Notion Of Culture Research Articles

Challenges and Barriers to Women's Access and Participation in the ASGM Sector in Macalder Region of Migori County, Kenya

Artisanal Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) is a significant source of income for millions of people in developing nations. Globally, women provide approximately 30 to 50% of the workforce in the ASGM sector. Women in developing countries face a number of challenges in access and participation in the ASGM sector. These include; social norms and taboos, inequalities in income distribution, discrimination in access to and control of mineral resources and exposure to gender-based violence. The objective of this study was to assess the challenges and barriers to women's access and participation in the ASGM in the Macalder region of Migori County in Kenya. This study was anchored on the Social Relations Gender approach to argue that the social construction of gender in African societies has tended to disadvantage women in the ASGM sector. This has created a system of subordination and exploitation of women miners in the Macalder region. This study adopted an explanatory research design. The study used both clustered probability and purposive sampling. A total of 100 respondents were selected for field interviews. Clustered probability sampling was used to select 90 men and women gold miners in the Osiri-Matanda gold mines in the Macalder region. Purposive sampling was used to select the lead 10 respondents who included officials of non-governmental organizations and the local administrators for interviews. This study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis and interpretation. From the findings, the researcher concluded that cultural and societal notions inhibit women's access and participation in the ASGM sector in the Macalder region. The study recommends that the women miners be empowered to cushion them against exploitation by men. It is further recommended that both National and local governments institute policies and legislation to actualize gender mainstreaming in the ASGM sector to allow women miners to reap economic benefits for socioeconomic development

Cultivating Cultures of Care within Communities of Children in Schools – Exploring the Interdependence of Children’s Collective and Individual Development

Abstract With many school systems worldwide facing several crises, such as inequality and a lack of well-being among schoolchildren, understanding how to care for, and support care among, these children must be a vital commitment for researchers and school professionals. Hence, this article introduces the notion of cultures of care within communities of children, emphasising care as a collective-transformative practice where children develop cultural tools to transform or navigate within the shared conditions of life with which they struggle. Drawing on cultural-historical and critical branches of psychology, a qualitative case analysis explores how an intervention framework (developed by this article’s author and a schoolteacher) seemed to support the development of a culture of care within a community of children at a Danish municipal primary school. Analyses of observational fieldnotes and interview excerpts suggest how the participating children engaged in negotiating, developing and expanding their shared repertoire of caring cultural tools with the purpose of creating a future in the community where the collective struggles of the present are less challenging. Focusing on the developmental implications, both for the community and for a boy in a marginalised position, the analysis sheds light on the interdependence of collective and individual development, as the children simultaneously care for the development of themselves and their community. Finally, it is discussed how pedagogical initiatives in schools that aim to care for children in marginalised positions as well as for the entire community must acknowledge the activist nature of schoolchildren and the collective nature of their agency.

Professional Basketball, the ‘Hardship Case’ and the ‘Culture of Poverty’: The Social Construction of Black Basketball Players from Spencer Haywood to Moses Malone, 1969–1974

Between 1969 and 1974, a group of Black basketball players from Spencer Haywood to Moses Malone disrupted the protocol of professional and college basketball labour policy, regulations, and behavioral norms by opting out of the previously obligatory four years of collegiate competition to turn pro. The rhetorical construct adopted by the professional basketball leagues to publicly address this labour disruption was the ‘hardship case’. This article argues that the discussion of ‘hardship’, as it became reified throughout White sports journalism, adapted the sociological, anthropological, and political language of breadwinner liberalism and the ‘culture of poverty’ to the domains of sports and popular culture. As the more progressive 1960s transitioned into the 1970s, the ‘culture of poverty’ lost its tethering to liberal ideals and became a discursive framework for White, conservative—or neoconservative—reaction. Utilizing Stuart Hall’s notion of Black popular culture as a contested space, this article shows how professional basketball became an important cultural location for ‘strategic confrontations’ over the meaning of the Black athlete in the late 1960s and 1970s. Professional Black basketball players, this article argues, became complex discursive signifiers that reflected White anxieties and fantasies in an era of economic recession, cultural divisive, and grievance-driven identity politics.

Bio-cultural Aspects of First-feeding Practices Among Hilly Tribal Infants: A Qualitative Observational Study

Objective This study delves into the biocultural aspects of first-feeding practices among Porja hilly tribe living in Andhra Pradesh, India. Materials and Methods This community-based qualitative observational study was conducted among 44 tribal infants whose mothers were purposively selected through the inclusion of criteria of having given birth in the last 60 days. The study period was carried out between May 2023 and October 2023. Semi-structured household surveys and in-depth interview schedules guided the study. Qualitative data was analysed using the thematic framework approach, which allows the analysis of the interview transcripts, field notes and informal conversations to find the associations between the expressions without missing the gut feelings and ingrained cultural notions around the practices. Results Three major themes with two sub-themes were generated from thematic analysis, such as (1) first feeding, (2) denied feeding and (3) delayed feeding. These findings provided the details account for the cultural reasons for pre-lacteal feeding by practicing colostrum avoidance and delayed breastfeeding practices on the Porja tribal neonates Discussion The persistence of culture-specific traditional beliefs in shaping neonatal health is a pressing issue. The study’s findings highlight the importance of preserving beneficial traditional methods while addressing harmful practices. This approach could significantly improve the health status of tribal newborn babies, particularly in resource-poor settings with inadequate neonatal services.

Cultural Cosmopolitanism as Habits in Everyday Life

Current cultural cosmopolitanism is portrayed in this paper as residing in the bodies of individuals around the world in the form of nondeclarative personal culture, stored as types of internalized embodied knowledge acquired through engagements with globally circulating products, artefacts, devices and gadgets. These types of knowledge exist as mental schemata, motor skills, sensory knowledge and informative data, and are habitually and routinely enacted in everyday life practices. The first two sections of the paper outline a perspective on cultural cosmopolitanism and the notion of nondeclarative personal culture. The second part of the paper looks at cosmopolitan habits, focusing on three essential everyday life practices – musicking, eating, getting dressed – and discussing them as cases exemplifying current cultural cosmopolitanism.

The Ndalem Wuryaningrat Hall of Pillars in Aesthetic Studies

The Ndalem Wuryaningrat is a Javanese noble heritage building with Javanese cultural significance designed exclusively for noble descendants. This research aims to show four main pillars in Javanese building known as soko guru. Not only does the soko guru pole serve as a foundation, but it also represents Javanese cultural values. This research method is ethnographic, which examines meaning through direct observation and interviews with sources. The results of this study are the meaning behind the hierarchy of soko guru in The Ndalem Wuryaningrat. Each element's meaning is strongly tied to Javanese cultural notions and reflects its owner. Even though it changed shape throughout the preservation of the Ndalem Wuryaningrat building, the shape of the soko guru pillar at Ndalem Wuryaningrat remains intact and has Javanese cultural significance. This study discovered that the soko guru pole symbolizes Javanese culture and the owner's position through the pole system, shape, and pattern. The conclusion of this research is soko guru pole represents Javanese culture and is associated with the Javanese people's belief in Islam through the soko guru pole features meaningful columns, motifs, and embellishments.

On Victims, Heroes, and Gulag-gupvi Survivors

Abstract Employing a biographical, oral history approach, this article documents the life story of a war veteran and gupvi survivor in Hungary to illustrate the multiple synchronic as well as diachronic cleavages that exist between the official, societal, and collective memory regimes in postcommunist Eastern Europe. István Bicskei’s life story highlights, in a tangible way, the fact that the socially constructed notions of victimhood and heroism vary as a complex outcome of the interaction of multiple forms of human, institutional, and political agencies in an ever-changing historical context and in multi-layered cultural milieux. The article argues that these key cultural notions are closely tied to individual understandings of personhood, to national and collective identities, but also to ruling ideologies and political regimes. The article also highlights the glaring gap between official, scholarly, and local narratives about the past that exists in marginalized rural communities and points to the conspicuous lack of cultural “mediators” or “intermediators” between these distinct political, media, and social spheres, and between official and grassroots memory narratives.

Engaging with culture and modernity: Cultural studies in India

ABSTRACT This paper discusses two examples of how Cultural Studies in India has assembled research domains around the terms culture and modernity, which have grown out of the debates in colonial society between colonizer and colonized. In my first example, “Indian culture” traveled overseas, to the Caribbean, through indentured laborers who created a form of subaltern diasporic modernity; however, that notion of culture was used to eliminate subaltern women from the normative frames of an Indian modernity taking shape in India. In my second example, “Indian culture” was involved in the creation of a national-modern subject. The creation happened through a process in which modernity was disavowed in the name of “our” distinctive culture even as that culture was propagated through modern institutions. These two examples, taken together, indicate the centrality of “culture” and “modernity” to the conceptual-political field of Cultural Studies in India.

Habitus, capital and the shaping of sporting careers: a qualitative study of Norwegian youth

ABSTRACT Previous research has established that youngsters’ sporting repertoires become particularly malleable during the early- to mid-teenage years, shifting from formal, organized sports to more informal, recreational activities. This study investigated the processes underlying these changes, using the theoretical framework of social and cultural capital and habitus. Forty-one individual qualitative interviews, with 17–18-year-old middle-class Norwegians, were conducted in order to understand the role of family, friends, and peers in shaping sporting repertoires and careers. Through three analytical themes – ‘Shifting forms, shifting orientations’; ‘Sporting capital and family cultures of sport’; and Sporting repertoires and the growing significance of friends’ – our findings lend support to notions of family cultures as important in initiating young people’s sporting careers by building their sports-related ‘cultural capital’ and establishing sporting routines. However, our findings also indicate that such primary socialization into sport may not be enough for building the sporting repertoires necessary for lifelong engagement. The development of sporting habitus tends to be facilitated by social capital in the form of friendship networks within which friends become increasingly significant in shaping sporting repertoires. Understanding the dynamism and mutability of sporting repertoires during the youth life-stage is crucial for developing sports policies that foster lifelong sports engagement.

They Will Surveil You to Death: Gangstalking as a Cultural Concept of Distress.

Understanding local worldviews is a challenge during clinical encounters, especially when they involve cultural references without acceptance from the medical community. Gangstalking is a Western cultural notion which refers to systematic harassment, surveillance, and torture from unseen or covert assailants or networks. It is not a 'real phenomenon' compared with genuine stalking, but experients report worse depression, post-traumatic symptoms, suicidal ideation, and longer lasting encounters. They report physical pain and impossible feats of espionage technologically orchestrated by unknown malevolent actors. Using conversational data from targeted individual podcasts, I explore gangstalking as a cultural concept of distress (CCD) by highlighting associated explanations, idioms, and symptoms. Clinically, gangstalking is likely diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. However, its association with frightening events parallels Susto and Nervios. Physical symptoms parallel Open Mole and Brain Fag Syndrome. Like many CCDs, gangstalking is a multi-dimensional phenomenon not neatly mapped onto psychiatric categories. Misinterpreting gangstalking cases as unique or isolated is a likely outcome even when they fit within a well-known Western subculture and techno-science belief system. Moving past prior, outdated notions of folk illnesses and culture-bound syndromes, gangstalking as a CCD helps end the assumption that only the other has exotic or non-psychiatric categories of distress.

Beauty hacks, wardrobe suggestions and DIY regimes for a Muslim bride: Analysis of bridal beauty vlogs

Drawing on beauty vlogs uploaded on specific Malayalam YouTube channels, the article documents the digitally mediated circulation of bodily and sartorial norms for a Muslim bride from the region of Kerala. The study explores how fashion vlogging and social media participation assist in furthering the imageries of Malayali Muslim women as neo-liberal feminine subjects by placing the role of consumption as consequential to the emerging sources of their identity. It is proposed that these vlogs catalyse the creation of a Muslim womanhood at the conjectures of cultural notions of modesty, faith and identity aspirations, arguably in the backdrop of transnational Islam and free market ideology. Furthermore, the study hints at the limitations of the analytical device of ‘Brand Islam’ in explaining facets associated with a bridal beautification scene, where the bodily and sartorial prescriptions are mediated by the diversity of co-participants involved and variations in the sartorial references endorsed.

BINARY OPPOSITION «RICH-POOR» IN KAZAKH AND ENGLISH LINGUACULTURES

In this study, binary oppositions are referred to be mechanisms for producing cultural notions that are indicated by lexical antonyms and represent both the Kazakh and English population's worldview and the language's conception of the universe. On the basis of an analysis of the materials and important cultural concepts from both countries, a sampling of binary oppositions was created. The findings of the comparative study allowed for the definition of key components of Kazakh and English ethnic cultures,which serve as basic components in the self-identification of both countries and aid in the reconstruction of their worldview. The purpose of this work is to identify the features of the national expression of the concepts of wealth and poverty in the Kazakh and English languages. To achieve the goal, the following tasks were set: 1.study of the concept of "proverbs" in the system of Linguistics, their role in creating a linguistic picture of the world. 2.selection, analysis and comparison of Kazakh and English proverbs and sayings. 3.identification of general and various features of the concepts of wealth and poverty in national characteristics, identification of the main features in the values and ideals of the Kazakh and English peoples in relationto these concepts.Research methods depend on the goals and objectives of the work. The work required the use of methods of sampling, comparison and descriptive analysis. The theoretical significance of the work is to identify the features of the national expression of the concepts of wealth and poverty in the Kazakh and English languages within the framework of the theory of cognitive linguistics. The practical significance of the work is that the results of the study can be used in teaching English in courses such as lexicology, phraseology, comparative typology, cognitive linguistics.

African theology of reconstruction and queer epistemic violence: A theo-ethical discourse

The legacies of colonialism in South Africa and broadly in Africa have problematised discourses on violence and discrimination. To counter coloniality and its continued efforts to dehumanise Africa, many Africans have often uncritically embraced certain notions of African culture that exacerbates the problem of homophobic violence and discrimination. This has left certain African discourses embracing ubuntu without critically addressing the violence and discrimination where ubuntu is often promoted. Recognising the attempts of African reconstruction theologians such as Mugambi and Ka Mana who advocate the necessity for African epistemic paradigms or epistemic justice, I engage their paradigms considering epistemic violence from the context of the queer community. Ubuntu must be understood within the context of African holism, a framework which African reconstruction theology makes use of. Using Dotson’s three orders of epistemic oppression, I argue that Mugambi’s theological paradigm could become problematic for the queer community because of the epistemic shells it carries into the future from the past. Considering the queer community, I argue that the epistemic flexibility of Ka Mana’s theology of reconstruction allows for more engagement because of its commitment to an ethic of African holism. At the heart of such an ethic is a commitment to the unity and the interconnectedness between God, humans, ancestors, plants and animals. This paper makes a theological contribution by engaging queer epistemic violence from the context of two African theological reconstruction paradigms.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This paper engages discourses from African masculinities, social sciences, African theology and philosophy with reference to epistemic violence enacted against the queer community.

To Alleviate Stigma: How Incels Negotiate Masculinity Online

This article draws on Goffman’s stigma theory to explore how incels (involuntary celibates) alleviate stigma and negotiate masculinity by employing normification, minstrelization, and militant chauvinism. Using netnographic research, I qualitatively explore three incel forums consisting of 927 comment threads. While incels advocate antifeminism and misogyny, they also exhibit traits and behaviors usually avoided in subcultures dominated by men, such as narratives of loneliness and inadequacy related to hegemonic ideals of masculinity and hyper-masculinity. This article explores the ambiguity of gender processes online, identity negotiation among incels and the use and combination of various stigma management strategies to uphold, challenge, or reject hegemonic masculinity. I argue that closer attention to stigma can help us understand incels’ countercultural expressions within broader social and cultural notions about masculinity and shame.

Exploring the implicit meanings of 'cultural diversity': a critical conceptual analysis of commonly used approaches in medical education.

Existing approaches to cultural diversity in medical education may be implicitly based on different conceptualisations of culture. Research has demonstrated that such interpretations matter to practices and people concerned. We therefore sought to identify the different conceptualisations espoused by these approaches and investigated their implications for education. We critically reviewed 52 articles from eight top medical education journals and subjected these to a conceptual analysis. Via open coding, we looked for references to approaches, their objectives, implicit notions of culture, and to implementation practices. We iteratively developed themes from the collected findings. We identified several approaches to cultural diversity teaching that used four different ways to conceptualise cultural diversity: culture as 'fixed patient characteristic', as 'multiple fixed characteristics', as 'dynamic outcome impacting social interactions', and as 'power dynamics'. We discussed the assumptions underlying these different notions, and reflected upon limitations and implications for educational practice. The notion of 'cultural diversity' challenges learners' communication skills, touches upon inherent inequalities and impacts how the field constructs knowledge. This study adds insights into how inherent inequalities in biomedical knowledge construction are rooted in methodological, ontological, and epistemological principles. Although these insights carry laborious implications for educational implementation, educators can learn from first initiatives, such as: standardly include information on patients' multiple identities and lived experiences in case descriptions, stimulate more reflection on teachers' and students' own values and hierarchical position, acknowledge Western epistemological hegemony, explicitly include literature from diverse sources, and monitor diversity-integrated topics in the curriculum.

Immigration and the Boundaries of Black Political Subjecthood in Argentina and Chile

In the last two decades, the Argentine and Chilean states have passed laws and policies targeting Afro-descendant populations. But while Argentine law has institutionalized Afro-descent through a broad notion of African ancestry and African-based culture, the Chilean state has legally defined Afro-descent in relation to a particular history, culture, and identity connected to a long-standing presence in the national territory. In this paper, I examine the role of immigration in explaining how Afro-descendant subjecthood has been legally constructed and institutionalized in each national context. Through archival and interview-based research, I analyze how classification struggles within each Afro-descendant movement and between Afro-descendant activists and the state frame claims and strategies for legal inclusion, ultimately impacting how the boundaries of Afro-descent are defined and institutionalized in each national context. Immigrants’ early participation within the Afro-Argentine movement promoted heterogenous political framings, but feelings of threat drove some Afro-Argentine activists to emphasize nativist claims. This has produced a diversity of legislation and policies that target different populations, including immigrants—what I refer to as a “transnational-racial” model. In Chile, immigrants have not participated prominently in the Afro-descendant movement, but they have been present in the imaginaries of activists and state officials debating legislative and policy measures. Afro-Chileans’ political success requires not being seen as foreigners by state officials, driving them to emphasize their national belonging. Thus, Black subjecthood has been institutionalized targeting Afro-Chileans who share a common history and culture while excluding immigrants—what I refer to as a “national-ethnic” model.

From misogyny to security: women and the state in Iran

Within the context of a misogynistic political establishment, the Iranian state’s approach to women has become increasingly securitised in recent years. The Islamic Republic state, in fact, sees women as one of its biggest security threats, further deepening its securitisation of women and women’s issues. This is most evident in relation to the official imposition of mandatory hijab, which vividly symbolises state ideology. The securitisation of women has occurred within the context of pervasive state misogyny and other officially sanctioned cultural notions that have accorded women second-class positions in the Islamic Republic’s society. Despite its expansive system of state-sanctioned legal, political, ideological and cultural misogyny, however, the Islamic Republic has been unable to counter women’s nonconformity to its dictates. Developments concerning and led by women themselves have challenged the official misogyny and its supporting ideological narrative. The state’s inability and unwillingness to show ideological flexibility in this regard, and women’s determined refusal to comply with the state, have combined to transform Iranian women into a national security threat to the state, one that it has so far been unable to effectively counter.

Walking the Streets: Psychogeography and the Politics of Exclusion in Selected Works of Ruskin Bond

Psychogeography involves the study of the interrelationship between the human psyche and the surrounding physical environment. Both as a theory and as a methodological tool, psychogeography can be utilized to understand and analyze how space – especially urban space as the centres of capitalism, consumerism, and authoritative control by capitalist forces – impacts our lives and our attitudes and becomes an integral factor in the formation of our sense of self and identity. Integral to psychogeography is the concept of walking, often referred to as the ‘dérive’, which signifies a sort of aimless drifting through the city streets with the objective of resisting the lure of capitalist consumerism while simultaneously re-centering the gaze to the street level to draw attention to those who populate the fringes and the margins of society and whose lives and stories have mostly slipped through the fissures of history. The article provides psychogeographical analysis of selected works by Ruskin Bond to show how his writings document not only the changing landscape of many of India’s cities and small towns due to the impact of modern capitalist urbanity but also how the development and evolution of the hill stations from the time of the British Raj have, time and again, reconstituted the dynamics of power and position based on notions of race, culture and other socio-political factors. Through Bond’s fictional and non-fictional accounts, it is thus possible to examine the politics of social exclusion and marginalization which characterizes not just urban spaces but human spaces in general, thereby bringing to the foreground issues of identity and belonging which are essentially intertwined with the spaces that surround us and which we inhabit.

Liquid territories: the configuration of geographic space in the cartography of the Mekong River’s catchment areas

AbstractThe role played by the Mekong River in the organization of land and people is inextricably linked with a particular spatial category. The concept of the hydrological catchment extends the space of the river far beyond the limits of the river’s perennial waterbodies, to encompass vast areas inhabited by millions of people speaking different languages. Fundamental to the estimation of precipitation and water volume, areal denotations of the Mekong’s basin, delta and floodplain have been repeatedly drawn on maps by geographers, planners, engineers and cartographers. Mapped representations of the Mekong River however are not only the result of recording the flows of water, nor the domain of a single discourse. With diverging intentions, distinct and sometimes conflicting projections of the basin, delta and floodplain have prescribed the differentiation and unification of parts of mainland Southeast Asia, to articulate liquid territories that are outside a single state’s jurisdiction. To understand how the Mekong’s catchments emerge as the geographic reference for human activities, the paper examines the technical and cultural notions that underpin the preparation of these maps. Focusing on early European maps of the Mekong’s delta and floodplain, the paper draws on the discourses of hydrology, geography, and cartography to ask what territories are produced and maintained by evoking the geography of the river’s flows.

Exploring the Intersections of Cultural Constructs and Parental Beliefs: Autism Spectrum Disorder in Indian Families

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder whose prevalence has continually increased over the years but its definitive cause remains unknown and thereby parental perceptions and beliefs about its cause are shaped by existing cultural notions. However, research has rarely focused on understanding the nature of these beliefs and their influence on parenting behaviors. India is home to several culturally diverse groups, but little attention is put toward understanding the diversity in cultural beliefs and perceptions of parents of children with autism. Drawing on semi-structured, in-depth interviews, this study demonstrates the cultural beliefs about ASD and elucidates the experiences of 20 parents who have a child with ASD from Chandigarh-Tricity, India. The study employs a qualitative methodology, and the analysis revealed different themes that are explored in the article.