Bonsai in the time of COVID

The study sought to find out to what extent engagement with serious leisure, in this case, bonsai growing, can help people deal with challenging times, such as a global pandemic. In particular, how bonsai enthusiasts use their hobbies to manage uncertainty and stress during the lockdown and how they have shared their lived experiences on this topic via social media. The researcher employed a user-generated contents analysis approach to address the questions and explored a collection of comments from a sample of the most visited bonsai videos posted during the pandemic. The serious leisure perspective has been used as a theoretical framework to conceptualise the data based on the qualities that differentiate serious leisure from casual leisure. The findings showed that engagement in this hobby helps bonsai enthusiasts to develop social connectedness and cope with their stress caused by the pandemic.

Social value orientations and public confidence in institutions: A young democracy under the imprint of COVID-19

Social value orientations (SVOs) of a society determine peoples' behaviour and are critical for young democracies in crises. This paper draws on the Maldives Values in Crisis survey, conducted during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. SVOs assessed using the Schwartz Personal Values Questionnaire shows that Maldivian society weigh slightly towards prosocial. Urban-rural, age, and gender determine the SVOs on the dimension of Openness to change versus Conservation while age and gender determine the SVOs on Self-enhancement versus Self-transcendence dimension. Confidence in the public institutions were moderate and not associated with the SVOs. The moderate level of SVOs and confidence in institutions reflects the democratic landscape of the country. Although prosocial SVOs are favourable for implementing containment measures of the pandemic, without a strong value orientation towards conservation and self-transcendence, and confidence in the institutions, the country faces the risk of non-compliance to measures and escalation of the crisis.

Covid-19 and Sexual and Reproductive Health of Women and Girls in Nigeria

Copious literature exists on how COVID-19 is affecting the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls in the world. Not much is known about the case of Nigeria. Using secondary data in peer-reviewed and grey literature, as well as insights from web searches, this paper explores the impact of measures such as lockdown, closure of schools, travel bans, and social distancing on the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls in Nigeria. The impact varies between urban and rural dwellers amidst pre-existing patriarchal norms and severe health care deficiencies and limited access for people and worse for women and girls with needs. Decision-making about family planning, contraceptive use, safe delivery, antenatal care, prenatal care and treatment of victims of rape which have been mainly areas in which men’s power has been demonstrated in the past only got worse with pandemic-related lockdown and restrictions.

Covid-19 Pandemic and its relation to the Unemployment situation in Malaysia: A Case Study from Sabah

Covid-19 not only exposed the vulnerability of most industries especially industries that relies on air travel and tourism but resulted in the exponential increase of unemployment in Malaysia. At the same time, online business or trade and ‘GIG’ economy increased exponentially. The sudden and unexpected loss of jobs had dire consequences for many people. This paper examines how policies enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic affected unemployment in Malaysia by focussing on the situation in Sabah, one of the three remaining partners in the formation of Malaysia. It draws on data from the Family, Women and Youth Survey conducted online towards the end of 2020, as well as secondary data. The study shows that hardship has been faced by many people, especially those previously in professional roles, and those who are younger. The widespread damage to the economy, and to social cohesion, will require significant collaboration between business and industry, the government and the people.

When Accurate Information Harms People

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the generation of a large amount of information not just directly about the virus but also about its various societal impacts. This paper describes the atmosphere that the pandemic has created in the Japanese society and examines the information spread about infection clusters. Besides misinformation and disinformation, the paper highlights another problem in information dissemination during this pandemic. Regardless of the legitimate intention of reporting this type of information, people reacted by blaming or discriminating against those who were associated with clusters. The information on infection clusters has brought to the surface the privacy issues and has brought attention to emerging issues that concern information and media literacy. Understanding how people interact with information in a particular social or cultural setting, not just from an objective but also from an emotional perspective, becomes more important for enhancing people’s information literacy.

Moral Responsibility and Wholeheartedness: A Source of Cohesion in Javanese Society

In social life, humans cannot be separated from social interactions with others. This is based on the fact that humans are social creatures, which in their lives cannot live alone but need help from others. This makes people need help and assistance in solving problems in their lives. In Javanese culture, collaboration that is carried out collectively is known as soyo. Soyo is carried out as an effort to be able to lighten work and is evidence of harmonious life in a community. This study examines the soyo phenomenon from a social and cultural perspective. The findings show that social learning is important in the continuation of the soyo tradition and that moral responsibility and wholeheartedness are essential features of engagement in the practice.

Solving Bangkok’s Traffic Problems

Bangkok is reported to have the worst traffic in the world, a situation that has a detrimental effect on the economic, social and financial development of the city. This mixed-methods study of the enforcement of Thailand’s Road Traffic Act, B.E. 2522 (1979) surveyed drivers in Bangkok and interviewed police traffic officers. The results reveal negative perceptions of drivers towards traffic police officers, poor law enforcement and disparity in policing practice. They also show that drivers lack road discipline and do not fear the consequence of any wrongdoing because they perceive that the Act merely prescribes petty offences and traffic police officers only impose light punishments. To support the cultural changes necessary to alter these perceptions, and enhance the economic and social development of the city, a range of strategies will be necessary, including training and development among drivers and law enforcement officers and strengthened legal provisions.

Mapping local and regional governance: reimagining the New South Wales Aboriginal sector

With reference to four case study localities in New South Wales, this paper offers new insights into calls from Indigenous Australians for recognition within the national political discourse. Examining the literature on the history of the Aboriginal sector that emerged following the 1970s self-determination policy era, this paper argues earlier conceptions of the ‘Aboriginal sector’ are insufficient and do not grasp the wider shift that Aboriginal people seek within the political life of the nation. Instead, the four case studies reveal Aboriginal initiative and interest in creating a sense of association and being, drawing on pre-colonial patterns of identification and shaped by new imaginings of ‘nations’ and ‘political communities’.

Don’t feed the trolls?

This study applies the concepts of interpretive communities and conversational interactions to show how investigative journalists initiated a relatively new method of reporting and generated support among their colleagues for becoming anti-Nazi activists and troll hunters. It draws on a sample of journalistic reporting and related media items to examine investigative reporters’ self-reflexive acts and the responses of journalism communities in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States from 2015 to 2020. Investigative journalists initiated open conversations to show that they were enthusiastic activists in retweeting, confronting and quoting neo-Nazi trolling by interviewing the perpetrators. Other journalism communities signified they were pursuing activist-like agendas as they magnified this work through informal networks, social media and news commentaries. Journalists reconsidered their professional boundaries to allow for cooperative conversations about their experiences in a fresh effort to denounce hate speech and begin collective initiatives to enhance social cohesion in civil society.

On ‘being Australian’: Korean migrants in ‘post-multicultural’ Australia.

This paper reports on the findings of research into what Korean Australians thought about the process of ‘becoming and being Australian’, drawing on measures of social cohesion and ‘Australianness’. The aim of the research was to find out what Korean Australian migrants valued or were uncomfortable with in relation to multiculturalism and processes of ‘being Australian’, or conformation with ‘Australianness’. Based on in-depth interviews with ten and a survey of 153 members of the Korean migrant community in Sydney, data indicated that social activities and self-perception of identity effectively continue to reflect past Australian policy settings that recognised the importance of multiculturalism as both a community-based policy framework as well as a national social policy. The study found participants highly valued Korean identity, language and community and that bonds to the Korean community, limited English language competency and experiences of racism reinforced the importance of settling into a society that valued multiculturalism.