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On this beautiful and complicated planet that we humans call "Home," performing arts and entertainment sustain us during times of crisis. This is discussed through my lens as an actor and instructor of performance and theater history. We have gathered to hear and tell stories and entertain for ten thousand years in groups of one form or another. Throughout history, we have been repeatedly put through incredible hardships, natural challenges, devastating wars, plagues, and diseases. Yet we have always managed to survive, to overcome, and to carry on. As advances are made in Science and Medicine, the great and sweeping mortality rates of the early plagues and global pandemics, including the Spanish Flu epidemic, have been mitigated - thankfully - but the battle continues. We shall look at how through successive generations, faced with insurmountable deprivations, the wholesale destruction of life and property, during times when hope had been almost crushed and no one could see a way out, life has carried on. Poets still wrote, often more eloquently than in times of peace;theater, shows, and operas were still mounted;television programs and films continued to get made. These have often carried poignant messages and clarification of our problems, challenging us to look at things another way, using our minds, words, and images to make things better. Their relevance is examined historically here during these critical times of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
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The usual crisis mode of economic operations in Palestine intersects with the adverse consequences of COVID-19 and necessitates an innovative response to survive. This research builds on potential synergies between industry and university to expand the Palestinian agriculture sector resilience. We report on an explorative study that sought to understand the reality of the university–industry linkages (UILs) by considering information and experience gathered from 29 interviews in January 2020 and April 2021. Interviewees represent five key actor groups: farmers and agribusinesses, private institutions, universities, the Ministry of Agriculture, and NGOs. Content analysis revealed a nascent collaboration scope and uncovered the lack of a confident attitude among farmers towards agriculture research efforts, the poor communication performance, and misalignment of purpose. University actors need to encompass the UILs in their mission and touch farmers' needs by providing novelty evidence research. Yet, farmers and agribusinesses may take the initiative to communicate their problems and search for renovation. We developed a framework of underpinnings to enhance collaboration and a healthier agriculture sector. We suggest activating the cooperatives and diversifying farmers' income as deemed more resilient to face the pandemic.
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This research aims to analyze the resilience of humanitarian supply chains, with a focus on the role of information systems, through a case study of Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique during the COVID-19 pandemic. The empirical research methodology is based on a qualitative study, which includes semi-structured interviews with key actors and operators from the Médecins Sans Frontières Logistique during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 and 2021. The paper highlights the crucial and inherent role of information systems on each of the four dimensions of humanitarian supply chain resilience: reorganization capacity, collaboration, flexibility, and humanitarian culture. Drawing on recent theoretical works on supply chain resilience as well as empirical results, the paper underscores the importance of information systems and proposes a conceptual model of the relationship between humanitarian supply chain resilience and the role of information systems. The value of this research is linked to its empirical and qualitative study of a Non-Governmental Organization logistics operation during an international crisis, which contributes not only to the literature on resilience, but also provides guidance for managers to target their actions responsively and proactively to enhance resilience over time.. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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In this note, we present the preliminary findings from a qualitative interview-based study among migrant workers in India who went through much hardship in the wake of one of most strict pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020. Through this study, we narrate the four ways in which digital technologies enabled the relief and crisis mitigation efforts targeted to migrant workers and how that in turn shaped the workers' experience of the crisis and associated relief efforts. We argue that more flexible use of familiar digital tools and channels, collaboration across state and non-state actors and assistance from human intermediaries in navigating ICTs make for more effective and inclusive relief measures. © 2022 ACM.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the creation of vaccination passports as a means of verifying an individual's vaccination status for travel and access to certain services. The validity of immunization records and supply chain procedures, however, are significant issues. The supply chain for vaccination passports has been called for to be made more secure and transparent using blockchain technology. To ensure safe and effective supply chain management, this article suggests a blockchain-based authentication mechanism for vaccination passports. The issuer, the prover, and the verifier will be the system's three key actors. The issuer will be in charge of producing inventory tokens and providing immunization certificates. The prover will verify the authenticity of the vaccination supply chain, and the verifier will ensure that the inventory token is legitimate. The proposed system will enhance transparency, security, and efficiency in the supply chain for vaccination passports, thereby improving the trustworthiness of vaccination records and facilitating safe travel during the pandemic. © 2023 IEEE.
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This study aims to provide insights into the transformation of retail caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, using the Swedish fashion industry as an example. In an institutional perspective, combined with Actor-network theory, both new actors and the changing role of existing ones were identified as influencing how the market was organised. An empirical field study of the Swedish fashion industry has illustrated the changes caused to retail by the outbreak of COVID-19, and the subsequent actions taken to limit its spread. Interviews with and observations of retailers' actions contributed to a more in-depth understanding of the changes caused to retail. The study finds that the market was subject to two exogenous shocks: Firstly, that a non-human actor, i.e. the COVID-19 virus, influenced the Swedish fashion market in combination with humans and secondly, that new actors entered the market and influenced its organisation. This has led to a situation where digitalisation has accelerated and experience design has stagnated, and there has also been a re-definition of sustainability. Using an institutional perspective, combined with thick descriptions of the empirical material, this study challenges the existing narrow understanding, i.e., that the actors in the field are barely tied together as supply chains or networks, by including non-human actors in its analysis. This allows us to gain a greater understanding of how a virus and its antagonists have had a major impact on the organisation of the field, in turn having consequences on the trends prominent in the fashion retail industry before the outbreak of COVID-19.
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Before COVID, directors often deployed such elements to disrupt traditional theatre by staging site-specific pieces or having actors lip-sync recordings of absent others. Despite being forced to live in appalling conditions in an abandoned mental hospital with countless infected strangers, this resourceful woman never lost her vision or compassion. A central intercom announced that leaving the hospital would result in death.
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Discourse concerning the Atlanta Spa Shootings, which happened around the time that this issue first started to come together in March of 2021, has renewed the urgency of thinking about performance and feminism together.1 Given that this issue's publication roughly coincides with the first anniversary of those murders, the violent events in Atlanta have loomed in the background of the editorial process. [...]although the essays in this issue address quite distinct forms of performance and paratheatrical phenomena from state surveillance to fan groups to online participatory audiences, all of the essays use feminist methodologies either explicitly or implicitly. [...]this editorial highlights some of their convergences to think through how the interventions of each author might speak to a feminist knowledge project that is critical in this historical moment. Fans watch events transpire in Wanda's magically created world, which is itself surveyed in the narrative by an extra-governmental agency (elaborated in the comic books if not so much in the television miniseries itself);these source materials give Wanda and Vision their names and provide many backstories for the roster of secondary characters. Barnette suggests that the series also provided a platform to see the ethical conundrums of real-life individuals whose positions of power grant their words authority;witness former president Donald Trump inciting the attack on the Capitol.
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See PDF ] Jitney, part of Wilson's American Century Cycle exploring African American life in each decade of the twentieth century, directly explores notions of community through its depiction of a group of jitney drivers, men who use their own vehicles to provide rides to those in need of them. While it initially seemed incongruous to see Jitney with its realistic interior setting in an outdoor performance venue, the sense of strangeness faded quickly as the production began. [...]performing outside a conventional theatre space made the production viable in a city in which the Delta variant precipitated a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases during its run. During the exorcism scene, for instance, Sir Toby drenched Malvolio with liquid sprayed from a large plastic container labeled "Holy Water," and Feste performed a toe-tapping number, "Devil Be Gone," backed by an enthusiastic red-robed gospel choir.
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Hansol Jung's Wolf Play, which finally had its New York premiere at Soho Rep in 2022 after a two-year postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, revolves around the experiences of an 8-year-old Korean child called Wolf, who was adopted by a white heterosexual couple, Peter and his wife Katie, and, at the beginning of the play, is being illegally relinquished to a lesbian couple, Ash and Robin. Whereas the 2019 Chicago-based Gift Theatre Company's production of Wolf Play was presented on a proscenium stage, this new version at Soho Rep specifically arranged the space to highlight the confrontational nature of this scene. Biased against the lesbian couple and without taking Wolf into consideration, the court ruled in the "best interest" of the child, stating that Wolf's guardianship fell under the authority of the state.
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The Zoom format was not only expedient, but also essential to The Plague: it enabled Wang to foster international solidarity while at the same time threatened to turn the production into a performance of precarity, which echoed our shared struggle in a global pandemic. The daring experiment of staging a live performance across five time zones also came at a cost: minor technical glitches, freezes, and time lags transpired in the performance that I saw. [...]eating the food that they prepared at the beginning of the performance, they revisited the moment when the everyday and the theatrical overlapped and bade goodbye to audience members who bore witness to the fight together.
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The social, economic, and political crises in Zimbabwe have resulted in extreme poverty and the female-headed families are no exception. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated poverty and food insecurity in rural households. This sudden shock was not anticipated, and many governments failed to sustain livelihoods for smallholder farmers who relied solely on farming activities and selling of farm produce. The state has failed to fulfil its basic mandate of social service provision to the most vulnerable sections of society. Consequently, the Basic Agricultural Assistance programme was introduced as a microeconomic stability tool to buffer income risks faced by the poor. The article aimed to discuss the experiences of female-headed households in the Adventist Development and Relief Agency cash transfer Programme in Nganunu Village in Zvishavane. A phenomenological research approach through an exploratory qualitative research design was used to get in-depth insights on the experiences of female-headed households. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. Content thematic analysis was used to analyse data. Findings indicated that despite health, political and economic crises, the implementation of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency cash transfer was a success in bridging the gap left by the collapse of the social welfare system. The cash transfer programme empowered female-headed households to access agricultural inputs timeously. Female-headed households were capacitated to make decisions and improve food security in and to initiate social cohesion with other beneficiaries. The study recommended inter-sectoral collaborations between state and non-state actors for more effective programmes that cushion female-headed households from poverty.
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long sought to influence media coverage about China in other countries. Over the past decade, this campaign has accelerated, reaching new world regions and topics. This article examines how CCP-linked actors seek to manipulate foreign information environments in four key ways: disseminating propaganda, spreading disinformation, censoring critical coverage, and controlling the infrastructure used to convey news. This article considers which efforts have yielded gains for the regime, obstacles that Beijing has encountered, and the response of nongovernmental actors. It concludes by considering how to enhance democratic resilience to the covert and coercive dimensions of the CCP's global media influence.
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China has recently declared its role as a leading developing country in actively practicing carbon neutrality. In fact, its carbon-neutral policy has accelerated from a gradual and macroscopic perspective and has been actively pursued given the changes not only in the overall social system but also in its impact on various stakeholders. This study analyzed the patterns of carbon neutrality (CN) and the actors of policy promotion in China from a long-term perspective. It collected policy discourses related to CN posted on Chinese websites from 2000 to 2022 and conducted text mining and network analysis. The results revealed that the pattern of CN promotion in China followed an exploration-demonstration-industrialization-digitalization model, similar to other policies. Moreover, the policy promotion sector developed in the direction of unification-diversification-specialization. Analysis of policy promotion actors found that enterprises are the key driver of continuous CN. In addition, the public emerged as a critical actor in promoting CN during the 12th-13th Five-Year Plans (2011-2020). Moreover, the central government emerged as a key driving actor of CN during the 14th Five-Year Plan. This was a result of the emphasis on efficiency in the timing and mission process of achieving CN. Furthermore, based on the experience of COVID-19, the rapid transition of Chinese society toward CN emphasizes the need for a central government with strong executive power. Based on these results, this study presents constructive suggestions for carbon-neutral development in China.
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Partnerships between Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and the local government are crucial to ensure optimal governance at the local level. In the last 2 decades in Bangladesh, NGOs have become essential actors in local development and governance. The present study investigated the role of NGOs for ensuring local governance in Bangladesh during the post-pandemic era. Periphery areas (two sub-districts) of the Natore District were selected for the field study. The qualitative analysis was mainly based on primary data. Four categories of respondents were targeted, namely NGOs (11), elected representatives and government officials (28), local elites (20) and general citizens (64) belonging to different genders, and educational and economic levels. In depth interviews, survey questionnaires and focus group discussions were used as the tools for collecting data from sampled respondents. Focus was placed on eleven issues including five development and administration related, five political and participation related, and management of the COVID-19 crisis. A qualitative matrix for the performance of NGOs on governance issues from the perspective of other actors in governance-local elected representatives and executive, local elites and general citizens was developed. The matrix revealed an optimistic story for NGO partnerships and social and governing issues such as women empowerment, disaster management, environment conservation, support during COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, indicators such as vote and election, people's awareness, dispute resolution, local tax collection and budget making revealed that the NGOs need to work more with the local government to ensure participation in the processes of governance. The findings directly from the peripheral field were not only based on investigation of the NGOs but also included the perception of other actors of governance so these results can definitely contribute to national social policy reforms and revision of NGO strategies. © 2023, The Japan Section of the Regional Science Association International.
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Cross sector collaboration, particularly the use of Multi-Sectorial Partnerships, has recently developed as a crucial element of efforts to deliver and improve public service outcomes across developing countries. Yet for collaborations initiated to respond to emergencies, these have to cope with both a fluid problem and the context of operation. We utilise a literature grounded framework and draw on publicly accessible data on the empirical case study of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NTF) in Uganda to discern important considerations for effective governance of cross-sector initiatives in emergencies. Based on the analysis, we argue that a careful mix of considerations in the structures, processes and actors realms enable collaborative initiatives to remain effective in a continually evolving and wide scale response in emergency contexts. We specifically underscore the primacy of the adoption of whole-of-government approach, cascading of identical collaboration structures to lower levels of government, adoption of a unified communication strategy, participatory resource mobilisation and active involvement of initiative's champions. We have reinforced the enduring relevance of cross-sector initiatives for addressing wicked problems, foreshadowed ingredients for more agile partnerships and mainstreamed the consideration of evolving context in the collaboration discourse. © 2022 Kemi Ogunyemi and Adaora I. Onaga. All rights reserved.
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Purpose: At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the absence of pharmaceutical agents meant that policy institutions had to intervene by providing nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). To satisfy this need, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued policy guidelines, such as NPIs, and the government of Pakistan released its own policy document that included social distancing (SD) as a containment measure. This study explores the policy actors and their role in implementing SD as an NPI in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopted the constructs of Normalization Process Theory (NPT) to explore the implementation of SD as a complex and novel healthcare intervention under a qualitative study design. Data were collected through document analysis and interviews, and analysed under framework analysis protocols. Findings: The intervention actors (IAs), including healthcare providers, district management agents, and staff from other departments, were active in implementation in the local context. It was observed that healthcare providers integrated SD into their professional lives through a higher level of collective action and reflexive monitoring. However, the results suggest that more coherence and cognitive participation are required for integration. Originality/value: This novel research offers original and exclusive scenario narratives that satisfy the recent calls of the neo-implementation paradigm, and provides suggestions for managing the implementation impediments during the pandemic. The paper fills the implementation literature gap by exploring the normalisation process and designing a contextual framework for developing countries to implement guidelines for pandemics and healthcare crises. © 2023, Muhammad Fayyaz Nazir, Ellen Wayenberg and Shahzadah Fahed Qureshi.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a social drama in which churches, government, and individual actors have played prominent roles. While neo-conservative evangelicals have resisted governmental and scientific overreach in the name of "faith over fear”, liberal religious groups have joined in government and medical efforts for the good of the commons, offered comfort and assurance to those suffering, and called for support of the poor at home and abroad. Religions have turned right and left, from apocalyptic "resets” of global order to new calls for social justice. In this context, the root metaphor of the epidemic has been called up as a historical construct that helps to conceptualize, analyze, and act upon the COVID-19 crisis. Searching the past helps us see that not everything about COVID-19 as a social drama is a new or unheard-of challenge. For example, there are new evocations of the black death of 14th-century Europe that became a crisis in the church, as well as the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755, which upended the confidence of the European Enlightenment. Another way to appraise the dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak is to call on the varied approaches characteristic of the sociology of religion, that is, to consider how ideology and belief are socially constructed in order to account for new intellectual responses to societal challenges. Does religion always produce the "collective effervescence” Durkheim posited? Does religious change always arrive downstream of cultural change, or can it also become an independent variable? This article attends primarily to the sharp responses of conservative religious expression in the face of attention-getting upheaval, which has readily translated into right-wing political action and electioneering. But the social uplift and altruism of liberal religion is not neglected either. Thus, this article provides an account of how science and governmental action have both been challenged and embraced in response to COVID-19. As such, it is not an empirical study stemming from new Pew-like social polling. Rather, it is a wide overview rooted in sociological methods and theory for tracking religion historically and presently in America in a manner that aims to inform a discussion of how COVID-19 has impacted religion and religious expression, and vice versa.
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This work examines the management of the pandemic through the local actions of violent state and non-state actors: the armed forces, the police and criminal groups. To what extent does the configuration of violent actors represent a break with their usual role in social control? We are looking at several cases at the subnational level within Brazil and Mexico. We take a qualitative approach that is based primarily on the analysis of government websites, reports from human rights organizations, media and social networks. The data demonstrate the continuing role of violent actors maintaining social order through coercion. The pandemic has nonetheless encouraged the publicity of such coercive practices, which are historically linked to the precarious and marginalized status suffered by the social groups benefiting from these "philanthropic” actions. © 2022 Institut des Hautes Etudes de l'Amerique Latine (IHEAL). All rights reserved.