Suchergebnisse

Transitioning into a sustainable energy system is becoming ever more pressing as the reality of an anthropogenic ecological crisis becomes difficult to ignore. Due to the complexity of the matter, proposed solutions often address the symptoms of the current socioeconomic configuration rather than its core. To conceptualise possible future energy systems, this Perspective focuses on the disconnect between science and technology and engineering studies. On the one hand, this disconnect leads to social science research that passively critiques rather than contributes to tackling societal issues in practice. On the other, it produces technical work limited by the incumbent conceptualisations of economic activity and organisational configurations around production without capturing the broader social and political dynamics. We thus propose a schema for bridging this divide that uses the "commons" as an umbrella concept. We apply this framework on the hardware aspect of a conceptual energy system, which builds on networked microgrids powered by open-source, lower cost, adaptable, socially responsible and sustainable technology. This Perspective is a call to engineers and social scientists alike to form genuine transdisciplinary collaborations for developing radical alternatives to the energy conundrum.

This analysis presents data collected through an online survey about the quality of life, health, subjective wellbeing, and government perception in four cities in Colombia during the COVID-19 crisis. Four universities and a local newspaper promoted the survey to assess how the pandemic affected the population's quality of life in a broad range of social and economic aspects. Respondents were adults (+18 years old) living in the largest Colombia cities: Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, and Barranquilla, totaling 1637 complete observations. Researchers used snowballing sampling strategy, social networks, a web page, and an advertisement in the partner newspaper for data collection. This data set helps to conduct social research and policy reports about the consequences of the pandemic. The data enclosed in this paper includes socioeconomic variables, income reduction, employment, household composition, teleworking, indebtedness, physical and mental health, physical activity behavior, subjective wellbeing, affective and communal relationships, institutional trust, and perception of government performance during COVID-19. We aim at contributing to a better understating of the consequences of the pandemic in Colombia and general in the Global South through the collection and dissemination of data for academic and policy purposes.

The purpose of this article is to study the public opinion of residents of the North Caucasus region (on the example of the Republic of Dagestan) on the state of social and cultural adaptation and integration of foreign citizens. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the growth of quantitative indicators of migration begins to significantly affect the ethno-social and ethno-political processes in the region and makes certain adjustments in the socio-political sphere of the republic. The main method of research is the quantitative method, i.e. a mass standardized questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted taking into account the general socio-demographic characteristics of the population of the Republic of Dagestan. The content of the questionnaire is aimed at analyzing aspects of the ethnic identity of the Dagestani peoples, determining the ethno-cultural components of its reproduction, analyzing the attitude of the population of the Republic of Dagestan to the social and cultural adaptation and integration of migrants, and identifying the most effective ways to achieve this goal.

AbstractThis paper analyzes Islamic FBOs' humanitarian approaches, programs, and challenges. Politicalized religious interpretations are also on board to investigate their missionary aspects. I design my argument based on Michael Barnett and Janice Grass Stein's assumption on the impact of social constructions on establishing sacred and secular concepts and spaces. Thus, I study the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) and the Kuwaiti Direct Aid Society (DAS) to examine the influence of their social settings on their humanitarian experiences. My question is "do different social settings shape various humanitarian approach, although of sharing the same religious mission?" I argue that Islamic rules encourage Muslims to be religiously committed to paying charity and showing human and religious solidarity. In this regard, flexible Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence) allows Muslima to set various socially constructed implementations of these religious commitments. Humanitarian relief is not an exception in this regard. Therefore, Islamic FBOs lay down on a continuum based on their socially constructed models which reflect different interpretations of religious texts and their applications to understanding societal issues as well as various employed strategies of these civil society actors.

Although gentrification is occurring at increasing rates across the United States, our understanding of what this means for public health is limited. While positive changes, such as increases in property val­ues and reduced crime rates occur, negative consequences, such as residential displace­ment, also ensue. Individuals living through gentrification experience major changes in social and environmental conditions often in short periods of time, which can result in disrupted social networks and stress, both associated with decrements in health. As neighborhoods across the United States undergo revitalization, understanding health effects of gentrification, positive and nega­tive, is paramount. We posit that gentrifica­tion may be beneficial in some aspects of health and detrimental in others. To address current challenges in the gentrification-health literature, we recommend future research: 1) examine the gentrification processes and stages; 2) integrate built, natural, and social environment metrics; and 3) assess mediating and moderating as­sociations. As gentrification expands across the United States, research conducted in this area is poised for timely contributions to equitable development and urban planning policies. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(3):509-512; doi:10.18865/ed.30.3.509

Audio-recording an interview is often a taken-for-granted aspect of qualitative research. Alternative recording techniques are typically under-reported in the literature meaning that audio-recording interviews may be tacitly conceived as 'best practice'. To address this gap, this article discusses the effectiveness and suitability of the slow interview recording technique by drawing on the empirical example of a qualitative study concerning African Australian health and wellbeing in Greater Melbourne. This article argues that 'dialogue-based quality assurance' is achieved during the slow interview by testing early interpretations with the participant/s as opposed to after the event via member checking of data. Furthermore, we discuss and contribute three foundational principles from whence a researcher may choose the slow interview, including aligning with social constructionism, qualitative validation strategies, and responsible researcher/participant relationships. We argue that while the slow interview is rooted in social constructionism as a theory of knowledge, the slow interview as 'social practice' may also facilitate the co-production of research by interpreting the data with the participant during the interview through 'dialogue-based quality assurance'.

Abstract
Previous research in consumer behavior and decision-making has explored many important aspects of social observation. However, the effect of social observation during the specific time wherein consumers construct their preferences remains relatively understudied. The present work seeks to fill this knowledge gap and adds to this literature by studying how consumers react to being observed during the preference-construction stage (i.e., prior to reaching their decision). While existing research on social observation focuses on accountability and self-presentation concerns, the present study uncovers an additional unique concern. Specifically, eight studies (three additional studies reported in the web appendix) find that being observed prior to reaching the decision threatens consumers' sense of autonomy in making the decision, resulting in an aversion to being observed. Furthermore, we find that such threats lead consumers to terminate their decision by avoiding purchase or by choosing default options. Given the extent to which consumers are observed in the marketplace by other individuals and by online platforms, and given the rise in consumers' privacy concerns associated with such practices, understanding consumer reactions to being observed in the pre-decisional stage is an important topic with practical implications.

Covid-19 disease has alarming public since early 2020 that on March 11, 2020 WHO has stated the coronavirus plague as global pandemic. The practice of social distancing policy is a tough choice for every country to prevent the covid-19 due to the negative impact of this policy on various aspects of life. College education is one of the areas affected by social distancing policies during the coronavirus pandemic. The government's decision to move the process of teaching and learning in campus to become at home suddenly creates difficulties for many parties. Moving on from these conditions, the authors conducted a study with the aim of analyzing and describing the implementation and evaluation of strategic management in an effort to maintain the continuity, effectiveness and quality of college education in Indonesia during the practice of social distancing. The research conducted is a qualitative research with descriptive method. Various adjustments need to be made by lecturers, students, and university stakeholder in overcoming problems during lecturing activities at home. And how this condition becomes an opportunity in the development of Indonesian education.

Portugal and the Russian Federation share some aspects of traditional culture and similar experiences in modern history, but they also exhibit significant differences that determine specific modes of civil society's development. Results of a comparative and diachronic analysis show that the major differences between the two countries reside in civil society's openness and composition. Organized civil society is not very distinct in relative size when comparing Portugal and the Russian Federation, but it is globally more autonomous, expressive, trusted and institutionalized in Portugal than in the Russian Federation and among the factors that contribute to this condition are an earlier and revolutionary transition to democracy, a larger middle class, a greater prevalence of the value of interdependence, and a regime that endorses bigger public social expenditure in Portugal, all this within the framework of the European Union that has a longer history of social demand and institutional incentives for civil society. Despite those unequal conditions, civil society faces similar current challenges in both countries, mainly with the outsourcing of the public provision of social services. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

This paper analyzes Islamic FBOs' humanitarian approaches, programs, and challenges. Politicalized religious interpretations are also on board to investigate their missionary aspects. I design my argument based on Michael Barnett and Janice Grass Stein's assumption on the impact of social constructions on establishing sacred and secular concepts and spaces. Thus, I study the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) and the Kuwaiti Direct Aid Society (DAS) to examine the influence of their social settings on their humanitarian experiences. My question is "do different social settings shape various humanitarian approach, although of sharing the same religious mission?" I argue that Islamic rules encourage Muslims to be religiously committed to paying charity and showing human and religious solidarity. In this regard, flexible Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence) allows Muslima to set various socially constructed implementations of these religious commitments. Humanitarian relief is not an exception in this regard. Therefore, Islamic FBOs lay down on a continuum based on their socially constructed models which reflect different interpretations of religious texts and their applications to understanding societal issues as well as various employed strategies of these civil society actors.

Following the cognitive revolution of the 1960s, cultural variation in behavior and knowledge has been a long-standing subject in social sciences. The "cognitive turn" in sociology brought to light many interesting issues and complex questions. The present publication addresses both theoretical and — to some extent — methodological challenges faced by the sociologists engaged in researching shared cultural variation within the culture-and-cognition research agenda, and compares it with the status quo in cousin social sciences that share the same cognitive perspective on culture. I specifically focus on the conceptual junctures that follow from the assumptions of shared cultural knowledge and intersubjectively shared cultural worldviews to highlight the important features of culture which can be effectively used for quantitative assessment of complex cultural processes. While I discuss various aspects of the findings and failings attributable to the culture-and-cognition research direction, my principal concern centers on encouraging more enhanced and sensitized interdisciplinary communication, as well as maximized intersections between cognitively oriented studies of culture in different social sciences, to bring the sociological studies of culture and cognition to full fruition.

AbstractThe success of human culture depends on early emerging mechanisms of social learning, which include the ability to acquire opaque cultural knowledge through faithful imitation, as well as the ability to advance culture through flexible discovery of new means to goal attainment. This study explores whether this mixture of faithful imitation and goal emulation is based in part on individual differences which emerge early in ontogeny. Experimental measurements and parental reports were collected for a group of 2‐year‐old children (N = 48, age = 23–32 months) on their imitative behavior as well as other aspects of cognitive and social development. Results revealed individual differences in children's imitative behavior across trials and tasks which were best characterized by a model that included two behavioral routines; one corresponding to faithful imitation, and one to goal emulation. Moreover, individual differences in faithful imitation and goal emulation were correlated with individual differences in theory of mind, prosocial behavior, and temperament. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the mechanisms of social learning, ontogeny of cumulative culture, and the benefit of analyzing individual differences for developmental experiments.

Our study has examined the nature and diversity of unbelief, practice and social connections amongst nonreligious Millennials in six European countries chosen for their differences – from low nonreligion (Romania, Poland) to high nonreligion (UK, Netherlands), and with a mix of Christian heritages (Orthodox, Lutheran, Catholic, mixed), political and migration histories, welfare and wealth. We conducted 70 interviews across 25 European cities/towns and triangulated our findings with survey and social media network data. Our presentation highlights three key findings. First, the persistence of beliefs and practices connected to luck, fate and human and cosmic interconnection, which do not fit within a strictly rationalist-materialist framework. This was found across our sample, including in longstanding low religious cultures (like Eastern Germany), through more prominently in high religion environments. Second, we found a range of forms of collective organisation, from state-funded humanist organisations in Norway to Polish movements focused on challenging aspects of the populist religious conservative government's public policy. Third, our social media analysis showed that while national forums remain important, nonreligious Millennials engage with transnational circuits of nonreligious discourse, particularly in English.

Mt. Biru is a fertile wilderness area in Tamanjeka Hamlet, Masani Village, Poso Pesisir District, Poso Regency. At 2006, the Mt. Biru area was widely known as the movement basis of the East Indonesia Mujahidin group led by Santoso. As an area inhabited and/or controlled by terrorists, the peace of the population becomes disturbed, even frightened, because there are counter-indications between terrorists and security personnel from the military/police. The article from this research discusses sociopsychological rehabilitation and increases the food security of households affected by vulnerability in the Mt. Biru area. The social conditions of the community in the process and social interaction both within their internal and external circles experience rigidity and are very limited, confined, and even fearful. Sociologically, the process and social interaction, due to persistent fear, are gradually becoming psychological symptoms that influence other aspects of life, especially in the economic field as farmers. Significant decline in farmer's productivity due to the loss of sociopsychological strength due to terror and incidents, decreasing family food security, and other generative impacts in time will emerge.

AbstractScholars have shown that foreign aid projects reconfigure social relations and political institutions, but projects are a novel form of governance that has significant social and political effects in other national and transnational contexts. My argument is based on seventeen months of ethnographic research at nonprofit organizations that work with youth in Lithuania. These organizations operate primarily through projects, which are publicly or privately financed initiatives open to competition. Individuals who are part of the project system get recruited into social roles and adopt terminology linked to European Union and transnational discourses. The project system transforms institutional relations, as organizations orient toward multiple sources of financing at different national and international levels, and prompts individuals to reconceptualize their activities as apolitical project work. Project governance, which is based on competition and short‐term initiatives, aligns with and reinforces some features of neoliberalism. However, individuals have complex and sometimes contradictory orientations to neoliberalism in that they also critique the state and the transnational project system. Projects not only highlight transformations of the political economy but also provide new resources to resist state withdrawal and aspects of neoliberalism.