Building the next generation of leaders in the disabilities movement

The results from this study highlight ways that the disabilities community within the USA can begin to further promote the numbers and qualities of its leaders. Twenty-one grassroots and statewide leaders of the disabilities movement in one state described how they became a leader and identified ways that the disabilities movement can more effectively promote leadership within its ranks. Overall, our informants highlighted the need for the disabilities movement to re-examine its current definitions of and approaches to leadership development. They described the need for a more collective, versus individualistic, approach to leadership within the disabilities movement and the adoption of a more integrated, action learning approach to leadership development. Implications for the disabilities movement are discussed.     

Undercut

ABSTRACT

In this article I consider some representations of the figure of the indigene in contemporary Australia, and their implications for a range of issues and debates in cultural theory. In particular, I examine the positioning of the indigenous body within two related discourses that I term ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘hybridity’, or the discourses of happy hyphenation and happy hybridization, respectively. These discourses, I want to suggest, raise specific problems in an Australian historical context, where the effects of scientific racism are being confronted by indigenous peoples in relation to land rights claims and, more generally, the dominant culture's demands for an ‘authentic’, visible and unproblematic Aboriginality that can be both clearly marked and contained. The figure of Truganini has particular significance in these debates, precisely because her body has figured as the site of geneticist practices and discourses. Simultaneously I locate these representations in the context(s) of the monument year of 1993, contexts that encompass a mesh of interrelated cultural concerns sometimes simplified under the heading of ‘Australian national identity’.     

Knowledge and class

Cultural scholars are paying increasing attention to the ways in which choice has become a cultural obligation deeply ingrained in neoliberal, post-feminist, therapeutic and consumerist norms. Drawing insights from this literature, this paper first charts the changing discourse on choice, and then goes on to both examine and challenge the centrality of the rhetoric of choice in contemporary discourses of singlehood and single women. In my analysis, the idea of choice is posited as a multivalent signifier dependent on changing social contexts and denoting shifting aspects of feminine subjectivity and personal relations. It is my aim thereby to problematize notions of choice and singlehood, as well as to question the cultural processes that produce them. To do so, I probe the discursive relations that produce distinctive clusters of meanings, as well as the tensions and contradictions that emerge around them. Such a reading emerges from a content-based analysis of readers' comments and responses to an online Internet column depicting the various advantages of being ‘single-by-choice’. The findings show that while choice can be a discursive force that enables single women to resist traditional family forms and establish their chosen subjectivities, the centrality of choice in the construction of intimate relations today also casts in doubt and paradoxically delegitimizes single women's option of autonomy and individuality. Some of the social interpretations of choice denote that single women are endowed with a partial and incomplete subjectivity, while according to other stances the choice of singlehood signifies a radical option for claiming singlehood as a long-term way of life. However, the aim of the critique proposed here is not merely to deconstruct the discursive mechanism that delegitimizes singlehood, but also to point out some of the potential limitations emerging from the new counter-discourse of chosen singlehood.     

Managing Co‐creation Design: A Strategic Approach to Innovation

Co‐creation offers firms and their network of actors significant opportunities for innovation, as each actor offers access to new resources through a process of resource integration. However, despite the significant advantages that co‐creation can offer, there is surprisingly little research providing a strategic approach for identifying the most advantageous co‐creation opportunities, especially when many possible options are available. Recently, scholars have called for research that develops tools and processes related to co‐creation. This study addresses these priorities, making two contributions. First, in contrast to previous work considering co‐creation more generally, or focusing on one specific form only, e.g. co‐production, this paper offers a detailed and granular approach to co‐creation design. A co‐creation design framework is developed, which incorporates multiple design dimensions and categories that can reveal new co‐creation opportunities. Second, the research extends the application of a design approach, specifically within the context of co‐creative activities. The authors use field‐based research with senior executives to develop a framework that includes key co‐creation design elements. A morphological approach is used to explore how a lead firm can identify attractive co‐creation opportunities. An innovation solution in one organization provides an illustration of how the co‐creation design framework can be applied.