Child Sexual Abuse by Religious Authority Figures in Germany and Israel: The Experiences and Perceptions of Adult Survivors

The current study is based on an in-depth thematic analysis of 20 interviews with German and Israeli adult survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA) by religious authority figures (RAF). This paper aims to explore survivors’ experiences within the Jewish ultra-Orthodox and Christian communities, as well as to draw comparisons between the abusive structures and disclosure in these two contexts. The results point to the complexity of CSA by RAF, which is embedded in the survivors’ perceptions of themselves as emotionally and cognitively captured by the perpetrators who are a symbol of a parent or God and faith. The participants expressed great concern regarding disclosing the abuse against the backdrop of familial, cultural, and community inhibitors, such as fear of social stigmatization, inability to recognize the abuse, and the taboo of sexuality discourse. The survivors’ traumatic experiences were intensified in light of negative social responses to disclosure and encounters with insensitive officials. A comparison of the cultures revealed differences regarding the nature of community life and educational institutions, which may have shaped the disclosure and recognition of the abuse. The study highlights the importance of comparative follow-up studies related to this phenomenon in order to examine its universal and unique cultural contexts.

Social Responses to a Changing Environment

Communities worldwide are facing environmental crises such as air pollution, water shortages, climate change, and other forms of environmental change and degradation. While technical solutions for environmental change are essential, so too are solutions that consider social acceptability, value cultural relevance, and prioritize equity and social justice. Social work has a critical and urgent role in creating and implementing macrolevel social responses to environmental change. The key concepts of environmental change, environmental and ecological justice, social vulnerability, and social responses are discussed. A description of the roles and skills unique to macro social workers for this effort is given, followed by examples of macrolevel strategies and interventions. Opportunities and directions for future social work responses to a changing environment are identified.

Institutional Logics and Social Responses to Covid – 19 Outbreak and Lockdown Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

In this paper we explore social responses, attitudes and social practices of everyday life in the midst of a complete social closure at an early stage of corona crisis, based on original empirical survey data collected via online questionnaire (N=352) during the lockdown and state of emergency in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Aiming to analyse social implications of the ongoing crisis and directions for future research we have particularly focused on several dimensions: work, free time and everyday activities, attitudes towards the new uncertainty and specific needs of different social groups in the context of crisis. Social responses to novel living circumstances have highlighted problems related to the status of vulnerable groups present from before in a society that is most commonly categorized as a country in transition marked by post-war challenges. Results show that established discrimination practices have resurfaced while vulnerable social groups’ living conditions have significantly aggravated even early at the times of pandemic emergence.

Modeling Early Phases of COVID-19 Pandemic in Northern Italy and Its Implication for Outbreak Diffusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked an intense debate about the hidden factors underlying the dynamics of the outbreak. Several computational models have been proposed to inform effective social and healthcare strategies. Crucially, the predictive validity of these models often depends upon incorporating behavioral and social responses to infection. Among these tools, the analytic framework known as “dynamic causal modeling” (DCM) has been applied to the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding new light on the factors underlying the dynamics of the outbreak. We have applied DCM to data from northern Italian regions, the first areas in Europe to contend with the outbreak, and analyzed the predictive validity of the model and also its suitability in highlighting the hidden factors governing the pandemic diffusion. By taking into account data from the beginning of the pandemic, the model could faithfully predict the dynamics of outbreak diffusion varying from region to region. The DCM appears to be a reliable tool to investigate the mechanisms governing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 to identify the containment and control strategies that could efficiently be used to counteract further waves of infection.

Livy's Witch-hunts: A Study of Investigations into Veneficium found in Livy

<p>This thesis is an exploration of large scale incidents of veneficium as they are depicted in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita. Livy’s earlier books include references to four quaestiones de veneficiis, investigations into poisoning, which resulted in the executions of thousands of people. This study attempts to understand what happened while hypothesising why they occurred. Veneficium and its associated words have often been declared ambiguous, referring to poisons, potions, and, eventually, magic. However, this interpretation developed significantly later than the events seen in Livy and is anachronistic. This thesis explores this language and so we can understand what veneficium meant during the quaestiones de veneficiis of the fourth and second centuries BC and in Livy’s own time, and how it evolved to become magical and thus colour modern scholarships. Using this knowledge, we can review and reconsider Livy’s reports to gain a fresh understanding of what actually happened during the quaestiones and how the motifs and themes of these investigations reveal that they were in fact social responses to a period of rapid change to Roman life in the second century BC. This final point is reaffirmed when we engage with interdisciplinary theories from anthropology and sociology. By considering theories and models from these schools we can confidently say that, while venefici were not witches, their persecution was a type of witch-hunt.</p>

Livy's Witch-hunts: A Study of Investigations into Veneficium found in Livy

<p>This thesis is an exploration of large scale incidents of veneficium as they are depicted in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita. Livy’s earlier books include references to four quaestiones de veneficiis, investigations into poisoning, which resulted in the executions of thousands of people. This study attempts to understand what happened while hypothesising why they occurred. Veneficium and its associated words have often been declared ambiguous, referring to poisons, potions, and, eventually, magic. However, this interpretation developed significantly later than the events seen in Livy and is anachronistic. This thesis explores this language and so we can understand what veneficium meant during the quaestiones de veneficiis of the fourth and second centuries BC and in Livy’s own time, and how it evolved to become magical and thus colour modern scholarships. Using this knowledge, we can review and reconsider Livy’s reports to gain a fresh understanding of what actually happened during the quaestiones and how the motifs and themes of these investigations reveal that they were in fact social responses to a period of rapid change to Roman life in the second century BC. This final point is reaffirmed when we engage with interdisciplinary theories from anthropology and sociology. By considering theories and models from these schools we can confidently say that, while venefici were not witches, their persecution was a type of witch-hunt.</p>

Beyond Mortality

Epidemics and pandemics are typically discussed in terms of morbidity and mortality, susceptibility and immunity, and social responses to and impacts of the immediate epidemic event. Much less attention is paid to the longer-term consequences for individuals and populations in terms of the sequelae of infections, such as blindness after smallpox, deafness due to congenital rubella, and paralysis after polio. This same tendency is observed in the COVID-19 pandemic, with counts of cases and deaths, questions of immunity, and economic impacts at the foreground and long-term or chronic health impairment of COVID-19 survivors receiving less attention. Much of the existing research on the effects of such disease sequelae has come from disability history; in addition, the bioarchaeology of impairment/disability is an emerging area of research that can contribute insight into experiences of disease consequences. In this article, we give an overview of published work on survivors of infectious disease using both bioarchaeology and disability history. Using the example of post-polio paralysis, we propose a theoretical approach to the bioarchaeological study of infectious disease that is inclusive of the history of impairment and disability, which we refer to as a survivor lens. We structure this discussion through scaffolded questions that move through multiple levels of analysis: from the individual and relational to the drivers of cultural change. We argue that bioarchaeological research on past epidemics and pandemics that attends to morbidity and lasting impairment and disability can contribute to wider conversations about infectious disease and disability in the past and present. En général, les épidémies et les pandémies sont considérées en termes de morbidité et de mortalité, de susceptibilité et d’immunité, et de réponses sociales et d’impacts immédiats de l’événement épidémique. Moins d’attention est accordée aux conséquences à long terme pour les individus et les populations en termes de séquelles d’infections, telles que la cécité après la variole, la surdité due à la rubéole congénitale et la paralysie après la polio. Cette même tendance est observée lors de la pandémie de COVID-19. Il y a moins d’attention accordée au nombre de cas et de décès, aux questions d’immunité et d’impacts économiques au premier plan, et aux problèmes de santé à long terme ou chroniques des survivants de COVID-19 reçoivent. Une grande partie de la recherche existante sur les effets de ces séquelles de la maladie provient de la recherche sur les déficiences/handicaps. De plus, la bioarchéologie de la déficience/handicap est un domaine de recherche émergent qui peut contribuer à mieux comprendre les expériences des conséquences de maladie. Dans cet article, nous donnons un aperçu des travaux publiés sur les survivants de maladies infectieuses en utilisant à la fois la bioarchéologie et l’histoire du handicap. En utilisant l’exemple de la paralysie post-polio, nous proposons une approche théorique de l’étude bioarchéologique des maladies infectieuses qui inclut l’histoire de la déficience/handicap, que nous appelons une lentille de survivant. Nous structurons cette discussion à travers des questions échafaudées qui traversent de multiples niveaux d’analyse: de l’individu au relationnel, jusqu’au aux changements culturels. Nous soutenons que la recherche bioarchéologique sur les épidémies et pandémies historiques qui examine la morbidité et le handicap peut contribuer à des conversations plus larges sur les maladies infectieuses et le handicap au passé ainsi qu’au présent.

The Pragmatics of Political Claims and Social Responses amidst Covid-19 and EndSARS Saga in Nigeria

There have been few stand-alone linguistic studies on the Covid-19 virus and the 2020 EndSARS protests in Nigeria. The present study intersects these two critical events with particular focus on the political claims made by the ruling class and the corresponding social responses in line with the contextual affordances shared by the participants. Searle’s speech act theoretic approach is adopted to analyse the pragmatic intentions of the illocutionary acts which political claims perform while Juvenalian satire is used to discuss the satirical elements embedded in the social responses in a bid to ridicule leadership follies and abuses. Three popular Nigerian online Newspapers and few comments from Facebook are selected for this study. Their selection is based on their coverage of these events, coverage of these political claims and popular readership evidenced in the social responses. In all, a total of 6 political claims and 25 social responses relevant to this study are analysed. The study revealed that the pragmatic relevance of these claims is embedded in its political functions of wielding undue influence over the populace, making promises driven by rhetoric and short of initiative and calculated reticence in response to social issues. Consequently, the social responses highlight and criticise leadership vices and the weak efforts of the government in dispensing its leadership interventions. It also fulfils communicative purposes of the contextual space, promote solidarity among the people while prompting change in the political class and the society at large.

Ceremonial events at non-sites of memory: Seven framings of a difficult past

The author discusses uncommemorated and under-remembered sites of past violence in terms of the conditions of their transformation into memory sites. Commemorative ceremonies, which may be staged at non-sites of memory, are presented as affective media of memory and identity, demonstrating social responses to the sites, as well as placing the local past in the context of supra-local memory forms. The argument is grounded in the material gathered from fieldwork during the research project on uncommemorated sites of genocide in Poland and, predominantly, in a detailed case study of a ceremony witnessed by the author in 2016 in Radecznica (Lublin Voivodship) at a burial site of victims of the “Holocaust by bullets”. In the article the discourse of speeches delivered during the ceremony is analyzed, on the assumption that they can reveal rules of national Polish memory culture dictating what may be commemorated and how cultural mechanisms have a power to hinder commemoration. As a result, seven distinctive framings of past events that kept returning in subsequent speeches were identified and interpreted as “memory devices” that enable and facilitate recollection, but also mark out the limits of what can be remembered and passed on.

(SOBRE)VIVER EM SITUAÇÃO DE SEM-ABRIGO EM PORTUGAL: A EMERGÊNCIA DE RESPOSTAS INOVADORAS

Resumo: Assinalado como um fenómeno de extrema vulnerabilidade social, em Portugal, consideram-se em situação de sem-abrigo todos os indivíduos que se encontrem em circunstância de sem-teto, a subsistir em espaços públicos, alojados em abrigos de curta duração, ou sem-casa integrados em alojamento temporário. O artigo em apreço tem como objetivo principal compreender, caracterizar e analisar, do ponto de vista institucional, as tipologias de intervenção que são operacionalizadas pelo setor social junto das pessoas em situação de sem-abrigo. A aditar, pretende examinar a repercussão que a situação pandémica atual do Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) teve na presente população e na prática profissional. Neste sentido, foram realizadas três entrevistas semiestruturadas a profissionais da área das Ciências Sociais e Humanas que integram respostas sociais orientadas para a atuação com este público-alvo. Concluiu-se que, para além da intervenção direta e integrada junto dos mesmos, é basilar efetuar um trabalho para e com a sociedade, no que toca a consciencialização do seu papel e o combate da discriminação e preconceito, sendo a implementação de práticas inovadoras que integrem atividades de cariz educativo a via privilegiada para alcançar esse fim.Palavras-Chave: Situação de sem-abrigo. Exclusão social. Intervenção social. Projetos inovadores. Abstract: Pointed out as a phenomenon of extreme social vulnerability, in Portugal are in a homeless situation all individuals who are without a roof, subsisting in public spaces, housed in short-term shelters, or integrated in temporary accommodations. The main goal of this article is to understand, characterize and analyze, from an institutional point of view, the types of intervention that are operationalized by the social sector with people in homeless situations. In addition, it intends to examine the repercussions of the current situation of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the studied population and in professional practice. Therefore, three semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals who work daily in this context and integrate social responses designed to act with the targeted audience. It was concluded that, in addition to direct and integrated interventions, it is essential to work for and with society regarding the awareness of its role and the fight against its discrimination and prejudice, with essential implementation of innovative practices as the privileged route.Keywords: Homelessness. Social exclusion. Social intervention. Innovative projects.