Search Results (43)

Background: Emotional abuse is both prevalent and underrecognized particularly in culturally complex settings like India. Adolescents, being in a critical developmental phase, are especially vulnerable to the long-lasting psychological effects of emotional abuse. This qualitative literature review aims to synthesize findings from primary studies that explore the lived experiences of emotional abuse among Indian adolescents and identify emerging patterns across sociocultural contexts. Method: Electronic databases, including DOAJ, Google Scholar, ProQuest, JSTOR, Pubmed, PsycNet, and SCOPUS, were searched for peer-reviewed articles published in English up to March 2025. Inclusion criteria comprised qualitative or mixed-methods research focusing on emotional abuse among adolescents aged 12–20 in Indian contexts. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) was used for quality assessment. Results: Five major thematic domains were identified across the included studies: (1) Family as a primary site of emotional abuse; (2) Gendered experiences of abuse; (3) Cultural normalization and silence; (4) Psychological and emotional consequences; and (5) Coping and resilience among adolescents. These themes reflect shared experiences of emotional abuse shaped by cultural, familial, and gender-based expectations. Conclusions: This review highlights the urgent need for increased awareness and culturally sensitive interventions addressing emotional abuse in Indian adolescents. The findings suggest that parents, educators, and policymakers must recognize emotionally harmful behaviors and implement prevention-oriented strategies, particularly through non-violent communication and adolescent mental health support frameworks. Full article

American citizens are significantly more likely to experience property crime victimization than violent crime victimization. During a staffing crisis, police prioritize limited resources in combating serious crime; however, property crimes remain impactful to the community. Therefore, agencies need to consider innovative ways to control property crime, such as “super-cocooning” strategies that alert residents to recent offenses. These strategies intend to empower the community to implement guardianship and crime prevention measures. For these strategies to be effective, they require public buy-in and support. The present study implements a preregistered information provision survey experiment (N = 2412), similar to the strategy of super-cocooning, to assess whether the public is more likely to support such strategies to combat property crime. Although the sample held overall high support of this strategy, exposure to a super-cocooning door hanger prime produced no significant changes in perceived effectiveness. However, there was observed racial heterogeneity in the treatments: non-White respondents assigned to the treatment relative to White respondents experienced significantly increased support of super-cocooning strategies. Implications for light-footprint crime control strategies, particularly during a staffing crisis, are discussed. Full article

This paper analyzes the Hindu concept of sevā—selfless service—as a theo-ethical practice that reconfigures the relationship between religion and economy, offering a snapshot of an Indian perspective on the convergence between postsecularism and postcapitalist discourses. Rather than being reducible to acts of charity, sevā integrates spiritual, ethical, and social dimensions that challenge the neoliberal emphasis on individual self-interest and material accumulation. Rooted in the pursuit of liberation and relational well-being, sevā frames economic and moral agency in terms of embeddedness, reciprocity, and care. To illustrate sevā’s unique attributes, the paper engages with two case studies. The first explores Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, where sevā is articulated through a non-anthropocentric ethic of nonviolence (ahiṃsā), obliging the reconstruction of eco-economic mechanisms and environmental responsibility. The second examines contemporary guru-bhakti communities in Delhi’s urban peripheries, where sevā functions as spiritual discipline (sādhana), a means for communal uplifting, and the expression of kalyāṇ—holistic well-being that transcends individual boundaries. In both contexts, sevā emerges as a practice that intervenes in and reshapes socio-economic life. By foregrounding sevā as a lived practice, the paper situates Indian religious traditions as a distinctive contribution to broader postcapitalist and postsecular debates. It argues that sevā offers an alternative model of personhood and ethical intentionality—one that contests dominant binaries of spiritual/material, secular/religious, and human/nature, and reimagines human flourishing through the lens of relational ontology and collective responsibility. Full article

If modern Western disciplinary structures, laid forth by Dilthey and others in the 19th century, have helped structure the world in ways that bring about climate change and gross economic inequities (along with many “good” things such as vaccines and some modern comforts), how might we re-structure our thinking and learning in ways that address these violent lacunae? What does it mean to educate in a truly globalized world that is facing climate change, extinction, and growing injustice? The answer to that surely cannot be “more of the same”. Following the work of critical theorists and the ideas of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, among others, this essay argues that education should be about imagining and working toward a more just and ecologically sound version of the planetary future in a way that is attentive to as much input as possible from multiple perspectives (human and non). The goals of such an education are connective, grounding, and encountering “others” rather than reductive, productive, and geared toward technology transfer. What would it mean to undiscipline or open our disciplinary categories in ways that reattune us to the changing, entangled planet of which we are a part? What will it take to develop planetary humanities and technologies? If humans are not exceptions to the rest of the natural world, and if the nonhuman world is not just dead matter to be used toward human ends, then how do we go about re-grounding our epistemologies within the planet, rather than continuously thinking “out of this world”? The first part of this essay offers a critique of the reductive and productive model that turns the world into a “standing reserve” for use by some humans. The second part of the essay outlines some principles for knowledge that are more connective, grounding and enable us to counter the multiple others within the planetary community. Such “planetary” knowledge reminds humans of the humus of our humanity, connects us to other life found through compassion (to suffer with), reminds us of the justice of good company (sharing of bread/resources), and focuses on the playfulness of public, political conversations (the ability to be converted to another’s point of view). In the third part, I suggest some grounded metaphors for planetary thinking: wild and slow thinking, elemental and grounded thinking, and creaturely and mycelium thinking. Full article

The article seeks to read the contribution of religious practices in prison education within the broader framework of spirituality as a search for meaning in life. It argues that religious engagement can foster cognitive and emotional development, providing inmates with a sense of purpose, community, and resilience that supports their reintegration into society. In light of an exceptional and extremely significant experience with APAC in Brazil’s police-free prison model, the authors aim to highlight the nexus between spirituality and re-education in contexts of deprivation and restriction of personal liberty. Indeed, the APAC (Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convicted) model, central to this study, emphasizes nonviolent coexistence, responsibility, and spiritual care as part of its rehabilitative framework, with a significant reduction in recidivism rates and costs compared to traditional prisons. The model’s approach, grounded in a collective sense of responsibility and spirituality, aligns with Viktor Frankl’s and Paulo Freire’s theories on meaning and liberation, illustrating how spirituality can transform prison environments and promote social justice. The study concludes that spirituality in prisons not only aids individual redemption but also calls for structural changes to support reintegration, marking a shift towards a more human-centered penitentiary system. Full article

Power is often understood as the sheer use of force in social relations. While power is frequently expressed and experienced in these terms, it is also necessary for the generation, sustenance, and enhancement of life in all its forms. This means that, in a very basic way, power is constitutive of personhood and society. Understood and exercised in this way, power affirms the dignity of individual persons and promotes bonding between and among persons. Therefore, ethically, social power must be viewed as essentially relational and intended to be reciprocal, community building, and accountable. Contrarily understood and exercised, power gives rise to bondage through denial of the responsibility in its constitutive and relational character. Here, the emphasis on domination and power becomes alienating and irresponsible. The purpose of this article as a whole is to undertake an ethical analysis of social power that furthers exploration of the principles and implications of nonviolent strategies for the exercise of social power. Full article

The scientific literature presents evidence of the processes involved in creating and developing protocols aimed at maintaining a safe educational and work environment that prevents gender violence in universities, which has shown negative neuropsychological health effects at the individual and community levels. However, to date, there have been no scientific publications analyzing the characteristics of protocols that have been successful in preventing gender violence at non-university educational centers. To address this gap, and in the context of advancing the SDG 5 challenge “Gender equality”, a qualitative case study was conducted to analyze the social and behavioral aspects involved in the creation and implementation of a protocol for preventing and addressing gender violence at an urban adult school in Spain. The findings indicate that the co-creation and implementation of the protocol, involving women participants without higher education degrees, researchers, and educators from the school, contributed to better upstander behavior through support for victims from the very beginning, contributing to the creation of a space free from violent behavior that offers protection from its harmful psychological consequences. Full article

Gamma-Ray Bursts(GRBs) are the most violent and energetic astrophysical phenomena, which I dare call “the Energy Monsters of the Universe”. Indeed, they show an enormous emitted isotropic energy ranging from ∼3 × ${10}^{46}$ erg (GRB 170817A) to ∼${10}^{55}$ erg (GRB 221009A) and a duration ranging from ≈milliseconds to ∼${10}^4$ s. In this review—which I agreed to write as a scientist not directly involved in the field of GRBs—I will present the history of GRBs from the time of their discovery by chance until the new era whose beginning was marked by the detection of gravitational waves coming from the merger of two neutron stars. I will discuss the experimental results and their physical interpretation, which is still a source of heated debate within the scientific community. Due to the reasonable length of this review and especially given my limited knowledge, I do not claim to have exhausted the complicated topic of GRBs, but to have contributed in making this subject easy to read for non-experts, providing a critical contribution that is hopefully useful to the whole community. Full article

Aim: To understand the perception of substance users involuntarily committed to a mental health clinic concerning the institution where they are enclosed against their will. Methods: This is a qualitative research study conducted in a Therapeutic Community in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nine substance users who were involuntarily committed to the TC. The participant observation technique was also used for data collection. The observation was carried out within the TC premises. The principal investigator used an observation script, focused on the TC infrastructure, hierarchical relationships, work routine and patient care routine, and verbal and non-verbal communication between patients and professionals. Results: Data analysis resulted in four major themes: (1) The individual and the institution; (2) The total institution—hierarchical relationships in the context of the Therapeutic Community; (3) Routine of work and care for the committed substance users; (4) Routine and religious manifestations in the Therapeutic Community. Results reveal Therapeutic Communities are regarded as places that reaffirm the power of the former mental asylum. Conclusions: From the study results, it is possible to conclude that substance users become vulnerable before the rigid structure of Therapeutic Communities, where the non-democratic, homogenous, and sometimes violent environment does not resemble the diverse, plural society to which the individual must return shortly. Full article

Conflict-related forced displacement, characterized by the experiences of witnessing violent acts, bombing, torture, separation, and the execution of family members, can severely and negatively impact a child’s social determinants of health (SDOH). These experiences are both direct and indirect forms of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and urgent attention is needed to understand the impact of forced displacement on children, who are a vulnerable group, and to develop interventions for all systems that influence the child. This phenomenological qualitative study involved in-depth interviews based on the experiences of returnees (n = 20), who are parents of children who experienced forced displacement. This study underscores the direct and indirect impacts of forced displacement on children, with two key themes identified from the data analysis, by concluding that forced displacement: (i) disrupts the positive SDOH of children, and (ii) children’s coping mechanisms are influenced by primary and secondary exposure to trauma. The direct effects are visible through the impact of forced displacement on children’s mental health as a result of exposure to traumatic material. In contrast, the indirect effects of forced displacement on children are influenced by its subsequential effect on their parents and their community. The study also illuminates systemic inequalities, with participants recommending steps that governmental and non-governmental bodies can take to address this phenomenon. Full article

In this paper, I propose an account of Camus’s ethics in which violent revolutions are never morally permissible but nonetheless acceptable or necessary. My main thesis in this paper is that Camus’s ethics of revolution and my defence of it, particularly the non-moral account of the permissibility of violent revolutions it comprises, can shed light on the reasonableness of participating in and supporting violent revolutions to some Catholics and the broader Christian community. My account of Camus’s ethics of revolution and argument for its tenability will be compelling to some Catholics because they affirm their intuition that violent revolutions are morally untenable and show why it is nevertheless reasonable. Full article

Numerous studies have evidenced that neuropsychiatric disorders (mental illness and emotional disturbances) with aggression (or violence) pose a significant challenge to public health and contribute to a substantial economic burden worldwide. Especially, social disorganization (or social inequality) associated with childhood adversity has long-lasting effects on mental health, increasing the risk of developing neuropsychiatric disorders. Intestinal bacteria, functionally as an endocrine organ and a second brain, release various immunomodulators and bioactive compounds directly or indirectly regulating a host’s physiological and behavioral homeostasis. Under various social challenges, stress-induced dysbiosis increases gut permeability causes serial reactions: releasing neurotoxic compounds, leading to neuroinflammation and neuronal injury, and eventually neuropsychiatric disorders associated with aggressive, violent, or impulsive behavior in humans and various animals via a complex bidirectional communication of the microbiota–gut–brain (MGB) axis. The dysregulation of the MGB axis has also been recognized as one of the reasons for the prevalence of social stress-induced injurious behaviors (feather pecking, aggression, and cannibalistic pecking) in chickens. However, existing knowledge of preventing and treating these disorders in both humans and chickens is not well understood. In previous studies, we developed a non-mammal model in an abnormal behavioral investigation by rationalizing the effects of gut microbiota on injurious behaviors in chickens. Based on our earlier success, the perspective article outlines the possibility of reducing stress-induced injurious behaviors in chickens through modifying gut microbiota via cecal microbiota transplantation, with the potential for providing a biotherapeutic rationale for preventing injurious behaviors among individuals with mental disorders via restoring gut microbiota diversity and function. Full article

This study examines the relationship between cyber violence and cyber sex crimes, specifically focusing on these crimes as systemic issues among adolescents. The research highlights the severe impact of cyber sex crimes, characterized by the non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit content. It examines various factors that may contribute to witnessing cyber sex crimes, including exposure to violent online content, personal experiences of cyber violence (either as a victim or perpetrator), and the role of parental and teacher interventions. Utilizing data from a nationwide survey conducted by the Korea Communications Commission, the study analyzes responses from 9016 adolescents in 2021 and 9693 in 2022. This analysis reveals significant predictors of witnessing cyber sex crimes and examines how perceptions of cyber violence and interventions of authoritative figures may influence adolescents’ perception of cyber sex crimes as either systemic or individual issues. With females disproportionately affected, the findings underscore a gendered aspect of cyber violence. Furthermore, these insights suggest that perceiving cyber violence as a serious issue leads to viewing cyber sex crimes as systemic problems necessitating societal intervention. The study advocates for enhanced digital literacy education and systemic changes to protect adolescents from the widespread threats of cyber violence and sex crimes. Full article

Scholars examining racial stereotyping and prejudice in racially organised social systems have largely focused on how non-White ethnic and racial groups experience racial stereotyping in White-majority national contexts such as the US, Australia and European countries. There is only scant scholarship on experiences of ethno-racial communities in Black-majority countries such as South Africa, a country where Whites are a minority. Even though there is ample scholarly work on racial stereotyping of racial groups in South Africa such as Coloured people, much of it is focused on their experiences during colonial and Apartheid eras. Little is understood about how Coloured people experience racial stigmatisation in post-Apartheid South Africa. This paper addresses this gap. Based on interviews with fourteen Coloured participants from Westbury, Johannesburg, this study found that many interviewees claimed that Coloured South Africans were negatively racially stereotyped as people who use drugs, as aggressive and violent people, as alcoholics and as criminals. Many participants also resisted and countered the negative stereotypes by talking about Coloured people in positive ways, which shows their agency. The negative stereotyping of Coloured people which prevailed during colonial and Apartheid times is still deployed by society to describe Coloured people in post-Apartheid South Africa. To capture the continuity of negative stereotyping in South Africa about Coloured people, I developed the analytical term of ‘perpetual racial stereotyping’. Many decades after the end of the Apartheid system, negative racial stereotyping of Coloured South Africans still continues in everyday life, and Coloured people are still associated with racist prejudices, narratives, discourses and stereotypes that were invented many decades ago by settler colonialism and Apartheid. Full article

This essay examines the Holy Monday sermon by Boules George, a senior priest at St. Mark Church in Cairo, that was preached the day after the Palm Sunday suicide bomb attacks against St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Tanta and St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria in Egypt in 2017, which left forty-four people dead and more than one hundred injured. The sermon addressed Coptic Orthodox Christians in Cairo as well as the wider Coptic Orthodox community in Egypt and throughout the world through a live video broadcast. The sermon is remarkable for presenting a radical call to nonviolence and Christian love. Notably, the preacher speaks to “those who are killing us”, and says “thank you” for the opportunity to die as Christ died, for “this is the greatest honor that we could have”. This essay analyzes the sermon in light of the work of Walter Brueggemann and Alexander Schmemann, and argues that the sermon is an example of daring speech that offers divine empowerment to the suffering and the fearful. Full article