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Kinship, Patriarchal Structure and Women’s Bargaining with Patriarchy in Rural Sindh, Pakistan (Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia)
by Nadia AghaThe book provides insights into the prevailing patriarchal system in rural Pakistan. It elaborates on the kinship system in rural Sindh and explores how young married women strategize and negotiate with patriarchy. Drawing on qualitative methodologies, the book reveals the strong relationship between poverty and the perpetuation of patriarchy. Women’s strategies help elevate their position in their families, such as attention to household tasks, producing children, and doing handicraft work for their well-being. These conditions are usually seen as evidence of women’s subordination, but these are also strategies for survival where accommodation to patriarchy wins them approval. The book concludes that women’s life-long struggle is, in fact, a technique of negotiating with patriarchy. In so doing, they internalize the culture that rests on their subordination and reproduce it in older age in exercising power by oppressing other junior women.
Transforming Education in Practice: In Search of a Community of Phronimos
by Wai-yan Ronald TangThis book inspires educational practitioners with special regard to the way how practice in the frontline service is able to inform leadership and policy decision. It empowers them to identify what features are counted as professional and how they could be turned into sources for developing wise judgment and eliciting creative acts in teaching, lesson planning and course design, collaboration, and knowledge excavation to shape policy decision and planning. In addition, for those who are used to conceive the world and their practice from a positivist tradition may find the insights of this book illuminating particularly when they are looking for a paradigm shift in understanding their practice. Last but not least, educators and teacher educators in particular will find the ideas in this book more promising in escalating the awareness of teachers of the next generation towards what is ‘good’ (phronesis) in terms of their professional attitude and actual performance (informed by both techne and episteme) in their relevant settings.
Caste, COVID-19, and Inequalities of Care: Lessons from South Asia (People, Cultures and Societies: Exploring and Documenting Diversities)
by Sanghmitra S. Acharya Stephen ChristopherThis book explores how social discrimination in South Asia contributes to health disparities and impedes well-being. Specifically, it addresses how marginalization shapes health outcomes, both under normal circumstances and specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Coming from diverse backgrounds and representing different academic disciplines, the authors have contributed a range of chapters drawing from quantitative and ethnographic material across South Asia. Chapters address reservation politics, tribal lifeways, Dalit exclusions from governmental institutions, Muslim ghettoization, gendered domestic violence, social determinants of health among migrant workers, and the pandemic fallout across South Asian society, among other subjects. Scholars draw on decades of experience and firsthand ethnographic fieldwork among affected communities. The chapters provide an innovative analysis, often in real time, of the human toll of casteism, classism, patriarchy, and religious intolerance—many set against the spectre of COVID-19. Many authors not only present social critiques but also offer specific policy recommendations. The book is of great interest to social scientists, public health practitioners, and policy advocates interested in addressing systemic inequalities and ensuring that future pandemics are not disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable.
Unsettling Literacies: Directions for literacy research in precarious times (Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education #15)
by Claire Lee Chris Bailey Cathy Burnett Jennifer RowsellThis book asks researchers what uncertainty means for literacy research, and for how literacy plays through uncertain lives. While the book is not focused only on COVID-19, it is significant that it was written in 2020-2021, when our authors’ and readers’ working and personal lives were thrown into disarray by stay-at-home orders. The book opens up new spaces for examining ways that literacy has come to matter in the world.Drawing on the reflections of international literacy researchers and important new voices, this book presents re-imagined methods and theoretical imperatives. These difficult times have surfaced new communicative practices and opened out spaces for exploration and activism, prompting re-examination of relationships between research, literacy and social justice. The book considers varied and consequential events to explore new ways to think and research literacy and to unsettle what we know and accept as fundamental to literacy research, opening ourselves up for change. It provides direction to the field of literacy studies as pressing global concerns are prompting literacy researchers to re-examine what and how they research in times of precarity.
Considerations for a Post-COVID-19 Technology and Innovation Ecosystem in China (Disaster Risk Reduction)
by Jinling Hua Bismark Adu Gyamfi Rajib ShawCOVID-19 has made differential impacts on countries and communities around the world. China, where COVID-19 started, has developed and utilized different types of technologies, including both traditional and disruptive technologies, to address the pandemic risks. Also, there have been many innovations in applying technologies in different contexts during the pandemic as well as in the post-pandemic recovery and preparedness aspects. This book covers some of these technological developments as well as the governance mechanisms for developing a technology and innovation ecosystem in a post-COVID-19 context in China. The book also explores the experiences and lessons learned from different types of technologies and their implementation in the post-COVID-19 period and highlights how they can be useful to prepare for future calamities.
The Quality of Life in Contemporary China (Research Series on the Chinese Dream and China’s Development Path)
by Peilin LiThis book introduces a multidimensional system that evaluates quality of life in China by pursuing a quantitative and analytical approach. A host of factors, including economic conditions and individual wellbeing, can affect people’s satisfaction with their lives. In addition to GDP-associated indicators, sociological and environmental factors are also relevant when it comes to evaluating quality of life. Providing a general framework, while also considering gender, education and geographical differences in assessing quality of life, the book offers policy suggestions for improving both individual quality of life and the health of society as a whole.
The Palgrave Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology
by Brit Ross Winthereik Klaus Hoeyer Cathrine Hasse Ayo Wahlberg Dorthe Brogård Kristensen Maja Hojer Bruun Rachel Douglas-JonesThis Handbook offers an overview of the thriving and diverse field of anthropological studies of technology. It features 39 original chapters, each reviewing the state of the art of current research and enlivening the field of study through ethnographic analysis of human-technology interfaces, forms of social organisation, technological practices and/or systems of belief and meaning in different parts of the world. The Handbook is organised around some of the most important characteristics of anthropological studies of technology today: the diverse knowledge practices that technologies involve and on which they depend; the communities, collectives, and categories that emerge around technologies; anthropology’s contribution to proliferating debates on ethics, values, and morality in relation to technology; and infrastructures that highlight how all technologies are embedded in broader political economies and socio-historical processes that shape and often reinforce inequality and discrimination while also generating diversity. All chapters share a commitment to human experiences, embodiments, practices, and materialities in the daily lives of those people and institutions involved in the development, manufacturing, deployment, and/or use of particular technologies.
Spinoza: Fiction and Manipulation in Civic Education (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Johan DahlbeckThis book is a philosophical enquiry into the educational consequences of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza’s political theory is of particular interest for educational thought as it brings together the normative aims of his ethical theory with his realistic depiction of human psychology and the ramifications of this for successful political governance. As such, this book aims to introduce the reader to Spinoza’s original vision of civic education, as a project that ultimately aims at the ethical flourishing of individuals, while being carefully tailored and adjusted to the natural limitations of human reason. Readers will benefit from a succinct introduction to Spinoza’s political philosophy and from an account of civic education that is based on careful exegetical work. It draws conclusions only hinted at in Spinoza’s own writings.
Research on Poverty Reduction in China (International Research on Poverty Reduction)
by Peilin Li Houkai Wei Guobao WuThis book identifies “development-oriented poverty reduction” as a crucial part of what is now often billed as China’s unique development path, experience and model. China’s success serves as an example for any society aiming to eradicate poverty. However, there is still a tough road ahead as the country enters a new phase of the war on poverty.In addition to a systematic overview of the country’s development-oriented poverty reduction experiences over recent decades, the book also offers an outlook for poverty reduction in the coming years, including challenges the country will face as it enters the final stretch in the race to achieve moderate prosperity for all. It also discusses policy options for meeting the government’s poverty-reduction targets by 2020 within the precision-targeting strategy framework.
Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design for Performance
by Tanja BeerThis ground-breaking book is the first to bring an ecological focus to theatre and performance design, both in scholarship and in practice. Ecoscenography weaves environmental philosophies and practices across genres and fields to provide a captivating vision for the future of sustainable theatre production. The book forefronts leading designers that are driving this emerging field into the mainstream through their relational and reciprocal engagement with place, audiences, materials, and processes. Beyond its radical philosophy and framework, Ecoscenography makes a compelling case for pursuing an ecological ethic in theatre and performance design, not only as a moral imperative, but for the extraordinary possibilities that it offers for more-than-human engagement. Based on her personal insights as a leading ecological researcher and practitioner, Beer offers a rich resource for scholars, students and practitioners alike, opening up new processes and aesthetics of theatrical design that enhance the environmental and social advocacy of the field.
Challenges and Opportunities in Health Professions Education: Perspectives in the Context of Cultural Diversity
by Mora Claramita Ardi Findyartini Dujeepa D. Samarasekera Hiroshi NishigoriThis book addresses health professions educational challenges specific to non-Western cultures, implementing a shifting paradigm for educating future health professionals towards patient-centered care. While health professions education has received increasing attention in the last three decades, promoting student-centered learning principles pioneered by leaders in the medical community has, for the most part, remain rooted in the Western context. Building from Hofstede’s analysis of the phenomena of cultural dimensions, which underpin the way people build and maintain their relationships with others and influence social, economic, and political well-being across nations, this book demarcates the different cultural dimensions between East and West, applied to medical education. The respective ‘hierarchical’ and ‘collectivist’ cultural dimensions are unpacked in several studies stemming from non-western countries, with the capacity to positively influence healthcare education and services. The book provides new insights for researchers and health professional educators to understand how cultural context influences the input, processes, and output of health professionals’ education. Examples include how cultural context influences the ways in which students respond to teachers, how teachers giving feedback to students, and the challenges of peer feedback and group work. The authors also examine causes for student hesitation in proposing ideas, the pervasive cultural norm of maintaining harmony, the challenges of teamwork in clinical settings, the need to be sensitive to community health needs, the complexity of clinical decision making, and the challenge of how collectivist cultural values play into group dynamics. This book aims to advocate a more culturally-sensitive approach to educating health professionals, and will be relevant to both students and practitioners in numerous areas of public health and medical education.
The Ethnographic Radiographer
by Ruth M. StrudwickWritten from the perspective of a diagnostic radiography educator, this book introduces readers to ethnography as a methodology and examines how an ethnographic researcher sees the world in which they live.
Livelihood Enhancement Through Agriculture, Tourism and Health (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences)
by R. B. Singh Narayan Chandra Jana Anju SinghAgriculture is the backbone of our economic system. It provides not only food and raw material but also employment opportunities to a very large number of people. Higher atmospheric temperature has an impact on crop yields while the changes in rainfall could affect both crop quality and quantity. Climate change, therefore, could increase the prices of major crops in some regions. For the most vulnerable people, lower agricultural output means lower income. In addition, climate change is expected to increase the risk of illness and death from extreme heat and poor air quality. Recent evidence is the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, climate change also affects the occurrence of other infectious diseases. A number of well-known diseases are climate-sensitive - malaria, dengue fever, and cholera among others. Tourism is considered as an industry and alternative contributor to a nation’s income. It can generate employment opportunities and boost up the economy. This book, consisting of 26 chapters, focuses on the issues of agriculture, tourism and health for livelihood enhancement. It is essential to discuss these diverse issues in the field of geography as it encompasses interdisciplinary topics. The range of concerns at the national, regional and local levels is not confined to geography only but also involves other disciplines as well. Therefore, this book is a valuable source for scientists and researchers in allied fields such as livelihood, agriculture, land use, tourism management, health care and tribal studies. Furthermore, this book can be of immense help to the researchers, planners and decision makers engaged in solving problems in these areas in developing countries and beyond.
Proceedings of Third International Conference on Intelligent Computing, Information and Control Systems: ICICCS 2021 (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing #1415)
by A. Pasumpon Pandian Tomonobu Senjyu Ram Palanisamy M. NarayananThis book is a collection of papers presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Computing, Information and Control Systems (ICICCS 2021). It encompasses various research works that help to develop and advance the next-generation intelligent computing and control systems. The book integrates the computational intelligence and intelligent control systems to provide a powerful methodology for a wide range of data analytics issues in industries and societal applications. The book also presents the new algorithms and methodologies for promoting advances in common intelligent computing and control methodologies including evolutionary computation, artificial life, virtual infrastructures, fuzzy logic, artificial immune systems, neural networks and various neuro-hybrid methodologies. This book is pragmatic for researchers, academicians and students dealing with mathematically intransigent problems.
Oceania Entrepreneurship
by Vanessa RattenThis book focuses on the growth of entrepreneurship in Oceania. This means focusing on cultural endeavors as well as digital and technology-based forms of entrepreneurship. It is the first to explore how Oceania has a distinctive type of business appeal given its strategic position in the world. Whilst other regions such as North America, Europe and Africa have been studied in terms of entrepreneurial endeavors, there is a lack of research on Oceania despite it being a unique and important region. This book thus fills this gap by taking a progressive approach as to how entrepreneurship in Oceania is managed, emphasizing the growth of new economic segments and changing geo-political powers.
The Social Impact of Creative Arts in Australian Communities
by Sandra Gattenhof Donna Hancox Helen Klaebe Sasha MackayThis book brings together discussions about Australian arts policy and funding, outcomes of arts engagement in terms of social inclusion, well-being and education. It presents exemplars of creative programs or case studies that build capacity and lasting impact for communities in urban and regional Australia. This book describes the impact of the arts using narrative case studies. Through this, it develops conceptual understanding and frameworks that can be used to dynamically assess the value and impact of arts engagement across the three types of cultural value: intrinsic value, instrumental value and institutional value. It focuses on how arts engagement creates, supports and extends factors such as well-being, social inclusion and educational achievement. This book provides an innovative examination of the evidence from Australian projects depicting the impact of the arts on a range of indicators and sectors.
Health Dimensions of COVID-19 in India and Beyond
by Saroj Pachauri Ash PachauriThis open access book addresses the multiple health dimensions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in India and other countries including nine in Asia, five in Sub-Saharan Africa, and New Zealand. It explores the impact of the pandemic on mental health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, health financing, self-care, and vaccine development and distribution. The contributing authors discuss its impact on vulnerable populations, including interstate migrants and female sex workers. The significant role of media and communications, rapid dissemination of information in social media, and its impact during the COVID-19 pandemic era are discussed. It closes with lessons learned from the experiences of countries that have contained the pandemic. With contributions from experts from around the world, this book presents solutions of problems that relate to COVID-19. It is a valuable resource appealing to a wide readership across the social sciences and the humanities. Readers include governments, academicians, researchers, policy-makers, program implementers, as well as lay persons.
The Social Construction of AIDS Issues (A Sociological View of AIDS)
by Suiming PanThis book explores AIDS from a relatively macro perspective rather than concrete operational methods and focuses on the social construction of AIDS issues instead of its transmission level in the context of China. First, it begins with the theoretical analysis and the social significance of AIDS, which is different from the simple conflict between different schools of thought. Second, it analyses the contest of various social powers in the process of AIDS construction and conclusion, rather than making different explanations of policies. Last but not least, it elaborates on the central proposition, i.e., the “AIDS issue” is a symbol of China’s social restructuring process. Only in an effort to advance such a process can we be more likely to find the best problem-solving mode, rather than clamouring repeatedly or giving countermeasures alone.
The Role of Mosque in Building Resilient Communities: Widening Development Agendas (Islam and Global Studies)
by Abdur Rehman CheemaThis book is about the role of the mosque in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. Disasters give rise to a situation where people from different parts of the world, quite unfamiliar with each other, come into contact to save lives, provide necessities such as food and shelter, rebuild homes and enable community recovery. During these challenging times, community-based religious institutions such as churches, mosques and temples are a practical choice for reaching people living nearby to fulfil their needs. The book shows the contributions of the mosque as a physical, spiritual and social place for improving the knowledge and practice of disaster risk reduction and management including the COVID-19 pandemic. It also illuminates the widening role of religion in development. The book reinforces the case for broader engagement with all community-based religious institutions. The book is of interest to academics in diverse fields including development studies, disaster studies, sociology, anthropology, religion, Asian studies, emergency and disaster management. It will also of interest to the professional staff of disaster management authorities, public sector, bilateral and multilateral aid allocation and implementing agencies and those of humanitarian organizations.
Emerging Economic Models for Sustainable Businesses: A Practical Approach (Responsible Leadership and Sustainable Management)
by René Schmidpeter Nayan Mitra Jayati TalapatraThe book discusses new and emerging economic models, that respond to 'Pulling' and 'Pushing' forces. Today we are poised at an interesting juncture, with favourable conditions making it easier to be a sustainable organization acting as a ‘Pulling’ Force and the climate crisis, rise in social-economic equities thereby ‘Pushing’ for urgent action. The book analyses economic models that look at value propositions, creation and capture with ‘People, Planet and Profit’ deeply embedded in each stage of the value chain. The contributions bring out the interplay between new standards, evaluation frameworks, technology innovation and other emerging tools to show how they create a sustainable business. For this, they lean on learnings from successful sustainable businesses. Business leaders will find that this book provides deep insights on improving their existing sustainable practices, and speeding up the transition from linear to circular, narrow stakeholder driven to community driven. For prospective entrepreneurs the book provides the nudge needed to start up a sustainable enterprise. Students and researchers can benefit from real-life examples of how sustainable transformations unfold.The book thus creates an easy guide for those willing to make the transition to sustainability, start a sustainable business and most of all, to motivate those who may not yet be convinced about the long-term sense of taking care of our people and our earth.
Educational Leadership through a Practice Lens: Practice Matters (Educational Leadership Theory)
by Jane WilkinsonThis book provides the theoretical and analytical resources for an urgent rethinking of the social project of educating and educational leading. It examines what educational leadership is, namely the politics and power of leadership as a practice, and what it can and should be, offering a pedagogical and praxis-informed approach to educational practice. Drawing on research conducted at various Australian schools and education districts, it argues for a reframing of educational leadership as pedagogical practice/praxis to transform theorising and practice in the field. The book provides a rich account of educational leading through a practice lens, bringing into dialogue the theory of practice architectures with site ontologies, Bourdieu’s thinking tools and feminist critical scholarship.The book tracks the practices and praxis of educational leaders as they grapple with the changing landscape and forces of educational policies that have informed Australian education. It reimagines education leadership by integrating Continental and Northern European understandings of pedagogy and praxis as being morally and ethically informed, as opposed to the narrower Anglophone notions of pedagogy as teaching and learning. The book adds to the body of knowledge on the “actual work of leadership” as a “distinct set of practices” that is morally and ethically informed. Readers will find a more holistic understanding of educational leadership practice and praxis, based on the everyday accounts of educational leaders, teachers and students in schools and education districts.
Proceedings of Second International Conference on Sustainable Expert Systems: ICSES 2021 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #351)
by Ke-Lin Du Subarna Shakya Wang HaoxiangThis book features high-quality research papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Expert Systems (ICSES 2021), held in Nepal during September 17–18, 2021. The book focusses on the research information related to artificial intelligence, sustainability, and expert systems applied in almost all the areas of industries, government sectors, and educational institutions worldwide. The main thrust of the book is to publish the conference papers that deal with the design, implementation, development, testing, and management of intelligent and sustainable expert systems and also to provide both theoretical and practical guidelines for the deployment of these systems.
School Bullying and Marginalisation: Harmonising Paradigms
by Phillip T. Slee Rosalyn H. ShuteThis book addresses, and seeks to harmonise, different paradigms for understanding school bullying. It sets out to examine two paradigms for conceptualising bullying, and the worldviews that underpin them. It uses a complex systems perspective to bring the two paradigms together in a holistic fashion. By doing so, it creates an integrated framework for conceptualising the many individual, relational and societal factors that are in dynamic interaction and play a part in promoting or reducing school bullying. This book draws upon a number of disciplines by way of background, including evolutionary, child development and social psychological theories of group behaviour and identity. It proposes that the human need for belonging is central to understanding bullying, and situates the topic within an understanding of gender and children’s human rights, bringing philosophical and moral perspectives to bear. It discusses practical ways forward, presents a systemic approach to bullying and application of complex adaptive systems methods to bullying research and evaluation. It serves as an introduction to such methods and suggests further creative ideas for policy, intervention practice, and teacher education about bullying.
The Sanitation Triangle: Socio-Culture, Health and Materials (Global Environmental Studies)
by Taro Yamauchi Seiji Nakao Hidenori HaradaThis open access book deals with global sanitation, where SDG 6.2 sets a target of enabling access to sanitation services for all, but has not yet been achieved in low- and middle-income countries. The transition from the United Nations MDGs to the SDGs requires more consideration based on the socio-cultural aspects of global sanitation. In other words, equitable sanitation for those in vulnerable situations could be based on socio-cultural contexts. Sanitation is a system that comprises not only a latrine but also the works for the treatment and disposal of human waste. Sanitation systems do not function by themselves but have significance only through social management. The process of decision-making also largely depends on socio-cultural conditions, and the importance of sanitation needs to be socially acknowledged. The health benefits of sanitation improvement—among the significant contributions of sanitation—also need to be considered in the socio-cultural milieu. Further, the social-culture itself is affected, and potentially even created, by sanitation. In this context, more progress on the improvement of sanitation requires a more holistic approach across disciplines.In this book, we present the concept of the Sanitation Triangle, which considers the interconnections of health, materials, and socio-culture in sanitation, as a holistic approach, and the case studies based on the Sanitation Triangle by diverse disciplines such as Cultural Anthropology, Development Studies, Health Sciences, Engineering, and Science Communication. By the deep theoretical examinations and inter-dialogues between the different disciplines, this book explores the potentialities of inter-disciplinary studies on global sanitation.
Teaching and Learning about Technological Systems: Philosophical, Curriculum and Classroom Perspectives (Contemporary Issues in Technology Education)
by P. John Williams Jonas HallströmThis book discusses the teaching and learning about technological systems in technology education and adjacent curriculum areas. It describes, analyzes and synthesizes contemporary research on technological systems in technology education. By delving into the philosophy, sociology and history of technology, technology education and the learning and teaching of technological systems, it summarizes prior research and analyzes new research. This book thereby serves as a resource and reference work for professionals in this area of research and education.