The Timespace Of Human Activity

This book shows that a concept of activity timespace drawn from the work of Martin Heidegger provides new insights into the nature of activity, society, and history. Although the book is a work of theory, it has significant implications for the determination and course, not just of activity, but of sociohistorical change as well. Drawing on empirical examples, the book argues (1) that timespace is a key component of the overall space and time of social life, (2) that interwoven timespaces form an essential infrastructure of important social phenomena such as power, coordinated actions, social organizations, and social systems, and (3) that history encompasses constellations of indeterminate temporalspatial events. The latter conception of history in turn yields a propitious account of how the past exists in the present. In addition, because the concept of activity timespace highlights the teleological character of human action, the book contains an extensive defense of the teleological character of such allegedly ateleological forms of activity as emotional and ceremonial actions. Since, finally, the book's ideas about timespace and activity as an indeterminate event derive from an interpretation of Heidegger, the work furthers understanding of the relevance of his thought for social and historical theory.

Supporting new teachers is a common challenge globally and the European Commission has recently emphasised the need to promote a lifelong continuum of teachers professional development by building bridges between pre-service and in-service teacher education.Peer-Group Mentoring for Teacher Development introduces and contextualises for an internati

Suitable for researchers, and graduate students in the field of transportation and urban planning in general, and in travel behaviour analysis in particular, this volume of the 11th International Conference on Travel Behaviour Research, held in Kyoto, Japan, in August 2006, examines key issues and emerging trends in the field of travel behaviour.

This book aims to help teachers and those who support them to re-imagine the work of teaching, learning and leading. In particular, it shows how transformations of educational practice depend on complementary transformations in classroom-school- and system-level organisational cultures, resourcing and politics. It argues that transforming education requires more than professional development to transform teachers; it also calls for fundamental changes in learning and leading practices, which in turn means reshaping organisations that support teachers and teaching – organisational cultures, the resources organisations provide and distribute, and the relationships that connect people with one another in organisations. The book is based on findings from new research being conducted by the authors – the research team for the (2010-2012) Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project Leading and Learning: Developing Ecologies of Educational Practice.

The embodied directedness of human practice has long been neglected in critical socio-spatial theory, in favor of analyses focused upon distance and proximity. This book illustrates the absence of a sense for direction in much theoretical discourse and lays important groundwork for redressing this lacuna in socio-spatial theory. Many accounts of the social world are incomplete, or are increasingly out of step with recent developments of neoliberal capitalism. Not least through new technological mediations of production and consumption, the much-discussed waning of the importance of physical distance has been matched by the increasing centrality of turning from one thing to another as a basic way in which lives are structured and occupied. A sensibility for embodied processes of turning, and for phenomena of direction more generally, is urgently needed. Chapters develop wide-ranging and original engagements with the arguments of Sara Ahmed, Jonathan Beller, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Virginia Held, Bernard Stiegler, Theodore Schatzki, Rahel Jaeggi, Hartmut Rosa and David Harvey. This book reinterprets practice, embodiment, alienation, reification, social reproduction and ethical responsibility from a directional perspective. It will be a new valuable resource and reference for political and social geography students, as well as sociologists and anthropologists.

Interdisciplinary perspectives on landscape, from the philosophical to the geographical, with an emphasis on the overarching concept of place. This volume explores the conceptual "topography" of landscape: It examines the character of landscape as itself a mode of place as well as the modes of place that appear in relation to landscape. Leading scholars from a range of disciplines explore the concept of landscape, including its supposed relation to the spectatorial, its character as time-space, its relation to indigenous notions of "country," and its liminality. They examine landscape as it appears within a variety of contexts, from geography through photography and garden history to theology; and more specific studies look at the forms of landscape in medieval landscape painting, film and television, and in relation to national identity. The essays demonstrate that the study of landscape cannot be restricted to any one genre, cannot be taken as the exclusive province of any one discipline, and cannot be exhausted by any single form of analysis. What the place of landscape now evokes is itself a wide-ranging terrain encompassing issues concerning the nature of place, of human being in place, and of the structures that shape such being and are shaped by it.

This book introduces readers to the theory of practice architectures and conveys a way of approaching practice theory through developing a practice sensibility. It shows that, in order to change our practices, we must also change the conditions that make those practices possible. The book draws on everyday life to illustrate how we can see the world by watching it unfold in practices: it argues that life happens in practices. The theory of practice architectures takes the ontological nature of practices seriously by recognising that practices take place in the real world. Consequently, the book offers a new perspective on how practices happen amidst a vast world of happenings; on how we participate in the “happening-ness” of the world through our practices. It invites us to consider whether our practices reproduce or aggravate the contemporary environmental crises confronting the Earth, and whether we can transform our current practices to ameliorate these crises. Given its focus and scope, the book will benefit master’s and doctoral students in social and educational theory, early career researchers, and established researchers new to practice theory.

One of the most significant and important advancements in information and communication technology over the past 20 years is the introduction and expansion of the Internet. Now almost universally available, the Internet brings us email, global voice and video communications, research repositories, reference libraries, and almost unlimited opportunities for daily activities. Bridging geographical distances in unprecedented ways, the Internet has impacted all aspects of our daily lives – from facilitating the running of businesses, the attainment of services and keeping in touch with friends and family. Accessible at any time and for many of us from our mobile phones, the Internet has opened up a world of knowledge and communication platforms that we cannot now imagine living without. This book explores the concept that the Internet has become a second action space for individuals. Coexisting with traditional and "obvious" real space, the Internet serves as a novel spatial platform and action space to its subscribers all over the world. Kellerman expertly discusses this notion and examines the practical integration of cyberspace with real space. Part I examines the Internet as a platform for action and presents its relations with physical space concerning a range of uses and applications which were traditionally performed in physical space only. It discusses the idea that the Internet has become a second space and explores theoretical perspectives surrounding this notion. The Internet has undeniably made humankind more efficient and connected. Part II explores the Internet as an action space for human life, considering basic human needs, curiosity, identity and social relations. It further considers instances whereby use and application of the Internet cannot be fully performed in real space, mainly regarding people’s presentation of identity. Part III explores daily actions over the Internet, such as work, shopping, banking and social interactions. Kellerman also briefly touches on the darker aspects that the expansion of the Internet has made possible – including its role in fraud and other crimes. The concluding chapter discusses people living across the two spaces and identifies potential future developments. The Internet as Second Actions Space will appeal to students across the social sciences, in particular those studying Geography, Sociology, Media Studies, Internet Studies, Business and related disciplines.