The ecological emergency poses a major challenge to agri-food systems, increasing attention to sustainable transitions. While environmental impacts have gathered attention, social aspects have often remained overlooked in sustainability assessments. This article examines the social dynamics shaping agri-food systems through qualitative analysis of stakeholder narratives, including farmers, value-chain actors, and agrarian advisors. Key elements found include values, practices, preferences, and relationship networks that influence social sustainability. Findings highlight the significance of product commercialization (i.e. farm viability and value-chain structure) and the social composition of the farm (i.e. farming working conditions) as key social dimensions determining the sustainability of agri-food systems. These dimensions vary across agricultural models, reflecting trade-offs between economic and social factors. The study underscores the importance of understanding social mechanisms that sustain agri-food systems to support farmers’ well-being.

In this essay, I explore how a potential ‘politics of withdrawal’ resonates with current concerns in ecological thought. In particular, I propose that a possible genealogy for such politics of withdrawal may contain authors from across the political spectrum, from revolutionairies to conservatives. In constructing such a genealogy, I pay close attention to parallels between the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ernst Jünger, Guy Debord, and Giorgio Agamben: four writers from seemingly opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. All, however, express their criticism of (political) modernity, understood as governed by the logic of technocracy, extractivism, and capitalism. I argue that their common political project constitutes a ‘politics of withdrawal’ which is relevant for today’s environmental politics and thought, as it attempts to move beyond (political) modernity and its topoi of the polis , antagonism and conflict, toward an anti-modern politics of the shelter and the forest.

Climate change is transforming restoration ecology, particularly regarding species translocations. Many species may be unable to keep pace with rapidly shifting climatic conditions, risking extinction. As a result, restoration ecology has had to move beyond its traditional, nostalgic focus on returning ecosystems to past states. In response to this new reality, future-oriented strategies have emerged – chief among them, assisted migration. This approach involves relocating species to areas where they are more likely to thrive under new environmental conditions, even if those areas lie outside their historical range. This article explores the conceptual and managerial shift in conservation thinking brought about by such practices. Using a genealogical approach, we trace the evolution of restoration ecology and examine the contradictions and dilemmas introduced by assisted migration. We also analyze rewilding as a complementary and increasingly influential restoration strategy. Our discursive analysis shows how these emerging practices reflect a broader transformation in environmental conservation – from efforts to restore the past to designing ecological futures. This shift challenges foundational ecological categories such as native, endemic, alien, and invasive species, along with the moral and scientific frameworks that have historically guided conservation: historical fidelity, territorial integrity, and species composition. Ultimately, we argue that the growing prominence of scientifically induced species mobilities – justified by climate change and aimed at creating novel ecosystems – signals a move beyond restoration as traditionally understood. Instead, what is emerging is a new paradigm of anticipatory ecology, grounded not in recovery, but in proactive, future-oriented landscape design.

Article Processing Charges (APC) play a crucial role in the dynamics that structure science and are at the heart of many debates. In this article, we analyze the perceptions, challenges and stances towards APCs of 3,313 researchers from CONICET (Argentina) who responded to the survey carried out as part of the GRIP APC project. Based on field theory (Bourdieu) and on the concept of structural heterogeneity, we formulate two hypotheses, which we test through multiple correspondence analysis: firstly, that the space of positions taken with regard to APC reveals the heterogeneity of a space marked by the existence of bifrontier elites, characteristic of the polarized functioning of a semi-peripheral scientific field such as Argentina’s; secondly, that there is a structural homology between the space of positions taken and scientific fields.

Web of Science has rapidly expanded its coverage of the scientific literature in the past decades. We analyze the selection criteria applied in its databases, especially the Social Science Citation Index, and discuss how changes in the coverage of the scientific literature inform us about changes in the kinds of research that are being valued and prioritized. Scientometric data are presented for the period 1997–2023. These data show that ‘applied’ subject categories, such as nursing and education, educational research, have become more visible in the scientific databases, while the classic or ‘pure’ disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology, have become less visible. We argue that these changes indicate that science itself is increasingly defined in terms of its impact on the external world. Changing ideas about what constitutes good science and about the place of the social sciences in society are enhancing the status of applied disciplines and lead to their stronger presence in scientific databases.

Public policies encourage individuals to enter the labor market, in particular through vocational training. This article looks in particular at the barriers to entry and retention in training for unemployed adults who receive unemployment or integration benefits, or who have no income. The life story technique was used to gather the experiences of forty adults who had been through pre-qualification vocational training in order to understand their training pathways, their living conditions, the obstacles they encountered and the levers they used. The analysis shows that the barriers differ depending on whether you are faced with them before or during the training, and that certain profiles are more exposed to barriers, while others find it easier to mobilize resources to compensate for the obstacles. Subjective perceptions of living conditions and obstacles influence the way in which individuals act and react, particularly in terms of mobilizing personal resources, their environment and public action.

Nachra is a traditional exorcism rite typical of the Algerian city of Constantine, reserved for women who consider themselves possessed by evil spirits. As a traditional practice, nachra aims to free women from the spirits that torment them, causing them physical and psychological suffering that conventional medicine is unable to alleviate or cure. The nachra rite is also said to have a therapeutic effect, as attested by some of the women who practice or participate in it. Drawing on research in anthropology, ethnopsychiatry and psychology, the aim of this article is to analyze the key procedures of the traditional nachra rite that explain its psychosocial therapeutic action. In fact, the nachra rite is said to have a psychotherapeutic action thanks to its cathartic dimension, which relieves the patient emotionally and physically. In addition, the nachra rite is said to have a sociotherapeutic effect, thanks to the collective appreciation and recognition gained by the patient during the ceremony.

The announcement of the ‘special military operation’ in February 2022 led to waves of emigration from Russia, further intensified by the mobilization campaign in September 2022. While most Russian emigrants chose countries with visa-free or facilitated visa regimes or took advantage of company relocation, some opted for the more challenging route of seeking asylum in Schengen countries or the USA. This article analyzes the digital narratives of Russian asylum seekers in Western European countries, focusing on six personal Telegram channels detailing their asylum processes in Sweden, Germany, and Spain. These channels serve as both personal diaries and platforms for sharing their journeys with a Russian-speaking audience. Their primary challenge is to cross the legal rather than physical border by interacting with state bureaucrats and other actors involved in borderwork. The authors describe their experiences of the state borderwork and the liminality they endure while awaiting decisions on their fates. These accounts highlight the asylum seekers’ efforts to re-empower themselves by proactively navigating bureaucratic processes, seeking information about their rights, and asserting their agency in ‘hacking’ the system.

The purpose of this study is to review the state-of-the-art science mapping on predatory journals and publishers. The academic world has changed to the extent that scientific publication has become a money-making industry. This phenomenon has jeopardized the credibility and reputation of legitimate journals and publishers in the name of science. This study applies a bibliometric analysis to uncover the knowledge structure of predatory and reveal its intellectual map based on the network of publications. Applying a bibliographic coupling and co-word analysis, the current and future research streams will provide substantial perspectives on scientific publication. Current research themes are related to open access, publication charge, determinants, reasons and characteristics of authors publishing in predatory journals. Future trends of predatory journals are associated with the impact of predatory publication promotion of ethics and integrity in scientific research. Implications include developing a holistic awareness of these illegitimate journals and publishers and creating ethical and sensible scholars equipped with knowledge and skills to identify, disengage, and dissuade the advance of predatory journals. This study would provide an effective knowledge base for understanding predatory journals, advance its research line, and highlight the evidence-based literature for future scholars to sustain professional judgment and exercise. This review contributes to creating a responsible mind-set among scholars, institutions and the scientific community.

The Erasmus program stands as one of the successes in European Union cultural integration. This article analyzes the patterns of student exchanges between European universities to understand their homological relations to principles of differentiation in the European social space. Using Bourdieu’s relational approach, we conceptualize the patterns of Erasmus exchanges as European power relations and how both universities and students perceive and enact symbolic recognition and hierarchies. We analyze data from Erasmus exchanges from 2008 to 2014 using network analysis and multiple correspondance analysis. We show that the student exchanges are strongly stratified along axes homologous with structures of academic prestige, as well as economic and social differentiation in Europe. Erasmus exchange students follow patterns that are homologous with economic differentiation, and we also find within-country differences between universities, with dominant universities orienting themselves toward the dominant pole in the European social space. We show that the European field of higher education is highly hierarchical and homologically structured regarding cultural exchange, not only along lines of economic differences. This underlines that cultural and symbolic recognition and hierarchy are important for understanding how universities and students take positions in this European social space. Theoretically, the article shows how student-exchange structures are homologous along lines of other forms of domination, providing privilege to the already privileged.