Search Results (29)

This paper introduces Saudi Dialects Cyber Violence Detection (SD-CVD) corpus, a large-scale, class-balanced Saudi-dialect corpus for fine-grained cyber violence detection on online platforms. The dataset contains 88,687 Saudi Arabic tweets annotated using a three-level hierarchical scheme that assigns each tweet to one of 11 mutually exclusive classes, covering benign sentiment (positive, neutral, negative), cyberbullying, and seven hate-speech subtypes (incitement to violence, gender, national, social class, tribal, religious, and regional discrimination). To mitigate the class imbalance common in Arabic cyber violence datasets, data augmentation was applied to achieve a near-uniform class distribution. Annotation quality was ensured through multi-stage review, yielding excellent inter-annotator agreement (Fleiss’ κ > 0.89). We evaluate three modeling paradigms: traditional machine learning with TF–IDF and n-gram features (SVM, logistic regression, random forest), deep learning models trained on fixed sentence embeddings (LSTM, RNN, MLP, CNN), and fine-tuned transformer models (AraBERTv02-Twitter, CAMeLBERT-MSA). Experimental results show that transformers perform best, with AraBERTv02-Twitter achieving the highest weighted F1-score (0.882) followed by CAMeLBERT-MSA (0.869). Among non-transformer baselines, SVM is most competitive (0.853), while CNN performs worst (0.561). Overall, SD-CVD provides a high-quality benchmark and strong baselines to support future research on robust and interpretable Arabic cyber-violence detection. Full article

Situated at the intersection of social history and psychology, this study examines how early Christian communities in Bithynia-Pontus navigated the persecution narrated in Pliny the Younger’s Epistle X 96. Through systematic textual analysis of Latin and Greek sources—triangulated with comparative evidence from Tacitus and corroborating archaeological data—and interpreted through Conservation-of-Resources and Social Identity theoretical frameworks, we reconstruct the repertoire of collective coping strategies mobilised under Roman repression. Our findings show that ritualised dawn assemblies, mutual economic assistance, and a theologically grounded expectation of post-mortem vindication converted external coercion into internal cohesion; these practices neutralised informer threat, sustained group morale, and ultimately expanded Christian networks across Asia Minor. Moreover, Pliny’s ad hoc judicial improvisations reveal the governor’s own bounded rationality, underscoring the reciprocal nature of stress between the persecutor and persecuted. By mapping the dynamic interaction between imperial policy and subaltern agency, the article clarifies why limited, locally triggered violence consolidated rather than extinguished the nascent movement. The analysis contributes a theoretically informed, evidence-based account of religious-minority resilience, enriching both early Christian historiography and broader debates on group survival under systemic duress. Full article

Background/Objectives: Violence in healthcare settings, especially in emergency departments (ED), remains an important public health issue worldwide. Thus, additional insight into the effect of these incidents into nurses’ professional attitudes, their work life and related implications to patient safety issues may be valuable. We investigated ED nurses’ living experience of exposure to workplace violence by healthcare service users, with focus on the impact on them. Methods: Following a qualitative study design, data were collected (January–June 2024) through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions and were analyzed according to an inductive, content analysis approach. Participants provided informed consent, and data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Results: The sample included six nurses. Various forms of workplace violence and its psychological, social, and professional consequences were identified. Violence was more frequently perpetrated by patients’ relatives, with verbal aggression being the most common form. A fundamental divergence in needs and expectation between patients and their family members/caregivers, on one side, and participants, on the other, revealed a pronounced empathy gap. Each group remained focused on its own priorities while struggling to recognize or accommodate others’ perspectives. This lack of mutual understanding contributed to tension that, in some cases, escalated even into physically violent incidents against the participants. A similar gap was identified between the participants’ needs and administrators’ attitudes and related policies. The failure of administrative measures to bridge this gap was described as a crucial factor in further escalating conflicts and tension in the ED. Conclusions: Further research on quality improvement projects, including all stakeholders, aiming to enhance empathy in all parties involved is proposed. Full article

This paper reimagines the study of suicide as a critical, relational practice rooted in solidarity and transformative possibilities. Moving beyond the limitations of conventional suicidology, this work emphasizes the importance of attending to the broader social, political, and structural contexts that shape experiences of suicidality. By framing this work as a collection of “notes,” this paper calls for an approach that notices, marks, and responds to both the violence and resistance inherent in these experiences. This paper introduces witnessing, dreaming, and prefiguration as key methodologies for Critical Suicide Studies. Witnessing is conceptualized as an active and relational practice that centers on the lived realities of those affected by suicide, making their stories and the systems of harm that often go unaddressed, visible. Dreaming involves imagining futures beyond survival, where care and justice guide collective responses. Prefiguration focuses on enacting these futures in the present, embedding relational and community-based approaches in the everyday practices of suicide care and research. Through these practices, this paper explores how Critical Suicide Studies can move from critique to action, creating conditions in which responses to suicide are life-affirming, relational, and grounded in mutual care. This work aspires to cultivate spaces for collective healing, dignity and transformative change. Full article

Community members seeking alternatives to policing have played a substantive role in promoting safety and responding to harm for decades. The Survival Line was formed as a volunteer-run hotline to respond to community members’ concerns about neighborhood crime or police misconduct. It was established in the summer of 1970 as a mechanism for gathering data while also referring callers to community resources like pro bono attorneys and low-cost social services. It ran as a 24/7 hotline staffed entirely by volunteers from the Action for Survival coalition, a group of community-based organizations, which included the Chicago Urban League. Using historical analytic methods, this study asks the following: what function did this citizen-run hotline serve in 1970s Chicago? This study mobilizes archival research methods to analyze call records, meeting minutes, publicity materials, and internal memos from the Chicago Urban League and its Survival Line archives. This archival analysis found that the Survival Line served multiple functions; it was a non-state response to urban crises, a vehicle for Black solidarity, and a mechanism for gathering data on crime and police misconduct in the city. By functioning as an alternative to policing and state responses to crime, a vehicle for Black neighborhood solidarity, and a data collection mechanism, the Survival Line was at the core of an impactful micropolitical intervention upon urban crises in 1970s Chicago. As a historical example of community-driven violence and crisis response, this hotline has implications for contemporary social work—specifically for direct practice, community organizing, program design and evaluation, and community-based participatory research. Full article

Conceptions or ideas that couples hold about sexual consent could be a key factor in their communication, mutual respect, and the prevention of sexual violence. The multifaceted nature of sexual consent makes it a complex concept. The aim of the present study was to explore individuals’ ideas and understanding of sexual intercourse in two distinct contexts: consensual and non-consensual. We used a qualitative approach, adopting the methodology of thematic analysis. In total, 113 surveys obtained from the general population (76.1% women and 23.9% men aged 18 to 59 years) were studied. Two open-ended questions were asked about the general topic of sexual consent, where we distinguished sexual activity in which there is sexual consent vs. no consent. The phases of the thematic analysis approach were applied. For the consensual context, the following themes emerged: mutual reciprocity and respect; open, clear communication and agreements; and awareness and emotional well-being. For the non-consensual context, the following themes emerged: violence and sexual assault, absence and ambiguity of sexual consent, and lack of communication. All of these aspects should be considered in couples’ communication and sexual education to facilitate and improve sexual relationships and, in turn, prevent violence and sexual aggression. Full article

Dating violence is a serious public health issue among adolescents due to the detrimental short- and long-term consequences. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between adolescent dating violence (ADV) and adverse health behavioral outcomes related to substance abuse, mental health, and select risky health behaviors such as feeling unsafe, school performance, and inadequate sleep within the state of Florida. This study used data from the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The high school students represented a weighted total of 542,818 (n = 4301). Logistic regression analyses, stratified by gender, examined the relationship between ADV and health risk behaviors after adjusting for race and grade. Proportions of ADV were as follows: 3.1% of students reported being abused both physically and sexually; 3.4% reported being abused only physically; 3.9% reported being abused only sexually; and 89.6% were uninvolved. ADV was associated with almost all the health risk behavior outcomes studied, with a few exceptions. Experiencing both kinds of abuse held the highest odds ratio among the four mutually exclusive categories of ADV. The findings from this study could be helpful in identifying youths who demonstrate warning signs of ADV abuse and thus could provide opportunities for targeted preventive interventions. Full article

Violence in intimate partner relationships among young adults has become a global health problem given its prevalence and its negative effects on physical and psychological well-being. The severity of the problem has given rise to a large body of research that has attempted to find the variables associated with victimization in young couples (for example, attachment style, emotional regulation skills or empathy, among others). Moreover, traditionally, many of these investigations have only considered the point of view of female victims within a gender violence approach. However, in recent times, more and more evidence of the existence of mutual violence in young relationships has been found. These findings, combined with simplistic explanations of the phenomenon, have proven to be insufficient to prevent it. In this context, the main objective of this study was to investigate how some variables linked to dating violence interact with each other, modifying the mutual violence young people suffer and exercise. Considering this, different instruments were administered (the Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR-R); Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS-E); Basic Empathy Scale (BES); and Multidimensional Couple Violence Scale (EMVN)) to a sample of 557 young Chileans. The analysis of the results, based on the construction of a moderated mediation model, reveals that difficulties in emotional regulation are a predictor of violence in intimate partner relationships, whose direct and indirect effects on the violence exercised can be moderated by that partner’s attachment style. The findings also reveal that there is no association between empathy and violence, and they highlight that both men and women are victims and aggressors at the same time. This demonstrate the need to consider prevention and intervention strategies aimed at both sexes, since intimate partner violence is mutual and reciprocal. Full article

This article explores the intricate landscape of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian state within the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC), where the pursuit of modernization strategically utilizes women’s issues as symbols of national identity and markers of progress. The article focuses on the transformative potential of academic activism, exemplified by the work of Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi, in countering oppression against women. It demonstrates how women navigate the realms of academia and activism to reshape gender dynamics and shape their nation’s modernization trajectory. By emphasizing the critical intersection between academic inquiry and activism, this article dispels the misconception that academia and activism are mutually exclusive. In contexts such as Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights face suppression, this intersection emerges as imperative for informed research and frontline advocacy, effectively addressing state-sponsored violence. Furthermore, this article critically evaluates the persistent challenge of feminist neo-Orientalist scholarship, which often distorts the depiction of Saudi women’s experiences. It offers a contribution to a nuanced understanding of women’s theorization that includes the ethico-political context within which women operate. Full article

The phenomenon of adolescent dating violence is a social health problem that affects thousands of people in different contexts and parts of the world. To date, much of the work that has focused on analysing this phenomenon has tended to study it from the perspective of victimized adolescent girls, considering that gender violence predominates in violent pair relationships. Nonetheless, there is a growing body of evidence that the victimization of adolescent boys is a reality. Thus, mutual violence between boys and girls is increasingly prevalent. Given this context, the present study’s objective was to analyse and compare the victimization profile of a sample of female and male adolescents, taking into account the variables most commonly associated with victimization in these abusive relationships (perceived violence suffered, perceived severity, sexism, and moral disengagement). With this objective, different instruments were administered (CUVINO, Scale of Detection of Sexism Adolescents (DSA), and Mechanism of Moral Disengagement Scale (MMDS)). Data analysis based on the construction of a multiple linear regression model confirmed that the boys and girls in the sample revealed having suffered violence from their partners to a different degree. It is evident that the victimization profile of the two sexes is different. Thus, boys show less perception of severity, more sexism, and greater use of certain moral disengagement mechanisms than girls. These results reveal the need to tear down social myths and construct prevention programs that take into account different victimization profiles. Full article

Household violence poses a significant threat to the physical and mental health of adolescent girls. In conflict-affected communities, increased stresses to safety, security, health, and livelihoods may heighten this risk. While it is widely evidenced that the caregiver-child relationship can increase or protect against girls’ risk of violence, less is known about the role of male siblings. Sibling Support for Adolescent Girls in Emergencies (SSAGE) used whole-family support programming to synchronously engage adolescent girls, their male siblings, and their caregivers in conflict-affected communities in Jordan and Niger, using gender-transformative approaches to explore the impacts of gender norms, power, and violence and encourage support and emotional connection. We conducted qualitative research activities, including focus group discussions, participatory group activities, and in-depth, paired, and key informant interviews with 469 SSAGE participants and program facilitators to explore SSAGE’s impact on the male-female sibling dyad in both settings. The multi-stakeholder team used a collaborative thematic analysis approach to identify emergent themes. Findings suggest that the inclusion of male siblings in family strengthening programs may have a positive impact on factors related to girls’ protection, with research participants discussing decreased perpetration of physical and verbal violence by male siblings, increased equity in household labor between siblings, and improved trust and mutual support among siblings. These changes were facilitated by improved communication and interrogation of positive gender identities. In humanitarian settings, interventions that support more gender-transformative, egalitarian, and emotionally effective relationships between male-female siblings can work towards improving girls’ protective assets. More research on the impact of this relationship on girls’ experience of immediate and long-term experience of violence is needed. In settings where gender power dynamics among male-female siblings are less salient, other relationship dyads should be explored. Full article

Achieving more equitable, safer, and resilient societies—crucial dimensions of social sustainability—depends on durable transformations in people’s behavior. Traditional policy interventions attempt to influence people’s behavior in different ways, such as increased policing, fines, or awareness campaigns, but often have limited effects because they fail to systematically address local determinants of behavior. In this paper, we analyze two complex behavioral policy interventions to illustrate how installation theory can provide a framework to systematically analyze and design for large-scale behavioral change to support social sustainability. We focus on two of Antanas Mockus’ iconic “civic culture” interventions to reduce deaths in traffic accidents and domestic violence in Colombia. To study them, we collected intervention reports, citizens’ narratives, creators’ accounts and press articles to identify their main characteristics and behavioral techniques. In our results, we find that the civic culture approach used in these two interventions addresses physical, psychological and social determinants of behavior in ways that reduce reactance and promote mutual regulation and collective agency. By unraveling the essential factors of behavioral influence, installation theory and related frameworks provide a useful guide to structure, analyze and report interventions that address the behavioral components of social sustainability. Full article

The flourishing society envisioned by the South African government’s National Development Plan 2030 is based on nation-building and social cohesion. With the recent civil unrests, calls for healing a nation characterised by poverty, inequality and violence through social cohesion have again been made. Community music engagement is uniquely positioned to achieve social cohesion since the discipline engages disparities of power and privilege whilst aiming to cultivate an environment of unconditional welcoming. The purpose of this theoretical framework is to explain how community music engagement can facilitate social cohesion through community music engagement. Community music engagement promotes spiritual experiences since it fosters relationships. This relational theoretical framework will be derived from a thematic analysis of the 21 chapters in the book Ritualised Belonging: Musicing and Spirituality in the South African Context and related theories. Our findings indicate that joyful musicking rituals serve as the catalyst for hope. Hope, in turn, motivates people to engage in community musicking, which requires a bodily co-presence, fosters mutual focus of attention and promotes cooperation and trust. Musickers who share values, challenges, culture, and identity experience a joyful sense of belonging. Furthermore, joy is key to spirituality since it is self-expansive, self-transcendent and other-embracing and transcends different religions. Joy moves musickers to build bonding and bridging social capital. Social capital improves individuals’ and communities’ quality of life and ultimately promotes social cohesion. Full article

The offence and violence surrounding episodes like the Salman Rushdie Affair and the Danish cartoon controversies have furnished Western critique of Islam. While important work has challenged this criticism of Islam by interrogating the secular foundations of critique, the relationship between violence and critique remains troubling. Through reflecting on an excerpt from an attempted murder trial following an attack in purported retaliation for offending Islam in an English prison, this article considers an expanded notion of violence that recognizes the structural conditions behind violence and the political stakes that prioritize the psychological and ideological drivers that service criticism of Islam. This article builds on scholarship that explored the State and the violent actions of non-State actors and the critical studies of hate crimes, Islamist extremism, and radicalization to reflect on the role of critique in the aftermath of violence and to ask: “Is violence critique?” It argues for an approach to violence-as-critique by recognizing how emotion and violence are not merely resident inside the fanatical body that protrudes outwards but are instead part of the wider, circulating, and unstable affective economies of structural violence where violences can be mutually reinforcing. Full article

When examining the history of religions and dominant religious narratives, institutions, cultures, ideologies, and practices in the contemporary world, one is tempted to conclude that religion is more of the problem in relating to diverse issues of war and peace. Dominant religions and religious cultures seem overwhelmingly to be causes, express systemic structures, and provide ideological, theological, and philosophical justifications for violence, war, militarism, intolerance, divisiveness, oppression, injustice, hatred, environmental destruction, and anti-democratic hierarchical domination. Can religious culture also be a positive force for nonviolence, peace, love, compassion, justice, tolerance and mutual respect, and harmonious and sustainable relations with human and nonhuman life, nature, and the cosmos? A universal, phenomenological, structural model of the dialectic of the sacred and the profane allows us to understand how and why religious culture has been such a negative force, but also how it can develop as a positive force. In that regard, Mahatma Gandhi, the best known and most influential proponent of nonviolence, offers a complex and insightful approach to religious culture in ways that are most significant for relating issues of war, peace, and religious culture today. What I propose to show, by focusing on the phenomenology of religion and the insights of Mahatma Gandhi, is that the full picture of religious culture, violence, war, and peace is complex, nuanced, and contradictory, and there are structural and contextualized openings for understanding ways that religious culture can be a positive force for nonviolence and peace. Full article