Sociocultural Dimensions Research Articles

Exploring the Legal and Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Marriage Dissolution: A Comparative Analysis of Hindu and Muslim Personal Laws

Exploring the Legal and Socio-Cultural Dimensions of Marriage Dissolution: A Comparative Analysis of Hindu and Muslim Personal Laws

Examining Sociocultural Dimensions of Metropolitan Youth Culture in Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone

This paper delves into the sociocultural landscape portrayed in Chetan Bhagat’s novel Five Point Someone to provide insights into the youth culture of metropolitan India. The narrative explores the lives of three protagonists as they navigate the demanding academic environment of an elite engineering institute in Delhi. Through a sociocultural lens, we examine how these characters grapple with societal expectations, peer pressure, and the impact of a rigid educational system on their identities and aspirations. The analysis focuses on key themes such as identity formation, rebellion against tradition, and the clash between individual desires and societal norms. We also investigate the characters' responses to familial pressures, the pursuit of personal goals, and the challenges they face while striving for academic success. This examination of Five Point Someone offers a deeper understanding of the sociocultural dynamics that shape the lives of metropolitan youth in contemporary India. By shedding light on the complexities of their experiences, we contribute to a broader conversation about the evolving youth culture in urban settings.

The contributions of grandparents to preadolescent grandchildren's social skills in rural Malaysia.

This study aimed to generate localized knowledge by investigating the perceptions and experiences of preadolescent grandchildren and grandparents regarding grandparenting and intergenerational interactions and how these processes were related to the social skills of preadolescents from three ethnic groups in Malaysia. Using a concurrent quantitative-qualitative mixed method research design, Chinese, Malay, and Indian preadolescents (N = 465; ages 9-12 years old; M = 10.27 years; SD = 1.03) from rural areas in Malaysia completed a self-administered quantitative survey; furthermore, 25 grandparents participated in one-on-one interviews. Survey findings showed that preadolescent grandchildren who reported higher grandparental warmth and support had greater social skills, mediated by positive grandparent-grandchildren (GP-GC) relationships. The GP-GC relationship and preadolescent social skills association was stronger for skipped generation compared to three-generation households. Interview findings revealed that grandparents expressed unconditional love and autonomy support in their grandparenting roles by guiding and encouraging their preadolescent grandchildren to make decisions. The GP-GC interactions served as a dynamic force in promoting preadolescents' social skills. By employing a decolonized approach and drawing on the lived experiences of grandparents from three ethnic backgrounds in rural Malaysia, the study provided an understanding of grandparenting practices and their general implications across the three ethnic groups. The interview responses highlighted both commonalities and specificities in grandparenting practices and relationship dynamics shaped by religious, class, and sociocultural dimensions in rural Malaysia.

“If I say sustainable diet”: What are French consumers’ social representations?

The adoption of sustainable diets is essential to maintain our planet’s ecosystem and the well-being of its inhabitants. Scientists characterize sustainable diets by four essential dimensions: respectful of the environment, of good nutritional quality, culturally acceptable, and economically fair. The ‘sustainable diet’ concept, however, can be challenging for consumers to understand. They might partially understand the concept or have representations of the concept that are not shared between individuals, which could result in difficulty putting the recommendations into practice. Our study investigated French consumers’ social representations of sustainable diets, aiming more particularly to show if groups with different levels of education might have different representations. A free word association task was carried out by 273 participants aged between 20 and 60 years. Our results revealed common associations among the participants, including concepts such as ecology, health, environment, and locality. Sociocultural and economic dimensions were rarely mentioned, unlike the predominant environmental dimension. Segmentation analysis by education level revealed that participants in the higher education group had more multidimensional social representations. These results show that the ‘sustainable diet’ concept is not fully shared by French consumers. Clarifying the definition should improve consumer understanding, thus promoting the adoption of sustainable diet practices by all.

Why Do More People Commit Suicide after the Economic Bubble

This paper examines the relationship between the economic recession and the high suicidal rates in Japan during the post-economic bubble in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between the economic recession, mental health, suicide prevalence and sociocultural dynamics. The literature review and empirical analysis show compelling evidence linking economic instability, financial distress, and unemployment to increased suicide rates. In addition, this paper explores the interplay of cultural factors for instance, stigma surrounding mental health and collective norms, in explaining the vulnerability experienced by individuals during economic recessions and hard times. Key findings emphasize the role of economic stability in increasing vulnerabilities as well as the effects of unemployment, familial relationships and self-esteem. The findings also show that the societal pressure to adhere to traditional roles, especially in times of economic uncertainty, is a key stressor affecting mental well-being. The study advocates for detailed research strategies such as interviews and surveys to further investigate causal relationships. This research provides key insights into the varying factors that contribute to suicide during economic crises, suggesting the need for holistic interventions that address both sociocultural and economic dimensions.

Songs of the Sea: the Socio-Cultural Fabric of Fisherfolk Work Songs in Winneba

This article presents the findings of a study investigating the socio-cultural dimensions of work songs among the fisherfolk of the Winneba Fishing Community in Ghana's central region. It explores the significance of work songs in the daily lives of fisherfolk and their broader socio-cultural impact within the community. Employing a qualitative approach and utilizing a case study design, the authors gathered data through interviews, observations, and focus group discussions involving fifteen purposively sampled fisherfolk. The study was underpinned by the theories of Sense of Community as well as Understanding Music Making of a community. It was found that work songs are integral to various fishing activities in the Winneba fishing community, serving to foster community cohesion, enhance productivity, and preserve cultural heritage. The findings offer practical recommendations for the preservation and promotion of work songs within the Winneba fishing community.

Reclaiming public spaces: experiences of social exclusion of female sanitary workers in public spaces in Lahore, Pakistan

ABSTRACT This research explores the challenges faced by female Christian sanitary workers in the public spaces of Lahore, Pakistan, utilising Nancy Fraser’s analytical framework of redistribution, recognition, and representation to uncover multifaceted factors contributing to their societal marginalisation. Through in-depth interviews with 19 participants, the study sheds light on significant economic, sociocultural, and political barriers, including exploitative working conditions religious discrimination, and societal attitudes deeming sanitation labour as inferior. The findings reveal that workers endure exploitative work devoid of protections, heightened by enduring religious discrimination and caste hierarchies fostering disrespect towards sanitation labour as polluting and lowly. This situation induces anxiety amongst sanitation workers when accessing shared amenities, visceral harassment during housing searches, everyday humiliation while using public transport, and internalisation of shame even when accessing health-care facilities. The absence of workplace contracts, bargaining powers, or avenues to advocate for needs-based policy changes leaves workers politically marginalised, intensifying the precarity faced by multiple generations undertaking hazardous manual roles in urban waste management. Consequently, this engenders socio-spatial exclusion of female sanitation workers across economic, sociocultural, and political dimensions. This exclusion challenges prevailing state narratives celebrating cleanliness initiatives while perpetuating hardships for those contributing to waste management. The research emphasises the urgent need for targeted policy interventions, calling for a reassessment of administrative and planning approaches governing public spaces to foster inclusivity, challenge societal hierarchies, and ensure adequate representation for marginalised women amidst Lahore’s ongoing urbanisation.

Integrating Sustainable Design Principles into Construction Practices: A Comprehensive Review

The global push for sustainable development has placed significant pressure on the construction industry to prioritize sustainable practices. However, navigating the complexities of sustainability in construction presents challenges, given the multitude of variables and the lack of a unified evaluation framework. In this study, we conducted an extensive literature review to redefine sustainable construction and identify existing evaluation frameworks. Our findings led to the development of a conceptual framework that incorporates specific indicators and criteria across sociocultural, economic, technical, and environmental dimensions. This framework offers a structured approach to assess the sustainability of construction practices. Recommendations for its implementation are also provided.

Integrating Sustainable Design Principles into Construction Practices: A Comprehensive Review

The global push for sustainable development has placed significant pressure on the construction industry to prioritize sustainable practices. However, navigating the complexities of sustainability in construction presents challenges, given the multitude of variables and the lack of a unified evaluation framework. In this study, we conducted an extensive literature review to redefine sustainable construction and identify existing evaluation frameworks. Our findings led to the development of a conceptual framework that incorporates specific indicators and criteria across sociocultural, economic, technical, and environmental dimensions. This framework offers a structured approach to assess the sustainability of construction practices. Recommendations for its implementation are also provided.

Enabling factors and critical extensions for the algal-based bioplastics industry

Emerging industries and technologies are made up of objective, practical requirements and ideas that encompass broad hopes for what future newness might enable. The bioeconomy is one such emerging industry. Its recent evolution has involved a complicated and dynamic mix of promises, reality checks and subsequent ambivalences. This article frames and investigates the emerging algae-based bioplastics industry as one niche within this broader system envisaged for social, technological, economic, political and ecological change. As such, our paper presents two categories of knowledge that in practice interrelate: 1) specific and practical recommendations that can assist a future algal-based bioplastics industry to develop in Australia in ways that are conscious of socio-ecological and socio-cultural dimensions, and 2) critical extensions that go beyond the attributes of newness, impact, suddenness and universality often emphasised in both popular and scientific research into emerging green technologies. In particular, our analysis highlights the importance of specific temporal, tonal and spatial factors when framing the contextual factors associated emerging industries, technologies and the different pathways for change they might help support.

The conundrum of sustainable fishery: fishers’ experiences of the exclusionary processes of the EU Common Fisheries Policy

This study delves into the effects of the European Union's (EU) quota-based regulations on fishers’ access to marine resources, focusing on the experiences of fishers from North Shields, UK. Employing Hall, Hirsch, and Li's framework of powers of exclusion, this study examines how fishers experience evolving access to sea resources within the EU CFP. The findings illuminate the intricate interplay of regulatory, market, and legitimization powers, which drive exclusionary processes and profoundly influence fishers' access to resources and livelihoods. Importantly, this research underscores the necessity of comprehending the complex dynamics of exclusion within quota-based fisheries management, particularity within the unique socio-cultural contexts of fishing communities. Based on this research, further investigation into the socio-cultural dimensions of fishing is advocated to foster more inclusive policies and practices in fisheries management.

How and why aversive personality is expressed in political preferences.

Political orientation reflects beliefs, opinions, and values that are, at least in part, rooted in stable interindividual differences. Whereas evidence has accumulated with regard to the relevance of basic personality dimensions, especially concerning the sociocultural dimension of political ideology, less attention has been paid to the more specific dispositional tendency to assign a higher weight to one's own utility above others' (i.e., socially aversive personality), which is likely to play a pivotal role concerning the economic dimension of political ideology in particular. In three studies with over 66,000 participants from 38 countries, we show that individuals with elevated levels in aversive personality tend to endorse more right-wing political orientations in terms of a single left-right dimension, hold relevant ideological beliefs tied to both sociocultural and economic conservatism, and report corresponding electoral voting behavior. We further provide support for the idea that this overlap between a dispositional tendency toward aversive behavior and a right-wing political orientation can be attributed to shared belief systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Building a decision-support tool to inform sustainability approaches under complexity: Case study on managing wild ruminants

In wildlife management, differing perspectives among stakeholders generate conflicts about how to achieve disparate sustainability goals that include ecological, economic, and sociocultural dimensions. To mitigate such conflicts, decisions regarding wildlife management must be taken thoughtfully. To our knowledge, there exists no integrative modeling framework to inform these decisions, considering all dimensions of sustainability. We constructed a decision-support tool based on stakeholder workshops and a Bayesian decision network to inform management of wild ruminants in the federal state of Lower Austria. We use collaborative decision analysis to compare resource allocations while accounting for trade-offs among dimensions of sustainability. The tool is designed for application by non-technical users across diverse decision-making contexts with particular sets of wildlife management actions, objectives, and uncertainties. Our tool represents an important step toward developing and evaluating a transparent and replicable approach for mitigating wildlife-based conflicts in Europe and beyond.

Disentangling the Effects of Cognitive, Affective, and Sociocultural Factors on Risk Information Avoidance: A Meta-Analysis

Risk information avoidance (RIA) has become an increasingly ubiquitous behavior for people to deal with massive volumes of information. Given its detrimental impact, abundant studies were conducted to explore its antecedents. Nevertheless, the results are scattered and, in some cases, inconsistent. We thereby conducted a meta-analysis to present a synthesis of the current findings by identifying the most relevant antecedents and moderators. Guided by the framework of Planned Risk Information Avoidance, we examined 11 antecedents along cognitive, emotional, and sociocultural dimensions. Based on 52 articles across various contexts, the results indicated that information overload ( r = .30), efficacy belief ( r = −.11), fatalism ( r = .18), information insufficiency ( r = −.09), anxiety ( r = .26), worry ( r = −.08) and information avoiding norms ( r = .50) were significant predictors of RIA. Furthermore, uncertainty avoidance and information type were identified as moderators.

Engaging the public in decisions about emergency vaccine deployment strategies: Lessons from scenario-based discussions in Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified discussions on emergency vaccine deployment strategies, with current perspectives often neglecting extensive community involvement in ethical, logistical and political aspects. Existing social science literature predominantly delves into factors influencing trust, overlooking the untapped potential for community engagement. Our study examines community preparedness in Sierra Leone’s Kambia District, exploring diverse viewpoints on vaccine deployment strategies, emphasising Ebola and COVID-19 vaccinations. Utilising extensive ethnographic research from the Ebola vaccine trials (EBOVAC Salone) conducted in Kambia District from 2015 to 2021, including participant observation and tailored focus group discussions, we investigated various deployment scenarios with community leaders and citizens. Our findings underscore the multifaceted contributions of social science research with communities in shaping emergency vaccination strategies. These contributions span logistical insights, aligning campaigns with local livelihoods and social structures, and grounded ethical concerns assessing social justice outcomes across epidemic scenarios. This study emphasises the imperative of integrating discussions on vaccine confidence and deployment. It highlights communities’ proficiency in epidemiological reasoning and their ability to bring this in conversation with salient socio-cultural, economic and religious dimensions. We therefore promote the cultivation of public dialogue, collaborative creation of impactful vaccination initiatives alongside relevant communities in recognition of their invaluable perspectives .

An Approach to Evolutionary Sociology and its Implications for Theorizing on Socio-Cultural Evolution

A theoretical research program is outlined that seeks to use the Modern Synthesis in explaining human evolution, but also recognizes its limitations in explaining the evolution of socio-cultural systems. The universe, from a human perspective, is composed of physical, biological, and socio-cultural dimensions, each revealing unique properties and dynamics. In the case of the socio-cultural universe, modern evolutionary theory is relevant for some explanations, but not to the degree assumed by socio-biology, evolutionary psychology, and even co-evolutionary models. The program proposed is built around social network theory, cladistic analysis, and comparative neuro-anatomy, and outlines where biological analysis is appropriate and useful. An understanding of the biological basis of human behavior will allow sociologists to develop theoretical approaches to explaining the emergent properties of the socio-cultural universe. The strategy outlined will allow us to see what a mature evolutionary sociology can do: develop abstract theoretical laws about the dynamics of selection on socio-cultural formations in human societies.

The impact of migration on culturally-embedded and subjective perceptions of habitability in a context of environmental change

Environmental change is increasingly challenging the habitability of places around the world, particularly with regard to resource-dependent rural areas in the Global South. Apart from objectively measurable, bio-physical indices, it is likewise important to look at individual and group-specific perceptions of habitability, which are embedded in their respective socio-cultural context(s). Migration as a well-established household risk diversification strategy has the potential to increase people’s adaptive capacity, their well-being, and can shape the way people perceive the habitability of places. This study utilizes a human-centered approach in order to unravel the impacts of migration on culturally-embedded and subjective perceptions of habitability in a rural community in Northern Ghana which faces increasing pressure of environmental changes. Based on qualitative empirical research, we utilize place attachment, social status, and community cohesion as exemplary socio-cultural dimensions with particular relevance in this specific local context to showcase 1) the subjectivity and cultural embeddedness of habitability perceptions and 2) the respective potential of migration to influence such perceptions to both positive and negative ends. Positive migration impacts on the underlying socio-cultural context(s) can serve to undergird (collective) responsibility and adaptive action towards improving local habitability in parallel to encouraging efforts that strive to maintain cultural integrity. Integrating this knowledge in future habitability assessments can pave the way for context-sensitive and locally-adjusted resilience-building strategies that take the potential benefits and disadvantages of migration into account.

Role of Biodiversity and its Importance in Sustainable Development: A Comprehensive Review

Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, plays a crucial role in sustainable development by providing essential ecosystem services, supporting livelihoods, and fostering resilience to environmental changes. This comprehensive review explores the significance of biodiversity in sustainable development through an examination of its ecological, economic, and socio-cultural dimensions. The paper discusses the current state of global biodiversity, the drivers of biodiversity loss, and the consequences for ecosystems and human well-being. It also evaluates the role of biodiversity in key sectors such as agriculture, medicine, and tourism, highlighting the economic value derived from biodiversity. Furthermore, the review addresses policy frameworks and initiatives aimed at conserving and managing biodiversity, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation and community engagement. Finally, future directions for research and action to enhance biodiversity conservation and promote sustainable development are proposed.

The impact of globalization on the revival of innovative housing models in Doha, Qatar

After the oil and economic boom of the 20th century, Doha experienced significant development in terms of the architectural scene, design, function, and sociocultural transformations. The advancements in global architecture have facilitated innovative and streamlined construction processes, while creating a paradigm shift in the overall architecture of dwellings and how people navigate around the house. In this context, this research aims to study the impact of globalization on housing typologies and the factors influencing their evolution, focusing on the city of Doha as a case study. This study is based on a qualitative research approach that centers its investigation on Doha while exploring strategies for preserving Arabic-Islamic identity. The research investigation used a content analysis methodology to analyze three additional case studies within the MENA region. The results indicate that new housing typologies have emerged in cities due to globalization and changes in physical and sociocultural dimensions. In addition, preserving older neighborhoods and housing typologies through a bottom-up approach is essential for design creativity and climatic and sociocultural sensitivity while exchanging knowledge and sharing experiences between generations. Furthermore, this article promotes heritage awareness and encourages local authorities to preserve Doha’s surviving historic neighborhoods and architectural language to restore the city’s urban identity. The findings of this research can provide helpful guidance to architects and urban planners on how Doha’s housing has developed until the contemporary period.

Playing With Ancestors: Writing as an Act of Vulnerable Listening

This paper explores the possibilities of engaging in playful interactions with ancestral forces, expanding the boundaries of academic writing. Specifically, it examines the interplay between writing and inquiry, emphasizing play as a means of communion with both human and nonhuman ancestors, fostering vulnerable listening within academic discourse. Departing from conventional productivity-centric writing approaches, the paper advocates for a paradigm wherein writing responds to curiosity, evoking play, and imagination, while also embracing experimentation and learning. This conceptual shift envisions writing as a dynamic companion, extending its engagement beyond human ancestors through a posthuman theoretical perspective. Similar to play, writing emerges from interactive experiences, offering a conduit for establishing profound connections with the external world. Engaging with ancestral figures through playful frameworks necessitates embodied practice, encompassing sensory, emotional, and sociocultural dimensions. The paper employs practices of storytelling, metaphors, and nonlinear narratives in an exploration of three nonhuman ancestors in particular: moths, ladders, and trees.