Search results

As the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan celebrates its first centenary, this paper presents a critical reading of the development of architecture in the Kingdom reflecting the transformation of national identity.

The paper achieves this aim by performing an analytical diachronic survey of the main architectural styles and trends that emerged in Jordan and links the architectural styles and trends to four main historical periods that characterize the national temporal trajectory, supported by examples of buildings, projects and architects that represent each period.

The results show the impacts of different forms of architectural modernism on local practice and explore attempts to create a national architectural identity that range in their ideological drive from Pan-Arabism to Jordanian localism.

The research adds to the discourse on Arab cities and architecture and shows the development of architectural trends in an Arab Muslim country, focusing on the interaction of architectural modernism with local variables. The research aims to supplement literature on Arab architecture with a critical and nuanced historical account of Jordanian architecture in the English language to serve a global audience.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how accountability and transparency was used to inform the local community and support the decision-making of the Surf Coast Shire (SCS) with respect to the development of an aquatic and health centre.

This project investigates a case study of a proposed aquatic and leisure centre located within the SCS (Victoria-Australia). The paper draws on content analysis and an interpretative approach to critically analyse publicly available archival documents sourced from the SCS, consultant reports and the popular press.

Providing extensive disclosure for a major capital works project and engaging the community to determine support for such a project was undertaken for reasons of accountability and transparency. However, community feedback has provided evidence of divisions between and within local township communities.

This project illustrates that being transparent and communicating accounting information via different forums can create significant community engagement to facilitate council decision-making albeit at a cost to some social disharmony.

It is typical for local councils to prepare budgets that inform the community how funds will be expended. In this case, the council has sought feedback from the community before a capital-intensive decision has been made. This approach extends the notion of accountability by disclosing managements’ decision-making apparatus.

This paper aims to elucidate perceptions of safe driving and social norms in relation to driving motorbikes in the Vietnamese context.

A series of focus groups was undertaken in relation to driving practices from a number of groups: adolescents, families and adult males and females. The discussion centred on how driving behaviours were socialised within the various groups.

The research highlighted some very interesting social dynamics in relation to how safe driving habits are established and supported within the social context. In particular, the separation of descriptive and injunctive norms and the role such norms play in socialising driving behaviours, safe or otherwise.

The implications for social marketing practice are considerable, especially in the Vietnamese context where injunctive norms are difficult to portray, given the dynamics of the media landscape. Social marketing campaigns will need to have a broader consideration of how to establish descriptive norms, bearing in mind the social milieu in which the behaviours occur.

This research is the first of its kind in the Vietnamese context. While much practice-led innovation is occurring in the region, there is little extant research on the topic of social norms and the socialisation of behaviours within the Southeast Asian region.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

THIS YEAR — that seemed like a New Year (as indeed it was) not so long ago is already a third gone. We can wonder at its speed of passing, and wonder, too, what it will have in store for us for the rest of the time before us.