Articulating the Pueblo Cubano: Women’s Politicization and Productivity in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959 to 1969

How do political actors forge social solidarity across preexisting axes of social difference? This article investigates how political elites undertaking projects of political articulation—understood as linking together diverse constituencies to create integrated political blocs—contend with preexisting cultural constraints embedded in the social fabric. I do so by tracing how the post-1959 Cuban regime attempted to build a population-wide revolutionary identity despite persisting cultural understandings of women primarily as apolitical housewives. Through systematic analysis of a large corpus of state discourse in the form of speeches and women’s magazines, I show how regime leaders negotiated, with varying degrees of success over time, the cultural constraints that gender posed to their unifying project. Ultimately, the regime’s initiatives to politicize women through including them in mass campaigns and radicalizing their traditional household tasks were relatively successful, but cultural backlash against women’s increasing presence in the labor force prompted the institutionalization of a gendered division of labor in the economy that traditionalized their initially radical entry into the workplace. Analyzing how political elites confront and manage social differences within political blocs promises to contribute to a better understanding of the political production of social solidarity and its downstream effects on categorical inequalities.

Travel Writing, Literature, and Romance: Polixéna Wesselényi’s Travels in Italy and Switzerland

Polixéna Wesselényi’s Travels in Italy and Switzerland, the first travel narrative that was written by a woman in Hungary and Transylvania, is a work little known to the wider international public, as it was published in Hungarian in 1842, seven years after her tour. There are few travel narratives written by East-Central European women in the first half of the nineteenth century. This essay attempts to reflect upon Wesselényi’s personal motives, her intellect and literary craftsmanship, as well as the cultural constraints she had to encounter. The romantic nature of the relationship between Wesselényi, a married woman, and the fellow travel writer John Paget, is also mirrored by the text. Travels in Italy and Switzerland not only offers an insight into the relatively favourable situation of Transylvanian women of the aristocracy in the 1830s but also shows that it had the power to inspire the works of celebrated Hungarian novelists after its publication. Although Wesselényi’s style conforms to the picturesque and sentimental travel writing published by European women in the period, it justly demands a place for itself on the list of distinguished nineteenth-century European travel writing by women.

Reshaping posthuman subjectivity: Lu Yang’s representation of virtual bodies in the COVID-19 pandemic

With the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, much of the world has been experiencing isolation and quarantine. Digital technology, especially the internet, has become the essential method of communication when social distancing measures constrain physical contact. The global health crisis leads to a dynamically increasing reliance on digital equipment contributing to a posthuman world. The article will take Shanghai-based multimedia artist Lu Yang (1984–) as a representative example to explore an alternative posthumanism subjectivity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Built theoretically on Kathrine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanism concepts of virtual bodies, this article will examine how Lu Yang’s work articulates the interactive relationships between humans and the material world to go beyond the conservative corporeality and contribute to a renewal of posthuman subjectivity. In Lu Yang’s recent projects created during the pandemic, such as Doku × The 1975 ‘Playing on My Mind’ (2020) and the live-streamed piece Delusional World (2020), the artist experiments with different strategies to break down social-cultural constraints and transcend established dualisms of gender binaries, life and death, human and non-human. With a close investigation of Lu Yang’s multidisciplinary artistic practices, this article intends to argue how a new subjectivity emerges in contemporary Chinese art and its roles in the current COVID-19 pandemic world.

Online Education during COVID-19: Prospects and Challenges in Bangladesh

COVID-19 has forced the authorities to introduce online education at all levels in Bangladesh. Students from primary to tertiary levels had initial hiccups to adapt to the newly introduced online education system because of genuine reasons like lack of appropriate device, absence or limited access to internet networks, disinterest in online education, disruption in electricity, etc. Perhaps, most of the stakeholders involved in education had a kind of hope of witnessing the crisis caused through COVID-19 over within a short period of time. Thus, none of the stakeholders was very serious in online education, expecting offline in-person education to be back pretty soon. It seems to have been realised by most of the stakeholders after almost one and a half years of the corona crisis that the pandemic may not disappear quickly. As a result, online education has recently been reinforced in Bangladesh, considering it the only alternative to the previous system. This review study explores the prospects and challenges of online education in the context of Bangladesh and finds out that prospects of it could be pretty high as an alternative education system. However, its challenges may be described as daunting given the socioeconomic and cultural constraints that prevail in the country.

Global evidence of constraints and limits to human adaptation

Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater constraints and both hard and soft limits to adaptation. Technological, infrastructural, and ecosystem-based adaptation suggest more evidence of constraints and hard limits than other types of responses. Individuals and households face economic and socio-cultural constraints which also inhibit behavioral adaptation responses and may lead to limits. Finance, governance, institutional, and policy constraints are most prevalent globally. These findings provide early signposts for boundaries of human adaptation and are of high relevance for guiding proactive adaptation financing and governance from local to global scales.

Systems of Communication: Aspects of Culture and Structure in Speech Surrogates

The practice of speech surrogacy is used for communication across many cultures. Previous work has historically engaged with the study of speech surrogates as part of anthropological or ethnomusicological inquiry; more recently, scholars have explored aspects of the formal relationship between spoken and surrogate linguistic structures. How speech surrogates function as systems of communication is not yet well understood. Based on evidence from an interdisciplinary corpus of documentation, characteristics of culture and discourse, as well as features of linguistic structure, are shown to play a role in fostering communicability in speech surrogates. Cultural constraints are linked to the development of a speech surrogate-mediated discourse within a community of practice, facilitating comprehension of the surrogate system. Moreover, specific structures including formulas, enphrasing, and framing devices are identified as common to various speech surrogate traditions, suggesting a common function as aids to communication. This analysis points to the need to investigate speech surrogates as linguistic systems within a discursive context.

Achieving Operational Excellence Through Artificial Intelligence: Driving Forces and Barriers

This paper presents an in-depth literature review on the driving forces and barriers for achieving operational excellence through artificial intelligence (AI). Artificial intelligence is a technological concept spanning operational management, philosophy, humanities, statistics, mathematics, computer sciences, and social sciences. AI refers to machines mimicking human behavior in terms of cognitive functions. The evolution of new technological procedures and advancements in producing intelligence for machines creates a positive impact on decisions, operations, strategies, and management incorporated in the production process of goods and services. Businesses develop various methods and solutions to extract meaningful information, such as big data, automatic production capabilities, and systematization for business improvement. The progress in organizational competitiveness is apparent through improvements in firm’s decisions, resulting in increased operational efficiencies. Innovation with AI has enabled small businesses to reduce operating expenses and increase revenues. The focused literature review reveals the driving forces for achieving operational excellence through AI are improvement in computing abilities of machines, development of data-based AI, advancements in deep learning, cloud computing, data management, and integration of AI in operations. The barriers are mainly cultural constraints, fear of the unknown, lack of employee skills, and strategic planning for adopting AI. The current paper presents an analysis of articles focused on AI adoption in production and operations. We selected articles published between 2015 and 2020. Our study contributes to the literature reviews on operational excellence, artificial intelligence, driving forces for AI, and AI barriers in achieving operational excellence.

Cometary Panspermia — Overcoming Cultural Constraints

The importance of distinguishing between hypotheses that are verified by a vast number of predictions and have not been falsified, and conjectures without any compelling evidence is of paramount importance for science educators to keep in mind. This article describes the trajectory of one such hypothesis. The concept of cometary panspermia has been developed over a period of four decades and evidence for it has straddled many scientific disciplines from astronomy, to geology, biology and epidemiology. With an ever-increasing number of predictions of this theory being verified, the question as to why it has not entered mainstream thinking is an intriguing one. I suggest that this resistance is connected with sociological considerations, including a deep cultural hostility to theories that appear to have a foreign or “alien” provenance.

Male Perception on Sexual Consent and Coercion in Heterosexual Marriages: The Case of Benue State, Nigeria

The issue of sexual consent in marriage which is deeply problematic due to the persistence of socio-cultural constraints on women’s sexual agency and sexual decision-making has received less attention. Emerging evidence suggests that coerced, pressured and unwanted sexual activities are generally still common experiences of women. Research concerning male’s opinions on women’s consent to sex in marriage remains scarce. In this article, we explored men’s perceptions on sexual consent seeking and receiving within the context of marriage in order to expose the traditional gender imbalances, and interrogate the male-privileging ideals. Deploying a qualitative research approach, 8 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with men aged 25-55years and in-depth interviews (IDI) with 12 key Informants were conducted to elicit data. Transcripts of each FGD and IDI were analyzed and major themes were developed. The study adopted the scripting and radical feminism as theoretical underpinnings. The findings revealed that the prevailing socio-cultural context in which men live has tremendous impact on their perceptions on women’s sexual rights and consent in marriage. Most men in the study understand sex in marriage as just one of the duties of a wife. Results also suggest that token resistance beliefs and alcohol consumption among men encourage forced sex. This study clearly shows that the issue of sexual coercion in marriage is fuelled by patriarchal control over women’s sexuality and requires serious attention in the study area. We therefore recommend cultural reorientation and enactment of laws to deal with the issue of non-consensual sex in marriage.

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN RURAL COMMUNITIES: A CASE STUDY OF SAHIWAL DISTRICT, PUNJAB PAKISTAN

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the study was to analyze the socio-cultural constraints that affect different dimensions of women empowerment in rural areas of Punjab province. Political participation and self-esteem were taken as dominant characteristics of women empowerment among lots of variables that collectively define women empowerment. Methodology: A mixed-method approach was used to study different dimensions of women empowerment. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to collect the data from 85 respondents excluding widows and divorced women. Two focus group discussions were conducted, one in each village to further understand the phenomenon or empowerment and constraints faced by women. The data got analyzed by using tables and graphs made in MS Excel. Main findings: Findings of the study indicate that although cultural constraints hinder the process of women empowerment a great deal, a husband's education along with a woman's education plays a significant role in women empowerment. Results showed that if the husband is more educated, women are more empowered politically and have higher self-esteem. Application of the study: The significant contribution of a single factor in overall women empowerment is very interesting and needs further in-depth studies on different locations. The results can contribute to policy formulation for women empowerment on a larger scale.