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My ‘lost project’ is captured in a recollection of a senior school ball, my final ethnographic encounter following 15 months of fieldwork in a middle class government high school, from which students barely get a mention in any of the publications stemming out of the overall project. Two questions are pursued in the paper, focused firstly on why students were ignored in the final rendering of my doctoral research and why I continued to continue to research student groups so actively right up to the end point of the project? Attributing this apparently contradictory set of circumstances to an anthropological commitment to holism that eschews the smallness of studies of groups and sites and fail to take account of broader socio-political contexts, the author is content enough in acknowledging that insights reported here would not have emerged without an ongoing commitment to an engaged holism throughout the whole of the project.

Various philosophers and thinkers have discussed the importance of thinking and philosophising about the concept of ‘place’. A necessary structure of human experience, place is vital to the very foundation of human experience. More than the geography or arrangement of places, place is a concept that moulds human experience and contributes to understanding oneself and the world. Place has also been used to explain political motivations and issues such as citizenship, diaspora and migration. Despite its importance, place has not been problematised enough and has been neglected in studies of intersectionality. For instance, the role and influence of place in a person's diversity wheel and the interlocking web of oppressive structures have been reduced to either racial, class or gender categories. As a result, current critical theories fall short in drawing up the effects of place on intersectionality. This chapter, therefore, proposes the need to develop a critical place theory. It highlights the role that place-aspects play in the oppression and marginalisation of individuals. Moreover, it also examines the relatively new concept of placism as an analytical framework that can be used to explain varying oppressive placial structures.

The Chinese electricity sector is in the midst of a transition from a state-owned monopoly to a market-oriented structural unbundling. In the process of restructuring, the power system is facing significant deficiencies which hinder integration of sustainable solutions and dramatically impact the environment.

The chapter provides a qualitative analysis of the legislative, regulatory, and administrative provisions that have been recently implemented in the Chinese electricity sector, in order to identify the barriers that limit implementation of sustainable solutions and suggest prospects of change.

Despite a strong commitment to renewable energy, integration of sustainable solutions in the Chinese power system is hampered by an inefficient coordination between the players variously operating in the electricity sector and a lack of consistency at the regulatory design stage.

A clear picture of the legislative, regulatory, and administrative inconsistencies that characterize the Chinese electricity sector may help Chinese policy makers to overcome issues that hinder efficiency and hence develop a systemic approach useful to make the economic growth sustainable.

The chapter considers integration of sustainable solutions as related to the policy makers’ ability to conceptualize systemic efficiency in relation to an original understanding of proximity between efficient energy systems to be developed on a regional basis.

Transport governance is dependent on, and works through, legally defined or socially accepted categories that are challenged by the technological and business disruptions that characterize smart mobility. This chapter explores the dynamic interactions between the categories of transport governance and new (disruptive) forms of mobility, using a framework that highlights the ways governance solutions are influenced by how problems are framed. The argument is made through two empirical cases – of car sharing and motorized (electric) personal mobility devices. Car sharing emerged quietly onto the transport landscape in Australia, and has been accommodated and facilitated by local government parking policies. In this case, the tools for governing smart mobility already existed, and became adaptable to new imperatives. Personal mobility devices (PMDs), battery-powered motorized devices designed to be used by an individual on footpaths or shared user paths, are neither common nor legal on many roads or footpaths. The process through which PMDs became regulated in the Australian state of Queensland is used to illustrate the ways in which ‘epistemic experimentation’ can challenge regulatory framings and foster the introduction of new forms of smart mobility. The chapter concludes that smart mobility both disrupts and confirms dominant framings of transport governance, especially in relation to automobility, and that further challenges will need to be met as autonomous vehicles become more widespread across transport infrastructure.

In this chapter, we consider some of the key ideas that impact on the creation of online learning environments. By exploring some aspects of theory, namely connectivism and its relation to wider ideas of community-building, heutagogy, and motivation, we articulate some of the factors that have influenced the authors’ practice in creating online learning. We illustrate these influences by outlining examples of three courses which we have been party to creating, so that interlinked theory and practice are in evidence. By looking at a teacher education program, a childhood practice program, and a short access course, we provide examples of some of the ways in which we have scaffolded the development of learning communities, encouraged students to have autonomy over the direction of their learning, and engaged students to maintain their motivation for learning. At times, these three dimensions are interpenetrating, and in two of our case studies, longevity and ongoing improvements have enabled the authors to have confidence in the quality and value of these courses, while the third focuses on a newly created course.

This chapter presents the principal interpretations that took place in Denmark and Sweden regarding the discourse on ‘Diversity Management’. We organise our presentation around three major themes that are central to the local Scandinavian context: gender equality, migration and moral grounds. This chapter shows the important role of gender equality work practices and how these practices now tend to be progressively incorporated in a broad Diversity Management construct, possibly leading to a less radical stance. Moreover, the comparison between Denmark and Sweden reveals the political associations with Diversity Management and migration in Denmark, but not in Sweden. Our third contribution unveils the tensions between the value of equality, which remains strong in the Scandinavian welfare state model, and the actual practices of Diversity Management.