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Domestic practice, defined as the everyday activity concerned with the running of a household, is an important part of working in the home. We have seen important social and market changes that have transformed the meaning and performance of domestic practice, predominantly in Western societies, from an unpaid women's duty to a skill worthy of market exchange within the digital economy. Prior literature has offered a range of meanings for domestic practice, from highly gendered and tied to motherhood, to a symbol of familial identity, to a source of income and capital accumulation. However, what we know less about is how domestic practice has evolved into a form of commodified work. Based on a historical narrative literature review of prior studies in marketing and consumer research, we show the evolution of domestic practice within the successive stages of capitalism and capture the historic forces that have contributed to its transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1979, Audre Lorde wrote, “The sons of lesbians have the advantage of our blueprints for survival but they must take what we know and transpose it into their own maleness.” Born to a single, Lesbian mother in 1980, Ianto Ware considers how this ‘blue print' played out throughout his childhood, against the backdrop of Neo-Conservative panics about ‘fatherlessness' and into his adulthood, in which he became a member of a Nuclear Family and the father of a son. Using an auto-theoretical methodology, the article considers the formation of the Nuclear Family as the reputed ‘base unit’ of Western society, the manner in which this formation positions fathers and sons as essential to the production of a certain type of masculine subjectivity and the alternatives offered by growing up in Queer and Non-Nuclear families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractGrief, unavoidable and often excruciating, is rarely sufficiently acknowledged or supported in Western society. It is not granted permission to exist without barriers. By considering and evaluating grief experiences through the lens of their access to permission, clinicians can collectively imagine and promote inclusivity in grief. Permission is presented as a conceptual framework and clinical tool, with broader micro- and macro-level applications for both professional and layperson engagement, offering a foundation for further implementation and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This research came to study the phenomenon of Islam phobia in terms of concept and origin, and in order to identify the most important reasons that led to the emergence of this phenomenon, and then highlight objective scientific material to talk about it, and ways to treat it. Methodology: The researcher took more than one approach in order to reach his goal, including: the inductive approach: by tracking the issues and branches related to the topic, and then the descriptive approach: by describing the phenomenon as it is on the ground. The most important results: The research concluded that the phenomenon of Islam phobia has spread and spread in Western society, as well as among some Muslims as well, and the phenomenon of Islam phobia has many and varied reasons, the most important of which was the deviant Western media, and its role, which is based on distorting and falsifying facts, compared to the weakness of the Islamic media that faces such claims. Conclusions and recommendations: The treatment of the phenomenon of Islam phobia is not limited to individuals or groups, but it is something that must be shared by all, such as governments and institutions of various forms, in addition to the need to activate the role of the media, because of its great importance in influencing public opinion, and to be spent on it by countries to prepare qualified people with legal science who speak more than one of the world's languages. As for the recommendations: the research recommends the need to employ various means of technology and its various forms to talk about true Islam, and to dialogue with peoples through these means, to dispel their imagined convictions about Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian culture is viewed as a translated cultural practice that has become intricately intertwined with the local culture over the course of historical development in China. Currently, many research findings focus on the translation of missionary religious texts during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. However, the translation of non-religious texts by Western missionaries from the same period also plays a pivotal role in the development of Chinese society and culture. In order to verify the above point of view, this paper focuses on the translation of physics texts by Western missionaries during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Examining the choice of physics texts translated by missionaries reveals the missionary motivations in evangelization. On the basis of analyzing the translation motivation, this study classifies the overall translation practice of Western missionaries in translating physical texts during that period, presenting the physical scientific knowledge brought to China at the time. Additionally, it explores how the translation of Western physical science enlightened the transformation and development of Chinese physics in modern times. Furthermore, the paper argues that the translations by Western missionaries played a crucial role in introducing new ideas and knowledge, contributing to the enlightenment of modern scientific knowledge in China, so as to underscore the value of the non-religious texts translated by Western missionaries to the society and culture in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Social networks and religious identity. From cyberfundamentalism to political violence" analyzes the presence of religion in Western and non-Western societies, as well as the configuration of religious identities. It focuses on proselytism from different perspectives, including the relevance of Islamic feminisms. It addresses how religion interacts with social networks and examines the role of religion in different societies, with geographical examples such as Sarajevo and San Andrés. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Ñawi: Arte, Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article situates Muslim family life within the study of race and racism to show how colonial ways of thinking inform dominant perspectives of Muslim families. It is concerned with family life in Western societies where people identifying as Muslim are a minoritized group. It identifies conceptual and theoretical limitations arising from persisting, uncritical acceptance of dominant normative understandings of family and highlights the significance of the extended family as an overlooked category in dominant perspectives of Muslim family life. It contributes to understanding by setting out how Muslim families are simultaneously racialized and routinely overlooked in scholarship, law and policy. It argues for a need to pay attention to family arrangements shaped by ideals of familism and collectivist principles while also challenging racialized ideas of Muslim families as problematically different, incompatible, and unchanging. The article provides examples to illustrate how doing so facilitates a better understanding of Muslim family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we understand the multiplicity of crises the world is currently facing? This paper presents a new thesis: They are all interconnected and can be traced back to the single root cause of an outdated understanding of democracy. "Partitioning representation", making one mark on a ballot every few years and having every world citizen represented just by their government in supranational affairs, is no longer effective. It was successful in Western societies and world society in the 1950s to 1980s because group identities enabled the generation of democratic self-efficacy among citizens. Individualism, mediatization and globalization have ended that. Instead, we need to give more responsibility to citizens and civil society in the political process, a model that is referred to as Civil Democracy. It provides the essential tools to shift from escalating problems to solving them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asserts that the secularization theory has the potential to offer insights into the processes of social change experienced by faith groups outside the modern West. The study focuses on the transformation undergone by Alevi groups in Turkey, who are now experiencing a more modern way of life compared to their past. In this qualitative study, data collection was conducted through semistructured interviews during field studies in the cities of Çorum (Turk Alevis) and Tunceli/Dersim (Zaza/Kurd Alevis). Based on the interview findings, the study concludes that the new Alevi generation leads a more modern and at the same time more secular daily life compared to their parents. Therefore, the main assertion of this research is that the classical secularization theory has the potential to provide valuable insights not only for modern societies where Christianity is dominant but also for understanding the transformations occurring within Alevi communities in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various scholars have criticized that formal Western thinking was dichotomous and substantialist, leading to an alienation from nature and to its exploitation in industrialized societies. Critics argue that a relational turn towards a more holistic, process-based and relational approach to address the world would be an important step to overcome these problems. Such a relational turn involves a shift towards more flexible and inclusive concepts. We analyse 'nature' concepts of local stakeholders in Swiss nature parks to examine whether they contain any relational elements. Indeed, we found that all stakeholders interviewed see themselves as part of nature. Many reported how they experience nature in active processes and see nature as a collaborator and partner. Moreover, they do not strictly separate between natural and cultural elements in their environment. We conclude that a relational turn in environmental policy in Western countries could build on these relational elements in nature concepts of the local population. Key policy highlights: Our interview data of local actors in a Western society show that they endorse relational rather than dualistic or dichotomous worldviews when it comes to the relationship between humans and nature. The interviewees see themselves as a part of nature, with human roles in nature. They understand nature not primarily as an inventory of objects, but as an active force that shapes the environment together with human planning and design. They value and protect natural and cultural elements in the landscape together. We propose that such roots of relational thinking in Western worldviews could be a starting point for a broader relational turn in environmental policy, science, economy and other areas of formal Western thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberal-democratic values have played a crucial role in shaping the Atlantic community, serving as a core foundation of "Western societies", alongside free market economy principles that have influenced policies and trends on both sides of the Atlantic. This research investigates the significance of these liberal-democratic values and market-driven factors throughout the history of the transatlantic community and today, seeking to grasp the complexity of the subject through the lens of Verweij's cultural theory of international relations. It examines how liberal-democratic values interact with and shape their environments, including their impact on the spread of US influence in Europe and vice versa. Additionally, it explores the role of classical market economy concepts, where common values are often a by-product of their functionality. The research employs both desk and empirical research methodologies, with the latter involving focus group discussions. According to Verweij's cultural biases, the study found a predominance of hierarchist perspectives, the presence of egalitarian views, and a noticeable increase in fatalist attitudes. The findings suggest that liberal-democratic values currently outweigh market-driven factors; however, there are concerning trends indicating a gradual erosion of these values. Additionally, a rise in populism within political discourse is observed, which threatens solidarity within the Atlantic community and poses a challenge to the long-term sustainability of its normative framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owen Wister's 1902 The Virginian is often described as the first proper Western, yet in stark contrast to the popular genre it helped establish, Wister's novel is continuously preoccupied with the question of animal cruelty. To explain the novel's solicitous concern with animal suffering, as well as the later Western's blanket indifference to this theme, the essay sets The Virginian in the context of a profound late nineteenth‐century transformation in the way Americans experienced and understood animals. This transformation, it argues, was occasioned by three important cultural‐economic developments: the removal of livestock from the American city, the postbellum incorporation of America's food industry, and the rapid expansion of middle‐class pet ownership. Wister's novel, the essay concludes, anticipates this cultural realignment with respect to animals and offers (even if only intermittently) an alternative moral horizon, one that the midcentury Western and the society it catered to would largely ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article identifies and seeks to abridge a gap in the literature consisting of the problem of relations between military expenditure and democracy, especially the consequences of the first for the second. It specifically investigates the consequences that military expenditure produces for democracy among contemporary Western and comparable societies such as OECD countries during 2006–2017. It first surveys the relevant pertinent literature about the relationship of military expenditure and militaristic processes with democracy and political, civil and individual liberties. Then it proposes a theoretical sociological framework for approaching the problem of military expenditure and democracy, focusing on the consequences of the first for the second variable. It develops this framework by formulating testable hypotheses regarding the nature of consequences that military expenditure has for democracy. Next, it specifies data and their sources, the method and variables that the study uses. It reports empirical findings such as descriptive and proximately causal (regression) results. It infers that these findings for the most part support the theory and hypotheses that large and increasing military expenditure has adverse consequence for liberal democracy in general, and in OECD countries in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediately after the Second World War, Jean-Paul Sartre offered a history of literature as part of his project to launch a new era of literary activity guided by his concept of littérature engagée or committed literature. This article examines Sartre's approach to the construction of literary history, highlighting his use of periodisation, a thematics of shifting relationships between writers and readers, and frequent deployment of gendered rhetoric to support his arguments. It shows that Sartre repeatedly used gendered tropes that worked to associate women, females and/or femininity with characteristics generally devalued in European and other Western societies, such as passivity, ignorance and indecision. It is argued that the touchstone to which Sartre continually referred in formulating his literary history was Julien Benda's La Trahison des Clercs (Treason of the Intellectuals). The argument to be developed takes broad inspiration from the work of Hayden White on the analysis of historical texts, and follows his injunction that historians and readers of history need to become more conscious of how histories are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western societies tend to implement new technologies to old age care work to replace routines in order to make services more efficient and transparent as the population ages and public resources diminish. However, we have not paid enough attention to how care practitioners perceive their changed circumstances in old age care work. Drawing on the thematic interviews of 31 care practitioners in Finland, we analyzed how the emergence of mobile record-keeping during homecare visits, use of video visits in remote homecare and social media use in intensive service housing shaped what is perceived as good care. Leaning on empirical ethics of care approach we found that each old age care service context and its technology shape its own intranormativities. Each intra-normativity brings different values into being in old age care, which impact on work practices and how the relations between care practitioners and clients, and with the wider public are enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal for Educational & Vocational Guidance is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Middle East is still at the center of the US media and public argument, especially after the US engagement in the most recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ben Fountain addresses American involvement in these wars in his novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012). His work received the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. This paper examines Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk vis-à-vis grievability of American and non-American lives in the context of the 2003 Iraq War. It aims at uncovering the differential methods implemented by the author to approach the casualties in Iraq and how he addresses accountability for war atrocities. It draws on Judith Butler's contention that Western societies treat the lives/deaths of non-Western people in a differential method; the lives of Westerners are prioritized at the expense of the safety and wellness of non-Westerners. The argument is made in three constructs: grievable lives, ungrievable lives, and accountability and culpability in war. This article argues that Fountain's novel is largely centered on American soldiers' victim status and their extended suffering. Americans' deaths are grieved through a large narrative space while Iraqis' deaths are disregarded and ungrieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Ceramics / Taoci Xuebao is the property of Journal of Ceramics Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mindfulness practices adapted from Theravada Buddhism have become widespread among many in Western societies who seek stress reduction and greater present-centeredness. Less well-known is the mindfulness practice in Sufism–the mystical path of Islam–known as meditative remembrance (dhikr). While mindfulness is often understood as a self-help technique, the aim of Buddhist and Sufi meditative paths is not limited to enhancing the well-being of a self that is envisioned as strictly bounded. Rather, both meditative paths aim at unitive mystical experience, which is held to profoundly transform the meaning of the practitioner's selfhood as such. Whereas Buddhism's non-self-doctrine is generally understood to hold that personal selfhood is an illusion, this is not the case for Akbari Sufism. This inquiry takes a phenomenological approach, exploring the varied meanings of being or "having" a self in the context of mindfulness, and contrasting these with the humanistic psychology of Abraham Maslow. I contrast Theravada and Akbari Sufism's understandings of the aim of meditation and the meanings of selfhood and compare both traditions with Abraham Maslow's view of self-transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, institutionalized enfreakment as represented by the Victorian freak show has provided scholars with a lens through which to examine nineteenth-century Western societies. However, current scholarship sidesteps questions such as how people in colonized countries perceived their enfreaked compatriots and how they negotiated their positions in the new international order as symbolized by this globalized entertainment industry. This article addresses these questions through a case study of Zhan Wu, the celebrated "Chinese giant" in Euro-American freak shows from approximately 1865 to 1887 who was, at the time, a spectacle in Chinese print media. The article argues that the way the Chinese media represented Zhan's body, shifting from nonchalance to disdain and then to eventually viewing it as a symbol of China's recent suffering, epitomizes a history of cooperation and mutual influence among the global entertainment industry, print media, and their consumers worldwide. More important, it reveals that as China's mass media and reading public joined in a global imaginaire that enfreaked the Chinese as a race, they were not merely incorporated by this discourse; they also reshaped it to express their understandings about a new Chinese identity that was to emerge in the fin de siècle era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, the United States government promoted the idea of care as infrastructure to justify government spending on nonphysical infrastructures. In this article, we demonstrate the usefulness of adopting an infrastructure framework for researching care and caring through an analysis of working mothers' communication on Reddit in the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Employing infrastructural inversion as a heuristic, we conceptualize the childcare crisis experienced by working mothers in many Western societies as an infrastructural disruption in which the cascading failure of childcare infrastructures exposed the background work of care as well as its vulnerability and invisibility. We also argue that, against this backdrop, an alternate infrastructure of digital caring emerged. However, this informal infrastructure was inadequate to sustain the needs of working mothers, and its emergence, in itself, provides proof of the need to value care as infrastructure. Ultimately, we showcase how conceptualizing care as infrastructure can enrich feminist theorization of care, and that centering care as infrastructure redresses the bias toward physical infrastructure in the scholarly literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trans/Form/Ação is the property of Trans/Form/Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Neo-liberal reforms have triggered the emergence of new professionalism of teachers. This study adopts the perspective of inhabited institutionalism theory and proposes that teachers are not passively influenced by the new professionalism but that they can also respond to it differently based on their own sense-making. Using in-depth interview data from Chinese high school teachers, this study finds that two contradictory but coexisting forms of managerial professionalism strongly influence teachers: examination-oriented professionalism and quality-oriented professionalism. Meanwhile, three patterns of teachers' reactions to externally-imposed professionalism are identified: 'Why bother?', 'Struggling', and 'Meaningless'. The findings provoke further discussion of the potential influence of teachers' responses to the new professionalism and professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The singer Caroline Polachek has co-written a song with DJ Flume. The accompanying promotional video asks us to consider what transcendence may mean in a post-pandemic world. We theologically reflect on the song and video to consider what this may show about Western society's understandings of transcendence, suffering and resurrection, where the dominate narrative has been the 'turn to the self'. We also consider how the Church may respond to this poetically driven grass-root need for theological reflection where the most usual form of response is didactic and doctrinal in nature resulting in a disconnect in how the message is received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic change has been called for as an explanation on many occasions of societal change. The way climatic deterioration affects societies appears to be straightforward; it causes such alterations in the environment that critical subsistence resources are not anymore available in sufficient abundance. Nevertheless, it is not clear how these alterations can be identified and verified in the archeological record, and there is not an easy way to clarify if modifications observed in subsistence patterns are the consequences of climatic change or other agents. Additionally, there is a number of problems related to paleoenvironmental data that measure the climatic fluctuations, mostly concerning the exact timing of events and their intensity which may not have been the same universally. In this research, we examine the 4.2 ka BP climatic event and its possible effects on western Anatolian societies through a set of published data. We discuss the information we have about the event from available paleoenvironmental data and the gaps in this kind of research. We examine the agropastoral economy from Troy, Küllüoba, Kanlıgeçit, and Karataş-Semayük for possible changes according to a set of criteria that we consider as indicators of responses to aridification. We found diverging strategies that may relate to the different local environments or varying societal structures unique to each site. We consider a partial turn to nomadic pastoralism as an adaptation strategy based on changes in settlement patterns. Finally, we evaluate our findings against other possible explanations since the observed patterns could have had multiple explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between RUO types and mental health in a youth sample in Hong Kong. Background: Previous research has found that Resilient, Undercontrolled, and Overcontrolled (RUO) personality types derived from Big Five personality traits are associated with mental health outcomes. Most studies, however, have predominantly been conducted in Western societies. Method: Clinical diagnostic interviews and self‐rated measures of psychological constructs, covering resilience, rumination, self‐esteem and more, were administered to 860 youths aged 15 to 24 recruited from an ongoing epidemiological youth mental health study in Hong Kong. Results: Three personality clusters were identified. The first (mean age = 19.6, 63.3% female) and second (mean age = 19.5, 60.7% female) cluster both have characteristics of the under‐ and overcontrolled personalities. The third personality type resembled the resilient profile in RUO typology (mean age = 19.6, 50.5% female) and showed the lowest prevalence of poor mental health. Conclusions: The results suggest that the replicability of the RUO profiles was only partial in a Hong Kong sample predominantly Chinese. The resilient profile was replicated but not the undercontrolled and overcontrolled profiles proposed by previous studies. The findings of the current study implicated that culturally contextual considerations are necessary when relating mental health to personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an extended invitation to readers to cut back the stories of separation, hierarchy, and supremacy that dominate Western society, in order to make room for other stories of who we are and who we can be. The author weaves her own stories of healing during the COVID-19 pandemic with critical insights from Asian American studies, history, restorative justice, Indigenous knowledge, anthropology, and animist and Buddhist frameworks. In so doing, the article illuminates the vital role Asian American racialization plays in upholding oppressive systems and begins to articulate a path toward untethering from it in order to make space for all of our truer selves to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of religion in Western societies has gained renewed attention in recent years. While choirs have been studied to varying extents in the social sciences, the geography of choirs has received little attention, particularly in human geography. Using questionnaire responses from secular choir members, this exploratory study examines the possible differences and/or similarities of secular choir's sacral and/or secular activity in urban and rural spaces in Sweden. The study reveals two primary findings. First, it reveals that secular choir members engage in a mixture of secular and sacred activities, suggesting that these activities can be considered postsecular. Second, the data challenges the geographical perception of rural environments as more sacred/traditional, as they have a high proportion of secular activities. Likewise, the results questions the geographical perception of urban environments as secular/modern, as they demonstrate an even distribution of sacred activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Philosophy / Roczniki Filozoficzne is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hope is in a twofold crises in Western societies: perceived as unavailable by some and as undesirable by others. Against this background, this introduction argues that there is a need to ask anew what (if anything) citizens should hope for. After some introductory remarks both about the current role of hope in the public arena and important developments in recent philosophical debates, I provide an overview of the contributions to the Special Issue. Through a variety of theoretical lenses and from a variety of theoretical backgrounds, the contributors systematically ask which hopes (if any) we should cultivate or whether it may sometimes be necessary to let go of certain hopes. While they agree that hope is indispensable as a way of dealing with our fragility and sustaining our resolve, it is not without dangers. What emerges is a profile of hope as a complex and ambivalent attitude that has so far received too little attention by political philosophers, despite its prominent and increasingly contested role in political practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Body mass index (BMI) is an important predictor of one's physiological health. China is a family‐centric nation compared to Western societies and has already entered an aged society. Exploring the characteristics and patterns of BMI changes during household events in China provides critical insights into the biological and social determinants of health, which can help enhance the scientific validity of health promotion measures and contribute to the realization of healthy aging goals in China. Methods: Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1993 to 2015, this article utilizes two‐level growth curve models with piecewise spline specifications for age to examine the effects of family life cycle events on BMI trajectories for age groups and gender differences. Results: Compared to continuing status, experiencing transition in an individual's family life cycle could lead to more fluctuating variations in their BMI trajectories, generally, there is a faster increase in BMI during youth and a faster decline during old age. As for gender heterogeneity, males are more affected by divorce, widowhood, and empty nest, whereas females' BMI changes are influenced by entering/maintaining marriage and parenthood. Conclusions: A long‐term perspective has revealed the significance of family events on BMI throughout the life course. Future research should focus on the nutrition and health of specific populations, especially elderly individuals in vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While past decades Western societies have been shifting from mandatory military service toward all-volunteer forces, a number of them have retained conscription. A growing emphasis on individualization and neoliberalist ideas results in a tension for youths between fulfilling a duty and the need for constant self-development. We argue that a central mechanism for addressing this challenge is convertibility, the ability to use competencies gained in one sphere in another, and thus increasing the individual value of conscription for recruits. By linking convertibility to societal expectations, we demonstrate how societies shape ideas of what is convertible and why, and by relating convertibility to agency and motivation, we extend the concept to the individual level. We argue that as material rewards are limited and conscripts cannot rely on occupational motivations, convertibility has a potential to increase the value of conscription for recruits and enable them to combine institutional motivators with utilitarian motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article charts the historical and literary origins of the schnorrer, a Yiddish term for 'proud beggar' and a character of Eastern European Jewish culture. It aims to shed light on the schnorrer's entrance as a protagonist in British popular literature in the work of Israel Zangwill, and to show its originality. To do so, it focuses mainly on the novella The King of Schnorrers (1894), in which the schnorrer holds the leading role, and on Children of the Ghetto (1892), in which the schnorrer is a secondary and yet essential character. By locating the schnorrer outside of the Ashkenazi ethno-social context, Zangwill carries out a refashioning of this figure and grounds him in a wider social and literary lineage. He turns him into a literary character who challenges Western capitalist societies, thanks to a multi-layered identity, conflicting contexts and plural literary genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I address the inadequacies in how we currently conceptualize spaces for dialogue and debate around issues involving race and religion. Even in a climate where many organizations now acknowledge equity, diversity, and inclusion requirements, there are still numerous challenges, particularly for racialized individuals, including those who may experience overlapping forms of oppression. Drawing on concepts such as intersectionality, muted group theory, and the public sphere, I suggest that many existing channels and approaches are especially inadequate for academics and activists who are racialized or belong to religions that are marginalized in Western societies, such as Islam. These avenues do not allow for an articulation of the complex, sometimes contradictory realities lived by these individuals, where choosing a seemingly progressive side consistently and publicly may mean disowning or disadvantaging one's own family or community members. Ultimately, I argue both that we must reconsider the potential for education and dialogue enabled by seemingly one-way platforms, such as film and television, and that the platform is less important than the approach we bring to using it, since increasingly we must prioritize windows for empathy within any mediated spaces we employ for learning or dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wounds are an increasing global concern, mainly due to a sedentary lifestyle, frequently associated with the occidental way of life. The current prevalence of obesity in Western societies, leading to an increase in type II diabetes, and an elderly population, is also a key factor associated with the problem of wound healing. Therefore, it stands essential to find wound dressing systems that allow for reestablishing the skin integrity in the shortest possible time and with the lowest cost, avoiding further damage and promoting patients' well-being. Wounds can be classified into acute or chronic, depending essentially on the duration of the healing process, which is associated withextent and depth of the wound, localization, the level of infection, and the patient's health status. For each kind of wound and respective healing stage, there is a more suitable dressing. The aim of this review was to focus on the possible wound dressing management, aiming for a more adequate healing approach for each kind of wound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female genitalia attract a wide range of cultural discourses related to health, hygiene, honour, decorum, beauty, pleasure or sexual success. These discourses reflect and reinforce social structures and contribute to the socialisation of sexuality. The associations they (re)produce change over time and space, often showing opposing explanations. In some cultures, elongated labia minora represent beauty, health and are associated with pleasure, while Western society has historically disqualified protruding labia minora as a sign of depravity, excessive sexuality and lack of civilisation, thus stigmatising women from cultures that practice labial elongation. Since the 1970s, following the same conceptions of beauty, health and pleasure, occidental biomedicine has described labia minora, which protrude beyond the labia majora, as "hypertrophic". Hence, their surgical reduction by means of an operation, known as "la-biaplasty", is often recommended and an increasingly demand in Western societies. From a comparative cultural analysis, more specifically from the anthropology of the body and of gender, and the critical model of medical anthropology, this article delves into some issues; in the first place, the cultural conceptions of sex, gender and sexuality present in the practice of labial elongation in some societies in Eastern and Southern Africa; it also addresses the Western interpretation of these conceptions in Europe, mainly in the 19th century; and finally the current biomedical discourse on labia minora hypertrophy and labiaplasty surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the state of democracy today? In the Western world, people often take the meaning of this term for granted, but do they genuinely know what democracy is? In this sense, how can we define democracy in today's digitalized world? What is the relationship between democracy and information? Furthermore, do we really live in a democratic world? In Infocracy: Digitalization and the Crisis of Democracy--the 2022 translation of the original German book Infokratie. Digitalisierung und die Krise der Demokratie, published in 2021 by MSB Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH--Byung-Chul Han reflects on these and other related issues. Han's analysis of the current political, social, and technological situation indicates that a profound democratic crisis is emerging. The loss of interest in truth, the end of grand narratives, the replacement of reason with data analysis (even in philosophy), the fragmentation of the population due to digitalization, and the predominant role of information in everyday life are all symptoms of a radical transformation underway in Western society, with severe consequences for democratic stability. In these terms, Han's vision, at times excessively pessimistic, orients us on the crucial issues of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos PAGU is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research deals with integration theory in measuring cultural diversity in the urban context. Cultural diversity is the recognition of the rights of all groups in society, so the presence of Muslims in Western society is an example of reflecting cultural diversity in the Western urban context. Integration theory is an attempt to bring a variety of theories and models into one framework. It consists of four quadrants, each quadrant representing a specific scale. Muslims represent the social part interacting with Western society, which is the subjective, individual and collective part of the integration theory (the first and third quadrants), and the Islamic religious buildings and their interaction with the urban context represent the objective part of the integration theory (the second and fourth quadrants). A specific questionnaire is chosen for each quarter and the results of the questionnaire provide a measure of the subjective and objective aspects of integration theory. The results showed that the subjective aspects of individuals and their relationship with Western society are the highest percentage of the objective aspects of the requirements of the Islamic religious building or the relationship of the religious building with the Western urban context. Multicultural planning has a role in integrating culturally diverse societies and achieving smooth interaction among its members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GENDER: Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

ABSTRACT This review examines the distinct treatment of millions of displaced Ukrainians amidst the ongoing conflict, compared to previous refugee groups in Europe, presenting a synthesis of research encompassing traditional and grey literature. Evaluating resettlement processes, the analysis underscores the unique factors shaping Ukrainian refugees' reception, shedding light on disparities compared to other refugee groups. Cultural perceptions, vulnerability, demographics and the framing of Russia as a common adversary influence responses from individuals, organizations and nations in unprecedented ways in Western societies. The discussion critically dissects these findings, proposing the concept of ‘promising victimhood’ for a nuanced understanding of differential treatment, while urging further theoretical development. This concise systematic review serves as a crucial benchmark for both academics and policymakers, emphasizing the need to address systemic injustices in refugee reception across various levels and sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the issue of the fragility of Western liberal democracies, the divisions in Western society as a whole and within particular countries, and the loss of faith in the Western model of civilization. My focus will be (1) on the initial enchantment of the Eastern European countries (with special emphasis on Romania) with the West European models of freedom, democracy, lifestyle, and living standards, which explains why these countries overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the European Union after the fall of Communism; and (2) on their subsequent disenchantment with how far liberal democracies could go, and their general discontent with the restrictions and preconditions imposed on them for obtaining EU funding for their economic development. In dealing with the issue of globalism, nationalism and identity, I will elaborate on the role of identity, personal and national, in the creation of roots, stability, self-esteem, hard work and progress, with reference to the manifestations of populism in Europe. Finally, I will consider the positive effects Eastern countries with their traditionalism and religious values could have on their Western counterparts, in order to revive and sustain their initial enchantment and diminish their disenchantment with Europe, the European Union, and Western civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "multiple secularities" framework may be regarded as a recent ambitious contribution to the comparative analysis of secularisms across Western and non-Western societies. While I argue in this article for the "historicization" of secularities as proposed by the framework, I also point out the latter's lack of empirical attention to the subjective dimension of historical secularities. More specifically, the article attempts to show the theoretical relevance of analyzing historical secularities in post-colonial societies from the perspective of the subjects and their complex selves. Through a genealogical analysis of the subjectivities of three influential positivist intellectuals in 19th-century Mexico, I argue that the analytical axes of the multiple secularities framework may be refined and broadened. I discuss how the framework's search for local forms of "conceptual distinctions" should be complemented by the search for conceptual erasures and how the analysis of "semantic hybridity" should be broadened and include the analysis of experiential and emotional forms of hybridizations. I also argue that the analyses of historical secularities should account for "sacred-secular" hybrids, as well as more specific hybridizations, such as ecclesiological–secular and theological–secular transpositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is not a commodity, and dominant western society is unsustainable. Examples of unsustainability include severance of peoples from lands and waters; separation of peoples from centers of decision-making; and dispossession of the lands, and traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). IPLCs at the frontlines of the climate crisis are often excluded on vital decisions regarding land management and protection. Taking an emic interpretation by means of lived experiences and auto-ethnographic responses to question prompts, this paper explores the international implications of Anishinaabek Giikendaaswin and Dùthchas nan Gàidheal as concepts that can (re)center IPLC place-based knowledges, sustainable governance, and lands in times of climate crisis. Anishinaabek Giikendaaswin is about the learning from the lands, N'ibi (the waters), and the sky world. It is a lived knowledge that has guided and continues to guide Anishinaabek Peoples. G'giikendaaswinmin informs Anishinaabek interconnectedness and interrelationality to the lands, all beings, and the sky world. Dùthchas is a millenia-old kincentric concept, informing a Gàidheal (Gael) way of life and traditional land governance that predate the formation of the United Kingdom. Dùthchas transmits a sense of belonging to, not possession of the land, and stresses an interconnectedness and ecological balance among all entities. The authors (Anishinaabe and Gàidheal) respond to critical questions, such as How do Giikendaaswin and Dùthchas center knowledges that can ensure collective continuance of life? Through a common theme of interconnectedness and what this means for reconstitutive real-life practice, they demonstrate how Indigenous concepts and science based on the expertise of IPLCs can address continued colonial atrocities and current crises. Giikendaaswin and Dùthchas have international and transnational implications as discourses of resistance not only to the Anthropocene, but also to ongoing processes of dispossession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islamic law was once the mainstream legal system in the world, but due to various reasons, especially Western colonialism and nationalism, it has in fact declined. Therefore, the purpose of this article is focused to conduct a longitudinal analysis of impact on Islamic law during the colonialist and then nationalist periods. The study was conducted by way of content analysis as well as through the application of inductive and deductive methodologies. The conclusion drawn is that the decline of Islamic law is hindered by the infiltration of Western secularist laws and the internal obstacles from Muslim nation-states, nevertheless Islamic law has never stopped moving forward. There are two main reasons for this is, first, because Western laws are in fact an experiential product developed by Western countries in a specific historical context and which only represents the ideology of Western societies and their citizens. Second, although the nationalist elites of Muslim nation-states have seriously reflected on Western laws in the process of development, combined with the guided willingness of the general public, Islamic law has been deliberately marginalized. In fact, due to the destructive influence of colonial forces as well as the nationalization by Muslims themselves, the function of Islamic law in all aspects of life has been weakened, and then the crisis brought to the Muslim world by this is unprecedented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed paper aims to investigate the Young Internet Addiction Test (Y-IAT), the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (C-IAS), and the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS). These widely used scales have made significant contributions to identifying Internet Addiction (IA) in different social contexts. After reviewing the available literature on IA, and findings in the ongoing empirical research maintained that, the concept of 'IA' and 'IAscales' needs to be readjusted. The available quantitative data collected through e-interview-schedule used upon the age group of 14 to 30 years revealed that, there is an increasing trend of social media (SM) use and gaming and case studies explored the subjective patterns of internet use which finally comes to the conclusion that, over internet use interwoven in needs, habits and social circumstances of an individual user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]