Category: General

The Ideas in ALL Blog Welcomes Three New Editors

Cassandra Murphy, Neasa Boyle, Opeyemi Kolawole

Dear readers of Ideas in All,

With the start of 2023, we are very pleased to announce that the Ideas in ALL Blog has welcomed three new members to its team of editors. In line with the blog’s consistent growth over the past year, we aim to continue sharing the expanding interdisciplinary research conducted by the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute and its collaborators, and to highlight key policy developments occurring at the national, European and international level.

Before presenting the new editors, Cassie, Neasa and Opeyemi, we would like to warmly thank our outgoing ALL-Blog Editorial Manager, Stacy Campbell, for her amazing work throughout the years. In her footsteps, our revamped team will endeavor to bring you timely commentaries on current topics and ongoing research from a rich network of experts in a number of fields including, to name a few; disability, psychology, law, public health and social policy.

Here are our new members!

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Our Journey to the End of the Night… and towards a new future. Happy Birthday Ideas in ALL!

Symposium

Picture of the three ALL Institute Co-Directors in front of a white back drop. From left to right: Deirdre Desmond, Mac MacLachlan, Delia Ferri
Delia Ferri, Mac MacLachlan, Deirdre Desmond

Ideas in ALL is two years old! Our blog was set up on 3 December 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The blog seeks to engage an audience beyond academic journal readers – it aims to be relevant to a much wider range of stakeholders and to engage with public debate.  A crucial element of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute’s blog – Ideas in ALL is to empower and give voice to people with disabilities, mental health problems, or chronic illnesses and older people, and their many and varied experiences of positive ageing. We also want those often marginalized from the benefits of mainstream society to feel that they can share ideas here. We strive to ensure that Ideas in ALL is characterized by accessible style, pluralism, openness and appreciation of difference.

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The All Institute through a Sustainable Lens: Celebrating the Ideas in ALL blog’s Second Anniversary

Symposium

left to right Hannah Casey, Lea Urzel Francil and Matthew McKenna
Hannah Casey, Léa Urzel Francil and Matthew McKenna

The ALL Institute celebrated its fifth anniversary at the end of November, which also coincided with the second anniversary of its blog – Ideas in ALL–. With this in mind, we, the blog’s editorial team, invited ALL members, as well as its collaborators and close stakeholders to engage with the topic of sustainability and contribute to a dedicated symposium.

Central to the work of ALL is the core ethos of a rights-based, person-centered approach to social inclusion and independent living. The theme of sustainability aligns itself closely with this underpinning vision. As such, the work of ALL comprises a vital nexus between academic research, civil society, lived experience, law and policy. Sustainability represents a core principle of the ALL Institute, and hence of the Ideas in ALL Blog.

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Here we are, one year later…. Happy Birthday Ideas in ALL!

Symposium

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Deirdre Desmond, Mac MacLachlan and Delia Ferri, ALL Directors

Exactly one year ago, on 3 December 2020, in the midst of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, we launched “Ideas in ALL”: The New Blog of the ALL Institute, as another way in which the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute seeks to contribute to approaching our most ambitious goal: the creation of a fairer and more inclusive society for all. In 2020, at a difficult and grim time, we felt that it was important to foster a dialogue on empowering people living with a disability or chronic illness, older people, or those marginalized from the benefits of mainstream society.

When we set up Ideas in ALL, we knew that there were several diverse and interesting blogs out there. In fact, it is hard to believe that the term ‘blog’ was coined in the late Nineties and, since then, we have experienced a continued and sustained mushrooming of all sorts of blogs. It may seem as if blogs have reached their saturation point. But no, they have not. Blogs remain one of the best ways to share our ideas, our research, and our curiosities, engage with the general public, contribute to open and transnational thought, in what Baumann has described as a ‘liquid modernity’ and a ‘liquid society’.  For us, a blog was and still is the best way to ‘reflect on some old challenges, shed a light on new ones and feel our way in the dark of the unanticipated’.

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Welcome message from the new Editors

Symposium

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Hannah Casey, Léa Urzel & Matthew McKenna

Dear readers of Ideas in All,

As new editors, we are extremely happy to take on this position. We have seen the significant growth of the blog in the past year and its increased popularity. We hope to maintain this momentum while keeping pace with the evolving interdisciplinary research conducted by the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute. 

We thank the outgoing ALL-Blog Editorial Team on the first anniversary of the ‘Ideas in ALL’ Blog for their fantastic work in expanding the blog and soliciting post from an invaluable network of leading experts in the field of disability, public health, law and social policy.  As we take up our positions as the second ALL-Blog Editorial Team, we realize that we must strive to maintain the excellent standard and energetic impetus attained by our colleagues during their work on the blog in its embryonic phase. Despite the challenges of founding and growing a professional research blog during a global pandemic, the blog has already expanded to become an influential academic commentary on contemporary physical, social, political, and conceptual dimensions of society in the twenty-first century and resultant levels of accessibility, ableism, ageism, and mobility restriction therein.

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A Digital Bounce for ALL?

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Authors: Deirdre Desmond, Delia Ferri and Mac MacLachlan; ALL Institute Co-Directors

Picture of the three ALL Institute Co-Directors in front of a white back drop. From left to right: Deirdre Desmond, Mac MacLachlan, Delia Ferri
Deirdre Desmond, Mac MacLachlan and Delia Ferri, ALL Institute Co-Directors

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end” Virginia Wolf, ‘Modern Fiction’, 1921.

2020 was certainly a difficult year for many of us, both on personal and work levels, and, despite these challenges, it is noteworthy that the work of the ALL Institute has not only proceeded, but also the commencement of several research projects ensure that we will continue to contribute in many respects to the building of a fairer society. In the past three years, and more so in 2020, we have endeavoured to reach out to different communities and stakeholders at the local, European and global levels. We also launched this blog on the 3rd December 2020, a particularly significant date, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, to signal our commitment towards inclusion and equality.

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