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"In weapons we trust?" four-culture analysis of factors associated with weapon tolerance in young malesAddressing the under-researched issue of weapon tolerance, the paper examines factors behind male knife and gun tolerance across four different cultures, seeking to rank them in terms of predictive power and shed light on relations between them. To this end, four regression and structural equation modelling analyses were conducted using samples from the US (n = 189), India (n = 196), England (n = 107) and Poland (n = 375). Each sample of male participants indicated their standing on several dimensions (i.e., predictors) derived from theory and related research (i.e., Psychoticism, Need for Respect, Aggressive Masculinity, Belief in Social Mobility and Doubt in Authority). All four regression models were statistically significant. The knife tolerance predictors were: Aggressive Masculinity (positive) in the US, Poland and England, Belief in Social Mobility (negative) in the US and England, Need for Respect (positive) in India and Psychoticism (positive) in Poland. The gun tolerance predictors were: Psychoticism (positive) in the US, India and Poland, Aggressive Masculinity (positive) in the US, England and Poland, and Belief in in Social Mobility (negative) in the US, Belief in Social Mobility (positive) and Doubt in Authority (negative) in Poland. The Structural Equation Weapon Tolerance Model (WTM) suggested an indirect effect for the latent factor Perceived Social Ecological Constraints via its positive relation with the latent factor Saving Face, both knife and gun tolerance were predicted by Psychoticism.
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Demonstrating the values-based WeValue InSitu approach to capture hidden intangible benefits of ecosystem services in NigeriaThe valuation of the benefits to humans of ecosystem services (ESs) provided by nature has become increasingly important. A current challenge is the measurement of the range of benefits which are not traded in the marketplace and are generally considered intangible, with further challenges to even classify them formally, e.g., as cultural ecosystem services (CESs). Previous studies have emphasized a related challenge: the strong need for engagement of not just experts but ’ordinary people’. Approaches using participatory approaches and less formal communication pathways to draw out local CES values have been reported. However, critical reflections of those studies reported significant differences in understanding between ’outsider researchers’ and ’locals’, calling validity deeply into question. Even deliberative approaches backfired by significantly modifying local social constructs during elicitation. In this study, we demonstrate a fundamentally different kind of approach, developed from the bottom–up sustainability indicator development process called WeValue InSitu. It focuses not on improving deeper top–down ‘engagement’ of a specific topic, but instead on improving local articulation of existing envelopes of in situ human shared values, naturally integrated. The WeValue InSitu output is a framework of separate but interlinked concise Statements of local shared values. Some of these Statements may refer to values concerning ecosystems, but situated amongst others. Here, we analyze the outputs from 23 convenience groups in three sites in Nigeria and investigate the shared values found empirically against existing economics-based MEA classifications. The findings include hybrid values which span existing CES sub-categories and even across into market-based categories. This opens a discussion as to whether future ES valuation frameworks might evolve more usefully with foundations built on empirically derived typologies of human values, rather than bolt-on modifications to financially based economics concepts. It also raises questions about the validity of current valuations made which cannot capture empirically found human values.
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Finding our voices: Bangladeshi women’s experiences of domestic violence and abuseThis thesis investigated and explored the challenges in accessing Bangladeshi women to talk about their experiences of domestic violence. The aim of the thesis had been to consider. a) Whether and how the voices of Bangladeshi women are heard within the context of domestic violence and abuse and whether women see themselves as victims of abuse. b) The challenges of hearing Bangladeshi children’s voices and whether mothers see their children as victims of abuse in the home. c) Factors that help or hinder Bangladeshi women and their children sharing their experiences of domestic violence and abuse. My research explored the impact and challenges of the societal, cultural, and community perceptions and the diversity of women’s experiences, through the lens of intersectionality and the positionality of the women. I heard directly from eight women about their lived experiences of different forms of abuse. This took place through face-to-face and online semi-structured interviews conducted in English and Bangla, using a framework to collect data through interviews, video, audio recordings and note taking processes. Accessing women for interviews was difficult as they were fearful of speaking about violence in the home and the repercussions this may bring for them and their wider families. This represented a break from what is considered as a societal norm for Bangladeshi women. There were challenges in the subsequent analysis in terms of translating and transcribing interviews from Bangla to English without compromising on the validity and originality of the women’s own expression of their experiences. I interviewed ten professionals within two focus groups who were mainly from a social care setting. I sought their views on working with Bangladeshi women experiencing domestic violence and abuse and what in their views, helped or hindered women of Bangladeshi origin seeking support from their agencies. The complexity of individuals experiences, their fears, and the community responses highlighted how the women perceive that they deserve to remain in an abusive relationship. The key findings of the research include the understanding and the importance of marriage within the Bangladeshi community and the role of the extended family as highly significant, both of which in turn limits women’s ability and willingness to seek support. It considered the strength women gain from their faith and giving forgiveness of their abusers as a way of healing themselves, and how they blame themselves for the abuse they have suffered. The thesis focused on the barriers and challenges they faced while they navigate the lack of understanding of their multiple identities of being a woman of colour cultural norms, language, and religious belief. The lack of recognition of abuse in a community which is patriarchal is a major factor in women not seeking, or finding, the support they need. The thesis highlighted the role of the extended family and the community pressures that force women to remain in an abusive relationship for much longer they wanted to. Women spoke about leaving being seen as a sense of individual failure and not protecting the name and honour of the family regardless of the women’s emotional, financial, or physical standing in the community. They highlighted how they want to protect the wider family in the UK and abroad, often by remaining in a marriage and suffering the abuse. I also argue that the social structure and inequalities created significant boundaries and limitations for these women, where undue responsibilities were placed on them for being the protector of children and saving the honour of the community and society at large as a woman. Lastly, I conclude my research and discussed how women see the lack of support from agencies and how this collides and intersects with in the choices they make about the abuse they experienced, and how their decisions to remain or leave an abusive relationship are based on who they are as a Bangladeshi woman and how they are seen within the wider society. My recommendations include the need to ensure Bangladeshi women’s experiences of domestic violence and abuse in research become more visible in research, which will require understanding and commitment on the part of researchers. Larger scale and longitudinal research is required that does not begin with the assumption that the community is problematic. Women must have a more prominent voice and opportunities to challenge current policies that do not recognise their specific needs or encourage and support them. This needs to happen through having others like them talking and involving women in support services nationally and locally and, most, within the wider social and faith community. I recommend that women should be able to speak about abuse without threats of alienation and retribution affecting their wider families. I recommend that there need to be government guidelines on destigmatising domestic violence and abuse within the faith community in having joint work tackling domestic violence and abuse. There needs to be more connection across services, including an acceptance that religious beliefs and practices can be used positively to support women victims of domestic violence and abuse. This will also require support through statutory guidance and policies that are accessible to the Bangladeshi community and help open discussion about domestic violence and abuse within the community in a way that is not associated with shame and dishonour.
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Upper Egyptian women and performanceThis thesis examines how Upper Egyptian women negotiate a space, through performance, in the public and private spheres of Egypt. The aim is to use my position as an Egyptian woman to produce an account of some of the different manifestations of patriarchy, which may be affecting Upper Egyptian women’s lives, and which can possibly be embodied in their performative practices. With this examination, I aim to bring to the surface the rich cultural heritage of Upper Egypt, where women are active participants, and which has been disregarded from mainstream Western performance discourses. Furthermore, I aim to contribute to a better understanding of the lived experiences of Upper Egyptian women and their distinctive and contextual negotiation strategies, which are both ignored and marginalised from feminist discourses. Accordingly, I attend their performative events as well as interview them to give voice to the situatedness of their lived experiences and to gain a better understanding. This allows for further insights in the various approaches that Upper Egyptian women adopt in responding to gender inequalities in the public and private spheres of Egypt. Finally, I aim to contribute to theoretical debates pertaining the understanding of agency from Western and non-Western post-structural feminist scholarships where I argue that an amended and fused version of both approaches generate a more textured and nuanced account pertaining the concept of agency, one that provides Upper Egyptian women's embodied experiences accommodation and more consideration.
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How ambiguous loss and postmemory affects the intergenerational memory of the lost men of the SS IsoldaThis thesis examines how creative practice contributes to a heightened portrayal of the emotional history of survivor and victim families, following the sinking of a Commissioners of the Irish Lights Tender, SS Isolda on 19th December 1940 by the Luftwaffe, off the coast of Wexford, Ireland. Six men died and their bodies were never found. Due to wartime censorship and Irish neutrality, the sinking was not reported in the media for five years. The emotional and practical impact of that silence and absence is examined, within a framework of faith, remembrance and grief. The thesis explains why not writing creatively to recreate the actual sinking is a more powerful way to show themes of absence and loss. Including factual reports, photographs, letters and newspaper articles, contributes to a polyphony of voices, intended to add veracity to the creative work. It explores the ethnographic, examining cultural tensions and class hierarchies of Emergency Ireland, the self-reflectiveness of metafiction and how the speculative combines to reanimate stories of the crew and their widows. There is a reflection on both ambiguous loss – the loss where there is no body and on postmemory, as drivers to explain why these stories remain important to families intergenerationally, even if the family stories can be unreliable. There is an examination of the liminality of faction/creative non-fiction and of a cumulative short story structure as an alternative to a linear novel.
