Pot Song as a Novel Cancer Communication Intervention: Lessons Learned from Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating a Culturally Grounded Intervention for Breast Cancer Education in Rural Bangladesh

Targeted public education may offer an approach to achieving more effective treatment in countries like Bangladesh, where breast cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in women. Effective cancer education interventions address the target population’s cultural and contextual needs. However, there is little published literature to guide the development of educational cancer interventions in a region where lack of resources combined with cultural stigma about cancer contribute to poor breast health outcomes for women. The goal of the current study was to design, test, and evaluate a culturally grounded intervention to promote breast problem care among women in rural Bangladesh. The current manuscript first describes the process of formative evaluation that led to the development of the intervention, including decisions about the audience, message construction, and mode of intervention delivery. Second, we describe the testing process, including process and outcome evaluation. Finally, we describe the lessons learned from the process. We conclude with recommendations related to cultural grounding for message development, questionnaire design, data collection procedures, and analysis.

Africana Studies, 21st Century Black Student Activism, and High Impact Educational Practices: A Biographical Sketch of David C. Turner, III

This article examines the relationship between academia and activism. It explores the undergraduate experience of veteran 21st century Black student activist, David C. Turner, III, revealing the foundations of his academic and activist career in higher education. Framed in the context of student engagement and high impact educational practices, this paper argues that 21st century Black student activists are motivated by a belief in a society and world free from overt, insidious, and institutional racism. Furthermore, it argues that activism offers academically relevant learning opportunities. The article draws upon informal conversations and interactions, formal interviews, and Turner’s published and unpublished writings. It chronicles Turner’s undergraduate experiences at CSU, Dominguez Hills majoring in Africana Studies, president of the Organization of Africana Studies, and research and conference opportunities revealing the foundations of his pursuit of cultural grounding, academic excellence, and social responsibility. Furthermore, it highlights the links between intellectual and academic work, with activism and organizing.

Disease and its metaphors in contemporary Polish female poetry

The article deals with metaphors of disease in selected contemporary Polish female poets. In focus are the portrayals of disease, its symptoms and consequences for the imperfect human body. The anthropological perspective assumed in this study, which reveals the coding of human experience in a literary work, emphasises the connections between the poetics of the work and the problem of defining individual identity. The analysis leads to the following conclusions: the poets (both in lyrical poetry and other intimist writing) usually relate to conceptual metaphors motivated by the notions of object and containment (e.g. life is a container, body is an object, body is a container); other recognizable metaphors are orientational (wpaść w wilczy dół ‘fall into the pitfall’) or grounded in the notion of fire (czuję się spalona ‘I feel consumed by flames’). By modifying classic metaphors, the poets construct new cognitive perspectives. They express the feeling of isolation from the world of the healthy and the fragility of the human body as a material “prison house”. They also make attempts to regain control over it by extending the boundaries of intimacy. By studying the esthetic and epistemological aspects of metaphors in connection with an understanding of self in a situation of irreversible loss of full physical control, of fear and of bold expansion of one’s corporality, it is possible to identify individual and cultural grounding of corporality.

Critical Indigenous ways of knowing: Research, narratives, and self-actualisation

The process of Indigenous research methodologies has existed within the Anishinaabe worldview for over a millennium. The Anishinaabe-centric author presents and highlights a pathway of Indigenous research methodologies, and critically analyses research, pedagogy and attachment through an Indigenous research methodology. Indigenous research lives within the Anishinaabe language as a cultural process for understanding purpose, in addition to understanding the specific gifts unknown to the researcher. This article identifies Anishinaabe Gikendaasowin as a manner of centring oneself within one’s cultural worldview. Indigenous research methodologies contain intrinsic processes of critical cultural construct development, critical content analysis,ceremony and cultural attachment. This article further explores colonial worldview impacts on Indigenous peoples and the misapplication of that research and its influence on educational paradigms. Finally, an Anishinaabe scholarly exemplar is presented that provides tangible steps for incorporating spirit knowledge into positive, innovative and pedagogical Indigenous lessons. Indigenous research sovereignty requires consent when researching our Anishinaabe sacred practice-based evidence. As a result, Indigenous research methodologies will often start with the act of cultural grounding. Cultural grounding in research is not a new concept. In the Anishinaabe language, manidoo waabiwin can translate into seeing things in a spiritual way. This spiritual wayis the bridge to understanding, appreciating and attaching to a construct or phenomenon within an Indigenous way of knowing journey. There are many different manners to grounding one’s spiritual research work that range from offering tobacco to the aatsokaanug (inadequately translated as spirits), and to the participation in cultural activities, both of which will often promote spiritual awareness or manido waabiwin. This critical Indigenous research methodologies article highlights Anishinaabe Gikendaasowin, or Anishinaabe knowledge or ways of knowing that centres within Anishinaabe worldview. This article is embedded in Anishinaabe knowledge and can be considered Anishinaabe-centric.

Cebuano cultural identities: prospects for a culturally responsive pedagogy

This study described the Cebuano cultural identities and prospects in search of a culture-based instruction model. This sought to find out the linguistic varieties of the Cebuano speakers; contrast the differences and similarities in the inasal making process; and identify the variations in the celebrations of festivals in Cebu. This study utilized a case study design with 15 research participants from the three selected cluster locations. These Cebuano cultural identities vary according to geographic location and other socio-historical factors. Clipping and borrowing of words and expressions, from adjacent islands and roots of the colonial past, are indicative of these factors of language variations. The practices of inasal making are based on inherited traditions of the place such as variations on the use of logistics and needed ingredients to embellish the entire corpus of a sanitized butchered pig before its roasting. Towns and cities celebrate festivals in thanksgiving of their patron saint – a symbolism of their religious and cultural traditions. These varied cultural orientations support the argument to establish a cultural grounding on instructional initiatives in the Asian context. The findings juxtapose the exploration of Inasal Teaching Model (ITM) as a localized and a contextualized teaching model that serves as a nexus in various phases of instruction, for quality teaching in the field of culture-based education.

Theologizing Latinamente: Had Anselm Known Us!

After a historical and cultural grounding of Prosper of Aquitaine's lex orandi, lex credendi and of Anselm of Canterbury's notion that theology is fides quarens intellectum, this article examines the importance of constructing an Episcopal Latinoa theology that is clearly validated by the academy but whose most important validation comes from the people who are the church. Teología de conjunto (or teología en conjunto ) demands and expects theologians’ grounding location to be within lo cotidiano of our people. To theologize latinamente, therefore, is a movement, a contextual perspective, and a methodological approach to theologizing within Christian theology, distinguished by a cultural, critical, contextual, justice-seeking, and noninnocent interpretation of Scripture, tradition and doctrine, society and church, and history. It is intent on acknowledging and honoring Latinoa cultures, histories, and stories as legitimate and necessary sources of Christian theology.

Aesthetic Judgments and Their Cultural Grounding

At present, the theoretical approaches of Baumgarten and Kant continue to constitute the framework for discussing the nature of aesthetic judgments about art, including the question of what such judgments are really articulating. In distinction to those two eighteenth-century theorists, today we would largely avoid an assumption that aesthetic judgments necessarily attribute beauty to the objects being judged; we would as a rule take a far more complex approach to the topic. But whatever we say about art, even today many theorists wish to ground aesthetic judgments in particularities of the aesthetic object, like Baumgarten, or in specific moments of the aesthetic experience, like Kant.

Utilising Indigenous Knowledge or Crime against Humanity?: A Critical Engagement with the Debate Generated by Alick Macheso’s Use of Manhood to Treat Nhova (Sunken Fontanelle)

This article presents various points of view regarding the treatment of sunken fontanelle by various communities as ignited by the controversial practice of kutara(a practice that involves the father of a child sliding his penis from the lower part of the left and right cheeks to the top of the head, as well as from the lower part of the face to the top of the head, and from the lower back part of the head to the top). The story of Alick Macheso’s use of his manhood to treat nhova (sunken fontanelle) opened a Pandora’s box. The story not only attracted the attention of critics from diverse cultural and ethical backgrounds, but revealed multi-ethnic positions. That is, reactions were steeped in a multiplicity of intellectual, religious and even cultural grounding. Reactions ranged from accusations of backwardness and absurdity, through to medical and Christian orientations toward the treatment of nhova. The overarching idea is that there is a general tendency to dismiss the age-old practice of kutara,coupled with an uncritical celebration of certain positions. The debate that ensued following publication of the story seemed to revolve around ethical considerations. The school of thought that dismisses kutara with disdain regards it as unethical and unimaginable in the present-day world—it is redolent with insinuations of absurdity on the part of those that live and celebrate it. We contend that the raging debate that followed the publication of the story can best be conceptualised within the context of African ethics. We note that kutara has relevance to the spirituality, ethical values, privacy, and protection of children’s rights, among other ethical issues. It is hoped that the article will stir further debate and encourage more research among information practitioners, scholars and researchers into the ethical issues surrounding the treatment of sunken fontanelle in various African communities. It argues for an Afrocentric conceptualisation of phenomena in order to contribute to debates on the renaissance of African cultures, and stresses that it is imperative to harness the life-furthering age-old traditions in African ontological existence.

Assessing Multicultural Parenting Values and Practices in Prevention Programs for Latino Youth

As communities become increasingly diverse, it is important to consider how cultural navigation interacts with adolescent development. We examined immigrant parenting values and practices to promote healthy development when developing Padres Informados/Jóvenes Preparados (Padres). Three focus groups were conducted with Latino immigrant parents (n = 27). Parents strove to foster a strong Latino identity to protect their children from detrimental preconceived notions about Latinos in the broader American culture. They conveyed a Latino identity by speaking Spanish and teaching the values of respect and familism. Parents expressed tremendous stress in parenting while navigating difficult policies, socioeconomic conditions, and unfamiliar systems. They actively sought practices to protect their children. Parents also held misconceptions about cultural influences and normative development. These findings provided cultural grounding for Padres, which demonstrated success in improving youth–parent relationships. Family-focused programs serving Latino youth need to consider strengthening cultural identity to improve youth–parent relationships and promote optimal development.

Lourdes: Processioner og kraft i Zolas roman Valfartsstedet

English abstract: This article outlines the emergence of Lourdes as a shrine. This sketch records how procession practices seem important in the cultural grounding of the site. But the article's real center of attention is a study of how French author-jounalist and intellectual, Republican free-thinker, Émile Zola’s novel Lourdes depicts processions. The novel is driven forth by a critique of contemporary religious life. Nevertheless, this critique is somewhat softened in the description of the ritual performances of the processions. Pertaining in particular to the interest in force-metaphors, Zola in these passages shows a perhaps surprising resemblance to formative figures within the study of religion such as Émile Durkheim.Dansk resume: Denne artikel skitserer fremvæksten af Lourdes som helligsted fra midten til slutningen af 1800-tallet. Denne skitse tegner blandt andet konturerne af processionspraksissers betydning for helligtstedets etablering. Men artiklens egentlige tyngdepunkt er undersøgelsen af processionsskildringerne i den franske forfatter-journalist og intellektuelle, republikanske fritænker Émile Zolas roman Valfartsstedet fra 1894. Denne roman er en religions- og samtidskritik; men denne kritik nedtones påfaldende i beskrivelserne af processioners kraft og virkning. I disse passager viser Zola et måske overraskende slægtskab med den formative religionsvidenskabs interesse for ‘religiøse kræfter’ som den formuleres fx hos Émile Durkheim.