Communitarian Culture Research Articles

Applying Bioethics Across Cultures

In our multicultural society, as well as when working internationally, emergency physicians (EPs) frequently see patients from cultures with communitarian or hierarchal structures. These groups may rely on traditional medical practices and view health care decisions through a lens other than patient autonomy. This leads to uncertainty about who can legitimately make decisions for patients and how to apply basic ethical principles. Because the commonly taught ethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and distributive justice) are loosely defined, they provide little help to EPs when working with cultures that de-emphasize Western individualism. The case illustrates this complexity by detailing how visiting EPs dealt with leaders from a communitarian culture who demanded that a preteen be treated for a femur fracture by a traditional bone healer rather than with modern techniques. The Western-trained clinicians struggled with their ethical responsibility to protect the child's welfare within the social setting: What should beneficence look like in this situation and to whom did it apply? More broadly, this paper examines the bases on which health care professionals might justify overruling parental decisions. It also asks whether the lack of clarity of the most used Western ethical principles suggests the need to broaden clinical ethics education to include issues from other cultures and settings. Despite principlism's shortcomings, the ease of teaching ethics to health care providers by grouping basic philosophical ideas suggests that we continue to use its structure. As educators and practitioners, we should, however, expand the concept of principlism to better address ethical values and issues found across different cultures.

Psikolojik Güçlendirme İle Benimsenmiş Ulusal Kültürel Değerler Arasındaki İlişki: İstanbul İlinde Bir Alan Araştırması

Psikolojik güçlendirme anlam, yetenek, otonom ve etki olmak üzere dört boyuttan meydana gelen ve çalışanlara işi sahiplendirme felsefesine dayanan bir kavramdır. Anlam, bireyin kendi işine biçtiği değer; yetenek bireyin o işi yapabilmek için kendi kapasitesine olan inancı; otonom, bireyin yaptığı işte özerk davranabilmesi, kullanacağı yöntem ve teknikleri kendinin seçebilme hissi; etki ise bireyin yaptığı işin genel sonucu etkilediği ve varlığının, bulunduğu işletme için bir önem arz ettiğini hissetmesi olarak açıklanabilmektedir. Benimsenmiş ulusal kültürel değerlerin temel olarak dört alt boyutta toplanan bileşenleri, bireycilik- toplulukçuluk, güç mesafesi, belirsizlikten kaçınma ve erillik-dişilik şeklindedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı İstanbul ilinde bulunan banka çağrı merkezi çalışanlarının psikolojik güçlendirme algıları ile benimsenmiş ulusal kültürel değerleri arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemektedir. Bu amaçla üç kamu bankasından 359 çalışana anket uygulanarak veri toplanmıştır. Veriler, frekans, korelasyon, Kruskal Wallis ve çapraz tablo analizlerine tabi tutulmuştur. Elde edilen bulgulara göre, yetenek seviyesi arttıkça, çalışanların güç mesafesi aralıklarında azalma, belirsizlikten kaçınma seviyelerinde artma, toplulukçuluk anlayışına yatkınlık görülmüştür. Otonom düzeyi arttıkça çalışanların toplulukçuluk eğilimde artış; etki düzeyi arttıkça, belirsizlikten kaçınma eğilimlerinde azalış, güç mesafelerinde artış; yeteneklerinde artış ve daha toplulukçu kültürü benimseme eğiliminde oldukları görülmüştür.

Mourning the death of a state to enliven it: Notes on the ‘weak’ Yemeni state

Observers interested in Yemen often worry about the near collapse of the Yemeni state. Such worries assume that the death of the state will lead to a complete social disintegration. With a brief reflection on the 2011 Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative, the recent US–Saudi-led intervention, this article argues that thinking about the Yemeni state through public worry is an exercise in symbolic violence. This violence articulates itself through the erasure of Yemenis’ communitarian culture; an erasure that becomes the condition for perpetuating the life of the discursively produced ‘weak’ state, and the domination of regional-international powers. This article proposes an alternative approach towards rethinking the ‘weak’ Yemeni state. It suggests that rethinking the Yemeni state through mourning its death could possibly give birth to a novel form of political community. It is through acts of mourning the injury and (imagined) death of the weak Yemeni state that the promise of the state as a unifying apparatus is reclaimed.

PENDIDIKAN DAN PARTISIPASI POLITIK DALAM MASYARAKAT KOMUNITARIAN DI ACEH SINGKIL

Community Education Levels in 3 Villages namely: Gosong East Telaga Village, Ketapang Indah Village, Kampung Baru Village in North Singkil District, Aceh Singkil District are very low, but the level of participation in the direct election of the Village Head in North Singkil District is high. The high voter turnout reaches 60%, while the low voters value 40%. The high level of electoral participation generated by the participation of low-educated people involved with contributions and elections during the Direct Election of the Village Head. This paper wants to explain about the communitarian culture that is very strong in society so that it encourages politics for a sense of family, and encourages people to vote not because of rationality. Thus there was no education participation in the number of community participation in the village head election in 3 Singkil Utara Sub-Districts, Aceh Singkil District.

A Place for Individuals: Positive Growth in Rwanda

ABSTRACTThis article introduces the Rwandan Stories of Change research project, and uses data collected jointly with the Aegis Trust to argue for the value of in-depth studies on individual Rwandans’ positive growth. It seeks to explore the place of individual growth in discussions of post-genocide Rwanda by examining the communitarian culture and policies of present day Rwanda. The article uses discourse analysis of a sample of testimonies to analyse indicators of individual growth alongside an assessment of collective resources (political, cultural and therapeutic) to ensure the broader cultural context of growth is attended to. The article investigates what connections might be found between community reconciliation processes and individual growth, and seeks to question how the two are related. Finally, the article argues that though individual stories are more difficult to locate and articulate, efforts must be made to facilitate their dissemination in order to provide a comprehensive, forward-looking discourse of post-genocide adaptation.

Social Justice in the Post-Affluent Society

The article spells out the reasons and provides evidence in support of the hypothesis that if the culture of a society shifts from one that extols affluence to one that extols communitarian pursuits-major gains for social justice will become much more probable. An obvious reason to expect that this hypothesis will hold true is that the more members of a particular social grouping view each other as members of the same community-the more they are likely to be willing to support reallocations of wealth that reduce inequality in that society. However, there are much deeper and stronger links between a communitarian culture and social justice. Before I can outline those and present relevant evidence, I need to outline the reasons such a culture shift is called for and what it may encompass.UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONSa. In the near future, a large number of jobs will be lost to smart (AI-equipped) instruments, machines, and robots.b. Unlike previous technological revolutions, this one is unlikely to generate a large number of new jobs.c. Hence, underemployment will increase and many of those who do find jobs will be paid poorly and have few benefits. Indeed many will work in the gig economy.d. Those who design, produce, and own the smart instruments will increase their wealth, leading to growing inequality.e. As a result, most people-who currently expect to improve their economic conditions and to be able to bequeath to their children a better life than they had-will be very frustrated.f. As a result of these trends-as well as others not explored here-these frustrations will result in growing hostility toward the government, the affluent, minorities, and foreigners. These trends are already visible in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the US.g. These consequences can be mitigated if those who have their basic needs well sated and secured find contentment in pursuits that are not labor or capital intensive and hence have low costs. These communitarian pursuits include spending more time cultivating meaningful relationships; in spiritual pursuits widely understood (from religion to meditation); and in community activism. Reference is not to a culture that favors an austere life but one in which one's consumption is capped at a level at which true needs are fully sated but status goods are avoided -and are sated through one or more communitarian pursuits. (To flag the difference between an austere culture and the one just outlined, I refer to the latter one as a capping society, one in which a person's quest for material goods is not minimized but bounded).2Such a society will be much less taxing on the environment, and much more sustainable, than the affluent society. This is the case because transcendental activities require relatively few scarce resources, fossil fuels, or other sources of physical energy. Social activities (such as spending more time with one's children) require time and personal energy but not large material or financial outlays. (Often those who spend large amounts of money on their kids' toys or entertainment bond less with them than those whose relations are less mediated by objects.) The same holds for cultural and spiritual activities such as prayer, meditation, enjoying and making music, art, sports, and adult education. True, consumerism has turned many of these pursuits into expensive endeavors. However, one can break out of this mentality and find that it is possible to engage in most transcendental activities quite profoundly using a moderate amount of goods and services. One does not need designer clothes to enjoy the sunset or shoes with fancy labels to benefit from a hike. The Lord does not listen better to prayers read from a leather-bound Bible than to those read from a plain one, printed on recycled paper. In short, the transcendental society is much more sustainable than consumer capitalism.RELEVANCE FOR ATTAINING A SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER LEVEL OF SOCIAL JUSTICEMuch less obvious are the ways the capped culture serves social justice. …

Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces

Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces

Uma história de amor juvenil

Buscaremos compreender como a juventude da Candelária, uma sub-localidade da favela da Mangueira, no Rio de Janeiro, se apropria das tecnologias da comunicação e exerce expressões de uma forma de cidadania: a cultural. Esses jovens articulam alguns elementos digitais que são normalmente associados a uma racionalidade caracterizada pela velocidade moderna da produtividade objetiva, mas fazem um uso diferente nas relações de sociabilidade cotidiana e banal na comunidade. Em meio à celerada cidade contemporânea, o uso da cultura digital poderá servir de suporte para afirmar uma nova cidadania que se elabora a partir da cultura comunitária. A cultura comunitária, com sua sociabilidade popular, considera várias fontes de saber para criar e difundir o conhecimento sobre a cidade. A partir dessa sociabilidade popular e criativa, acessamos o universo de informações em fluxos acelerados. As novas articulações de poderes deslocalizam os saberes que legitimavam o conhecimento sobre a formação da sociabilidade comunitária popular.

CULTURE AND VOLUNTARY INFORMED CONSENT IN AFRICAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS

This paper discusses how to apply a collective decision model of the principle of voluntary informed consent in African communitarian culture, in a culturally sensitive way, in order to protect research candidates from potential exploitations and abuses. Dismissing cultural and ethical skepticism surrounding the global application of the principle of voluntary informed consent, the paper ultimately concludes that international collaboration on diagnostic and therapeutic medical research in Africa, especially HIV vaccine trials, is a moral imperative.

Evolution from World System to World Society?

The question examined in this article is whether the contemporary world system is leading to a world society. World system connotes that we live in an increasingly interdependent world. The author examines the nature of world system in relation to world society. Then the author examines the nature of the world system as a growing interconnected global order, and the yet non-existent world or global society, a society as a network of social relations with mutual expectations and normative consensus. Difference perspectives of world society are discussed, followed by a focus on cosmopolitan ethics and transnational civil society. Institutions of democratic world society and the implications are examined. The author concludes: more and more people come to live in a single world system; a transnational civil society and an international public space are growing; a global communitarian culture and a cosmopolitan ethics are gaining ground.

Myanmar in EU–ASEAN relations

The aim of this paper is to discuss and examine the regional projects of institutionalism in Europe and Southeast Asia. The main focus is on Myanmar, a regional ‘outcast’ whose membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1997 has helped it to gain international legitimacy and be able to stand relatively strong against Western sanctions. The military regime is riding on the wave of ASEAN norms and a communitarian culture. The question remains as to how long the country can continue to do so. A rather skeptical view is emphasized on the ‘ASEAN Way’ in dealing with the military regime, and for the overall political dialogue with the European Union. Many ambitious objectives such as sovereign equality in institutionalism are widely questioned, and the European Union has gone against many of its treaties in order to keep its relationship with Southeast Asia. The paper puts prominence on the political and security relationship rather than on the economic aspect, which has been far more successful. The role of values and the human rights debate will be highlighted and described as the greatest obstacle for any future political cooperation.

The Gorbachev Era in Historical Context

We still tend unconsciously to look on history as a unilinear process leading from a lower, inferior level to something higher and better. To be sure, the utilitarian notion of progress as occurring almost automatically, independently of human will, and bringing about 'the greatest good of the greatest number', has been discredited. The wars and crises of our century, along with the obvious danger of unrestrained technological advances, have put paid to such simple and comforting notions. In an age of nuclear weaponry, guerrilla warfare, famine in the 'Third World' and mass unemployment in the 'First', we are less confident than our forefathers in the power of human reason or the universal validity of our current economic arrangements. It may therefore be apposite to recall the ancient Greek view that history moves in a cyclical pattern and to abandon our Europocentric way of looking at the world. Other civilizations, notably in Asia, have followed different paths of development from ours. Only in recent times have they been drawn into the world economy and exposed to the shock of Western-style 'modernization'. These influences meet stout resistance from 'nativist' elements that preach adherence to these countries' real or presumed traditions. The Islamic world, China and India all offer instructive examples of cultures that have preserved a remarkable continuity over the centuries in the ordering of their political and social affairs, to say nothing of their customs and belief systems. In the case of Russia we are dealing with an Eurasian empire, straddling two continents, whose ?lite became superficially western ized as recently as the eighteenth century but whose peasant masses continued to preserve, right up to and beyond the fall of the tsarist regime, much of their old Orthodox, communitarian culture with its Byzantine roots. Let us also remember that from the fifteenth