Search Results (241)

This article investigates the intricate interplay between ressentiment—as social emotion—social love, and solidarity in democratic societies, focusing on the urban environment as the primary stage where these processes materialize. Far from being a marginal emotion, ressentiment is deeply intertwined with democratic life, arising from the gap between proclaimed values and lived conditions. It represents an affective reaction to the perceived betrayal of the promise of equality inscribed in democratic ideals. The discussion explores how perceptions of injustice can fracture trust and intensify divisions, but also how they, under certain conditions, can be redirected toward political engagement and common action. The city, characterized by density, diversity, and the continuous negotiation of difference, can serve as a privileged arena for this transformation. Urban space does not merely reflect inequalities; it actively shapes social processes and provides the infrastructure through which collective sentiments are articulated. In this context, “social love” is conceptualized not as a sentimental aspiration, but as a relational force capable of redirecting the moral indignation of ressentiment, far from strategies of grievance politics toward constructive forms of social and political belonging. Cities can function as laboratories of solidarity where grievances are reframed into collective projects that strengthen social cohesion. Mitigating the destructive potential of ressentiment requires addressing its structural roots through inclusive urban policies and dialogical spaces. An approach grounded in social love can counter fragmentation, mobilizing emotions in the service of substantive equality. In this perspective, the city can become a space and a laboratory for change, where resentment can be channeled as a generative force capable of sustaining widespread forms of social love and a sense of the common good. Full article

The rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into education across all sectors has prompted a proliferating body of scholarship addressing the ethical, social, and environmental implications of these technologies. This narrative literature review synthesises international empirical, conceptual, and policy literature published between 2022 and 2026 to trace the evolving story of ethical concerns surrounding GenAI in education. Drawing on the moral philosophy of consequentialism, particularly the utilitarian ethics of John Stuart Mill, the review analyses six interconnected domains of ethical concern: environmental sustainability and the carbon footprint of AI infrastructure; algorithmic bias, ideological encoding, and the reproduction of misinformation; user dependency and the erosion of learner agency; the displacement of critical and creative thinking; data privacy and surveillance; and the orientation of major GenAI platforms toward profit-driven and capitalistic outcomes. Unlike systematic reviews that privilege methodological replicability, this narrative review foregrounds interpretive synthesis, tracing how the ethical discourse has shifted from early alarm and prohibition toward more nuanced frameworks for responsible integration. The review identifies a consequentialist tension at the heart of the debate: while GenAI offers measurable benefits in personalisation, accessibility, and efficiency, these gains must be weighed against distributed harms that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, the natural environment, and the epistemic foundations of education itself. The review concludes with a set of guidelines for the ethical use of GenAI in educational contexts, grounded in the literature synthesised in the article. Full article

Misinformation has become a persistent feature of contemporary digital information environments. Platform designs and business models often privilege attention, engagement, and repeated exposure over epistemic quality. However, misinformation does not diffuse uniformly across platform structures. This study examines how contested claims in a South Korean social policy controversy circulate on YouTube. The analysis focuses on unfounded allegations regarding permanent employment offers to part-time workers at Incheon International Airport across two analytic levels: (1) a videoclip network, in which video-to-video ties are formed through shared commenters over time, and (2) a channel network, in which channel-to-channel ties are formed through shared commenters over time. Drawing on YouTube Data API records, we employ a mixed computational approach that integrates social network analysis, speech-to-text transcription, natural language processing, semantic network analysis, and automated content classification. Videos are classified as misinformation or non-misinformation based on the presence of demonstrably incorrect claims or corrective content. We compare network structure, diffusion patterns, and engagement dynamics across these two layers. The results reveal pronounced layer-specific differences. Misinformation diffuses more extensively within the channel network, which exhibits higher density and stronger cross-channel interconnectedness, suggesting that creator-level infrastructures function as stabilising conduits for the circulation of false claims. By contrast, diffusion pathways at the videoclip level show comparatively weaker differentiation between misinformation and non-misinformation content. Engagement patterns also diverge misinformation videos attract significantly more likes, while message format and channel attributes are less consistently distinguishing. From a theoretical standpoint, this study advances a multi-layer diffusion perspective on platform-mediated misinformation by demonstrating how platform architectures shape the visibility, persistence, and amplification of false claims. The findings highlight the importance of intervention strategies that move beyond individual content moderation toward creator- and network-level governance mechanisms, with implications for the design of platform features, recommendation systems, and misinformation mitigation tools. Full article

This essay examines the visual culture of what might be termed “the ecology of silver” between 1492 and 1710 in relation to colonialism on both sides of the Atlantic, with particular attention to both its shiny allure and the blind spots that that shininess produces. It focuses on three inter-related areas: depictions of Potosí, the great silver mountain in viceregal Peru; silver’s shine in European elite material culture; and the deployment of silver in celebrating the Spanish monarchy in viceregal Sicily, part of its empire within Europe. Current scholarship on early modern silver bifurcates between historical, political, and anthropological studies of silver’s extraction in the Americas and colonialism on one hand and a celebratory art historical scholarship focused on high-end European silver goods on the other. Scholars have energetically examined its extraction, the global trade in bullion, the rise of capitalism that it fed, and the wars that it fomented and paid for, but they stop short of inquiring into the ends to which silver was deployed within Europe and Asia beyond the naming of the principal ports. Meanwhile, studies of silver in Europe are overwhelmingly tightly drawn and connoisseurial, often with no reference to where the silver came from, let alone the circumstances of its extraction, transport, or even its effects. This split is due partly to a prevalent notion that silver’s value is inherent, objective, and caused by “rarity”; and it is partly due to art history’s unswerving identification with the rich and powerful. Such approaches overlook silver’s remarkable material and alchemical qualities and ignore its capacity to turn grubby profit into charismatic sparkle, which simultaneously drove the ecological and environmental damage and exonerated its profiteers. Early modern silver linked environmental destruction, colonialism, genocide, and coloniality to high culture, making it a particularly relevant topic for art historical analysis in this context. But more than that silver entwined them in complex, convulsive, and transformative ways, turning imperialism, violence and exploitation into beauty, shimmer and cultural sophistication. Hence, this essay insists on the centrality of imperial issues in the Old World as in the New, underscoring colonial dynamics within metropolitan culture while critically examining the work of seduction of art. The paradoxical quality of shine is the lens through which is seen the relation between violent coloniality and the allure and ecology of early modern silver. Full article

In contemporary debates on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there is growing recognition that artificial intelligence (AI) may contribute meaningfully to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), particularly by enhancing the efficiency of food aid distribution and resource allocation. However, such optimism must be critically situated within the broader institutional and ethical contexts in which AI operates. This study argues that the effectiveness of AI in conflict-affected settings is contingent not only on technical capacity but also on governance structures, ethical safeguards, and institutional trust, dimensions closely aligned with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). Using the Gaza Strip as a case study, this article demonstrates that AI-driven food assistance mechanisms may inadvertently reinforce structural vulnerabilities. Specifically, algorithmic targeting of aid risks deepening dependency, exacerbating digital exclusion, and weakening already fragile governance systems. The absence of robust data accountability frameworks further complicates these dynamics, raising concerns regarding transparency, fairness, and long-term sustainability. The findings caution against privileging technical efficiency at the expense of socio-political stability. Rather, they highlight that the sustainability of AI interventions in humanitarian contexts fundamentally depends on the credibility and legitimacy of institutions. Accordingly, this study proposes a conceptual model for AI in hunger relief and digital humanitarianism that integrates technical innovation with institutional accountability and social trust. This study presents a narrative review informed by structural searching that examines the influence of AI on food security interventions in fragile contexts. This analysis applies a combined ethical governance and sustainability lens to assess current applications and risks. This research advances a broader analytical framework that moves beyond purely technical interpretations of AI, emphasizing its role as a socio-political tool, through identifying five key pillars for sustainable AI governance: data sovereignty, algorithmic accountability, inclusive system design, community-led governance, and market integrity. Full article

Permanency planning, an approach to the placement of children in out-of-home care, is central to child and family system practice, policy and law. Using the example of legislative reforms in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article explores how privileging legal permanence leads to ongoing failures to account for Aboriginal worldviews and child-rearing practices. Drawing on qualitative research, including Yarning Circles and semi-structured interviews that I conducted with Aboriginal community members in NSW, the findings contribute to limited evidence on permanence from Indigenous perspectives, revealing how familial and cultural connectedness shape belonging and social and emotional wellbeing and highlighting the importance of children’s ongoing connections with extended Aboriginal family, community and culture. Aboriginal understandings of permanence align more closely with cultural, relational and physical domains than with the construct of legal permanence that predominates in permanency planning approaches. Prioritizing legally permanent care arrangements above other domains poses long-term risks to Aboriginal children’s social and emotional wellbeing, demonstrating the need for “deep-level” cultural adaptation in child welfare law, policy and practice. The findings have implications for decolonizing child protection and repositioning Aboriginal conceptualizations of permanence as the foundation for legislation, policy and practice—reforms that must be Indigenous-led, culturally grounded from the outset, and anchored in full implementation of principles embedding self-determination and Indigenous children’s fundamental rights. Full article

The ambition of policymakers to ‘raise aspirations’ among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds as a means for improving social mobility in Britain has been a mainstay of political rhetoric for the last three decades. Reports such as Higher Education in the Learning Society in 1997, Unleashing Aspiration in 2009, and Success as a Knowledge Economy in 2016 are all underpinned by an ideology of neoliberal meritocracy that has transcended political parties and governments since the Thatcher administration. Even those who lean more to the left of the Labour Party within contemporary Britain have perpetuated this narrative by reframing it as ‘working-class ambition’. This paper advances an alternative view which reconceptualises the way in which young people from non-privileged backgrounds experience and perceive the world, and their place within it. Drawing upon our work on Connected Belonging in 2025 and our research on the From the Centre to the Periphery project in 2025, we suggest that ‘hopeful optimism’ offers a more realistic lens through which to understand what is needed to address the ‘personal troubles and public issues’ that young people face. Unlike aspiration, which has an inherently individualistic and future-orientated framing, with value systems directed by dominant hegemonic notions of ‘success’ that are commonly positioned in economic terms, we recognise optimism as being a holistic and relational process that resides in the present as well as looks to the future. Optimism, grounded within principles of hope, allows young people the freedom to be and to dream; by celebrating who they are and their interconnectedness, it protects them from fears of failure; by reimaging what success might mean, it liberates them as creators. Full article

In Southern Chile, sewer- and septic tank-based sanitation dominates public discourse and expectations, while in practice it often fails under local environmental and social conditions. This study explores the adoption of composting toilets by households as a practical response to these challenges. Drawing on autoethnographic and ethnographic research (2020–2026) in the Los Lagos Region, it examines how people implement composting toilets and the transformative potential and limits of living with these infrastructures. By situating composting toilets within global imaginaries of ecological, sustainable, and circular sanitation, it suggests that they have the potential to act as socioenvironmental cauteries—localized efforts to contain harm and sustain life. Composting toilets in this study reshape relations among excrement, bodies, and environments while depending on individual initiative, technical know-how, and social privilege. Thus, they can reinforce neoliberal rationales of individual responsibility for collective issues that ultimately require structural changes. The study concludes that just and sustainable sanitation requires support for user-driven innovations and the development of frameworks adapted to local socioecological contexts, while actively addressing social inequalities. Full article

In this paper, by means of a comprehensive analysis of the statutory and non-statutory documents that govern its preschool provision, we examine how early childhood education and care (ECEC), particularly in relation to mathematics, is conceptualised by the English educational authorities. Situated within international debates about economic (school-readiness, accountability-driven) versus social (holistic, play-based, rights-oriented) models of ECEC, the study explores how curriculum expectations, assessment practices and didactical guidance collectively frame young children’s learning opportunities. Drawing on a document-based analytic approach, and guided by six literature-derived questions, the analysis reveals significant inconsistencies both within and between documents, including conflicting messages about the purpose of preschool, an uneven emphasis on school readiness, and ambivalent statements regarding the role of play, instruction and practitioner agency, as well as contradictory and shifting expectations surrounding the scope, status and pedagogical treatment of early mathematics. While statutory materials frequently privilege school readiness and narrowly defined number outcomes, non-statutory guidance promotes broader mathematical thinking, exploratory play and child-initiated reasoning. Overall, the findings demonstrate limited coherence across the English authorities’ ECEC expectations and highlight the interpretive and professional challenges faced by practitioners expected to implement this fragmented early years mathematics policy landscape. Full article

Black Modernist architecture offers a powerful yet underexamined pathway for advancing restorative capacity in American cities. This paper argues that Black Modernism functions as a restorative design methodology, addressing social, economic, and ecological harm imposed on Black communities through slavery, racial capitalism, urban renewal, and infrastructural violence. Grounded in the restorative economics framework pioneered by O’Hara, the paper explores the role Black Modernism plays in sustaining sink capacities defined as the social, ecological, and emotional processes that absorb stress, pollution, waste, and trauma. Conventional economic models ignore these capacities, despite their necessity for economic productivity. Black communities, like all marginalized communities, have historically been forced to provide them without compensation. Situating Black Modernist architecture within this framework, the paper demonstrates how Black architects have designed buildings and landscapes that restore dignity, memory, health, and cultural identity, thereby expanding community sink capacities. Drawing on the works of various scholars, the paper examines case studies from Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Chicago, which reveal how Black communities have borne the burden of unremunerated restorative labor while shaping the American built environment. The paper positions Black Modernism as both a design language and a political–economic intervention, challenging architectural value systems that privilege monumental production over community restoration. It concludes by proposing a Restorative Design Framework that integrates Black Modernist principles with restorative economics, offering policy and planning pathways that recognize cultural labor, emotional restoration, and community well-being as essential components of sustainable urban development. Full article

The Camino de Santiago is one of the most important cultural routes in the world and a privileged laboratory for analysing the challenges of sustainability in long-distance heritage destinations. The aim of this research is to understand the underlying dynamics of the Way, as well as its degree of sustainability. To achieve this, we examine the recent evolution of tourist demand for the Way from a territorial and sustainability perspective, integrating official statistical data with digital interest indicators from Google Trends (2004–2025). The methodology combines quantitative analyses of trends, seasonality, spatial diversification and internationalisation of demand, applying robust techniques such as the Theil–Sen slope and the Mann–Kendall test. The results show structural growth and high resilience of the Jacobean tourism system, even after the disruption caused by COVID-19, together with a growing internationalisation of flows. However, this tourism success is accompanied by strong spatial and temporal imbalances, with a marked concentration on the French Way and in the summer months, which increases environmental and social pressure on the most travelled territories. The analysis of digital interest also reveals a progressive decline in the importance of Holy Years as a driving force for attraction, especially in international markets. Full article

This article reads the recent Chinese sci-fi blockbuster franchise The Wandering Earth (2019) and The Wandering Earth II (2023) as linked thought experiments about planetary survival as governance. It argues that the franchise operationalizes survival through administrative techniques that allocate life chances and format subjects for compliance, including selection policy, evaluative procedures, and computational judgment. Drawing on feminist social reproduction theory, affective and emotional labor scholarship, and critical posthumanism, the article shows how the films redistribute life-making work under catastrophe by routing care, sacrifice, and intergenerational continuity through gendered paternal figures. Fathers become the privileged conduits through which attachment is rendered socially legible as authorized labor, while other forms of care remain structurally secondary unless crisis forces their instrumental uptake. At the same time, the franchise is preoccupied with the limits of procedural governance. Across both installments, paternal attachment repeatedly appears as a governance problem: it cannot be fully stabilized as procedure yet becomes actionable at system stress points. The survival regime thus depends on a recurrent sequence of emergency recruitment followed by retroactive legitimation, whether through official affect, selective recognition, containment, or memorialization. Full article

In this paper, we investigate how social entrepreneurial competencies develop among young children in self-organized early childhood and primary education settings in Greece that operate outside traditional state–market logics and embrace a commons-based ethos. While existing approaches to Entrepreneurship Education (EE) frequently privilege individual skills and economic productivity, this study reframes entrepreneurial learning through the lens of social entrepreneurship. Using a qualitative comparative case study, we analyze educational material from self-organized schools and include focus groups with educators. The findings show that social entrepreneurial competencies emerge as present-tense relational practices embedded in everyday collective life, rather than as future-oriented economic skills. By situating these findings within contemporary debates on Social Entrepreneurship Education (SEE) and Childhood Studies, the paper advances a model of entrepreneurship grounded in empathy and collective action in response to social antagonism. In these schools, social entrepreneurship in childhood is understood as a mode of being and becoming in common, enacted through pedagogical worlds in which children learn to live, decide, care, and act together in the present. Overall, the findings highlight the potential of commons-based pedagogies to reconfigure entrepreneurial learning as a relational and collective practice in preschool and primary school education. Full article

This study aims to explore perceptions among students at Jordanian universities regarding “wasta,” defined as the use of social relations or kinship ties to pressure faculty members into granting them undeserved academic privileges, and to examine the impact of these perceptions on their academic behaviors and attitudes toward their institution. The study uses Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory, which posits that the strength of social bonds is determined by four key elements: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. The researchers designed a survey using a proportionally stratified random sample of 748 students from two universities in the south of Jordan. The data were collected using a questionnaire whose validity and reliability were deemed suitable for analysis. The findings reveal a varying degree of erosion in social bonds as follows: while students expressed a rejection of wasta on ethical grounds, the involvement of others in such behavior to gain unearned academic advantages undermined their sense of belonging to the university. Participants also indicated that their peers’ reliance on wasta devalued their individual efforts and weakened trust in the fairness of the educational institution. Furthermore, students’ motivation to participate in campus activities was lower when they perceived that opportunities were granted based on connections rather than merit, while statistical significance was observed only for the involvement dimension in favor of the public university. Last, some students saw wasta as a practical resource in the absence of institutional justice, even if they recognized the harm it causes to academic integrity and the value of university credentials. The findings highlight the importance of addressing wasta within academic institutions by strengthening transparent decision making and academic integrity safeguards to enhance fairness and strengthen trust. Full article

Engineering remains a highly gendered and racialised profession in South Africa, shaped by enduring historical inequalities and the imprint of institutionalised exclusion that structures women’s experiences of belonging and professional legitimacy. While women’s underrepresentation in STEM is well documented, there remains a limited body of qualitative, intersectional, identity-focused research examining how women engineers negotiate professional identity within everyday organisational contexts. Addressing this gap, this qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with nine women engineers working across diverse engineering fields in South Africa and employs inductive reflexive thematic analysis informed by an intersectional and social constructionist framework. The findings identify one overarching theme, Negotiating the Intersection of Multiple Identities, capturing how women’s professional identities are continuously negotiated within engineering cultures characterised by the continued privileging of narrow norms of competence and belonging. Identity negotiation was shaped by intersecting gendered and racialised norms, with variation linked to pressures of professional legitimacy, relational positioning, and anticipated life-course considerations. The study demonstrates that professional identity negotiation among women engineers is a relational and ongoing organisational process rather than an individual or episodic response to workplace demands, and offers analytically transferable insights for scholarship on identity, belonging, and legitimacy in masculinised and historically unequal STEM contexts. Full article