Domestic Settings Research Articles

The Muslim Brotherhood and women’s issues under Sadat: dogmas and discussions

This paper examines why the MB was cautious in its revision of views on women under Anwar Sadat when it was, at the same time, changing the way it dealt with politics and the issue of revolutionary violence, by looking at the movement’s view on women as expressed in its own writings. I argue that the MB’s view on women was in line with the Islamic revival Egypt experienced. Given the nature of Egyptian society under Sadat, in which women still mainly played central roles in the domestic setting, reconsidering their traditional position was not viewed by the movement and many of the Egyptians it reached out to as something that needed change, contrary to the country’s administrative situation. Additionally, women’s issues were used by the MB as a tool to showcase its piety. This was instrumental in its search for political and religious authority, which the movement needed in order to expand its membership, lead the fragmented Islamic movement, deal with its own divided rank-and-file, and challenge the Sadat administration.

WASH and health: from global estimates to whys and hows

New, relevant studies have been published, improving our understanding of the extent to which different interventions in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) can reduce childhood diarrhoea 1 Wolf J Hubbard S Brauer M et al. Effectiveness of interventions to improve drinking water, sanitation, and handwashing with soap on risk of diarrhoeal disease in children in low-income and middle-income settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet. 2022; 400: 48-59 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (17) Google Scholar and the burden of a series of health outcomes. 2 Wolf J Johnston RB Ambelu A et al. Burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in domestic settings: a global analysis for selected adverse health outcomes. Lancet. 2023; (published online June 5.)https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00458-0 Google Scholar These efforts provide figures that can inform public policies, support advocacy for these essential needs and human rights, and promote the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in domestic settings: a global analysis for selected adverse health outcomesWASH-attributable burden of disease estimates based on the levels of service established under the SDG framework show that progress towards the internationally agreed goal of safely managed WASH services for all would yield major public-health returns. Full-Text PDF Open Access

Burden of disease attributable to unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in domestic settings: a global analysis for selected adverse health outcomes

Assessments of disease burden are important to inform national, regional, and global strategies and to guide investment. We aimed to estimate the drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)-attributable burden of disease for diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, undernutrition, and soil-transmitted helminthiasis, using the WASH service levels used to monitor the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as counterfactual minimum risk-exposure levels. We assessed the WASH-attributable disease burden of the four health outcomes overall and disaggregated by region, age, and sex for the year 2019. We calculated WASH-attributable fractions of diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections by country using modelled WASH exposures and exposure-response relationships from two updated meta-analyses. We used the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene public database to estimate population exposure to different WASH service levels. WASH-attributable undernutrition was estimated by combining the population attributable fractions (PAF) of diarrhoea caused by unsafe WASH and the PAF of undernutrition caused by diarrhoea. Soil-transmitted helminthiasis was fully attributed to unsafe WASH. We estimate that 1·4 (95% CI 1·3-1·5) million deaths and 74 (68-80) million disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) could have been prevented by safe WASH in 2019 across the four designated outcomes, representing 2·5% of global deaths and 2·9% of global DALYs from all causes. The proportion of diarrhoea that is attributable to unsafe WASH is 0·69 (0·65-0·72), 0·14 (0·13-0·17) for acute respiratory infections, and 0·10 (0·09-0·10) for undernutrition, and we assume that the entire disease burden from soil-transmitted helminthiasis was attributable to unsafe WASH. WASH-attributable burden of disease estimates based on the levels of service established under the SDG framework show that progress towards the internationally agreed goal of safely managed WASH services for all would yield major public-health returns. WHO and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

Fighting Cancer “Like a Girl” and Taking It “Like a Man”: Examining Gender Stereotypes in Online Breast and Prostate Cancer PSAs

Abstract: This research examines the frequency and nature of gender stereotype portrayals of both women and men in cancer narrative public service announcements (CNPSAs). A content analysis was conducted on 338 online CNPSAs (255 breast cancer, 83 prostate cancer) sourced from health organization websites and social media, utilizing established coding categories such as physical traits, gender role behaviors, and occupational status. The results suggest a higher/lower incidence of gender stereotyping in certain categories than previously identified, using odds ratio and societal data for comparison. For instance, women are 10.3 times more likely to be depicted as under 40, 5.1 times more likely to be portrayed as victims rather than heroes, and 6.7 times more likely to be shown in domestic settings, such as a kitchen. There is also notable gender stereotyping when comparing with societal data on cancer diagnoses and mortality. However, this study observes instances of reversed gender roles (e.g., women portrayed as independent, men as emotional) that contradict traditional stereotypes, despite an overall unequal representation of women. By highlighting these issues, this study contributes to research on gender stereotyping in CNPSAs and provides a valuable reference for further analyses.

Assessment of indoor air quality of porous media combustion-based cookstoves.

The present study analyzes the emission mitigation ability of a porous media combustion (PMC) technology-based cookstove compared to a free flame combustion (FFC) technology-based cookstove. Emission of pollutants, i.e., PM2.5, PM10, and CO, caused due to burning of fuels, namely, methanol, ethanol, kerosene, and LPG in the kitchen environment are measured. The study incorporated exhaustive real-time indoor air quality (IAQ) measurements and presented the temporal variation of measured pollutant concentrations for 2 h (morning meal duration). In addition, 24 h average concentration of the measured pollutants is also compared with the limits prescribed in WHO guidelines for domestic settings. The results emphasized that the utilization of cookstove based on PMC would help in improving the IAQ of the kitchen area by decreasing the concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, and CO. For 2 h duration measurements, the methanol cookstove based on PMC reduced the concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, and CO by 7.7%, 8.1%, and 17.2%, respectively, compared to FFC cookstove. Similarly, in the case of PMC-based LPG cookstove and kerosene cookstove, the respective values were 11.7%, 20.4%, and 41.6% and 55.3%, 62.6%, and 66.6%. Among all the tested cookstoves, PMC-based LPG cookstove achieved the lowest emission values (PM2.5: 20.6 μg/m3, PM10: 31.3 μg/m3, and CO: 1 ppm) which are lower than the prescribed WHO values (PM2.5: 25 μg/m3, PM10: 50 μg/m3, and CO: 6 ppm).

Investigation of Spatial and Cultural Features in Contemporary Qatari Housing

Housing is a basic human need and a fundamental component of settlement status. The architectural form and spatial provisions of housing evolve in line with—and transform to meet—a specific era’s needs. Globalization has been responsible for changing the nature of housing in Qatar over the last thirty years. It has led to a standardization of construction methods and built form, representing a dramatic departure from past models of vernacular residential architecture. In light of these challenges, the ultimate purpose of this study is to explore the spatial and cultural features in a small sample of contemporary housing in Qatar. It explores the spatial layout of four Qatari residential villas to assess the social and cultural roles in contemporary housing models against the background of previous research. In the study, the authors utilized space syntax as an analytical tool to demonstrate patterns of visibility and room relations in the samples to understand occupants’ system of activities in the contemporary domestic setting, deploying visibility graph analysis (VGA) and relational graphs. Key findings include the interpretation of the probable relation to socio-cultural factors such as gender roles, hospitality, and privacy. Hence, this study fills gaps in knowledge about Qatari and Middle Eastern housing today.

Anxiety Caused by Too Many Cats in Bohumil Hrabal’s “All My Cats”

All My Cats is an autobiographical novel representing Hrabal’s fatal anxiety from the potential mental conflict with domesticated animals. This article examines the concept of anxiety and the potential for domesticated animals, in this example, cats, to exert agency and impact the lives of their owners in autobiographical literature. Bohumil Hrabal's All My Cats has been selected due to the prominence of literary signifiers of anxiety, his ambivalent attitude toward cats (love and hate) throughout the text, and Hrabal’s specific interpretation of what his cats did for him and to him in emotional terms. The methodology selected does not presuppose that cats, or animals in the broader sense, possess agency on an equal footing with humans. Rather, they can exist in an interdependent or collaborative state with humans. This may be seen as a form of an unwritten social contract between animals and humans in a domestic setting. In the case of Hrabal and his cats, his perception of his cats and what they attempt to communicate to him is most interesting in this regard, particularly when viewed through the lens of anxiety and the literary signifier.

Witnessing the Mundane

‘Witnessing the Mundane: Spectatorship and the domestic onstage’ by Jessica Nakamura considers how performance can facilitate noticing the mundane and the ethical implications of such noticing. The article analyses contemporary Japanese playwright/director Yamada Yuri’s Wakarō to ha omotteiru kedo (2019) (English title: I’m Trying to Understand You, But … ) to focus on the portrayal of the mundane in domestic settings. Taking place over the course of one evening in the dining room of a woman called Teru’s apartment, Wakarō highlights the mundane elements of our domestic lives while calling attention to their concealment. As the play unfolds and Teru tells her boyfriend Koh about her pregnancy and concerns about it, Wakarō reveals that the home space can contain the potential for pain and domestic everyday activities can conceal harmful acts. By focusing on Wakarō’s treatment of its domestic space and behaviours in it, the article considers the ways in which performance can foster witnessing the mundane. While Wakarō is not mundane in its performance content and style, Wakarō’s setting of the home foregrounds the mundane’s domestic workings and contemplates how we might engage with them. The article follows a major device of the performance: two maids, mysterious, unexplained, yet ever-present in the home space. Through these characters, who are part of the mundane circumstances portrayed onstage and separate enough to observe them, Wakarō models acts of witnessing that can extend beyond the performance itself, enacting a spectatorship to carry forward into future observations of mundane conditions. By extension, the article considers how performances about the mundane can help us expand what counts as witnessing and re-pose questions about the ethics of spectatorship more broadly.

Modern dharma: the moral worlds of Newar middle-class families in Bhaktapur, Nepal

The dissertation “Modern Dharma: The Moral Worlds of Newar Middle-Class Families in Bhaktapur, Nepal” explores family transformations among an emerging middle class in the Nepali city of Bhaktapur. By examining personal narratives of conflict and adjustment in domestic settings and among kin, this work sheds new light on the negotiation of social roles and relationships in the pursuit of an idealized notion of well-being in a context of accelerated socio-economic change.

The (mis)appropriation of human rights by the new global right: An introduction to the Symposium

Abstract The meaning of human rights has always been susceptible to multiple, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations. Yet after several decades of efforts to develop an emerging, if dispersed and overlapping, normative consensus at the regional and UN treaty-system level, as well as within domestic constitutional and legislative settings, an array of efforts at concerted legal change in the human rights field has recently appeared in different parts of the world, on the basis of a supposedly reformed characterization of human rights, including in Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, Modi’s India, Bolsanaro’s Brazil, and the United States under the former Trump Administration, alongside developments in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana. We describe these arguments and moves as appropriations—and indeed as misappropriations—when they use human rights language in the service of ends which are exclusionary, repressive, or anti-pluralist in character, highly retrogressive or reversing of previous commitments, and evasive of external monitoring or accountability. We argue that by invoking the language, tools, and framework of human rights to exclude or repress particular groups and individuals, while consolidating authority and avoiding accountability, they misappropriate a human rights system which—despite extensive contestation and critique—has been developed over a long period around certain core values including equal human dignity, inclusion, and accountability. The essays in this Symposium track a range of these actors and the strategies they are using to reshape the human rights field, examining recent moves towards transnational coordination of nationalist, populist, right-wing, and authoritarian movements. The analyses from various jurisdictions around the world focus on attempts to remake and—we argue—reverse a range of progressive achievements of the human rights system around gender, religion, property, culture, and equality.

102 Insights from Workplace Exposure Campaigns During Metal 3D Printing Procedures with Portable Equipment to Monitor Ultrafine Particles Emissions

Abstract Metal 3D printing is an emergent technology gaining much interest in a wide range of sectors, namely in the automotive and aeronautics sectors. This technology enables rapid prototyping, offering development of products with a remarkable time and cost reduction, and allows the creation of almost any shape, overcoming the difficulties of the conventional techniques. However, innovation always brings new risks and uncertainties about human exposure and hazards of the new materials, products, or by-products of the innovative technologies. It has been reported that from metal 3D printing procedures, volatile and non-volatile particles might be emitted, turning the people directly involved in the process and the other present in the facilities, potentially exposed to those emissions. Therefore, especial efforts must be imputed on risk assessments to particles emitted on occupational or domestic settings, from 3D printing activities. Addressing the exposure to airborne ultrafine particles during several metal 3D printing procedures, namely plasma metal deposition, wire arc additive manufacturing, wire-laser additive manufacturing and atmospheric pressure plasma deposition, this study evaluated the use of real-time portable equipment to characterise the exposure (in terms of number and size of particles). Different operating conditions were investigated, with different machines and materials. The airborne ultrafine particles emissions were characterised, and the efficiency of the implemented control measures was evaluated. Some limitations were found, and therefore as outcome from the study, some recommendations are proposed concerning the exposure mitigation and insights from the monitoring campaigns are provided.

Kitchen Tours: Re-Interpreting the History of Gendered Labour and Technologies in the Home Through Four Australian Heritage Houses

ABSTRACT Despite its material and metaphorical centrality to the home, the kitchen has been viewed as somewhat of a lacuna in architecture and design histories and heritage accounts. This is in part because of its traditionally gendered and class-dictated use, and its heightened exposure to obsolescence, with the result that there is surprisingly little recorded about kitchen and servant life, or remnant, artifactual historical evidence preserved. To address this historical absence, the paper describes a series of visits conducted to historic houses spanning the 1850s–1970s that are heritage protected and open to the public in the cities of Melbourne and Geelong, Australia. With a focus on the kitchens and associated service and servant areas, the author’s observations, interviews, and photographic documentation conducted on these visits is bolstered by archival research and broader scholarship around the historical shifts in the employment of servant and gendered domestic labour, and the technologies and infrastructure that supported them. In light of established feminist framings in historiography and curatorship, and the turn to micro-contextualised social, technical, and material studies since the 1980s, the paper argues that heritage interpretation and management can offer far more to the re-evaluation and evocation of the history of women’s work in the home. And in turn, that these experiences might sharpen our attention to the seemingly mundane, tacit attributes and values of domestic settings, technologies and infrastructures.

Perception of designers of an enabling environment for dementia care in Thailand

This paper explores the perception of designers towards an enabling environment for dementia care in Thailand. The global number of people living with dementia has increased, and the number is growing in developing countries with the decline in the quality of care and the high turnover rates of formal caregivers. A dementia-friendly environment can support the challenging dementia symptoms, employing a specialised environment for quality care that is a significant therapeutic resource for supporting residents’ well-being, such as comfort, familiarity, and organised space. Thus, the salutogenic design approach becomes vital in supporting personalised narratives related to personality, lifestyles, and a decision-making process to enable the person-centred care to enrich their quality of life. The concept of salutogenic design has become a trend for people with dementia to live in small-scale and home-like care settings to enhance meaningful daily activities in familiar domestic settings. This study thematically analyses 15 semi-structured interviews of architects and therapists in Thailand about their perception towards the dementia environment and its relation towards salutogenic design and capabilities approach. Based on such analysis, an enabling environment for dementia care should balance functions and aesthetics for the positive affordances between users and the environment. Instead of perceiving design as a physical environment, the design of an enabling environment should have contextual factors of politics, urban-rural gaps, and education for the whole community.

The Post-COVID Home. How Confinement Altered Domestic Space Use and Living Modes, in Lisbon

Not only is space use a result of spatial configuration, but it is also greatly determined by social patterns and society’s living modes. The COVID-19 pandemic and confinement resulted, worldwide, in a 24/7 use of the domestic setting, which had to be adapted to the emergence of new needs and functions in the domestic space. The paper aims at understanding how COVID confinement altered domestic space use in Lisbon and how current society has maintained some of those changes, a reflection of new social patterns. The analysis is supported by an inquiry, carried out during the first confinement of 2020, in the city of Lisbon. Results show that domestic space use had to be adjusted to a new context, gaining new functions, and bringing into evidence the need for additional spaces. In light of the proven changes in living modes, the research concludes that the post-COVID home needs to be rethought and new housing programs should take into consideration the new social patterns and living modes.

Language shift: gender differences in Chaouia use in Algeria

Abstract The paper explored the shift away from Chaouia, a variety of Tamazight, to the use of Algerian Arabic in Batna (northeast Algeria). The Chaouia-speaking community had recently witnessed a large rural exodus and significant social changes and mobility due to economic opportunities, education and ethnic contact. The paper focused on gender differences in language use and considered how socialisation and cultural ideologies regarding men’s and women’s relationship to language shape linguistic decisions and choices. Building upon representations of masculinity and femininity, we investigated the ways in which these gendered practices constrain or restrict Chaouia use among working-class Chaouias. We used a qualitative approach with an embedded quantitative element to analyse interviews and surveys across the domestic setting as well as schools and social networks in Batna to examine the interplay between gender identities and language socialisation at home, language choices at school and among friends. The increase in cross-ethnic contact with the larger Arabic-speaking community had introduced significant re-considerations of social and linguistic priorities in the community. The findings showed a clear impact of parents on the acquisition of a gendered pattern of language choice, with boys being socialised in Chaouia and girls in Algerian Arabic. This pattern was further reinforced at school and among peers through teachers and social networks. Females’ networks were ethnolinguistically heterogeneous whereas males’ networks were Amazigh-oriented. Hence, the traditional link of Tamazight to femininity was re-negotiated to generate a discourse of blame for the ongoing language shift and identity loss.

The domestic dimension of cross-border governance: Patterns of coordination and cooperation

Contemporary debates in border studies tend to see the national level as a rather residual category. There are, however, strong arguments that the national level still plays an important role for the governance of border regions. The question is what kind of formats are in place related to coordination and networking of border regions within national settings. The aim of this paper is to provide an exploratory typology of domestic governance settings. The underlying empirical study shows a large diversity of governance patterns in thirteen European countries. A synthetic typology reveals five approaches, namely centralist, decentral and selective coordination as well as transnational and laisser-faire approaches. On this basis, the explanatory factors of the revealed governance patterns are discussed. The state structure (federal, centralist) plays an important role. Moreover, contingent political strategies, embedded in political culture and path dependency, help to understand the differences and the similarities between the analysed countries. The domestic governance dimension seems to bridge the frictions between the rather classical inner-state hierarchies and the soft networking tools of cross-border governance in the strict sense.

Effectiveness of handwashing with soap for preventing acute respiratory infections in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Acute respiratory infection (ARI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally, with 83% of ARI mortality occurring in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) before the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to estimate the effect of interventions promoting handwashing with soap on ARI in LMICs. In our systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane Library, Global Health, and Global Index Medicus for studies of handwashing with soap interventions in LMICs from inception to May 25, 2021. We included randomised and non-randomised controlled studies of interventions conducted in domestic, school, or childcare settings. Interventions promoting hand hygiene methods other than handwashing with soap were excluded, as were interventions in health-care facilities or the workplace. The primary outcome was ARI morbidity arising from any pathogen for participants of any age. Secondary outcomes were lower respiratory infection, upper respiratory infection, influenza confirmed by diagnostic test, COVID-19 confirmed by diagnostic test, and all-cause mortality. We extracted relative risks (RRs), using random-effects meta-analysis to analyse study results, and metaregression to evaluate heterogeneity. We assessed risk of bias in individual studies using an adapted Newcastle-Ottawa scale, and assessed the overall body of evidence using a Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. The study is registered with PROSPERO, CRD42021231414. 26 studies with 161 659 participants met inclusion criteria, providing 27 comparisons (21 randomised). Interventions promoting handwashing with soap reduced any ARI compared with no handwashing intervention (RR 0·83 [95% CI 0·76-0·90], I2 88%; 27 comparisons). Interventions also reduced lower respiratory infections (0·78 [0·64-0·94], I2 64%; 12 comparisons) and upper respiratory infections (0·74 [0·59-0·93], I2 91%; seven comparisons), but not test-confirmed influenza (0·94 [0·42-2·11], I2 90%; three comparisons), test-confirmed COVID-19 (no comparisons), or all-cause mortality (prevalence ratio 0·95 [95% CI 0·71-1·27]; one comparison). For ARI, no heterogeneity covariates were significant at p<0·1 and the GRADE rating was moderate certainty evidence. Interventions promoting handwashing with soap can reduce ARI in LMICs, and could help to prevent the large burden of respiratory disease. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute, and UK FCDO.

The FBI and foreign intelligence in the domestic setting

ABSTRACTThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the United States’ primary domestically-oriented intelligence service. Opportunities for the collection of foreign intelligence exist within the United States. Two narratives regarding foreign intelligence collection run through the primary source record of Bureau history. The first narrative is that foreign intelligence information is a byproduct of the Bureau’s reactive investigations of threats to national security and the second is that the Bureau has exploited opportunities to develop foreign intelligence as a distinct objective. This latter narrative is supported by a lengthy legacy of activities directed at gathering foreign intelligence and at facilitating the collection of foreign intelligence by other agencies. Identifying and selecting a narrative of foreign intelligence collection will help the Bureau to incorporate this consideration into its future evolution.

Geographies of COVID‐19

Geographies of COVID‐19

Hearths, Embers and Braziers: on the Role of Domestic Fire in the Odyssey

Despite the relatively limited presence of fire in the Odyssey, especially in comparison to the Iliad, the poem contains a conspicuous number of images related to the fireplace. I argue that, since the hearth embodies the ideas of “fire” and “home” and appears to highlight the most important moments of Odysseus’ homecoming, it serves to establish an emblematic connection with the returning hero, whose telos, like his fireplace, lies within the household sphere. The largely domestic setting of fire in the Odyssey reflects the nature of its hero: human, controlled, persistent, and thus the opposite of the bright but volatile flames of Iliadic warriors.