Formative Research. An Integral Vision for Health Professionals

These writing conceive formation in formative research as a complex process that demands simultaneous and congruent actions in the objective, subjective and intersubjective fields, adjusted to a careful and progressive planification in order to form teachers, students and management staff as university actors of research processes. Integral formation in formative research into health area demands a comprehensive and broad perspective encompassing science, moral and art, or objective truth, subjective veracity and intersubjective equity. All means must meet towards a strong and developmental formative research culture capable of nourishing subjects engaged in systematic self-questioning, interaction and argumentated debate at the interior of communities of pairs. In the same way, they must have rigorous methodological formation in order to approach the study objects.

Ergonomía. Fundamentos para el desarrollo de soluciones ergonómicas

En este texto se presentan algunos conceptos y marcos teóricos útiles para el análisis del trabajo en ergonomía. El objetivo es mostrar los conceptos de base para el estudio del trabajo en la tradición de la ergonomía de la actividad, y analizar de manera general algunos de los modelos empleados para el análisis de una actividad de trabajo. Inicialmente se abordan los principios teóricos de la ergonomía y los principios que provienen de la fisiología, la biomecánica, la psicología y la sociología; también se presentan los acercamientos metodológicos empleados en esta misma perspectiva para el análisis de actividades de trabajo. Se parte del principio de que un estudio ergonómico del trabajo se puede llevar a cabo desde una doble perspectiva: la perspectiva analítica y la perspectiva comprensiva.

El inmigrante, una herramienta un invasor: análisis de la construcción intersubjetiva de la imagen del trabajador mexicano en los Estados Unidos de América

Esta monografía estudia la historia de la relación laboral entre Estados Unidos y México, analizando bajo el Constructivismo de Wendt, cómo, desde finales del S.XIX se desarrollan procesos políticos bilaterales, que, siguiendo las tendencias del contexto productivo multilateral, construyen un imaginario intersubjetivo de la fuerza laboral mexicana, inicialmente como una herramienta para el modelo de producción agroindustrial y, posteriormente, como un invasor en periodos de recesión económica. Utilizando al trabajador inmigrante, como mano de obra barata o como chivo expiatorio se ha establecido un imaginario en las dos naciones que, por su connotación negativa, impulsan movimientos civiles de reivindicación. Desde mediados del S.XX estas asociaciones civiles trabajan, transnacionalmente, para cambiar la imagen y reestructurar los factores que los estimularon, históricamente a convertirse en actores del Sistema Internacional.

Toxicomanía: el alcohol y la cultura colombiana

Por medio del siguiente trabajo se busca explorar, a través de una revisión de la literatura, el tema de la toxicomanía teniendo al alcohol como tóxico principal, así como el rol de dicha sustancia dentro de la cultura colombiana, específicamente en jóvenes, esto desde el modelo psicoanalítico. Se tuvo en cuenta entonces, el aporte de autores que desde el psicoanálisis han hecho investigaciones, así como aquellas fuentes disponibles de estudios realizados en Colombia. Se realizó un acercamiento a los conceptos del consumo de sustancias y sus aspectos generales, desde la literatura psicoanalítica existente. Se desarrolló además, la relación entre la cultura y el alcohol, y por último la contextualización de Colombia, los aspectos históricos y culturales relevantes. Se encontró que hay pocas investigaciones en cuanto la relación del alcoholismo y la cultura colombiana desde el psicoanálisis, por lo que consideramos que este documento aporta a la continuación de la investigación.

La gestión colectiva: Una estrategia para las holdings. Estudio comparativo entre derecho francés y derecho colombiano

Originalmente presentada en francés como proyecto de grado para la Maestría en Derecho Bancario y Financiero de la Universidad de Estrasburgo, la presente monografía tiene por objetivo analizar la Gestión Colectiva como estrategia para las Holdings. La Gestión Colectiva es un término francés empleado para designar al intermediario financiero que convierte el ahorro individual en portafolios colectivos. En Colombia, la Gestión Colectiva es conocida como Carteras Colectivas o Fondos de Inversión Colectiva, (su nombre más reciente). Este vehículo financiero, es en cierto modo una democratización de las finanzas, ya que canaliza el ahorro de la población hacia las principales industrias, permitiendo que las empresas hagan del ahorro individual una fuente de financiación para sus proyectos, y que la mayor parte de la población tenga acceso a las finanzas. Es por esto, que el tema frecuentemente es abordado desde el punto de vista de la protección a los inversionistas y no, desde los vehículos que prestan dicho servicio. Sin embargo, la presente Monografía estudia la Gestión Colectiva como una posible estrategia para las Holdings, analizando desde este punto de vista, la pertinencia de implementar la Gestión Colectiva como estrategia para reunir fondos para las Holdings. De ahí que el derecho comparado sea de gran ayuda para comprender si dicha estrategia es viable en todos los países en general o si, por el contrario, como lo vemos en Derecho Bancario, unos países sean más favorables que otros. El presente, es un estudio multidisciplinario en el cual se tienen en cuenta variables de tipo legal, económico y político, y se implementan teorías económicas aplicables al estudio del Derecho como Law & Economics. En una primera parte nos centramos en un análisis comparado de las legislaciones de dos países con niveles de desarrollo diferente, a saber, Francia y Colombia. Y, en la segunda parte analizamos el rol de la Gestión Colectiva en las Holdings, así como sus ventajas y desventajas según la legislación aplicable.

Analyse de la construction du jeu de savoir dans l’enseignement des jsc: un étude de cas en formation initiale

Dans cet article, nous étudierons les interactions entre un MEF (maîtresses en formation) et des élèves à propos d’un objet d’enseignement/apprentissage lorsque ce dernier désire construire et mettre en scène des contenus d’enseignement innovants en JSC (jeux sportifs collectifs). Nous serons donc amenés à nous intéresser à son action en ce qui concerne le choix des contenus d’enseignement et des tâches qu’il propose aux élèves par rapport aux orientations innovantes de l’enseignement des JSC et l’étude des processus de régulation lors des interactions didactiques qu’il met en oeuvre dans la gestion des situations d’enseignement/apprentissage

Un estudio etnográfico sobre usuarios/as de heroína. Conocimiento psicosocial y práctica reflexiva

Presentación El siguiente trabajo es un ejercicio reflexivo sobre una experiencia própia: Un estudio etnográfico sobre usuarios/as de heroína realizado en un barrio de Barcelona entre los años 1993-1995. Todo empezó dos años después de escribir la etnografía, al decidir regresar al barrio para explicar a los participantes el trabajo que había escrito sobre aquella experiencia. En esos momentos tomé la decisión de realizar un estudio sobre el papel que yo había desarrollado durante todo el trabajo de campo con esas personas, cómo me había influido, como les había influido, por qué había relatado aquellas cosas sobre sus vidas, qué efectos provocaba lo escrito a posibles lectores, etc. Y así surgió el tema de esta tesis. Objetivos En este trabajo me propongo ponerme al lado de los datos que en otro momento recogí y comenzar a analizarlos a la luz de potentes teorías y presupuestos -principalmente de la psicología social-. He tratado de "hacer" un ejercicio reflexivo sobre un caso, una experiencia científica en la qué "yo" he estado implicada. El objetivo fundamental es mostrar en qué consiste una práctica reflexiva, entendida como una forma de hacer "objetivable" el conocimiento (aspecto que correspondería a una dimensión racional- epistemológica), y también entendida como una forma de encontrar resistencias a discursos dominantes en el conocimiento psicosocial (aspecto que correspondería a una dimensión ético-política). Como objetivos específicos me propongo: -señalar un procedimiento que permita conectar al auditorio o lectores con la experiencia particular de la investigadora -cuestionar mi propia práctica de producción de conocimiento psicosocial -explorar los "yoes" o subjetividades en el proceso investigador Marco teórico y metodología He definido un tipo de práctica reflexiva tomando una perspectiva construccionista crítica localizada en la posición del observador/a, donde el valor de la reflexividad, más que instrumento de comprensión o validación, es un instrumento de cambio. Procederé a través del análisis del discurso de mi práctica social o experiencia de conocimiento científico, junto con conceptos provenientes de la etnometodología, interaccionismo simbólico y fenomenología. Los métodos han sido la etnografía de laboratorio (basada en Latour y Woolgar), la descripción etnometodológica (de Potter) y el análisis discursivo (los repertorios interpretativos de Potter y Wheterell, y las formaciones discursivas basadas en Foucault). Mis datos han sido 44 entrevistas en profundidad, a modo de conversaciones con los usuarios y no usuarios significativos en aquel contexto de observación. Casi todas transcritas. Y 5 libretas con notas de campo tomadas durante la observación participante en las que constaban multitud de comentarios personales, interpretaciones sobre el tema y situaciones compartidas entre ellos y "yo". Resultados y discusión Como resultado del análisis del discurso he encontrado la confrontación entre formaciones discursivas "naturalizadoras" y "sociologizadoras", acentuando mucho más en mis datos la formación "sociologizadora" (cuestiones legales, relacionales, culturales, etc.), que "naturalizadora" (cuestiones sensoriales, farmacológicas, psicológicas, fisiológicas, etc.). Este dialogismo entre unas y otras formaciones permite tomar consciencia de formas de acción que no son demasiado relevantes en un contexto sociohistórico dado, pero si se activan o "actúan" en contextos específicos de acción donde las personas tienen capacidad agéntica. La observación participante ha sido fundamental para contextualizar los datos, construidos en su "contexto cotidiano de acción", además, ha dado sentido a las conversaciones y a las entrevistas en profundidad. El procedimiento empleado, conforma un tipo de modelo que pone en relación di versos constructos: contexto discursivo (o interactivo), posición discursiva y formaciones discursivas, y que se articulan alrededor de un espacio intersubjetivo "yo-alter" que es lo que constituye la unidad básica donde opera la reflexividad. Se construyen distintos "yoes" en cada momento y trayectoria de la experiencia relatada. Al introducir el "yo" en el trabajo de campo (tanto el mío como el de alter), provoco una problematización de los datos y a la vez, me obliga a reconceptualizar ese "yo" o "yoes" y resignificar esos datos. Se me plantea mi condición de liminalidad (o de otra manera, decir que no estoy ni dentro ni fuera de la cultura que estudio), donde los contornos de mi identidad se subvierten y donde la condición de ser, es que ninguna subjetividad es permanente. Mi aproximación a "alter" supone una continuidad entre "yo-alter" y en ocasiones resulta amenazante, en la medida en que se confunden los límites y se difuminan con el fin de conseguir una "experiencia empática". Pero no se trataría tanto de una fusión "yo-alter", de manera que sería una dilución de ambos, sino de una permeabilidad de los límites, originando así, un espacio potencial para crear, para conectar y donde se resuelva la tendencia a controlar o contener un "yo" al otro. Conclusiones La posibilidad de la práctica reflexiva está en el espacio intersubjetivo "yo-alter". Mi intento de conexión con "alter" me constituye temporalmente en mediadora: "estar en medio de". Esto significa: l-socavar los cimientos y el orden construido, a través de buscar fisuras, inconsistencias y contradicciones en los discursos manejados, a partir de las cuales hay potenciales trayectos que no se han producido, 2-incorporar diferentes voces o dialogismo en la historia que cuento y no un monólogo de la autora, sino una participación de alternativas posibles y espacios de enunciación, junto con las subjetividades emergentes. Para ello, dos condiciones son ineludibles: -la agentividad para subvertir lo establecido, las identidades -el recuperar contextos que sean potencialmente relevantes para actuar discursos. Considerar las subjetividades también es la manera de tener a "alter" presente. "Alter" se comprende en "mi" a través de un trayecto en el que se marcan las afinidades mutuas y no tanto las identidades, en el que "representar" a "alter" es trazar un trayecto de conocimiento local y situado (como apunta Haraway), pues sólo así es posible generar una praxis transformadora fiel a la parcialidad.

Derecho administrativo y autorregulación: la autorregulación regulada

El objeto de esta tesis es el análisis de la autorregulación regulada, es decir, el análisis de las normas y de los controles privados que poseen relevancia para el Derecho público. A pesar de su aparente desvinculación con el Derecho Administrativo, la autorregulación es una tendencia que se percibe cada vez con mayor nitidez; es, claramente, un fenómeno que se asocia principalmente al uso de nuevas tecnologías, pero que desborda con mucho este ámbito. La autorregulación es una noción directamente relacionada con la transformación de las formas de gobernanza impulsada desde la Unión Europea; es una nueva técnica o instrumento que las normas jurídico-públicas, a través de numerosas remisiones a la autorregulación, ponen en manos de la administración para gestionar los fines que ésta tiene encomendados. Existe, sin embargo una clara disociación entre las esperanzas puestas en la autorregulación y la falta de respuestas que ofrece el derecho positivo. Un análisis exhaustivo de la jurisprudencia y de la legislación que utilizan la voz "autorregulación" me ha llegado a concluir que este vocablo es en nuestro ordenamiento, un "término sin concepto". En esta fuentes se asimila la "autorregulación" con la capacidad de autonormación de un sujeto. Es el derecho comunitario el que la autorregulación como una alternativa o un complemento a la desreglamentación estatal y como una manifestación de un traslado de funciones y responsabilidades públicas a la sociedad. Por influencia del Derecho comunitario, el legislador pretende, a través de la autorregulación, alcanzar dos finalidades aparentemente contradictorias: (a) facilitar la función de garante que tiene atribuida el Estado, mediante una intervención más extensa i más intensa en las actividades privadas; (b) hacer efectivo los objetos propuestos con la desregulación, mediante una contención del ejercicio de la potestad reglamentaria y una disminución de los controles, preventivos o represivos, realizados directamente por la Administración. Para salvar esta contradicción, es necesario que el legislador establezca una regulación adecuada de la autorregulación. Dicha regulación es, hoy por hoy, manifiestamente insuficiente. Deberían fijarse con carácter general -y no sólo puntualmente y por sectores- las medidas adecuadas para el fomento de la autorregulación; los efectos públicos que ésta posee en cada caso y, significativamente, las garantías y controles necesarios para contrarrestar tales efectos. Esto es, los principios que rigen la actividad administrativa deberían ser aplicados también a la autorregulación en aquellos casos en los que sus diversas manifestaciones poseen efectos similares a los que son propios de los reglamentos, las inspecciones o las sanciones administrativas. Esta propuesta deja abierta la cuestión acerca de la incidencia recíproca de ambas técnicas; esto es , la incidencia de la regulación pública en la autorregulación de origen privado y, a la inversa, el impacto del desarrollo de la autorregulación regulada en el ejercicio de las potestades reglamentaria, autorizatoria, y sancionadora de la Administración. Esta cuestión sólo puede ser contestada hoy caso por caso, de modo que la respuesta es distinta si se analiza una norma técnica, un código ético, un manual de buenas prácticas, una certificación privada del cumplimiento de normas técnicas, el ejercicio de la potestad disciplinaria privada o el arbritaje. De lo que no cabe duda alguna es que ni la autorregulación es sólo una actividad de interés privado, ni la regulación pública conserva hoy sus rasgos tradicionales.

Cosmopolitanism, identity and recognition

An application of the social theory of Axel Honneth to global justice, arguing that development goals must include provision for the intersubjective recognition required for identity formation. In the disciplines of Political Philosophy and International Relations cosmopolitanism is often defined as the view that all people, no matter their national, ethnic or religious backgrounds and no matter what their gender, have an equal moral status. The most telling enunciation of this view is the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the focus that is given to rights and a global form of legal equality by this document and by such theorists as John Rawls is not rich enough to capture all of the ethical demands that global society places upon well-to-do Westerners and developed nations. This paper makes use of a thesis by Axel Honneth to the effect that political thinking needs “a basic conceptual shift to the normative premises of a theory of recognition that locates the core of all experiences of injustice in the withdrawal of social recognition, in the phenomena of humiliation and disrespect.” Honneth identifies three spheres of recognition in modern societies: love, law, and achievement. I offer some exposition of his theory and then argue that global justice must be understood to embrace the substantive ethical values that arise in these three spheres as well as the procedural standards of moral rightness that belongs to the second of them. Such an expanded conception of global justice will yield an enriched conception of cosmopolitanism.

Contractual thinking and responsible government in China: A constructivist framework for analysis*

Responsible government is often seen as contingent on democracy. Yet despite China's continued lack of notable progress in democratization, recent years have witnessed some limited moves towards responsible governance. In the absence of free elections and other institutional arrangements, how can an authoritarian regime become responsible? This paper turns to the role of ideas and culture in general and contractual thinking in particular for an explanation. Contractual thinking, defined as a particular kind of intersubjective understanding between the government and citizens with regard to their mutual interests, is present in both China's contemporary official discourse on "responsible government" and traditional Chinese culture. Taking a constructivist approach, the paper focuses on two interrelated aspects of the role of contractual thinking in the construction of responsible government. First, it examines how contractual thinking, by helping redefine the identity and interest of the government in line with citizens' loyalty, could allow more responsible government behaviour. It then illustrates that in the case of government irresponsibility, contractual thinking sets the discursive context for rightful resistance from citizens as well as for a more sympathetic reading of such resistance by the government, both of which, the paper argues, could facilitate the development of responsible governance.

Second person : a point of view? The function of the second person pronoun in narrative prose fiction

This thesis looks at the functions and effects of the ‘second-person’ pronoun in narrative prose fiction, with particular focus on the fluidity and ambiguity of the mode that I will call Protean-'you.' It is a mode in which it is unclear whether the ‘you’ is a character, the narrator, a reader/narratee, or no-one in particular—or a combination of these—so that readers find ‘second-person’ utterances at once familiar and deeply strange. I regard the ‘second person’ as a special case of narrative ‘person’ that, at its most fluid, can produce an experience of reading quite unlike that of reading traditional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. Essentially, this unique experience comes about because Protean-‘you’ neglects to constitute the stable modes of subjectivity that readers expect to find within narrative textuality. These stable modes of subjectivity, modelled on what I will refer to as Cartesianism’s hegemonic notion of the self, have been thoroughly formalised and naturalised within the practices of ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narrative. The Protean-‘you’ form of ‘second-person’ narrative, conversely, is a mode of narrative discourse that puts readers in a place of doubt and uncertainty, its unsettling equivocations forcefully disrupting accustomed, mimetic explanations of narrative and denying us access to the foundational, authorising subject of classical Cartesian thought. Rather than founding a notion of ‘second-person’ narrative and narrative ‘person’ generally on Cartesianism's ‘self-ish’ logic of unified, privatised identity, I turn to C.S, Peirce's notion of the semiotic self and to developments in post-structuralist thought. Essentially, the conception of subjectivity underpinning my arguments is Peirce's proposition that the self is to be conceived of not as a cogito, but as a sign by which the conscious entity knows itself. It is a sign, moreover, that is constantly being re-read, reinterpreted, so that identity is never self-complete. This reconception of subjectivity is necessary because 1 will argue that the effects of Protean-‘you’ arise in some part from a tension between Cartesianism's hegemony and what philosophical pragmatism and post-structuralism glimpse as the actual condition of the human subject—the subject as dispersed and contingent rather than unified and authoritative. Most discussions of ‘second-person’ narrative conceive of the mode in terms of implicit communicative relations, in some measure instituting Cartesianism's notion of the intentionalist self at the centre of literary meaning. I contrast the paradigmatic address model that arises from this conception against a model that approaches the analysis of ‘second-person’ narrative modality in terms of a referential function, that is, in terms of the object or objects referred to deictically by the ‘second-person’ pronoun. Two principal functions of ‘second-person’ textuality are identified and discussed at length. The first is generalisation, which is rarely dissipated altogether, a situation that contributes to the ambiguities of the pronoun's reference in much ‘second-person’ fiction. The second principal function is that of address, that is, the allocutionary function. Clearly, although stories that continually refer to a ‘you’ can seem quite baffling and unnatural, not all ‘second-person’ narratives unsettle the reader. In order to make the ‘second person's’ outlandish narratives knowable and stable, we bring to bear on them in our habits of reading whatever hermeneutic frames, whatever interpretive keys, come to hand, including a large number of unexceptional forms of literary and ‘natural’ discourse that employ the ‘second-person’ pronoun. These forms include letter writing and internal dialogue (i.e., talking to one's self), the language of the courtroom, the travelogue, the maxim, and so on. In looking at the ways in which the radicalising potentials of ‘second-person’ discourse are contained or recuperated, I focus on issues of vraisemblance and mimesis. Vraisemblance can be described as the ‘system of conventions and expectations which rests on/reinforces that more general system of ‘mutual knowledge’ produced within a community for the realisation and maintenance of a whole social world’. All of the forms of the vraisemblable are already instituted within social, cultural relations, so that what vraisemblance describes is the way we fit the inscriptions we read-that is, the way in which we naturalise what we read-into those given cultural and social forms. I also look at the conventionalising and naturalising work done by notions of mimesis in explaining relations between the world, our being in it, and texts, proposing that mimesis provides a principle buttress by which the good standing of the metaphor of ‘person’ is preserved in traditional and pre-critical modes of analysis. Indeed, the critic’s recourse to ‘person’ is in some measure always an engagement with mimesis. Any discussion that maintains that mimesis is in some way productive of meaning-which this thesis in fact does-must identify mimesis as a merely conventional category within practices of reading and semiosis more generally, and at the very least remove that term from its traditional position of transparent primacy and authority. Some of the most interesting and insightful arguments about ‘second-person’ narrative propose that the ‘second person’s’ most striking effects derive from the constitution of an ‘intersubjective’ experience of reading in which the subject positions of the ‘you’-protagonist, reader-narratee and narrator are combined into a fluid and indeterminate multiple subjectivity. Notions of intersubjectivity frequently position themselves as liberating the reader from Cartesianism's fixed, authoritative modes of subjectivity, Frequently, however, they tend implicitly to reinstate Cartesianism's notion of the self at the centre of textual practice and subjectivity. I look at Daniel Gunn's novel ‘Almost You’, at length in this context, illustrating the constant overdetermination of the ‘you’ and the novel's narrating voice, and demonstrating that this overdetermination leaves the origin of the narrative discourse, the identity of the narrator, and the ontological nature of both principal protagonists utterly ambiguous. The fluidity and ambiguity of Protean-‘you’ in ‘Almost You’ is discussed in terms of ‘second-person’ intersubjectivity, but with a view to demonstrating the indebtedness by the notion of intersubjectivity to Cartesianism's hegemony of ‘person’. I then turn to a discussion of what might be a more ‘old fashioned’ if perhaps ultimately more far-reaching approach to the ‘second person’s’ often startling ambiguities. This is Keats's notion of negative capability, a capacity or quality in which a person ‘is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ I suggest that Protean-‘you’ texts will license all of the readings of ambiguity and fluidity proposed in my discussion of ‘Almost You’, but conclude that the instances of indeterminacy illustrate no more than that: the fluidity and deep ambiguity, and thus, finally, the lack of coherence, of Protean-‘you’ discourse. This has particular implications for how we are to consider readers’ experiences of narrative texts. More fundamentally, it has implications for how we are to consider readers as subjects. I suggest that unstable, ambiguous instances of ‘second-person’ narrative can tear the complex and systematic embroidery of ideological suture that unifies Cretinism’s experience or sense of subjectivity, leaving the reader in a condition of epistemological and ontological havoc. I go on to argue that much of the deeply unsettling effect of Protean-‘you’ discourse anises because its utterances explicitly gesture towards Cretinism’s notion of self. Protean-‘you’ involves a sense of address that is much more pronounced than we are accustomed to facing when reading literary narrative, alerting us to the presence of inscribed anthropomorphic subjects. At the very same time, protean-‘you’ leaves its inscribed subjects indeterminate, ambiguous. This conflict generates a tension between the anticipation of the emergence of speaking and listening selves and our inability to find them. I go on to propose that Protean-‘you’ narrative's lack of coherence is also to be understood as the condition of narrative actuality generally, but a condition that is vigorously mediated against by dominant practices of reading and writing, hocusing my discussion in this respect on the issue of narrative ‘person,’ I argue that narrative ‘person’ is constituted within texts as an apparent unity, but that it is in fact, produced as unitary solely within the practice of making sense, that is, Within our habits of reading, and so is never finally unified. I propose that this is the case for ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ modes no less than for the ‘second.’ Where ‘second-person’ narrative at its most radical and Protean differs from conventional ‘first-‘ and ‘third-person’ narratives is the degree to which each has been circumscribed by practices of tantalization, containment and limit, and, in particular, Cretinism’s hegemony of ‘person.’ It may be that the most significant insights ‘second-person’ narrative has to offer are to be found within its capacity to reveal to the engaged reader the underlying condition of narrative discourse, and more generally, its capacity to reveal the actual condition of the human subject-a condition in which, exactly like its textual corollary of narrative ‘person,’ the self is glimpsed as thoroughly dispersed and contingent.

Women clinical nurses' constructions of collegiality : an ethnomethodological study

This research is about a shared journey of being together. It involved thirteen women nurses (including myself) in a process approach to working with data collected through audio transcriptions of conversations during group get-togethers, field notes and journalling over twelve months. The project was conducted in a large acute care metropolitan hospital where the ward staff interests lie in a practice history of the medical specialty of gynaecology and women's health. Prior to commencement ethical approval was gained from both the University and hospital ethics committees. Accessing the group was complicated by the political climate of the hospital, possibly exaggerated further by the health politics across the state of Victoria, at a time of major upheaval characterised by regionalism, rationalisation and debt servicing. In order to ascertain women clinical nurses' constructions of collegiality I adopted an ethnomethodological approach informed by a critical feminist lens to enable the participants to engage in a process of openly ideological inquiry, in critiquing and transforming practice. I felt the choice of methodology had to be consistent with my own ideological position to enable me to be myself (as much as I could) during the project. I wanted to work with women to illuminate the ways in which dominant ideologies had come to be apprehended, inscribed, embodied and/or resisted in the everyday intersubjective realities of participants. The research itself became a site of resistance as the group became aware of how and in what ways their lives had become distorted, while at the same time it collaboratively transformed their individual and collective practice understandings, enabling them to see the self and other anew. Set against the background of dominant discourses on collegiality, women's understandings of collegiality have remained a submerged discourse. Revealed in this work are complex inter-relationships that might be described by some as collegial!, but for others relations amongst these women depict alternative meanings in a rich picture of the fabric of ward life. The participants understand these relations through a connectedness that has empathy as its starting point. In keeping with my commitment to engage with these women I endeavoured to remain faithful to the dialogical approach to this inquiry. Moreover I have brought the voices of the women to the foreground, peeling away the rhizomatic interconnections in and between understandings. What this has meant in terms of the thesis is that the work has become artificially distanced for the purposes of academic requirements. Nevertheless it speaks to the understandings the participants have of their relationships; of the various locations of the visible and invisible voices; of the many landscapes and images, genealogies, subjectivities and multiple selves that inform the selves with(in) others and being-in-relation. Throughout the journey meanings are revealed, revisited and reconstructed. Many nuances comprise the subtexts illuminating the depths of various moral locations underpinning the ways these women engage with one another in practice. The process of the research weaves through multiple positions, conveying the centrality of shared goals, multiple identities, resistances and differences which contribute to a holding environment, a location in which women value one another in their being-in-relation and in which they stand separately yet together.

Contractual thinking and responsible government in China : a constructivist framework for analysis

Responsible government is often seen as contingent on democracy. Yet despite China's continued lack of notable progress in democratization, recent years have witnessed some limited moves towards responsible governance. In the absence of free elections and other institutional arrangements, how can an authoritarian regime become responsible? This paper turns to the role of ideas and culture in general and contractual thinking in particular for an explanation. Contractual thinking, defined as a particular kind of intersubjective understanding between the government and citizens with regard to their mutual interests, is present in both China's contemporary official discourse on "responsible government" and traditional Chinese culture. Taking a constructivist approach, the paper focuses on two interrelated aspects of the role of contractual thinking in the construction of responsible government. First, it examines how contractual thinking, by helping redefine the identity and interest of the government in line with citizens' loyalty, could allow more responsible government behaviour. It then illustrates that in the case of government irresponsibility, contractual thinking sets the discursive context for rightful resistance from citizens as well as for a more sympathetic reading of such resistance by the government, both of which, the paper argues, could facilitate the development of responsible governance.

Sensing celebrities

Sensing celebrities involves recognition of the way complementary sensory-based elements come together to create, produce and transmit levels of affect and intensities. This chapter explores celebrity through the lens of sensory aesthetics. It begins by defining sensory aesthetics, linking it to the phenomenology of celebrity, and particularly the work of Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks. The chapter draws upon the unique concept of the celebaesthetic subject to address the intersubjective relationship between fan and celebrity. Using Miley Cyrus as a case study, the chapter draws into the analysis the issue of gender and race, and the way conductive “skin” can be made to function as a sensory stereotype. It highlights that mobilization of the celebrity senses touched by transgression may be best understood to take place through the confession, and in the celebrity carnival.

A universalização da banda larga no Brasil: o papel das micro e pequenas operadoras

O Brasil é um dos principais atores do novo ambiente econômico mundial, mas para permanecer atrativo, deve fazer progressos significativos no campo das Tecnologias de Informação e da Comunicação (TIC). Assim, um serviço de internet banda larga é primordial para o desenvolvimento de regiões distantes, geralmente de baixa renda e que não têm acesso a instalações de telecomunicações, nem aos serviços de internet banda larga. De fato, a penetração da banda larga no Brasil apresenta situação inferior à média mundial e boa parte da população ainda está excluída do mundo digital por causa das desigualdades sociais e as dimensões continentais do país. Para preencher esta lacuna, o governo federal lançou, em 2010, o Programa Nacional de Banda Larga (PNBL). No entanto, a penetração de banda larga permanece em níveis baixos, mesmo em grandes centros urbanos e com uma distribuição regional desigual, especialmente quando comparados internacionalmente. As concessionárias não estão desempenhando o seu papel de universalização dos serviços de banda larga e as pequenas e médias operadoras podem desempenhar um papel fundamental na promoção desse objetivo. Esse trabalho tem o propósito de investigar se é possível conciliar o modelo vigente de telecomunicações regido pela Lei Geral das Telecomunicações (LGT) com a universalização dos serviços de banda larga, desde que apoiado num mercado competitivo e menos concentrado, com pequenas e médias operadoras. Como verificação, foi feito um trabalho empírico com base em entrevistas semiestruturadas com profissionais de telecomunicações do setor público e privado, assim como uma análise de padrão de codificação dessas entrevistas. Os resultados mostram, porém, que o ambiente regulatório atual pode gerar incentivos à operação de qualidade nas áreas remotas e de baixa renda, mas não de forma generalizada. A universalização requer uma mudança estrutural do modelo e é a política pública federal que deve dar as diretrizes, com objetivos claros. Tampouco há modelo ideal de regulação, mas um entorno regulatório adequado pode ser motor de desenvolvimento do setor. O estabelecimento de compromissos entre os atores também é fundamental, assim como a decisão política na origem, dando suporte para o planejamento e projetos de longo prazo. E é a partir dessa decisão que se desenvolvem as medidas regulatórias de competição e fiscalização que vão garantir a execução do que foi previsto e desenhado.