Search results for "Economic Geography"

How Smart Cities Explore New Technologies

2019

The concept of smart city is considered as a new paradigm of urban development. Information and communication technologies are expected to transform cities into smart cities and improve the citizens’ quality of life. However, smart city initiatives still have difficulties to leverage value from technology opportunities. How smart city initiatives examine the possibilities of new technologies is therefore a highly interesting question. Based on a multiple case study we identify two different approaches and factors that influence the choice of approach: Cities either initially focus on use cases solving urban challenges, or on a systematic build-up of a technological platform for future use c…

Digital innovations in rural micro-enterprises

2020

Digitalization gives micro-enterprises and rural areas new possibilities and it can support their competitiveness. In this paper, we have presented one way of supporting the diffusion and adoption of digital innovations in rural micro-enterprises. First, we examined the challenges and digital competence of the micro-enterprises in the rural areas of Central Finland to better understand what they needed. The second step was to develop a workshop concept. Theories of innovation diffusion and adoption were used as a base for these workshops. The last step was to evaluate the developed concept, its effects and challenges. We found that the workshop concept worked well for spreading information,…

Topographische Nachrichten von Lief- und Ehstland [Topographische Nachrichten von Liv- und Estland], 2. Band

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Latvian Migrants in Foreign Labour Markets: Job Placement and Discrimination

2019

AbstractThe majority of migrants from Latvia move abroad intending to work, and so fall into the category of ‘work migrants’. A crucial role in their job placement is played by an increasingly complex network of intermediaries. This includes formal employment agencies, more informal, social network-based mediators and even illegal service providers. Despite the agencies providing job placements abroad being subject to regulations, fraud and the mistreatment of jobseekers has emerged as a cause for concern. Even when there is no ill will from the intermediaries, immigrant workers often suffer discrimination from their employers, sometimes leading to a re-evaluation of their return migration …

Waterfront Redevelopment in Post-America’s Cup Valencia: Some Insights from a Survey to Local Residents

2018

AbstractWaterfront renewal is a recurrent event in the life of many cities around the world. Traditionally, planners and geographers have focused on this phenomenon analyzing the ongoing relationsh...

The urban being between environment and landscape. On the old town as an emerging subject

2018

The landscape units of the Sicilian mountainous inland, as for the case of Petralia Soprana, are marked by the presence of ancient urban centres controlling the agricultural territory, from which they derived their own wealth, and to which they conferred landscape significance. The unity between economy and landscape has been interrupted by the radical transformation of the socio-economic structure and the technologic progress, which have eroded the consistency between structures and superstructures. We propose an assessment approach based on a synthesis of semiotic and phenomenological view. The approach mainly focuses on the basic concepts and contents of the valuation process that can be…

Landscape of Exception as Spatial and Social Interaction Between High-Quality Agricultural Production and Immigrant Labour Exploitation

2021

This Chapter analyses the spatial and social interaction phenomena between high-quality agricultural production and immigrant labour exploita- tion that produce the landscape of exception, a particular declination of the Agambenian (2005) “state of exception” concept. The landscape of exception construction mechanism is generated within South-Eastern Sicily through the productive system of greenhouses, finalised to the vegetables production. Green- houses, in particular, represent an effective tool for spatial manipulation over the landscape and social control of migrant workers. In relation to these considerations, this work reflects on ethical challenges and dilemmas of planning, highligh…

Wrong Hand, Wrong Children? The Education of Left-Handed Children in Soviet Latvia

2019

Left-handers have always been surrounded by stigma and controversy, and attitudes toward this group have always been rooted in the ideas and traditions of power relations existing in a given society. Thus, the goal of this study is to describe the retraining of left-handers as it was conducted in Soviet education. The impact of political power on an individual’s body-mind interaction is a significant problem in research on the creation of the “New Soviet Man.” The teaching of left-handed children in the Soviet Union is a noteworthy example of the totalitarian regime’s illusionary endeavors to change human nature. The Soviet education envisaged neither a special attitude nor any particular p…

Tokooos! as a linguistic fashion: The recontextualization and appropriation of Lingala youth language

2020

Abstract This paper focuses on Lingala youth language (Bantu; DR Congo) and its recontextualization and use in the media and advertising industry, promoting music(ians), lifestyle products and telecommunication companies. Adolescents’ linguistic practices are often picked up and diffused by musicians and other public individuals, or at times even appropriated by them. This is exemplified by the innovative expression tokooos, which was used and diffused by the Congolese musician Fally Ipupa. The paper discusses the changing youth language practice Lingala ya Bayankee/Yanké from in-group language (of Congolese street-based adolescents) to a recontextualized commodified register, diffused beyo…

Análisis del discurso, ideología y neologismos: 'turismofobia', 'turistización' y 'turistificación' en el punto de mira

2019

espanolEsta investigacion analiza tres neologismos recientes: turismofobia, turistificacion y turistizacion. Se pretende comprobar su posible funcionamiento como herramientas linguisticas al servicio de una construccion ideologica. Para ello, a partir de una encuesta psicolinguistica a una muestra de hablantes se observa, en primer lugar, como interpretaria el receptor los tres neologismos, teniendo en cuenta unicamente la vertiente denominativa: el distinto proceso de formacion implicado (como composicion o sufijacion). En segundo lugar, se describen los neologismos registrados en medios de comunicacion digitales (periodicos y blogs) para consignar en cada cotexto discursivo cinco aspectos…