external constraints without altering commonly used activity and outcome indicators. It is therefore necessary to set up multiple indicators to be able to reliably monitor the impact of external interventions and intervene rapidly when the system is no longer under control.

Access Management Research and Awareness Program : Phase IV, 1999

Access management involves balancing the dual roles that roadways must play - through travel and access to property and economic activity. When these roles are not in proper balance, the result is a roadway system that functions sub-optimally. Arterial routes that have a too high driveway density and provide overly extensive access to property have high crash rates and begin to suffer in terms of traffic operations. Such routes become congested, delays increase, and mean travel speeds decline. The Iowa access management research and awareness project has had four distinct phases. Phase I involved a detailed review of the extensive national access management literature so lessons learned elsewhere could be applied in Iowa. In Phase II original case study research was conducted in Iowa. Phase III of the project concentrated on outreach and education about access management. Phase IV of the Iowa access management project extended the work conducted during Phases II and III. The main work products for Phase IV were as follows: 1) three additional before and after case studies, illustrating the impacts of various access management treatments on traffic safety, traffic operations, and business vitality; 2) an access management handbook aimed primarily at local governments in Iowa; 3) a modular access management toolkit with brief descriptions of various access management treatments and considerations; and 4) an extensive outreach plan aimed at getting the results of Phases I through IV of the project out to diverse audiences in Iowa and elsewhere.

Risk and global change : developing scientific methods for advocacy and awareness raising

Les catastrophes sont souvent perçues comme des événements rapides et aléatoires. Si les déclencheurs peuvent être soudains, les catastrophes, elles, sont le résultat d'une accumulation des conséquences d'actions et de décisions inappropriées ainsi que du changement global. Pour modifier cette perception du risque, des outils de sensibilisation sont nécessaires. Des méthodes quantitatives ont été développées et ont permis d'identifier la distribution et les facteurs sous- jacents du risque.¦Le risque de catastrophes résulte de l'intersection entre aléas, exposition et vulnérabilité. La fréquence et l'intensité des aléas peuvent être influencées par le changement climatique ou le déclin des écosystèmes, la croissance démographique augmente l'exposition, alors que l'évolution du niveau de développement affecte la vulnérabilité. Chacune de ses composantes pouvant changer, le risque est dynamique et doit être réévalué périodiquement par les gouvernements, les assurances ou les agences de développement. Au niveau global, ces analyses sont souvent effectuées à l'aide de base de données sur les pertes enregistrées. Nos résultats montrent que celles-ci sont susceptibles d'être biaisées notamment par l'amélioration de l'accès à l'information. Elles ne sont pas exhaustives et ne donnent pas d'information sur l'exposition, l'intensité ou la vulnérabilité. Une nouvelle approche, indépendante des pertes reportées, est donc nécessaire.¦Les recherches présentées ici ont été mandatées par les Nations Unies et par des agences oeuvrant dans le développement et l'environnement (PNUD, l'UNISDR, la GTZ, le PNUE ou l'UICN). Ces organismes avaient besoin d'une évaluation quantitative sur les facteurs sous-jacents du risque, afin de sensibiliser les décideurs et pour la priorisation des projets de réduction des risques de désastres.¦La méthode est basée sur les systèmes d'information géographique, la télédétection, les bases de données et l'analyse statistique. Une importante quantité de données (1,7 Tb) et plusieurs milliers d'heures de calculs ont été nécessaires. Un modèle de risque global a été élaboré pour révéler la distribution des aléas, de l'exposition et des risques, ainsi que pour l'identification des facteurs de risque sous- jacent de plusieurs aléas (inondations, cyclones tropicaux, séismes et glissements de terrain). Deux indexes de risque multiples ont été générés pour comparer les pays. Les résultats incluent une évaluation du rôle de l'intensité de l'aléa, de l'exposition, de la pauvreté, de la gouvernance dans la configuration et les tendances du risque. Il apparaît que les facteurs de vulnérabilité changent en fonction du type d'aléa, et contrairement à l'exposition, leur poids décroît quand l'intensité augmente.¦Au niveau local, la méthode a été testée pour mettre en évidence l'influence du changement climatique et du déclin des écosystèmes sur l'aléa. Dans le nord du Pakistan, la déforestation induit une augmentation de la susceptibilité des glissements de terrain. Les recherches menées au Pérou (à base d'imagerie satellitaire et de collecte de données au sol) révèlent un retrait glaciaire rapide et donnent une évaluation du volume de glace restante ainsi que des scénarios sur l'évolution possible.¦Ces résultats ont été présentés à des publics différents, notamment en face de 160 gouvernements. Les résultats et les données générées sont accessibles en ligne (http://preview.grid.unep.ch). La méthode est flexible et facilement transposable à des échelles et problématiques différentes, offrant de bonnes perspectives pour l'adaptation à d'autres domaines de recherche.¦La caractérisation du risque au niveau global et l'identification du rôle des écosystèmes dans le risque de catastrophe est en plein développement. Ces recherches ont révélés de nombreux défis, certains ont été résolus, d'autres sont restés des limitations. Cependant, il apparaît clairement que le niveau de développement configure line grande partie des risques de catastrophes. La dynamique du risque est gouvernée principalement par le changement global.¦Disasters are often perceived as fast and random events. If the triggers may be sudden, disasters are the result of an accumulation of actions, consequences from inappropriate decisions and from global change. To modify this perception of risk, advocacy tools are needed. Quantitative methods have been developed to identify the distribution and the underlying factors of risk.¦Disaster risk is resulting from the intersection of hazards, exposure and vulnerability. The frequency and intensity of hazards can be influenced by climate change or by the decline of ecosystems. Population growth increases the exposure, while changes in the level of development affect the vulnerability. Given that each of its components may change, the risk is dynamic and should be reviewed periodically by governments, insurance companies or development agencies. At the global level, these analyses are often performed using databases on reported losses. Our results show that these are likely to be biased in particular by improvements in access to information. International losses databases are not exhaustive and do not give information on exposure, the intensity or vulnerability. A new approach, independent of reported losses, is necessary.¦The researches presented here have been mandated by the United Nations and agencies working in the development and the environment (UNDP, UNISDR, GTZ, UNEP and IUCN). These organizations needed a quantitative assessment of the underlying factors of risk, to raise awareness amongst policymakers and to prioritize disaster risk reduction projects.¦The method is based on geographic information systems, remote sensing, databases and statistical analysis. It required a large amount of data (1.7 Tb of data on both the physical environment and socio-economic parameters) and several thousand hours of processing were necessary. A comprehensive risk model was developed to reveal the distribution of hazards, exposure and risk, and to identify underlying risk factors. These were performed for several hazards (e.g. floods, tropical cyclones, earthquakes and landslides). Two different multiple risk indexes were generated to compare countries. The results include an evaluation of the role of the intensity of the hazard, exposure, poverty, governance in the pattern and trends of risk. It appears that the vulnerability factors change depending on the type of hazard, and contrary to the exposure, their weight decreases as the intensity increases.¦Locally, the method was tested to highlight the influence of climate change and the ecosystems decline on the hazard. In northern Pakistan, deforestation exacerbates the susceptibility of landslides. Researches in Peru (based on satellite imagery and ground data collection) revealed a rapid glacier retreat and give an assessment of the remaining ice volume as well as scenarios of possible evolution.¦These results were presented to different audiences, including in front of 160 governments. The results and data generated are made available online through an open source SDI (http://preview.grid.unep.ch). The method is flexible and easily transferable to different scales and issues, with good prospects for adaptation to other research areas. The risk characterization at a global level and identifying the role of ecosystems in disaster risk is booming. These researches have revealed many challenges, some were resolved, while others remained limitations. However, it is clear that the level of development, and more over, unsustainable development, configures a large part of disaster risk and that the dynamics of risk is primarily governed by global change.

Acting Rehearsal in Collaborative Multimodal Mixed Reality Environments

This paper presents the use of our multimodal mixed reality telecommunication system to support remote acting rehearsal. The rehearsals involved two actors, located in London and Barcelona, and a director in another location in London. This triadic audiovisual telecommunication was performed in a spatial and multimodal collaborative mixed reality environment based on the 'destination-visitor' paradigm, which we define and put into use. We detail our heterogeneous system architecture, which spans the three distributed and technologically asymmetric sites, and features a range of capture, display, and transmission technologies. The actors' and director's experience of rehearsing a scene via the system are then discussed, exploring successes and failures of this heterogeneous form of telecollaboration. Overall, the common spatial frame of reference presented by the system to all parties was highly conducive to theatrical acting and directing, allowing blocking, gross gesture, and unambiguous instruction to be issued. The relative inexpressivity of the actors' embodiments was identified as the central limitation of the telecommunication, meaning that moments relying on performing and reacting to consequential facial expression and subtle gesture were less successful.

Ausgegraben! Schweizer Archäologen erforschen die griechische Stadt Eretria. Eine Ausstellung der Schweizerischen Archäologischen Schule in Griechenland in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig (22.09.2010-30.01.2011).

Eretria war eine der grossen Städte des antiken Griechenland. Zahlreiche Monumente und Kunstwerke zeugen noch heute von ihrer bedeutenden Vergangenheit. 1964 haben Archäologen aus der Schweiz die Erforschung der antiken Stadt, die vor über einem Jahrhundert begonnen hatte, in enger Zusammenarbeit mit den zuständigen griechischen Behörden aufgenommen. Zum ersten Mal sollen nun die bisherigen Ergebnisse in der Schweiz präsentiert werden: Die Ausstellung lässt anhand von etwa 500 Ausgrabungsfunden eine blühende griechische Stadt wieder aufleben. Eretria war von Anfang an ein wichtiger Knotenpunkt zwischen Ost und West. Die Stadt liegt am östlichen Ufer des Golfes von Euböa gegenüber von Attika. Von diesem zentralen Punkt in der Ägäis brachen eretrische Abenteurer ab dem 8. Jh. v. Chr. auf, um das gesamte Mittelmeer zu durchkreuzen. Obschon Eretria zur Zeit der Perserkriege um 490 v. Chr. und unter der athenischen Herrschaft im 5. Jh. gelitten hatte, erlebte die Stadt in den folgenden Jahrhunderten eine neue Blütezeit, die sich bis in die römische Kaiserzeit fortsetzte. Erst im 6. Jh. n. Chr. wird der Ort vollständig verlassen. Die Stadt der Lebenden stellt anschaulich die verschiedenen Bereiche des Lebens in einer antiken griechischen Stadt vor. Anhand der Wohnhäuser der eretrischen Aristokratie wird das Privatleben thematisiert. Im Gegensatz zu den Privathäusern, die nach aussen geschlossen sind, öffnen sich die öffentlichen Gebäude auf grosse Plätze. Die Agora, die Säulenhallen, das Theater, die Palästren und das Gymnasion bieten den Einwohnern genügend Raum, um sich zu treffen, über Politik und Kultur zu debattieren und Neuigkeiten auszutauschen. Die Stadt der Götter zeigt, welche Götter man in Eretria verehrte. Im Zentrum Eretrias befand sich das Heiligtum des Apollon Daphnephoros (= <des Lorbeerträgers>). Der Stadtgott Apollon teilte sich mit seiner Zwillingsschwester Artemis die Vorrangstellung im eretrischen Pantheon. Daneben hatten aber auch andere Götter ihren Platz: Athena auf der Akropolis, Demeter und Kore an deren Abhängen und Dionysos beim Theater. Die Stadt der Toten geht auf die Jenseitsvorstellungen und auf die Bestattungsbräuche der damaligen Menschen ein. Die oberirdischen Monumente sind seit langem verschwunden. Die eigentlichen Gräber in der Tiefe der Erde mit den sterblichen Überresten und den Grabbeigaben blieben indes intakt. Sie lehren uns viel über die Gesellschaft Eretrias und über das Verhältnis der Menschen zum Tod. Begleitpublikation zur Ausstellung "ausgegraben! Schweizer Archäologen erforschen die griechische Stadt Eretria", die vom 22. September 2010 bis zum 30. Januar 2011 im Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig gezeigt wurde.

The influence of the Internet on immunology education.

The potential of the Internet as a medium through which to teach basic and applied immunology lies in the ability to illustrate complex concepts in new ways for audiences that are diverse and often geographically dispersed. This article explores two collaborative Internet-based learning projects (also known as e-learning projects) that are under development: Immunology Online, which will present an Internet-based curriculum in basic and clinical immunology to Swiss undergraduate and graduate students across five campuses; and the OCTAVE project, which will offer online training to an international cadre of new investigators, the members of which are carrying out clinical trials of vaccines against HIV infection.

Acting rehearsal in collaborative multimodal mixed reality environments

This paper presents the use of our multimodal mixed reality telecommunication system to support remote acting rehearsal. The rehearsals involved two actors, located in London and Barcelona, and a director in another location in London. This triadic audiovisual telecommunication was performed in a spatial and multimodal collaborative mixed reality environment based on the 'destination-visitor' paradigm, which we define and put into use. We detail our heterogeneous system architecture, which spans the three distributed and technologically asymmetric sites, and features a range of capture, display, and transmission technologies. The actors' and director's experience of rehearsing a scene via the system are then discussed, exploring successes and failures of this heterogeneous form of telecollaboration. Overall, the common spatial frame of reference presented by the system to all parties was highly conducive to theatrical acting and directing, allowing blocking, gross gesture, and unambiguous instruction to be issued. The relative inexpressivity of the actors' embodiments was identified as the central limitation of the telecommunication, meaning that moments relying on performing and reacting to consequential facial expression and subtle gesture were less successful.

Language variation in source texts and their translations: the case of L3 in film translation

In addition to the two languages essentially involved in translation, that of the source text (L1) and that of the target text (L2), we propose a third language (L3) to refer to any other language(s) found in the text. L3 may appear in the source text (ST) or the target text (TT), actually appearing more frequently inSTs in our case studies. We present a range of combinations for the convergence and divergence of L1, L2 and L3, for the case of feature films and their translations using examples from dubbed and subtitled versions of films, but we are hopeful that our tentative conclusions may be relevant to other modalities of translation, audiovisual and otherwise. When L3 appears in an audiovisual ST,we find a variety of solutions whereby L3 is deleted from or adapted to the TT.In the latter case, L3 might be rendered in a number of ways, depending on factors such as the audience’s familiarity with L3, and the possibility that L3 inthe ST is an invented language.

De què vas, tio?

My study is based on an ethnography of two groups of young people from working-class neighbourhoods in Barcelona. I was interested in researching the impact of Catalan language policies on the identities of young people of Spanish-speaking immigrant families. I sought to go beyond the constraints of traditional structuralist approaches in Sociolinguistics in order to make my analysis relevant to people working for gender equality, the promotion of the Catalan language, or other social causes. I combine ideas from Bakhtin, Bourdieu, Fairclough, Foucault and Goffman to build a dialectical, historical, process-centred perspective that conceptualises practices in terms of social and political struggles.I analyse young people's peer-group activities in terms of their significance for the construction of gender identities. I propose a variety of forms of masculinity and femininity according to the various ways in which members organised their gender displays in face-to-face interaction.I also show how their use of argot and dialectal Spanish was part of the processes whereby members defined their relationships, constructed particular subject positions in interaction and struggled to legitimate their own values.I explore the meanings constructed through Catalan and Spanish by looking into the code-switching practices of my participants. I analysed their talk in terms of narratives that present particular sequential dramatisations of events for conversational audiences. These narratives follow the expressive intention of the author, and are populated with multiple voices of animated characters. I argue that, in the groups I studied, Catalan was generally not used to animate the voices that were central to the identities of the peer-group, and particularly to masculine identities.In order to contextualise these practices within the wider society, I also look into the processes of language choice in face-to-face encounters. I argue that existing conventions made it difficult for people to find opportunities to speak Catalan. I also pointed to the difficulties that my participants had to find employment, which were particularly acute amongst the more politically aware individuals. I conclude that these young working-class people had little possibilities of investing in more egalitarian forms of identity given their lack of resources and opportunities to develop their identities in other social spaces, such as the workplace.