Third places as catalysts of resilience

Third places, often hybrid organizations and, normally, always inclusive, are places of project realization, sharing, exchange, and transmission, especially of skills. This contribution focuses on the evolution of these new places since the last decade in France, and especially during the COVID-19 crisis. The diversity of the functioning and the trajectories of these organizations with their particular temporalities, often ephemeral, is great. Not all third places are liked to citizen projects, not all these social experiments lead to an increase in individual and/or collective resilience. In some third places, a desire for institutionalization on the part of the initiators, who may be public authorities, for example, and instrumentalization on the part of the users may thwart the project of permanent, self-organized, self-managed experimentation. The analysis is based on typologies and some examples set up in the department of Yvelines. The aim is then to specify the catalytic role of certain third places, whose trajectories are likely to create individual and collective capacities for resilience, rebound and innovation. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Knowing What we are Making: Props, Scholarship, and the Pandemic

This article is mindful of two separate phenomena: that recent years have seen a plethora of methodologically diverse and rewardingly curious works on theatre props, and that the Covid-19 pandemic halted in-person dramatic performance in the UK to a greater extent and for a longer duration than at any time since 1660. Accordingly, this essay offers four broad headings for enquiry, situating theatrical props in their longer past as well as theatre and archival conditions as we recently knew them: definitions, racialised props, methodologies, and futures. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Cripping hybrid futures

In this collaboratively written article, we argue that disabled performers have long since questioned notions about physicality, subjectivity, temporality and spectatorship on stage that are currently being revisited in the debate on ‘hybrid' theatre practices during the pandemic. Disability performances, as well as hybrid theatre formats, which are now booming due to the lockdown experience, provoke discussions and discursive negotiations about what theatre is, should be and for whom, and explore boundaries of the art form. Based on these arguments, we will examine the concept of hybridity, in order to critically explore the debate on hybrid theatre in relation to disability performance practices, using the examples of the internationally recognised performing artists Neil Marcus and Sins Invalid, and challenge notions of sustainability within that discourse. We end by asking what demands a hybrid future would need to meet to accommodate the diverse realities of non-normative bodyminds. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Cripping hybrid futures

In this collaboratively written article, we argue that disabled performers have long since questioned notions about physicality, subjectivity, temporality and spectatorship on stage that are currently being revisited in the debate on 'hybrid' theatre practices during the pandemic. Disability performances, as well as hybrid theatre formats, which are now booming due to the lockdown experience, provoke discussions and discursive negotiations about what theatre is, should be and for whom, and explore boundaries of the art form. Based on these arguments, we will examine the concept of hybridity, in order to critically explore the debate on hybrid theatre in relation to disability performance practices, using the examples of the internationally recognised performing artists Neil Marcus and Sins Invalid, and challenge notions of sustainability within that discourse. We end by asking what demands a hybrid future would need to meet to accommodate the diverse realities of non-normative bodyminds.

Lifting lockdown: Renewed access to arts and cultural activities.

BACKGROUND: The effects of COVID-19 on mental health are profound. While there is a growing body of evidence on arts supporting mental health, the re-engagement with in-person arts and cultural activity has remained slow following the lifting of restrictions. METHODS: Interviews with 14 representatives, including providers and practitioners, from 12 arts and cultural organisations within the Liverpool City Region (LCR) were conducted. The aim was to examine the impact of COVID-19 restrictions easing on arts and cultural provision in the LCR, and on the mental health and wellbeing of those whom arts and cultural organisations serve, including those who would usually access arts through formal healthcare routes (e.g., those usually served via arts organisations' partnership with health or social care providers). Data were analysed using framework analysis. RESULTS: Three overarching themes were identified: The new normal: 'Out of crisis comes innovation'; Complexities of operating 'in the new COVID world'; and Reimagining arts in mental healthcare. CONCLUSION: As engagement in community and cultural activities plays a public health role, a hybrid delivery of arts and culture - ensuring continued online access alongside in-person provision - will be vital for people's recovery. Alongside efforts to reimagine arts in mental healthcare in the wake of the crisis caused by the pandemic, the role of arts and culture in providing stigma-free environments to reconnect the vulnerable and isolated is more critical than ever. Recommendations on the role of arts and culture in sustaining the mental health and wellbeing of the population and embedding the arts within clinical care and public health prevention schemes are provided.

Pandemic to “Fandomic:” The Revival of Fandom Publics in the Digital Space of Latin American K-Pop Fandom

The coronavirus has changed our daily lives dramatically, driving us to spend time in the virus-free digital world, providing an imagined community in which we can be reborn. In this study, I highlight an interesting intersection of three phenomena in virtual spaces: the culturally hybrid content of the Korean Wave, or Hallyu;participatory culture of fandom;and a new kind of public defined by emotion. I show how Hallyu fandom becomes a fandom public using digital media by exploring the voluntary practices of Chilean fans in the production of the 2018 KBS Music Bank World Tour in Chile. Chilean K-pop fans form a Latin American fandom community in a digital space where they act as a fandom public based on affective intimacy, thereby influencing wider society. This finding offers insights to determine the capabilities of Hallyu fandom as a public. © 2022 Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies.

“Dear diary … the covid-19 is turning us into hybrids”: exploring consumers’ hybridity facets during the pandemic

Purpose: This study aims to examine different levels of consumer’s hybridity, which is gaining popularity during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach was adopted using two main data collection methods: netnography and semistructured interviews. Three main communities and 20 semistructured interviews with hybrid consumers were performed to fully understand new levels of consumers’ bipolarity. Thematic analysis was used to identify groups representing different facets of new hybridity. Similarity index and co-occurrences (Jaccard coefficient) were interpreted through QDA Miner software. Findings: Four main facets of consumers’ hybridity were highlighted during the current COVID-19 pandemic: “up vs down,” “utilitarian vs hedonic,” “impulsive vs planned” and “responsible vs irresponsible.” Practical implications: These findings have practical implications for marketing managers seeking to design and to improve their branding strategies and their positioning. Businesses usually offer a coherent mix targeted to specific consumers. However, these results show that providing and highlighting some contradictions in their offerings may be interesting for consumers who are trying to cope with this pandemic. Originality/value: The study extends the contemporary consumer literature by investigating paradoxical behaviors that are still fertile. The marketing literature examines consumers’ profiles as a homogeneous concept without allowing for contradictions in consumers’ preferences. Additionally, this study recognizes important changes in consumer behavior elicited by COVID-19 pandemic. It fills that research gap by examining not only “up vs down” hybridity but new levels of hybridity as well. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

"Dear diary horizontal ellipsis the covid-19 is turning us into hybrids": exploring consumers' hybridity facets during the pandemic

Purpose This study aims to examine different levels of consumer's hybridity, which is gaining popularity during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was adopted using two main data collection methods: netnography and semistructured interviews. Three main communities and 20 semistructured interviews with hybrid consumers were performed to fully understand new levels of consumers' bipolarity. Thematic analysis was used to identify groups representing different facets of new hybridity. Similarity index and co-occurrences (Jaccard coefficient) were interpreted through QDA Miner software. Findings Four main facets of consumers' hybridity were highlighted during the current COVID-19 pandemic: "up vs down," "utilitarian vs hedonic," "impulsive vs planned" and "responsible vs irresponsible." Practical implications These findings have practical implications for marketing managers seeking to design and to improve their branding strategies and their positioning. Businesses usually offer a coherent mix targeted to specific consumers. However, these results show that providing and highlighting some contradictions in their offerings may be interesting for consumers who are trying to cope with this pandemic. Originality/value The study extends the contemporary consumer literature by investigating paradoxical behaviors that are still fertile. The marketing literature examines consumers' profiles as a homogeneous concept without allowing for contradictions in consumers' preferences. Additionally, this study recognizes important changes in consumer behavior elicited by COVID-19 pandemic. It fills that research gap by examining not only "up vs down" hybridity but new levels of hybridity as well.

Performing Hybridity or Deflecting Islamophobia? Adaptable Identity Management amongst Young British Pakistani Muslims

This article engages with issues of identity construction and maintenance as expressed by a group of young British Pakistanis living in the North-West of England. Drawing on primary data from a qualitative study, we examine the ways in which Muslim identities are maintained, negotiated, and protected in relation to everyday situated cultural experiences. Nested within a context in which Islamophobia is pervasive, we discuss four salient processes of identity management articulated by participants: cherry picking;strategic adaption;ambassadorship and active resistance. Whilst these processes are to be considered as porous rather than mutually exclusive, our analysis elucidates evidence of both nimble and creative individual identity management and also an entrenchment of collective pride. We posit that, for the participants in this study, such practices constitute a grounded, pragmatic response to living in an environment in which their religious beliefs, political values and cultural commitments are frequently questioned within public life, the media and the political sphere.