Volumen 1 (2018): Heft 2 (December 2018)

This wants to be a contribution for those who want to understand the Bologna process, intergovernmental cooperation of 48 European countries in the field of higher education. The Bologna process guides the collective effort of public authorities, universities, teachers, and students, together with stakeholder associations, employers, quality assurance agencies, international organisations, and institutions, including the European Commission, on how to improve the internationalisation of higher education, a project that is at the base of the modernization of the European educational system and well beyond.

Thanks to the tumultuous development of digital technologies, nowadays we live in a world without boundaries, characterized by liquid communities that meet and collide, sometimes denying mutual recognition. We move in a communicative bulimia where information runs like in a circus where the sense and the value of ‘communicating’ are often lost, fuelling forms of misunderstanding, violence and exclusion that contribute to fuel discomfort and isolation. In the information and knowledge society, communication is increasingly discriminating for emancipation and empowerment of people, organizations, and communities. For this reason, in this essay, we intend to deepen both the evolution of the community’s space through digital technologies and the value and role of the concept of empowerment applied to community development. The essence of the essay is to reflect on its social implications in terms of welfare communities and valorization of the heritage of relational goods that are constitutive of every social and community space.

The contribution written by various representatives of Azerbaijani politics and culture, tends to highlight how the Azerbaijan is one of the few countries that symbolizes multiculturalism and multiconfessionality as a tool for dialogue, peace and coexistence. What is particularly important is the knowledge of the model of religious tolerance and secularism that currently Azerbaijan represents, also through the ‘conception of seminars and international public conferences on the issue as the “Forum on Intercultural Dialogue”. The Forum, founded in 2008, is promoted by UNESCO, the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations, the World Tourism Organisation, the Council of Europe and the Presidency of Azerbaijan.

The article aims to illustrate how Azerbaijan appeared in the eyes of an Italian who, in the first half of the nineteenth century, had the opportunity to visit it during a trip to Constantinople. Between 1841 and 1842, Felice De Vecchi, a wealthy Milanese passionate about painting and travel, embarked on a journey, together with his naturalist friend Gaetano Osculati, to Constantinople and then, through Persia, visited India. He kept a diary of that journey, only recently found in its almost totality, dedicating an entire chapter to Azerbaijan, the “land of fires”. From his account, rich in anthropological and pictorial notations, emerges a very well-defined sketch that does not hide the wonder of those who meet housing situations and customs far from their country of origin. In order not to lose the most emotional component contained in De Vecchi’s writing, the frequent quotations of passages from the diary are presented in the English translation, followed by the original text in nineteenth-century Italian.

The contribution intends to present a framework as updated as possible on Azerbaijan, a country of which we are hearing more and more but not very well known and known to most, trying to provide an overview of what Azerbaijan is today, paying particular attention to the history of this interesting country in order to understand what it is today and even more what is the path taken for its future development. Therefore, some areas and aspects of the country have been identified, which will be, to follow, argued. Starting from the entirely geographical aspects to the more socio-cultural, then moving on to international relations and geopolitics and finally to the economic aspects.

The European focus on the Caucasus region has increased considerably and reflects the need for safe access to the various energy resources in the Caspian region.

In this sense, Azerbaijan plays a key political role because of its geographical location, as a privileged bridge for trade between East and West, but also for historical and cultural reasons, placed between Russia, Iran and Turkey, interlocutors with whom, especially today, it is necessary to confront.

The contribution aims to focus on the Italy-Azerbaijan relationship through the eyes of social networks, analyzing first how well they are known in the country of Central Asia and then which are those most used by the population. Secondly, the country’s data will be related to the global trend to highlight similarities and differences. Finally, it will be analyzed the pages and groups of social networks that deal with the relationship between Azerbaijan and Italy, showing the main topics covered and how the two countries are getting closer not only for economic reasons, but also cultural because in Azerbaijan the Italian culture is known and appreciated, especially the language, music, art and gastronomy.

The present paper intends to analyse the current urban situation of the city of Baku. Starting from its history and the vicissitudes that have seen the alternating city periods of splendour with gloomy moments, some of the great urban projects realised since the end of the 20th century and which are transforming the appearance of Baku are taken into consideration. Accomplice a new moment of splendour, favoured by the huge proceeds of the oil industry, the city of Baku is, in fact, revolutionising its appearance and its structure to become a new city of global importance, as it happened for Dubai.

The economy of Azerbaijan has been moving forward towards “diversification” for many years and has not been focusing on the petrol sector anymore, but on a variety of fields, education above the others. Azeri education is deeply rooted in sport and health policies, and it finds expression in various sports events promoted by the Government. The history of juvenile politics dates back to 1994, thanks to the authoritative promotional effort of the national leader Gaydar Aliyev. Azeri young people between 14 and 29 are regularly involved in all these events, actively participating in conferences and international scientific research projects. Azerbaijan aims above all at improving the knowledge of the English language among pupils, university students, and leading scientists. Azeri school is a formative and educational laboratory where events promoted by the Ministry of Education are often experimented.

Since 2016 Azerbaijan has been focusing on making the Azeri society online-oriented, focusing on immediacy and material, effort, and time-saving. Education is firmly based on the lifelong learning approach, that is fundamental for today’s personal and professional fulfilment. Human beings create their deep inner reality by educating themselves and the others and, in order to feed their souls, they often resort to the literary world, which is full of formative and educational elements. This is the reason to start a detailed reflection on the work of a famous Azeri poet: Mirza Shafi Vaseh (1794-1852). His poems deal with the human being’s search for love, reflection, wisdom and ‘formative’ beauty.

In today’s socio-cultural context, the period of youth is less experienced as a predictable path towards the assumption of the adult status and increasingly characterised by the difficulty of defining one’s identity, prefiguring one’s future paths and choices to make. To these problems, one must add the so-called collateral damages produced by the Web, which condition, or can condition, the configuration of the personalities of young people, the shape and quality of their relationships, the sense of events, their experiences and how values and faith are conceived.

The Erasmus + Project Initiative began for the first time in 2014, but this was not the first time that the Erasmus project strategy came into being. This publication aims to understand its origins and the reasoning behind this particular initiative. It analyses the fundamental steps taken towards the creation of the Erasmus + Project Strategy and how it has helped shape a European Identity.

Empirical studies have shown that changes in levels of education explain a significant part of changes in income between countries. Many causes and phenomena can affect income. In this there is a “reverse causal link” that exists between the two sizes (countries with a higher GDP offer better educational services). Cuts to education certainly contribute to reducing the numerator of the two “cursed relations” - between deficit and GDP and between debt and GDP. Too often we forget that improving the educational and university system is an investment that in the long term can contribute to the increase of the denominator of these relationships, the GDP, making public finance more sustainable. Investing in the education system and in University is good for the economy, even for the transport sector, of course.

Tourism remains a very vulnerable sector and sensitive to both internal and external impacts, such as economic and social crises, natural disasters, epidemics and diseases, national and international conflicts. Among these, the most alarming threat in the 21st century remains terrorism. In this sense, this paper aims to study the effects of the increasingly frequent terrorist attacks by the extremist factions of Al-Qaeda and ISIL on the tourism industry in the Mediterranean Region. The contribution, after having discussed in general the tourism market in the Mediterranean Region, intends to highlight the impacts and repercussions of the terrorist attacks on tourism, presenting the example of Egypt and one of its best-known tourist destinations, Sharm el-Sheikh. In this sense, it is shown how, in a few years, the political instability of the country and the attacks of 2005 and 2016 have significantly reduced the influx of tourists, transforming it from one of the most visited destinations in the world in a place of increasing abandonment.