Search Results (869)

This study examines how intangible heritage value is sustained through differentiated participation in tourismized ritual festivals and how visitors retrospectively perceive public presentation. Using the Mazu Spring Sacrificial Ceremony on Meizhou Island, China, as a case, the analysis draws on documents, contextual non-participant observation, and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021 and 2024 with 38 participants: 30 core interviewees from Temple Board personnel, local residents, and university student performers, and eight visitors treated as an exploratory component. Findings suggest that the Temple Board provides coordination, procedural standardization, and official public presentation; residents connect the ceremony to community life and communicate locally grounded meanings; and students support embodied performance and large-scale presentation. Within the actors and materials examined, procedural authority and formal narrative authority remain concentrated in the Temple Board. Visitors described the ceremony as solemn, sacred, festive, or emotionally moving, while detailed cultural understanding was associated with prior religious knowledge or local explanation. Overall, heritage value appears to be sustained through institutional coordination, embodied performance, local interpretation, and visitor reception. In this case, authenticity appears to be mediated through institutional validation, ritual performance, and local interpretation, while expanded participation does not necessarily redistribute procedural authority or formal narrative authority. Full article

Research on sustainable consumption has largely emphasized secular motivations, leaving the psychological role of spirituality/religiosity underexplored within Muslim societies. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the relationship between spirituality and sustainable consumption behaviors (SCBs) among Muslim consumers in Türkiye, with environmental and health consciousness examined as parallel mediating mechanisms. Data were collected from 414 adult Muslim consumers through an online survey and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural path analysis via Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4). The empirical findings indicate that spirituality is significantly and positively associated with sustainable consumption behaviors both directly and indirectly. Environmental consciousness emerged as a numerically stronger mediating pathway than health consciousness in the relationship between spirituality and sustainable consumption. Notably, when both mediators are included in the model, the direct path from spirituality to sustainable consumption behaviors becomes non-significant, consistent with a full-mediation pattern in the estimated model, in line with the value–attitude–behavior hierarchy. These results suggest that spirituality’s association with consumption decisions is, within the estimated model, transmitted through intervening attitudinal states. The study suggests that sustainable consumption initiatives in Muslim contexts can be meaningfully strengthened by integrating eco-friendly practices with consumers’ underlying spiritual and religious values. Full article

This paper examines the seismic vulnerability of historical buildings located in Lugoj City Center, an urban area of the Banat region in Western Romania, known for repeated earthquakes and rich architectural heritage. This research responds to the need for fast and practical means to help with the prioritization of risk mitigation and rehabilitation of historical cities, where detailed structural data are often limited. In light of the analysis of current European empirical, analytical, and hybrid techniques of seismic vulnerability assessment, this paper proposes a simplified empirical technique based on a systematic vulnerability index form. The suggested assessment comprises 42 indicators grouped in four weighted categories: structural aspects, architectural–artistic value, urban importance, and socio-economic importance. It is applied to 17 selected historical buildings of Lugoj City Center, including civil, religious, cultural, and infrastructural buildings. The assessment produced an average vulnerability index of 89.57, with 11 buildings classified as D1, 5 as D2, and 1 as D3, and an expected damage state under the VIII EMS-98 scenario. Thus, this study highlights the importance of combining seismic safety with heritage conservation and offers a flexible framework for urban-scale assessments, intervention planning, and preservation strategies in Lugoj and similar historic centers. This preliminary study represents the first phase of broader research addressing material degradation, monitoring, structural improvement, and socio-economic loss. Full article

Background: Children’s resilience is a dynamic, multisystemic process shaped by cultural context, supportive relationships, and family values. In Romania, research on children’s resilience and the role of parental values remains limited. Objective: This study examined the relationship between children’s resilience, socio-demographic factors (parental educational level, economic status, family structure, religious affiliation, and ethnicity), and parental values based on Schwartz’s value model. We hypothesized that socially oriented values (security, conformity, tradition, universalism, and benevolence) would be associated with higher resilience. Method: A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted with 245 children aged 8–15 years (M = 10.58, SD = 1.95) and one parent per child. Children’s resilience was assessed using the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM-28), parental values using the Short Schwartz’s Value Survey (SSVS), and socio-demographic data through a parental questionnaire. Results: Higher resilience was associated with higher parental educational level and with parental values reflecting conservation and self-transcendence. In the regression model, parental educational level, conservation values, Orthodox religious affiliation, and intact family structure were independently associated with resilience and jointly accounted for 22.6% of the variance. Younger children had higher resilience, but age was not a significant predictor in regression analysis. Conclusions: The findings support the socio-ecological perspective on resilience and provide among the first empirical evidence from Romania that parental values, together with family and cultural resources, are associated with children’s resilience. Full article

Burial and mourning practices in Africa have long been embedded in deeply rooted cultural, spiritual and communal value systems. However, these traditions are undergoing significant transformation through modernisation, urbanisation, migration, religious change and economic pressure. This study examines the changing dynamics of burial and mourning practices in Southern Africa, with particular attention to Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Drawing on qualitative insights from existing scholarship, cultural analysis and the researchers’ contextual observations, the paper explores how mourning periods, communal participation, ritual ceremonies, ancestral relations and attachment to burial land are being reconfigured rather than simply abandoned. In both countries, prominent shifts include the professionalisation and commercialisation of funerals, the influence of Pentecostal Christianity, the growing role of funeral assurance schemes and the disruption of expected rites by COVID-19. Using functionalist, symbolic interactionist and African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (AIKS) perspectives, the paper identifies a continuing tension between cultural identity and contemporary practical realities. It argues that some indigenous practices have weakened, while others have been adapted or hybridised into new cultural forms. The comparison contributes to debates on cultural continuity, genealogy, identity and social change by showing how communities preserve the social and spiritual functions of mourning even when its outward forms change. The paper is positioned primarily within cultural studies, specifically the interdisciplinary study of religion, ritual and social change. Among the factors considered, Pentecostal reinterpretation and ritual substitution, the professionalisation and commodification of funerals, and migration, together with pressure on burial land, appear most influential. COVID-19 is retained as a historically bounded accelerator rather than the dominant continuing force. Full article

Building on Juan Linz’s well-known distinction between political religion and politicized religion, this contribution adopts the latter perspective, which involves the instrumentalization of religion for political purposes. Within this framework, the article advances the hypothesis that a new form of religiosity is emerging from the communicative practices of certain conservative right-wing and far-right party formations. Their narratives display a strong appeal to religious values by evoking forms of identification and belonging that are largely detached from lived religious practice. Drawing on three corpora comprising electoral programs, political discourses, and interview excerpts from Fratelli d’Italia (Italy), Alternative für Deutschland (Germany), and Vox (Spain), the analysis combines a keyword-in-context approach with qualitative content analysis. The resulting communicative frame is composed of terms and concepts that function as symbolic realities similar to those of traditional religion, such as religion itself, the family, and the homeland, which are rearticulated within fully secularized contexts. This symbolic and narrative reactivation of such elements not only constitutes a strategic use of religious references but also points to the emergence of a distinctively political form of religiosity, which operates both as a stimulus for electoral behavior and as a cohesive force for highly identity-oriented party communities. Full article

Contemporary debates over whether Confucianism should be regarded as a religion are often constrained by the Western binary opposition between philosophy and religion. Rather than remaining within this classificatory framework, this article shifts attention to the question of how the religious dimension of Confucianism is concretely grounded and sustained. By comparing the “li (理)–mind/nature (心/性)” paradigm of Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism with Wang Fuzhi’s “qi (气)–history (史)” paradigm, the article argues that the former relies primarily on inward moral experience and the self-cultivation of mind and nature, a mode that can effectively uphold a meaningful order under relatively stable historical conditions. By contrast, in response to the rupture of the Ming-Qing transition, Wang Fuzhi relocates ultimate normativity within the dynamic process of qi (气) transformation and historical practice. Through four interrelated formulations—“li (理) resides in qi (气),” “nature (性) is the principle of life,” “principle is to be pursued in concrete affairs,” and “historical reflection as verification”—he provides moral and value judgments with a stronger grounding in lived reality and historical testing. In this way, Wang effects a significant transformation in the religious dimension of Confucianism, shifting it from a mode of inward justification to one of worldly verification. His thought thus offers a more historically resilient account of how Confucian meaning can endure amid times of profound upheaval. Full article

This article analyses female genital mutilation (FGM) from an interdisciplinary perspective, with particular attention to its identity-related dimension and to the interaction between culture, religion, exclusion, and legal responses to violence against women. The study examines the evolution of its treatment and public perception, from the relative invisibility characteristic of early anthropological approaches within Western public and political agendas to its progressive recognition as an extreme form of gender-based violence. Methodologically, it is based on a documentary and comparative analysis of normative instruments, institutional reports, and specialised academic literature. As a specific contribution, the article develops the category of “absolute or totalising otherness” to explain identity-based exclusion and the particular vulnerability of women and girls simultaneously exposed to forms of exclusion based on sex, culture, race, religion, and migration status. The analysis identifies several barriers to eradication, including the lack of comparable data capable of assessing its actual prevalence, proposals advocating the medicalisation of FGM as a purported lesser evil, and dynamics of exclusion in host countries that may reinforce reactive identities and re-signify the value of identity-based rites of passage. The findings further suggest that the persistence of FGM depends not only on these factors, but also on the narratives that sustain or challenge the practice, within which religious discourse acquires particular significance. However, the position adopted by religious spokespersons, leaders, and institutions remains ambivalent: they may provide an argument or alibi that sacralises the rite or, conversely, serve to challenge the false belief that it constitutes a religious mandate, thereby excluding the practice from the moral and religious order. Full article

It is commonly accepted by mental health professionals who work in the area of death and grief that both the help which communities may offer to the bereaved and creativity may prove decisive factors in their recovery after loss; the article aims to introduce specific existential films to the discussion about the value of both. Communality and creativity are also key ecclesiological and theological concepts. They are integral parts of the life of ecclesiastical communities, which honor the memory of the dead and have a duty to stand by their mourning members. These concepts may therefore create a bridge between spirituality and psychology/psychiatry, encouraging church leaders and health professionals to cooperate in addressing the needs of the bereaved. In the above-described context, films like Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011), Rachid Buchareb’s London River (2009) and the short animation film Lila (2014) by Carlos Lascano may become valuable resources. Firstly, for challenging questionable religious responses to death while also discovering beauty in natural and community life in spite of/through loss, as well as embracing the memory of the deceased through creativity. As the latter has been characterized by relevant bibliography in death studies as both a form of expressing grief and a therapeutic process, it is also a crucial calling for the faithful to remain creative in the image and likeness of their Creator. In the discussion of the films, these links between theological/spiritual and psychological/mental health perspectives are explored with regard to both preparing for death and responding to it through joint efforts or lessons at schools. Full article

Background: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in socially sensitive contexts, raising concerns about how their outputs reflect or reproduce socially aversive response patterns. Prior research has focused on socially desirable traits (e.g., the Big Five), while less attention has been given to the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Methods: This exploratory study applies a psychometric probing approach using the Short Dark Triad (SD3) as a structured questionnaire to analyze response patterns in 12 LLMs. Through controlled persona prompting (gender, age, religion), more than 540,000 responses were generated across model–persona–item observations. Outputs were scored using standard psychometric procedures and compared with pooled human SD3 reference values using Hedges’ g as an interpretive benchmark. Results: Across models, Machiavellianism-related scores tend to be lower than human references, narcissism-related scores slightly higher, and psychopathy-related scores largely within the human range. Persona prompting produces systematic but uneven effects: gender has minimal impact, age yields small shifts, and religious framing leads to the strongest and most consistent decreases in socially aversive response patterns. However, observed differences showed notable heterogeneity across models. Conclusions: The findings should be understood as response patterns shaped by context and specific prompting conditions. Our findings suggest that persona effects reflect normative activation, not identity simulation. Persona prompts seem to trigger patterns in the training data rather than consistent, identity-specific traits. Overall, the study highlights both the potential and limitations of psychometric-style probing for evaluating LLM behavior and underscores the importance of prompt context in shaping model outputs. Full article

This study employs a qualitative research design to examine cultural values concerning marriage and family through Turkish proverbs and to analyze how these values intersect with theological meanings. Situated at the intersection of folklore and Islamic ethics, it explores how oral tradition articulates, transmits, and regulates the values, norms, and moral boundaries associated with marriage and family life. According to the findings, proverbs portray the family as a foundational institution imbued with sacred significance, while marriage is construed as a normative form of life that protects the individual from moral, social, and emotional fragmentation. This discourse accords with Qur’anic and Prophetic principles that encourage marriage and associate family life with a consciousness of servitude to God. The study further indicates that, in Turkish proverbs, women are imagined as central figures who sustain domestic harmony, contribute to family well-being, and shape the moral fabric of the household. One of the study’s most significant findings is that polygyny, although recognized in Islamic law as a conditional legal dispensation, is treated in Turkish proverbs through a reserved and often critical cultural discourse. Recent empirical findings indicate that traditional attitudes retain a notable degree of continuity under modern social conditions. Within this framework, the study examines cultural understandings of marriage and family reflected in Turkish proverbs in relation to religious norms and Islamic family ethics, with particular attention to the relationship between oral culture and religious and moral frameworks of meaning. Full article

One of the most fundamental and debated issues in the history of Sufism concerns not only the nature of mystical experience but also its epistemic value, its authority-generating capacity, and its normative legitimacy. Experiences expressed through kashf (unveiling), ilhām (inspiration), presence, witnessing, and annihilation have never been entirely rejected within Islamic thought, yet they have never been considered an unlimited or uncontrolled source of truth. This dual stance has shaped both internal Sufi debates and external critiques. Classical kalām and legal traditions approached mystical experience cautiously, emphasizing its subjectivity, fallibility, and non-generalizability. In contrast, the Sufi tradition defended unveiling and inspiration as integral to religious life. Modern scholarship, however, has often examined Sufism through universal theories of mystical experience or metaphysical and institutional frameworks, leaving its epistemological limits underexplored. The Naqshbandī tradition is notable for framing mystical experience within a tawḥīd-centered ontology, a cautious epistemology, and disciplined adherence to the Sharīʿa. This framework also allows reconsideration of the relationship between Sufism and ethics, presenting mystical experience as a bridge between transcendence and practical action. This article examines early modern Naqshbandī-Mujaddidī thought through Khwāja Bāqī Billāh (d. 1603). Drawing on his own writings, it analyzes the onto-epistemological structure of mystical experience, arguing that Bāqī Billāh grounds it in a tawḥīd-centered ontology, treats it as fallible and non-binding knowledge, and preserves the Sharīʿa as an indispensable normative criterion. Thus, Sufism emerges as a disciplined ethical horizon connecting transcendence and moral action. Full article

This article reconsiders the relationship between religions and the environment from a historical and methodological perspective. It argues that the ecological orientation of a religious tradition cannot be deduced directly from its sacred texts, since texts become socially effective only through a range of mediating processes such as interpretation, preaching, ritual, education, institutional authority, devotional practice, and political use. This is especially evident in ancient and medieval societies, where most believers encountered Scripture through mediators rather than as individual readers. The article discusses the influential paradigm inaugurated by Lynn White, the critical contribution of ecofeminism, and recent theological genealogies linking Christian doctrines to ecological and colonial violence. While recognising the importance of these approaches, it stresses the need to avoid anachronism and overly linear explanations. Concepts such as “nature” and “environment” have changed over time, and the environmental question, as currently understood, belongs to the modern and contemporary world. The article also criticises the public tendency to rank religions according to their supposed ecological value. Religious environmentalism is interpreted as a contemporary process of reinterpretation, in which inherited symbols, doctrines, and practices are resemanticised in response to the ecological crisis. In doing so, it proposes mediation as a central category for studying religions and environmental thought historically. Full article

Contemporary society grapples with diverse values and socio-economic structural differences. These differences extend beyond subtle contextual nuances and strategic considerations, intruding into one’s first-person account and preferences. From its first-order mooring, these divergences ascend to higher-order manifestations, expressing themselves in distinct political perspectives, cultural practices, and religious beliefs. While such differences inevitably give rise to conflicts, a deeper analysis reveals that the core of rising conflict often lies in sectarian differences. Although various conflict resolution mechanisms have been employed to settle disputes, they often fail to yield enduring results. In this regard, the paper proposes interfaith dialogue as a promising approach for conflict resolution and reconciliation. The paper argues that interfaith dialogue is neither a debate nor a negotiation, but a sustained endeavour to break down the walls of difference. Furthermore, to ensure substantive outcomes, the dialogue must be firmly grounded in philosophical foundations that are value-laden and universally acknowledged. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces the Jaina philosophical tradition, specifically the principle of ‘non-absolutism’ (anekāntavāda) and the doctrine of ‘qualified assertion’ (syādvāda), as a coherent framework for dialogical engagements. Focusing on epistemic decentring, conditional articulation, and non-violent involvement, the Jaina framework pushes interfaith dialogue beyond conflict resolution towards conflict transformation. Full article

Background/Objective: Family caregivers of individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorders experience substantial psychological burden. However, emerging evidence suggests many develop resilience and post-traumatic growth despite adversity. This integrative review synthesizes evidence on resilience, coping strategies, post-traumatic growth, and protective factors among these caregivers. Methods: The Whittemore and Knafl integrative review framework guided this synthesis. A systematic literature search was conducted across PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases for peer-reviewed articles examining resilience, coping mechanisms, and post-traumatic growth in family caregivers of individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies were included. Study quality was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Data were extracted and analyzed using thematic synthesis to identify common patterns. Results: Multiple protective factors facilitate resilience and post-traumatic growth, including cultural values, family connectedness, religious faith, and emotional intelligence. Individual characteristics such as personality traits and decision-making styles influence adaptation outcomes. Structured interventions including psychoeducation, mindfulness practices, and peer support show initial evidence of enhancing caregiver resilience and psychological well-being, based on a single randomized controlled trial and cross-sectional associations. The caregiving experience provides opportunities for meaningful personal transformation despite significant burden. Conclusions: Family caregivers of individuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorders possess substantial capacity for positive psychological change. Healthcare professionals should implement strength-based, family-centered interventions acknowledging caregiver resilience. Future research employing longitudinal designs and investigating intervention mechanisms is essential to advance caregiver-focused mental health services. Full article