Sociocultural Appropriateness Research Articles

The modern and the Monster: heritage activism in the post-socialist city between performance and performativity

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of urban grassroot movements in the social configuration of contentious heritage and multiple temporalities and political articulations of heritage defense activism. Using the case study method, the paper traces the genealogy of one urban movement in defense of socialist modernist heritage in contemporary Montenegro, shedding light on the process of slow political recognition as opposed to the wide and rampant repertoire of urban contention and socio-cultural appropriation. Focusing on the events following the announcement of the construction of the 12-floor skyscraper (colloquially dubbed “the Monster”) in the immediate proximity of the iconic modernist Hotel Podgorica, the paper theorizes the capacity of urban activism in the contemporary post-socialist city to activate heritage dynamics and leverage urban knowledge as a tool of cultural control. Relying on a multi-method approach including participatory observations, interviews, urban and critical discourse analysis, and the archival research, this paper provides a multi-perspectival analysis of the complex interactions between contentious heritage, grassroot movements and political performativity in the post-socialist city. The results shed light on the evolving role of citizenship in urban development, signaling a paradigm shift towards engaged architecture and emancipatory urban activism as mechanisms for mitigating institutional inefficiencies and political performativity.

Animist materialism in Femi Osofisan’s <i>No More the Wasted Breed (1983) </i>and <i>Once </i><i>Upon Four Robbers (1991)</i>

In his oeuvre, Femi Osofisan challenges class inequalities by upbraiding the materialistic predilections of the upper class. Therefore, critics view his plays as revolutionary manuscripts designed for social awakening and interpret them from a Marxist perspective. Marxist interpretation has, to a good degree, undermined other ideological potential and evident discursive engagements which abound in multiple hierarchies in his plays. This study advances the frontiers of interpretations in Osofisan’s plays by providing alternative meanings in them besides Marxism. Through the theoretical praxis of Material Culture, I argue that beyond Marxist, class proclivities, Osofisan in No More the Wasted Breed (1983) and Once Upon Four Robbers (1980) commits to cultural rebirth in Africa through animist materialism, a spiritual, sociocultural appropriation process which inputs lifeforce to natural objects like rivers, plants, and animals. In addition to their material, totemic, sublunary significance, these natural objects acquire mystical and magical essence, thus contributing to the reification of African spiritual practices found in the plays. The spiritual practices rehabilitate African culture, promoting and re-enchanting its symbolic orthodoxy in the modern world. The study demonstrates that, instead of rejecting modernity, animist materialism as an African spiritual practice accommodates aspects of modernity, incorporating them as part of Africa’s cultural heritage.

Mapping opportunities for the use of land management strategies to address fire risk in Europe

Many parts of Europe face increasing challenges managing wildfires. Although wildfire is an integral part of certain ecosystems, fires in many places are becoming larger and more intense, driven largely by climate change, land abandonment, and changes in fuel management with important socioeconomic, environmental, and ecosystem services consequences for Europe. In order to envision a comprehensive fire risk mitigation strategy for Europe, a spatial assessment of opportunities to manage fuels at the landscape-scale is needed. Our study explored the suitability of three land management strategies (LMS)—herbivory, mechanical fuel removal, and prescribed burn—which can create more heterogenous fuelscapes, thereby reducing an element of fire risk. We created suitability maps for each of the LMS using adoption factors identified in a systematic literature review (n = 123). We compared these maps with areas of historical fire occurrence as a proxy for fire risk to prioritize key areas for intervention. We found that over a quarter of Europe was suitable for multiple LMS within areas of greater fire risk, creating opportunities for concurrent and synergistic use of the strategies. Options were more limited in areas of southern Europe, where prescribed burn was found to be uniquely viable amongst the LMS evaluated. Opportunities were also restricted in some areas of high fire risk in northern Europe, where herbivory was found to be the only suitable LMS. Our findings take a wide-view of fuel management to target landscape-scale decision making focused on reducing fire risk. However, many other factors must be taken into account to successfully manage fuels at local scales, including the socio-cultural appropriateness of the LMS, the viability of incentive schemes, and possible trade-offs with other management goals, such as carbon storage and biodiversity.

Review: The Masjid in Contemporary Islamic Africa

Review: <i>The Masjid in Contemporary Islamic Africa</i>

Abandoned, But Not Forgotten Heritage: Former Industrial Enterprises in Cultural and Urban Russian Landscapes

ABSTRACT This paper examines Russian industrial heritage and its interactions with society. It focuses on changing identities and the transformation of industrial enterprises from connecters to the future in Soviet times, to bridges to both the past and the future for different social groups in post-Soviet Russia. Based on regional examples from the Russian northwest, this article analyzes the trajectories of industrial enterprises from urban centers to peripheries, and the socio-cultural appropriation they experience. Based on newspaper articles, online comments of citizens, and materials from Internet communities, this analysis explores discussions about the reuse of abandoned industrial heritage in Russia. First, it shows how industrial enterprises have moved from centers of the future to peripheries of the past during the last century, and continue to do so at present. Second, it examines how citizens interact with them today, producing nostalgia for the “lost” Soviet past and using abandoned buildings for stalker adventures. The paper concludes that abandoned enterprises transform from industrial centers to cultural sites, binding past, present and future together in a temporal conjunction where three unique temporalities co-exist and overlap: the socialist past, the modern Russian present, and imagined futures. Abandoned heritage is a dynamic participant in cultural and social activities but simultaneously it signifies disappearing industrial socialism.

Socio-Cultural Appropriateness of the Use of Historic Persian Gardens for Modern Urban Edible Gardens

Historic gardens have the ability to provide several ecosystem services in cities, including provisioning services (i.e., food production). The historic gardens in Iran (known as “Persian Gardens”) have never been considered as places that could be used for food production. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the Iranian historic gardens’ spatial and structural layout is suitable for modern urban food gardening. We conducted field studies in six recognized Persian gardens in four provinces of Iran via qualitative analysis according to socio-cultural guidelines drawn from a literature review. The results suggested that combining the elements of formal landscape design, non-edible decorative plants, and traditional artwork would increase the Persian gardens’ attractiveness. Regarding encouraging users to become involved in urban gardening, we found that separating productive units containing edible plants from public units using a central meeting spot populated by aesthetic plants and items may attract ordinary visitors who are interested in gardening without disturbing anyone’s activities. Furthermore, the Persian gardens’ multifunctionality, aesthetic value, and health-promoting qualities constitute a considerable historic achievement in garden design, making the gardens a suitable model for edible urban gardening. The results of this study can enhance our understanding of the Persian gardens’ spatial and structural design and provide practical implications for sustainable urban planning and landscape architecture.

The Socio-Cultural Suitability of Task-based Instruction in Japan : Through the Lens of Learners

This article reports the findings of an action research project, which investigated how university students would respond to Task-based Instruction (TBI), with the primary aim to examine its sociocultural appropriateness in the Japanese EFL context. The study employed a hybrid form of task-based and textbook-focused instruction in English classes at the tertiary level. A survey was administered to collect student feedback, which was examined qualitatively using thematic analysis. The analysis revealed that a majority of students positively viewed TBI in terms of main themes that emerged from the data: Social Skills Building; Personal Development; Future Usefulness, with English Learning as a common sub-theme. Pedagogical implications, as well as suggestions for further research, are discussed based on these findings.

Green Infrastructure Can Improve the Lives of Slum Dwellers in African Cities

Slums and informal settlements in African cities are notably connected to green spaces and natural ecosystems serving as green infrastructure. Green Infrastructure holds the potential for improvement of the quality of life and the environment by harnessing benefits for people's livelihoods, food security, environmental regulation, socio-cultural appropriation, etc., and by addressing constraints to greening. Policy initiatives and relevant greening programs, especially those utilizing participatory, low-cost, socio-economically empowering approaches, are recommended.

Green Infrastructure for Sanitation in Settlements in the Global South: A Narrative Review of Socio-Technical Systems

In the developing economies of the Global South, a fundamental challenge in the transition of settlements from rural or periurban to urban is increased environmental contamination as a result of poor sanitation and sanitation management. With governments’ limited ability to connect all neighbourhoods to a city’s existing municipal water, sewerage and other services, decentralised approaches using green infrastructure offer potential to address this challenge. In addition, green infrastructure might facilitate a move towards a holistic response to manage the full water cycle. This paper presents a narrative review of green infrastructure projects, involving constructed wetlands or their variants for wastewater treatment, within vulnerable communities in the Global South. It describes the scale and scope of each project, identifies the challenges of implementation, and reflects on their outcomes for different stakeholder groups. The review demonstrates that decentralised sanitation programs using constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment can provide a range of advantages/benefits/services, dependant on the specific sociocultural, political and biogeophysical contexts of each. Issues of governance and sociocultural appropriateness, rather than technical issues, challenged the implementation of green infrastructure for sanitation in these projects. Projects must be a collaboration between the government, nongovernment organisations and the community. Whether the project is organised from top-down or bottom-up, community consultation is essential. Context will determine the role of the community in the consultation process and the type of information required to guide the design, implementation and governance of the system. In every project to provide decentralised sanitation systems, the community must be participants, not simply beneficiaries.

Territorial and Sustainable Healthy Diets.

The rapid changes that societies have gone through in the last few decades have led to the increase in the prevalence of malnutrition in all its forms and to the degradation of natural resources and the environment. The change in the dietary habits and production systems are responsible for much of this change. Some territorial diets have been shown as potentially capable of reversing these trends by positively contributing to the health of people and the environment such as the Mediterranean Diet and the New Nordic Diet. In this paper, we review the contribution of these 2 diets to health and nutrition and to environmental, sociocultural, and economic sustainability proposing pertinent indicators. Learning from a culturally established diet and a constructed one, tradeoff could be reached to ensure better health and sustainability outcomes. Strong factors for achieving this goal lie in building on the sociocultural appropriation of diets, having the proper tools and indicators, investing in cross-sector collaboration and policy coherence, and having the necessary political support to push the agenda of sustainability forward.

Escuelas públicas de financiamiento privado. El proyecto posrevolucionario de Escuelas Primarias Artículo 123 en San Luis Potosí, 1917-1978

El Artículo 123 de la Constitución mexicana de 1917 estableció las circunstancias en que los patrones estaban obligados a financiar escuelas primarias para los hijos de sus trabajadores. Pero el cumplimiento de este precepto recorrió un accidentado camino para llevarse a la práctica. El caso de San Luis Potosí nos muestra cómo estos planteles tuvieron una destacada contribución al proceso de apropiación sociocultural de la escuela primaria, pero ilustra también los límites del Estado mexicano posrevolucionario en la tarea de obligar a los patrones a colaborar en su proyecto educativo.

Translation and cultural adaptation of a prostate cancer screening decision aid: a qualitative study in Portugal

ObjectivesTo translate and culturally adapt an English language patient decision aid addressing prostate cancer screening, so it can be used by Portuguese men.DesignQualitative study. We followed the European Centre for...

Socio-Culturally Sensitive Disease Prevention and Health Promotion: Development of a Theoretical Framework and Results of a Survey of Physical Activity Promotion Projects.

To develop a framework for socio-culturally sensitive disease prevention and health promotion and to assess which components of socio-cultural appropriateness are used in physical activity projects targeting migrants. Based on 9 expert interviews and a rapid review in PubMed and PsycInfo, we identified domains and strategies of socio-cultural sensitivity for disease prevention and health promotion. The domains were used as a basis for a survey of physical activity projects targeting migrants as listed in a national project data base ("Gesundheitliche Chancengleichheit"). We identified 5 domains for socio-cultural adaptation of prevention programs (peripheral, evidential, linguistic, constituent-involving and socio-cultural strategies). Using multiple strategies seems to increase the efficacy of the interventions. Of the 48 contacted projects, 29 participated in the survey. Almost all projects used strategies from 4 of the 5 domains. Evidential strategies were used to a lesser extent. The developed framework can be used for both, planning and evaluating prevention programs targeting migrants. The project survey shows how socio-cultural appropriateness can be improved through a variety of strategies.

Forsake me not: balcony spaces in codes and cues among on-campus apartment dwellers

PurposeWhile some people are mindful of what a personal space that also belongs to a common façade portrays to outsiders, why other people treat this personal space as a mere utility space invisible to the public eye must be determined. International students who live in single-bedroom apartments with balconies and were mostly married were investigated regarding the meaning they attach to their balcony spaces. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis work also hypothesized that residents of these units perceived their balconies as a liminal space that oscillates between a spatial repertoire for familiar memories and a versatile, utilitarian device for temporary storage. A naturalistic inquiry was then conducted among purposefully sampled apartment dwellers via in-depth, open-ended and semi-structured interviews.FindingsWhile offering much needed spatial economy to dwellers, the cues and codes revealed that the balcony space could furnish a sense of membership to established social cohorts. The balcony space further brings an element of escape and ease into impecunious student life by means of its ability to offer a broad spectrum of spatial-aspatial needs that manifested in forms of personalizations and exploitations.Originality/valueA knowledge gap in socio-cultural appropriation of on-campus apartments for sustainable redevelopment where the majority of consumers were married/partnered, international students has been investigated.

Perceived urban neighborhood environment for physical activity of older adults in Seoul, Korea: A multimethod qualitative study

This study assessed the attributes of a perceived urban neighborhood environment for the physical activity (PA) of older adults by applying a qualitative multimethod approach to collect both descriptive and spatial information. Conducted in a northern community of Seoul, Korea, from April 2014 to November 2015, data collection methods included 90 walking tours by researchers, 46 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews combined with qualitative mapping with senior residents aged 65+, 19 guided tours with the interviewees, and 3 focus groups with 12 community service providers. Thematic analysis and pattern finding were performed on the data. Walking was the main type of PA of the older adults. Nine attributes of perceived neighborhood environment for PA were identified under three themes: daily living (everyday life activities, mobility, social opportunities, diverse destinations); the multidimensionality of accessibility (physical, economic, psychosocial), and attractiveness and pleasantness (maintenance, aesthetics). The subcategories of the attributes included proximity, access to public transportation, walkability, cost-worthiness, low or no cost, familiarity, sense of welcoming, sociocultural appropriateness, fair access, order and upkeep, safety, openness, cleanliness, and interestingness. Strategies to generate more movement and activities in the everyday routine of the elderly should be a core task for health promotion and neighborhood design. A strategic application of multiple qualitative methods can create an opportunity to build contextual understanding and to generate ideas in interactions with the community.

The Cultural Adaptation of the DISC-IV: Appropriateness for Sotho-Speaking South Africans

ABSTRACTThe Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-IV) has been designed for use by trained laypersons so it can be used in developing countries including South Africa. We examine the sociocultural appropriateness of the DISC-IV for Sesotho families. In-depth individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with Sesotho clinicians who used the DISC-IV. The clinicians found it to be a rigorous assessment tool offering new insights into their patients’ mental capacities. Concerns were raised about its length and structure, norms, and gaps in diagnostic criteria specific to the Sesotho community. With adaptation the DISC-IV could make a valuable contribution to their assessment tools.

Strengthening research capacity in the Pacific: an example from the Atoifi Health Research Group, Solomon Islands.

To provide an example of one model of research capacity building for mental health from a remote setting in Solomon Islands. The Atoifi Health Research Group is building health research capacity with a health service on the remote east coast of Malaita, Solomon Islands. The group uses a 'learn-by-doing' approach embedded in health service and community-level health projects. The group is eclectic in nature and deliberately engages a variety of partners to discover culturally informed methods of collecting, analysing and disseminating research findings. Key successes of the Atoifi Health Research Group are: that it was initiated by Solomon Islanders with self-expressed desire to learn about research; the learn-by-doing model; inclusion of community people to inform questions and socio-cultural appropriateness; and commitment to ongoing support by international researchers. Given different social, cultural, economic, geographic, spiritual and service contexts across the Pacific, locally appropriate approaches need to be considered. Such approaches challenge the orthodox approach of centralized investment to replicate specialist driven approaches of funder nations. Increasing expertise at all levels through participatory capacity building models that define and address local problems may be more sustainable and responsive to local mental health contexts.

Usability evaluation and adaptation of the e-health Personal Patient Profile-Prostate decision aid for Spanish-speaking Latino men.

BackgroundThe Personal Patient Profile-Prostate (P3P), a web-based decision aid, was demonstrated to reduce decisional conflict in English-speaking men with localized prostate cancer early after initial diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to explore and enhance usability and cultural appropriateness of a Spanish P3P by Latino men with a diagnosis of prostate cancer.MethodsP3P was translated to Spanish and back-translated by three native Spanish-speaking translators working independently. Spanish-speaking Latino men with a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer, who had made treatment decisions in the past 24 months, were recruited from two urban clinical care sites. Individual cognitive interviews were conducted by two bilingual research assistants as each participant used the Spanish P3P. Notes of user behavior, feedback, and answers to direct questions about comprehension, usability and perceived usefulness were analyzed and categorized.ResultsSeven participants with a range of education levels identified 25 unique usability issues in navigation, content comprehension and completeness, sociocultural appropriateness, and methodology. Revisions were prioritized to refine the usability and cultural and linguistic appropriateness of the decision aid.ConclusionsUsability issues were discovered that are potential barriers to effective decision support. Successful use of decision aids requires adaptation and testing beyond translation. Our findings led to revisions further refining the usability and linguistic and cultural appropriateness of Spanish P3P.

The dressmaker’s mark

Abstract

A qualitative study of the cultural appropriateness of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-IV) in South Africa

The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-IV) has been designed for use by trained laypersons. It therefore shows great promise for use in developing countries such as South Africa, where there is a lack of clinically trained and skilled professionals at the primary care level. Against this background, the aim of the current study was to investigate the sociocultural appropriateness of the DISC-IV for use with Sesotho families in South Africa. Qualitative methodology of expert review and contextualized content analyses were used. Ten Sesotho-speaking clinicians were recruited through a snowball sampling technique to the review the DISC through expert review reports. Several themes emerged, including the structure of the DISC-IV, its computerized nature, Americanisms, problems in interpretation due to the adversity children live under, language problems, the effect of rural settings and education level, and cultural norms regarding psychiatric symptoms, gender, the experience of time, the expression of emotion, and family structure. Recommendations for the sociocultural adaptation and translation of the DISC into Sesotho are made.