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1 – 10 of over 3000The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end, particular attention is directed to how they have characterized everyday life as a constellation of work-related and non-work constituents.
Design/methodology/approach
Evolutionary concept analysis was conducted by focussing on 40 studies on the topic. It is examined how the conceptualizations of everyday life and the relationships between work-related and non-work constituents have been evolved since the 1990s. The analysis is based on the comparison of the similarities and differences between the characterizations of the above constituents.
Findings
Early conceptualizations of everyday life as a context of information behaviour were largely based on Savolainen's model for everyday life information seeking. Later studies have proposed a more holistic approach to everyday life in times when the boundaries between work-related and free-time activities have become blurred, due to the growing use of networked information technologies and telecommuting. Since the late 1990s, the understanding about the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour has become more nuanced; thanks to a more detailed identification of the overlaps of work-related and non-work constituents.
Research limitations/implications
As the study is based on a sample of studies examining the relationships of work-related and non-work constituents, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the contextual nature of everyday life as a whole.
Originality/value
The study pioneers by offering an in-depth analysis of the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour.
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Qazi Imran Ahmad, Nosheen Fatima Warraich and Amara Malik
This study aims to investigate the everyday life information seeking behavior of transgender people in Pakistan.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the everyday life information seeking behavior of transgender people in Pakistan.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative study, based on a survey design, was conducted to explore the everyday information needs of transgender people along with the types and frequency of using information sources. This study further explored the barriers to seeking everyday life information. Data were collected from 378 transgender people from Pakistan.
Findings
Music related information was the most important daily life information need and television appeared as one of the primary information sources frequently consulted by the transgender people. The respondents revealed a variety of challenges in accessing information including lack of education, lack of understanding about available information sources, biased treatment by the public and lack of technological skills. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was found in everyday information needs and sources consulted on the basis of their age and education.
Originality/value
The findings provide a guideline to educate information providers, government agencies and other stakeholders about the information needs of this marginalized community in Pakistan. This study also suggests ways in which stakeholder may improve information systems and services to better assist transgender people.
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Lucas Walsh, Catherine Waite, Beatriz Gallo Cordoba and Masha Mikola
During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing mandates forced many young Australians to radically alter everyday interactions. Physical co-presence and embodied…
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing mandates forced many young Australians to radically alter everyday interactions. Physical co-presence and embodied experience, a previously taken-for-granted dynamic of territorially embedded everyday lives, and interactions with urban surroundings, were reconfigured. Digital technology, while bringing people together for work, study, or socialising, is seen to dissolve material space, and mitigate geographic isolation. But what role does co-presence and embodied, spatially embedded experience play for young people living in the city? This chapter draws on the voices and experiences of young Australians aged 18–24 during the pandemic to clarify and understand the role of the digital in their everyday lives, how they negotiated disruptions to education, work, and managing relationships during the pandemic to articulate the relationships between digital lives and embodied experiences in the city.
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Forcibly displaced populations face economic, social, and spatial restrictions that impact how they navigate and make sense of their surroundings. In refugee camps, children and…
Abstract
Forcibly displaced populations face economic, social, and spatial restrictions that impact how they navigate and make sense of their surroundings. In refugee camps, children and youth’s agency may look less dynamic and obvious. In this study, the authors examine the concept of “thin agency” or “everyday agency” in children’s and youth’s daily decisions and actions in a highly restrictive environment. By analyzing written narratives of 55 adolescent girls in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the authors find that children and youth are constantly exercising agency and/or are actively involved in “agentic practices” on a spectrum consisting of three major categories: thinking, action, and change. Hence, the authors propose taking a balanced approach in the field of refugee education that recognizes not only the multiple complex challenges in forced displacement but also the capabilities and strengths embedded in both the personal and social sphere that help children and youth overcome those barriers.
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Trude Klevan, Reidun Jonassen and Marit Borg
The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of what is experienced in mental health recovery-oriented places and how these characteristics can facilitate social…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of what is experienced in mental health recovery-oriented places and how these characteristics can facilitate social connections and participation.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study has an explorative, interpretive and collaborative design. Dyadic interviews and participatory fieldwork observations were used as methods for data generation. Data were analyzed using a collaborative hermeneutic approach.
Findings
Characteristics of recovery-nurturing places involved how concrete and tangible features of place may nurture and enable actions and ways of being with oneself and others. Three broad themes explore the characteristics and how they can enable recovery: nurturing senses, nurturing practical skills and nurturing communication.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates how materiality and recovery are interconnected and expands the understanding of recovery as “in-the-mind processes.” It explores how places and material objects have a recovery-nurturing potential through enabling actions and participation and thereby supporting people in living, storying and restorying their lives.
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The aim of this paper is to outline how public managers' reflective thinking capacity is developed through integration of education and practice using a real-life organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to outline how public managers' reflective thinking capacity is developed through integration of education and practice using a real-life organizational problem as the educational starting point. Managers' reflective thinking capacity becomes important due to an increasing organizational complexity and the growing trend of introducing post-new public management paradigms.
Design/methodology/approach
Inspired by Brinkmann's (2012) approach to the inquiry on everyday life materials, semi-structured interviews were conducted with public managers taking a public management program. A phenomenologically inspired content analysis was applied in the process of scrutinizing the findings, subsequently informing the discussion on the development of problem solving through public management education.
Findings
The analysis indicates that the managers' pre-understanding of continuing education at the university level, managers' personal objectives, along with a growing experience with and insights into problem-based learning (PBL), appear to facilitate managers' integration of theory and practice. As revealed in this paper, an inquiry that integrates daily organizational practice and theoretical models and terms, as the origin of the personal development module, seems to facilitate managers' reflective thinking and self-reflexivity.
Originality/value
This paper illustrates that learning processes facilitated by seminars like the personal development module (PDM) not only facilitates the development of reflective thinking, but managers also seem to develop competencies in self-reflexivity – the latter being an underdeveloped element of Dewey's (1933) notion of reflective thinking. Thus, further theoretical and empirical research is needed to explore the potentials of developing a pragmatically inspired notion that offers an understanding of managers' self-reflexivity. By inquiring about managerial puzzlements through a personal development lens, a self-reflective focus adds to the Dewey-inspired approach to reflective thinking.
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Informal conversational encounters are explored using free indirect discourse (FID) as a novel storytelling method to gain a multi-generational understanding of the experiences of…
Abstract
Informal conversational encounters are explored using free indirect discourse (FID) as a novel storytelling method to gain a multi-generational understanding of the experiences of women working in public relations (PR) in 1960s/1970s Britain.
Echoing a literary tradition, anonymised transcripts of recordings provide impressionist accounts that immerse the reader in the thoughts and feelings of novelistic characters. An informal network of women narrate their stories with a much younger listener enabling exploration of intergenerational relationships and the intersection of gender and age.
This unstructured approach develops a complex yet natural flow to create unique withness-understandings. The author/narrator introduces a conception of informal conversational encounters, supporting an organic approach of interweaving storying, everyday performance, situated accountings, narrative unfoldings and inside/outside points of view.
An interplay of multiple female voices reveals a degree of symmetry in fractal patterns of women's early career experiences over the duration of a generation. Facilitation of sense-making through intergenerational conversations connects with Mannheim's theory of generational unity.
Women's beginnings of PR careers in 1960s/1970s Britain demonstrate a liberal feminist perspective in taking responsibility for their careers and enjoyment beyond the workplace in a man's world.
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