In this article we explore the role of data custodians in establishing and maintaining social licence for the use of personal information in health research. Personal information from population‐level data collections can be used to make significant contributions to health and medical research, but this use is dependent on community acceptance or a social licence. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with data custodians across Australia to better understand data custodians’ views on their roles and responsibilities. This inductive, thematic analysis of the (...) interview data focuses on three factors that contribute to social licence – reciprocity, non‐exploitation and the public good. While the data custodians interviewed did not explicitly frame their role in the context of social licence, their descriptions of their roles and responsibilities clearly indicated that they did have some role to play in building and maintaining social licence. (shrink)

In Australia research projects proposing the use of linked data require approval by a Human Research Ethics Committee . A sound evaluation of the ethical issues involved requires understanding of the basic mechanics of data linkage, the associated benefits and risks, and the legal context in which it occurs. The rapidly increasing number of research projects utilising linked data in Australia has led to an urgent need for enhanced capacity of HRECs to review research applications involving this emerging research methodology. (...) The training described in this article was designed to respond to an identified need among the data linkage units in the Australian Population Health Research Network and HREC members in Australia. (shrink)

To what degree has biology influenced and shaped the development of moral systems? One way to determine the extent to which human moral systems might be the product of natural selection is to explore behaviour in other species that is analogous and perhaps homologous to our own. Many non-human primates, for example, have similar methods to humans for resolving, managing, and preventing conflicts of interests within their groups. Such methods, which include reciprocity and food sharing, reconciliation, consolation, conflict intervention, and (...) mediation, are the very building blocks of moral systems in that they are based on and facilitate cohesion among individuals and reflect a concerted effort by community members to find shared solutions to social conflict. Furthermore, these methods of resource distribution and conflict resolution often require or make use of capacities for empathy, sympathy, and sometimes even community concern. Non-human primates in societies in which such mechanisms are present may not be exactly moral beings, but they do show signs of a sense of social regularity that -- just like the norms and rules underlying human moral conduct -- promotes a mutually satisfactory modus vivendi. (shrink)

Focusing on Kentucky’s immense and world-famous Mammoth Cave, this essay considers contexts from across the nineteenth century in which subterranean darkness was envisaged as a driving force in the transformation of living things. In fact, the cave was the stage for several allied discourses of “dark degeneracy” that conjured images of both generative and destructive mutability, from the generation of animals without eyes to the apparent disintegration of some kinds of human bodies and minds through exposure to the darkness. In (...) elucidating several parallel discourses of dark degeneracy, the essay offers a distinct contribution to several bodies of scholarship by highlighting an important and hitherto neglected manifestation of an intensifying nineteenth-century focus on the how of natural processes and a growing sense of the transformative significance of the apparent cohesion of malleable bodies with their wider environments. At the same time, it evidences the influence of Mammoth Cave in forging and contributing to late nineteenth-century debates about degeneration and shows how dominant sensory hierarchies framed both popular and scientific understandings of life in the deep darkness. (shrink)

This article critically examines the usual characterisation of aesthetics as a fragmented, marginal or secondary field within phenomenology. The author argues in particular that phenomenological aesthetics was consciously and systematically articulated as an explicit programme in at least two distinct contexts of early phenomenology: the international project to establish a general science of art known as the Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, and the Soviet State Academy of Art Studies (GAChN). The article explores the impact of these institutions on the development of early (...) phenomenological aesthetics, highlighting how that development was conditional on the idea of a general science of art. It suggests, in conclusion, that these two attempts to mobilise phenomenology as a science of art, while abortive, cast important light not only on early phenomenological aesthetics, but on phenomenology’s fundamental relation with aesthetics. (shrink)

To what degree has biology influenced and shaped the development of moral systems? One way to determine the extent to which human moral systems might be the product of natural selection is to explore behaviour in other species that is analogous and perhaps homologous to our own. Many non-human primates, for example, have similar methods to humans for resolving, managing, and preventing conflicts of interests within their groups. Such methods, which include reciprocity and food sharing, reconciliation, consolation, conflict intervention, and (...) mediation, are the very building blocks of moral systems in that they are based on and facilitate cohesion among individuals and reflect a concerted effort by community members to find shared solutions to social conflict. Furthermore, these methods of resource distribution and conflict resolution often require or make use of capacities for empathy, sympathy, and sometimes even community concern. Non-human primates in societies in which such mechanisms are present may not be exactly moral beings, but they do show signs of a sense of social regularity that—just like the norms and rules underlying human moral conduct—promotes a mutually satisfactory modus vivendi. (shrink)

People have been visiting zoos to look at non-human animals for almost two centuries. They observe a real animal, but what they see in their mind’s eye could be informed by how the animal is represented in the zoo’s guidebooks. Representations are rooted in two ways of looking: one positions the animal as an object of scientific study representative of his or her species, the other turns him or her into an individual animal with a life framed in terms of (...) human experiences. Bristol Zoo Gardens, opened in 1836, offers a rich case study of the value of guidebooks because of its long history and surviving sources. The article begins by highlighting the theoretical approach adopted before applying it by reviewing the objectification and anthropomorphism of different animals over the chronological range of guidebooks. It then interrogates the depiction of gender roles to illuminate this style of representation. (shrink)

The 2010 Nagoya Protocol is an international framework for access and benefit sharing (ABS) of the use of genetic and biological resources, with particular focus on indigenous communities. This is especially important in Africa, where local communities have a close reliance on environmental resources and ecosystems. However, national legislation and policies commonly lag behind international agreements, and this poses challenges for legal compliance as well as practical applications. This study reviews the academic literature on the Nagoya Protocol and ABS applications, (...) and then considers the implications of this analysis for research in Africa. Results show that there is uneven engagement with the principles of the Nagoya Protocol across different academic disciplines; local communities are sometimes sidelined in these studies; and only 8% of researchers in the literature analysed are located in Africa. Future developments should focus on ensuring national compliance with the Nagoya Protocol, and that researchers and industry work in partnership with local African communities on ABS issues. (shrink)

This excellent monograph is devoted to Guillaume Bonjour (1670–1714), an Augustinian friar, historian and missionary hitherto remembered mainly for his contributions to Coptic scholarship. Schlicht...

“Feminicity” is the term for a predicate register that enables feminist work be accounted for as relational “active-points” (as an alternative formulation to standpoints) that collectively can be seen through what they have achieved. But going further, it marks where those active-points contribute to the dynamic field of feminist epistemologies and where change occurs. This article contributes to my larger project’s discussion of this concept. Broadly, feminicity argues that the active-points of feminist practices (practical and conceptual) need to be understood (...) within their situated fields as materialist informatics. In the digital era, examples of the affects of digital feminicity are as identified in works such as those by Wajcman (1991; 2004); Haraway (1993; Nakamura, 2003), Hayles (1993; 2012), VNSMatrix (1991), Adam (1998), Plant (1998). Collectively, such authors and artists opened a creative, and sometimes radical discourse of the digital field as multidirectional, multidimensional, multitemporal platform of “gender actions”. Taken as a predicated field (using Gottlob Frege’s (1964) sense of the term “predicate”), this work contributes to the feminist materialist reappraisal of feminist epistemology (cf. Alaimo and Hekman, 2008; Van Der Tuin, 2014), and larger radical feminist deconstructive projects (Malabou, 2011; Fraser, 2013). Thus conceived, the genealogy of digital feminicity problematizes the monopolitical terms of feminism in its collation of actions, enabling a re-situation of feminist practices as positive material interventions and expressions of the ontological constitution of the political sphere. Feminicity does not propose a chronological account of the active-points, but processually and systemically addresses the terms of generational epistemological political change (Olkowski, 1999; Van Der Tuin 2014). This article describes the ways in which a materialist constructed register – “feminicity”– can be used to think about encounters between the domains of gender, politics and technology, as manifested by materialist informatics. For reasons of brevity, this article focuses on just two aspects of feminicity: the terms of predication of the female as gendered, and the issue of the image, as digital informatics, comprised of activitypoints of feminist practice. Consequently, these are measurable and offer practical resources for the general problem of gendering politics that operate in governance, resource distribution and a non-equal opportunity social/cultural power structure, under which minorities are disadvantaged. Feminist practice here refers to forms produced through feminist activities, ie, forms generated through relations with the matter of life through specific modalities of needs-based practices (inclusive of intuition, compulsion, capitalist-driven practices of utility, theory and art). (shrink)

Feminist activism aims to work to change the inequitable structures of the world. But feminists themselves get bound up in actions and intentions that are tied to their large object of critique (the patriarchy, the planet, the media, the canon, etc), and the micropolitics of the subjects constituting and constituted by those objects can be swept up in humanistic rhetorical gestures and words. How can we teach the modalities and the genealogy of feminist actions that offer tools for everyday living (...) and for a community practice, and which also offer some ways to engage with the affective matter of the world from a posthumanist perspective, and thereby work to shift cultural attitudes? In addition to the valuable work done by those that tirelessly figure methods of communicating social inequities, the work of research led feminist informed teaching and governance can not only excavate the histories of social, political, speciesist, and biological inequities, but also offer a critique of these positions by the terms of their epistemological construction, and provide different modalities of practice. This article focuses on the latter, discussing how we might design curriculum and engage a pedagogy of recognition for a feminist modal ethics. How modes of feminist new materialist practice take the questions of affect, and agency, to enable ethical political practices is a pressing concern for many communities concerned with generating a planetary ethics. How new materialist methodology is useful for thinking the vernacular political reality was the topic of an intensive discussion and debate that took place in November 2017 in Barcelona. Taking an example of the concrete work undertaken by Barcelona Councillor Gala Pin in relation to the neighbourhood of Ciutat Vella, the article proposes that we explore and extend the genealogy of a feminist modal logics. (shrink)

Film Theory addresses the core concepts and arguments created or used by academics, critical film theorists, and filmmakers, including the work of Dudley Andrew, Raymond Bellour, Mary Ann Doane, Miriam Hansen, bell hooks, Siegfried Kracauer, Raul Ruiz, P. Adams Sitney, Bernard Stiegler, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. This volume takes the position that film theory is a form of writing that produces a unique cinematic grammar; and like all grammars, it forms part of the system of rules that govern a language, (...) and is thus applicable to wider range of media forms. In their creation of authorial trends, identification of the technology of cinema as a creative force, and production of films as aesthetic markers, film theories contribute an epistemological resource that connects the technologies of filmmaking and film composition. This book explores these connections through film theorisations of processes of the diagrammatisation (the systems, methodologies, concepts, histories) of cinematic matters of the filmic world. (shrink)

This article is an account of the dynamics of interaction across the social sciences and neurosciences. Against an arid rhetoric of ‘interdisciplinarity’, it calls for a more expansive imaginary of what experiment – as practice and ethos – might offer in this space. Arguing that opportunities for collaboration between social scientists and neuroscientists need to be taken seriously, the article situates itself against existing conceptualizations of these dynamics, grouping them under three rubrics: ‘critique’, ‘ebullience’ and ‘interaction’. Despite their differences, each (...) insists on a distinction between sociocultural and neurobiological knowledge, or does not show how a more entangled field might be realized. The article links this absence to the ‘regime of the inter-’, an ethic of interdisciplinarity that guides interaction between disciplines on the understanding of their pre-existing separateness. The argument of the paper is thus twofold: (1) that, contra the ‘regime of the inter-’, it is no longer practicable to maintain a hygienic separation between sociocultural webs and neurobiological architecture; (2) that the cognitive neuroscientific experiment, as a space of epistemological and ontological excess, offers an opportunity to researchers, from all disciplines, to explore and register this realization. (shrink)

In a recent unit of study in an undergraduate Health Sciences pathway course, we identified a set of essays which exhibited similarity of content but demonstrated the use of bizarre and unidiomatic language. One of the distinct features of the essays was the inclusion of unusual synonyms in place of expected standard medical terminology.We suspected the use of online paraphrasing tools, but were also interested in investigating the possibility of the use of online language translation tools. In order to test (...) the outputs of these tools, we used as a seed document a corpus of text which had been provided to the students as prompt for the essay. This document was put through six free online paraphrasing tools and six separate iterative language translations through the online Google Translate™ tool.The results demonstrated that free online paraphrasing tools did not identify medical terminology as standardised or accepted nomenclature and substituted synonyms, whereas Google Translate™ largely preserved medical terminology.We believe that textual indicators such as the absence of standard discipline-based terminology may be of assistance in the identification of machine paraphrased text. (shrink)

BackgroundImplementation science research, especially when using participatory and co-design approaches, raises unique challenges for research ethics committees. Such challenges may be poorly addressed by approval and governance mechanisms that were developed for more traditional research approaches such as randomised controlled trials.DiscussionImplementation science commonly involves the partnership of researchers and stakeholders, attempting to understand and encourage uptake of completed or piloted research. A co-creation approach involves collaboration between researchers and end users from the onset, in question framing, research design and delivery, (...) and influencing strategy, with implementation and broader dissemination strategies part of its design from gestation. A defining feature of co-creation is its emergent and adaptive nature, making detailed pre-specification of interventions and outcome measures impossible. This methodology sits oddly with ethics committee protocols that require precise pre-definition of interventions, mode of delivery, outcome measurements, and the role of study participants. But the strict requirements of ethics committees were developed for a purpose – to protect participants from harm and help ensure the rigour and transparency of studies. We propose some guiding principles to help square this circle. First, ethics committees should acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of research approaches, both formally and informally ; without active support, their members may not understand or value participatory designs. Second, ground rules should be established for co-design applications and communicated to committee members and stakeholders. Third, the benefits of power-sharing should be recognised and credit given to measures likely to support this important goal, especially in research with vulnerable communities. Co-design is considered best practice, for example, in research involving indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. (shrink)

Depression experienced by older adults is proving an increasing global health burden, with rates generally 7% and as high as 27% in the USA. This is likely to significantly increase in coming years as the number and proportion of older adults in the population rises all around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the effectiveness of approaches to the prevention and treatment of depression are understood. Creative arts interventions, including art, dance movement, drama and music modalities, are utilised internationally (...) to target depression and depressive symptoms in older adults. This includes interventions led by trained arts therapists as well as other health and arts professionals. However, to date there has not been a systematic review that reports effects and examines the processes (why) and mechanisms (how) of creative arts interventions are used to address depression in this older age group. This systematic review of studies on creative arts interventions for older adults experiencing depression examined: outcomes of four creative arts modalities (art, dance movement, drama, and music); with particular attention paid to processes documented as contributing to change in each modality; and mechanisms considered to result from these processes. Our analysis of 75 articles (17 art, 13 dance, 4 drama and 41 music) indicates mostly significant quantitative or positive qualitative findings, particularly for interventions led by creative arts therapists. Mechanisms of change gleaned from the studies that were common across modalities include physical (e.g. increased muscle strength; neurochemical effects, such as endorphin release), intra-personal (e.g. enhanced self-concept, strengthened agency and mastery; processing and communication of emotions), cultural (e.g. creative expression, aesthetic pleasure), cognitive (e.g. stimulation of memory) and social (e.g. increased social skills and connection), that were all considered to contribute to reduced depression and symptoms. Recommendations for future research include a stronger focus on testing of processes and mechanisms. (shrink)

Power is an inescapable aspect of all socialrelationships, and inherently is neither goodnor evil. Doctors need power to fulfil theirprofessional obligations to multipleconstituencies including patients, thecommunity and themselves. Patients need powerto formulate their values, articulate andachieve health needs, and fulfil theirresponsibilities. However, both parties canuse or misuse power. The ethical effectivenessof a health system is maximised by empoweringdoctors and patients to develop `adult-adult'rather than `adult-child' relationships thatrespect and enable autonomy, accountability,fidelity and humanity. Even in adult-adultrelationships, conflicts and complexitiesarise. Lack of (...) concordance between doctors andpatients can encourage paternalism but may bebest resolved through negotiated care. Afurther area of conflict involves the `doubleagency' of doctors for both patients and thecommunity. Empowerment of all players is notalways possible but is most likely where eachparty considers and acknowledges power issues. (shrink)

We consider the influence that John Forrester’s work has had on thinking in, with, and from cases in multiple disciplines. Forrester’s essay ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ was published in History of the Human Sciences in 1996 and transformed understandings of what a case was, and how case-based thinking worked in numerous human sciences (including, centrally, psychoanalysis). Forrester’s collection of essays Thinking in Cases was published posthumously, after his untimely death in 2015, and is the inspiration for the (...) special issue we introduce. This comprises new research from authors working in and across the history of science and medicine, gender and sexuality studies, philosophy of science, semiotics, film studies, literary studies and comparative literature, psychoanalytic studies, medical humanities, and sociology. This research addresses what it means to reason in cases in particular temporal, spatial, or genre-focused contexts; introduces new figures (e.g. Eugène Azam, C. S. Peirce, Michael Balint) into lineages of case-based reasoning; emphasizes the unfinished and unfinishable character of some case reading and autobiographical accounts; and shows the frequency with which certain kinds of reasoning attempted with cases fail (often in instructive ways). The special issue opens up new directions for thinking and working with cases and case-based reasoning in the humanities and human sciences. (shrink)

Increasing public concern for the welfare of fish species that human beings use and exploit has highlighted the need for better understanding of the cognitive status of fish and of their ability to experience negative emotions such as pain and fear. Moreover, studying emotion and cognition in fish species broadens our scientific understanding of how emotion and cognition are represented in the central nervous system and what kind of role they play in the organization of behavior. For instance, on a (...) macro neuro-architecture level the brains of fish species look dramatically different from those of mammals, while such a dramatic difference does not (always) occur at the level of emotion- and cognition-related behavior. Here, therefore, we discuss the evidence of emotion and cognition in fish species related to underlying neuro-architecture and the role that emotion and cognition play in the organization of behavior. To do so we use a framework encompassing a number of steps allowing a systematic approach to these issues. Emotion and cognition confer on human and non-human animals the capacity to compliment and/or override immediate reflexes to stimuli and so allow a large degree of flexibility in behavior. Systematic research on behavior that in mammals is indicative of emotion and cognition has been conducted in only a few fish species. The data thus far indicate that in these species brain-behavior relationships are not fundamentally different from those observed in mammals. Furthermore, data from other studies show evidence that behavior patterns related to emotion and cognition vary between fish species as well within fish species, related to sex and life history stage for example. From a welfare perspective, knowledge of such variability will potentially help us to design optimal living conditions for fish species kept by humans. (shrink)

Both the theory that traumatic childhood memories can be repressed, and the reliability of the techniques used to retrieve these memories are challenged in this paper. Questions are raised about the robustness of the theory and the literature that purports to provide scientific evidence for it. Evidence to this end is provided by the demographic and qualitative results of a research study conducted by the authors which surveyed New Zealand families in which one member had accused another of sexual abuse (...) on the basis of recovered memories. It is shown that a number of these allegations involve very low probability events. Since memory repression theory is not currently scientifically substantiated it is argued that care needs to be taken in the mental health, legal and insurance compensation arenas. Memories recalled during therapy may be treated as metaphorical but, in the absence of corroborative evidence, should not be considered factually true. Clinicians who wish to use memory recovery techniques should inform patients of their experimental and controversial nature, point out potential adverse effects, and obtain consent before proceeding. (shrink)

This research formed phase 1 of the Economic and Social Research Council project ‘Pupils’ Approaches to Subject Option Choices’ and is a near repeat of a project carried out in the mid-1980s, thus allowing for a comparison of approaches to subject choice a decade apart, comparing the situation pre- and post-National Curriculum implementation. The simple two-part questionnaire, completed by 1600 children in 11 schools, shows the differences across time and between-school differences in subject preference, but little instability in perceptions of (...) subject importance. Some useful additional data, giving student's reasons for liking subjects and finding subjects important, were obtained from interviews in four schools which formed phase 2 of the project. Comparisons are drawn with the data collected in 1984 on a similar basis. Issues of concern are highlighted with respect to particular subjects and to students’ stated reasons for liking subjects or finding them important, with regard to how this might relate to their subsequent subject choices and career development. (shrink)

With the prevailing arguments in support of active citizenship, the focus in the SADC region and across the world has been on political participation as the strongest form of citizenship. However, it is increasingly agreed that economic inclusion and participation are just as important as the status and practice of citizenship as political participation. While the global agenda to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is anchored on the theme “Leaving no one behind”, many citizens within the SADC region are passive (...) participants due to the lack of recognition of the right to economic participation and inclusion. In the Zambian context where most of the population lives in abject poverty and is a passive recipient of the government’s developmental programmes and economic reforms, an analysis of economic inclusion and participation of those living in poverty and most vulnerable to social exclusion as a form of active citizenship and good governance is cardinal. The chapter evaluates the role of law in perpetuating the exclusion of the poor from the economic and social agenda of the country. It does this by analysing the laws regulating solid waste management and public health to evaluate their role in promoting the participation of the poor in economic and environmental sustainability. It finds that although Zambia’s constitution and policy documents make important pronouncements on sustainable development and citizen participation, many laws exclude the poor from economic participation by criminalising their economic activities and failing to recognise and remunerate their contributions to sustainable development. Using environmental law, it proposes pathways that Zambia’s regulatory framework could create for strengthening economic citizenship as an offshoot of the right to participate in economic inclusion and the attainment of sustainable development. (shrink)

BackgroundVideo-calls have proven to be useful for older care home residents in improving socialization and reducing loneliness. Nonetheless, to facilitate the acceptability and usability of a new technological intervention, especially among people with dementia, there is a need for user-led design improvements. The current study conducted focus groups with an embedded activity with older people to allow for a person-centered design of a video-call intervention.MethodsTwenty-eight residents across four care homes in the South West of England participated in focus groups to (...) aesthetically personalize and ‘dress-up’ the equipment used in a video-call intervention. Each care home was provided with a ‘Skype on Wheels’ device, a wheelable ‘chassis’ comprising an iPad or tablet for access to Skype, and a telephone handset. During the focus group, residents were encouraged to participate in an activity using colorful materials to ‘dress-up’ SoW. Comments before, during and after the ‘dress up’ activity were audio recorded. Framework analysis was used to analyze the focus group data.ResultsOlder people, including seven with dementia were able to interact with and implement design changes to SoW through aesthetic personalization. Themes arising from the data included estrangement, anthropomorphism, reminiscence, personalization, need for socialization versus fear of socialization and attitudes toward technology. After this brief exposure to SoW, residents expressed the likelihood of using video-calls for socialization in the future.ConclusionCare home residents enjoy engaging with new technologies when given the opportunity to interact with it, to personalize it and to understand its purpose. Low cost aesthetic personalization of technologies can improve their acceptability, usability, and implementation within complex care environments. (shrink)

More than any other early modern text, Montaigne's Essais have come to be associated with the emergence of a distinctively modern subjectivity, defined in opposition to the artifices of language and social performance. Felicity Green challenges this interpretation with a compelling revisionist reading of Montaigne's text, centred on one of his deepest but hitherto most neglected preoccupations: the need to secure for himself a sphere of liberty and independence that he can properly call his own, or himself. Montaigne and (...) the Life of Freedom restores the Essais to its historical context by examining the sources, character and significance of Montaigne's project of self-study. That project, as Green shows, reactivates and reshapes ancient practices of self-awareness and self-regulation, in order to establish the self as a space of inner refuge, tranquillity and dominion, free from the inward compulsion of the passions and from subjection to external objects, forces and persons. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze published two radical books on film: Cinema 1: The Movement-Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Engaging with a wide range of film styles, histories and theories, Deleuze's writings treat film as a new form of philosophy. This ciné-philosophy offers a startling new way of understanding the complexities of the moving image, its technical concerns and constraints as well as its psychological and political outcomes. Deleuze and Cinema presents a step-by-step guide to the key concepts behind Deleuze's revolutionary theory (...) of the cinema. Exploring ideas through key directors and genres, Deleuze's method is illustrated with examples drawn from American, British, continental European, Russian and Asian cinema. Deleuze and Cinema provides the first introductory guide to Deleuze's radical methodology for screen analysis. It will be invaluable for students and teachers of film theory, film history and film forms. (shrink)

This scoping review synthesized evidence on research ethics capacity development in Anglophone West Africa, aimed at evaluating approaches, achievements, and challenges, offering recommendations for future research ethics training in the sub-region. The “Population-Concept-Context” Framework guided eligibility criteria with searches conducted in EBSCOhost, Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, JBI Database of Systematic Review, and Google Scholar. Records available from 2000 to July 2024 were screened and abstracted in COVIDENCE. The review was conducted and reported per JBI methodology for scoping reviews and (...) PRISMA-ScR. Sixteen sources describing eight research ethics training programs in Anglophone West Africa were identified. Stakeholders involved in these capacity development programs included local institutions and organizations collaborating with institutions from the Global North. Funding was mainly from the Global North. Training programs were either degrees, fellowships, or workshops and contents were on research ethics, research integrity, research methods, community engagement, and protocol review. Challenges reported include trainees’ untimely completion of research projects, high cost of fees, and internet connectivity. Achievements were an increase in participants’ knowledge, their involvement in the entire research system, and the introduction of degree programs in local universities. Future research ethics capacity development should pay attention to local funding and South-South collaboration. There is a need to increase capacity development activity in the region. Such training activities will need to be reported, and lessons shared through open-access journals and databases thus reaching a wider audience. (shrink)

CareVisions (2022–2026) is an interdisciplinary researcj project reflecting on care experiences during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to re-imagine care relations, practices and policies in Irela...

This chapter examines the use of a web-based video conferencing tool, Zoom, and in particular, the use of breakout rooms as part of the online learning experience. We ask: what is it like for a learner to participate in a Zoom Breakout Room (ZBR) session? Using van Manen’s phenomenology of practice, we collected learners’ lived experience descriptions of participating in a ZBR, then reflected on them phenomenologically as a way to generate new insights into this now common online learning experience. (...) The study highlights different moments in ZBRs where learners navigate a virtual space marked by heavy-handed technological controls, disorientating transitions, peer-surveillance and self-monitoring, and episodes of meaningful engagement. The ZBR is revealed as a virtual learning environment that may facilitate intimate communication and collaboration, yet simultaneously amplify feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and conversational disruption. We conclude by reflecting on the intricate balance between connectivity and alienation in networked learning environments, inviting further contemplation on the ethical and pedagogical complexities of online educational spaces. (shrink)