Refugees’ Meaning of Work: A Qualitative Investigation of Work Purposes and Expectations

This study explores the meaning of work for 22 young refugees aged from 18 to 35 from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, and Yemen through semistructured interviews. Using consensual qualitative research, we sought to understand the purposes work fulfills, their work expectations, and how purposes and expectations might have changed over time. Results showed that work fulfills many purposes found in the literature, (e.g., development, structure, health, identity, and material benefits) as well as purposes in relation with others and the larger society. Participants expect their work to correspond to their selves (e.g., interests and personality), offer decent working conditions, and allow meaningful relationships and opportunities to help others. Illustrations of two participants’ paths provided insights into a possible change of meaning of work. In addition to implications for practice, the influence of relational and contextual factors is discussed.

The Natural Sciences

Part II of the book takes up questions of curriculum, beginning with the natural sciences. The aim throughout Part II is to identify what all students should share. The sciences bring material benefits, not only to the societies out of which new research comes but also to the entire human population. Hence it is important to train young people who can build on past achievements to make new advances in the future. Scientific education is not merely for the few who fill this important role, or even for the larger number who will draw on established science in their daily employment. The results of science should be as widely available as possible, not simply because of the intrinsic value of understanding but, more importantly, because policy debates often turn on scientific details. General education in science should preserve the curiosity most children have, and instill scientific literacy. The chapter argues that this is best done by distinguishing the curriculum for specialists from a broad general education in science, and it formulates concrete proposals for how this might be achieved.

Why Does Cognitive Reserve Align With Modern Western Ideals of Success? Theoretical & Methodological Proposals

Cognitive reserve (CR) is a framework that investigates discrepancies between brain pathology and cognitive decline. In explaining why individuals with similar levels of brain pathology display different levels of functional impairment, CR research focuses on factors that resemble modern, Western ideals of success: greater education, professional achievement, a self-directed life, and physically and intellectually stimulating leisure time. This theoretical paper documents this alignment between CR and modern, Western ideals of success to hypothesize different mechanisms by which CR may operate. The focus in the CR literature has been on investigating and operationalizing the direct cognitive changes that come from intellectual cultivation, and the native abilities that are hypothesized to produce differences in both education and cognitive outcomes. This paper argues that an attention to CR’s relationship to current definitions of success presents alternative hypotheses about the mechanisms by which CR operates. Specifically, the paper outlines two potential mechanisms and frames alternative means of studying them: First, does the accrual of CR simply follow from being successful in conventional ways because of the material benefits of wealth and stability that success brings? Second, does a lack of success carry cognitive risks solely because of material deprivation, or are there additional psychosocial penalties that come from living a non-normative life—especially when that is not of one’s choosing? This paper proposes both cross-cultural and intersectional methods to begin to better understand the relationship between normative success and cognitive health.

Growing refugee debate ups pressure on Erdogan

Significance Erdogan is partly motivated by domestic alarm at the prospect of more Afghan refugees, which has heightened discontent over his policies regarding migration and the large, mainly Syrian refugee population ahead of elections in 2023. Viral social media posts this week amid a row over refugees 'provocatively' eating bananas that some Turks complain they cannot afford have resulted in the detentions of seven foreign nationals. Impacts Ankara will maintain its close interest in Afghanistan, and Afghan refugees could become the major factor in Turkey-Iran relations. Turkey’s incentives to control territory in Syria will include keeping IDPs within Syria and supporting returnees from Turkey. International assistance for refugees in Turkey may have to focus on material benefits for both refugees and local communities. Integrating refugees and asylum-seekers could slow further, and liberalising work or residence permits may favour the best-qualified. Officials may treat Syrians more harshly and hostility towards them may be tolerated, but a clampdown on cheap irregular labour is unlikely.

Native Title as Displaced Mediator

This article considers how native title is a legal manifestation of settler colonialism that operates as a displaced mediator. Using native title cases from Australia and elsewhere, this article argues that native title displaces Indigenous laws, customs, and practices in constructing native title holders as ‘traditional’ to mediate their integration into the so-called ‘modern’ nation. Legal processes construct native title and then retroactively posit that these legal constructions pre-exist the Crown’s acquisition of sovereignty. This provides legal support for the Crown’s acquisition of sovereignty and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who assert native title claims become subjects who aver and reproduce the myth that the Crown acquired sovereignty over them. Native title displaces more unsettling, decolonising practices but produces the appearance of justice through the production of existential and material benefits for its subjects. Northern Territory v Griffiths (2019) 364 ALR 208 (‘Timber Creek’) demonstrates this.

Clientelism in the electoral process as a manifestation political corruption. Case of Ukraine

Authors consider political corruption and clientelism in the electoral process as destructive phenomena that violate the normal principle of society and artificially create obstacles within the political system. The understanding of clientelism by different authors as a component of political corruption, the conditions of its existence, as well as the consequences and influence on political power are analysed. Basing on the achievements of foreign scientists, the content and the essence of the concept of “electoral clientelism” is determined, the main reasons and preconditions of this phenomenon emergence are found, the authors’ own definition, summarizing the known scientific approaches, is offered. The devastating impact of clientelism on the electoral process that results in violating the principle of competition between political forces, and further leads to the development of corruption in the power system, is elucidated. Varieties of electoral clientelism in accordance with the tasks set by corrupt subjects of the electoral process in order to gain an advantage over opponents during the voting are found out. Apart from the approach, where electoral clientelism provides material benefits to voters, an approach, where the voters are constantly informed of the clientele character data, basing on which the unfair politicians create a mobilization campaign, is considered. The authors showed their own vision of the connection between electoral clientelism and political corruption manifested in the occupation of political positions by ineffective candidates and further use of their powers for private purposes, which will threaten the long-term prospects of social development. A number of ways to regulate clientelism’s impact on the electoral process, in particular through electronic voting introduction, established compulsory voting, agitation campaign financing control, severe penalties for clientele activity etc., are traced.

“The Courtroom of World Opinion”: Bringing the International Audience into Nuclear Crises

What role does the international audience play in nuclear crises? Scholars of nuclear crises and deterrence have treated nuclear crises as dyadic interactions between two sides. However, states do not only interact with each other during a nuclear crisis. They also signal to a third actor—the international audience. There are two reasons for this. First, states care about their international social reputation and want to be perceived as responsible and legitimate actors. Second, there are material benefits to states maintaining a good social reputation with the international audience, which possesses the leverage to reward, condemn, and sanction. States thus attempt to leverage this power of the international audience to apply diplomatic pressure on their adversary during nuclear crises. They also engage in costly signaling and strategic restraint to ensure that the international audience considers their actions legitimate during the crisis. I use original qualitative evidence from the Kargil War (1999) between India and Pakistan to demonstrate this dynamic. Incorporating the international audience as a critical third actor during nuclear crises has important academic and policy implications for the study of nuclear crises and their management. ¿Qué función cumple el público internacional en las crisis nucleares? Los estudiosos de la disuasión y las crisis nucleares han tratado dichas crisis como interacciones diádicas entre dos lados. No obstante, los Estados no solo interactúan entre sí durante una crisis nuclear. También hacen señas a un tercer actor: el público internacional. Esto se debe a dos motivos. En primer lugar, los Estados se preocupan por su reputación social internacional y desean que se los perciba como actores responsables y legítimos. En segundo lugar, existen beneficios materiales para los Estados que mantienen una buena reputación social con el público internacional, el cual tiene influencia en la recompensación, la condena y la sanción. Por tanto, los Estados intentan aprovechar este poder del público internacional para aplicar presión diplomática en su adversario durante las crisis nucleares. También emplean un envío de señas costoso y restricciones estratégicas para garantizar que el público internacional considere sus acciones como legítimas durante la crisis. Utilizo pruebas cualitativas originales de la guerra de Kargil (1999) entre India y Pakistán para demostrar esta dinámica. La incorporación del público internacional como un tercer actor fundamental durante las crisis nucleares presenta importantes implicaciones académicas y políticas para el estudio de las crisis nucleares y su manejo. Quel rôle le public international joue-t-il dans les crises nucléaires? Les chercheurs se consacrant à la dissuasion et aux crises nucléaires ont traité les crises nucléaires comme étant des interactions dyadiques entre deux camps. Cependant, les États ne se contentent pas d'interagir l'un avec l'autre lors d'une crise nucléaire. Ils émettent également un signal à l'attention d'un acteur tiers, le public international. Il y a deux raisons à cela. D'une part, les États se soucient de leur réputation sociale internationale et souhaitent être perçus comme des acteurs responsables et légitimes. Et d'autre part, le maintien d'une bonne réputation sociale auprès du public international présente des avantages matériels pour les États puisque ce public dispose de l'influence nécessaire pour récompenser, condamner et sanctionner. Les États tentent donc de tirer parti de ce pouvoir du public international pour exercer une pression diplomatique sur leur adversaire lors de crises nucléaires. Ils s'engagent également dans un signal coûteux et dans une retenue stratégique pour veiller à ce que le public international considère leurs actions comme légitimes durant la crise. Je m'appuie sur des preuves qualitatives originales issues du conflit de Kargil (1999) entre l'Inde et le Pakistan pour démontrer cette dynamique. L'intégration du public international comme troisième acteur essentiel lors de crises nucléaires a d'importantes implications politiques et de recherche pour l’étude des crises nucléaires et de leur gestion.

Selling price according to traditional traders in the practice of Jual Kase-Kase

Jual kase-kase is a selling practice by traditional Banggai traders. Jual Kase-Kase is a term that comes from a habit of traders, thus making people call their practice the term Jual Kase-Kase. Starting from the barter system or the exchange of goods sold from house to house by traders, thus forming a way of transacting based on interests. In making an exchange the traders voluntarily accept the imbalance provided by the buyer. Changes in the sales system, affect the way of trading carried out by traditional traders, assigning value to each item sold and changing the location of the seller has an influence on the traders. However, the character of traditional traders is not lost even though some things from their sales practices have changed. The value given to an item does not only seek material benefits for traders but includes non-material values. Jual Kase-Kase means to give excess voluntarily. The purpose of this research is to reveal the meaning of selling price in the practice of selling cases from the perspective of traditional traders. An ethnomethodological approach is used to understand the meaning of the selling price of the practice of Jual Kase-Kase carried out by traditional traders. In this study, the value of goods sold by traditional traders is influenced by Banggai culture which is inherent in the character of traditional traders, where the value of goods is not only formed from material values but is formed from social and spiritual values. Where the social value is seen in the relationship created between fellow sellers or between sellers and buyers. The spiritual value that is present in the determination of the selling price is seen in the sincerity, honesty, and inner feeling of the perpetrator which finally appears in the price given.

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits.

The Preferences of Active Final Purchasers Regarding the Environment of Cooperation with Offerors and Benefits Achieved Thanks to Such Cooperation

The aim of this study was to identify the preferences of final purchasers regarding the environment of cooperation with offerors and the benefits of cooperation, as well as to identify dependencies between two groups of preferences, taking into account the age of purchasers. The results of an analysis of the global literature on the subject indicate that so far these issues have not been studied, either in relation to the energy market or other areas of the consumer market. Therefore, we can talk about a cognitive and research gap in this area. In order to reduce the gap, seven research hypotheses were formulated and primary research was carried out on 1196 adult representatives of final purchasers in Poland to verify the hypotheses. The collected data were subjected to quantitative analysis, the results of which made it possible to state that most respondents preferred the parallel use of the online and offline environments as a place of interaction with offerors. More than half of the respondents stated that a combination of material and non-material benefits achieved through cooperation with offerors effectively encourages purchasers to undertake this cooperation. Non-material benefits such as the possibility of gaining new knowledge, the possibility of gaining new skills, and the possibility of establishing relationships with new people turned out to be particularly important. Statistically significant dependencies were identified between the preferences regarding the environment of cooperation and preferences regarding the benefits of cooperation. Moreover, dependencies were identified between age and the general specificity of benefits of cooperation with offerors, and between age and twelve specific benefits of cooperation. Conclusions drawn from the results obtained have great cognitive and application value, enriching knowledge of the behavior of final purchasers and making it easier for offerors, including companies operating on the consumer energy market, to make effective decisions about encouraging recipients to cooperate in the process of creating a marketing offer.