Place Of Refuge Research Articles

"Being here, you could actually be yourself": Trans and gender expansive youth's experiences of affirmation within LGBTQ+ community-based organizations.

Across the United States, polarizing politics have contributed to the increased stigmatization of transgender (trans) and gender expansive (TGE) youth, reinforcing health inequities for this population. Although lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and/or questioning (LGBTQ+) youth centers have often served as places of refuge for young people across the gender spectrum, literature has yet to show how practices and strategies used in these settings promote TGE affirmation. This qualitative study explores youth and staff experiences within these settings; identifies the services, policies, and environments needed to support TGE community members; and ultimately calls for the expansion of the limited research on TGE experience and affirmation across such spaces. Using data collected in a larger study on affirming practices for LGBTQ+ youth, this article presents findings from in-depth, semistructured focus groups and interviews with TGE (n = 12) youth and staff (n = 12) across four LGBTQ+ community-based organizations in two large urban centers. Study findings show these organizations provide TGE affirmation through language, programming, and atmospheres of openness to identity exploration. Essential to these offerings are organizational policy mandates, such as correct pronoun usage and TGE-specific programming. Youth often juxtapose their experiences of affirmation within LGBTQ+ spaces with experiences of invalidation from the cisheteronormative cultures within their school or home environments. Implications for future practice and research include administering ongoing training on TGE-affirming language and developing comprehensive accountability measures (e.g., TGE-inclusive community guidelines). Institutions with these systems in place are well-equipped to contribute to the fight for trans liberation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Abolition Dreams from a Resurgent Pu'uhonua

Abstract: This essay weaves an 'upena of critical discourse to contribute to a Kanaka Maoli abolitionist theory and praxis. Following the lead of Kumu Haunani-Kay Trask, I explore the intersection of the Black Radical Tradition and Critical Hawaiian Studies at the nexus of carcerality and multiple forms of Native and Black Dispossessions. Specifically, this essay builds upon Tiffany Lethabo King's The Black Shoals and George Terry Kanalu Young's Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past to imagine and create freedom places beyond incommensurability. With a study of Pu'uhonua (places of refuge) I investigate the pilina (intimacies) between Indigenous resurgence and Black struggles for liberation and abolition. I argue that the comprehensive abolition of carceral systems and the ongoing resurgence of Pu'uhonua are cooperative projects that can be imagined and built upon the shoal and the Papa (reef/foundation) to create new futures for Black and Indigenous comrades in pursuit of collective liberation.

Guardians of the forest: the traditional knowledge associated to sociobiodiversity productsin the Middle Juruá territory,Carauari, Amazonas, Brazil

The sustainable use of resources and the traditional knowledge of human populations in sustainable use UCs characterize these spaces as places of refuge for sociocultural expressions, ways of life, territorial protection, and maintenance of knowledge. The present study aimed to reveal traditional knowledge regarding flora and fauna species by riverside communities in the Amazon basin. To this end, it investigated how residents of two communities in the Middle Juruá territory identified and used local species. The analysis of similarities enabled the creation of a flowchart illustrating the process of traditional knowledge consolidation based on the application of semi-structured forms, open interviews and bibliographic review. Ninety-five species and 112 uses were identified and categorized, the most frequent uses being associated with healthcare (68%), cosmetics (10%), and food (9%). Cluster formation was observed among members of the same community, suggesting that traditional knowledge transmission is consistent with living closer together. Therefore, we understand that the region has great potential for products and uses of socio-biodiversity, and traditional populations are responsible for protecting territorial and natural resources through sustainable management, using their traditional knowledge. However, the erosion of this knowledge in regions with intense trade with companies that use these raw materials for products highlights the need to guarantee the rights of these populations, especially in relation to the sharing of benefits from products derived from associated traditional knowledge and heritage genetic (Brasil, 2015).

Small states as unusual places of refuge: Luxembourg’s laboratory of reception practices

Small states as unusual places of refuge: Luxembourg’s laboratory of reception practices

Linking Survivor Stories to Forensic Engineering: How an Interscience Approach Reveals Opportunities for Reducing Tornado Vulnerability in Residential Structures

Abstract When a tornado strikes a permanent or mobile/manufactured home, occupants are at risk of injury and death from blunt force trauma caused by debris-loaded winds and failure of the structure. Mechanisms for these failures have been studied for the past few decades and identified common weaknesses in the structural load path. Also under study in recent decades, much has been learned about how people receive and understand warnings and determine how, when, and if they will shelter in advance. Recent research, for example, shows most people do not shelter until close to impact, after seeing, hearing, or feeling the approaching tornado. To advance beyond these innovations, a new, multidisciplinary approach was fielded in nine southeast U.S. tornadoes between 2019 and 2022. For each tornado, 1) wind engineering assessments documented near-surface wind fields, 2) structural engineering assessments documented the primary wind load path for each structure, and 3) social science interviews captured the survivor’s narrative and asked several follow-up questions to assure key items of interest were addressed in each interview. When possible, the team was multidisciplinary during the interview, enabling survivors to ask questions and better understand their experiences. Most survivors became aware of the approaching tornado with at least a few minutes of lead time, and most were able to reach a place of refuge. Most survivors recalled sensory experiences during the tornado, and about half could describe the direction or temporal sequences of damage. A case study of the Cookeville, Tennessee, tornado of 3 March 2020 illustrates the power of the integrated data assessment.

Cultural Use and the Knowledge of Ethnomedicinal Plants in the Pülümür (Dersim-Tunceli) Region.

Pülümür has been a refuge place for internal and external exiles several times throughout history, and today it is a district of the province of Tunceli (known as Dersim in the region), which differs significantly from many settlements around it in terms of biodiversity and social aspects. The aim of this study is to identify, catalog, and report the traditional medicinal uses of plants in this province, where every living thing and many natural objects around it are regarded as sacred, with a scientific ethnobotanical approach. The field study was completed between May 2016 and July 2023. The collection of plant excursion and plant usage information was implemented in two stages; in the first stage, a survey about the collection and the uses of medicinal plants was conducted. At this stage, plant samples were collected by visiting 49 villages of the district and performing face-to-face interviews with 112 participants (51 female and 61 male). In the second stage, the usage statistics related to the data obtained from the field studies were determined. For this reason, every informant was interviewed at least twice, people who were previously interviewed were included too. In the course of this study, interviews from 211 participants (95 female and 116 male) were analyzed. As a result of analysis, the traditional medicinal uses of 120 plants belonging to 48 families were identified. The most taxa are identified from the Asteraceae (15), Rosaceae (13), Fabaceae (8), Lamiaceae (8), and Apiaceae (6) families. In Pülümür, these medicinal plants are mostly used for the treatment of wounds, abdominal pain, constipation, and diabetes.

Affections of Hurricane OTIS and Its Impact on Human Rights

The fury of Hurricane OTIS on October 24, 2023 exposed pre-existing social inequalities and inequities in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico. OTIS also evidenced the omissions before the hurricane, the abandonment during the hurricane and the inabilities after the hurricane of the authorities in charge of protecting society. The actions of the three levels of government were reprehensible before and after the impact of the hurricane. First, because there was no timely warning plan, the places of refuge were not made known, much less the level of destruction that the hurricane would cause. And after the hurricane, there was no response plan or protocols to respond to the most basic needs and protect citizens. This work was carried out under an inductive-deductive method in which a documentary review of national and international legislation was carried out, as well as literature related to the topic of research on natural disasters and human rights after Hurricane OTIS in Acapulco, Guerrero. , Mexico. The problems that subsequently prevailed and that affected the human rights of citizens were primarily the lack of prevention, safety and security, health, work, housing, public services, pollution and unequal access in the provision of aid. Definitely, aid in an emergency situation due to a natural disaster must be based on the perspective of human rights in order to provide relevant and effective assistance that fully meets all the basic needs of the victims for their prompt recovery and reconstruction.

'Here we Punish, Here we Discipline': Forced Displacement, Silencing and the Multiple Faces of Violence in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique

Forced displacement and silencing are inextricably bound for communities who have experienced different forms of violence in different contexts. This article explores the narratives about the war that began on 5 October 2017 in the district of Mocímboa da Praia, on the coast of the province of Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, by a group of radical guerrillas locally known as mashababe. Since then, from isolated attacks on remote villages, violence has spread to more districts in the region, with kidnappings of civilians, looting of barns and houses, thus imposing the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in addition to an inestimable number of dead and missing people. This article combines the history and ethnographic work carried out between 2018 and 2021 with the homeless populations from conflict regions and hosted in the 'Nacaca Displaced Persons Camp' (Campo de Deslocados de Nacaca), built in the district of Montepuez, south of Cabo Delgado, a region previously considered safe. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the multiple faces of traumatic violence (physical, psychological and symbolic) are processed in which war victims are continually exposed through silencing imposed by different actors who frequent their new places of refuge.

The problem of domestic violence: issues of theory and practice

The article is devoted to the problem of understanding domestic violence in the legal system of the modern state. Risk factors for domestic and family violence are examined, including individual characteristics, relationship problems, and community and societal influences. Individual factors include the psychological and physical characteristics of victims and perpetrators, which may include problems with emotion regulation, low self-esteem, and childhood trauma. Also, sexual orientation and gender identity can influence the risk of becoming a victim or a perpetrator. It is reasoned that domestic violence has serious consequences for victims, their families and society as a whole. It can lead to injuries, psychological and emotional problems, destroy relationships, disrupt the development of children and reduce the productivity and efficiency of society. Domestic violence is becoming a global problem that crosses cultural and geographic boundaries, and the level of its prevalence can vary depending on the socio-cultural and economic context. Also important is the role of economic factors, such as unemployment and economic hardship, which can increase family tension and contribute to violence. It was also found that at the community level, lack of access to psychological and legal aid services, as well as lack of education about rights and opportunities to leave violent relationships can complicate the situation for victims. In addition, cultural stereotypes and norms that condone or normalize violence may also support this problematic pattern. At the same time, research must be carried out taking into account the diversity of cultural, social and economic contexts, since approaches to solving the problem may differ depending on specific conditions. Special attention should also be paid to the support of victims of domestic violence, their access to safe places of refuge, legal aid and psychological support. Increasing public awareness and educational initiatives about the issue can also help increase awareness and support in the fight against domestic violence.

Sanctification of African American Couple Relationships and Relational Forgiveness

AbstractObjectiveUsing participant responses from 525 different‐sex married and cohabiting African American couples, we examined the dyadic association between relational sanctification and relational forgiveness.BackgroundReligion has a central role in the lives of many African Americans because it traditionally has been a place of refuge against stressors that disproportionally impact African Americans. However, little is known about how African American couples utilize relational sanctification as a strength.MethodData were collected from African American couples between October 2019 and January 2020 as part of a larger study called the Strong African American Couples Project. Utilizing dyadic panels from Qualtrics, this project specifically targeted African American couples who were cohabiting (n = 233) or married (n = 292) thus, enabling us to analyze a multigroup actor–partner interdependence model.ResultsSignificant actor effects were found between sanctification and individual as well as perceived partner forgiveness in married and cohabiting couple relationships. No significant partner effects were found.ConclusionThese findings highlight the importance of recognizing various aspects of religiosity and spirituality within relationships, especially for African American couples with historically high rates of dissolution and self‐rated religiosity.ImplicationsAs interventionalists work with religious and spiritual African American couples, they need to understand the role that sanctity may have within these partner relationships and the positive impact it can have on relational outcomes.

Grave Preaching: Homiletical Violence in the Face of Grief

The myth of the African American's ability to separate ourselves from our pain was born amidst the unprecedented violence and innumerable deaths of the Transatlantic Slave trade. It continued throughout the three centuries of enslavement of people of African descent in America. In America, there is still a societal, as well as medical, expectation, that African Americans avoid deep acknowledgment of trauma, grief, and mourning. In an ecology of massive and ongoing health disparities (resulting in death) and sustained violence against African Americans, some African American preachers, and the churches they pastor, abide treatment of grief as a matter that should be given limited attention and moved beyond quickly. A combination of historical research and qualitative ethnography was used to identify past and present-day practices. A series of in-person interviews provided revelations as well as affirmation of the impact of these preaching and pastoral practices. Among African Americans interviewed and studied who experience preaching and the type of pastoral care that supports “a theology of expedient mourning,” many shared that their church did not provide the space and support needed to adequately grieve their losses. My research revealed how the notion of truncated bereavement has influenced harsher realities beyond the walls of the church, even to the hallways of corporate America. A modified proclamation about the importance of adequate support during individual as well as communal grief and mourning is needed for survivors to (re)consider the African American church a place of refuge and healing.

Helen Sutherland in Interwar Northumberland: Patronage and Place

From 1928 to 1939 the art collector Helen Sutherland rented Rock Hall, a large manor house partly dating from the 13th century and located near the coast in rural Northumberland. Throughout this period, interspersed with regular returns to London, Rock served, in her words, as a ‘place of refuge and renewal’ for friends, including the painter and poet David Jones, curator and collector Jim Ede and artists Ben and Winifred Nicholson. This, for Sutherland, was a ‘greatly loved landscape of seashore, hills, saints, legends, birds and all the friends who came there’. Such a perception of the relatively unpeopled rural north of England is important, not simply in terms of Sutherland’s experience, but as it speaks to wider interwar contexts of modernism and modernity, rurality and notions of regional and national identity. With a processual and relational understanding of place, I consider the nature and implications of Helen Sutherland’s art collection and her form of collecting, the character of her social and cultural networks and the extent to which patronage itself can contribute to a production of place.

Preparing for the expected: cyclone threats

The Gold Coast is a bustling region in South East Queensland with a large concentration of people and has dynamic and growing business and tourism activity. The region is subject to thunderstorms and tropical cyclones that can generate damaging winds. The Severe Wind Hazard Assessment for South East Queensland evaluates the risk posed by severe winds and has strategies for managing this risk (Edwards et al. 2022). Results from the most recent assessment showed that older residential houses were the most damaged by severe winds and that this contributed disproportionately to community risk. However, lessons from recent wind damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Seroja in Western Australia in 2021 indicated that modern house designs have important vulnerabilities. These findings are a concern for any exposed coastal area and, in particular, for South East Queensland. This paper presents a suite of scenarios developed to address this vulnerability. Specifically, we describe how emergency and disaster managers can conduct capability analyses with the goal to enhance intelligence and planning capabilities. An example of the City of Gold Coast was used to show how it has leveraged these capabilities to improve emergency risk-based planning and begin a community resilience transformation with effective places of refuge and evacuation centres for the community.

My home-my castle? Self-reported anxiety varies in relation to the subjective evaluation of home environment.

Although people spend most of the day in their home environment, the focus of research in environmental psychology to date has been on factors outside the home. However, it stands to reason that indoor quality likewise has an impact on psychological well-being. Therefore, the present study addresses the question of whether the subjective evaluation of home environmental parameters are related to self-reported anxiety and whether they can additionally explain variance beyond the usual sociodemographic and general lifestyle variables. Data from the Hamburg City Health Study (first 10,000 participants) was analyzed. A subsample of N = 8,886 with available GAD-7 anxiety data was selected, and hierarchical regression models were computed, with demographic data entered first, followed by variables concerning lifestyle/habits and finally variables of the subjective evaluation of home environment. Using the integrated model, we were able to explain about 13% of the variance in self-reported anxiety scores. This included both the demographic, lifestyle, and subjective evaluation of home environment variables. Protection from disturbing night lights, a greater sense of security, less disturbing noises, brighter accommodations, and a satisfactory window view explained almost 6% of the variance and was significantly associated with lower anxiety scores. The home as a place of refuge plays an increasingly important role as home office hours rise. It is therefore crucial to identify domestic factors contributing to people's mental well-being. The subjective evaluation of one's home environment has proven influential over and above modifiable lifestyle variables.

‘The Pound of Flesh is Ours’: United States Armaments and the Neutral Sinews of Global War, 1914-1918

ABSTRACT Wars are rarely contained or limited affairs. They almost always involve non-belligerent neighbours in some significant way, be it as suppliers of goods or money, as geo-strategic buffers, as conduits for trade, diplomacy, propaganda or other information, as places of refuge or as agents of humanitarian aid, or even (or rather especially) as potential future belligerents. In turn, the primary concern of most neutral communities in time of war is to mitigate its impact and to avoid becoming embroiled in it as belligerents. Of secondary concern is the possibility of maximizing the opportunities offered by the fact that one’s neighbours are at war with each other and not with you. As a result, neutrals rarely remain unaffected or uninterested in a conflict, and particularly in one fought on their borders or conducted by communities with whom they have an on-going relationship. Using a micro-history of a singular advertisement, placed in the American Machinist magazine in the neutral United States in May 1915, this article highlights how fundamental issues of neutrality and armaments supply were to defining the contours of the First World War as a global total war and to how contemporaries framed the roles of neutrals and belligerents in that conflict.

Заповедные места в дискурсах сакральной географии

The paper explores the phenomenon of sanctuaries from the perspective of religious semiotics. The authors have identified the ambivalence of the perception of a mystical place by folk religion: a mystical place can be simultaneously perceived both as a topos in which ritual is performed, and as an object of worship. At the same time, stable ritualogemes of veneration of mystical places are developed, forming elaborate ritual complexes. Analysis of the mytho-semiotic specificity of narratives about sanctuaries made it possible to propose their typology: places of power, mysterious places, places of refuge, places metonymically associated with special religiously significant events. Specal areas that are dangerous and harmful to humans are considered separately. The study includes analyzing of basic mytheologems that form the discourse of sacred geography. It has been proven that the narrative about sanctuaries is not only formed as a result of the functioning of the mechanisms of mythological hermeneutics characteristic of folk religiosity, but also turns out to be capable of generating new mythological plots. At the same time, a religious studies analysis of the specifics of sacred sites revealed the impossibility of their unambiguous confessional identification due to the presence of syncretic mythologemes in their interpretation. Stories about visiting sacred places and the experiences of various events and states associated with these visits are actively mythologized and become sources for the generating of new semantics and semiotics of sacred geography.

GROUPS ARE EASY, FEDERATING IS HARD

When Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, many users sought a place of refuge, and Mastodon was seen as an early candidate. Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, a decentralized network of social media services. But people arriving in this network were confused, a problem that many chalked up to a clunky interface and a confusing user experience. Such a reading of the situation misses something much more fundamental. This reaction to Mastodon signals something important about a narrowed network imagination amongst some users, a narrowed imagination that is not shared by all. On Mastodon, users engage in labor-intensive federating practices – they manage both the internal dynamics of their home server and that server’s relations to other servers. Groups are relatively easy to create, but federation can be quite difficult. Federation faces a number of obstacles, but some groups, including far-right political activists, have effectively responded to those obstacles. Researchers should study not only federated social media but also the federating practices used by groups both online and offline, practices that move past the easy labor of group formation into the more difficult work of federation.

The Norwegian Cabin in Christian Valeur’s Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret

"The Norwegian Cabin in Christian Valeur’s Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret. The purpose of this article is to provide an analysis of the representation of the hytte or the Norwegian cabin in Christian Valeur’s 2009 novel Steffen tar sin del av ansvaret (“Steffen Takes His Share of the Responsibility”). Discussing the topos of the hytte, I seek to show how the novel offers a commentary on the Norwegian cabin tradition in the context of the climate crisis in particular and, more generally, on the paradoxical ideas of closeness to nature through consumerism. Drawing on Ellen Rees’s study about cabins in Norwegian literature (2014) and understanding this locus as a heterotopia (Foucault 1986), I discuss how the cabin ironically loses its value of being an “environmentally friendly” form of dwelling, and therefore cannot accomplish its potential role as a heterotopia of compensation. On the other hand, the cabin becomes a place of refuge and self-reflection for the narrator and therefore functions as a heterotopia of crisis. Finally, I suggest we can read the novel in relation to the hyttebok (“cabin book”) conventions, underlining the satirical and subversive nature of the novel towards ecological attitudes in Norwegian society. In this way, I aim to propose a new interpretation of the novel as a work of climate fiction. Keywords: Norwegian cabin, heterotopia, Christian Valeur, hyttebok, climate fiction."

Peran Dinas Sosial Dalam Peningkatan Kesejahteraan Lansia Terlantar di Kota Tanjungpinang

Demographic changes in Indonesia indicate a significant increase in the elderly population each year, leading to the emergence of various social issues such as poverty, violent behavior, neglect, and the elderly's dependence on others. Fulfilling the daily needs of the elderly is a crucial step in enhancing their well-being, with the family playing a central role in providing support. Elderly individuals undergo significant physical, psychological, and social changes as they age, increasing their need for a place of refuge and love, particularly from their families. Therefore, this research aims to explore the role of the Social Services Department in improving the welfare of neglected elderly individuals in Tanjungpinang. The research employs a qualitative approach with a case study method. Data is gathered through interviews and documentation. Interview results are guided by interview protocols. This study identifies a range of factors that lead to elderly neglect before their admission to the Happy House Embung Fatimah, managed by the Tanjungpinang City Social Services Department. These factors encompass family issues, economic challenges, social environment concerns, and health problems. The Happy House Embung Fatimah serves as a specialized institution dedicated to caring for elderly individuals without family support. The findings of this research will provide valuable insights into efforts to enhance the well-being of neglected elderly individuals and the role of the Social Services Department in this context

Situating Injustice in the Frame of Dalit Politics: A Case of Democracy in Nayattu

It might not be amiss to observe that, Nayattu, the Malayalam movie by filmmaker Martin Prakkat rides its last lap on the breathtaking suspense of a suspension of justice set in the backdrop of Indian electoral politics. Such suspense or suspension is hardly unanticipated in the writings of Jacques Derrida for whom the reasoning of democracy is of ‘a certain reason to come, as democracy to come’. Rather than eager anticipation ready to bear fruit, the reasoning of democracy is the contrary. It is the impossibility of ever bearing fruit which is portrayed through the executive’s insensitivity and domineeringness towards ordinary man’s justice. Several other characteristics also make the movie a worthwhile analysis in this frame. It is the story of the sheer inadequacy of traditional democratic institutions in fulfilling their role—three police officers who are wrongly accused need to run to the valley/hill outside the walls of the ‘city’ in search of a place of refuge that is never to be found. However, it is the portrayal of Dalits both as the mob and as the victimized that contributes to the tempo of the movie.