Cultural Consequences Research Articles

Пожежа Львова 1527 року: велика втрата чи великий ренесанс?

The purpose of the work is to update the study of fi re stories using the example of one of the largest fi res in Lviv in 1527 and to show the political and cultural consequences of this natural disaster for the city. The research methodology includes, fi rst of all, the method of critical analysis of historical sources followed by a comparison of the text and its retellings. The analysis of the historical source also involves linguistic (translation of the Latin source), topographic (reproduction of historical objects on a modern map), onomastic (interpretation of city toponyms) analyses. The source is also studied in the direction of the history of the environment and the consequences of human activity, the restoration of the city after a natural disaster, the anthropological factor of the impact on the environment. The archaeological research method allows to reproduce the original appearance of the city before the fi re and to compare its spatial development and construction. The scientifi c novelty consists in the re-examination of the source references and later interpretations of the description of the fi re, which was placed in the counsil book of the city in 1527, with the aim of clarifying the causes and consequences of this natural disaster for Lviv. The prospect of further research consists in actualizing the study of such little-known topics as the history of disasters, in particular, fi res, in cities and urban agglomerations. Clarifying the causes of fi res, their scale and consequences shows what impact natural disasters had on the development of cities, their decline or rise. Conclusions. In the fi rst third of the 16th century, Lviv suff ered great losses due to the fi re of 1527. However, a consistent state policy aimed at providing large tax and other benefi ts both to the city as a whole and to its individual ethnic and social groups made it possible to restore the trade and production potential of the bourgeoisie by the middle of the 16th century. The ruined city center was gradually rebuilt due to migration to the city, both internal and external. A special impetus was given to the construction of new sacred buildings, rebuilt Renaissance buildings rose in the place of burned wooden shrines in the Gothic style, the town hall and the market districts took on new forms known to this day thanks to the new buildings.

DEVELOPING A «LAKE – CATCHMENT» INFORMATION ANALYSIS SYSTEM AS A METHOD FOR BASIC RESEARCH AND A TOOL FOR DECISION-MAKING (LAKE ONEGO CASE STUDY)

An information analysis system (IAS) is being developed to assess the state and predict the dynamics of a lake-catchment system. Forecasting of the state of the lake ecosystem in the context of global climate change and active exploitation of its resources (water, energy, recreational and biological resources, transport) is done using a three-dimensional mathematical model of the lake ecosystem, coupled with a model of runoff from the catchment. Lake and catchment models are combined with a database and a knowledge base to form a single IAS. The prognostic assessments of the seasonal and long-term dynamics of the lake ecosystem performed using the IAS serve as the basis for identifying the possible economic, social and cultural consequences of regional and global changes. Operational IAS is necessary to create a management decision support system.

Signing auditors’ cultural background and client investment efficiency

This paper explores the effect of signing auditors’ cultural background on investment efficiency. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms between 2001 and 2019, we empirically examine the impact of signing auditors’ cultural background on client investment efficiency. We find that signing auditors with merchant guilds cultural background significantly increase investment efficiency. Moreover, the increase of client investment efficiency is partly due to improved audit quality brought about by auditors’ cultural background. Further tests show that the above relationship is more pronounced in firms with high financial constraint and high level of risk taking. This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of signing auditors’ characteristics on corporate behaviors and the long-term consequence of culture on individuals and organizations.

A cross-cultural comparison of ethnocentrism and the intercultural willingness to communicate between two collectivistic cultures

There is a prevalent notion regarding divergence in the extent of ethnocentrism and the intercultural willingness to communicate across cultures. Given this cultural divergence, research is replete with comparative studies of ethnocentrism and the intercultural willingness to communicate between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. However, to our knowledge, a comparison of these crucial cultural tendencies within and their consequences for collectivistic cultures has been overlooked. Thus, this study provides a cross-cultural comparison of ethnocentrism and the intercultural willingness to communicate among university students from two collectivist cultures, i.e., Pakistan and China. The researchers employed a cross-sectional design. A sample of 775 students was collected using a survey technique. The findings show that Pakistani students are more ethnocentric and have a lower intercultural willingness to communicate than Chinese students. Moreover, males were found to be more ethnocentric and less willing to communicate in intercultural settings than females in both countries. These findings validate the notion of ethnocentrism divergence across collectivistic countries and its influence on the intercultural willingness to communicate. Additionally, they demonstrate the role of demographic attributes in evolving ethnocentrism and the intercultural willingness to communicate. Accordingly, these findings also confirm the ecological assumption that contextual factors, such as demographic attributes (e.g., past interactions with foreigners), influence communication schemas. Therefore, concerning its management, these findings suggest that increased people-to-people interactions between the two focal countries can better foster their mutual understanding to reap an increased harvest of the fruits of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Development of the new employment forms in the context of digital transformation of the economy

The article deals with the problems of the formation of new forms of employment under the influence of digitalisation processes and a protracted economic crisis. The purpose of the study is to consider the little-studied aspects of development of the new forms of employment in the conditions of the “fourth industrial revolution” and determine their prospects. The work shows that the spread of new forms of employment in the context of the formation of a new technological order indicates the digital transformation of the economy and at the same time acts as a response to the economic crisis caused by the obsolescence of the industries of the outgoing modes due to the gradual exhaustion of their efficiency, including impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the introduction of new elements of employment into the system of social and labor relations does not eliminate the previously existing conflicts of interests of their participants, but ensures a more dynamic development of the labor market and increases the adaptive potential of workers. Particular attention is paid to such forms of work organization as mobile work based on information and communication technologies, work on platforms and sharing of employees’ labor. The authors conduct a comparative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of these forms of employment based on employers’ and employees’ interests and points of view. Reserves of growth and restrictions on the development of new forms of employment have been identified. Attention is focused on the social and cultural consequences of increased flexibility and mobility of labor relations in the context of the development of new non-standard forms of employment. The results of the study can be used in developing areas for improvement of employment policy in the context of further deployment of digitalisation processes.

Italian Catholics During the 1930s: The Role of the Laity, Ecclesiology, Literature, and New Models of Sainthood in the Age of Totalitarianism

Italian Catholics During the 1930sThe Role of the Laity, Ecclesiology, Literature, and New Models of Sainthood in the Age of Totalitarianism Jorge Dagnino (bio) Keywords Italian Catholics, 1930s Italy, Italian Totalitarianism, Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI), fucino, fucini, Emilio Guano Introduction The Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI), the section for university students of Italian Catholic Action, is perhaps best known as the organization where many future Christian Democrats who would rule Italy after the Second World War were formed. Unsurprisingly, most of the existing literature has tended to focus on the formation of this ruling class.1 Faced with the novel challenges presented by the totalitarian experiments in 1930s Europe, many Catholics were well aware that a new type of religiosity had to be offered to the new generations. What was perceived to be of paramount importance was the elevation and dignity of the lay faithful and the building of the individual personality, with the cultivation of the values of interiority, intimacy, and development of the self. The main goal was to become “master of myself and of my personality.”2 Additionally, since the totalitarians represented themselves as total solutions for the men and women of interwar Europe, a new, total Catholicism was deemed necessary to offer to the young as the only means of preventing them from succumbing to the attractions of the sacralization of politics being carried out by the [End Page 100] totalitarian regimes. Moreover, the fucini carried out an ecclesiastical modernization that, at least in part, involved religious secularization, with the adoption of a language, forms of action, and new models of sainthood that to some extent implied the politicization of the sacred. Above all, in the eyes of the intellectuals of Catholic Action, what was needed to put an end to the perceived crisis of Western civilization was a Catholicism capable of penetrating every aspect of private and public life. It was a religiosity that had to be in line with the needs of an emerging mass society. Christianity was presented as a palingenetic force, as an “integral revolution”3 capable of mobilizing the masses in an effort to sacralize them in an age of mass politics and secularization. Catholicism offered a unifying and organic vision capable of transcending the deleterious effects of the liberal version of modernity that so badly needed to be countered. The ecclesiastical assistant, Adriano Bernareggi4 deplored the fragmentation generated by liberal modernity between “physical man, ethical man, religious man, the thinker, the professional, the artist, the citizen,” calling for a central idea, capable of coordinating every aspect of life and giving it a spiritual dimension. That idea was, naturally, Catholicism, with its “totalitarian conception, through which religion appears inseparable from life.” Indeed, in times of a perceived epochal crisis, Bernareggi was optimistic and confident of the palingenetic role to be played by Christianity, as he envisaged a “society in which the Christian spirit regains its primordial role.”5 This newfound sense of optimism revealed a kind of “faith in the crisis”: the notion that, as a consequence of European culture being swept away and corroded as a product of its internal contradictions and flaws, the intellectual and spiritual fields could be filled with new ideas. Such ideas were based on the deeply felt sense that an epochal opportunity was being presented to Christianity to become, once again, the driving force of Western civilization. It was a Catholicism that presented itself in the robes of a spirit of conquest, dynamic, youthful, capable of filling the void left by the crisis of civilization. Catholicism, in these years, aimed at offering a “clear vision of the major problems of life, resolved under the light [End Page 101] of a totalitarian Christianity,”6 as the sole unifying force capable of overcoming the apparent contradictions and confusions between, for example, reason and sentiment, science and life, liberty and authority, and the natural and supernatural. Furthermore, this vision of Catholicism was fueled by a heroic conception of life, a Christianity that was not passively lived or restricted to closed and passive formulae, but which was passionately experienced as a “spiritual exaltation . . . a heroic and integral conception of the Catholic life,”7 capable of uncovering...

The Political Economy of Populism

We synthesize the literature on the recent rise of populism. First, we discuss definitions and present descriptive evidence on the recent increase in support for populists. Second, we cover the historical evolution of populist regimes since the late nineteenth century. Third, we discuss the role of secular economic factors related to cross-border trade and automation. Fourth, we review studies on the role of the 2008–09 global financial crisis and subsequent austerity, connect them to historical work covering the Great Depression, and discuss likely mechanisms. Fifth, we discuss studies on identity politics, trust, and cultural backlash. Sixth, we discuss economic and cultural consequences of growth in immigration and the recent refugee crisis. We also discuss the gap between perceptions and reality regarding immigration. Seventh, we review studies on the impact of the internet and social media. Eighth, we discuss the literature on the implications of populism’s recent rise. We conclude outlining avenues for further research. (JEL D72, E32, G01, J15, N30, N40, Z13)

Crusoe's Books: Readers in the Empire of Print, 1800–1918 by Bill Bell

Reviewed by: Crusoe's Books: Readers in the Empire of Print, 1800–1918 by Bill Bell Rebecca Nesvet (bio) Bill Bell, Crusoe's Books: Readers in the Empire of Print, 1800–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. xx + 271, $45 hardcover. On September 30, 1848, London Chartist leader William Cuffay was convicted for conspiring to levy war in connection with his part in the Chartist demonstration of April 10th at Kennington Common. He was convicted by a jury that, as he insisted, was not of his peers, and he was duly sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land. A year after his trial, prior to his embarkation, Cuffay received from his Chartist comrades a compact one-volume copy of the poems of Lord Byron, inscribed to him with great admiration. When Cuffay read that book in his Tasmanian cell, he may have been reassured that his comrades thought him a hero, that his cause had been right, and that, like the Byron of the radical papers, he might someday be vindicated. The volume now resides at the People's History Museum in Manchester, England, as a key Chartist relic. It shows that the context of reading makes meaning, especially for readers severed from everything they have known. [End Page 474] What such readers make of their reading is the subject of Bill Bell's Crusoe's Books: Readers in the Empire of Print, 1800–1918, an indispensable study in media history twenty years in the making and well worth the wait. The title refers to Robinson Crusoe's salvaged library, "a cultural carapace for the individual against the tyranny of distance" (2–3). Crusoe's library is the most famous modern iteration of a trope that stretches from depictions of St. Jerome in a great deal of fine art to Thomas Selby Cousins's Australian cowherd in the sentimental picture "The Bushman's Dream," published in the Illustrated Sydney News in 1869. Bell's case studies of "hermeneutic castaways," mostly historical but sometimes fictional, demonstrate the icon once embodied by Jerome "becoming enmeshed in a colonial context" (4). Bell is intrigued by the contents and discernible usage of colonial libraries, which "often go unexamined in accounts of" colonial reading (9). In 1998, Bell coined the term "geography of communications" to articulate, as he puts it in Crusoe's Books, "the means by which discourses travel, proliferate, and are adapted across space" (23). By examining the libraries of a few distinct populations—emigrants to Australia, convicts, Scottish expatriates, and British explorers of the poles—Bell reveals that the nineteenth-century British Empire's "increased mobility … had considerable material, hermeneutic, and cultural consequences for the production of the newly inflected cultures that emerged as a result of the readers' encounters with novel situations" (25). Indeed, imperial reading was ultimately not a "monolithic apparatus for the imposition of ideology" (25). Hermeneutic castaways exhibited considerable agency. Bell's history of castaway hermeneutics engages with major theorists of media studies, literacy history, and travel and imperialist writing, including Walter Benjamin, Alberto Manguel, and Mary Louise Pratt, and joins recent studies such as Priti Joshi's magnificent The Empire News (2021) in exploring the global contours of Victorian periodical culture. Crusoe's Books is also well worth reading for the fine details of exile reading cultures that Bell unearths. For instance, in 1870s Melbourne, Cole's Book Arcade stocked over two million titles, including used books. This wealth of reading material signals the role that books played in colonial Australians' mechanisms of self-definition. Crusoe's Books will also help scholars of Victorian periodical literature to explore a neglected aspect of the March of Intellect. Convict literacy rates improved remarkably on board ships to Australia. The firm Chambers, publisher of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, developed a prefabricated library kit for this purpose, and organizations such as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge were eager to help Britons supply emigrants with giftbooks. Some previously literate convicts, such as [End Page 475] forgers, contributed to the production of exile periodicals. Some castaways rebelled against the institutions that had exiled them. On Spike Island, Young Ireland leader John Mitchel's contributions to the Jail Journal are "full...

Negotiating Newlands: contesting a Rugby heritage site in Cape Town, South Africa

The Newlands Rugby Stadium in Cape Town is the oldest rugby stadium in South Africa and the second oldest rugby stadium in the world. This paper explores the social and cultural consequences of the imminent demolition of the Newlands Rugby Stadium. Most research on stadia in South Africa have focused on the hosting of sports-mega events. This analysis goes beyond a descriptive examination of the tangible heritage of the stadium and focuses on the meaning and intangible heritage the stadium holds in the everyday lives of those who frequent it. With the advent of rampant commercialisation and globalisation of rugby, the Newlands Rugby Stadium itself has become expendable and a sporting space with fleeting qualities. This development highlights the importance of exploring the intangible heritage associated with this site. The study is informed by the notion of ‘Topophilia’ and associated heritage dynamics. This paper is based on the author’s observations at the stadium during Super Rugby and Test matches, interviews with fans, and vendors, and the lived experience of going to the stadium over a ten-year period.

Developing Indicators to Improve Safety and Security of Citizens in Case of Disruption of Critical Infrastructures Due to Natural Hazards—Case of a Snowstorm in Finland

The changing climate inflicts ecological, economic, social, and cultural consequences that are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Very often, this happens via interlinked critical infrastructures. Preparing these for natural hazards and carrying out risk assessments that consider their cascading effects on human livelihoods and well-being is a challenging task. Crisis management institutions can benefit from forecasts based on the idea of systemic risk. This study is based on stakeholder workshops, in which a systemic dynamic modelling method called the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) was used to support contingency planning to identify the critical infrastructure-related factors, the vital functions in society, and to understand their interrelated nature. Together with the workshop participants (authorities and other service providers of critical infrastructures) we tested whether the CLD tool could help identify three types of indicators (threat factors, vulnerability, and resilience) that can help in assessing the risk level when a natural disaster hits. Our case study was a snowstorm, still a frequent phenomenon in the Nordic countries. This article describes and explains the possibilities and limitations of systemic dynamic modelling in contingency planning. Indicators describing the safety and security risks posed by natural hazards, as well as potential sources of data for these indicators, were identified. Identifying indicators that are relevant for anticipating interrelated and cascading effects offers valuable tools for risk assessment and security planning at operational and strategical levels.

"We Were Afraid": Mental Health Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Two South African Districts.

The impacts of pandemics are recognized to go beyond infection, physical suffering, and socio-economic disruptions. Other consequences include psychological responses. Using a mental wellbeing lens, we analyzed COVID-19-related stressors in healthcare workers (HCWs) and community members who provided and regularly accessed health services in South Africa, respectively. From February to September 2021, during the second COVID-19 wave we conducted a qualitative study in one urban and one rural district. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data among 43 HCWs and 51 community members purposely and conveniently selected. Most participants experienced mental health challenges regarding multiple aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting lockdown, with a few reporting positive adjustments to change. COVID-19 impacts on mental health were consistent among both HCWs and community members in urban and rural alike. Participants’ COVID-19-induced psychological responses included anxiety and fear of the unknown, perceived risk of infection, fear of hospitalization, and fear of dying. Physical effects of the pandemic on participants included COVID-19 infection and associated symptoms, possibilities of severe illness and discomfort of using personal protective equipment. These distresses were exacerbated by social repercussions related to concerns for family wellbeing and infection stigma. Lockdown regulations also intensified anxieties about financial insecurities and social isolation. At times when common coping mechanisms such as family support were inaccessible, cultural consequences related to lack of spiritual gatherings and limited funeral rites posed additional stress on participants. In preparation for future public health emergencies, recognition needs to be given to mental health support and treatment.

Automatic question answering for multiple stakeholders, the epidemic question answering dataset

One of the effects of COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly growing and changing stream of publications to inform clinicians, researchers, policy makers, and patients about the health, socio-economic, and cultural consequences of the pandemic. Managing this information stream manually is not feasible. Automatic Question Answering can quickly bring the most salient points to the user’s attention. Leveraging a collection of scientific articles, government websites, relevant news articles, curated social media posts, and questions asked by researchers, clinicians, and the general public, we developed a dataset to explore automatic Question Answering for multiple stakeholders. Analysis of questions asked by various stakeholders shows that while information needs of experts and the public may overlap, satisfactory answers to these questions often originate from different information sources or benefit from different approaches to answer generation. We believe that this dataset has the potential to support the development of question answering systems not only for epidemic questions, but for other domains with varying expertise such as legal or finance.

Migratory Consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Armenia

The socio-economic, political, and even cultural consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are more than obvious. They affect the whole world and are relevant in all spheres and levels of social and public life. Numerous anti-pandemic measures, mainly the closure of borders, restrictions on the movement of citizens, and isolation hit the businesses and economies of different volumes and intensities. The spheres of tourism and services are special here and the ones where the organization of activities is based on the circulation of people and face-to-face interactions. The effective functioning of a number of social institutions was disrupted. Negative consequences were also relevant in the case of various migration flows. Having been actively involved in the migration for many years, the Armenian society is not immune to the effects of Covid-19. Based on the available literature, articles, reports, various publications and rich statistical data, the article presents in detail the impact of the pandemic on Armenian migration processes. The paper introduces the migration context of Armenia, the effects of the pandemic on the activities of a number of migrants and related groups. Conflicts of adapting to and overcoming the crisis, formal and informal tactics, approaches and practices are analyzed.

Leveraging Agritourism in Rural Areas in Developing Countries: The Case of Iran

Over the past decades, agritourism has spread rapidly worldwide with the growing interest of tourists in learning about rural life and the farmers' need to increase their income with various economic activities. Diversifying business activities on the farm, primarily through agritourism, increases the farm's income and helps reduce the financial problems. Yet, the economic importance and consequently the cultural and social consequences of agritourism in rural areas have not been well studied, particularly in the developing countries. This study explores agritourism's cultural and economic consequences in unspoiled rural regions of Iran that have not yet experienced tourism as a sustainable economic activity. This study adopts a qualitative approach using the grounded theory method to the Varkaneh region located on the northern side of Mount Alvand in Hamedan province, Iran. Accordingly, interviews were conducted with four groups of tourists, local residents, experts, and local authorities. The interviews were transcribed and coded (open, axial, and selective) using the MAXQDA software and studied through the content analysis. The findings indicate that economic consequences arising from agritourism include improvement of economic development, increasing financial challenges, monetary recognition of new economic patterns, and requirement of economic and administrative measures. Cultural consequences include the emergence of cultural challenges, cultural promotion tools, culture-instilling strategies, pre-implementation management measures, post-implementation management measures, and cultural capacity development. The results could help local authorities to develop sustainable tourism plans in the rural areas with traditional agricultural livelihoods in developing countries.

Effect of Motivational Enhancement Therapy on Patterns of Substance Abuse in Postpartum Women: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: As a biopsychosocial phenomenon, substance abuse is a major public health problem with negative economic, social, and cultural consequences. Objective: This study aims to determine the effect of Motivational-Enhancement Therapy (MET) on substance abuse patterns in postpartum women with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Materials and Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 60 eligible postpartum women with SUD (30 in the intervention group and 30 control), who were selected using a random sampling method from the postpartum unit of a hospital in Kerman, Iran in 2019. The participants in the intervention group attended four individual MET sessions and received four telephone follow-ups. All participants completed a researcher-made substance use pattern checklist before and after the intervention. Data analysis was carried out using McNemar’s test, paired t-test, independent t-test, Fisher’s exact test, and chi-square test. A P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The mean age of women was 29.25±5.89 years, and most of them were housewives with elementary education. A significant reduction was observed in the number of opium (P=0.008) and methadone (P=0.003) users after the intervention. Moreover, there was a significant difference in the amount of opium and methadone use (P<0.05). However, no significant difference was found between the two groups in the method and frequency of substance use before and after the intervention. Conclusion: MET is effective in the type and amount of opium and methadone used in postpartum women with SUD. Therefore, it can be used along with other treatments for the treatment of SUD in women after delivery.

The social and cultural consequences of infertility in rural and peri-urban Malawi.

Relatively little is known about infertility experiences among women in rural Malawi and the impact of infertility on women's marital and family relations. This article examines the perspectives of women and health care providers regarding women's concepts of reproductive health and attitudes toward infertility. The paper explores the supports and barriers to managing infertility at the individual, household, and community levels. The data presented was drawn from semi-structured interviews with health care providers and patients within a prevention of mother to child transmission program and focus group discussions with community men and women in four communities in Southern Malawi. Seventy-eight patients, 12 health care providers, and 32 community leaders participated in the study. The findings suggest that gender inequities and kinship relations intersect to produce infertility related stigma which exacerbates the social and cultural consequences of being infertile in these study communities. Social support from other women experiencing infertility is one strategy to help women manage the social and cultural burden of infertility in these study communities. These results shed light on the meaning of motherhood to women living in rural and peri-urban Sub-Saharan African communities and call for an expansion of infertility services, social services, and mental health services for both women and men who experience infertility.

The Cultural Consequences of the Global War on Terror

The Cultural Consequences of the Global War on Terror

MUSLIM WORLD LEAGUE’S EFFORTS TO CONFRONT ISLAMOPHOBIA

dangerous cultural consequences of the wave of extremism and violence that has shaken the world over the past three decades. The more extremism increases, Islamophobia increases, and the more Islamophobia increases, extremism increases at the same rate. This phenomenon has imposed its heavy consequences on Muslims in all Western and non-Western countries in which Muslims represent a minority of the social fabric. Many international and local organizations have endeavored to confront this phenomenon. The Muslim World League is considered to be one of the most active international Islamic organizations in combating and confronting this phenomenon. In this article I try to trace the cultural and religious efforts of the League in countries that suffer from increasing rates of Islamophobia, through which the League aims to mitigate the effects of this phenomenon - either by educating Muslims about further integration, or educating non-Muslims about the truth of the Islamic religion. That is how it tries to correct negative perceptual images they have about Islamic religion in the Western mentality, which are the underlying motivations behind the development and escalation of islamophobia.

The Social Consequences of Identifying a Genetic Disease with an Endogamous Ethnic Group: The Kashubian Case

Development of genetics research has contributed to the detection of genetic diseases. One of them is the LCHAD enzyme deficiency, relatively common in the Kashubian population, and therefore by the media called the “Kashubian gene”. This article is a case study in which the social and cultural consequences of labelling a disease and problematising the ethnic nature of an illness are demonstrated. It is argued that a genetic disease can become a kind of stigma and spoiled identity, and that the collective identity created by biomedicalisation and geneticisation is either accepted, negotiated, or ignored because of its stigmatising properties. The biosociality built around the disease affects not only the carriers and their families, but also a wide range of people, who oppose the ethnic labelling of illness and the process of stigmatisation.

Being-with other predators: Cultural negotiations of Neanderthal-carnivore relationships in Late Pleistocene Europe

Late Pleistocene hominins co-evolved with non-analogue assemblages of carnivores and carnivorous omnivores. Although previous work has carefully examined the ecological and adaptive significance of living in such carnivore-saturated environments, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social and cultural consequences of being-with, and adapting to, other charismatic predators and keystone carnivores. Focusing on Neanderthal populations in Western Eurasia, this paper draws together mounting archaeological evidence that suggests that some Late Pleistocene hominins devised specific behavioral strategies to negotiate their place within the vibrant carnivore guilds of their time. We build on integrative multispecies theory and broader re-conceptualizations of human-nature relations to argue that otherwise puzzling evidence for purported ‘symbolic’ behavior among Neanderthals can compellingly be re-synthesized with their ecology, settlement organization and lifeworld phenomenology. This re-framing of Neanderthal lifeways in the larger context of startling carnivore environments reveals that these hominins likely developed intimate, culturally mediated, and hence varied, bonds with raptor, hyena and bear others, rather than merely competing with them for resources, space and survival. This redressing of human-carnivore relations in the Middle Paleolithic yields important challenges for current narratives on evolving multispecies systems in the Late Pleistocene, complicating our understanding of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions and the roles of hominins in these processes.