scholarly journals Deconversion, Sport, and Rehabilitative Hope

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Terry Shoemaker
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Bible Belt ◽  
Conservative Protestantism

This article, based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, explores three types of on-the-ground rehabilitative hope supplied by sport for many post-evangelicals within the upper Bible Belt region traversing through the process of deconversion. First, sport is an often-cited space that is identified as broadening social networks, leading to initial questioning of inherited religiosity. Second, sport offers a level of amelioration of relational fissures caused by religious shifts away from evangelicalism. Last, this research indicates that post-evangelicals highly value spaces for discussions of social justice, and athletic activism offers symbolic solidarity. Thus, sport and deconversion can be intertwined for Southern post-evangelicals. In the end, I argue that the triangulation of deconversion, hope, and sport within a Southern context creates a way of understanding the changing Southern ethos and pathos demarcated by a shifting away from a conservative Protestantism historically dominant in the region.

scholarly journals Social networks as the backbone of women’s work in the Catalan Pyrenees

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Pallares-Barbera ◽  
Antònia Casellas
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Glass Ceiling ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Women's Work ◽  
Symbolic Power ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Balanced Networks

This paper discusses how historically the accumulation of symbolic power by men produced a glass ceiling for women in the Catalan Pyrenees and how women have overcome this constraint by engaging in male-led networks, founding gender balanced networks and developing women-nurtured networks. Through semi-structured qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, the paper investigates the strategies women employed to maintain their involvement in networking activities over a 10-year period. The paper identifies the importance of being connected with horizontal organizations and the empowerment of sharing experiences provided by social bridge agents. The results of this research make a strong case for more inclusive and gender-aware policies in rural areas as a means to promote economic and social viability while empowering women.

scholarly journals Social networks, health and identity: exploring culturally embedded masculinity with the Pakistani community, West Midlands, UK

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farina Kokab ◽  
Sheila Greenfield ◽  
Antje Lindenmeyer ◽  
Manbinder Sidhu ◽  
Lynda Tait ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
West Midlands ◽  
Community Spaces ◽  
Social Causes

Abstract Background Migrants from South Asia living in developed countries have an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), with limited research into underlying social causes. Methods We used social capital as an interpretive lens to undertake analysis of exploratory qualitative interviews with three generations of at-risk migrant Pakistani men from the West Midlands, UK. Perceptions of social networks, trust, and cultural norms associated with access to healthcare (support and information) were the primary area of exploration. Results Findings highlighted the role of social networks within religious or community spaces embedded as part of ethnic enclaves. Local Mosques and gyms remained key social spaces, where culturally specific gender differences played out within the context of a diaspora community, defined ways in which individuals navigated their social spheres and influenced members of their family and community on health and social behaviours. Conclusions There are generational and age-based differences in how members use locations to access and develop social support for particular lifestyle choices. The pursuit of a healthier lifestyle varies across the diverse migrant community, determined by social hierarchies and socio-cultural factors. Living close to similar others can limit exposure to novel lifestyle choices and efforts need to be made to promote wider integration between communities and variety of locations catering to health and lifestyle.

scholarly journals Social Capital during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Outbreak: The Case of the Island of Menorca

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 12720
Author(s):  
Ester Villalonga-Olives ◽  
Ichiro Kawachi ◽  
Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Sociodemographic Differences ◽  
The World ◽  
Permanent Residents

The rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic has drastically altered the economic and social lives of people throughout the world. Our overall goal is to understand the mechanisms through which social capital shaped the community response to the pandemic on the island of Menorca, Spain, which was under a strict lockdown in 2020. Between April and June 2020, we performed qualitative interviews (n = 25) of permanent residents of the island. From the findings, it is evident that social capital is an important resource with the capacity to organize help and support. However, the dark sides of social capital, with lack of social cohesion and lack of trust, also emerged as an important negative issue. We identified sources of tension that were not resolved, as well as important sociodemographic differences that are primary drivers for health inequalities. The investment in social networks and social capital is a long-term need that should consider sociodemographic vulnerability.

scholarly journals Can Health 2.0 Address Critical Healthcare Challenges? Insights from the Case of How Online Social Networks Can Assist in Combatting the Obesity Epidemic

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine Hacker ◽  
Nilmini Wickramasinghe ◽  
Carolin Durst
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Food Selection ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Obesity Epidemic ◽  
Health 2.0 ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Health Related

One of the serious concerns in healthcare in this 21st century is obesity. While the causes of obesity are multifaceted, social networks have been identified as one of the most important dimensions of people's social environment that may influence the adoption of many behaviours, including health-promoting behaviours. In this article, we examine the possibility of harnessing the appeal of online social networks to address the obesity epidemic currently plaguing society. Specifically, a design science research methodology is adopted to design, implement and test the Health 2.0 application called “Calorie Cruncher”. The application is designed specifically to explore the influence of online social networks on individual’s health-related behaviour. In this regard, pilot data collected based on qualitative interviews indicate that online social networks may influence health-related behaviours in several ways. Firstly, they can influence people’s norms and value system that have an impact on their health-related behaviours. Secondly, social control and pressure of social connections may also shape health-related behaviours, and operate implicitly when people make food selection decisions. Thirdly, social relationships may provide emotional support. Our study has implications for research and practice. From a theoretical perspective, the article inductively identifies three factors that influence specific types of health outcomes in the context of obesity. From a practical perspective, the study underscores the benefits of adopting a design science methodology to design and implement a technology solution for a healthcare issue as well as the key role for online social media to assist with health and wellness management and maintenance.

Our Actions, Our Stories: A Readers Theater

2020 ◽  
pp. 194084472093904
Author(s):  
Leslie Rebecca Bloom ◽  
Bonnie Breyer ◽  
Chrissy Hoffman ◽  
Jocelyn Izaguirre-Zavala ◽  
Walter Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Women's And Gender Studies ◽  
Readers Theater ◽  
And Gender ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Women’S And Gender Studies

This article presents the script of Our Actions, Our Stories: A Readers Theater that was researched, written, and presented by students in a women’s and gender studies (WGS) class called “Action: Intersections and Coalitions.” Based on qualitative interviews, the script illustrates six respondents’ perspectives on their activism and explores their backgrounds and intersectional identities in relation to these. The readers theater explores how activism and identity intersect and what that means for those engaged in activism. The article concludes with a discussion about the meanings that doing this project in a feminist experiential learning course had for the WGS students involved and how such experiences contribute to growing a much-needed new generation of qualitative researchers dedicated to social justice.

Do institutions matter?

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-332
Author(s):  
Habiba Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Community Support ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Credit Line ◽  
Institutional Determinants ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Nationally Representative

Purpose Guided by the institutional theory of savings, the purpose of this study is to assess the institutional elements of rotating, savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) that enable participants to save. Design/methodology/approach The study used data from in-depth qualitative interviews (N = 10) conducted among the ROSCA group leaders from African immigrant communities in the USA. Findings The primary goal for joining the ROSCA group among participants is to achieve economic stability. The results of the study postulate that, through institutional mechanisms and social networks, ROSCAs create an environment for families to save and invest. The emphasis on the concept of “you cannot save alone” underscores the importance of supportive structures to enable low-income households to save. Although “alternative savings programs” such as ROSCAs are imagined as something that less well-to-do persons use, the findings from this study demonstrate that such strategies also appeal to some people with higher socioeconomic status. This appeal and utility speaks to the importance of ROSCAs as an institutional response, rather than just an informal arrangement among persons known to each other. Research limitations/implications It is prudent to bear in mind that the study sample is not nationally representative, and therefore, the results presented cannot be generalized to immigrants across the country. However, as one of the few ROSCA studies in the USA, the findings from this study make generous contributions to the immigrants’ savings and ROSCA practices literature. Practical implications ROSCAs could be used as a bridge to the formal financial institutions. Non-profit agencies working with these communities could work with these groups to report ROSCA payments to the major credit bureaus, to help them build a credit line in their new country. Originality/value Previous studies of ROSCAs have assessed ROSCAs as community support systems and social networks. The current study has analyzed ROSCAs from an institutional perspective by examining the institutional characteristics of ROSCAs comparable to the institutional determinants of savings that enable savings among the participants.

scholarly journals Russian Internet Research Agency Disinformation Activities on Tumblr: Identity, Privacy, and Ambivalence

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630512096178
Author(s):  
Indira Neill Hoch
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Internet Research ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
Identity Privacy

On 24 March 2018, Tumblr terminated 84 user accounts identified as being “linked to Internet Research Agency or IRA (a group closely tied to the Russian government) posing as members of the Tumblr community.” In response, Tumblr deleted the blogs and accounts of these 84 users but allowed reblogs of their posts to continue to circulate openly on the platform. Through a case study of posts originating with one IRA account, Lagonegirl, and qualitative interviews with 13 Tumblr users, this article considers the platform conventions and social norms that were utilized by the Lagonegirl account to facilitate its distribution of disinformation. Posing as a Black woman concerned with social justice but also sharing humorous posts that resonated with Millennials, Lagonegirl’s performance shows overlap with existing work on “Left Troll” IRA Twitter accounts while demonstrating platform specificity in the construction of posts.

Selling diversity to white men: How disentangling economics from morality is a racial and gendered performance

Organization ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 135050842093034
Author(s):  
Luzilda Carrillo Arciniega
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
White Men ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Economic Rationality ◽  
Human Resource Professionals ◽  
Management Consultants ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Economics And Morality

Diversity professionals include business scholars, management consultants, diversity officers, and human resource professionals, who claim that the business case is about economics, not about morality or social justice. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic research, this paper finds that diversity professionals sell diversity to white men—literally to obtain new clients and, metaphorically, to gain supporters for their practices—by performing economic rationality. In examining the intersection of economics and morality through the business case, this article argues that economic rationality itself is a racial and gendered performance. Moreover, insofar as diversity is a managerial discourse that employs ideas and models of the economy to design organizational techniques that improve business, it claims that through the business case, diversity professionals perform the economy itself. Thus, this research unsettles pervasive scholarly and popular assumptions that capitalism is intrinsically amoral. Finally, it characterizes organizational practices wherein diversity professionals perform economics as amoral and unracial as white economics. White economics, in other words, reproduces the everyday operation of neoliberal organizations as purportedly amoral, and hence, unracial and ungendered.

scholarly journals Power and precariousness in the expert hierarchies of the US hydrocarbon industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-319
Author(s):  
Sean Field
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Social Power ◽  
General Characteristic ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Informal Social Networks ◽  
Industry Associations

Drawing on ethnographic research in Houston, Texas, I explore how oil and gas experts negotiate social power and precariousness within the US hydrocarbon sector. In an industry long associated with corporate power, the careers of experts are precariously balanced on rising and falling hydrocarbon prices. This makes the social power these experts wield as fluid as the commodities they are premised on. I show that informal social networks solidified by industry associations can buffer this precariousness by opening new employment opportunities and allowing them to maintain their connection to elite industry circles through periods of unemployment and uncertainty. For many working in the industry, precariousness defines the US hydrocarbon sector as much as the wealth that it is known to generate. Precariousness, I argue, is not just experienced by specific groups of people but rather is a general characteristic of capitalism that touches all but a select few.

scholarly journals The access network: Supporting the construction of social justice physics identities through student partnerships

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-61
Author(s):  
Daniel Lee Reinholz ◽  
Adriana Corrales ◽  
Amelia Stone-Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Access Network ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
National Network ◽  
Predicting Success

This paper explores the intersections of Students as Partners (SaP) and identity development. While identity and sense of belonging are known to be key factors for predicting success and persistence in STEM, less is known about how student partnerships can provide space for students to develop their identities. To explore this space, we focus on the Access Network, a coalition funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of student-run programs that aims to improve equity in the physical sciences. Qualitative interviews with six student participants showed how SaP created opportunities for students to develop social justice physics identities, which allowed them to bridge traditional notions of what it means to be a physicist with their own social justice commitments. This paper contributes to the rapidly growing SaP literature by studying student partnerships at the scale of a national network of institutions, which contrasts studies that focus on more localized contexts, such as teaching and learning in a single classroom.

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