Suchergebnisse

This dissertation argues that through music-making practices, social actors make space for the existence of senses of belonging that are alternative (but not oppositional) to conceptions of belonging advocated by the powerful. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Republic of Macedonia between 2011 and 2014, I consider three musical scenes as social formations where what I term "alternative belonging" is made by and experienced through the sonic and social practices of the scenes' participants. These senses of alternative belonging provide means for people to neither participate in nor overtly oppose the increasingly hegemonic nepotistic network of the ethnocentric nationalist political party that had come to dominate nearly every aspect of everyday life in Macedonia. Though the three scenes overlap with one another (and with other scenes), each one revolves around a central music-making practice: (1) socializing at a club featuring electronic music with roots in 1980s Detroit techno music, (2) performing and recording music multifariously defined as "jazz," and (3) developing a style known in Macedonia as "etnomuzika" (ethno music) that adapts features of traditional Macedonian music (repertoires, styles, instruments) in new configurations and combinations with contemporary styles. In my analysis of these scenes, I explore their transnational histories and the ways actors draw on those histories to employ and shape various notions of race, ethnicity, musicality, the future, and the past in the service of making spaces for alternative belonging. I introduce the concept of "sociovirtuosity" to describe the multi-layered and seemingly contradictory ways that multiply situated actors exercise agency on the margins of power. In so doing, they make space for alternatives and ensure that hegemony is never total. I also consider the ways that, in each scene, collaborative music making sonically transforms existing places into ephemeral and effervescent spaces for belonging in a process I call the "co-production of acoustemology." By engaging in these sonic and social practices that make space for alternative belonging, participants in these scenes are able to negotiate and navigate the economic and political challenges of their everyday experience, embracing the many contradictions of life in Macedonia at the beginning of its third decade of independence.

Greetings from the Commonwealth of Learning, Reception to celebrate the announcement of the UNESCO-COL Chair in Open Educational Resources at Athabasca University, Monday, 31 January 2011 Government House, Edmonton, AB, Canada, Dave Wilson, Commonwealth of Learning // I am very pleased to be here from the Commonwealth of Learning. I bring greetings from COL's President, Sir John Daniel – who is a former Vice President of Athabasca University in its early days – and Vice President Professor Asha Kanwar, as well as from my other colleagues in much-warmer Vancouver. // COL is an international, intergovernmental organisation. We've been privileged to be hosted in Canada since our inception in 1989. The Government of Canada is one of COL's six major donor governments. We work with partners throughout the 54-member Commonwealth, including Athabasca University, to help improve opportunities for learning through the application of open, distance and technology-mediated teaching methods.

Purpose
– The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting a social return on investment (SROI) forecast in a small social enterprise, The Wooden Canal Boat Society.


Design/methodology/approach
– This SROI forecast was a collaborative exercise between Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and the Wooden Canal Boat Society. A case study methodology has been adopted in order to allow the voice of the first author, from the Local Authority, to come through.


Findings
– The findings highlight that the process of scoping; gathering and analysing information; engaging with stakeholders and assigning evidence against proxies (London centric) is challenging and exhausting, yet it provides a rich learning experience for all those involved. The accuracy of the ratio is compromised and implicated by the time and resources that are available to invest the subjectivity of the data behind the ratio the judgements and decisions over who and how to include/exclude individuals from the SROI forecast. In short, the Wooden Canal Boat Society SROI forecast proved to be the tipping point in a successful grant application. However, SROI is not something the Local Authority are set to embrace more widely or would particularly recommend for the vast majority of their local social economy organisations.


Research limitations/implications
– As a case study paper, the authors do not seek to generalise. The case provides the reader with a stakeholder informed account of the experiences of being involved in a forecast SROI from the perspective of the first author from the Local Authority. In times of political change and economic austerity the climate in the UK social economy has significantly altered, particularly in the marketisation of services and funding provisions for health and social care. One implication of this shift that is reflected in the paper is Local Authority thinking in light of the Social Value Act, which passed through the UK Parliament in 2012.


Originality/value
– The value of this case study provides academics and practitioners with an alternative perspective and rich commentary of the first author's narrative and reflections on the process of SROI and the dynamics involved in arriving at the ratio.