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This chapter reflects on calls for and processes of the de-colonisation of academia and the study of media, communication and the digital. It asks: what does it mean to de-colonise academia and the study of media, communication and the digital? How can academia be transformed in progressive ways? This essay takes a Radical Humanist and Political Economy perspective on de-colonisation, which means that it is interested in how capitalism, power and material aspects of academia such as resources, money, infrastructures, time, space, working conditions and social relations of production shape the possibilities and realities of research and teaching. This essay stresses the importance of defining (neo-)colonialism as foundation of debates about de-colonisation and engages with theoretical foundations and definitions of (neo-)colonisation. It identifies how material forces and political economy shape and negatively impede on the university and academic knowledge production. It provides perspectives for concrete steps that can and should be taken for overcoming the capitalist and colonised university and creating the public interest and commons-oriented university and academic system.

This chapter develops Lefebvre’s concept of rhythmanalysis to investigate the ways super-diversity comes to life in the everyday city through the intersection of the spatial and temporal. The chapter explores the multicultural intimacies of streets in a London neighbourhood through a close ethnographic focus on rhythms and atmospheres using slow-motion video. The research contributes to an emerging field of visual ethnographic scholarship by presenting slow-motion video as a method to explore the ‘presence’ (Lefebvre, 2004) of super-diversity and conviviality on the street.

I argue that in slowing down the encounters of the street, slow-motion video shows the often overlooked sensible and affective elements of super-diverse urban space, the mundane interactions between bodies, materials and technologies that create a form of ‘convivial affect’. I argue that these everyday encounters are shaped by a situated politics of difference and yet are also mediated by wider rhythms and atmospheres, contributing to a sense of ‘social time’. I draw attention to both the human and non-human elements of the streets. These material and technological elements can uncover the wider discourses and circulatory regimes of atmospheres in urban super-diverse neighbourhoods, focussing on their relation to broader flows of capital, forms of postcolonial culture and translocality.

This research has implications for how we understand super-diversity and its manifestations in urban space. It encourages policymakers and academics to recognise the affective human and non-human encounters that are a crucial aspect of conviviality, the everyday ways we live together with difference.

Purpose — In the context of evaluating transportation and carbon emission policies, improve weekly activity and mobility scheduling survey methodology in order to enhance data quality while reducing costs and decreasing respondent burden for designing continuous self-administered surveys that are predominantly passive (or computer-assisted).

Approach — Evaluate a set of functionalities deployed in a web travel survey interface (2009) and compare with a pencil-and-paper survey (2002–2003) deployed in Quebec City that sought similar data about weekly mobility. The first used a pencil-and-paper approach complemented by interviews and telecommunications. The second used applets developed in Java, and Google Maps in order to assist geocoding of activity places and the reporting of actual trips into a relational database, while using email to recruit and support respondents.

Implications — Both of these surveys had to address specific technical and privacy challenges during deployment, making their comparison relevant for discussing some of the impacts of information technologies on spatiotemporal data quality, conviviality of survey procedure, respondents' motivation and privacy protection.

Limitations — While neither of these surveys employed movement-aware mobile devices, such as GPS loggers, some of the lessons learnt are relevant to the design issues raised by the increasing deployment of such devices in travel surveys, and by the growing need to manage complex surveys over extended observation periods.

The chapter is an auto-ethnographic account of the self-management of a chronic illness within the context of a participatory research project on Mediterranean Diet (MD). A group of Italian women with type 2 diabetes is following a non-medical, personal interpretation of the Mediterranean-style diet. The research account is preceded by a critical appraisal of the scientific narratives of the MD.

Analysis of epidemiological research on MD examines some methodological aspects of gender blindness in its scientific approach. The ethnography concerns self-management of MD diet and redefinition of gender relations.

MD is analyzed as a case of transplantation of yesterday’s cultural and social capitals of the peasant classes, to today’s discourses on food considered as appropriate for affluent people suffering from satiety diseases. The ethnography highlights gender aspects of biographical work, examining in particular a “conversion” dietary model.

The ethnography must be amplified to include women and men from different social classes with various Mediterranean cooking habits, and family and gender patterns.

The chapter highlights cultural processes for women’s empowerment in self-managing type 2 diabetes.

This chapter may represent a seminal sociological work on chronic illness, gender and food studies in one of the “native” contexts of the Mediterranean-style diet.

Human agents are constantly using “symbols,” according to G. H. Mead, or “signs,” as C. S. Peirce called them, to engage in what Mikhail Bakhtin has called “dialogues” with each other or with the environment. Such vehicles of communication are not freestanding ones but are drawn from specific and demarcated discursive formations. So drawn, these vehicles are then put to use, as Kenneth Burke has shown in his dramatistic perspective on human social life, as agencies used by human agents to construct acts, in defined situations or scenes – that is social situations and physical locations – to display given attitudes, in order to fulfill one purpose or another. Every human move that an individual makes has these Burkean features. Such moves are used to engage in either convivial dramas or confrontational ones.

The purpose of this research is to develop a scale that assesses place sustainability from the perspectives of residents, who are the main stakeholders. The resulting place sustainability scale (PSS) is a practical and useful tool for place administrators to measure place sustainability at all scales.

This research analyses the data collected from 636 residents in the town of Salaya in Central Thailand. To develop the scale, the authors randomise 318 samples to conduct an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and analyse the rest with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

A total of 11 factors of place sustainability were generated with 33 questionnaire items. Those factors were natural environment, social equity, economic growth, built environment, landscape, liveability, conviviality, transport, energy, water and waste management and governance.

The PSS can help place administrators, such as chief executives of sub-districts, mayors of town municipalities or governors of provinces, assess perceived sustainability from the perspectives of their residents. They can use this scale in conjunction with other sustainability indicators that calculate data from real variables and values to develop a comprehensive view of sustainability that includes both real and perceptual dimensions.

Numerous available indices and indicators use real variables and values to measure place sustainability. However, they have limitations: they can be complex and incomprehensible to outsiders or they might not support participative processes and policymaking. This research develops an alternative measure of place sustainability that assesses the perceptions of residents.

The purpose of this publication is to present a didactic concept with the targeted impact of a positive future vision. This paper reflects the effect of local educational action on the development of regionally optimised visions in rural regions of a European industrial state, compared with a rural region in the developing country of Senegal.

An assessment and analysis of two conceptual approaches to education and technology is conducted with a view to participating in a future multicultural participatory design process, and identifying the chances that communities have to build future‐oriented structures that support local roots and development.

In the short‐term, the technological and material results are the targeted localisation of a windmill in the (physical and cultural) countryside. In the long‐term, educative and social results are expected to strengthen local civil society, which is initiated by empowering students through their self‐responsibility in the Alpine region of Greifenburg, Austria. The “windmill” in the region is a publicly visible sign and a technology‐based icon in the landscape, based on local consensus on several levels and inspiring further regional consensus on energy, climate protection and its active creation through entrepreneurship in civil society.

Technology serves as a catalyst to trigger social cohesion among multiple cultures in a region and to enhance conviviality.

The purpose of this paper is to address a new method to evaluate the competitiveness of tourist destinations based on competitive performance from the consumers’ perspective. The main objective is to assess the sources of relative strength and weakness perceived in a destination, and to evaluate its performance vis-à-vis to the main competitors identified by tourists through measurement indexes.

The strengths and weaknesses of the focal destination were identified by plotting 12 tourism-specific variables (attractors) and 12 business-related variables in importance-performance matrix (IPA) grids. The set of destinations identified as “the main competitors” were built according to the frequency they were mentioned, and the indicators of competitiveness were estimated by averaging variables representing dimensions identified by exploratory-confirmatory factor analysis. The variables were aggregated into dimensions to permit comparisons in relation to the main competitors.

The results suggest that tourism-specific variables converge to “tourist attractions” and “conviviality,” and that business-related variables converge into “accessibility,” “infrastructure” and “macrostructure.” The competitiveness against competition was evaluated twice: by using an IPA grid to evaluate competition against “all others,” and by comparing the factors of performance across the most cited competitors. The results show that the focal destination surpasses most of its main competitors in conviviality, but has some deficiencies in tourist attractions, and that dimensions representing the business-related variables fit in the middle.

The authors acknowledge that competitive performance, used as surrogate for competitiveness, is fairly limited once it does not consider the supply side potential forces that also influence the destination competitiveness (DC) at large. But although limited to the demand side, the proxy used to assess (DC) is in accordance with previous literature.

The results have high value to DMO managers, especially to those ones involved in developing tourism attractions.

This research advances over previous works: by identifying the nearest competitors of a destination; and by representing the competitive distance between the focal destination and its main competitors.

Eventscape is widely recognised as having played an important role in the image of wine events; however, research on this topic is scarce, with only a few studies examining the image of a wine tourism event. To date, no studies have examined eventscape and attitudinal variables of a wine event together, thus indicating a gap in the research. Further research to gain a deeper understanding of the role these factors play is needed; thus, this paper aims to explore the relationships between event image, eventscape, satisfaction and loyalty in wine events.

A structured questionnaire was chosen for data collection, with a final sample of 117 valid responses. Qualitative data was analysed by means of content analysis. Univariate and bivariate statistical analyses were performed to analyse eventscape attributes and explore its relationship with event image, satisfaction and loyalty.

The paper highlights that perceptions of eventscape are intrinsically related to perceived event image and reveal a statistically significant relationship between these two elements. Results show the importance of the social dimension in the image perception of a wine event and point to conviviality as the main element. This study also reveals a relationship between perceived event image and attitudinal variables and suggests that having a positive image of the event positively influences levels of satisfaction, which are higher, and willingness to participate in future editions of the event. Findings also reveal a relationship between event image and loyalty.

Wine-related events are undergoing significant developments, creating a need for competitive strategies to develop wine tourism and vineyards in certain regions. Research in this field is scarce to date; therefore, this paper adds to the literature by the studying consumer behaviour of attendees at wine events.