Complexity Of People Research Articles

Intersectional Perspective and Rural Poverty Research: Benefits, Challenges and Policy Implications

Traditionally, poverty scholarship in the U.S. focuses on the levels, trends, and effects of poverty across social categories broadly defined either by race (minorities) or gender (women) or age (children). An intersectional perspective elucidates the complexity of people's social locations by conceptualizing race, class, gender as simultaneously interacting power relations. In this work, we suggest how an intersectional approach can benefit our understanding of social inequalities in rural areas in an effort to better inform rural poverty research and policies. A related goal is to encourage a more thorough integration of class and age inequalities in intersectional scholarship. We conclude by discussing the benefits of a dialog between rural poverty research and an intersectionality perspective.

“Why are we suddenly talking about god?” A spiritual turn in recent critical writing

My aim is to consider current debates in the human sciences that – in looking beyond the well‐worn ‘trinity’ of race, gender, class – seek to address ‘the spiritual’ as a legitimate category of investigation. (I use this category as a portmanteau term to refer to subjective expressions of belief which are not primarily linked to doctrine or organised forms of religion.) I start by offering an overview of key contributions to these new debates, including cultural theory (Eagleton 2009), critical realism (Bhaskar 2000; Creaven 2010), sociology (Spalek 2008; Martin 2005), theology (Sugirtharajah 2006) and inter‐disciplinary approaches (Boyd White 2006). What of literary criticism? Is there a South or a South/ African perspective to the above debates? In the second part of the article, I focus on how postcolonial studies (Ashcroft 2006, 2009; Young 2001; Brown 2009) has entered the ‘God debate’. Has a focus on materiality and a rejection of meta‐narratives (including the rejection of the centred subject) done justice to the complexity of people's lives? Have celebrations of ‘hybridity’ or ‘ambiguity’ enhanced the life quality of de‐centred people? Is it not time to revisit the rigid division between the material and the spiritual in postcolonial studies? Finally, and more specifically, I discuss how literary criticism (Wenzel 2009; Mathuray 2009) may refract South/African literary texts through the prism of the spiritual.

HIV/AIDS and sexuality: concerns of youths in rural Zimbabwe

Concerns regarding HIV and AIDS were elicited from 546 school youths (51% female, age range 9–25 years) in a Zimbabwean rural district, through a self-generated question-writing process. Concerns emerged around how to avoid HIV infection at a time when they were undergoing secondary sexual development, had growing feelings of love, and were even engaging in sexual activity, while they had limited access to preventive methods due to denial by the adult world. Fears were expressed in regard to how to tell one's HIV status, even just after sex. HIV and AIDS were visualised in terms of suffering, loneliness, quarantine and death. The youths stressed they would have difficulties communicating with other people should they suspect or find they were infected with HIV, as this would imply they had been sexually active. They seemed to have knowledge about HIV and AIDS which either was incomplete or they could not apply, given a context of silence and denial about their sexuality. Some of their knowledge was coloured with misconceptions, suggesting contradictory information from multiple sources. After more than two decades of the epidemic in Zimbabwe, the scenario portrayed raises questions about HIV/AIDS interventions targeting young people. The question posed is why is the situation of these youths in this state when several stakeholders are actively participating in debates and interventions for the sake of their wellbeing? HIV/AIDS campaigns and interventions may need to consider young people's complex social contexts, the factors generating and sustaining their situation, and what role diverse actors and social-change processes play in this.

An Interactive Approach to Classification

Classification, entangled with obscurity and complexity, is not a task performed with ease. The obscurity in differentiating empirical taxonomy from conceptual typology plus the complexity of people’s perceptions as well as the difficulty in developing a versatile approach—all impinge on the path towards settling a classification structure grounded in consensus. This paper reviews the conventional approach and the prevailing approach to dealing with classification, scrutinizes the fundamental structures of classification and puts forward Interactive Management as a mechanism for unfolding the hierarchical structure of classification through a participatory and disciplined way. A case study—relating to structuring the value model of precision grinding machines in a multicriteria decision making context—demonstrates the manifold structures in classification, and demonstrates the establishment of consensus on classification structure from different participants’ perceptions, rather than a single designer’s preference.

The Organization of Production and its Publics: Mental Proximity, Market and Hierarchies

The paper introduces mental proximity as an ideal-type criterion for assessing the organization of production, and positions it as a benchmark alongside markets and hierarchies in a three-dimensional space. Following a Deweyan approach, the criterion is focused on democratic deliberation espoused by necessary values: the rejection of controlling influences, positive freedom, inclusion on equal terms, informed participation, the desire to reach a consensus, sympathy, mutual respect, reciprocity, and continuous learning. We also identify a community network as a complex of people who seek to relate to each other in accord with mental proximity, and discuss influences on their search.

Anthropological motivated usability evaluation

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to evaluate the usability of the recently developed IREON – International Relations and Area Studies Gateway – with the aid of an anthropological motivated research design. Within such an approach, the work environment and subject experiences of the test subjects become a crucial part of the observation.Design/methodology/approach – The objectives are achieved by contextualisation of the digital library under examination. Furthermore, previous evaluation models of digital libraries are discussed from an anthropological point of view. As a result, a multi‐method approach that is context‐relative and self‐reflexive is applied to assess the usability of IREON.Findings – The structural and cultural complexity of people involved in the development, operation and usage of IREON justifies a multi‐method approach. Whereas information specialists and web designers tend to focus on different kind of problems, there is a high degree of common discoverability between political...

Communication and healthcare complexity in people with little or no English: the Communication Complexity Score

Objective. To investigate the level of healthcare complexity of patients with limited English and the probability of use of professional interpreters, at a tertiary hospital in a multicultural area of Sydney, Australia. Design. A multilingual telephone survey was matched with medical record reviews to assess modes of communication in a sample of 258 patients with limited English from nine language groups. The Model of Interpreter Usage and Complexity was used to explain the association between clinical complexity and interpreter usage. To measure clinical complexity, a summative rating scale, the Communication Complexity Score (CCS) was constructed comprising eight weighted scores related to admission status, urgency of admission, triage category, medical emergencies/events, HDU/ICU admission, numbers of medications, invasiveness of procedures, and diagnosis. Robust Multiple Logistic Regression was used for modelling the likelihood of interpreter usage with different levels of complexity. Results. Of the 205 patients (79%) who spoke little or no English, 31% reported usage of professional interpreters. There was a positive association between CCS and usage of interpreters. Patients with high and moderate CCSs were significantly more likely to have used interpreters (OR=32.9, 95% CI 12.4–87.1 and OR=10.8, 95% CI 3.2–36.5, respectively). The CCS was found to have good psychometric properties and to be internally consistent (Cronbach's Alpha 0.84). The model was found to have good predictive power (Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve 0.90). Conclusion. While most patients (69%) had no interpreter, patients with high or moderate CCSs were more likely to have an interpreter, demonstrating a robust relationship between these two variables. Poor usage of interpreters in the Emergency Department was observed. Family and friends had a significant role in communication. These findings have important safety, policy, and practice implications for patients with limited English proficiency.

The class and cultural functions of obesity discourse: our latter day child saving movement

This paper examines the inexorable rise of ‘health’ as regulative discourse, highlighting its class and cultural dimensions. With reference to the policy content of recent obesity reports, analysis suggests that contemporary concerns around obesity are but a modern variant of earlier eighteenth and nineteenth century child saving crusades whose primary concerns were the regulation of deviant populations among women and the working classes rather than amelioration of the antecedents of social disorder and its attendant ill‐health. Unlike earlier crusades, however, in the ‘risk’ discourse of contemporary versions, class and gender are but a subtle presence, while other subjectivities of ethnicity, age and disability are barely to be seen. We suggest that in failing to address the complexity of people’s lives and the intersections of class and culture, such policies and their attendant pedagogies are likely to have very little impact on either individual or community health.

Tracking the Reflexivity of the (Dis)Engaged Citizen

The relationship between governments and citizens in many contemporary democracies is haunted by uncertainty, and sociologists face the task of listening effectively to citizens' own reflections on this uncertain relationship. This article reflects on the qualitative methodology of a recently completed U.K. project that used a combination of diary and multiple interviews/focus groups to track over a fieldwork period of up to a year citizens' reflections on their relationship to a public world and the contribution to this of their media consumption. In particular, the article considers how the project's multiple methods enabled multiple angles on the inevitable artificiality and performative dimension of the diary process, resulting in rich data on people's complex reflections on the uncertain position of the contemporary citizen.

Similar topographical distribution of neurofibrillary tangles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism–dementia complex in people living in the Kii peninsula of Japan suggests a single tauopathy

Similar topographical distribution of neurofibrillary tangles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism–dementia complex in people living in the Kii peninsula of Japan suggests a single tauopathy

Similar topographical distribution of neurofibrillary tangles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism–dementia complex in people living in the Kii peninsula of Japan suggests a single tauopathy

The presence of many neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in the central nervous system is a hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and parkinsonism-dementia complex (PDC) in people living in the Kii peninsula of Japan and in the island of Guam. To determine whether or not ALS and PDC are on a spectrum of a single tauopathy, we investigated the topography of NFTs semiquantitatively in two patients with ALS, three with PDC, and two with "PDC plus ALS" (PDC followed by ALS) on the basis of clinical symptoms. NFTs were counted under x100 magnification of Gallyas-Braak stained preparations and were plotted on brain maps of the hemisphere, brainstem, and the spinal cord. In all cases, the hippocampus, particularly in the CA1 field, the parahippocampal gyrus, amygdaloid nucleus, and the temporal poles were most severely affected. In the neocortex, layers II-III were more severely affected by NFTs than layers V-VI. In the spinal cord, a few NFTs were revealed in the intermediate gray. NFTs were dense in all cases of PDC and "PDC plus ALS" and variable in density in ALS cases, although the topography was similar between them. We conclude that similar topographical distribution of NFTs in ALS and PDC in people living in the Kii peninsula of Japan suggests a single tauopathy.

A comparison of environmental visions of university students in Israel and Palestine

Young people's complex and contradictory understandings of the future are inevitably influenced by their past experiences and the environment in which they currently live. Where this environment is itself particularly complex or contradictory then the understandings young people hold of the future will be affected. This paper, based on foresighting workshops held at three Israeli/Palestinian universities, examines the differing environmental attitudes and understandings of the future that young people hold in Israel and Palestine, before analysing the implications of these for achieving more sustainable development in the region. Despite the very real challenges the region is facing, these foresighting workshops showed that young people think systematically and rationally about the future. They are not filled with pessimism but recognise the challenges they face and can identify realistic solutions to those problems which they see as being of the greatest importance. The foresighting workshops showed that there was some common understanding of the participants about the key future environmental challenges that they face together with possible means for tackling these challenges.

Bringing about changes in workplace behavior.

Bringing about changes in workplace behavior.

Residents’ attitudes toward three protected areas in southwestern Nepal

Understanding people’s beliefs and attitudes toward protected areas is a key factor in developing successful management plans to conserve those areas over the long-term. Yet, most of the emphasis in understanding people’s perceptions has been on the conflicts that exist between people and protected areas, such as loss of traditional extraction access or damage by wildlife to crops and livestock. This study addresses the need to explore people’s attitudes toward protected areas in a way that allows them to define and describe the values they hold toward the areas and the relevant issues and concepts. Three contrasting protected areas in the southwestern region of Nepal were chosen for this study to gain a broad representation of the values people hold toward different types of protected areas. Three themes emerged that describe the positive perceptions residents have: recreation/esthetics, environmental preservation, and economic benefits. Four themes emerged that describe the negative perceptions: negative economic impacts, belief that benefits are for the government or foreigners, fear of wildlife, and negative interactions with park guards. People’s perceptions are affected by different aspects of the areas, including the size of the area and people’s access to them, management objectives, history, and tourism. The diversity of these perceptions suggests that conservation strategies should recognize both positive and negative perceptions and work to foster and integrate diverse values in order to more accurately reflect the reality and complexity of people’s lives.

The Italian resistance between history and memory

Since the 1960s the Resistance has held pride of place in public ceremonial, political debate and to a point also in historcial writing in Italy. The emphasis on its popular and national character transformed the Resistance into the struggle of the whole country to rid Italy of the German invaders and the small number of Italian fascists who remained their allies, but in ways that took no account of the complexity of people's reactions and the different ways in which Italians experienced the years immediately after the fall of fascism. In the last decade, however, numerous accounts have been published that contradict the images of the Resistance that for 30 years have constituted the ‘official’ memory of the Italian Republic. As a result, the Resistance offers a classic example of the ‘public use of history’, in which historical interpretation has served primarily to justify party political, instutitional and idelogical ends. It is now clear, however, that the supposed unity against fascism was more the result of agreement that there were limits beyond which political differences could not be pressed rather than of a deeper political unity that might have provided the basis for the political and institutional reform of the Italian Republic. The contrasting memories and interpretations of that period that have recently re-emerged for the same reason make it more difficult to project a new Italian democracy for the future.

Meeting complex needs in social care

Too many health and social care services are failing to meet people's complex needs. In this paper, ‘complex needs’ is presented as a framework to help understand multiple interlocking needs that span health and social issues. The concept encompasses mental health problems, combined with substance misuse and/or disability, including learning disability, as well as social exclusion. The paper outlines a strategy for promoting the well‐being and inclusion of people with complex needs. At the heart of this strategy is a new kind of delivery model: connected care centres, a type of bespoke social care service, a model which has been endorsed by the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU). In addition, the paper describes how new responses from existing services can promote better support for people with complex needs, such as a reformed commissioning process and a new ‘navigational’ role for the social care worker.

Placing International Law: White Spaces on a Map

Focusing particularly on the moment of decolonization, in this article I look at the paradoxes attending the endurance of the statist framework in conceptualizing territorial self-determination as well as in curtailing it. A range of protagonists in the decolonization drama, from the departing colonial powers to Third World nationalists to international jurists, have all clung to the modern nation-state as the means through which self-determination is to be realized. Against the enduring hold of the state, this article tries to foreground the ways in which the statist paradigm prematurely forecloses the self-determination options available to the nomadic communities of Western Sahara, and cramps debates about boundary and uti possidetis in Burkina Faso and Mali. In this vein the received categories of the territorially bounded state reach into the postcolonial imagination to discipline, codify, and produce ‘independence’. At the same time, however, the difficulties confronted by the boundary delimitation process in Burkina Faso and Mali suggest that the reach of the territorially bounded state is limited. It is limited by the sub-national and transnational complexities of people's lives, but also by the indeterminacy of cartographic documentation and the complexities of colonial and postcolonial bureaucracies. Rather, it is argued that international law has a contradictory relationship with decolonization, desiring the self-determination of the former colonies, while also harnessing the decolonization project to fulfil its own desires, ‘to reproduce the law's assumptions regarding the ends of freedom’.I am indebted to Doris Sommers for this formulation.

Possible self-complexity and affective reactions to goal-relevant evaluation.

The complexity of people's self-concept appears to be inversely related to the intensity of their reactions to evaluative feedback about present goals and abilities (Linville, 1985, 1987). The idea that the complexity of individuals' possible self-concept similarly mediates reactions to feedback regarding future goals was investigated. Two preliminary studies suggested that complexity of the actual self only explains 20% to 30% of the variance in possible self-complexity. Three studies were conducted. Support was found for the idea that possible self-complexity mediates affective reactions to evaluative feedback about future goals and actual self-complexity mediates affective reactions to evaluative feedback about present goals. The findings underscore the independent roles of the organization of actual and possible self-concepts in affective processes.

Possible self-complexity and affective reactions to goal-relevant evaluation.

The complexity of people's self-concept appears to be inversely related to the intensity of their reactions to evaluative feedback about present goals and abilities (Linville, 1985, 1987). The idea that the complexity of individuals' possible self-concept similarly mediates reactions to feedback regarding future goals was investigated. Two preliminary studies suggested that complexity of the actual self only explains 20% to 30% of the variance in possible self-complexity. Three studies were conducted. Support was found for the idea that possible self-complexity mediates affective reactions to evaluative feedback about future goals and actual self-complexity mediates affective reactions to evaluative feedback about present goals. The findings underscore the independent roles of the organization of actual and possible self-concepts in affective processes.

The Pattern of Canadian Politics: The Elections of 1945

The great problem of Canadian federalism is to be found in the sectionalism which is a standing challenge to national unity. Superficial conclusions drawn from the response to national recruitment, war bond drives, and such evidences, which form the stock in trade of the professional patriot, do not stand up against the realities of political behavior. This is revealed at many levels, in the parliaments (provincial and dominion), in federal-provincial relations, and finally at the grass roots as demonstrated at the polls. Geography, history, and economic considerations are woven into this pattern.Geographically, there are four main regions—Maritimes, St. Lawrence and Great Lakes, Prairies, West Coast. Historically and culturally, the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes region is sub-divided into the former political subdivisions of Lower and Upper Canada, now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, respectively. In terms of economics, each area presents individual problems, and as contrasting as the wheat-growing prairies and the financial-urban eastern provinces. To the sociologist, there is the complexity of peoples as diverse in background as the French Canadian of Quebec and the Central European immigrant in the West. With these factors in mind, the voting pattern of the people may be discerned, at least in part. And the 1945 general election offers an interesting case study.