Search

Museums are increasingly considering civic responsibilities towards the communities of which they are a part. In this study, a group of families with children aged between two and four years visited a university art museum for multiple facilitated sessions within a participatory research project. Drawing on previous work on caring museum practices, this article explores the potential of museums to support young families through key affordances: time, connection, and exploration. We demonstrate how, by offering opportunities to slow down, build relationships, and take risks, the museum can become a nurturing space of care and connectedness. We contrast this care-centred approach with the pressure exerted on both the museum and early years sectors of target-setting approaches with easily measurable outcomes demanding a singular focus on rapid linear progress. The analysis presented here resists this model, offering instead an approach rooted in gentle attention and openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article focuses on the Kenyan novelist Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea (2019) and examines how dividuality as an eco-decolonial move is manifested in the novel. Dividuality, as I argue, derives from an ecodecolonial approach and challenges the human-nature dualism, and at the same time extends the Western-oriented, enlightened image of a firmly insular person into a less bounded and porous presence comprised of both human and nonhuman forces. From this vantage point, this article claims that the notion of the dividual in Owuor’s text helps us imagine the act of witnessing beyond European and Western thought with regard to being in the world, history, memory, and environment at large. Witnessing, as perceived in this article, is recognised as a mode of being in the world from an everyday perspective, be it individual, political, social, or environmental. In this way, The Dragonfly Sea, gestures toward what I call “slow wit(h)nessing” in this study as an open-ended and permeable act which is significantly constituted by slow and entangled interactions and exchanges among humans, animals, plants, seascapes, landscapes, matter, and spirits through transoceanic experiences in Kenya, China, and Turkey. This article draws from and builds on the theories of dividual personhood from McKim Marriott’s seminal work on Indian cultural material analysis to Marylin Strathern’s innovative Melanesian ethnography as well as Bracha Ettinger’s inspiring study on the collapse of boundaries between the “I” and the Other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this extension to Scribbling Towards Utopia, I concentrate on two authors who make their own utopian strivings key features of their work: William Morris, the English socialist, and John Dewey, the American philosopher and liberal educator. I also borrow ideas from Jasmine Ulmer's Writing Slow Ontology to suggest that our utopian hopes will, if ever, only be attained slowly and not quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective functions adopted by earthquake early warning (EEW) location algorithms are inadequate for out-of-network earthquakes. As a result, the real-time locations of these earthquakes are often erroneous. The consequences of mislocating out-of-network earthquakes are that their magnitudes are miscalculated, and the loci of their shaking predictions map are shifted. Given that the largest earthquakes occur in subduction settings, improving real-time out-of-network earthquake location is of great importance. In this study, the Virtual Dynamically Assembled Array Algorithm (ViDA³) is introduced, which addresses the location issue of offshore and off-network earthquakes. The guiding principle underlying the new EEW location algorithm is that standard seismic networks may be viewed as a collection of medium-sized seismic arrays, with each array consisting of three or more network stations. The potential of array seismology for EEW against out-of-network earthquakes stems primarily from the slowness vector, which points at the direction of the epicentral region. Thus, this region may be constrained merely by intersecting two or more such vectors. In addition, the length of the slowness vector depends on the hypocentral distance and depth and is thus vital for addressing an acute problem in a subduction setting--discriminating between upper crust and deep slab earthquakes. Furthermore, when the slowness of the P phase is known, the slowness of the S phase is deduced, and the S-phase arrival is searched for using the shift-and-sum practice. What makes ViDA³ so attractive is that, in locations where a real-time network is already in place, these added values may be achieved without extra hardware or substantial budget requirements. We present the result of ViDA³ real-time operation on a shallow earthquake offshore Vancouver Island and the result of its replay on a deep slab earthquake in northern Chile. performance is further assessed using a dataset of seismograms from the Mendocino Triple Junction area. It is concluded that ViDA³ location scheme outperforms currently available EEW location algorithms for out-of-network earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Although diabetes is a risk factor for walking speed decline in older adults, it remains unclear how glycaemic control [assessed by glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c)] might affect the long‐term trajectories of walking speed. We investigated whether the glycaemic control status accelerates the walking speed decline and whether this decline differs depending on previous mobility conditions. Materials and Methods: In total, 3202 individuals aged ≥60 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) were classified at baseline and after 4 and 8 years of follow‐up according to glycaemic control status as 'without diabetes' (no self‐reported diabetes and HbA1c <6.5%), 'good glycaemic control' (self‐reported diabetes and HbA1c ≥6.5% and <7.0%) and 'poor glycaemic control' (PGC) (self‐reported diabetes and HbA1c ≥7.0%). The generalized linear mixed models verified the walking speed trajectories in m/s. A second analysis was performed, including only participants without slowness at baseline (>0.8 m/s). Results: Compared with the status 'without diabetes', the annual walking speed decline was −0.015 m/s for PGC and −0.011 m/s for good glycaemic control, totalling −0.160 and −0.130 m/s, respectively, over 8 years. Among those without slowness at baseline, only PGC had a significant walking speed decline, corresponding to −0.014 m/s per year and −0.222 m/s over 8 years. Conclusions: Poor glycaemic control is a discriminator of walking speed decline in older adults, regardless of previous mobility conditions. It may serve as an early screening tool for those at risk of decreased functional performance later in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing inspiration from Gilles Deleuze's conceptualization of masochism as an obsession with a perfect form, this essay argues that masochism offers literary critics opportunities to reconsider questions of beauty and form in literature. I use John Keats's "Lamia," Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and James Joyce's "The Dead" as case studies to examine how literary works incorporate masochism as a means of reflecting on their own creative processes—and how they would impact their readers. Masochism in literature first helps authors to conceive beautiful forms. The imperfections of these forms, in turn, allows the artists to re-create or revise those original forms to come up with better versions. In this process, texts about masochism open up complex affective dimensions of pleasure, pain, beauty, destruction, and slowness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South-Tyrolean author Sepp Mall, born in 1955, is renowned for his intricate artistic poems. For the writer, composing poetry is a practice of deceleration: an act of both reducing speed and slowing down. Similarly, he describes the process of reading poems as a practice of standing still, of reflecting, and as a highly attentive practice of perceiving and sensing (Mall, 2022). The following article brings Mall's long poem "Unwirkliches Blau (Rondo)" (Unreal blue [Rondo]) from his most recent poetry collection Holz und Haut (Wood and skin) into focus, and discusses in which ways the poem opens up novel spaces of perception regarding time by seizing alternate temporalities – in other words, non-human-centred temporalities, as suggested by the poem itself. These spaces of perception manifest as utopian niches in the sense of deep, small, and secluded chronotopes of imagination and perception, which brim with transformative potential as they offer a means of widening one's perception of temporalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to think through paranoia's epistemic and affective features, which pervade both the worldview presented in Senecan tragedy and the inner life of many of its protagonists. Drawing upon recent literary-critical work, I argue that paranoia is temporally and epistemically ambivalent: subjects simultaneously attempt to "get ahead" of a looming cataclysm--looking to the future in an attempt to avert disaster--while inevitably "falling behind," failing to predict or preempt the future in time to protect themselves. Much of Senecan tragedy plays out paranoia's future-oriented vigilance on the formal level. Foreshadowing, allusions, and meta-literary flourishes serve to render both readers and characters hyperaware of the earth-shattering horrors to come; however, in doing so, they also reveal that this forward-oriented bracing only serves to dredge up negative affect in advance. By contrast, I argue that Seneca's Phoenissae thematizes in the character of Oedipus not only paranoia's future-looking vigilance but also its inherent lagging, the failure to know and act in advance. These elements of slowness, stuckness, and delay open a space for stillness, relief, and intimacy, even within a narrative which hurtles toward cataclysm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casualties of nuclear technologies are not immediate, and the populations that bear the most significant burden are too sparse to be noteworthy, especially in the case of uranium mining industries. Shaped by forms of settler colonialism – the US and Canada mine on Indigenous and First Nation reservations – effects of radioactive exposure produce slow, recursive forms of nuclear suffering as illness may take up to thirty years to manifest. This article zooms in on the case of uranium mining and the violence of the temporal lag between uranium exposure and the appearance of symptoms. It explores how this lag is critically interrogated by two contemporary artists that approach uranium mining histories as unresolved; as a series of situations whose unfolding goes on, thus going against the closure of narratives of uranium mining. Two artworks that critically engage with the slow temporality of uranium and its violent effects, and that this paper closely reads, are Bonnie Devine’s drawing series The Book of Radiance (1999) and video Rooster Rock, the Story of Serpent River and Eve Andrée Laramée’s installation Halfway to Invisible (2009). Both artists lay bare the temporal possibilities of turning our gaze away from obvious nuclear symbols, such as bombs and reactors, or what technology historian Gabrielle Hecht calls our fetishes of nuclear histories (Being Nuclear. Africans and the Global Uranium Trade), to rather engage with less obvious nuclear histories. Drawing on theoretical insights from recent scholarship in science and technology studies and art history around time, the paper emphasizes the affordances of contemporary art in redressing uranium mining as a slow and latent modality of the nuclear complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casualties of nuclear technologies are not immediate, and the populations that bear the most significant burden are too sparse to be noteworthy, especially in the case of uranium mining industries. Shaped by forms of settler colonialism – the US and Canada mine on Indigenous and First Nation reservations – effects of radioactive exposure produce slow, recursive forms of nuclear suffering as illness may take up to thirty years to manifest. This article zooms in on the case of uranium mining and the violence of the temporal lag between uranium exposure and the appearance of symptoms. It explores how this lag is critically interrogated by two contemporary artists that approach uranium mining histories as unresolved; as a series of situations whose unfolding goes on, thus going against the closure of narratives of uranium mining. Two artworks that critically engage with the slow temporality of uranium and its violent effects, and that this paper closely reads, are Bonnie Devine’s drawing series The Book of Radiance (1999) and video Rooster Rock, the Story of Serpent River and Eve Andrée Laramée’s installation Halfway to Invisible (2009). Both artists lay bare the temporal possibilities of turning our gaze away from obvious nuclear symbols, such as bombs and reactors, or what technology historian Gabrielle Hecht calls our fetishes of nuclear histories (Being Nuclear. Africans and the Global Uranium Trade), to rather engage with less obvious nuclear histories. Drawing on theoretical insights from recent scholarship in science and technology studies and art history around time, the paper emphasizes the affordances of contemporary art in redressing uranium mining as a slow and latent modality of the nuclear complex.

A review of Vancouver-based artist Carole Itter's recent retrospective at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, highlighting Itter's artistic research, begun in the 1960s, around the Northwest Coast, critically embodying the dynamic shift of late-capitalist material and ecological conditions in and beyond the Vancouver area. Deploying the totem-like assemblage of consumed materials as a strategy of political resistance, Itter's works do not simply build a space for pre-capitalist and primitivist ideas of the ritual but rather, through their post-industrial materials and their transformation via the feminine craft of slow weaving, they meticulously sketch the unevenness of plural temporalities in the late-capitalist era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can companies avoid the agility acceleration trap and align their level of agility with environmental complexity to include reflection and slowness? An answer to this question is pertinent to understanding the real value of agility, which is often equated with speed. This article introduces a framework for analyzing agility through three kinds of change—resilient, versatile, and transformational—with respect to the level of environmental turbulence. The value of this framework is demonstrated by company examples where "agility as slowness" in some areas and "agility as speed" in other dimensions provide a basis for competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by Gesler's notion of therapeutic landscapes, this paper proposes a new concept, 'Taichiscape', to demonstrate how older people obtain a sense of healing and wellbeing through the practice of group Taichi in the park. Based on extensive fieldwork with 42 older people between 2020 and 2021 in Tianhe Park in Guangzhou, China, the paper presents Taichiscape in three aspects: (1) From the physical aspect, the Chinese traditional health concepts of 'becoming one with nature' and the form of Yin‐Yang balance, allowing older people to maintain closeness and be immersed in the natural environment, rhythmically connecting with natural elements, and relaxing via flourishing positive affect (PA); (2) In terms of socialising, older people practice Taichi together to establish a synchronised rhythm in a spatiotemporal order and collectively create a positive social atmosphere, where they gain a sense of PA through belonging, self‐esteem and pleasure; (3) At the body level, through the rhythm of slowness, older people enjoy diverse and bodily sensations that temporally nurture their minds and souls and initiate the therapeutic process of embodied restoration. Theoretically, the healing power of Taichiscape is habitually, contextually, and temporally constructed through a dynamic creation between human and nonhuman elements. This work extends knowledge of therapeutic landscapes by underlining how slowness in Taichiscape can be seen as a sign of progress and an active pursuit of wellbeing, and older people's sense of control over their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade after the first studies, this article presents a critical balance of the findings and weaknesses of research addressing the relationship between communication and speed/slowness, comprising, among other subareas, slow journalism, media disconnection, and slow media. Our work reconstructs the role of reflection on this topic in communication studies and detects a set of emphases in the literature that detract from its critical potential, especially its individualistic bias and neglect of structural determinants and the interactions between technologies, sociality, and environment. Starting from a critical review of the main monographs, essays, and empirical analyses published to date (2010-2023), we found a set of emerging discussions, committing to redirecting the field by reinforcing the ideals of eco-social transformation that guided it in its beginnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Territories are made up of contrasts that become more apparent the more we study them. The same goes for territories of the past. In this research, we seek to present two apparently opposing perspectives that simultaneously made up Portuguese America: "extreme slowness" and an Atlantic network of people and ideas. Both topics are approached from the writings of the French botanist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, either from his own experiences at the beginning of the 19th century, or from secondary accounts contained in his work. The analysis of these territorial contrasts is supported by the geographical perspective, which emphasizes the scalar nature of phenomena, constantly overlapping and reconsidering them in the light of history and its irregularities, with the use of correspondence from the Portuguese administration at the time. In our view, geography has largely contributed to studies on the territories of the past, beyond cartography and other visual products. Geographical reasoning spatializes phenomena, locating them in a specific structure, conferring upon them not only certain attributions but, above all, correlating them with other phenomena located on different scales. Based on the necessary dialectic of this inter-scalar movement, we propose an apparently contradictory conceptualization of a territory that could be both "extremely slow" and connected to an ocean of people and ideas, having the backlands ("sertão") a key-participation in this dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sluggishness of the Judiciary generates negative effects for the Brazilian economy. There are losses in contractual relations that result from this inefficiency of the state machine in judging cases in a timely manner. The paper demonstrates that the delay generates a disincentive to the conclusion of the contract. More specifically, it analyzes its influence on banking contracts, labor relations and contracts with under-sufficient parties. The methodology adopted is descriptive-argumentative through a bibliographic survey and jurisprudential analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous research on concepts that are important to people living with early-stage Parkinson's indicated that 'functional' slowness, fine motor skills, and subtle gait abnormalities are cardinal concepts that are not comprehensively captured by existing patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments that are used in clinical practice and research to assess symptoms and daily functioning within this patient population. We sought to develop novel PRO instruments to address this unmet need. Methods: PRO instrument development was led by a multidisciplinary research group, including people living with Parkinson's (termed 'patient experts'), as well as patient engagement and involvement, regulatory science, clinical, and outcome measurement experts. A first set of PRO instruments, termed Early Parkinson's Function Slowness (42 items) and Early Parkinson's Mobility (26 items), were drafted to capture 'functional' slowness, fine motor skills, and subtle gait abnormalities. These PRO instruments were used in cognitive debriefing interviews with people living with early-stage Parkinson's (who were not involved with the multidisciplinary research group) to identify issues with relevance, clarity, ease of completion, conceptual overlap, or missing concepts. Results: Sixty people living with early-stage Parkinson's were interviewed, which led to refining the items to 45 for the Early Parkinson's Functional Slowness and 23 for the Early Parkinson's Mobility PRO instruments. Refinement included rewording items to address clarity issues, merging or splitting items to address overlap issues, and adding new items to address missing concepts. The Early Parkinson's Function Slowness PRO instrument resulted in a multidimensional instrument covering upper limb, complex/whole body, general activity, and cognitive functional slowness. The Early Parkinson's Mobility PRO instrument resulted in comprehensive coverage of everyday mobility tasks, with a focus on gait concepts, plus complex/whole body, balance, and lower limb mobility. Conclusions: The Early Parkinson's Function Slowness and Early Parkinson's Mobility PRO instruments aim to address gaps in existing PRO instruments to measure meaningful symptoms and daily functioning in people living with early-stage Parkinson's. Utilizing a meticulous study design led by a multidisciplinary research group that included patient experts helped to ensure that the PRO instruments were patient-centric, content valid, and meaningful from a clinical and measurement perspective. Plain English Summary: Clinical outcome assessment tools can be used to show how a disease impacts a person's daily life. These outcomes are assessed with tools like surveys or questionnaires. In Parkinson's, most of the tools currently available do not reflect the things that are important to people living with early-stage Parkinson's. Instead, these tools were designed to assess people in later stages of the disease. In this study, the research team created two new tools to assess daily functioning in early-stage Parkinson's. People with early-stage Parkinson's were interviewed to test the new tools. The language and questions in the tools were changed based on feedback from the interviews. The tools were reviewed by a large team, including patient experts and healthcare professionals involved in Parkinson's care. Experts in outcome measures and clinical trials also reviewed the tools. The review step ensured that the tools are easy to understand and appropriate for people living with early-stage Parkinson's. The new tools focus on the symptoms and experiences that are most important to people living with early-stage Parkinson's. We hope that the tools will more clearly show the impact of early-stage Parkinson's and how it progresses. Further testing of these new tools is needed. The aim is to use them in future clinical trials to measure the experience of early-stage Parkinson's more accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the meaning and value of Jacques Lacan’s term ‘extimacy’. It argues that there are two competing notions of extimacy at work in the literature, a negative one (which dominates the literature) and a positive (nascent) one, which is not yet fully worked out in the literature and to which this contribution offers a form of development through the recourse to the instance of the (love) letter in the unconscious. The author associates the positive ‘valence’ of extimacy with what Paul Cilliers calls ‘a certain slowness’ which is inextricably tied up with reflection as one of the fundamental features of any successful psychoanalysis, namely an analysis that passes through the Act. The author shows how the writing of a love letter – as an instance of slow reflection – not only exposes a (repressed) positive dimension to extimacy, but also (and perhaps because of this) qualifies as an instance of more or less successful self-analysis – what the author associates with a psychic progression of sorts.

This article contributes to literatures on sociological live methods by advocating for 'playing' with the concept of slow methods. Slow methods include a reflexive disposition towards the unfolding of social life in ordinary spaces (dwelling), the use of drawing as an embodied tool for understanding this unfolding (doodling) and the combination of these approaches into writing which deliberately seeks to evoke the liveness of the social world (describing). It draws on an ethnography of a joint-use public-academic library and several scenes selected from its fieldwork. I make three arguments: first, I argue for analogue methods to compliment digitally focussed live methods. Second, I explore the value of slow methods for being drawn into a scene and drawn to see its micro-happenings, particularly in spaces where the social world unfolds in mundane and uneven ways. Third, I argue the approach allows 'shy researchers' to engage attentively and reflexively in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a computer program is developed which allows to find and graph the phase velocities, group velocities and the slowness of a solid from its physical characteristics, namely the stiffness tensor and the volumetric density of the material that composes it. The graphs are also made in such a way that it is possible to obtain the magnitudes according to the angle and the coordinate plane of a specific propagation direction, which are given to the program as inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology of unilateral remote warfare develops continuously, and with it, an ever-rising threat to human lives and freedom from an array of actors, mostly state powers, that seek to use oppressive force against civilian populations. Trevor Paglen is a political visual artist, whose project Drones represents military operations and resources in ways that recontextualize the processes of visual targeting enacted by military drones. Paglen's work highlights the differences between human and machine vision and creates deliberate obfuscation that renders his photographs visually abstract. Following work by TJ Clark, Ariella Azoulay and Arden Reed, I approach Paglen's photograph Untitled (Reaper Drone) in the form of a slow investigation that highlights durational viewing. Slowness in this form creates a conversation between myself and the image that acknowledges the temporal dimension of art-viewing and resists the unilateral gaze of the drone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practicing slowly is an intuitive and prevalent learning strategy among instrumental musicians. Nevertheless, little is known about the psychological mechanisms of slow practice, or how rehearsing slow movements may support the performance of fast-tempo playing. This study investigated the prevalence and possible functions of slow practice strategies. A total of 256 adult instrumental musicians provided self-report ratings about slow practice and tempo-management strategy use, musical background information, and the Musical Self-regulated Learning Questionnaire in an online survey. Results indicate that practicing slowly is an extremely common technique among classical (99.45%) and non-classical (89.12%) musicians of varying expertise, supporting both technical and expressive goals, with technical more frequently reported. Principal components analysis identified three types of slow practice as serving expressive, technical, or preparatory functions. Expressive Slow Practice and Technical Slow Practice were positively associated with self-regulated learning, but not expertise across both music genre groups. Preparatory Slow Practice was positively associated with self-regulated learning and expertise in classical musicians, while in non-classical musicians, it had no association with self-regulation and a negative association with expertise. These findings provide groundwork for further research exploring causal effects of slow practice and tempo-management strategies on learning and development of self-regulated learning in various music genre cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The trajectory of incident disability that occurs simultaneously with changes in frailty status, as well as how much each frailty component contributes to this process in the different sexes, are unknown. The objective of this study is to analyse the trajectory of the incidence of disability on basic and instrumental activities of daily living (BADL and IADL) as a function of the frailty changes and their components by sex over time. Methods Longitudinal analyses of 1522 and 1548 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing study participants without BADL and IADL disability, respectively, and without frailty at baseline. BADL and IADL were assessed using the Katz and Lawton Scales and frailty by phenotype at 4, 8, and 12 years of follow‐up. Generalized mixed linear models were calculated for the incidence of BADL and IADL disability, as an outcome, using changes in the state of frailty and its components, as the exposure, by sex in models fully adjusted for sociodemographic, behavioural, biochemical, and clinical characteristics. Results The mean age, at baseline, of the 1522 eligible individuals free of BADL and free of frailty was 68.1 ± 6.2 years (52.1% women) and of the 1548 individuals free IADL and free frailty was 68.1 ± 6.1 years (50.6% women). Women who became pre‐frail had a higher risk of incidence of disability for BADL and IADL when compared with those who remained non‐frail (P

This paper discusses the applicability of double busbar design to surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices employing low-cut lithium tantalate (LT) with a multi-layered structure. This design offers good energy confinement, scattering loss suppression and transverse mode suppression for a wide frequency range. In addition, the effectiveness of manipulating the slowness curve shape for transverse mode suppression is demonstrated. First, three different lateral edge designs are applied to the layered SAW configuration on low-cut LT, and their performances are compared using the periodic three-dimensional finite-element method powered by the hierarchical cascading technique. Then, the discussion is extended to the influence of the SAW slowness shape to the transverse mode suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea and related practices of slowness have received global attention, as these have been viewed as reactions to and critiques of this "go‐faster" world. Celebration of slowness has been especially prominent in South Korea, which experienced an accelerated transition to a post‐industrial society. In line with recent power‐sensitive studies of slowness, this paper develops a governmentality approach that examines how slowness shapes particular bodily behaviours. Drawing on recent work on rhythmanalysis and governmentalities, this study examines how slowness is enrolled and enacts the rhythmic governing of "Olle" walking – the South Korean countryside walking experience. It specifically relates the analysis to the site‐specific experience of accelerated modernisation, where the legacy of state‐led industrial development persists in the prevailing neoliberal capitalism. First, it examines the ways in which slow rhythm is involved in walking practice, deploying and reproducing a specific rhythm, body, and the mode of biopower. It then looks at several ways through which the emerging slow rhythm of Olle walking and the fast rhythm of everyday life are negotiated. This paper argues that slow walking can serve as an affirmative mode of rhythmic governing that fosters care of the self and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses some of the challenges and possibilities of taking slowness as a tool to theorize and practice a way of being an activist anthropologist in the contemporary (neoliberal) university. The activism discussed here intervenes in the university itself. To articulate slowing down as mode of resistance to the unbearably fast and exclusionary rhythms of academic life, the article puts into dialogue documentary cinema and critiques of contemporary academia. Turning to the film Inland Sea as an instance of a mode of attention/attending to the world otherwise, the article concludes on the political potential of slowness to become a collective strategy of resistance to the increased culture of quantification, competition, and financialization in the university, and a tactic for an engaged anthropology to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to explore the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the portfolio of a saving and credit cooperative in Portoviejo, Ecuador, and to identify factors associated with the probability of reporting slowness. The literature addressing the effects of the pandemic on financial institutions has focused primarily on the rapid digitization of the industry and, geographically, in developed countries. To date, little literature has reported on the effect of the pandemic on saving and credit cooperatives in developing countries. A case study was designed with mixed-methods, combining regulatory content and cooperatives reports with a sample database of credit transactions between January 2019 and December 2021, and the data were analyzed using hypothesis testing and regression analysis. The variables that were best associated with the likelihood of a borrower reporting late payments are the amount of the credit, the time the credit was extended whether before or after the onset of the pandemic, and the sex of the borrowing member. The results can inform new experimental studies that will provide a deeper understanding of what works and what does not work for credit cooperatives during periods of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the desert was long perceived as a hostile and inhospitable territory, it was gradually conquered during the 20th century by the practice of sports and leisure activities. The aim of this article is to study these practices in the Saharan zone and, in particular, the genealogy of these practices in relation to speed. The first period, in the continuity of modernity thinking, was characterized by a time of acceleration of sports practices. The practice of desert driving and extreme sports are obviously the most symbolic of this period. Placed under the influence of a 'technological paradigm', these practices reflect the expression of 'One-Dimensional Man' in the language of sport. Today, these sports practices are more or less in decline, and new corporal and leisure practices are definitively joining a logic of slowness a more intimate projection of the body in nature and sustainable leisure. The development of Saharan hiking, the revival of camel riding, and sand bathing are evidence of this trend. In these new Saharan practices, slowness can be analysed as an emerging experience (Andrieu 2017b) of belonging to the World and Nature. The depth of the body is rediscovered through a body ecology that translates the awakening of a body placed in a life-giving situation at the heart of nature. This exhalation of an existential resourcing requires a spatial support, a counterpart of 'corpospatiality' which must be analysed through a second use or diversion. The slowing down of the pace of activities then makes it possible to envisage new ways of being in the world and interacting with it. These new bodily experiences in the desert can finally be seen as the expression of a renewed ecosophy understood as wisdom based on communion with nature, with others and with oneself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bergson's philosophy marked a turning point in Western understanding of time by differentiating quantitative time—apprehended by intelligence—from qualitative time—duration, embedded in consciousness and provided by intuition. Even if by unveiling those two modalities, he could beneficially reconsider the very nature of, altogether, movement, perception, liberty, and the present, and through this outline a conception of slowness, Bergson did not further the analysis towards the concrete unfolding of movement or slowness, mostly because these only interested him insofar as they could enlighten the functioning of consciousness—i.e. as case studies. For their part, Asian traditional martial arts came to elaborate a highly demanding expertise in movement efficiency based on kinesthetic sensitivity that made the variable of time a key lever of skill acquisition and transmission, with slowness being conferred a crucial importance. What does slowness specifically perform? Is there just a difference of degree between slow practices and the ones executed at fast speed? By crossing Bergson's indirect insight into the notion with its pragmatic use in Asian martial arts, this paper will distinguish two kinds of slowness: first, a quantitative and relative slowedness, that, as an artificial reduction of the pace of action, enables new modalities of consciousness to emerge for the benefit of understanding movement. Second, a qualitative and absolute slowness, which manifests a present imbued with and driven by duration, when action is immediately guided by the intuitive feeling of effort—this absolute slowness reflecting the natural state of movement sought by martial arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises tourist idleness as a temporary engagement in slow, slothful and entirely unstructured holiday activities. We aim to extend the studies that prioritise the modalities of holidays in nature that encourage simplified, slower, immersive experiences, and which celebrate mindfulness, slowness and stillness as part of a tourist journey. In framing idleness as a relaxing, creative and recuperative holiday practice, we suggest that creating places of otium which encourage 'doing nothing' can in many ways enhance tourist wellbeing. To this end, we discuss the significance of spatial, temporal and existential elements of tourist idleness, whilst arguing that this 'practice' should be more celebrated in our modern, high-speed societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Netla: Online Journal on Pedagogy & Education is the property of University of Iceland, School of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The text traces the development of the notion of catatonia in the work of Gilles Deleuze across three spheres – the individual (subjectivity), social and literary. The need for an analysis is based on (1) the author’s perception that Deleuze (and Guattari’s) thought on catatonia and slowness has been undervalued in many interpretations (particularly those linking the philosophers with accelerationism); (2) the recognition, in works of sociologists such as Hartmut Rosa, of the adverse effects of social acceleration. In the individual sphere, catatonia is the effect of a radical withdrawal into anti-production or the body without organs. In the social sphere, catatonia is also linked to anti-production, but since in capitalism most anti-production (or the socius) is included in the sphere of production (as capital), catatonia represents a special case of resistance to this tendency. Deleuze shows how these two spheres intertwine in his analyses of Herman Melville’s works, especially Billy Budd and Bartleby; the title characters of these two texts are interpreted as embodiments of the catatonic as a political-revolutionary figure.

Background: The trajectory of incident disability that occurs simultaneously with changes in frailty status, as well as how much each frailty component contributes to this process in the different sexes, are unknown. The objective of this study is to analyse the trajectory of the incidence of disability on basic and instrumental activities of daily living (BADL and IADL) as a function of the frailty changes and their components by sex over time. Methods: Longitudinal analyses of 1522 and 1548 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing study participants without BADL and IADL disability, respectively, and without frailty at baseline. BADL and IADL were assessed using the Katz and Lawton Scales and frailty by phenotype at 4, 8, and 12 years of follow‐up. Generalized mixed linear models were calculated for the incidence of BADL and IADL disability, as an outcome, using changes in the state of frailty and its components, as the exposure, by sex in models fully adjusted for sociodemographic, behavioural, biochemical, and clinical characteristics. Results: The mean age, at baseline, of the 1522 eligible individuals free of BADL and free of frailty was 68.1 ± 6.2 years (52.1% women) and of the 1548 individuals free IADL and free frailty was 68.1 ± 6.1 years (50.6% women). Women who became pre‐frail had a higher risk of incidence of disability for BADL and IADL when compared with those who remained non‐frail (P < 0.05). Men and women who became frail had a higher risk of incidence of disability regarding BADL and IADL when compared with those who remained non‐frail (P < 0.05). Slowness was the only component capable of discriminating the incidence of disability regarding BADL and IADL when compared with those who remained without slowness (P < 0.05). Weakness and low physical activity level in men and exhaustion in women also discriminated the incidence of disability (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Slowness is the main warning sign of functional decline in older adults. As its evaluation is easy, fast, and accessible, screening for this frailty component should be prioritized in different clinical contexts so that rehabilitation strategies can be developed to avoid the onset of disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial movements of others during verbal and social interaction are often too rapid to be faced and/or processed in time by numerous children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which could contribute to their face-to-face interaction peculiarities. We wish here to measure the effect of reducing the speed of one's facial dynamics on the visual exploration of the face by children with ASD. Twenty-three children with ASD and 29 typically-developing control children matched for chronological age passively viewed a video of a speaker telling a story at various velocities, i.e., a real-time speed and two slowed-down speeds. The visual scene was divided into four areas of interest (AOI): face, mouth, eyes, and outside the face. With an eye-tracking system, we measured the percentage of total fixation duration per AOI and the number and mean duration of the visual fixations made on each AOI. In children with ASD, the mean duration of visual fixations on the mouth region, which correlated with their verbal level, increased at slowed-down velocity compared with the real-time one, a finding which parallels a result also found in the control children. These findings strengthen the therapeutic potential of slowness for enhancing verbal and language abilities in children with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The point of departure of this article is the need to think about the theme of slowness and questioning in Carlos Drummond de Andrade's poetic creation, taking as a starting point these two elements as generators of an idea of difference. For that the way Drummond's poetry thinks the difference is studied through a constant appeal to the deceleration that crosses his literary creation, deceleration of writing, but also deceleration of reading, of the creative process and of a more intense contact with reality. For that, some poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade are studied in contact with poets like Manuel Bandeira, Wislawa Szymborska and Jorge Luís Borges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In postmodern society, speed has increasingly affirmed itself as synonymous of efficiency, capacity and competence. As result, this rapidity has produced a growing gap between a slow world and one more and more fast, with negative consequences on the environment and especially on the wellbeing of people. On the other hand, slowness has gradually established itself as a kind of manifesto which opposes the dominant system of values and reaffirms the importance of other dimensions of life in addition to labour and productivity. In this perspective, the study focuses on the set of “slow” practices aimed at enhancing territories and implementing sustainable development models, also in connection with tourism. For this purpose some Italian slow cities’ experiences are taken into consideration.