Open University of Catalonia

About: Open University of Catalonia is a education organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Collaborative learning & Educational technology. The organization has 1943 authors who have published 4646 publications receiving 64200 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya & UOC.

Imaginaries of Hope: The Utopianism of Degrowth

Abstract: This article analyzes degrowth, a project of radical socioecological transformation calling for decolonizing the social imaginary from capitalism's pursuit of endless growth. Degrowth is an advance...

Just a Matter of Identity? Support for Independence in Catalonia

Abstract: The Catalan case is usually depicted in the literature as a typical example of a nation without state with a predominant civic nationalism, where the importance of dual identities tends to generate claims for self-government short of independence. However, the recent evolution of Catalan and Spanish politics shows that independence receives relevant levels of support even among groups expressing some degree of identification with the state identity. This paper aims to fill the gap in this relatively unexplored dimension of Catalan nationalism by analysing the factors that help explain support for independence in Catalonia. The results of the research point to the importance of identity in explaining attitudes towards independence but also that it receives widespread support across Catalan society, suggesting much more complex relations.

Linguistic commodification in tourism

Abstract: Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2012 in Switzerland, Catalonia and different zones of francophone Canada in sites related to heritage and cultural tourism, we argue that tourism, especially in multilingual peripheries, is a key site for a sociolinguistic exploration of the political economy of globalization. We link shifts in the role of language in tourism to shifts in phases of capitalism, focusing on the shift from industrial to late capitalism, and in particular on the effects of the commodification of authenticity. We examine the tensions this shift generates in ideologies and practices of language, concerned especially with defining the nature of the tourism product, its public and market, and the management of the tourism process. This results in an as yet unresolved destabilization of hitherto hegemonic discourses linking languages to cultures, identities, nations and States. Sobre la base del nostre treball de camp realitzat entre 2002 i 2012 en llocs

“For she who knows who she is:” Managing Accountability in Online Forum Messages

Abstract: The recent application of Conversation Analysis (CA) to online forum communication has been successful in explicating the sequential ties among messages. In this article, we build on those foundations and show how CA’s illumination of the structural resources of interaction can provide an analysis of accountable action in an online forum setting. We report a case study to illustrate how a user, in carrying off a ‘declaration of love,’ attends to her accountability in posting such a message. We analyse the message’s placement as an initiating first turn; its prefatory work as an announcement; its selection of next speaker; and its internal design as a turn-at-interaction. We show how these features are oriented to in the first message sent in response. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the usefulness of CA in illuminating users’ orientation to the accountable norms of online behavior.