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This review covers the key stages of the complex British historiographical debate on the Commonwealth of Nations. Long regarded, even in academic circles, as merely a posthumous legacy of the Empire and a difficult organization to define, the Commonwealth’s history has been shaped by the intense debate that followed the rise of post-colonial and subaltern studies. This debate persisted into the 21st century, further reignited by the UK’s exit from the European Union, yet Commonwealth history has largely remained on the fringes of British historiography, with only a few notable exceptions.

The overall aim of this paper is to contribute to the reflection on the sustainable and innovative development paths of local communities. In addition, the paper offers insights into the relationship that exists between these innovative paths and the emergence of alternative forms of tourism established to contrast organized and standardized mass tourism, namely ‘niche tourism’ conceived and implemented mainly at a local level. Specifically, the research discussed in this paper aims at reflecting on the actors and strategies (and/or empowerment processes) required for the promotion of sustainable tourism practices. For the purposes of the field research, the case study methodology in a comparative perspective was chosen. In particular, four experiences were identified, two in Argentina, one of which in the province of Buenos Aires and the other in the province of Santa Fe, and two Italian case study experiences in small communities in Southern Italy. All case studies have specific characteristics, i.e., communities located in inland areas, with tourism experiences, and with significant projects in terms of values, motivations, and the capacity to involve both local actors as well as those outside the territorial context. The findings show that promoting sustainable tourism development of inland communities requires consideration of several factors, including the stakeholders involved and the strategies to be adopted to promote sustainable tourism practices in order to increase the well-being and quality of life of local communities. The case studies presented highlight how the empowerment of local actors and the enhancement of territorial capital are closely linked. Indeed, processes involving the local community can have a significant impact on the economic and social growth of a territory, through the enhancement of territorial peculiarities, which are at the basis of the construction of tourist and experiential products.

Aztec pictographic writing conveys semantic (and linguistic) contents through conventional patterns of units. We argue that relevant visual values are ordered in subsets (topological, spatial and logical). Each unit is a "character" (in the Unicode vocabulary), either as a positive unit (a graphic sign) or as an "empty" spatial, topo-graphical relation between signs. It is sketched, then, a digital method processing sets of basic graphic features as non-linear combinations of variables; they display an overall structure similar to Unicode encoding of emoji. Finally, more coded variables are set to account for broader compositions, since coding systems available so far are not flexible enough to accommodate the encoding of Aztec units.

Background Patient engagement (PE) in research refers to partnering with people with lived experience (e.g., patients, caregivers, family) as collaborators in the research process. Although PE is increasingly being recognized as an important aspect of health research, the current state of PE among pain research trainees in Canada is unclear.Aims The aims of this study were to describe perspectives about and experiences with PE among trainees conducting pain research in Canada, to identify perceived barriers and facilitators, and to describe recommendations to improve its implementation.Methods A cross-sectional web-based survey (English and French) was administered to trainees at any level conducting pain research at any Canadian academic institution.Results A total of 128 responses were received; 115 responses were complete and included in the final analysis. The majority of respondents identified as women (90/115; 78.3%), in graduate school (83/115; 72.2%), and conducting clinical pain research (83/115; 72.2%). Most respondents (103/115; 89.6%) indicated that PE is “very” or “extremely” important. Despite this, only a minority of respondents (23/111; 20.7%) indicated that they “often” or “always” implement PE within their own research. The most common barrier identified was lack of knowledge regarding the practical implementation of PE, and understanding its positive value was the most commonly reported facilitator. Recommendations for improving the implementation of PE were diverse.Conclusions Despite viewing PE as important in research, a minority of pain research trainees regularly implement PE. Results highlight perceived barriers and facilitators to PE and provide insight to inform the development of future training and other enabling initiatives.

Mentioned in the first book of the Odyssey as an emporium for the exchange of metals, Temesa is described as an eminent centre of the indigenous Italian world, to which the Greeks are attracted. According to Strabo, it was established by the Ausones and later conquered by the Aetolians, after the Trojan War. A few other literary sources report an intricate legend. It tells the story of one of Odysseus’s companions who came to Temesa, took advantage of the local hospitality and raped a young woman. As a result, he was killed by stoning and left unburied. He later turned into a demon, half man half wolf, and required the payment of a tribute. Temesa is freed from this curse by a boxer, Euthymos from Locri Epizefirî; this act marks the beginning of the settlement’s submission to Locri Epizefirî. This legend seems to be about the antagonism between indigenous communities and Greek navigators, as highlighted by the characters’ interactions and the story’s political conclusion. My archaeological investigation has found elements from the Middle Bronze Age onwards pertaining to this settlement, which fits into a geographical context specific to the Southern Tyrrhenian Coast. In its Archaic period, Temesa is at the crossroad of different cultures.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has magnified detrimental social and health experiences and consequences for youth at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Recent research indicates that heightened household tensions due to stay-at-home orders, coupled with pandemic-related financial insecurities, have worsened pre-existing factors for many young people, particularly for those experiencing stigma and violence. As a result, it can be projected that the risk and experience of youth homelessness will intensify. In spite of this, there has been scarce attention to the impacts the current context has on these vulnerable groups. This commentary aims to bring attention to the prevailing issues and challenges faced by youth at-risk of homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides crucial considerations for preventative solutions by incorporating the Roadmap for the Prevention of Youth Homelessness Framework. Based on research across fields, we offer insights for equity-focused, collaborative interventions, focusing on the education and social services sectors.

Scientific literature on tourism has given a considerable amount of attention to the study of the touristic experience. During modernity, the discussion, branded as critical studies on tourism, has underlines the heterodirect nature of tourism, and as a consequence the banality of the touristic experience as it is manipulated by the tourism industry (e.g.: Morin, 1965; Ezenberger, 1962; Boorstin, 1962; Turner and Ash 1975). However, in addition to this view, there is another in the literature, that although recognizes the predominantly superficial character of the tourist experience, focuses on the value of travel and its meanings. Among these studies, we find the one proposed by MacCannell, which argues that all tourists seek an authentic travel experience, and that their goal in any case is the search for the Sacred. For the scholar, the search for authenticity is a constant feature of social life, and tourism is an almost perfect example of this, similar to religious pilgrimages. The problem, MacCannell states, is that tourists are offered the proscenium (which is called the front region), while being denied access to the back region, that is, to the real life of the host community (MacCannell, 1976). Indeed, the extensive literature available on religious pilgrimage (Jackowski and Smith, 1992; Simonicca, 1995; Shinde, 2008; Nyaupane and Budruk, 2009), considers the pilgrim to be a person who travels towards what is sacred, or towards a spiritual center. At this point the important study by Cohen (1979) comes into play, which identifies different types of tourists, based on the level of alienation compared to the society to which they belong, ranging from those who fully identify with the society to which they belong, to those who select a society or culture different from their own as their “spiritual center” where they take shelter, when needed, precisely to draw spiritual support, as in the case of pilgrimage. In this sense, the journey of roots presents human and psychological characteristics that render it, therefore, comparable to the pilgrimage: just like the pilgrim, the root tourist also embarks on a journey towards a place (the one of origin) which is considered “sacred” for the purpose of personal enrichment (Romita and Perri, 2009; Perri, 2020). To this we must add that demoralizing situations for the root tourist could arise when the search for authenticity which is taken for granted guides the roots journey, it ends in an artificial tourist experience (MacCannell, 1976), or in a discrepancy between expected authenticity and subjective perception of the experience made, or, finally in the way which authenticity manifests with reference to the way in which the individual recognition of one’s identity takes place, in relation to what is considered an authentic expression of the culture of the community and territory of one’s origins (Wang, 1999). Here we intend to propose a reflection on the sacred value that tourists assign to the roots journey. In this case, we will use part of the results obtained from the field research activities carried out in a handful of southern Italian communities.

As is known, for many years now, the economic and social development of urban areas, whether large or small, has been increasingly linked to the presence and level of diffusion of the tourist phenomenon. In such contexts, it is therefore extremely important for public governance to spend as fully as possible in creating situations that make one’s urban area capable of attracting an adequate shares of tourist flows (Semi, 2015). There is, however, an awareness that competition is now played out on a global and transmedia level (Jenkins, 2007), also through the design and provision of services and solutions that add value to the quality of local life (Nuvolati, 2007) and to the promised tourist experience (Augé, 1999). There is, moreover, an increasingly widespread belief that through place branding processes people's sense of belonging and territorial identity can be strengthened (Rizzi et al, 2018). The need to intervene is even more pressing in cases where urban areas have lost weight and relevance (Scattone, 2000), due to an economic and social structure that has not been able to adapt promptly to the changes undergone by society (Harvey, 2010). In fact, in these cases, we are faced with the problem of a reorganisation of public governance (Honh, Neuer, 2006) that also aims to recover the centrality and/or visibility of the place, as well as to mitigate the negative impacts that the 'crisis' has generated on the fabric of the city (unemployment, urban decay and abandonment, gentrification issues, etc.). In fact, in these cases, competition is even fiercer at the international level. For example, already more than thirty years ago, the Italian Fordist cities in crisis, in order to recover, had identified the tourism phenomenon as the sector in which to invest and, therefore, started urban regeneration processes that included the reconversion, reorganisation and reuse not only of abandoned urban areas, but also of some former industrial sites (for example, a well-known case is that of Genoa; Gazzola, 2006). Today, however, all this is no longer enough, and destinations wishing to compete in the national and international tourism market must also focus on building what is usually called place branding. That is, they must activate a mechanism of public governance capable of bringing out the emotional and experiential qualities of places, which can be summed up in a system of values with a clearly identifiable meaning. In this paper, we will deal with an element that we consider to be very special and not well known in the construction of place branding, which is what we call here "family storytelling". In particular, we intend to highlight the importance that "family storytelling" plays in the formation of place branding and the consequence in the local development of the destination. In this regard, we will make use of the case study of a particular and interesting tourist demand, which is that of those who travel to their family's places of origin, and the results of a qualitative survey involving a foreign community of Italian Americans.

Much of what we know about the meaning and experience of pain has been facilitated through qualitative research. However, qualitative inquiry continues to be underrepresented in the pain literature relative to quantitative approaches. In this Commentary and Introduction to the Special Issue on Qualitative Research and Pain, we present a collection of high-quality, cutting-edge qualitative studies in pain that highlight theoretical and methodological advancements in the field. The articles included in this Special Issue feature a range of designs (e.g., grounded theory, phenomenology, qualitative description), methods of data collection (e.g., interviews, object elicitation, photovoice), and populations (e.g., immigrant women, individuals with heart disease). Throughout this Commentary we also address three common controversies regarding the quality of qualitative research and the stance we took on them for the Issue. These primarily deal with the procedure-related issues of sample size, generalizability, and saturation. We discuss how a more substantive-centered approach to evaluation—that is, an approach that considers the methodological and theoretical significance of the work—is crucial for advancing qualitative research in pain.

La società attuale può essere definita come “società viaggiante”, caratterizzata, cioè, da una mobilità territoriale che ha raggiunto caratteri e dimensioni decisamente rilevanti, tanto che alcuni scienziati sociali propongono lo studio della mobilità territoriale (new mobility paradigm) quale modello concettuale di riferimento per la comprensione della società contemporanea e per l’analisi delle continue trasformazioni che caratterizzano la cultura contemporanea, riservando un ruolo importante alla mobilità turistica. Tuttavia, ciò che oggi maggiormente colpisce non è solo la notevole quantità di persone che si muovono sul pianeta Terra, ma anche la facilità e la rapidità con cui quantità ancora più ampie di persone realizzano ogni giorno “esperienze virtuali” di viaggio e soggiorno. Infatti, le attuali tecnologie attraverso cui, perennemente interconnessi, ci informiamo e comunichiamo con gli altri, rendono possibile, e ad un costo relativamente contenuto, il collegamento in tempo reale fra le persone di tutte le aree del mondo e con qualsiasi luogo ove sia presente una webcam. Nel presente lavoro, oltre che a descrivere il ruolo svolto dalle nuove tecnologie nel turismo post-moderno, si proporrà una riflessione sul ruolo giocato dallo sviluppo della mobilità virtuale sulla de-localizzazione e de-territorializzazione dei processi di formazione del senso di appartenenza spaziale e temporale.

Much of what we know about the meaning and experience of pain has been facilitated through qualitative research. However, qualitative inquiry continues to be underrepresented in the pain literature relative to quantitative approaches. In this Commentary and Introduction to the Special Issue on Qualitative Research and Pain, we present a collection of high quality, cutting-edge qualitative studies in pain that highlight theoretical and methodological advancements in the field. The articles included in this Special Issue feature a range of designs (e.g., grounded theory, phenomenology, qualitative description), methods of data collection (e.g., interviews, object elicitation, photovoice), and populations (e.g., immigrant women, individuals with heart disease). Throughout this Commentary we also address three common controversies regarding the quality of qualitative research and the stance we took on them for the Issue. These primarily deal with the procedure-related issues of sample size, generalizability, and saturation. We discuss how a more substantive-centered approach to evaluation, that is an approach that considers the methodological and theoretical significance of the work, is crucial for advancing qualitative research in pain.

Background: The knowledge and ability to prescribe safely and effectively is a core competency for every graduating medical student. Our previous research suggested concerns about medical student prescribing abilities, and interest in a standardized assessment process. Methods: A multi-year cross-sectional study evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and discriminative ability of an online prescribing competency assessment for final year Canadian medical students was conducted. Students at nine sites of four Ontario medical schools were invited to participate in an online one-hour exam of eight domains related to prescribing safely. Student feedback on perceived fairness, clarity, and ease of use formed the primary outcome. Exam performance and parity between schools were the secondary outcome. Results: A total of 714 students completed the assessment during spring final review courses between 2016 and 2018. Student feedback was more favourable than not for appropriateness of content (53.5% agreement vs 18.3% disagreement), clarity of questions (65.5% agreement vs 11.6% disagreement), question layout and presentation (70.8% agreement vs 12.2% disagreement), and ease of use of online interface (67.1% agreement vs 13.6% disagreement). Few (23.6% believed their course work had prepared them for the assessment. Mean total exam score was 70.0% overall (SD 10.4%), with 47.6% scoring at or above the pass threshold of 70%. Conclusion: Our prescribing competency assessment proved feasible, acceptable, and discriminative, and indicated a need for better medical school training to improve prescribing competency. Further evaluation in a larger sample of medical schools is warranted.

Introduction/Aim: Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) affects approximately 24,000 children throughout Canada, many of whom report pain as the predominant symptom. Caregivers play an important role in managing JIA-related pain; not only are they the primary support, many are also tasked with administering potentially painful treatments at home. This study explored caregivers’ confidence and information needs in managing their child’s pain. Methods: Recruitment took place worldwide by engaging partner organizations and sharing across online and social media platforms. 216 caregivers of children with JIA aged 0–17 participated in an online survey, completing questions about their child’s arthritis and pain, and their own information needs. Participants were predominantly mothers (96%) residing in North America (77%). Results: Caregivers reported lacking confidence in alleviating their child’s arthritis-related pain (M = 4.11, SD = 2.60, range = 0–10). Although all participants reported wanting some information, regressions demonstrate that lower caregiver confidence related to a need for more information [t = −2.91, β = −0.34 (−0.57, −0.12)]. The most frequently identified needs included managing emotions related to painful experiences (60%) and differentiating arthritis pain from normal pain (56%). Caregivers strongly valued developing partnerships between researchers and parent organizations wherein evidence-based information related to arthritis pain could be shared (M = 4.25, SD = 1.05, range = 1–5). Discussion/Conclusions: As caregivers of children with JIA are tasked with helping to manage their child’s pain, it is important that they have the necessary tools to do so. This research demonstrates that although parents’ lack confidence in pain management, they are keen to learn more. Implications will be discussed for knowledge translation within this community.

L’articolo torna ad affrontare la questione dell’iconismo alla luce delle trasformazioni dell’immagine introdotte dal digitale. L’immagine digitale infatti rappresenta una potenziale messa in crisi del rapporto di riferimento con un Oggetto che nei casi di morphing, in cui la riconoscibilità del testo non più riducibile alla riconoscibilità delle sue parti, si spinge verso un punto di non ritorno. Una riproposizione della riflessione peirceana dell’iconicità, tuttavia, è in grado “rispondere” al problema posto della pratiche quotidiane di manipolazione iconica, posto che si abbandoni ogni presupposto realista “forte” accentuando, al contrario, il carattere conoscitivo dell’iconicità tante volte ribadito da Peirce (che nel suo pensiero è indissolubilmente connesso a un’istanza costruttivista e creativa di natura estetica). The aim of this paper is to reframe the “classic” and debated question of iconism in the light of new digital technologies, which introduced a major change in the status but also in the interpretation of images. Any digital(ized) image, indeed, loose “reference potential” to a Dynamic Object intrinsic to it as an integral part of its photographical status (i.e., its indexical nature); moreover, in instances of morphing, the iconic text is recognized as an homogeneous figure but not through a previous identification of its constitutive parts: reference processes, thus, disappeared. Still, in our opinion, a careful rethinking of Peircean notion of iconism can answer to some of those questions, provided we dismiss strong or ontological realistic requirements; on the contrary, we need to focus on the cognitive nature of iconicity often stated by the same Peirce, reading it as intrinsically connected with a perceptually motivated but constructivist (and esthetically productive) stance.

The article aims to address the relationships between the Italian Marxism and the peripheral nationalisms, through the reading of a political history that has its roots in the Cologne Congress of the Communist Party of Italy, and that continued silently until the dissolution of “Democrazia Proletaria”. The program of action adopted in Cologne in 1931, which contemplated the creation of the federation of socialist and sovietic republics of Italy, declared the beginning of a troubled and ambiguous relationship between our national Marxism and the right of self-determination. Immediately after being set aside by the official Communist movement, this issue remerged periodically in the debates of the revolutionary left. From the relationships between “Lotta Continua” and “Potere Operaio” with the Basques and the Irish separatists, to the formal and official recognition by “Democrazia Proletaria” of the Italian peripheral nationalities, there are many elements which call for careful reflections on these issues. The analysis of the political decisions and the struggles waged in the name of self-determination by the New Italian Left could allow a greater understanding of the complex relationship between Socialism and Nationalism that has been too often misunderstood.

Riassunto: Scopo di questo articolo è riconsiderare, passandole in rassegna, le risposte date dagli studi semiolinguistici e antropologici dell’ultimo secolo alla domanda (apparentemente scontata o banale): “cos’è la scrittura?”. Gli approcci che verranno analizzati criticamente sono tutti caratterizzati da una visione “ideologica” di cosa significhi scrivere, per lo più condizionata da criteri e pratiche riconducibili all’Occidente industrializzato. Cercherò tuttavia di dimostrare come le diverse posizioni finiscano in definitiva per portare alla luce alcune caratteristiche semiotiche fondamentali che, a mio avviso, sono le sole in grado di spiegare la natura delle concrete pratiche scrittorie, nel descrivere le quali assistiamo (in Occidente come altrove) a ineludibili fenomeni di mescolamento e contatto fra norme e canoni visivo-grafici di solito considerati assolutamente distinti gli uni dagli altri. Nell’ultima parte del testo sosterrò l’idea che promuovere usi più dinamici e ibridi di scrittura e grafismo nelle scuole e al di fuori di esse significa accettare gli inevitabili fenomeni di interazione fra singoli sistemi notazionali e altri tipi di simboli grafici: è necessario, cioè, ammettere che a livello dell’espressione grafica diviene praticamente impossibile escludere del tutto o in parte dall’analisi l’occorrenza di unità visive non codificate linguisticamente ma, spesso, in possesso di caratteri discreti e natura distintiva. La scrittura insomma ha sempre beneficiato dalla “contiguità mediale” e delle possibilità sincretiche offerte dalla giustapposizione con qualunque altra forma di diagramma e immagine (o disegno); del resto l’antropologa Ruth Finnegan ha giustamente fatto notare come nella scrittura siano sempre presenti molteplici dimensioni visive, a dispetto del fatto che alcune indiscriminate pratiche di melting pot grafico contemporaneo rendano spesso poco attraente o praticabile un approccio genuinamente antropologico e interculturale ai diversi processi di alfabetizzazione.

Nell’ultimo quarto di secolo la tematica della scrittura in rete è stata oggetto di una letteratura nutrita quanto eterogenea: un po’ come se sulla riflessione critica “meta” dedicata al testo digitale fosse destinata a pesare l’identica ipoteca che ha gravato sulla natura del medium analizzato – ossia una liquidità baumaniana a dire il vero sin troppo abusata, alla quale tuttavia Giuliana Fiorentino fa da subito riferimento nel suo ardito tentativo di esplorare quelle che, ormai, sono pratiche troppo diverse ed eterogenee perché si possa sperare di inquadrarle tutte entro una cornice teorica onnicomprensiva e generalizzante.

In un saggio scritto più di trent’anni or sono e ripubblicato dopo la sua morte Giorgio Raimondo Cardona si sforzava di valutare l’utilità di una teoria grafemica struttura- lista modellata sulla fonologia, e ricorrendo ad esempi tratti da sistemi di scrittura noti e meno noti (ma sempre di tipo fonetico) metteva in luce la scarsa applicabilità di una nozione di grafema che “non è altro che un nome dotto per ‘lettera dell’alfabeto’”. Cardona sottolineava tre gravi limiti della “grafemica autonoma”: • 1. Poiché l’isomorfismo tra catena parlata e catena scritta non è sempre perfetto, la grafemica non spiega fenomeni come le abbreviazioni grafiche o ad es. i “complessi grafici” del tibeta- no. • 2. La individuazione delle “unità minime” su basi fonologiche (i grafemi) – e, negli ulteriori sviluppi della teoria, quella dei tratti distintivi grafici – è frutto di un pregiudizio “tipografi- co” e non trova riscontro effettivo nei criteri di elaborazione di particolari sistemi grafici, come l’armeno o il palhavi. • 3. La grafemica autonoma non è suscettibile di ampliamenti che affrontino la costellazione di fatti sociologici connessi all’uso di un sistema di scrittura. Si tratta di verificare l’efficacia delle brillanti proposte che il compianto linguista aveva avanza- to per superare i limiti della grafemica in vista di una teoria “integrata” della scrittura.

• Per una storia della scrittura/lettura e del passaggio dal manoscritto al dattiloscritto • Sul rapporto tra scrittura e corpo: dalla dicotomia oralità vs scrittura agli apporti della psicologia e delle neuroscienze • Informatizzazione del testo, teoria del testo e della letteratura • Critica letteraria, sociologia, biblioteconomia come strumenti per l’analisi del processo di scrittura/lettura • Il copyright e la storia del diritto d’autore