Catalonia's Human Towers

Catalonia's Human Towers
Author: Mariann Vaczi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2023-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253067170

The building of human towers (castells) is a centuries-old traditional sport where hundreds of men, women, and children gather in Catalan squares to create breathtaking edifices through a feat of collective athleticism. The result is a great spectacle of effort and overcoming, tension and release. Catalonia's Human Towers is an ethnographic look at the thriving castells practice--a symbol of Catalan cultural heritage and identity amid debates around national autonomy and secession from Spain. While the main function of building castells is to grow community through a low-cost, intergenerational, and inclusive leisure activity, Mariann Vaczi reveals how this unique sport also provides a social base, image, and vocabulary for the independence movement. Highlighting the intersection of folklore, performance, and sport, Catalonia's Human Towers captures the subtle processes by which the body becomes politicized and ideology becomes embodied, with all the desires, risks and precarities of collective constructions.

Castells

Castells
Author: Josep Almirall
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Acrobatics
ISBN:

Catalonia's Human Towers

Catalonia's Human Towers
Author: Mariann Vaczi
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2023-07-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253067189

The building of human towers (castells) is a centuries-old traditional sport where hundreds of men, women, and children gather in Catalan squares to create breathtaking edifices through a feat of collective athleticism. The result is a great spectacle of effort and overcoming, tension and release. Catalonia's Human Towers is an ethnographic look at the thriving castells practice—a symbol of Catalan cultural heritage and identity amid debates around national autonomy and secession from Spain. While the main function of building castells is to grow community through a low-cost, intergenerational, and inclusive leisure activity, Mariann Vaczi reveals how this unique sport also provides a social base, image, and vocabulary for the independence movement. Highlighting the intersection of folklore, performance, and sport, Catalonia's Human Towers captures the subtle processes by which the body becomes politicized and ideology becomes embodied, with all the desires, risks and precarities of collective constructions.

The Technology Fallacy

The Technology Fallacy
Author: Gerald C. Kane
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2022-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 026254511X

Why an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology. Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions—but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done. A focus only on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies is not likely to lead to success. The best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing the company culture to be more agile, risk tolerant, and experimental. The authors draw on four years of research, conducted in partnership with MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, surveying more than 16,000 people and conducting interviews with managers at such companies as Walmart, Google, and Salesforce. They introduce the concept of digital maturity—the ability to take advantage of opportunities offered by the new technology—and address the specifics of digital transformation, including cultivating a digital environment, enabling intentional collaboration, and fostering an experimental mindset. Every organization needs to understand its “digital DNA” in order to stop “doing digital” and start “being digital.” Digital disruption won't end anytime soon; the average worker will probably experience numerous waves of disruption during the course of a career. The insights offered by The Technology Fallacy will hold true through them all. A book in the Management on the Cutting Edge series, published in cooperation with MIT Sloan Management Review.

As If By Design

As If By Design
Author: Edward A. Wasserman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2021-07-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1108808247

The eureka moment is a myth. It is an altogether naïve and fanciful account of human progress. Innovations emerge from a much less mysterious combination of historical, circumstantial, and accidental influences. This book explores the origin and evolution of several important behavioral innovations including the high five, the Heimlich maneuver, the butterfly stroke, the moonwalk, and the Iowa caucus. Such creations' striking suitability to the situation and the moment appear ingeniously designed with foresight. However, more often than not, they actually arise 'as if by design.' Based on investigations into the histories of a wide range of innovations, Edward A. Wasserman reveals the nature of behavioral creativity. What surfaces is a fascinating web of causation involving three main factors: context, consequence, and coincidence. Focusing on the process rather than the product of innovation elevates behavior to the very center of the creative human endeavor.

The Rise of Catalan Identity

The Rise of Catalan Identity
Author: Pompeu Casanovas
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030181448

This volume helps us to understand that the current political disorders in Catalonia have deep cultural roots. It focuses on the rise of Catalan cultural, national and linguistic identity in the 20th century. What is happening in Catalonia? What lies behind its political conflicts? Catalan identity has been evolving for centuries, starting in early medieval ages (11th and 12lve centuries). It is not a modern phenomenon. The emergence of imperial Spain in the 16 c. and the French Ancien Régime in the 17 c. correlates with a decline of Catalan culture, which was politically absorbed by the Spanish state after the conquest of Barcelona in 1714. However, Catalan language and culture flourished again under the stimulus of the European Romantic Nationalism movement (known as the Renaixença in Catalonia). During the first Dictatorship (Primo de Rivera, 1923-1930), the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the long Francoist era (1939-1975), Catalan language and culture were repressed, yet refurbished and reconstructed at the same time. This rise of a plural, complex, and non-homogeneous Catalan identity constitutes the subject matter of this volume. National conflicts that emerged later in the Spanish democratic state leant heavily on the life engagement and vital commitment experienced by the entrenched intellectual movements of the twentieth century in Catalonia, Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands. This book reveals the cultural and literary grassroots of these conflicts.

Castells. Torri umane

Castells. Torri umane
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2011-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9788484784760

Castells (castles) are human towers built in Catalonia where men, women and children alike participate. These towers may reach a height of up to ten storeys and, since 2010, are Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. Castells. Touching the sky with the hand presents us a fun and rigorous explanation of the keys to understand and enjoy these ephemeral and fantastic constructions which, besides being an expression of the Catalan cultural identity, are also a metaphor and reality of brotherly work and of the sense of continuity within the community.

Border Crossings

Border Crossings
Author: Peter Wagstaff
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9783039102792

This volume assesses the importance of border crossings in the evolution of European culture and identity, as reflected in the work of modern European writers and film-makers. Contributors chart the processes of transition from stability to change, from the known to the culturally unsettled, treating the themes of migration, exile, allegiance and belonging, journey, marginality, the legacy of war and displacement, memory and the denial of memory. What emerges is a cross-disciplinary reappraisal of the concept of identity, in which fixity is replaced by movement, and in which the dynamic process of story-telling, with its narratives of migration, exile, and borders crossed, mirrors the shifting and nomadic pluralities of modern existence.

Insight Guides City Guide Barcelona (Travel Guide eBook)

Insight Guides City Guide Barcelona (Travel Guide eBook)
Author: Insight Guides
Publisher: Apa Publications (UK) Limited
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2018-12-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1789192935

Insight City Guides: all you need to inspire every step of your trip. This newly updated edition of Insight City Guide Barcelona is ideal for travellers seeking immersive cultural experiences - In-depth on history and culture: enjoy special features on Modernisme, fiestas and markets, all written by local experts - Innovative extras = incredible value, and unique in the market. Content overview: -in-depth on history and culture -invaluable maps, travel tips and practical information ensure effortless planning -inspirational colour photography throughout -inventive design makes for an engaging reading experience