Lisbon's Red Belt: A Cautionary Tale on Politicisation and Depoliticisation of the Urban Realm

Within the making of Portuguese liberal‐representative democracy, the Portuguese Communist Party became a major actor in local government in urban deprived peripheries, shaping Lisbon's Red Belt. In this article, we analyse the communist discourse on the Portuguese urban question, showing how it politicised the urban as a site of unevenness and deprivation, but simultaneously depoliticised it by refusing to acknowledge it as a proper space for conflict. This historical account leads us to a critical debate with proposals that discuss urban politicisation by ontologising “the urban” or “the political”—we argue that these approaches tend to be less helpful in understanding processes of contingent, partial and inter‐related forms of politicisation/depoliticisation of the urban in itself. In contrast, we argue for a more attentive theorisation on politicisation–depoliticisation of the urban condition as a most valuable path to grasp situated formulations of citizenship and, hence, configurations of political regimes.     

Les mots de l’histoire (1925–1945)

Sans résumé Ses recherches portent sur l’histoire des idées du XVIII ^e au XX ^e siècle, sur la méthodologie philosophique et l’épistémologie. Elle a récemment publié, sous sa direction, Comparatismi e filosofia, Naples, Liguori, 2006. à propos du recueil Les Mots de l’histoire. Le vocabulaire historique du Centre international de synthèse, édition établie, présentée et annotée par Margherita Platania, trad. de l’italien rév. par Catherine Rutili, Naples, Bibliopolis, 2000, 497 p. (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Serie Testi, XIV). Ce texte est issu d’une conférence prononcée le 3 mai 2002 au Centre international de synthèse, à Paris (H?tel de Nevers, salon de Madame de Lambert).     

Innovation,R&D and Technology Transfer: Policies towards a Regional Innovation System. The Case of Lombardy

The evolution of Lombardy's economic structure and international position led the regional government to build up a network of public and private stakeholders in the effort of promoting the creation of new knowledge and supporting innovation at local level. In this article a technology picture of the region and the main policy actions undertaken in recent years in Lombardy to promote a nest of linkages within actors, moving along the approach of regional innovation systems are presented.     

Lorenz Heister and the challenge of trepanation: a neurosurgical case study from the 18th century

In the 18th century, medical practice was essentially based on communication. Cranial trepanation, however, was usually performed on an unconscious person. Here the dialogue ceased. It was the only operation which had to be attempted without the positive consent of the patient. Thus trepanation challenged the surgeon's skill not only with its intricate surgical practice, but also with its unusual social setting. The present paper illustrates possible ways out of the "trap of trepanation" by interweaving two points of view. On the one hand, a general account is given on the basis of surgical publications written by Lorenz Heister and his contemporaries. On the other, the unpublished sources of the Heister correspondence serve to reconstruct the case of Heinrich Wilhelm Bachmann, a German merchant who fell victim to a traffic accident and underwent trepanation in 1753. The case study shows how the physician in charge counterbalanced the patient's inability to communicate by strengthening the remaining network of professionals, and ultimately confirming his decisions by use of the post-mortem.     

COVID-19 is expanding global consciousness and the sustainability of travel and tourism

Abstract

The sustainable development model has largely failed to address the social and environmental challenges of the 21^st century. True sustainability will only occur when it is valued as a part of the taken-for-granted daily life of individuals and cultures across the globe. This has not yet happened because humanity has not evolved a global consciousness quickly enough to match the global advances in telecommunications and transportation technologies that have created a socially and economically ever-shrinking planet. Travel and tourism contributes to the expansion of global consciousness, although only in a haphazard and unintentional manner. The COVID-19 pandemic is a result of planetary time-space compression and is forcing an expansion in human consciousness that will make humankind better able to address global problems. There will still be considerable diversity on the planet, as now, but the pandemic will stimulate growing numbers of people, businesses and governments to adopt new ways of thinking, behaving and operating that are more closely aligned with the goals of sustainable development. This could be further enhanced if travel and tourism were to adopt the expansion and awakening of global conscious as a fundamental and transformational value in the products and experiences that it offers.