Home Village Research Articles

(In)tangible Journeying and Its Transformation among the Rang from Byans, Far Western Nepal

The main inhabitants of Byans have traditionally undertaken seasonal migrations between their home villages and their winter residences in the southern hills of the Himalayas. Some have also been trans-Himalayan traders. Upon their death, their souls were traditionally guided from the Himalayan foothills in the south, through Chaudans and Byans, to their ancestral lands in the far north, by a long oral text called se yāmo. However, over the past seventy years, sociocultural transformation and the development of transport infrastructure have substantially transformed both their tangible and intangible journeyings. In this article, I demonstrate, through linguistic anthropological and ethnographic analyses, the interdependency between these two aspects of their journeying experience, and show how changes in the performance of posthumous rituals mirror the broader changes affecting their traditional journeying and movements across familiar landscapes.

Transformation of traditional home garden (Pekarangan) spatial structure in rural Javanese garden houses compound, Indonesia

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the home garden (Pekarangan) Physical structure in the current condition of Javanese agricultural villages. The discussion mainly focused on home garden layout, spatial elements, and vegetation characteristics. The study of Traditional Javanese village home gardens is summarized from the study of relevant literature. Current conditions were identified from the results of observation and field studies in three villages selected based on the distance of the urban area. A spatial analysis of the home garden’s layout and forming elements was carried out to determine the current condition of the home garden structure and its transformation. The result revealed that the typical Javanese home garden structure in the village still exists and is utilized by people. Some home gardens were also transformed into new structures based on their original form. Home garden spatial structure transformation can be seen in the changes in home garden spatial structure, land size, area coverage, and vegetation characteristics. Furthermore, the composition of the home garden’s spatial structure transformation influences the village’s spatial development.

Bright is the moon over my home village: Chinese local executives and environmental decoupling

This study investigates whether and how local executives' hometown identities affect enterprises' environmental decoupling. Environmental decoupling refers to the discrepancy between a company's environmental sustainability promises and its actual environmental sustainability performance. Based on the place attachment theory, we expect local executives to engage in fewer corporate environmental decoupling actions than non-local executives. Using the annual data for Chinese companies listed on the A-share market between 2009 and 2021, we tested this hypothesis. Our findings reveal that local executives' sense of identification and belonging to their hometowns lessens the likelihood of businesses engaging in environmental decoupling. This result is more pronounced for companies located in regions with low population mobility, a slow marketization process, strict environmental regulations, and companies with high financing constraints and low corporate governance levels. Furthermore, we find that local executives decrease underreporting of the environmental performance of firms, thereby reducing firms' environmental decoupling. Following several robustness tests, the primary conclusions remain valid. This study offers new evidence that executive characteristics affect company sustainability from an environmental performance decoupling standpoint. It shows that identifying the executives' hometowns motivates them to uphold a sincere commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Living the Dream-Housing Perceptions and Quality of Life of Older People Living in Manufactured Home Villages

This study aimed to examine the quality of life (QoL) of manufactured home village (MHV) residents and their perceptions of village life. Surveys of 259 residents aged ≥60 years living in two MHV communities in New South Wales, Australia was undertaken. QoL scores were like that of older people in Australia generally. Residents mostly reported positive perceptions of village life. Higher QoL scores were associated with living with someone and perceptions that village supports were available. Given the housing crisis in Australia and elsewhere, MHVs may be an affordable housing option where older people can enjoy a good QoL.

From National Traitors to National Contributors: Contesting Place and Identity through the Voluntarily Repatriated Vietnamese

This study investigates the multifaceted repatriation experiences of Vietnamese individuals who voluntarily returned from Thailand to the upland region of Thanh Hóa province between 1963 and 1965. Utilizing a historical and ethnographic approach, with interviews conducted in February, March, and April 2019; January 2020; May 2022; December 2023; and January 2024, it examines the intricate interplay of political, social, and cultural dynamics that shaped the repatriation process. The study highlights the relocation and deprivation of rights faced by the returnees, emphasizing the political complexities of repatriation. Through a multi-level analysis, this study reveals the intricate relationship between capital management, everyday life practices, and identity contestation. Additionally, it examines the collectivization and nationalist policies of Vietnam in relation to the voluntarily repatriated people’s commitment to work for the nation. In this case, transculturality served as a pivotal element in the construction of place and identity. The study analyzes the various forms of capital that shape individual and collective identities. By engaging in transcultural and localized processes of everyday life practices, returnees exercised various kinds of capital to enhance the efficiency of workers’ cooperatives. This led to new regulations supplementing those of the state, resulting in a variety of efficient cooperatives. Consequently, the repatriated peoples’ home village transformed from a symbol of national betrayal to a thriving cultural and economic hub. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted complexity of repatriation and its implications for identity construction, placemaking, and economic development.

“It feels like I’m a step closer to my ultimate goal of stable housing:” a qualitative study of unhoused people’s experiences in alternative shelters in Portland

ABSTRACT In recent years, alternatives to congregate shelters have emerged, including tiny home villages and motel conversions. Existing research indicates that these alternative shelter modalities are associated with positive outcomes for shelter guests. This qualitative study was conducted with 11 participants staying in three alternative shelters tailored to support specific groups: lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people, women, and medically vulnerable people. Participants reported a number of facilitators and barriers to meeting their personal goals (e.g., permanent housing, medical care). Key facilitators included the relative privacy, autonomy, and safety of alternative shelters, and support for guests with marginalized identities. Barriers included difficulty navigating housing systems, and lack of internet and mail access. Given the drawbacks of congregate shelters, these new models are promising options to support unhoused people when permanent housing is not yet available.

Silences of the Dam: The Intimate Geographies of Ethnic Lao Well-Being on the Sesan River

In the locales where hydropower dams in the Mekong River Basin have been constructed, ethnically and economically marginalized groups who depend on rivers and their tributaries for well-being often bear the greatest burdens: loss of fisheries and river-based livelihoods, riverbank gardens, and sacred sites, to name a few. In December 2018, the controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam in northeastern Cambodia started operations, exacerbating old challenges and creating new ones for the riverine communities along the Sesan and Srepok Rivers. In this article, I employ a feminist political ecology framework to explore the varying ways that personal and community well-being are impacted in two ethnic Lao locales of Sre Kor (Na Kor in Lao language) commune and Phluk village as a result of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam. While the dam has disrupted flows of water and fish habitats and migrations, rendering new ecological circumstances, I argue that infrastructural violence can variably hide intimate geographies of well-being and un-wellness. Only by interrogating the silences of intimate geographies of the body and home in local villages and communal ethnic spaces will such impacts of violence become visible.

Jumping up the sanitation ladder in rural Cambodia: The role of remittances and peer-to-peer pressure in adopting high-quality latrines

Over the last 50 years, a combination of factors has driven sanitation improvements in rural areas of low-income and emerging economies in Asia. While open defecation remains an important challenge in many countries, Cambodia has rapidly increased rural sanitation coverage in the last 20 years. Using data collected via 92 interviews and seven focus group discussions, this qualitative study analysed the macro-level, community, and individual factors that motivated rural households to invest in high-quality latrines in seven villages in Cambodia that achieved and sustained open defecation free status with at least 85% latrine coverage. Local demand for adoption of high quality latrine was stimulated by a number of factors which include: a) NGO-led interventions that included behaviour change communication, sanitation marketing, and community-led total sanitation, all magnified by the strong support of local leaders at the village and commune levels; b) an increased proportion of rural households engaging in factory work, with access to raising wages, higher disposable incomes, and remittances; and c) subsidies and microcredit. Furthermore, migrants not only transferred financial resources to their home villages, but also transferred a set of ideas, norms, expectations, information, and behaviors back to their communities that reflect the migrants’ new ways of life, and economic possibilities. We provide evidence that new habits among factory workers, and ownership and display of new technologies and consumer commodities as symbols of modern success and social status facilitated high-quality latrine adoption. Peer-to-peer pressure at the village level, and among adult children commuting to factories or visiting their rural hometown ensured widespread adoption.

The Bosnian House: Trajectories of (Non‐)Return Among Bosnian Roma in a Roman Shanty

This article draws on materials collected during ethnographic fieldwork among Bosnian Roma refugees who reconstructed homes in an urban shanty at the periphery of Rome (Italy). In the last two decades, many of these Roma started building or refurbishing houses in villages in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, close to the Serbian Republic (where their former home village is now situated). The construction, refurbishing, and maintenance of these houses played (and still play) a role in the local economy; they also changed the local landscape and became the mark of a new but intermittent presence in post‐Dayton Bosnia. The houses and the transnational practices connected to them have become tokens of economic success and aspirations that revolve around both the Bosnian context and the Roman one. They also express nostalgic attachments to a lost homeland radically transformed by war, foreign interventions, and the advent of the market economy and eventually turned into an unfamiliar place. This article builds on the literature on transnational migration and material culture and explores the ambivalence and complexity of transnational trajectories that stretch between an urban context in the EU and a rural one in non‐EU and reveals complex scenarios of identity, movements, and unlikely returns.

MAP, PEOPLE, AND POLLUTANTS: LINKING SOCIOLEGAL-SPATIAL SCIENCE TO UNDERSTANDING WASTE MANAGEMENT IN SLEMAN REGENCY, INDONESIA

Indonesia’s waste management strategy promotes sustainable management and effective use of natural resources, as do many others. Due to a shortage of final processing sites (FPSs), ineffective solid waste management, and low environmental awareness, delivering information on ecologically friendly waste management has been difficult. Therefore, this research aims to locate typical landfills in highly populated metropolitan regions, explore solid waste management difficulties, and suggest feasible solutions. Sleman Regency, Province of the Special Region of Yogyakarta, was our focus while choosing an FPS location and assessing socioeconomic factors. We filter and classify quantitative and qualitative data from maps, observations, interviews, and document searches before using them in our mixed-methods approach. This study used sociolegal-spatial methods to improve waste management. The results show that geographical accuracy and comprehensiveness may be achieved within legal and institutional contexts. Trash reduction can be achieved if provincial, district/city, sub-district, and village administrations are compelled to adopt waste management policies and plans. These findings show that the government cannot accomplish its 2,030 waste elimination goal without systematic and long-term public infrastructure and village home socialisation.

Afghan Scholars’ Response to Perspectives on the Afghanistan War: Arrogant Conquest; Disgraceful Withdrawal

In response to the special issue on the Afghanistan War published by Armed Forces & Society, this article offers alternative perspectives regarding America’s longest war from the point of view of scholars who experienced the war firsthand and continue to live in its aftermath. We argue that Afghanistan was invaded by Western militaries who came to experience political failures and moral regrets. The soil could be conquered, but the Afghan nation has always strictly rejected foreign rulers and dictations. As our research critically evaluated the special issue articles published in the Armed Forces and Society Journal, we believe these articles fall short of reasonable analysis by only considering and analyzing the military strategies, war tactics, and failed stabilization efforts in Afghanistan. Civilian casualties owing to military operations by U.S.-led forces, not establishing an inclusive central government, strong resistance of the Taliban, ignoring the Afghan nation’s core ambitions, Pakistan’s double game policy, and high level of corruption led the U.S. to defeat. Nevertheless, we conclude that the U.S. approach to getting revenge for 9/11 victims and restoring their dignity through banzai attacks, blind bombardments, and night raids in civilians’ homes in Afghan cities and villages and taking innocent lives must be recognized, remembered, and condemned.

Adapt or not: A comparison of rural migrant adaptation in two cities in China.

Leading with the principle of 'people-oriented urbanization,' the adaptation of rural migrants in urban China has attracted increasing concerns from policy-makers and scholars. Today, China has proceeded to a new stage of urbanization. Many rural migrants prefer moving to cities near their home villages rather than to large cities, reflecting the changes in migration patterns and expectations of rural migrants. Although migrant adaptation has been repeatedly investigated in academia, researchers tend to address the topic in one host setting, while migrant adaptation in diverse urban settings has rarely been compared. This paper seeks to fill this research gap via a survey conducted in two cities with different urban settings in Jiangsu. The rural migrant adaptation experiences in the two cities are systematically compared. Our statistical results show that economic structure and living costs, on the one hand, and local regulations and socio-cultural environments, on the other hand, determine rural migrant adaptation experiences in different urban settings. Despite abundant employment opportunities in more-developed cities, the high living costs, working pressure, and strict institutional schemes significantly hamper rural migrant adaptation. In less-developed cities, limited employment opportunities and conservative socio-cultural environments hinder rural migrants from adapting in host societies. Our findings suggest that the governments of different cities need to tailor strategies to assist rural migrants in adapting in urban communities.

Women workers and the contestation of gender roles in Vietnam’s new rural factories

ABSTRACT In Vietnam garment factories are increasingly moving to rural areas, encouraged by government incentives and labour shortages. Many factories predominantly employ women, and in this article we examine the experiences of 12 women working at a factory in their home village in northern Vietnam. Factory work, because it is in the formal sector, has made visible to the women’s families and their communities that they are ‘workers’, in contrast to the invisibility of domestic and family agriculture work. Taking an empowerment approach to frame this study, we argue that their new financial resources and visibility as workers led them to challenge gendered roles in their households in important ways, including around financial decision-making and the distribution of domestic work. They also felt their status within the community was elevated. However, our findings show that empowerment is conditional, incremental and constrained by patriarchal familial dynamics and gendered societal scripts. As with elsewhere, the tensions between factory work as a form of empowerment and as a form of exploitation are inherently linked, and women’s gendered identities shape the ways factory owners are able to create a cheaper factory workforce in rural Vietnam.

Carol al II-lea Ascensiunea autoritarismului și naționalismului monarhic 1934-1937, II

In the years 1934-1937, cultural “carlism” tends to have a special dynamic. The initiatives of King Carol the Second (1930-1940) gradually set up a genuine “cultural offensive”, which coincides with the work of his foundations, respectively with the activity of cultural homes in villages and with a series of strategies aimed at spreading the literacy and popularizing reading. In the name of the monarchy, three main directions of cultural action are outlined. The first is related to the policy of spreading the literacy among peasants, the second to the activity of cultural houses, and the third to the initiatives of the royal student teams. But the three strategies are also conceived as a unitary policy, focused at the same time on nationalism, monarchism and sociological research methods theorized by Dimitrie Gusti. The rise of monarchic authoritarianism is forged and encouraged, besides the king, by a multitude of intellectuals, politicians and military, among which we mention Cezar Petrescu, Pamfil Șeicaru, Vladimir and Constantin Donescu, Nichifor Crainic, Mihail Manoilescu, Nicolae Iorga, Valer Pop, Ion Nistor and Ion Inculeț.

Occupational Health and Safety Behavior in the Fisherman Group of Muara Tembulih Village, Ngambur District, Pesisir Barat

Background: Occupational health and safety is a right for workers in the formal and informal sectors, as well as for fishermen. Fishermen are very vulnerable to work accidents. This is caused by fishermen's lack of knowledge about occupational health and safety. As many as 80% of marine accidents are caused by human error and other causes are negligence by maritime transportation organizers and related agencies, as well as inadequate marine transportation safety equipment. Based on the background of this problem, this research was carried out to find out work health and safety behavior among fishermen groups in Muara Tembulih Village, Pesisir Barat Regency. Method: This research uses descriptive research with a qualitative approach. The independent variables in this research are fishermen's knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. The dependent variable of this research is the occupational health and safety behavior of fishermen groups. Result: The results of this research are that fishermen define occupational health and safety as traditional knowledge about safety when fishing, based on empirical experience passed down from generation to generation from their ancestors and combining knowledge obtained through government outreach. Fishermen in realizing occupational health and safety behavior with simplicity and knowledge are quite good, in bad weather conditions fishermen prefer not to go to sea due to the high risk. Fishermen are aware of the importance of occupational health and safety for fishermen, therefore fishermen bring personal protective equipment before going to sea as an alternative to bad conditions at sea. Including considering bad weather, fishermen prefer to return to their home villages for safety. Fishermen's actions in realizing occupational safety and health behavior from observations are still simple.

Land, landowners, and the delivery of affordable homes on rural exception sites in England

Land is a major part of the total cost of residential development, particularly in advanced economies where significant proportions of economic value resolve to land and where land for development is rationed through planning systems that seek to corral extractable value into specific locations, in support of the infrastructure investment needed to unlock development opportunity. In England, strong markets assign a high value for land allocated for housing in local plans, relative to unallocated land. In England’s rural areas, constraints on land development – for reasons of landscape and amenity protection, or to support food security – contribute to significant affordability challenges for households on lower rural wages, who may be out-competed in the housing market by adventitious purchasers, or simply by more affluent buyers bidding for a limited supply of rural homes. Planned development (on sites allocated in a local plan) may not meet the needs of lower-income groups in constrained rural housing markets. For that reason, it is necessary to support housing affordability by granting exceptional permission for development on unallocated land, and then negotiating land sales at a price that will allow a non-profit housing provider (a ‘registered provider of social housing’) to build affordable rented homes for local households in need. Development on ‘rural exception sites’ (RES) has a thirty-year history. It is an important means of supporting the development of affordable homes in smaller villages (market-led schemes on allocated sites are the norm in larger settlements, with affordable homes procured through agreement with for-profit developers). The RES approach lays bare the impact of land cost on housing affordability. Only if a sufficiently low price for land, which is well below ‘full residential’ value, can be agreed will it be viable to develop affordable homes, with rents matching local wages. Where such a price is agreed, it may be possible to build homes without cash subsidy. If the price rises, affordability may be threatened, unless public grant support is more generous or market homes on the RES can be used to mitigate a higher land cost by providing cross-subsidy for affordable homes. This monograph details research exploring the recent granting of exceptional planning permissions in England, the critical relationship with landowners, and how those landowners may be incentivized to sell land at a price that supports affordability. It analyses extant threats to the approach, and therefore the risk that a key mechanism for delivering affordable homes may be undermined by a market logic that continuously questions the efficacy of ‘non-market’ and ‘non-profit’ housing solutions in England.

Natural plants of the Sandras Mountain (Köyceğiz-Muğla) traditionally employed for therapeutic purposes

This study was carried out between 2022 and 2023 in Yayla, Çayhisar, Sazak and Otmanlar neighborhoods located at the foothills of Sanras Mountain (Köyceğiz-Muğla). The main material of the study consists of plants determined as a result of surveys conducted with people living in these neighborhoods. A total of 73 people were interviewed in the survey. 41 of them are men and 32 are women. As a result of the interviews, it was determined that the local people benefit from 46 plant taxa growing naturally in the environment for therapeutic purposes. Among all plants evaluated; Salvia fruticosa Mill. and Origanum onites L. are seen as the most preferred by the local people. They use these plants through infusion in village coffeehouses and homes.

World War I and “the good old Austrian times” in a novel by Roman Turek W służbie najjaśniejszego pana [In His Majesty’s service

This article is dedicated to the writings of Roman Turek, an author almost forgotten in the present times. In his autobiographical writing he recalls his childhood and youth, spent in his home village Wola Dalsza, situated in the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his army experience from First World War. The article deals with Galician motifs in Turek’s W służbie najjaśniejszego pana [In His Majesty’s service], especially the image of the Great War from a perspective of a resident of Wola Dalsza, a village near Łańcut, as well as a private in the Austro-Hungarian army. Special attention was given to special features of Roman Turek’s writing, creation of his characters, presence of humour and irony, which made the critics draw analogies with the books by Jaroslav Hašek and the literary character he created, i.e. Josef Švejk.

Translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations: Linking translocality and Feminist Political Ecology to explore farmer-managed irrigation systems and migration in Nepal

Widespread male out-migration presents major challenges to the sustainability of existing collective irrigation systems. However, the effects of socio-spatial changes on collective resource governance systems remain unknown.This paper addresses this gap by building a synthesis of translocality and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE). Translocality examines the socio-spatial interconnectedness of rural societies in the context of out-migration. FPE explores how changing gender and social relations shape resource governance. A translocal Feminist Political Ecology framework (tFPE) contextualizes resource governance within translocal social flows, and captures (i) translocal resource governance, (ii) translocal social relations, and (iii) translocal aspirations.Drawing from qualitative interviews and participatory methods on two farmer-managed irrigation systems in Far Western Nepal, I illustrate the complexity, intersectionality and ambiguity of translocal social relations in collective resource governance. Translocal resource governance is shaped by changing household and labor relations marked by remittances, and translocal flows of social and human resources, ideas and knowledge, e.g. migrants’ advice via phone on when and how to irrigate. Translocal social relations entail marginalized groups, i.e., women and elderly people, providing increased labor contributions and possibly receiving migrants’ support in the form of advice and networks. However, authority and power relations are sustained in resource governance by mostly upper caste men. Translocal aspirations to the home village by both migrants and non-migrants is ambivalent and leads them to hope for frequent visits home, while aspirations and shame turn them away from agriculture towards earning higher incomes through migration.The tFPE framework emphasizes important but understudied translocal social relations and aspirations in collective resource governance, water, irrigation and migration research. By linking translocality and FPE, I show how translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations change everyday practices and gender, caste and labor relations in irrigation, and how we may understand the water-migration nexus.

Principals’ servant leadership practices and teacher motivation: Perspectives from South African rural schools’ context

This study explored the relationship between principals' servant leadership practices and teacher motivation in selected rural schools in South Africa. It adopted a qualitative research design, collecting data through semi-structured interviews with six principals and six teachers from rural schools in South Africa. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, which identified themes related to principals' servant leadership practices and teacher motivation. This study is underpinned by the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which explains the five levels of human needs that motivate individuals. The findings revealed that principals' servant leadership practices were positively associated with teacher motivation in South African rural schools’ context. Specifically, the study found that principals who exhibited servant leadership practices such as listening to teachers' needs, providing support and guidance, promoting teamwork and collaboration, and showing appreciation and recognition, had motivated teachers. The study identified that principals who engage in servant leadership strategies can succeed in motivating their teachers to commit to their teaching profession and quality education. However, secondary data shows that servant leadership strategies are not drivers of success but contributing factors to keeping their teachers motivated and not losing them to urban areas. The study further argued that not all schools practicing servant leadership are able to motivate or keep their best teachers. Thus, there are other factors that motivate teachers to stay in rural schools such as high salaries, teaching schools located in their home villages, or the ability of principals to appoint teachers who view the profession as their calling and not just an employment opportunity. Teachers who already view their profession as a calling are easy to remain motivated and stay committed to schools in rural areas. Similarly, teachers working in their rural villages have a higher chance to resist relocating to urban schools since they are comfortable being close to their families and relatives. In sum, servant leadership strategies alone are not enough unless the teachers are already committed to the school project for subjective reasons. This study contributes to the growing body of research on leadership and motivation in education and highlights the critical role that principals can play in promoting positive teacher attitudes and behaviors in South African rural schools’ contexts.