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How to conceptualize online sociability in the 21st century? To answer this question, Communities at a Crossroads looks back at the mid-2000s. With the burst of the creative-entrepreneur alliance, the territorialisation of the internet and the commercialization of interpersonal ties, that period constituted a turning point for digital communitarian cultures. Many of the techno-libertarian culture’s utopias underpinning the ideas for online sociability faced systematic counter evidence. This change in paradigm has still consequences today.Avoiding both empty invocations of community and swift conclusions of doom, Annalisa Pelizza investigates the theories of actions that have underpinned the development of techno-social digital assemblages after the ‘golden age’ of online communities. Communities at a Crossroads draws upon the analysis of Ars Electronica’s Digital Communities archive, which is the largest of its kind worldwide, and in doing so presents a multi-faceted picture of internet sociability between the two centuries.Privileging an anti-essentialist, performative approach over sociological understandings of online communities, Communities at a Crossroads proposes a radical epistemological turn. It argues that in order to conceptualize contemporary online sociability, we need first to abandon the techno-libertarian communalist rhetoric. Then, it is necessary to move beyond the foundational distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, and adopt a material semiotic approach. In the end, we might have to relinquish the effort to define online or digital communities and engage in more meaningful mapping exercises.
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Hoofdstuk in Progression in forensic Psychiatry: About Boundaries van prof. mr. Marc Groenhuijsen en prof. dr. T.I. Oei. As a young adolescent the man started using soft drugs and as a result was expelled from school. Following a registration with RIAGG he was placed in a children’s home for some years. From the age of twenty he was a frequent substance user. He got hold of these substances because his father was a dealer. There were contacts with psychiatrists and psychologists and he was on an anti-psychotic medication that is prescribed with schizophrenia. Over a period of eight years he was admitted eight times to a psychiatric hospital with diagnoses such as recurring paranoid schizophrenia, recurring poly-hard drugs use and ADHD. During his hospitalizations he took no medication, did not satisfactorily comply with agreements and frequently withdrew from treatment prematurely in spite of advice to the contrary. He was ultimately given Tbs (1). In the introduction of a theme issue on Mental Health Care and Justice of Justitiële Verkenningen [Judicial explorations] from 1991 concerning such a track record it was stated that many stories can be told about it. “Two of them have farreaching consequences. From the point of view of the judiciary the track record is evaluated as to the degree of guilt casu quo attribution and the need to make society secure. From the point of view of mental health care a person with a mental disorder committed an offence as a result of his condition and needs help” (2) Dangerous or mad, that is the division that is sectorially made.
In view of the 75th commemoration of the liberation of World War II, Visit Brabant asked BUas to connect the main heritage locations in the province through storytelling in order to attract more visitors.In 2015, we developed a narrative concept entitled “Crossroads. Life changing stories 40-45”. In 2016, we developed a brand guide which explains storytelling guidelines. In collaboration with Brabant Heritage and Brabant Remembers, in 2017-208, 15 meetings were organized all over the province to collect personal WWII narratives. From over 600 narratives, together with a group of historians, we selected 75 narratives. Under our guidance, these 75 narratives have been rewritten into Crossroads stories by some 20 different authors. Brabant Remembers has launched a marketing campaign and (digital and physical) experiences based on these stories. The aim is to touch visitors and local people emotionally with personal stories from the past, and to offer new ways of interacting with these stories, especially for young people.WhenThe project has been running since 2015. We currently play an advisory role in the development of the Brabant Remembers app (for example augmented reality videos), and in physical products such as the Dilemma Maze and the Stilllevens of Studio Verdult.Partners: Visit Brabant, Brabant Remembers, Erfgoed Brabant, Stichting Crossroads