Important Cultural Contexts Research Articles

The Power of Norms: Gender Equality Reforms in the Parliaments of Fiji and Samoa

Parliaments are increasingly defined as “gendered institutions,” with rules, norms, and practices that are often stubbornly resistant to gender equality initiatives. The gender sensitive parliaments’ global agenda has made substantial progress in both drawing attention to the gendered nature of parliaments and in spearheading gender equality reform. While a positive trend, there remains a significant disconnect between the (global) normative framework that sets out this agenda and the realization of gender equality in national (local) parliaments. In this article, we build on previous work that begins to unpack and test the process of global norm localization through “contextualization” and “contestation.” We select new sites to test these processes—Fiji and Samoa—where specific gender equality reforms have been implemented in the past 10 years, one a gender mainstreaming mandate for parliamentary committees and the other a parliamentary gender quota. The Pacific Islands region presents an important cultural context worthy of exploration: Parliaments are not only overwhelmingly male-dominated, but many are also derivative of hegemonic masculinist cultures evident in the Westminster tradition, albeit hybridized with local political traditions. We compare and contrast the process by which these reforms were developed and implemented in each country and examine the extent to which they can be considered effective mechanisms for addressing gender inequalities. We find that the extent to which these reforms are sustainable and transformative depends on local contexts, local actors, and locally derived solutions. Specifically, the culturally relevant process of contesting the gender quota in Samoa constitutionally, electorally, and through the courts has localised and thereby legitimised this globally endorsed reform. By contrast, gender mainstreaming in Fiji’s parliamentary committees has been little more than a “tick-a-box” exercise, having had limited engagement from the political elite under a relatively autocratic regime.

Non-destructive methods applied for in situ mechanical diagnosis: Florentine historical buildings in Pietra Serena

Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) is a key indicator of the mechanical properties of a rock, particularly in the diagnostic and restoration phases when stones are employed as construction material. In historical buildings, it is important to determine UCS values without utilizing tests that involve destructive rock sampling. To estimate UCS, non-destructive techniques, such as ultrasonic pulse velocity (Vp) and Schmidt hammer tests (R), can be combined to provide a useful tool. However, for architectural elements with complex morphology, it is sometimes impossible to perform both ultrasonic and sclerometric test. Three different UCS predictive models, one using R only, one using Vp and one using both, have been developed through regression techniques on a dataset comprising 45 Pietra Serena sandstone samples with varying levels of decay. The models were tested for their performance through Cross-Validation techniques and were then applied to a dataset of Vp and R values measured in situ on Pietra Serena corbels of balconies belonging to historical buildings in Florence (Italy). The specific predictive models were applied to real case studies, and the UCS of the rocks used in historical buildings was calculated, enabling the definition of the mechanical characteristics of building elements belonging to an important cultural context, Florentine historical architecture, without using destructive testing.

Authoritarian attitudes in Russia: Right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in the modern Russian context

The study of authoritarianism has a long history in the field of psychology; however, much of this research focuses on Western countries, especially the United States. In effort to better understand authoritarianism cross‐culturally, we explore the current state of authoritarianism in an important cultural context: Russia. Thus, the current paper reports on large‐scale research of right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation in the modern Russian context. Six studies (total N = 1,358) included personality traits, basic human values, social beliefs, and intergroup attitudes that allowed us to comprehensively consider authoritarian attitudes in Russia. The results showed that personological profile and pattern of reaction to threat among Russian authoritarians is similar to Western authoritarians. However, economic views inherited from Soviet ideology make Russians differ in their view of economic conservatism from that supported by Western authoritarians. These data provide insight into the psychology of authoritarianism as well as explore novel aspects of Russian culture.

“Ready-made” assumptions: Situating convenience as care in the Australian obesity debate

When it comes to food, eating and technologies, convenience is constructed as contradictory: on the one hand as a practice that saves time and effort, and on the other hand, an easy and often “unhealthy” choice, contributing to obesity rates. Moralizing, classed and gendered discourses around health and obesity mean that convenient options are rarely portrayed as “good choices”. Through ethnographic research on food and families in the suburbs of an Australian city, this paper disrupts negative and polarized constructions of convenience in obesity debates. Building on the work of Mol et al. and Jackson et al. we argue that convenience is shaped by multiple contexts, and in particular, gendered and classed practices of care. In doing so, we suggest that public health interventions that construct convenience foods and technologies as wholly negative miss important cultural contexts in which convenience and care intersect to enhance social relationships.

Learning in Museums and Art Galleries in Nigeria: Exploring Arts-Based Adult Learning through Collections

The importance of arts-based adult education in today’s culturally diverse world cannot be overemphasized. Arts-based adult learning provides some of the important cultural contexts for informal learning. Other forms of adult learning—formal and nonformal—have also been immensely enriched by this form of adult education. Museums and art galleries are at the heart of arts-based learning. Whereas learning in the museum has gained attention in western climes, adult education researchers in Nigeria are yet to focus attention on this area of research. The aim of this study was to explore how collections in art galleries and museums provide important opportunities for adult learning in Nigeria. The specific objectives were to explore what adults learn when they interact with collections while visiting museums and art galleries and to highlight how they learn from these collections. Qualitative data were collected from five participants comprising visitors and curators in Natural History Museum, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and the National Gallery of Arts, Osogbo, Nigeria, through interviews. The data were analyzed using content analysis.

Study of the Cultural Platforms of the Formation and Growth of Ethnic Challenges in Iran's Azerbaijan

One of the issues and problems of Iran is the issue of ethnic groups and challenges that at times, in the past and in the contemporary era, endangered national solidarity and led to the collapse of its political systems. With the aim of finding the cultural context of ethnic challenges in Iran, this paper tries to provide appropriate strategies for managing ethnic diversity in Iran and to take appropriate policy in order to respect the components and culture of the peoples in order to increase national solidarity. In this study, we investigated the cultural context of the formation and growth of ethnic challenges that have been established and continued since the Constitutional Revolution in Azerbaijan. So, the main question is, “what is the most important cultural context affecting the formation and growth of ethnic challenges in Azerbaijan?”. The research method was a deep interview which was conducted after interviewing 32 related experts and after access to all the results, analysis of interview data and quantitative content analysis of all the results of the deep interview.Findings of the research indicate that Emphasis on a country's language and cultural discrimination, and the non-implementation of Article 15 of the Constitution for Turkish speakers ( 39%) as the most important domestic cultural context, The impact of Turkish satellite networks (32%), and Influence of the Republic of Azerbaijan with the superior Turkish identity in the neighborhood of Iran ( 31%) Are the most important foreign policy for the formation and growth of ethnic challenges in Iran’s Azerbaijan.

"Damn TORYISM say I": Dissent, Print Culture, and Anti-Confederation Thought in James Barry's Diary

"Damn TORYISM say I":Dissent, Print Culture, and Anti-Confederation Thought in James Barry's Diary Daniel Samson (bio) Should some old pamphlet or bundle of newspapers of the present day find its way into some old chest, packed away and forgotten in some cellar or attic, should its resurrection two or three hundred years hence disclose the truth that there were actually people, in 1867, who poured out their wretched tirades against this Union; and that talked of it as selling the rights and liberties of Nova Scotia, they could scarcely believe their eyes. It is difficult to realize it even now.1 Tomorrow we will be swallowed up in the Dominion of Canada. Nova Scotia will become a province of Canada and Canadians will rule and suck the life blood out of it. Damn TORYISM say I.2 LATE JUNE 1867 WAS HOT AND DRY. Pictou County had seen only a few dribbles of rain around mid-month. As a miller, James Barry worried about dry spells. His diary entries that summer nervously commented on lack of rain and the low water levels in his mill pond. Poor water levels limited how much grain he could grind and often prevented sawing altogether. His mother-in-law, "Widow McLennan," was dying, or at least "folks say, for I have not been up there in years." "Up there" was Roger's Hill, the settlement his wife Bell came from. It was not far, about two miles from Barry's house on a route Bell covered two or three times most weeks. The widow's passing on the 27th drew barely a mention in his diary. Amidst talk of the weather, however, Barry devoted lots of space to lamenting the passing of an independent Nova Scotia. He was not pleased. The "great struggle" for independence, he was sure, would continue, but on 1 July 1867 patriotic Nova Scotians like him would mourn. Confederation and its baneful impact is the hoariest of tales in Nova Scotian history. While the political history is well documented, there remains little attention to the equally important cultural context. This paper situates the Confederation saga in one man's immersion into the trans-Atlantic network of book culture. Considering the diary of one very extraordinary, but also quite ordinary, man–James Barry–suggests we have misread part of the Confederation debates. A key aspect of this misreading is religion, which has played a significant role in the Confederation historiography, but usually as a proxy for faction. Barry, however, allows us to see religion as a dimension of critical political culture. I argue here that James Barry's [End Page 177] politics closely aligned with a major stream of anti-Confederation thinking in Nova Scotia, and that we can see in his position a rich historical vein of dissenting church opposition to imposition by larger political forces. This was neither factionalism, nor sad rural provincialism. Barry's position was thoughtful, careful, and considered, and it drew on decades of popular dissenting Presbyterian responses to the political and intellectual impositions of powerful state churches. This essay situates Barry in the wider Presbyterian-colonial networks of the Atlantic world. Following suggestions in the historiography on Scottish Presbyterianism in British North America,3 I explore the place of Presbyterian print culture in an ordinary man's position on Confederation. Scottish Presbyterianism has a complex history, marked by bitter debate, several major fissures, and often sharply divided congregations. The most basic divide was over the issue of the relationship to the state, where a statist and hierarchical church with Calvinist beliefs contended with opposition from various liberal evangelical groups who were congregational in their views on church governance and liberal democratic in their secular politics. Three key ruptures tore the church apart over the 18th and 19th centuries. The last one, in 1843, saw fully two-thirds of Presbyterians leave the Church of Scotland ("the Kirk") to form the Free (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland. This was particularly true in Pictou, where political divides between conservative "Kirk" and reform "anti-Burgher" Presbyterians marked politics from the 1790s to the 1850s.4 Significant dimensions of liberal political reform in 19th-century Britain–most notably...

Modernism, Egyptian Nationalism, and “other disorders of a revolutionary character”: H. D., Bryher, and Tutankhamun

Expanding on connections between modernist and postcolonial studies, this paper calls overdue attention to Egyptian nationalism and independence as important cultural contexts for modernist production. The 1922 declaration of Egyptian independence and 1923 opening of King Tutankhamun’s tomb not only coincide historically with the 1922-1923 upwelling of modernist literature, they also make the politics of decolonization central to modernism’s narratives of national identity and modernity itself. Viewing this period through the lens of H. D.’s “Secret Name: Excavator’s Egypt (circa 1925 A. D.)” (1926), her unpublished sequel “Hesperia,” and Bryher’s travel writing published in Life and Letters Today , this paper draws on new archival evidence to retheorize these writers’ modernist responses to Egypt’s independence and to the archaeological disputes over the tomb. Offsetting the absence of contemporary Egyptian politicians in these literary texts, representations of a resistant Egyptian landscape, language, culture, and art reveal the fundamental challenge Egypt’s decolonization posed to American and British identity. For both writers, unsettling natural and cultural encounters impelled them to recognize the living, not ancient, Egypt and to embrace an anti-imperial transnationality .

Effect of a two-year national quality improvement program on surgical checklist implementation

Use of the surgical checklist in Switzerland is still incomplete and unsatisfactory. A national improvement program was developed and conducted in Switzerland to implement and improve the use of the surgical safety checklists. The aims of the implementation program were to implement comprehensive and correct checklist use in participating hospitals in every patient and in every surgical procedure; and to improve safety climate and teamwork as important cultural context variables. 10 hospitals were selected for participation in the implementation program. A questionnaire assessing use, knowledge, and attitudes towards the checklist and the Safety Climate Survey were conducted at two measurement occasions each in October/November 2013 and January/February 2015. Significant increases emerged for frequency of checklist use (F(1,1001)=340.9, p<0.001), satisfaction (F(1,1232)=25.6, p<0.001), and knowledge(F(1,1294)=184.5, p<0.001). While significant differences in norms (F(1,1284)=17.9, p<0.001) and intentions (F(1,1284)=7.8, p<0.01) were observed, this was not the case for attitudes (F(1,1283)=.8, n.s.) and acceptance (F(1,1284)=0.1, n.s.). Significant differences for safety climate and teamwork emerged in the present study (F(1,3555)=11.8, p<0.001 and F(1,3554)=24.6, p<0.001, respectively). However, although statistical significance was reached, effects are very small and practical relevance is thus questionable. The results of the present study suggest that the quality improvement program conducted by the Swiss Patient Safety Foundation in 10 hospitals led to successful checklist implementation. The strongest effects were seen in aspects concerning behaviour and knowledge specifically related to checklist use. Less impact was achieved on general cultural variables safety climate and teamwork. However, as a trend was observable, these variables may simply need more time in order to change substantially.

Approaching Korean Business and Management Ideals through the Lens of Yongo: A Scholar–Practitioner Perspective

By adopting the insider perspective based on participant observations, this article explores a new dimension of management ideals in South Korea. In particular, it proposes an important cultural context extension to the conventional collectivism paradigm that is often used to explain Korean management. By introducing the term yongo, which denotes exclusive and informal social networks based on (pseudo-) family, university alumni, and regional connections, challenges for management practices can be reported, including, for example, the difficulties that foreign managers face in accessing these networks to establish high-trust ties and influence business decisions.

Ethnicity and the Biopolitics of Intersex in Jeffrey Eugenides's &lt;i&gt;Middlesex&lt;/i&gt;

transition suggest that the successful assimilation of the ethnic subject into the American middle class also points to the domestication of intersex phenomena. Middlesex brings mainstream attention to intersex conditions precisely at the moment when intersex is being invalidated as the medical term for individuals born with mixed genital attributes in favor of a clas sification as a Disorder of Sex Development (DSD).' While many activ ists regard this change as an abandonment of identity politics and an act of self-pathologization, DSD proponents—including prominent figures in the international intersex rights movement—claim access to appropri ate and effective medical care as their motivating principle. Because it stands to alter the terms of intersexed subjectivity, however, this waning of the relevance of intersex in medical circles also predicts the departure of intersex identity from the alliance of sexual minorities represented in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights movement.2 In this essay, I historicize Eugenides's novel against these developments in order to shed new light on Callie's refusal of corrective surgery and on Cal's subsequent choice to live as a man, to employ the term used by transgender and intersexed communities to describe individuals who do not publicly disclose the fact of their gender transition. Changes in the meaning of intersex over the last twenty years pro vide an important cultural context for understanding the absence of inter sex identity as a viable social formation in Middlesex. At the same time, the novel's adoption of a post-identity framework to represent the inter sexed experience points to major shifts in the contemporary meaning and uses of race and ethnicity. Specifically, the role, that stealth plays in Cal's romantic pursuit of a fellow ethnic American, Julie Kikuchi, reveals an alternate and frequently overlooked genealogy for intersex genitalia: the sexing of racialized or ethnic bodies. Cal's successful courtship of Julie

Janet Schaw and the Complexions of Empire

This essay considers the development of racial ideology in the eighteenth century in the context of a comparative colonial cultural history of the British West Indies and of North America. It focuses on the racialization of whiteness in the 1760s and 1770s and on the way in which this racialization of skin color relates to issues of gender. Janet Schaw's Journal of a Lady of Quality(1774-6) is the principal text for this enquiry. The concluding section of the paper argues that mid-eighteenth-century discourses of whitening and whiteness form an important cultural context for understanding later abolitionist texts.