Local Social Systems Research Articles

Факторы социальной жизнестойкости арктических сельских сообществ в современной России (на материалах прибрежных и островных территорий Архангельской области)

The article focuses on the problem of factors ensuring social resilience of Arctic rural communities. Using the materials of island and coastal territories of the Primorskiy district of the Arkhangelsk Oblast, the author studies how the features of social organization and life activities of specific communities ensure their reproduction as local social systems, help them to remain resilient to external challenges of economic, environmental and other types, and allow them to adapt to the changes in the region. In order to solve these problems, the author took part in a field study on the territory of 14 rural settlements in three rural municipalities in the period from July to early September 2022. The main method of obtaining empirical data is in-depth interview. The analysis of the interviews made it possible to identify a set of key factors of resilience of the rural communities under consideration. The first factor is the ability of local residents to reorient to subsistence farming and traditional crafts in the conditions of degradation of those sectors of the local economy that imply permanent formal labor employment. The second factor is the high level of social capital of communities, which determines the normalization of mutual assistance practices. The third factor is the involvement of a part of the local population in grassroots activities: social and cultural initiatives of local residents make it possible to attract external resources to solve the problems of territorial development, as well as support the collective identity of rural community members and increase its cohesion. The fourth factor is the return of retired local natives who previously migrated from rural to urban areas.

Universities as knowledge incubators: Possibilities for novelty

The current Thematic Section is dedicated to possibilities of maintaining and enhancing of new knowledge production function of universities, with a focus on the social sciences. It starts from the assumption that our contemporary university administration systems have become inflexible due to their bureaucratic overgrowth of regulations of university studies. From that follows the need to create new conditions to knowledge incubators—groups of researchers united with goals of innovation in a given field. The different contributions cover the relevance for knowledge incubation improved funding possibilities, new technologies (AI), and general intellectual atmosphere in universities. This atmosphere is generated through a set of local social norm systems about inclusion <> exclusion of participants in different places on university territories, the demand structures of assignments, plagiarism tests, and organization of examinations. All these super-curricular structures enhance the fixed knowledge transfer functions of higher education in contrast to new knowledge incubation. The latter is particularly important in the social sciences since new ways of understanding human beings within societies are needed. Contributions to this Section also outline the socio-political constraints upon knowledge incubation. Paradoxically it can be the application for and success in gaining research funding that can curtail innovation in ideas in the social sciences.

Politics Policy Indonesia's Moving A New Capital City To East Kalimantan: Its Impact On The Environment, Marginalization Of Local Communities, And Under The Shadow Of The Oligarch Interest

This paper discusses the political policy of President Joko Widodo's government to move Indonesia's national capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan. This controversial decision has sparked debate among various stakeholders, both domestically and internationally. The official justification for relocating the capital is Jakarta's overpopulation, severe traffic congestion, and flooding problems, along with the goal of fostering economic development and income equality outside Java. However, these reasons are overshadowed by significant political and business interests, particularly those of foreign investors, due to East Kalimantan's rich natural resources. These underlying interests drive President Joko Widodo's determination to proceed with the capital relocation amidst domestic economic and political challenges. The project exacerbates socio- economic inequality and national debt, benefiting a few oligarchs at the expense of many. Additionally, the relocation project has resulted in massive environmental damage, displacing tens of thousands of hectares and disrupting the lives of indigenous communities, such as the Balik tribe. This project erodes local wisdom and social systems that have existed for generations. The capital relocation is heavily influenced by Chinese business interests, facilitated by Government Regulation No. 12 of 2023, which provides a legal framework for investor control for 190 years. This regulation is seen as more exploitative than colonial practices of the past. Internationally, the project has drawn criticism for its environmental destruction amid global concerns about climate change. Ultimately, the New Capital City Relocation Mega Project raises critical questions about who truly benefits and who suffers from this massive undertaking.

Island Health Crisis: Bridging Gaps in Indonesia's Healthcare Deserts

This narrative literature review examines critical healthcare challenges in Indonesia's island communities, focusing on workforce shortages, inadequate health infrastructure, and the profound impact of geographical and socioeconomic factors. Drawing from eight studies published between January 2000 and December 2023, the discussion highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of existing research. The studies were selected based on their relevance to healthcare issues in island communities, rigorous methodological approaches, and significant insights into healthcare challenges and solutions. This time frame was chosen to encompass a comprehensive evolution of healthcare challenges and responses, particularly considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grounded in the Diffusion of Innovations and Health Belief Model frameworks, the study proposes evidence-based strategies to enhance healthcare accessibility and quality in these underserved regions. The Health Belief Model is employed to understand health behaviors within island communities, addressing perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers. Strategies include increasing awareness of health risks, highlighting the benefits of telemedicine and improved infrastructure, and reducing access barriers through incentives and infrastructural enhancements. In contrast to, The Diffusion of Innovations Theory guides the dissemination of new healthcare practices and technologies. Emphasizing innovation attributes such as relative advantage, simplicity, trialability, and observability, and utilizing effective communication channels and local social systems. The study aims to promote the adoption of telemedicine and other innovations. By engaging community leaders and health workers, and considering the time needed for adoption, the proposed recommendations aim to accelerate the diffusion process, ultimately improving healthcare accessibility and outcomes in Indonesia's island communities.

Social and cultural transformation of the information society and its impact on new individuality formation

The concept of the information society is explored in this article, with an analysis of the transformation of subsystems such as politics, economics, culture, technology, production, communication, and the human element. The communicative nature of the information society is determined from a social and cultural perspective. The article highlights how communication and information have become a productive force, enabling the overcoming of national and state as well as cultural and civilizational borders. It also allows for the change of global management trends while leading to an exit beyond local social and cultural systems. Philosophical analysis within a social and cultural approach supports these provisions. The article shows that the information society is undergoing a decentralization of social space and virtualization, with its values being transformed along with their inconsistency and multidimensionality of interpretation. The process of individual adaptation becomes increasingly complex. In the information society, there is an increase in maladaptive potential and identity crisis, leading to a movement towards individualization of human beings and a decrease in relations with the social world.

Transformations in Local Social Action in Portugal

The decentralization of social functions to municipalities, also known as municipal decentralization, triggered new contexts of practice in municipal social intervention. Municipalities are now dealing with more work and a focus on working in partnerships, which calls for greater dynamism of the local social action teams. This process has pushed the social workers to practices that alternate between mediation through the construction of access to a universal standard of social rights and the development of social intervention models with specific access to certain contexts and social groups. The objective of this paper is to envision new forms of standardization of social action within the framework of municipal decentralization, combining place-based perspectives with community and structural social work. What can we learn from social workers’ perspectives on the context of social functions in order to envision forms of place-based standardization of municipal social action? We seek to analyze the professional visions of local social action systems reform, discussing new contexts of practice; new place-based functions; and their correlation with political mediation for universal and intermunicipal social rights, instrumental dimensions of concrete work, and dimensions of value attributed to practicing social work. We organized the research according to the phenomenological paradigm, mobilizing the qualitative method and the multiple-case study. Based on evidence from the discourse of all professionals involved in the study, the findings indicate that the transformations of local social action systems, associated with the processes of social functions decentralization, imply greater comprehensiveness of social intervention, the ability to work in partnerships, and new place-based approach matrices, but they also present challenges for social workers in terms of multilevel governance that may favor the standardization of access to better social well-being between municipal territories.

SOCIAL SERVICE CENTERS IN THE LOCAL SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

Support for individuals, families or groups still remains an important need and task in contemporary society. It can be carried out by professionals and non-professionals, entities and institutions whose task is to be active in changing the situation into the desired and beneficial one, solving problems, satisfying individual needs or sensitivity, willingness to help, and providing services for people in need. This text is devoted to social service centers, the purpose of which - in accordance with the intention of the legislator - is to create and coordinate integrated local social service systems that will respond to social needs and new civilization challenges. The aim of this study was to identify the basic aspects of creating and functioning of social service centers, with particular emphasis on their tasks, functions and organizational structure. The consequence of the analyzes of these entities is the approximation and popularization of their idea as important institutions in meeting the needs of people and families at the local level, co-creating the social support infrastructure.

LUNGGUH KRAMA NEGGAK ANDRAGOGY APPROACH TO SEMBIRAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY, TEJAKULA DISTRICT, SINGARAJA REGENCY

The Bali Aga social system in Sembiran Village is a local wisdom of the community which is maintained and preserved by the local community. Andragogy can play a role in education based on cultural values for teaching and learning in the context of teaching as cultural activity and the culture of teaching. This study will explore local wisdom, social systems and andragogy in the lungguh krama neggak system in Sembiran Village, three basic theoretical foundations were analyzed which were correlated with other theories, namely (convergence theory, structural functional theory and behavioristic theory. Data was collected by means of observation, interviews, and document studies using a research methodology that has been designed. Data were analyzed and processed systematically). descriptive research through three stages, namely data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions.The results of this study indicate that the lungguh krama neggak system is based on the existence of three qualities in Sembiran Village, namely as a authorities Village, Traditional Village which is formed in accordance with state regulations and ancient Balinese traditional villages with the ulu apad system. Sembiran village has a very unique traditional social organization known as it's called ulu apad. Lungguh krama neggak is a system of social stratification of the indigenous people of Sembiran based on the order of marriage of its citizens. The forms of andragogy in the lungguh krama neggak system are reviewed from the principles of adult learning, adult learning needs, the function of community position in the lungguh krama neggak system.

Call for reimagining institutional support for PAR post-COVID

Although we believe academic researchers have a critical role to play in transformative systems change for social and ecological justice, we also argue that academic institutions have been (and continue to be) complicit in colonialism and in racialized, patriarchal capitalism. In this essay, we argue that if academia is to play a constructive role in supporting social and ecological resilience in the late stage Capitalocene epoch, we must move beyond mere critique to enact reimagined and decolonized forms of knowledge production, sovereignty, and structures for academic integrity. We use the pandemic as a moment of crisis to rethink what we are doing as PAR scholars and reflect on our experiences conducting PAR during the pandemic. A framework is presented for the reimaging of institutional support for the embedding of scholars in local social systems. We propose an academy with greater flexibility and consideration for PAR, one with increased funding support for community projects and community engagement offices, and a system that puts local communities first. This reimagining is followed by a set of our accounts of conducting PAR during the pandemic. Each account begins with an author's reflection on their experiences conducting PAR during the pandemic, focusing on how the current university system magnified the impacts of the pandemic. The author's reflection is then followed with a “what if” scenario were the university system changed in such a way that it mitigated or lessened the impacts of the pandemic on conducting PAR. Although this framework for a reimagined university is not a panacea, the reliance on strong in-place local teams, mutually benefiting research processes, and resources for community organizations putting in the time to collaborate with scholars can overcome many of the challenges presented by the pandemic and future crises.

Level of active transparency of Local Social Security Systems of municipalities in state of Mato Grosso do Sul

The present study sought to measure the level of active transparency of the Local Social Security Systems (RPPSs) of municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. To this end, the Indicator of Active Transparency of RPPSs (RITA) was constructed, supported by the observations present in the Access to Information Law (LAI), as well as in the RPPS Pro-Management Manual. The number of RPPSs in the sample for this study was 50 entities. The data for measuring the RITA were collected in each RPPS’s institutional web portal. The results show that only 30% of the RPPSs analyzed showed a level of active transparency between moderate (11) and desired (4).

An integrative review of innovations in the agricultural sector: The roles of agency, structure, and their dynamic interplay

The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the roles of individuals and the importance of their social contexts in shaping the dynamics of technological diffusion in the agricultural sector. When justifying the different rates of innovation adoption, existing literature reviews overemphasize either the drivers of technological changes enacted by farmers' agentic behaviour or the cognitive processes of individual farmers and their social contexts (structures). However, they continue to have a fragmented view of how local social systems and the agentic behaviour of individual actors influence the evolution of technological regimes, and they lack the ability to describe a purposeful interplay between agency and structures. We present an integrative review of the most relevant papers published in the last 20 years and discuss the impact of structures and agency emerging from local social systems on the local innovation process and, as a result, the evolution of technological regimes. The identified macro categories describe the main processes affecting individuals' abilities to mobilize and manage local resources for innovation, allowing us to critically assess the stock of previous developments from a new perspective and identify novel research avenues.

Resolving the conflict of greens: A GIS-based and participatory least-conflict siting framework for solar energy development in southwest Taiwan

Transitioning to renewable energy is vital to reduce greenhouse gasses and mitigate climate change. As large-scale renewable energy development expands, more land use conflicts are arising between renewable energy development, ecological conservation, and local communities. Spatial planning methods are becoming more widely used to address such conflicts, however, they often lack local community input and values. In this study, we develop a Participatory Least Conflict Solar Energy Siting Framework based on energy justice theory which uses place-based stakeholder engagement paired with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) based multi-criteria decision making. We operationalize a case study in Southwestern Taiwan to identify and evaluate suitable solar development sites and demonstrate how the framework can be used. The results of our AHP surveys show a general consensus that protecting the natural environment is important as the top three prioritized factors: “Avoid Environmental Protected Land”, with a priority of 20.8%, “Avoid Other Important Natural Areas”, with a priority of 11.9%, and “Avoid Other Natural Areas” with a priority of 8.2%. In addition, if only 12% of the land with medium to high suitability are developed for solar energy generation, Tainan City and Chiayi County alone could support the Taiwan government's solar development goal of 20 GW of installed solar capacity for the entire country by 2025. Our study also reveals that the use of participatory methods in site evaluation and final site design is important to ensure true suitability with local ecological, social, and economic systems. This methodology helps to normalize a more holistic multi-goal strategy of solar development that recognizes renewable energy infrastructure as part of a social-ecological-technical systems and Climate Justice. We suggest this framework be used to address the spatial mismatch between national level policy and local implementation that supports place-based renewable energy collocation for energy democracy and community ownership, and develop policy and regulations to support a just transition toward carbon neutrality.

An Integrative Review of Community-Based Mental Health Interventions Among Resettled Refugees from Muslim-Majority Countries

Resettled refugees from Muslim-majority countries are underrepresented in research and meeting their mental health needs remains a challenge for countries of resettlement. In this integrative review, we synthesize community-based mental health interventions using an ecological framework. Eleven relevant studies were identified using PubMed and PsychInfo database. Most interventions focus on micro-system level factors like promoting integration and social connections suggest improvement of outcomes including depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. Studies suggest how mental health programs addressing psychosocial wellbeing improves outcomes across ecological levels through: (1) early screening upon resettlement; (2) education and raising awareness of mental health; and (3) engagement of refugees in local community social support systems. Largely qualitative studies suggest benefits of engagement and education program for refugees, but there is a need for high quality, rigorous mental health intervention studies with resettled refugees with explicit attention to equitable and collaborative partnerships across multiple sectors in the community.

Technologies of dispossession in the blue economy: Socio‐environmental impacts of seawater desalination in the Antofagasta Region of Chile

AbstractGlobally, ocean‐based economic development (aka the ‘the blue economy’) is increasing and continued growth is projected. The social and environmental impacts of the growth of the blue economy are a matter of some concern for local people who may experience few benefits and substantial negative impacts. One way that these impacts of the blue economy occur is through subtle or overt forms of dispossession that result from the growth of technologies and infrastructures at sea or on the land (e.g., offshore oil rigs, ships, ports, processing facilities, etc.). We focus on desalination, an understudied aspect of the blue economy that is growing exponentially. Proponents herald desalination as a sustainable solution to increase fresh water sources, while solving socio‐environmental issues left behind by the overuse of natural freshwater. However, far from being a social and environmental panacea, new political and economic interests are fused to sustain this technology with impacts for both the environment and local social systems. In this paper, we review the literature and develop a framework to understand mechanisms of dispossession via the blue economy and apply it to desalination projects in the Antofagasta Region of Chile. Drawing from a review of environmental impact assessments and declarations of environmental impacts, the research analyses communities' concerns about the impacts of desalination. Our analysis revealed (1) lack of meaningful inclusion in decision‐making; (2) physical displacement of communities or from areas required for livelihoods; (3) concerns about environmental effects, and related social impacts; and (4) few social or economic benefits to local people. The research concludes that desalination is a sector of the blue economy that is opening a new sphere of dispossession in the oceans.

PUBLIC AND LEGAL REGULATION OF ECONOMIC SECURITY AS A COMPONENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Abstract. At the current stage of social and economic development the issues of the national security and its public and legal regulation, both externally and internally, are becoming more urgent. The national security supports the very existence and development of man, society and state. And the balanced state policy as well as the efficient legal regulation plays an important role in this process. The fundamental principles of the legal and regulatory environment in Ukraine are defined by the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine on National Security, and other legal-regulatory and international acts.
 And the most significant component of the national security is the economic security influencing all life spheres of a person and the whole society. The economic security is the basis of economically effective state and a necessary condition for its sustainable development. The economic security is provided at the national and international levels. At present the economic security is primarily defined by internal threats, such as uneven economic development of some territories, decline in certain industries, low living standards, etc. The analysis of the social and economic state of Ukraine clearly demonstrates that reasons for threats to the economic security of the country are of a regional nature. The appropriate level of security can be maintained by a complex system of measures aimed at improving macroeconomic performance of the country, which positively influences the local social and economic systems.
 An appropriate level of the economic security can be reached by implementing a system of organizational and legal measures, including economic, legal, organizational and managerial, which are enforced by competent authorities and local governments by means of various forms and methods of the state legal regulation in order to ensure rights of man and citizen, improve the living standards, and achieve sustainable development of the state.
 Keywords: economic security, national security, public and legal regulation, food safety, sustainable development.
 JEL Classification F52
 Formulas: 0; fig.: 2; tabl.: 0; bibl.: 19.

Colonizing the Mind: Hawaiian History, Americanization, and Manual Training in Hawaiʻi’s Public Schools, 1913–1940

Background/Context:Current historical understanding of Hawaiʻi’s territorial period celebrates American education as a crucial influence on the islands’ political development. In particular, the territory’s public school system represents an essential institution for spreading democratic freedom, fostering social mobility, and, more importantly, establishing America’s presence as a positive influence on Hawaiʻi’s political destiny. There has yet, however, to be a critical look at how White territorial school leaders used the public school system as a settler colonial institution with the intent of producing a compliant non-White population accepting of the nation’s racially stratified social, political, and economic systems of inequality.Focus of Study:Making Hawaiʻi American was about controlling the islands’ past and determining its future. Cultivating consent, as this article contends, was a critical strategy to reach this end. White school officials used their uncontestable authority to uproot local history and social systems and replace them with narratives affirming American exceptionalism and racial segregation. Throughout the territorial period (1900–1959), they designed and supported formal and informal schooling practices and policies to inculcate Hawaiʻi’s majority nonwhite students with American values, norms of behavior, and political beliefs to socially engineer acceptance of White American authority and racial hierarchy. Through repetition and enforcement of these practices and policies, they sought to replace the unfavorable local memory of American involvement in the forced 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani and Native protests over U.S. annexation in 1898 with an affirmative, progressive narrative justifying America’s presence and jurisdiction as a beneficent enterprise.Research Design:This article brings historical inquiry to this topic and uses archival materials from the University Archives and Pacific-Hawaiian Collections at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Those include the entire collection of the Hawaii Educational Review, correspondence and memos produced by schoolmen (White male school officials and administrators), and newspaper clippings. It also draws on secondary literature to help further contextualize this topic.Conclusions/Recommendations:The history of White educators in territorial Hawaiʻi reveals how public education under their leadership constituted a colonizing project designed to limit student opportunities and determine their futures. The challenge for scholars and educators is not to consign such histories to mere reflections on past mistakes but to identify how forms of oppressive education continue to manifest in schools today and impact student lives.

When Inclusive Business Meets the Kinship System: Institutional Work as a Coping Strategy

Despite increased interest in inclusive business, where firms engage the poor in the value chain, research that examines the reality of inclusive business from the perspective of the firm is lacking. An aspect of this reality is the tension between informal institutions and inclusive business. Building on empirical data from case study firms in the Pacific island country of Vanuatu, we present the on-the-ground reality of tensions between an informal institution common in poor communities, the kinship system, and inclusive business. The findings show how the tensions between the kinship system and inclusive business manifest as challenges for the firms engaged with the poor. We show how firms engage in institutional work as a way of coping with the challenges. The study contributes to understanding how informal institutions can undermine inclusive business. The findings suggest that managers engage in institutional work to overcome the challenges, steering us to connect the inclusive business and institutional work literature. Connecting these literature is important as it frames inclusive business as more than simply an attempt at improving livelihoods and providing access to goods and services to the poor, it encourages us to consider the implications of inclusive business for local social systems.

What do they like about trees? Adding local voices to urban forest design and planning

Local preferences and priorities for trees and greenspaces are important considerations when planning and designing a community's urban forest. Local residents can provide insight into place-specific contexts such as local esthetic preferences, social systems, cultures, and attitudes to inform appropriate design responses. Residents also inform researchers of key local issues that may impact urban forest configurations, and may differ from expert opinions. This paper reports on a case study from a suburban community in Canada that used a combination of methods to reveal new, place-based information to inform more contextual design for a community's future urban forest. Results reveal that the current urban forest in the community does not reflect the participants’ preferences and differs from experts’ priorities. The findings suggest issues that should be considered in future urban forest design and planning processes.

Adaptive capacities and social resilience on Kangaroo Island: Beyond the staples trap

AbstractThis article uses the lens of evolutionary economic geography to consider adaptive capacities and forms of social resilience that manifest in rural, primary commodity‐dependent regions in the face of structural forces to which such regions seem predisposed. Using a case study of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, the article explores the demographic and social impacts that a sudden and dramatic commodity market collapse in the 1990s had on this rural economy and community and on its regional development. During late 2017 and early 2018, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with six representatives of the Kangaroo Island business community, including those from the farm, tourism, and small business sectors (three interviews) and from local government (one interview), as well as with a former rural financial counsellor and the former Commissioner for Kangaroo Island. Although the collapse of the wool market and of a flawed managed investment scheme for agroforestry had dramatically negative impacts on local economic and social systems, the Island's subsequent demographic recovery and Islanders' ongoing commitments to their sporting clubs both point to considerable adaptive capacities and social resilience. The research highlights what can be achieved by people with high levels of place attachment and commitment, as individuals and as collectives also able to draw on support scales beyond the local.

Social Processes Affecting the Families in Rural Hungary

Rural poverty appears in several European regions, particularly in post-socialist countries effected by a rapid transformation of socioeconomic system. In the past decade, rural regions may have reacted to challenges of contradictory processes. Migration trends are heterogeneous; unemployment, underemployment and lack of labour power are existing problems at the same time, in the same locality. In addition, the nature of poverty has changed recently. Traditional forms of pauperization are combined with helplessness and inability for future planning and saving up. Goods and status symbols of the consumer society have high importance in families with low incomes and high debt.
 The aim of this paper is to describe some crucial processes triggering the transformation of family life in rural Hungary by means of a qualitative research conducted in the South Transdanubian region of Hungary. We explored the actual problems and challenges from the viewpoints of local experts (social workers and mayors) and mothers from families connected to local social systems. We also aim to examine family attitudes to labour market, services and consumption, the most important factors effecting socioeconomic conditions of deprived social groups.