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Rural Vibrancy in Ireland – Insights from South Kerry
No full textRural communities are encountering substantive changes to local economies, government structures, and service provisions. These changes are happening at an increasingly rapid frequency and involve an increasing engagement of local actors. The ability of local actors to collectively respond influences a community’s vibrancy. This panel will share findings from recent examinations of rural vibrancy in South Kerry, Ireland and Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. The panel will also include perspectives from local civil society organizations. These community-based research initiatives focus on the role of civil society organizations (CSOs). Within rural communities CSOs consist of voluntary and non-profit organizations, both incorporated and non-incorporated entities. The results of this study will provide useful insights into vibrancy among civil society organisations, which in turn can be utilized to support future developments, policies, and programs in rural communities
Commodification of Islandness
No full textIslands can be attractive places to live, with strong community networks that contribute to a good quality of life. Their distinctiveness and particularity can be seen as exotic, mysterious, offering a place where you can step back in time and enjoy a slower pace of life – or so the marketers tell us. This module explores the pluses and minuses of using ‘emotional geographies’ of islandness to create a cultural fusion that utilises place, history, and culture to meet the needs of 21st-century islanders – and tourists. We will look at specific examples of how islands on opposite sides of the globe – in Atlantic Canada and Tasmania – use the island ‘brand’ to build strong resilient communities. Artists have turned islandness to their advantage and have found ways to combine lifestyle choices with making a living. The business of art that takes inspiration from the local—in this case, islands—is becoming increasingly recognised as a significant contributor to the economy as more and more people hunger for culture grounded in the exoticism of the particular—again, from islands. And, in recent years, as islands have become more accessible to the travelling public, island artists endeavour to take greater advantage of the tourism industry to make money from their art. All of these elements combine to enable artists to remain—and make art—on and about and through their islands
The Applied Improvisation Mindset by Theresa Robbins Dudeck and Caitlin McClure
No full textNathan Keates reviews The Applied Improvisation Mindset by Theresa Robbins Dudeck and Caitlin McClure
Call for Papers: Special Issue: “Reimagining Gender”
No full textSpecial Issue - Call for Papers
Reimagining Gender
Amid sometimes overwhelming currents of social and political upheaval, our shared understandings of gender have been deeply challenged. In this tumultuous biopolitical climate, it has become urgent, even imperative, to address these challenges creatively and compassionately. What has become of gender, and what can gender become? How are our perceptions, conceptions, and receptions of gender changing, developing, and adapting in this troubled and troubling era, a time of suppression and repression, but also of affirmation and disruption? Critical studies in improvisation, both as a field of inquiry and as a mode of study, offers powerful potential means to investigate, engage with, and transform our convergent and diverging approaches to gender in this complex present day. How might gender emerge re-imagined?Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation invites contributions to a special issue on emergent understandings of gender and improvising bodies. Scholars, critics, artists, and community members are warmly invited to submit work addressing any of the following questions:
How can (co-)creative improvisational practices help us attend to emergent and conflicted forms of embodiment?
How can the improvising arts offer important tools to engage with and to enact change?
How do the improvisational arts celebrate, negotiate with, and even call into question the complexities of positionality and the shifting matrices of gender?
How are genders both undone and remade in the fluidities and transitive counterflows of improvisational/improvised/improvising work?
How might improvisers articulate/practice/touch on/sound the nascent means to come to care for others?
How does improvisation give us possible tactics and strategies to confront ableism around gender identities?
How might improvisation offer ways to mitigate risk, to accompany each other, to bear witness to confrontations with hegemonies of exclusion and repression?
How are gender roles and equity at play in improvisatory performances? Can improvisation offer any kind of safer space, or make room for creative risk, in an increasingly hostile political climate? How do artistic genres that rely on improvisation create opportunities and/or barriers for women, and for non-binary and transgender individuals?
Submissions for this special issue may include, but are not limited to: reflective articles, scholarly essays, ethnographies, podcasts, photography, and multi- and intermedial pieces.
Early career researchers/emergent scholars across all disciplines are warmly encouraged to submit proposals.
The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2025. Submissions can be submitted through the journal’s online portal by following the submission guidelines available through this link.
For inquiries about this issue, please contact Sam Boer, the Managing Editor of CSI/ÉCI, at [email protected]
Temporality and Dismemberment
No full textPlaceholder - This abstract will be available to read as soon as we receive it from the author.
From Fairness to Justice: Reframing Ethical AI in Disability Diagnosis
No full textIn recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as a potential tool for diagnosing disabilities through various machine learning (ML) processes has gained significant attention in scientific, medical, and philosophical realms. The current discourse on equitable AI use, specifically for disability diagnosis, primarily revolves around a fairness-centred approach, seeking to mitigate bias and ensure fairness in AI design and development (Trewin, 2018, p. 2). The current focus on fairness does not adequately identify and address the systemic frameworks that place disabled individuals at a disadvantage within our society. By evaluating the ethical implications of AI use for disabled people under the narrow scope of “fairness,” we risk legitimizing harmful power dynamics and pre-existing inequalities for disabled individuals and other marginalized groups. This essay explores the limitations of fairness and the potential of justice as a guiding principle for responsible and ethical AI in the context of disability. By exploring power dynamics, epistemic authority, and potential objections, I aim to underscore the need for reframing from fairness to justice in addressing the complex ethical implications of AI for individuals with disabilities. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars, I argue that justice, as opposed to fairness, can drive recovery, remedy past harm, and promote more responsible and ethical AI systems. 
Identifying Competencies for Rural Policy Practitioners
No full textOne of the key deliverables for the Rural Policy Learning Commons is a graduate certificate in rural policy. As a foundation for this certificate, a research project was undertaken in 2015 and 2016 with the goal to identify subject areas that are essential for attaining competency in rural policy. This workshop has two key components: (1) a report on the project’s research findings, and (2) a group discussion among the workshop participants guided by a series of open-ended questions pertinent to identifying competencies for rural policy practitioners.1. The research project involved a comparative analysis of 22 Canadian Masters of Public Policy (MPP) and Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs and the learning outcomes presented at the 2015 International Comparative Rural Policy Studies (ICRPS) summer institute. The scan of 22 MPP/MPA programs revealed a marked absence of policy training focused on rural issues and yet an important congruence in the learning offered in the MPP/MPA programs and the summer institute. The analysis showed that training in analytical tools and socio-political contexts is foundational for policy design and implementation. However, acquiring competency in rural policy also requires coursework centred on rural policy sectors. 2. The capacity building focus of the workshop is a self-reflexive exercise, asking participants to discuss and report on a set of questions:a. What knowledge sets, skills, and attitudes are expected of rural policy practitioners?b. What gaps in knowledge, skills, and attitudes appear to be evident among rural policy practitioners?c. What organization and/or institutions offer training in these areas?d. Are rural and public policy conceptually, politically, or practicably distinct
Ribbons in the Wind: Bringing Thought and Practice to the Ground with Jacques Derrida and Harlene Anderson
No full textThis article, "Ribbons in the Wind: Bringing Thought and Practice to the Ground with Jacques Derrida and Harlene Anderson," explores the intersections between Jacques Derrida’s thought and Harlene Anderson\u27s collaborative therapeutic practice. Drawing on a few of Derrida\u27s ideas —deconstruction, the perhaps, différance, and the gift—Christopher Iwestel Kinman traces how these ideas resonate with the work of family therapy innovator Harlene Anderson. Through a personal and historical lens, the author situates both thinkers within the context of our colonial histories, and the ongoing search for more ecological, dialogical, and non-hierarchical forms of relation in our practices. The author offers that both Derrida and Anderson invite practitioners to move beyond rigid traditions and fixed certainties, embracing uncertainty, multiplicity, and the transformative potential of relational "withness." By weaving together theory, biography, and the indigenous metaphor of dancing ribbons, Kinman presents a vision for human services rooted in love, listening, decolonial values, and the ongoing flow of gifts within communal life
