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This article investigates the interaction between digital capital and some offline components (economic, cultural, political, social and personal) that represent the background against which we access and use the Internet. Based on a stratified sample of the UK population (868), six indexes (one for each component) were generated through factor analysis and univariate analysis. We summarised them into a unique model by performing a multiple linear regression to evaluate the role-played by offline components in the development/reinforcement of digital capital. The interaction between these new indexes and the digital capital index shows that, with the exception of the political component, all offline backgrounds positively contribute to digital capital. Moreover, the multiple regression analysis shows that the economic and social components have the strongest influence on digital capital.

As the global biodiversity crisis continues, it is important to examine the legislative protection that is in place for species around the world. Such legislation not only includes environmental or wildlife law, but also trade law, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which gets transposed into national legislation. This commentary analyses legislative definitions of wildlife, whether or not that includes fish, which has implications for fish welfare, use of fish for food security, and biodiversity conservation when fish, or other wildlife, are excluded. Through a legislative content analysis of the 183 parties' legislation of CITES, we explore whether fish are afforded the same protections as other species by being included in legal definitions of wildlife. We found that while a majority of CITES parties' legislation appear to define fish as wildlife, there are a number of instances where this is unclear or not the case, and this could have significant ramifications for the welfare of non-human animals, their use, and conservation.

This paper orchestrates alterethnographical reflections in which we, women, polyphonically document, celebrate and vocalize the sound of change. This change is represented in Kamala Harris's appointment as the first woman, woman of color, and South Asian American as the US Vice President, breaking new boundaries of political leadership, and harvesting new gains for women in leadership and power more broadly. With feminist awareness and curiosity, we organize and mobilize individual texts into a multivocal paper as a way to write solidarity between women. Recognizing our intersectional differences, and power differentials inherent in our different positions in academic hierarchies, we unite to write about our collective concerns regarding gendered, racialised, classed social relations. Coming together across intersectional differences in a writing community has been a vehicle to speak, relate, share, and voice our feelings and thoughts to document this historic moment and build a momentum to fulfill our hopes for social change. As feminists, we accept our responsibility to make this history written, rather than manipulated or erased, by breaking the mold in the form of multi-layered embodied texts to expand writing and doing research differently through re/writing otherness.

This chapter explores some of the dilemmas that arise in using uncertainty as a lens to interpret societal problems and issues. Using several cases to open up discussion we argue that it is vitally important to understand the historical, political and cultural context in which debates about risk, uncertainty and (in)security materialise. Arguing for a re-specified, context-specific account, we seek to unravel dominant understandings of uncertainty in three domains: cyber security, counter-radicalisation strategy and mechanisms for coping in the aftermath of structural violence. While acknowledging the value of uncertainty as an heuristic device, we argue that established units of sociological analysis – such as power and ideology – remain important explanatory concepts in understanding institutional actions and policy drivers.

This article explores the extent to which Covid-19 has impacted the trajectory of EU Cybersecurity Policy. The Covid-19 crisis has led to an unprecedent reliance on digital solutions, ranging from teleworking to virus-tracking systems, resulting in the proliferation of Covid-19 related cybercrime, critical information infrastructure attacks and dissemination of pandemic disinformation. Although the virus has been repeatedly portrayed as life altering and as having considerably increased the cybersecurity risks faced by States, businesses and citizens, the proposed solutions, however, have accelerated existing trends in the field rather than resulting in significant institutional change. In particular, there has been a reinforcement of the role as a coordinating actor, of the introduction of further coherence between sub-areas and instruments, and of the positioning of public-private partnerships at the heart of the policy. However, where the role of social media platforms in facilitating the spread of disinformation is concerned, a changing trust relationship has resulted in a discursive shift in which these platforms require greater oversight, a belief reinforced by the spread of Covid-19 disinformation. The article proposes, through the lenses of historical and discursive institutionalism, that the EU's response to Covid-19 in the field of cybersecurity can only be understood in light of these pre-existing trends, which are the result of an economic and security path dependence that emerged in the 1980s.

In this article, we offer a contribution to the emerging debate on the role of citizen participation in food system policy making. A key driver is a recognition that solutions to complex challenges in the food system need the active participation of citizens to drive positive change. To achieve this, it is crucial to give citizens the agency in processes of designing policy interventions. This requires authentic and reflective engagement with citizens who are affected by collective decisions. One such participatory approach is citizen assemblies, which have been used to deliberate a number of key issues, including climate change by the UK Parliament's House of Commons (House of Commons., 2019). Here, we have undertaken analysis of a citizen food assembly organized in the City of York (United Kingdom). This assembly was a way of hearing about a range of local food initiatives in Yorkshire, whose aim is to both relocalise food supply and production, and tackle food waste. These innovative community-based business models, known as 'food hubs', are increasing the diversity of food supply, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Among other things, the assembly found that the process of design and sortation of the assembly is aided by the involvement of local stakeholders in the planning of the assembly. It also identified the potential for public procurement at the city level, to drive a more sustainable sourcing of food provision in the region. Furthermore, this citizen assembly has resulted in a galvanizing of individual agency with participants proactively seeking opportunities to create prosocial and environmental change in the food system.

Over the last several decades, global efforts to end female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) have intensified through combined efforts of international and non-governmental organizations, governments, and religious and civil society groups. One question asked by donors, program implementers and observers alike is whether there is any evidence that FGM/C is declining. In the last two decades, reliable data have been generated in numerous countries through major household surveys, including repeat cross-sectional surveys. What can we learn from these data? We explore this question by analyzing data on FGM/C obtained from women aged 15–49 in two successive household surveys in Senegal (2005 and 2010–11). The aggregate national-level statistics suggest that there has been no significant change in the prevalence of FGM/C among adult women. These figures are, however, unadjusted for potentially confounding factors, and potentially mask important variation in the practice. This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of trends in FGM/C across regions, and possibly across generations, providing evidence as to when and where the practice of FGM/C is changing. We aim to answer the following questions: 1. What are the trends in FGM/C among women across Senegal and within regions? 2. Are individual characteristics, such as education, wealth and ethnicity, associated with a likelihood of FGM/C? 3. Are community-level factors, captured by covariate-adjusted geographic estimates, important predictors of a likelihood of FGM/C, as predicted by social convention theory?4. After adjusting for individual- and community-level factors, do we see a decrease in the prevalence of FGM/C across generations of women in Senegal?

There has been a growing debate about the extent to which social media has influenced the Arab World's recent revolutions described as the "Arab Spring". Despite difference in views concerning this issue, the role that social media played in enacting socio-political change is undeniable, a matter which attracted the interest of academia. Here, the power of social media in widening and strengthening relationships renovated and reinforced the concept of "social capital", which could lead to integration or acculturation among affected societies. Underpinned by a social capital theory and the acculturation process, this commentary article adopts a critical approach and draws on historical events from the 2011 Egyptian revolution and beyond. We claim that, social media lead to social capital creation and integration when some fundamental associated factors exist namely: the bonding, bridging and linking factors. Social media adoption lead to political integration when these factors existed during the Egyptian revolution and lead to polarisation when there was no contextual triggering factor before the revolution and no access to resources after the revolution. We provide some insightful perspectives on the role of social media in social-political change.

The Scottish government's (2008) publication 'The road to recovery: A new approach to tackling Scotland's drug problem' elaborates and outlines the Scottish National Party's (SNP) desire to make Scotland 'drug free' by 2019. To achieve this objective, the Scottish Government's (2015) 'Serious Organised Crime Strategy' (SSOCS) entails dismantling networks of drug supply. Yet missing from this strategic planning is a) recognition of how, if at all, different types of gangs are involved in drug supply, and b) how drug supply processes actually work. Therefore, this article seeks to extend McLean's (J Deviant Behav, 2017) Scottish gang model, which specifies a typology of gangs in Scotland, in an effort to locate precise levels of gang involvement in the drugs market. This is achieved by drawing upon Pearson and Hobbs' (2001) hierarchical model of the UK's illegal drug(s) market. In-depth interviews with 35 offenders involved in criminal networks and five practitioners, indicate that recreational Youth Street Gangs are really only involved in 'social supply'. Youth Criminal Gangs are primarily involved in commercially motivated dealing at the low- to mid-levels, including bulk-buying between the retail-to-wholesale markets. And enterprising Serious Organised Crime Gangs operate from the middle-to-apex market level. Conclusions which situate this gang typology within the illegal drug market(s) are used to put forward recommendations aimed at dismantling of drug supply networks.

Over the past three decades scientific evidence has accumulated concerning the deleterious impacts humans have on local and global ecosystems (Akimoto, 2003; Ballschmiter and Zell, 1980; Nriagu, 1989; Tanabe, 1983). While much has been written about these issues in the scientific literature, the implications of accelerating global ecological decline is not widely explored in the criminological literature. In general, criminologists fail to conceptualize ecological harms as crimes despite the existence of numerous national and international environmental mechanisms of social control that address ecological harm and destruction. Criminological neglect of green crimes has also meant a neglect of green victimization. Green victimization is extensive and ubiquitous in the contemporary world, and we suggest, makes green victimization more likely than street crime victimization, a point illustrated below. These green victims are under-represented in the criminological literature, leading to under-estimates of the rates of victimization in society. We also call attention to explaining those forms of green victimization employing political economic theory.3 Our analysis of green victimization proposes a radical approach that employs political economic theory (Part I, IV and V). Parts II and III of our discussion provide evidence of the scope of green victimization in several different forms.

Our work contributes through a cultural criminological perspective to a contextualised knowledge of street violence and its constructed meanings; uncertainty, familiarity and strangeness in spaces of urban disadvantage as perceived by Scottish white youths are examined. Youth criminal and anti-social behaviour associated with knife-carrying is widely reported and structures political and media discourses which classify street culture. In our article we argue that a particular symbolic construction of social space, as experienced and constructed by weapon-carrying young white men in Glasgow, informs the landscape of violence judged in terms of official statistics and fear of crime. Signal crime theory as a particular type of cultural criminology affords insights about why weapons are carried. Links with a hierarchical codification of consumer culture inform the findings and resonate with the penetration of capitalism in the lives of the marginalised street youth.

Countries in the Levant have a common culture that values dance, with evidence of dance teaching as old as 1780 BC. Dances, particularly Dabkeh, performed as part of social events to date. Dance in the Levant moved from being participatory in nature to performance dances, particularly after the rise in need to conserve fading heritage due to political events storming the region and causing socio-cultural shifts. These events caused the space between populations of the region to increase, separating the countries more and more, adding hurdles to communication and mobility in the region, particularly between Palestine and both Lebanon and Syria. The shift in dance towards performance art allowed for more creativity and introduction of modern dance in a dance movement that shared roots and expanded with exposure to international dance movements and with online exposure to Contemporary Dance. Dance troupes in the region started experimenting with new forms of dance, what developed quickly to organized efforts and productions renowned worldwide, with the main driver being four leading cultural centres and groups. These centres and groups joined forces under Masahat Network for Contemporary Dance to overcome challenges they faced, financial and societal, utilizing the Internet as the main media for communication and coordination to develop dancing in the region through stronger relationships between individual artists, dance associations, and companies.

This half day program will introduce the key concepts that underpin realist approaches, with special emphasis on evaluation and literature reviews. Realist evaluation has been developed to investigate and explain how and why programs and polices work differently for different people or in different contexts. Realist review applies the same underlying principles to the synthesis of existing literature and evidence. The workshop will have interactive exercises to show how realist evaluations and realist literature reviews differ from other approaches in their intent, design and analysis. The workshop is designed for people who want to determine how – and if – realist approaches might work for them, and to build understanding of basic concepts and terminology before participating in the CARES conference. It will also provide opportunities to share ideas and questions, and to establish networks prior to the conference. Associate Professor Emma Williams is Principal Scientist of Evaluation and Knowledge Impact at the Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Australia. She previously worked in government, including a stint as Director of Social Policy with the Northern Territory Government, where she was involved in program design as well as policy development. Before being introduced to realist approaches, she struggled with how to determine which aspects of 'what works' in other jurisdictions might apply in Northern Territory contexts. She is currently conducting a number of realist and realist informed evaluations and research projects, primarily in northern Australia and eastern Indonesia, and was a Delphi panel member for the RAMESES II Project.

Covid-19 seriously impacts and endangers lives of millions worldwide. To fight the spread of the virus, governments have taken various restricting measures including stay at home orders. Ultimately, the home delivery volume increased significantly, which still bears the risk of human-human infection during the final delivery. From a logisticians perspective, autonomous delivery vehicles (ADVs), which are a contactless delivery solution, have the potential to radically change the way groceries are delivered to customer homes and help to stop the spread of the virus. However, to date, research on user acceptance of ADVs is rare. This paper theoretically extends the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) including gender as a moderator. The study is based on quantitative data collected in Germany through an online questionnaire (n=501). Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results indicate that trust in technology, price sensitivity, innovativeness, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, social influence, and perceived risk determine behavioural intention. However, some constructs are only significant for women. The findings of this paper have theoretical, managerial and policy contributions and implications within the areas of last-mile delivery and technology acceptance.

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the unique factors of loneliness and social isolation within the ex-military population from discharge, through transition, to the present day. Design: A qualitative, Phenomenological approach was adopted. Methods: In-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with 11 participants who had all served in the British Armed Forces and represented all three military services (Royal Navy; Army; Royal Air Force). Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the data. Results: Three themes were generated - a sense of loss; difficulty in connecting in civilian life; and seeking out familiarity. The findings of this study were examined through the lenses of the Social Needs Approach and the Cognitive Discrepancy Model. Conclusions: Individuals developed close bonds in the military through meaningful and prolonged contact, reducing feelings of loneliness and social isolation during their time in service. The sense of belonging was key to social connection, but transition out of the military severed existing relationships, and a lack of belonging hindered the development of relationships within the civilian community. This study has implications for service provision relating to ex-military personnel and future service leavers.