Specific Campaigns Research Articles

Feminist Strategy in International Law: Understanding Its Legal, Normative and Political Dimensions

While international law has typically waxed and waned in feminist favours, contemporary feminist engagements reveal a strongly critical, reflective thrust about the costs of engaging international law and the quality of ostensible gains. To inform this reflection, the article draws on feminist scholarship in international law – and a specific feminist campaign for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security in Northern Ireland – to distill three distinct feminist understandings of international law that underpin both theory and advocacy. Firstly, international law is understood as a system of rules to which states are bound; secondly, as an avenue for the articulation of shared feminist values; and thirdly, as a political tool to advance feminist demands. The study finds that feminist doctrinalists, and those working within the institutions of international law, share concerns about the resolution’s legal deficiencies and the broader place of the Security Council within international lawmaking. These concerns are, however, largely remote for local feminist activists, who recognized in the resolution important political resources to support their mobilization, their alliances with others and ultimately, it is hoped, their engagement with state actors. The article concludes that critical reflection on feminist strategy in international law is usefully informed by more deliberate consideration of its legal, political and normative dimensions, as well as an awareness that these dimensions will be differently weighted by differently situated feminist actors.

Design of an Air Pollution Monitoring Campaign in Beijing for Application to Cohort Health Studies.

No cohort studies in China on the health effects of long-term air pollution exposure have employed exposure estimates at the fine spatial scales desirable for cohort studies with individual-level health outcome data. Here we assess an array of modern air pollution exposure estimation approaches for assigning within-city exposure estimates in Beijing for individual pollutants and pollutant sources to individual members of a cohort. Issues considered in selecting specific monitoring data or new monitoring campaigns include: needed spatial resolution, exposure measurement error and its impact on health effect estimates, spatial alignment and compatibility with the cohort, and feasibility and expense. Sources of existing data largely include administrative monitoring data, predictions from air dispersion or chemical transport models and remote sensing (specifically satellite) data. New air monitoring campaigns include additional fixed site monitoring, snapshot monitoring, passive badge or micro-sensor saturation monitoring and mobile monitoring, as well as combinations of these. Each of these has relative advantages and disadvantages. It is concluded that a campaign in Beijing that at least includes a mobile monitoring component, when coupled with currently available spatio-temporal modeling methods, should be strongly considered. Such a campaign is economical and capable of providing the desired fine-scale spatial resolution for pollutants and sources.

Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding tuberculosis among patients with TB attending tribal health care centres of H.D. Kote taluq, Mysuru district

Background: Tuberculosis is a major global health problem. The current global picture of tuberculosis shows continued progress but not fast enough. During the year 2013, an estimated 9 million people developed tuberculosis, which is equivalent to 126 cases per 100000 populations. High mortality rate due to TB among tribal clearly suggest the lack of awareness regarding the disease. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of tribal patients regarding tuberculosis.Methods: A community based retrospective and prospective follow up study was undertaken during February 2014 to October 2014. All the patients attending VMH, Sargur and H.D. Kote Govt hospital who are diagnosed for TB in past three months and those who will be diagnosed for the same in the next 6 months were included for the study. A pretested structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data collected was entered in Microsoft excel sheet and analyzed by using SPSS-22.0.Results: 6.3% of study subjects knew TB was caused by bacteria or some germs. Majority responded that TB was caused due to smoking, alcohol consumption, not taking food or sins of the past. 88% knew the symptoms of TB. 16% of the study subjects knew the organs affected by TB. More than half (66%) had unsatisfactory knowledge on TB on using a Knowledge score. 78.1% agreed that completely cured TB patients could marry.Conclusions: The present study highlights the lack of awareness among the tribal patients even though they receive the treatment from DOTS provider. Social stigma regarding TB is a barrier in successful implementation of RNTCP. Creating awareness through specific, effective and innovative IEC and BCC campaigns in tribal areas is required for the successful implementation of DOTS.

Pilot study of digital tools to support multimodal hand hygiene in a clinical setting

Digital tools for hand hygiene do not share data, limiting their potential to support multimodal programs. The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom, worked with GOJO (in the United States), MEG (in Ireland), and SureWash (in Ireland) to integrate their systems and pilot their combined use in a clinical setting. A 28-bed medical oncology unit piloted the system for 5 weeks. Live data from the tools were combined to create a novel combined risk status metric that was displayed publicly and via a management Web site. The combined risk status reduced over the pilot period. However, larger and longer duration studies are required to reach statistical significance. Staff and especially patient reaction was positive in that 70% of the hand hygiene training events were by patients. The digital tools did not negatively impact clinical workflow and received positive engagement from staff and patients. The combined risk status did not change significantly over the short pilot period because there was also no specific hand hygiene improvement campaign underway at the time of the pilot study. The results indicate that integrated digital tools can provide both rich data and novel tools that both measure impact and provide feedback to support the implementation of multimodal hand hygiene campaigns, reducing the need for significant additional personnel resources.

Monitoring environmental burden reduction from household waste prevention

In this study, the amount of prevented household waste in Kyoto city was quantified using three methods. Subsequently, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction by waste prevention was calculated in order to monitor the impact of waste prevention. The methods of quantification were “relative change from baseline year (a),” “absolute change from potential waste generation (b),” and “absolute amount of activities (c).” Method (a) was popular for measuring waste prevention, but method (b) was the original approach to determine the absolute amount of waste prevention by estimating the potential waste generation. Method (c) also provided the absolute value utilizing the information of activities. Methods (b) and (c) enable the evaluation of the waste prevention activities with a similar baseline for recycling.Methods (b) and (c) gave significantly higher GHG reductions than method (a) because of the difference in baseline between them. Therefore, setting a baseline is very important for evaluating waste prevention. In practice, when focusing on the monitoring of a specific policy or campaign, method (a) is an appropriate option. On the other hand, when comparing the total impact of waste prevention to that of recycling, methods (b) and (c) should be applied.

Cost of recognisability of a sponsor?s brand achieved through TV broadcasts

Research background: The main aim of engaging with the research topic under discussion was the desire to equip those responsible for the process of managing sponsorship campaigns with a method that would enable comparison and evaluation of the results of a given campaign with the effects obtained by other campaigns and different forms of promotion. A significant assumption was that the proposed method does not require any prolonged or expensive research and that it also allows to add other research tools (like e.g. an eye-tracker) if need be. The chosen research topic also constitutes an alternative to the usage of advertising value equivalency, as it is not considered a reliable indicator of effectiveness of sponsorship campaigns.
 Purpose of the article: The central aim of this research study was to evaluate the feasibility of assessing costs incurred by sponsors of sports events as the price of gaining recognisability of their brands by television audiences watching broadcasts of sponsored events.
 Methods: The research was conducted on the basis of a questionnaire which gave data concerning spontaneous and assisted recognisability of sponsors? brands. Participants consisted of viewers who had watched volleyball match indicated by the investigator. The research also included data obtained from source materials, concerning the costs of sponsor-ship agreements and viewership of chosen volleyball matches.
 Findings & Value added: The investigation revealed that it is possible to calculate the costs of reaching television audiences of sports events effectively, i.e. where audiences are given the opportunity to recognize a brand as a sponsor of a given sports event. Results of the research offer sponsorship campaign managers a possibility to compare the costs incurred to reach their target group as part of a specific campaign, with other similar campaigns undertaken by a particular company, as well as with the results achieved by other sponsors of the same events.

Deviation of Chinese Adults' Diet from the Chinese Food Pagoda 2016 and Its Association with Adiposity.

Changing diet in China contributes to a raising prevalence of overweight and obesity. This study aimed to evaluate the dietary status of Chinese adults (20–59 years old) using the China Food Pagoda (CFP) proposed in the Chinese Dietary Guidelines 2016 (CDG), and investigate the association between adiposity and deviation of real diet from CFP using an ordered logistic regression. Results showed that the consumption of fruits, eggs, meat, and poultry increased significantly during 2004–2011, while the consumption of cereal, potatoes, and beans dropped down significantly during the same period (all p < 0.05). Meanwhile, great disparity was detected between real consumption and recommended intake in CFP. In particular, a deficient intake was found for milk and milk products, eggs, and fruit, while over-consumption was observed for cereal, potatoes and beans, meat and poultry, legumes and nuts, oil, and salt. In addition, over-consumption of cereal, legumes and nuts, and salt, as well as under-consumption of vegetables, and meat and poultry, were associated with a higher risk of having high body mass index (BMI), while lower consumption of cereal, potatoes and beans, eggs, and higher consumption of vegetables contributed to low hazard of overweight/obesity (all p < 0.05). The huge disparity between real consumption and the CFP calls for specific health education campaigns.

Self-Care for the Prevention and Management of Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke: A Scientific Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the American Heart Association.

Self‐care is defined as a naturalistic decision‐making process addressing both the prevention and management of chronic illness, with core elements of self‐care maintenance, self‐care monitoring, and self‐care management. In this scientific statement, we describe the importance of self‐care in the American Heart Association mission and vision of building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. The evidence supporting specific self‐care behaviors such as diet and exercise, barriers to self‐care, and the effectiveness of self‐care in improving outcomes is reviewed, as is the evidence supporting various individual, family‐based, and community‐based approaches to improving self‐care. Although there are many nuances to the relationships between self‐care and outcomes, there is strong evidence that self‐care is effective in achieving the goals of the treatment plan and cannot be ignored. As such, greater emphasis should be placed on self‐care in evidence‐based guidelines.

Oral Vaccination with Heat-Inactivated Mycobacterium bovis Does Not Interfere with the Antemortem Diagnostic Techniques for Tuberculosis in Goats.

Vaccination against tuberculosis (TB) is prohibited in cattle or other species subjected to specific TB eradication campaigns, due to the interference that it may cause with the official diagnostic tests. However, immunization with a heat-inactivated (HI) Mycobacterium bovis vaccine via the oral route has been suggested to overcome this issue. In this study, the main goal was to assess the interference of the HI vaccine by different routes of administration using a previous vaccination and re-vaccination (boosting) protocol. TB-free kid goats were divided into three groups: oral (n = 16), intramuscular (IM; n = 16), and control (n = 16). Results showed that there was a significant difference in the percentage of animals positive to the single intradermal test (SIT) and blood based interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) caused by vaccination when performed in the IM group compared to the oral group (p < 0.001). Nevertheless, no positivity to the SIT or IGRA test was observed in orally vaccinated goats regardless of the different interpretation criteria applied. None of the groups presented positive antibody titers using an in-house ELISA and samples collected 2 months after the boost. These results suggest the potential usefulness of the HI vaccine by the oral route in goats to minimize the interference on diagnostic tests (skin and IGRA tests) and reducing the necessity of defined antigens to replace the traditional purified protein derivatives for diagnosis. Finally, the results pave the way to future efficacy studies in goats using different routes of HI vaccination.

Carbon and nutrient fluxes from floodplains and reservoirs in the Zambezi basin

Inland waters are under increasing anthropogenic stresses. In the last century, roughly two thirds of the world's wetland area disappeared, and so many dams have been constructed that currently 50% of river water passes through reservoirs before reaching the ocean. Large river systems in tropical and subtropical areas often develop extensive floodplain areas that will suffer from modifications in the flow regime as another boom in dam construction is under way. In the Zambezi catchment, we developed a comparative analysis of the biogeochemical effects of floodplains (Barotse Plains) and reservoirs (Lake Kariba) on tropical river biogeochemistry, to provide a basis to assess the net effect of eliminating wetland areas and transforming rivers into artificial lakes. To support such analyses, we propose a combination of specific sampling campaigns with sensor deployments to capture the seasonality of fluxes over large regional scales in remote areas.Dams and reservoirs alter the riverine biogeochemistry in distinct, and often different ways. While the Barotse Plains floodplain releases particles during a flood cycle, this suspended material is effectively trapped in Kariba reservoir. Seasonal production of biomass on the floodplain binds nutrients in the form of organic matter that sustains biological productivity in downstream ecosystems. Degradation of the biomass can lead to significant greenhouse gas emissions from the floodplain. The reservoir traps particles and nutrients, but carbon burial (120·103tCperyear) is offset by annual emissions of methane to the atmosphere with about 3000·103t C-CO2-equivalents. Therefore, building new dams will add permanent sinks of particles and nutrients to the land-ocean aquatic continuum, while draining riparian wetlands will disrupt their functions as temporal storage systems and source of terrestrial biomass for aquatic food chains.

Sugar Sweetened Beverages Consumption among University Students of Bangladesh

Drinking large amounts of sugary beverages can increase the risk of gaining weight and developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other metabolic diseases. This study examined the preference, prevalence and pattern of sugar sweetened beverages consumption among university students of Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study was carried out from February to April, 2017 among students attending in a private university of Bangladesh. One hundred fifty undergraduates responded (83.4% male, 15.9% female) in this study. Most students (95.4%) reported sugared beverage intake and 53.6% reported more than two days in a week intake. Male students were more likely than female students to report regular sugary beverages intake (85.4% vs. 14.5%). The main reasons for fast food consumption were: good taste and refreshing (80.1%), cost effective (6.6%), easy accessibility (2.6%), increased convenience (8.6%), peer influence (1.3%). Good taste and price were the most important factors in choosing beverages. Coca-Cola (49%), Fanta (25.8%), Sprite(9.9%) and Slice(14.6%) has been reported as mostly consumed beverages among students. Most students (54.5%) reported sugary beverages purchase from neighborhood convenient stores. 94.5% students said that if they would provide with healthful beverages within their food environment, they would prefer drinking healthful beverages (lemon water, non-sugary beverages) instead of sugar beverages. Self-reported sugar-sweetened beverage consumption among undergraduates is substantial and likely contributes considerable non-nutritive calories, which may contribute to weight gain. Specific health education programs, dietary guidelines and effective public awareness campaigns could be initiated to address the unhealthy drinking pattern of university students and improve their health.

Comparative analyses of structural features and scaffold diversity for purchasable compound libraries

Large purchasable screening libraries of small molecules afforded by commercial vendors are indispensable sources for virtual screening (VS). Selecting an optimal screening library for a specific VS campaign is quite important to improve the success rates and avoid wasting resources in later experimental phases. Analysis of the structural features and molecular diversity for different screening libraries can provide valuable information to the decision making process when selecting screening libraries for VS. In this study, the structural features and scaffold diversity of eleven purchasable screening libraries and Traditional Chinese Medicine Compound Database (TCMCD) were analyzed and compared. Their scaffold diversity represented by the Murcko frameworks and Level 1 scaffolds was characterized by the scaffold counts and cumulative scaffold frequency plots, and visualized by Tree Maps and SAR Maps. The analysis demonstrates that, based on the standardized subsets with similar molecular weight distributions, Chembridge, ChemicalBlock, Mucle, TCMCD and VitasM are more structurally diverse than the others. Compared with all purchasable screening libraries, TCMCD has the highest structural complexity indeed but more conservative molecular scaffolds. Moreover, we found that some representative scaffolds were important components of drug candidates against different drug targets, such as kinases and guanosine-binding protein coupled receptors, and therefore the molecules containing pharmacologically important scaffolds found in screening libraries might be potential inhibitors against the relevant targets. This study may provide valuable perspective on which purchasable compound libraries are better for you to screen.Graphical abstractSelecting diverse compound libraries with scaffold analyses.

Tuberculosis treatment and Smoking, Armenia, 2014–2016

IntroductionTuberculosis and tobacco prove to be increasingly apparent world problems. Armenia is a developing country which is facing issues related to the high rates of tobacco consumption. Moreover, it is among the list of high multi-drug resistant (MDR) Tuberculosis TB burden countries. Treatment success rate in Armenia for sputum smear-positive cases never reached World Health Organization's (WHO) target of 85% in last 15 years. Data from different studies completed across the world suggests that there is an association between smoking and negative treatment outcomes. MethodsThis retrospective study was designed to investigate aforementioned associations between TB treatment outcomes and smoking status of TB patients. Data for the study were derived from the national data available in the electronic database of the Armenian National TB Center. ResultsBased on inclusion and exclusion criteria 992 TB patients registered in 2014 were enrolled in this study. All of them are were TB patients in which 387 were smokers and 605 were non-smokers. Notably, adjusted analysis showed that individuals who smoked during TB treatment had 1.61 higher odds of having unsuccessful TB treatment outcome. Additionally, consistent with the literature, statistically significant association was identified between TB treatment outcome and other well factors such as sputum smear status (OR=2.24, p<0.01), HIV status (OR,=1.87, p<0.01) of patients, etc. ConclusionsThe smoking, HIV positive status, positive sputum smear microscopy test were identified as an important factors associated with the unsuccessful TB treatment outcome in Armenia. It highlights the necessity of having specific restrictions and campaign programs to reduce smoking rates among TB patients in order to improve current TB treatment and care services throughout Armenia.

Methods for Coding Tobacco-Related Twitter Data: A Systematic Review.

BackgroundAs Twitter has grown in popularity to 313 million monthly active users, researchers have increasingly been using it as a data source for tobacco-related research.ObjectiveThe objective of this systematic review was to assess the methodological approaches of categorically coded tobacco Twitter data and make recommendations for future studies.MethodsData sources included PsycINFO, Web of Science, PubMed, ABI/INFORM, Communication Source, and Tobacco Regulatory Science. Searches were limited to peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings in English from January 2006 to July 2016. The initial search identified 274 articles using a Twitter keyword and a tobacco keyword. One coder reviewed all abstracts and identified 27 articles that met the following inclusion criteria: (1) original research, (2) focused on tobacco or a tobacco product, (3) analyzed Twitter data, and (4) coded Twitter data categorically. One coder extracted data collection and coding methods.ResultsE-cigarettes were the most common type of Twitter data analyzed, followed by specific tobacco campaigns. The most prevalent data sources were Gnip and Twitter’s Streaming application programming interface (API). The primary methods of coding were hand-coding and machine learning. The studies predominantly coded for relevance, sentiment, theme, user or account, and location of user.ConclusionsStandards for data collection and coding should be developed to be able to more easily compare and replicate tobacco-related Twitter results. Additional recommendations include the following: sample Twitter’s databases multiple times, make a distinction between message attitude and emotional tone for sentiment, code images and URLs, and analyze user profiles. Being relatively novel and widely used among adolescents and black and Hispanic individuals, Twitter could provide a rich source of tobacco surveillance data among vulnerable populations.

Gas chromatography vs. quantum cascade laser-based N&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt;O flux measurements using a novel chamber design

Abstract. Recent advances in laser spectrometry offer new opportunities to investigate the soil–atmosphere exchange of nitrous oxide. During two field campaigns conducted at a grassland site and a willow field, we tested the performance of a quantum cascade laser (QCL) connected to a newly developed automated chamber system against a conventional gas chromatography (GC) approach using the same chambers plus an automated gas sampling unit with septum capped vials and subsequent laboratory GC analysis. Through its high precision and time resolution, data of the QCL system were used for quantifying the commonly observed nonlinearity in concentration changes during chamber deployment, making the calculation of exchange fluxes more accurate by the application of exponential models. As expected, the curvature values in the concentration increase was higher during long (60 min) chamber closure times and under high-flux conditions (FN2O &gt; 150 µg N m−2 h−1) than those values that were found when chambers were closed for only 10 min and/or when fluxes were in a typical range of 2 to 50 µg N m−2 h−1. Extremely low standard errors of fluxes, i.e., from ∼ 0.2 to 1.7 % of the flux value, were observed regardless of linear or exponential flux calculation when using QCL data. Thus, we recommend reducing chamber closure times to a maximum of 10 min when a fast-response analyzer is available and this type of chamber system is used to keep soil disturbance low and conditions around the chamber plot as natural as possible. Further, applying linear regression to a 3 min data window with rejecting the first 2 min after closure and a sampling time of every 5 s proved to be sufficient for robust flux determination while ensuring that standard errors of N2O fluxes were still on a relatively low level. Despite low signal-to-noise ratios, GC was still found to be a useful method to determine the mean the soil–atmosphere exchange of N2O on longer timescales during specific campaigns. Intriguingly, the consistency between GC and QCL-based campaign averages was better under low than under high N2O efflux conditions, although single flux values were highly scattered during the low efflux campaign. Furthermore, the QCL technology provides a useful tool to accurately investigate the highly debated topic of diurnal courses of N2O fluxes and its controlling factors. Our new chamber design protects the measurement spot from unintended shading and minimizes disturbance of throughfall, thereby complying with high quality requirements of long-term observation studies and research infrastructures.

Political orientation, environmental values, and climate change beliefs and attitudes: An empirical cross country analysis

Based on unique data from representative computer-based surveys among more than 3400 citizens, this paper empirically examines the determinants of several climate change beliefs and attitudes in three countries which are key players in international climate policy, namely the USA, Germany (as the largest country in the European Union), and China. Our econometric analysis implies that political orientation in the USA is by far more relevant for general climate change beliefs and beliefs in anthropogenic climate change than in Germany and China. Furthermore, US and German citizens with a conservative, but not green identification significantly less often support publicly financed climate policy, while US and German respondents with a social–green identification and Chinese respondents belonging to the Communist Party have a significantly higher willingness to pay a price premium for climate-friendly products. However, our econometric analysis overall reveals that environmental values, which are measured by a New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, are the major factors for climate change beliefs and attitudes in all three countries and thus play an even more dominant role than political orientation. In addition, environmental values weaken the differences in several climate change beliefs and attitudes between a right-wing and a left-wing identification. These interaction effects between political orientation and the NEP scale are especially strong in the USA, only relevant for the support of publicly financed climate policy in Germany, and negligible in China. Our estimation results suggest alternative strategies such as specific communication campaigns in order to reduce the climate change skepticism in conservative and right-wing circles in the USA and to increase the support of climate policies among such population groups.

Appealing to the crowd: ethical justifications in Canadian medical crowdfunding campaigns

Medical crowdfunding is growing in terms of the number of active campaigns, amount of funding raised and public visibility. Little is known about how campaigners appeal to potential donors outside...

Hydrochemistry, multidimensional statistics, and rock mechanics investigations for Sanshandao Gold Mine, China

Prediction of bursting water in a submarine mine (Sanshandao Gold Mine) is very important. The aim of this study was to understand the water sources, mixing ratios, and flow paths in a mining region by using hydrochemistry, principal component analysis (PCA), and rock mechanics. Field observations reveal that there are unusual geothermal gradients and complicated geological conditions. Samples collected from the surface and every depth of the tunnel were analyzed for various ions and isotopes (18O and D). PCA was used to identify the most likely water sources on the foundation of hydrochemistry and a conceptual model. Four kinds of water sources were identified: (1) water mixture of surface freshwater and seawater, (2) brine derived from a deep closed environment, (3) thermal brine derived from the northwestern fault (F3), and (4) Quaternary water. The water sources were variable with time at a sampling site. The combination of water sources in a specific sampling campaign can be decided by the positive scores on principal components (PCs). The PCA results indicate that the first and the fourth kind of water source appear in the deep tunnel with the continual mining activity. Mixing ratio calculations for each sampling campaign show that the first and the fourth kind of water source constitute a small proportion of the total water. The main water sources are the second and third kinds of water. Finally, water flow paths were determined based on the PCA, and rock mechanics is used to explain the change in the water flow paths after excavation. The results show the following: (1) There are several strong water diversion zones that distribute at a certain spacing interval on the large scale and (2) “zonal disintegration” is also found in the tunnel. The fractured zone and the non-fractured zone appear in turn around the tunnel. The rock mass in these two zones represents the tensile and compressive properties, respectively. Thus, volumes of water and permeability of joints and fractures in these two zones are great different.

Dynamic evolution of government's public trust in online collective behaviour: a social computing approach

There is a dearth of research on why public trust in government rises and falls over time following online collective behaviours. For the problem of dynamic process and micro-macro evolution mechanism of this change in trust whenever it occurs over any specific campaign, in our research, a proposed social computing approach is employed to simulate the change of public trust in government on the basis of a heterogeneous network under three ideal network topologies including random network, scale-free network, and small world network. The results show the dynamics of a change in public trust of the government exhibited in online collective behaviour can be dependent on the interplay between the participants and event, where the former mainly occurs on a social network layer, and the latter on an information layer. This leads to a significantly integrated role between macro network driving effect and micro group convergence effect. Furthermore, several parameters have phase change phenomena in this process, while phase critical value and degree of impact vary from different network structures. The trigger contextual intensity is an important evolutionary power, and plays an integrated role in the evolution process of a shift in the public's trust of government.

Humanizing the Sacred: Sisters in Islam and the Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia

Humanizing Sacred: Sisters in Islam and Struggle for Gender Justice in Malaysia. by Azza Basarudin. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2016. Softcover: 330pp. Sisters in Islam (SIS) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocates for Muslim women's rights in Malaysia. The NGO works within an Islamic framework, reinterpreting sacred texts through a feminist lens. Members of SIS have been labelled as deviants by Islamic authorities, have had their books banned, received threats and had a fatwa issued against them. Humanizing Sacred is a richly detailed ethnographic account of this path-breaking organization. Basarudin's book has two goals. The first is examine the possibilities and challenges of translating feminist interpretations of Islam into grounded activism effect change in social mores and legal codes, and illuminate how women's activism within Islam is a space of dissent and of remaking 'Muslim' self and identity (p. 5). The second is to explore activism as space for women transform themselves into political actors and visible women subjects in public sphere (p. 6). The work of SIS in understanding primary sources of Islam, such as Quran and sunna (practices of Prophet that include hadith, traditions/ narrations) through a feminist reinterpretation allows for a vision of Islam that is kind, compassionate and compatible with human rights values of equality and justice. This new form of knowledge-making challenges patriarchal interpreters and traditional religious institutions. This book examines SIS' struggle reclaim women's human dignity as believing Muslims and call on their communities re-evaluate communal and moral obligations, as well as ensure that Islam remains a 'living' religion (p. 5). Carefully researched and thoughtfully written, author's writing style draws on Kirin Narayan's enactment of hybridity, interspersing narratives with analysis as a strategy that problematizes the dichotomies of theory and praxis, personal and professional, insider and outsider, and authentic and inauthentic (p. 27). This strategy works well, and makes for an engaging and lively book. Chapter 1 provides cultural and political context by describing history of British colonial intervention and institutionalization of Islam in national laws and policies after independence. Chapter 2 introduces reader life histories of SIS' founding members, their personal trajectories and struggles, and how their understanding of Islam informs organization's vision of equality and justice. Chapter 3 examines strategies employed by SIS by looking at specific advocacy campaigns and other activities such as study sessions and workshops, illustrating process of translating feminist interpretations of sacred texts into grounded activism. Chapter 4 examines state power and religious authorities' invalidation techniques silence alternative discourses. Chapter 5 discusses how SIS members provide an alternative model of female leadership by showing that women can be powerful knowledge producers and transmitters. Chapter 6 assesses impact of SIS' activism at international level and vice versa. Here author focuses on Musawah, a transnational initiative spearheaded by SIS, highlighting NGO's global success but also impact and repercussions it has within Malaysia. Humanizing Sacred joins a line-up of innovative studies on Muslim women's participation in faith-based movements that extend our understanding of agency and resistance, such as Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and Feminist Subject (2005), Lara Deeb's An Enchanted Modern: Politics and Piety in Shi'i Lebanon (2006) and Sherine Hafez's An Islam on Her Own: Reconsidering Islam and Secularism in Women's Islamic Movements (2011). …