Welcoming International Visitors - Communication and Culture

It is extremely rare for an international visitor to museums and galleries in the UK to find information in foreign languages which is anything more than a relatively literal translation of an English source text. At the same time, a huge body of research and theory in the humanities and social sciences implies that major cultural differences are likely to accompany the differences in first language of international visitors. As such, in spite of the fact that museums and galleries often declare their intention to meet the needs of their visitors, it is fairly clear that, in this instance, they are at best meeting their international visitors’ linguistic needs whilst ignoring their broader cultural needs. With this in mind, staff from the University of Westminster together with a number of London’s major museums and galleries obtained UK Research Council funding to work on the production of leaflets in foreign languages fully acknowledging cultural differences amongst international visitors. The collaboration was intended to generate reflection on how such materials might be most effectively produced, what impact they might have and what forms of policy review museums and galleries might as a result wish to undertake. The collaboration confirmed that cultural difference, and therefore difference in need, between visitors with different first languages is a simple reality. Translations, including ones which are culturally ‘adapted’ or ‘sensitive’, will always fall short of acknowledging the intercultural complexity of the experience of international visitors. Materials acknowledging that complexity are more effective. Museums and galleries need, therefore, to ask themselves how far and in what ways they wish to acknowledge this reality in the nature of the welcome they offer. The core of this article will draw on the outcomes of this collaboration, and also on aspects of translation and intercultural theory, to offer a critical exploration of some of the options museums and galleries therefore have in producing materials to welcome international visitors in ways which acknowledge the intercultural complexity of their experience.

Comunidad universitaria de unidades de información especializadas en ciencias sociales: una experiencia exitosa

Una de las características de los países de capitalismo dependiente – periférico es la escasa inversión en el campo de la investigación científica. En particular, en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales, esta situación se manifiesta en los muy limitados recursos para el desarrollo de centros de documentación y bibliotecas especializadas como soporte necesario para el desarrollo eficiente y eficaz de la investigación social sobre las realidades nacionales. La Comunidad Universitaria de Unidades de Información Especializadas en Ciencias Sociales es una experiencia exitosa en la educación superior, que provoca romper, a su vez, la lógica de mercantilizar la información, potenciando el uso de los limitados recursos que las universidades públicas costarricenses invierten en el campo de la información para investigación social, por medio de la coordinación de tareas y la integración de procesos técnicos entre distintas unidades de información participantes. Abstract One of the characeristics of peripherial capitalism dependant countries is the scant investment in scientific research particulary, in the field of Social Sciences; this situation is shown in the limited resources available for the development of specialized documentation centers and libraries as necessary support for the efficient and effective development of the social research on the national realities. The University Community of Specialized Information Units on Social Sciences is a successful experience in the university education field; this experience induces a break on the logic of commercialization of information by strengthening the use of the scarce resources that Costarican universities invest in this area. This action is carried out by means of coordinating the tasks and the integration of the technical processes between the different information units involved

Supervisão e colaboração no ensino das ciências : estudo de caso realizado numa escola do ensino básico em Díli

O sistema educativo de Timor-Leste tem assistido, desde o momento da independência do país, a uma reorganização e a um desenvolvimento no sentido de aperfeiçoar os níveis de formação e de qualificação dos cidadãos timorenses. A intencionalidade é a de permitir o progresso social, económico, tecnológico e cultural de que o país precisa. Neste quadro, a formação inicial e contínua de professores assume um papel fulcral para o cumprimento das metas estabelecidas, sendo este o contexto principal onde a minha atividade profissional se desenvolveu. Este estudo situou-se na supervisão e colaboração de práticas letivas com uma professora de ensino básico, do sexto ano, no ensino das ciências, tendo por base os pressupostos teóricos da educação em ciências. O estudo que foi desenvolvido numa Escola Básica Central, em Díli, Timor- Leste, tem por base os pressupostos inerentes à supervisão, designadamente: os encontros de pré observação, observação e pós-observação, sustentados pela colaboração da investigadora no processo de desenvolvimento profissional da professora participante Os principais objetivos do estudo centraram-se em identificar e compreender quais as conceções da professora participante no estudo relativamente ao ensino das ciências e, simultaneamente, a implementação de práticas de ensino relacionadas com a didática das ciências, assumindo como referencial que as conceções em ciências que os professores possuem têm implicações no modo como ensinam (Praia, Cachapuz & Pérez, 2002). Mais especificamente, pretendeu-se analisar e compreender a forma como a professora responsável pelo ensino da disciplina de estudo do meio no numa turma do 6º ano desenvolve as suas atividades letivas . A disciplina de estudo do meio contém conteúdos da área das ciências da natureza e das ciências sociais, no entanto, este estudo desenvolveu-se apenas no âmbito das ciências naturais, por se tratar da minha área específica de formação e aquela que escolhi para aprofundar os meus conhecimentos. A investigação desenvolvida assumiu o paradigma qualitativo/interpretativo e enquadrou-se num design de estudo de caso. Para Coutinho & Chaves (2002), um aluno, um professor, uma turma, uma escola, a prática de um professor ou uma política educativa são apenas alguns exemplos de variáveis educativas para as quais o estudo de caso é a metodologia que melhor se aplica. A recolha de informação para a investigação realizou-se no decorrer dos encontros de preparação das atividades letivas, da observação de aulas e do registo realizado, dos encontros pós-observação, das entrevistas e da análise documental de interesse sobre o tema.

Knowledge unlatched : towards an open and networked future for academic publishing

Specialist book length publications in the humanities and social sciences (including but not exclusively monographs) are experiencing a crisis. It is clear that the current publishing system is failing both the producers and users of scholarship and neglects many of the opportunities associated with networked culture.

William James, Sciences of Mind, and Anti-imperial Discourse

In the past few decades, the humanities and social sciences have developed new methods of reorienting their conceptual frameworks in a “world without frontiers.” In this book, Bernadette M. Baker offers an innovative approach to rethinking sciences of mind as they formed at the turn of the twentieth century, via the concerns that have emerged at the turn of the twenty-first. The less-visited texts of Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James provide a window into contemporary debates over principles of toleration, anti-imperial discourse, and the nature of ethics. Baker revisits Jamesian approaches to the formation of scientific objects including the child mind, exceptional mental states, and the ghost to explore the possibilities and limits of social scientific thought dedicated to mind development and discipline formation around the construct of the West.

Towards a Conceptual History of Narrative

The article outlines a conceptual history of narrative, in particular the changes over the movement called “narrative turn” in the social sciences. According to Quentin Skinner, conceptual changes may take place on three separate levels: by changing the criteria of the concept, by changing the range of reference, and by changing the appraisal of the concept. Recent theorizing on narrative epitomizes all of these levels, but unevenly. In spite of the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity, two almost totally separate traditions of narrative theory persist: the narratological and the narrative-turn theories. Paradoxically, the narrative turn literature has radicalized the range of reference of narrative by attaching the concept to life and identity, but has left the criteria of the concept practically intact. This has extended the reign of a simplified Aristotelian concept of narrative as a chain of beginnings, middles, and ends. The narratological tradition of theorizing, instead, has debated extensively on the correct criteria of the concept, but enlarged the range of reference rather in the direction of cognition.

Concepts of Narrative

Transposed to media like film, drama, opera, music, and the visual arts, “narrative” is no longer characterized by either temporality or an act of telling, both required by earlier narratological theories. Transposed to other disciplines, “narrative” is often a substitute for “assumption”, “hypothesis”, a disguised ideological stance, a cognitive scheme, and even life itself. The potential for broadening the concept lay dormant in narratology, both in the double use of “narrative” for the medium-free fabula and for the medium-bound sjuzet, and in changing interpretations of “event”. Some advantages of the broad use of “narrative” are an evocation of commonalities among media and disciplines, an invitation to re-think the term within the originating discipline, a constructivist challenge to positivistic and foundational views, an emphasis on a plurality of competing “truths”, and an empowerment of minority voices. Conversely, disadvantages of the broad use are an illusion of sameness whenever the term is used and the obliteration of specificity. In a Wittgensteinian spirit, the essay agrees that concepts of narrative are mutually related by “family resemblance”, but wishes to probe the resemblances further. It thus postulates two necessary features: double temporality and a transmitting (or mediating) agency, and an additional cluster of variable optional characteristics. When the necessary features are not dominant, the configuration may have “narrative elements” but is not “a narrative”.