Social Science Literature Research Articles

Neurocomunicación y sostenibilidad: grandes retos del turismo

The covid‐19 pandemic has driven digitalization and the need for updates in various sectors to maintain their competitiveness. This study focuses on the interaction between tourism, neurocommunication, and sustainability, and their influence on Spain’s image abroad. Spain is analyzed as an entity that combines economic, social, cultural, and technological aspects, with a particular emphasis on tourism. Through a detailed compilation and analysis of literature in Social Sciences, Tourism, Sustainability, and Neuroscience, the study aims to understand how tourist communication affects tourists’ perceptions and decisions, contributing to social progress. Using specific descriptors to select academic sources, a data corpus is formed that supports the conclusions: tourism remains a key economic pillar for Spain, affected by seasonality but with growth potential through sustainable marketing and communication strategies based on neurocommunicative techniques.

Why Religion Matters: Social Scientific Insights on the Role of Religion in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This article addresses a well-developed yet contentious question: Can social science objectively analyse religion and its role in escalating or mitigating socio-political tensions? Grounded in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the essay does not attempt to provide a precise answer to this question nor to criticise the social science that simultaneously explores the notion of religion and grapples with its conceptualisation. Instead, it reflects on the evolving social science perspectives scholars use to understand how religion interacts with various social dimensions, including politics and power relations. The primary aim is to underscore the enduring significance of social scientific analysis of religion, reflect on the limitations of its Westernised perspectives, and revitalise intellectual tools for examining its multifaceted nature. To achieve this objective, the essay first (re)examines prominent Western-developed perspectives on religion within social science literature, synthesising contributions from various disciplines. It then identifies connections and discontinuities between the basis of these perspectives and broader socio-political conversations, with a specific focus on the religious dimension of the Israel–Palestine conflict as a case study. The central hypothesis is that social scientific analysis is crucial for understanding religion as a dynamic system both influenced by and influencing contextual and historical factors. This nuanced non-Westernised understanding is essential for promoting inter-state harmony or cooperation, particularly in complex situations like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Karen Warren, Social Dominance, and Connection to Nature

Karen Warren’s ecofeminism contends that the domination or subjugation of women is linked to the domination or subjugation of nature. This essay argues she is largely correct in her views on this subject, and certain dimensions of social science help establish this conclusion firmly. The paper begins by reviewing Warren’s position, and one line of criticism of it, to clarify the interpretation of her work that informs this commentary. It then shows how developments in social science, especially regarding the concept of “social dominance orientation,” validate Warren’s claim that women’s and nature’s oppression are connected, along with her contention that these connections entail elements of dualism, hierarchy, and domination. It concludes by examining two approaches to environmental issues found in the social science literature, and discusses what is problematic about one and promising about the other, ultimately highlighting the potential of interventions focused on connectedness to nature.

Shared decision-making and social science: A patient perspective.

Shared decision making (SDM) between doctors and patients has been deemed important when providing care. Yet, it can be difficult to achieve. Specific examples from a patient perspective are integrated with the social science literature to provide an overview of components of SDM including the role of fit, trust, information asymmetry, cognitive decision frames and balancing medical and patient outcomes. Consideration of these issues should facilitate higher quality SDM conversations.

Emotional Expressions and Advocacy Coalitions

While many policy process theories mention emotions, they have remained mostly unexplored theoretically and empirically, even as broader social science literature incorporates emotions into understanding policy process-related phenomena such as political beliefs and behaviors. This paper introduces the theoretical arguments and a method for studying advocacy coalitions using a combination of emotions and beliefs within the Advocacy Coalition Framework. An application is illustrated in a natural gas pipeline siting conflict in the US using data from news media coverage. The empirical results show that coalitions express emotions and beliefs differently, and that the dyadic relationship between emotions and beliefs significantly distinguishes coalitions rather than emotions by themselves. This paper takes a significant step forward in integrating emotional and belief expressions into the ACF, adding to coalition identification methods, providing a foundation for advancing theory, and contributing to the broader community of policy studies.

Arts Informed Research: Research on the Relationships between Immigrant/Refugee Children and Children Born in the Host Country

The field of Social Cognitive Psychology has traditionally been the focal point for researching relationships between immigrants and those considered natives in the host countries within social science literature. However, the author considers this paradigm insufficient to comprehend the intricate dynamics. The emotional and unconscious undercurrents in these interactions remain unexplored. Drawing on a background in dance movement therapy, drama therapy, and psychodrama, the researcher introduced clinical arts therapy tools to address this gap. Focusing on girls and boys, drama emerged as the most fitting method. This article provides a glimpse into a novel model of drama groups developed as part of an extensive year-long research program. Initially chosen based on the study’s focus and participants’ age, the approach eventually aligned with the broader framework of Arts Informed Research (AIR).

NOBODY CAN DRAG ME DOWN: AGING AS A DRAG PERFORMER

Abstract This presentation will detail the findings of an exploratory, qualitative research study examining the intersection of aging and drag performance. Even though drag queens have achieved significant levels of visibility in mainstream entertainment and have become increasingly present topics of discussion in news outlets, modern media, and even political landscapes, they are an understudied and underrepresented population (Knutson et al., 2020; O’Brien, 2018). Older drag queens have yet to be studied in the social science literature (Henneberry et al., 2022). “Drag Queens possess unique characteristics as a subpopulation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community that warrant exploration” (Knutson, Koch, Sneed, & Lee, 2018). This research aims to understand and represent the relatively understudied population of drag queens in academic literature while drawing attention to the specific sub-population of older adults in the profession. A semi-structured interview protocol and thematic analysis was utilized to understand the unique perspectives of self identified drag performers over the age of 50 (n=15; ages 54-94). Examining drag artistry and expression through the lens of aging has revealed themes of drag as a form of armor, ageism within the community, and shifts in social perceptions of drag performers. This presentation will introduce the term “dragism” in an attempt to explain the discrimination against drag queens within the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the interplay of both dragism and ageism for the participants of this study (Donorfio et al., 2022).

The Impact of Mitigating Circumstances Procedures: Student Satisfaction, Wellbeing and Structural Compassion on the Campus

For several decades, universities have sought to promote better mental health amongst students. For example, universities now have formal institutional arrangements to postpone deadlines for students where there are mitigating circumstances, such as ill health. Such provisions might be understood as praiseworthy cases of institutional compassion. But, empirical research is needed to investigate how these measures play out in practice. This paper draws on ethnographic research in several UK universities to explore the experiences of staff responsible for the enactment of mitigating circumstance provisions. We find staff members sympathetic to the aims of the measures but also sceptical, and in some cases angry, because they find that the provisions have unwanted and undesirable effects. This paper uses the wider social science literature on bureaucracy to consider why this might be the case and raises questions about the capacity of institutions to enact ethical ideals.

The pleasure, joy and positive emotional experiences of abortion accompaniment after 17 weeks’ gestation

Research documents how abortion can be emotionally difficult and stigmatising, but generally has not considered whether and how involvement in abortion may be a source of positive emotions, including pleasure, belonging and even joy. The absence of explorations that start from the possibility of abortion pleasure and joy represents an epistemic foreclosure. Moreover, it highlights how social science literature has tended to emphasise the negative aspects of abortion care in ways that produce or amplify normative negative associations. In this paper, we investigate the positive emotions, pleasure and joy of abortion involvement by drawing on interviews conducted in 2019 with 28 abortion accompaniers in Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador about their experiences accompanying abortions after 17 weeks’ gestation. Abortion accompaniment is a response to unsafe and/or inaccessible abortion whereby volunteer activists guide abortion seekers through a medication abortion. Interviewees described how the practice of accompaniment generated positive emotions by building a feminist community, shared intimacy among women, and witnessing aborting people claim their strength. Importantly, these positive emotional experiences of involvement with abortion were not distinct from the broader marginalisation of abortion but were, instead, rooted in its marginalisation.

Exploring the Interplay between Policy Texts and Local Realities in Drug Procurement for the NPCDCS Program in Bihar: An Institutional Ethnography

India has the largest number of families living below the poverty threshold, resulting in high out-of-pocket expenditure for healthcare, including essential medicines for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). With the increasing prevalence of NCDs, the role of the Indian government becomes crucial in ensuring that patients have access to essential drugs through public health facilities. This research paper explores the institutional processes of drug procurement in the National Program for Prevention and Control of Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Stroke in Bihar, India, using institutional ethnography as its methodological approach. The data for the study was collected over a 10-months period in three districts of Bihar and involved collecting data through participant observation, interviews, and reviews of official documents and program guidelines. The findings highlight the influence of various institutional and regulatory texts that shape the implementation of integrated programs in district hospitals and carry the authority and instructions of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Despite their legal entity and autonomous status, the study reveals that the governance, decision-making, and autonomy of health societies involved in the program were restricted through textual practices. The study’s contribution to social science and health system literature lies in illustrating the multiple factors that influence drug procurement at the central, state, and local levels.

Black and Blue: An integrated conceptual framework for understanding the trauma and mental impacts of police violence exposure in Black communities

ABSTRACT Because repeated incidents of police violence against unarmed Black people are increasingly visible, as a result of technological advances, there is growing need to understand their potentially traumatic mental health effects for other Black people. This narrative review provides an overview of critical race theory, the stress, appraisal, and coping theory, trauma theory, racial trauma theory, and emotional contagion theory to develop an integrated conceptual framework for understanding and explaining psychosocial processes by which exposure to police violence against unarmed Black people affect the mental health of other Black people at individual and community-levels. Black and Blue, a new conceptual framework, adds to the social science literature on police violence in historically marginalized communities. The conceptualization of this framework suggests implications for practice, policy, and research about police violence and trauma exposure in Black communities. Future research is needed to expand and subsequently test the validity and rigor of the Black and Blue framework.

Unequal trust: Bottled water consumption, distrust in tap water, and economic and racial inequality in the United States

AbstractReviewing public health, nutrition, and social science literature, this article examines how bottled water consumption and spending in the United States differ along lines of race, ethnicity, and income, how these consumption patterns have changed in recent years, and how those shifts map onto perceptions of the safety and trustworthiness of tap water supplies, both before and since the Flint water disaster. It also addresses the differential impact of bottled water spending on household income. The findings challenge the truism that bottled water consumption is positively correlated with income, instead showing a bimodal racial and class consumption pattern that reflects widely divergent perceptions—and the uneven distribution—of threats to tap water safety. Bottled water consumption and spending, as well as distrust of tap water, are highest among low‐income, Black, and Latino/a households, exacerbating social inequality. The article also addresses how the bottled water industry is responding to these dynamics, and considers potential routes to restoring both public water infrastructure and trust in tap water supplies. This contribution links several current and salient topics: the relationship between bottled water's growth and tap water consumption; the dynamics of growing racial and income inequality; historical legacies of systemic racism and economic marginalization; and the uneven effects of disinvestment in US water infrastructure on tap water safety, access, and affordability.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Human Water Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Rights to Water Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation

COVID‐19 crisis, Romanian Roma migrant women, and the temporary geographies of lockdown in the Spanish home

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic exposed the persistent problem of gender, class and racial inequality that has been neglected or poorly addressed globally. The effect of the lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions on the home cannot be undermined. Additionally, investigations on the relationship between Roma migrant women, household practices and the COVID‐19 pandemic still warrant more exploration in the social scientific literature. This research investigates these topics through the lens of Romanian Roma migrant women in Spain during the pandemic. Using geographies of home and gender perspectives based on focus group interviews with Roma women in eastern Spain, we claim that these women encountered multiple problems during the pandemic, built through replication of practices, objects and rhetoric of home. The findings suggest that home has not lost its utility, as the experiences of Roma migrant women during the COVID‐19 crisis give fresh aspects for reconsidering the living conditions for women and their families under restricted pandemic circumstances. We conclude that Roma women reproduce and co‐produce the home as a living space in times of pandemic crisis.

Child Fostering in a Changing Climate: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa.

An extensive social science literature has examined the effects of climate change on human migration. Prior studies have focused largely on the out-migration of working-age adults or entire households, with less attention to migration and other forms of geographic mobility among other age groups, including youth. In this study, we focus on the implications of climate variability for the movement of children by examining the association between climate exposures and the in- and out-fostering of children in sub-Saharan Africa. We link high-resolution temperature and precipitation records to data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 23 sub-Saharan African countries. We fit a series of regression models to measure the overall associations between climate exposures and each outcome, and then evaluate whether these associations are moderated by socioeconomic status, the number of children in the household, and the prevalence of fostering in each country. Precipitation is positively associated with in-fostering overall, and these effects are especially strong among households who already have at least one child and in countries where child fostering is common. We find no overall relationship between either temperature or precipitation exposures and out-fostering, but we do detect significant effects among households with many children and those with more-educated heads. In sum, our findings suggest climate variability can influence child mobility, albeit in complex and in some cases context-specific ways. Given the socioeconomic and health implications of fostering, these results underline another pathway through which climate exposures can affect children's wellbeing. More broadly, this study shows that new attention to the links between climate variability, child fostering, and other understudied forms of spatial mobility is needed to fully understand the effects of climate change on human populations.

Recruiting Black and White patients to a behavioral oncology clinical trial: Lessons from the DISCO trial.

102 Background: Data show that 55% of trials are terminated due to insufficient accrual, which is especially low for patients identifying as Black. In 2021, we initiated recruitment to a clinic-based behavioral oncology trial testing the effectiveness of a health equity communication intervention designed to address patient cost concerns. This study involves patients and clinicians completing surveys before and after a video-recorded clinical interaction. We are implementing this study at an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center in Detroit, Michigan, a city comprised of a majority of Black residents (80%). Based on the aims and literature showing that most patients agree to participate in trials if they are eligible and invited, we set a sample goal of 50% Black and 50% White patients. We use strategies based on literature and our own experience, including having a diverse staff and building trusting relationships with participants. As we begin the third and final year of recruitment with about 2/3 of our required patient sample (N=180) recruited, we consider what suggestions we can offer teams seeking to efficiently recruit a diverse patient sample to clinical trials. Methods: We based our strategies on evidence that racially concordant (same racial group) clinical dyads have greater communication quality than racially discordant (different racial group) dyads, and that medical mistrust is greater among Black than among White patients. First, we hired and trained a team that includes both Black and White members, and encouraged them to take leadership roles in the team. Second, we built trust with clinic staff, clinicians and patients. Procedures involve discussing the study with clinicians and their staff, recruiting clinicians as participants, and screening their patients for eligibility. We then recruit patients in-person in the clinic or by phone. Patients who provide oral consent are later met in person to collect written consent. Results: We have achieved a consent rate of 52% across 4 clinics; our sample includes 74 (62%) Black patients and 45 (38%) White patients. We attribute this to critical aspects of our protocol. First, recruitment of clinicians as participants helps capture the attention of and build trust with patients. Second, we have a flexible recruitment approach. Once potential participants are screened, we decide whether to approach them in person or by phone. Third, our team is comprised of Black and White individuals to reflect the patient population we hope to recruit. Last, we have the support of a diverse group of medical student team members who assist in times of increased recruitment. Conclusions: Our strategies, based on social science literature, helped achieve our goal of recruiting a sample that reflects racial diversity in our patient population. These and similar strategies can be adapted for other trials with the goal of achieving clinical trial recruitment equity. Clinical trial information: NCT04766190 .

Culture Wars as Property Struggles: The Hungarian Academy of Arts in Post-1989 Hungary

Abstract While property is a common analytical category in political economy, it is often omitted from cultural analysis. To bridge this gap, this article examines the Orbán regime’s cultural flagship institution, the Magyar Művészeti Akadémia [Hungarian Academy of Arts, HAA] from a property perspective. By putting the 1992‒2011 trajectory of the Academy under a spotlight, a rarely examined prehistory of the current Orbán regime comes to the fore. By deploying historical and social sciences literature alongside archival and interview-based primary research, it is here argued that the property perspective can transcend the “culture wars” explanations of postsocialist cultural polarization by highlighting the material roots of such conflicts. The case of the HAA serves to demonstrate that its cultural clashes were property struggles to obtain properties from the postsocialist state. In this quest, the Academy formed an uneven alliance with the national-protectionist elite bloc. By demonstrating how the HAA was bound to the competition of postsocialist elite blocs, its cyclical politicization can be best understood from the angle of the rapidly transforming property regime in post-1989 Hungary. In conclusion, the article proposes the postsocialist property regime of culture as a framework to analyze cultural and property clashes in tandem.

The challenges of encouraging refugee assistance: lessons learned from reframing the problem as one of within-group collective action and norm change

Cooperation across group boundaries presents special theoretical and practical challenges. Fostering altruism towards refugees magnifies these difficulties given structural inequalities between host communities and those in need of help. Nonetheless, countless organisations and grass-roots efforts provide critical and effective support for asylum seekers around the world. In this article, we analyse a case of a successful grass-roots effort to help a family of asylum seekers in Australia. We use this as a starting point to review the evolutionary social-science literature on cooperation and suggest ways that collective action in support of refugees can be promoted and maintained. The challenge can be reframed as one of achieving two goals: first, norm change; and, second, encouraging altruistic actions. The former requires convincing prospective hosts that refugee support is indeed a public good at the community level. The second goal requires encouraging cooperation within the host community. We have better evidence of what works for the latter than the former.

What do experts mean by “misinformation” in the COVID-19 era? A critical scoping review protocol

In April 2020, the World Health Organization released the report Managing the COVID-19 infodemic: A call to action, declaring that “the 2020 pandemic of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) [had] been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic.’” Soon afterwards UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres tweeted - also alluding to COVID-19 - that “a tsunami of misinformation, scapegoating and scaremongering [had] been unleashed” also in relation to COVID-19. The tweet was followed by a March 2021 report from the Centre for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, warning that “health-related misinformation and disinformation” were undermining the public response to COVID-19, and by a February 2022 US Department of Homeland Security infographic, Disinformation Stops With You”, alerting about the dangers of “misinformation”, “disinformation”, and “malinformation” – dubbed MDM - distinguishing these terms based on the presumed intentionality of the agents producing or spreading them. However, there has been scant interrogation of expert meanings of MDM in the COVID-19 context and of the implications of the premises underlying these meanings for public policy, equity, and civil, social, and political rights. Drawing from the traditions of critical policy, discourse, and document analysis, we will apply Arksey O’Malley’s framework, enhanced by Levac et al.’s team-based approach, to conduct a critical scoping review of the medical and social scientific peer-reviewed literature, identifying, summarizing, and appraising expert meanings of MDM. We will also assess the implications of our findings for the health and well-being of populations affected by policies informed by dominant concepts of MDM.

To Each According to Their Space-Need: Communes in Outer Space

Space settlement advocates frequently argue that we will soon be able to settle humans in space. Surviving on Mars is clearly a pre-requisite to settlement, and much work has been done examining the engineering aspects of this endeavor. Much less work has been done, however, on questions related to how to arrange a society in space. Early settlements will be dangerous, isolated, and cramped, and picking a social arrangement that is likely to result in a vibrant and productive society will be critical. Moreover, given the high stakes of this endeavor, being able to anticipate and ameliorate likely social problems ahead of time would be beneficial. Some important questions to consider include: How can settlements pick members who are likely to contribute as much as or more than they take from the society? How will they make sure everyone continues to contribute? How will they retain their most talented members? The literature on space settlements frequently posits that early settlements are particularly likely to be communal, though settlement scholars rarely consult the social sciences literature to explore whether or not communes would be a good social model for space. This article explores lessons from three major communal movements—the Hutterites, kibbutzim, and 60s-era communes. Similar social problems (such as adverse selection, free riding, and brain drain) are frequently encountered in these communes, and communards employ similar solutions to ameliorate these problems. This article also discusses how the nature of these social constraints may differ in the space environment, and the potential implications of the observation that religious communes seem to be more likely to persist than purely socialist ones.

Turning Public Opinion on Immigration: the British Conservative Party and the Expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972

Abstract This article examines the Ugandan Asians’ crisis of 1972, during which President Idi Amin expelled tens of thousands of Asian nationals from the country. It explains why Ugandan Asians held, against expectations and the UK government’s intention, British citizenship. Drawing on primary sources and the social science literature on ‘framing’, the article then explores how Britain’s Conservative government secured the support of an initially hostile public for its decision to allow the Asians entry to the United Kingdom. It argues that the Conservatives succeeded by framing the Ugandan Asians as middle-class, hard-working, skilled refugees, rather than as immigrants or British citizens, and Idi Amin as a murderous monster. The press played a vital role in the government’s success. The article ends by reflecting on the case’s implications for contemporary British immigration policy and the capacity of the state to generate support for open immigration.