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Films, besides serving as an important instructive means to deliver sociological content, have also recently made their way into more structured courses on Media Sociology. It becomes particularly pertinent for cultivating global sociological imagination in the classroom. This chapter is a pedagogical reflection discussing the potentials of integrating Bollywood films into a first-year seminar, the content of which at many levels is comparable to basic sociology classes. The reflection is based out of the experience of teaching a freshmen class on Bollywood to a body of students with little past exposure, or knowledge of this movie industry. The chapter will initiate a dialogue on strategies of introducing the content, encouraging engagement and critical thinking, how to build on essential global sociological imagination along with a summary of what works and what does not. For this chapter, I will detail on the three contemporary Bollywood films (Ishaqzaade, Monsoon Wedding, and Dor), which I use to engage in a dialogue on family, class, and gender. Next, I will apply Sutherland and Fetley’s (2013) framework to explore the sociological relevance of these films (thus validating my choice of these works for pedagogical purposes) and also demonstrate possible hegemonic versus oppositional ways of reading these texts, which students are supposed to decipher and apply. Contemporary Bollywood films in many ways mirror aspects of the life course experienced in the United States and can be instrumental in encouraging a diverse undergraduate curriculum.

This chapter presents an overview of participatory action research and explores how this approach can inform the study of subsistence marketplaces. The diverse historical roots of action research are traced from Kurt Lewin's research on workplace democracy and Paulo Freire's conceptual ideas forged from working with low-literate peasants. We illustrate the potential of action research approaches by exploring in detail a more contemporary form of action research, participatory rural appraisal, and we show the usefulness of this approach to understanding consumer well-being in resource-poor areas. Special emphasis is given to the discussion of the methodology of this popular form of action research and its various applications.

This chapter provides a case study on a Sharīʿah-compliant home facility contract based on the Bai Bithaman Ājil (BBA) contract, generally used by Islamic banks in Malaysia. The study emphasises on the need to comply with the existing legal framework and execute relevant contracts in line with the Sharīʿah resolutions of the Sharīʿah Advisory Council of Bank Negara Malaysia without causing harm (ḍarar) to the customers or introducing uncertain elements or procedures (gharar) in the execution of the agreements. This chapter is based on doctrinal analysis of the relevant issues as well as a qualitative legal research through content analysis of relevant BBA agreements, case law as well as statutory provisions. The case study used in this chapter is completely anonymised. The study finds that the execution of BBA agreements in Malaysia leaves much to be desired. Even though the regulatory framework for Sharīʿah-compliant home financing in Malaysia is robust, there are some legal and Sharīʿah considerations which the stakeholders need to look into in order to project Malaysia as the main global hub of Islamic finance. This study demonstrates the need for proper Sharīʿah auditing of the practical execution of BBA agreements to avoid an incorporated element of gharar at the time of execution of the agreements, which might ultimately lead to unforeseen reputation risks for the bank. Though there are several studies on the Sharīʿah, financing and accounting aspects of the BBA home facility agreement, this study focusses on both Sharīʿah and legal issues, using the case study approach. The recommendations are expected to provide a good policy framework for the stakeholders in the Islamic financial services industry in Malaysia.

The majority of economic crises impact the wealth of people which in turn affect their financial capacity to purchase residential properties. However, the home financing method may also have an impact on the behaviour of house prices. This chapter intends to test argued resilience of Islamic finance to situations of financial crisis by using an Islamic home financing product called Enhanced Musharakah Mutanaqisah (EMM) which was proposed by Asadov and Ibrahim (2018) as an example and compare its performance to conventional mortgage. Two different models of home financing, conventional and EMM based ones are developed with the former reflecting basic features of conventional mortgage and the latter using rental rates and house price indices for product pricing. Both models are compared using aggregate data for the US housing market for the past 30 years in order to demonstrate the resilience of the EMM model. The findings of the study show that EMM is more flexible in terms of reflecting real situations in both the housing market and aggregate economy as compared to the conventional model. Its pricing is more accommodating particularly during times of economic downturns, and it can potentially provide the solution to numerous mortgage defaults arising from such conditions. Despite the proposed models being tested using data only from the United States, the analysis can be generalized for other countries as well. The implementation of the EMM model, as an example of Shariah-based Islamic financial product, is expected to bring fairness and justice in the relationship between financial institutions and its clients. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt of simulating a Musharakah Mutanaqisah based home financing using both actual rental rates and house prices for product pricing.

In this chapter, we describe the belief system of Izzat which is central among South Asian families. The idea of forced marriage is based upon the concept of Izzat or honor which is a cornerstone of family life in South Asian communities.

Rai (2006) suggests that South Asian community members are deeply affected by what others say about them. The closest English translations to Izzat and Sharam are honor and shame, respectively. Rai argues that Izzat and Sharam are mechanisms that safeguard patriarchal customs such as arranged marriage which are familiar to us from our own backgrounds as two Asian women. It is our belief that Izzat is the highest “context marker” (Pearce & Cronen, 1980) for forced marriages.

We will illustrate the concept of Izzat through two case vignettes and explicate theoretical ideas, based on Izzat to include Borzemyi-Nagy’s ideas about belief systems.

The research of Ryan Brown (2016) University of Oklahoma on “honour cultures” in the USA draws some parallels in gendered discourses about power of men over women. He suggests that high levels of murder rates as well as reluctance to address mental health issues are present in “honour cultures.” These ideas resonate with the strong influence of Izzat upon South Asian family and community systems which we have met in our practice. The development of our practice was in response to issues arising from our clinical work in these communities (Robinson, 2016).

We will explore the continuum of marriage to include forced, arranged and consensual marriage within the context of Izzat and compare with black African and African-Caribbean families.

We will also consider issues of cultural competence and expertness and how this interplays with strongly held belief systems such as Izzat. We will end with some clinical implications and pointers for practice.

Hisbah is one of the distinguished institutions that had emerged since the early days of the Islamic empire. Based on its cardinal duty to enjoin good and prohibit evil, over time, its functions gradually expanded, and its responsibilities increasingly grew. In light of the contemporary trend in establishing institutional framework for consumer protection, entrusting an agency with multifarious tasks may not be the best and effective way in handling consumer protection issues. Thus, this chapter attempts to explore the new paradigm of hisbah as a consumer protection institution in Malaysia with a special reference to the Islamic consumer credit industry. While utilising the doctrinal legal research methodology, relevant sources of law have been examined and analysed. This research finds that the classical hisbah institution provides a good reference point in establishing regulatory agency and dispute management body. Nevertheless, some modifications are required to remain relevant especially in terms of specialisation of role and function. Likewise, it is viewed that adjustment of the hisbah institution is also necessary regarding the characteristic of the muhtasib (ombudsman).

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the possible portfolio diversification opportunities between Asian Islamic market and other regions’ Islamic markets; namely USA, Europe, and BRIC. This study makes the initial attempt to fill in the gaps of previous studies by focusing on the proxies of global Islamic markets to identify the correlations among those selected markets by employing the recent econometric methodologies such as multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic–dynamic conditional correlations (MGARCH–DCC), maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT), and the continuous wavelet transform (CWT). By utilizing the MGARCH-DCC, this chapter tries to identify the strength of the time-varying correlation among the markets. However, to see the time-scale-dependent nature of these mentioned correlations, the authors utilized CWT. For robustness, the authors have applied MODWT methodology as well. The findings tend to indicate that the Asian investors have better portfolio diversification opportunities with the US markets, followed by the European markets. BRIC markets do not offer any portfolio diversification benefits, which may be explained partly by the fact that the Asian markets cover partially the same countries of BRIC markets, namely India and China. Considering the time horizon dimension, the results narrow down the portfolio diversification opportunities only to the short-term investment horizons. The very short-run investors (up to eight days only) can benefit through portfolio diversification, especially in the US and European markets. The above-mentioned results have policy implications for the Asian Islamic investors (e.g., Portfolio Management and Strategic Investment Management).

In the last 10 years, India has amended its laws dealing with sexual offences against women with the changes ranging from increasing terms of imprisonment for the offence of rape to state-funded compensation schemes for women and child victims. In this regard, challenges persist for the agencies of the criminal justice system in India especially the courts to realise the vision of restorative justice as these forums have to navigate the relevant statutory provisions and binding precedents. This chapter seeks to analyse the challenges faced by courts in proper reintegration of victims and offenders of sexual offences, the institutional responses of the courts and suggests reforms to the criminal justice system in India in consonance with the principles of restorative justice acknowledged in the restorative justice movement in the international discourse.