Search results

This paper takes a contemplative analysis of non-violent activism in a hyperlocal context that is historically marked by violent clashes. It emphasizes the importance of placing nonviolent activities within leadership frameworks that prioritize collectivity, collaboration, adaptiveness, authenticity, and community interactions. It argues that non-violent activism can serve as a cornerstone of democratic practices, and plausible to a myriad of challenges in civic spaces. The assertion that violence is not a prerequisite for gaining the attention of authorities capable of enacting societal change is supported by several studies. This paper advocates for a reorientation of collaborative efforts between those in positions of authority and civil society leaders to foster progress. There is power in the decibel of voices of the people, to correct acts of omission and commission that is impacting negatively on the citizens. In context characterized by volatility and fragility, the paper suggests prioritizing the process of influencing, mobilizing and organizing responsive interventions rather than solely focusing on the ends or outcomes. Process-oriented approach creates containers for curiosity, relational, and experimental practices that interweave multi-dimensional perspectives. The social change actors navigated cultural and structural barriers to implement non-violent strategies, offering a compelling example of grassroots peace building. Overall, this paper findings underscores the significance of understanding both direct and structural violence in shaping citizen’s right within specific context. It highlights the efficacy of context-based leadership practices in promoting non-violent organizing for peace, particularly in hyperlocal settings. Moreover, it suggests that these findings could inform indigenous peace building that is inherently influenced by contextual factors.

Adopting a case study, I was able to elucidate a context-based leadership model advanced by local women that averted a probable political violence in Nigeria. A case study approach was adopted because it is a phenomenon that is bounded in time, context and advanced by a particular group of change agents. A case study with a constructivist approach was utilized to understand the context and sense making of the “why” and the “what”. In situatedness, the natural occurring data was cultivated, including one-on-one indepth interviews. Data was analyzed using a narrative analysis, which raised themes on resilience, collectivity, collaboration, risk and sustainability. The findings pivot a culturally based experience of leadership by women in a fragile context. First, I provided a contextual background, explaining the local context, including the socio-economic, cultural, political and historical factors that contributed to the emergence of the conflict. In addition, I explained the scope and nature of the conflict, describing the grievances and issues that led to the tensions within the community, and highlighting the key actors and stakeholders involved. Secondly, I analyzed the non-violent strategies and tactics employed by a group of social change actors to address the issue which involved non-violent protest, tactical community organizing, dialogic engagements and creative forms of interventions. Thirdly, I evaluated and explained the role of leadership in coordinating non-violent activities and actions, the effectiveness of their leadership style, relational and processual, that sustained the non -violent approach, and the challenges the group encountered. In addition, I explained the outcome from such leadership practice and lessons learned, with evidence of a dismantling of power dynamics, and shift in attitude to a non-violent disposition. Lastly, I explained how this approach may have broader implications for understanding nonviolent conflict resolution, social movements, and the promotion of peace and justice in local contexts and beyond.

A leadership practice that is relational and collective should have consideration for both the context where the leadership is exercised and deliberate on the processes necessary to hold containers for everyone to engage. This is gradually dismantling the hegemonic conceptualization of peace building, with a gradual shift of co-construction and sense making of peace building, with implication for more diversity and inclusion of persons and perspectives. It also underscores a system that deconstructs and departs form colonized thinking and contributes to conditions that enables and inspires alternative approaches to addressing oppressive power structures. (1) In unstable situations, leadership frequently arises from within communities, driven by individuals and groups intimately connected to their realities. The Nassarawan women embody this grassroots leadership, marked by wisdom, resilience, and a dedication to creating positive change despite significant obstacles. They embrace non-violent strategies, inspired by past successes, recognizing their potency in effecting change. (2) The leadership of these women illustrates the importance of mobilizing collective strength for justice and equality, showcasing how local leadership can catalyze transformative change for the better. (3) Indigenous styles of leadership possess the capacity to go beyond conventional concepts and embrace intricacy, flexibility, and inclusiveness. A multi-faceted leadership strategy becomes especially pertinent as it enables individuals to navigate complexity, confront challenges, and cultivate resilience within their communities, rather than depending solely on traditional methods.(4) The practice of peace leadership isn’t necessarily linked to official positions, titles, or authority. Rather, it appears as a continuous, intentional effort within community interactions, often arising from unexpected situations and sources.

Most of the women engaged in this leadership activity are located in remote areas, and this research had access to only a few who storied their experiences in ways they understood how to.

With the rapid shift and call for more non-violent activism, we must be open to sample the different textures relevant for varied conditions. This holds a huge implication for understanding the psychology of communities expressing the full human agency in exercising leadership that is contextually driven. The connection between local struggles and global movements for social justice and human rights is profound and multifaceted. Firstly, there’s a shared value across movements for equity, equality, justice, dignity, and human rights, spanning issues like environmental protection, gender equality, racial justice, and indigenous rights. Local movements increasingly emphasize building solidarity across borders, collaborating with similar movements worldwide through actions like protests and social media campaigns. This amplifies local voices on a global stage and underscores the interconnectedness of struggles. The leadership of the women’s group holds significant implications for global movements, offering insights into grassroots perspectives on social issues. Their localized knowledge enriches global discourse on social change, providing tangible examples of challenges faced by marginalized groups and culturally relevant solutions. Additionally, their commitment to nonviolent methods establishes a platform for marginalized voices and fosters solidarity across diverse communities. The group’s innovative approaches, drawing upon local resources and grassroots networks, demonstrate the power of community-driven solutions to address social problems. Moreover, their grassroots empowerment shifts power dynamics within communities and influences broader systemic transformations, all while advocating for justice through peaceful means. These practices not only spark global solidarity but also shape public discourse and policy agendas at state and national levels, highlighting the human rights implications of local issues like political corruption. Overall, the women’s group exemplifies the transformative potential of grassroots activism in effecting lasting change on a global scale.

The power for everyday peace leadership rests with the people and it is translated into meaningful outcomes when everyone has the opportunity to lead.

Research has been done on many women led movement in Nigeria, but this is unique, as it changed the narrative for an approach that was successful in shifting cultural boundaries in very fragile and uncertain context.

Green Sukuk (GS) is a recent innovation that has the potential to serve humankind in sustainable development. However, its potential can only be achieved if the proceeds of GS are used for the priority areas needed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out, using selected GS issued to determine whether the proceeds of GS are actually given to the needed areas.

This is qualitative research utilizing case studies where the “priorities given” areas are observed through information collected from the library that consists of primary and secondary sources, such as statutes, books, articles and internet sources, while “priorities needed to issue GS” areas are determined through information collected from Al-Quran and Hadiths to derive conclusions.

The outcome of this study reveals some untouched areas that needed immediate attention where GS can be implemented. This study recommends implementing GS for the plant, agriculture, forests, road, water, animal and others. One example in this regard is to create “forest sukuk,” which is a tool for financing forest preservation.

It is anticipated that, via the outcome of this research, GS issuance frameworks can be enhanced, especially in revising the areas in which Sukuk proceeds can be used, and it will provide guidance to the potential GS issuers to choose financing projects.

This paper aims to providea comprehensive review of the concepts and definitions of green finance, and the importance of “green” impact investments today. The core challenge in combating climate change is reducing and controlling greenhouse gas emissions; therefore, this study explores the solutions green finance provides emphasizing their impact on the environment and firms' financial performance. With increasing attention to the concept of green finance, multiple forms of green financial tools have come to fruition; the most prominent are green bonds.

This paper compiles a comprehensive green bond dataset, presenting a statistical study of the evolution of the green bonds market from its first appearance in 2006 until 2021.

The green bond market has seen massive growth over the years reaching $1651.92bn as of 2021. Findings show that green bonds are working towards shifting from high carbon-emitting energy to renewable energy, which is vital to economic development and growth. In congruence, green bonds are aligned with the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs) amounting to $550bn for 2020, with the five most covered SDGs amounting to over 60%.

With growing worldwide concern for global warming, green finance became the fuel that pushes the world to act in combating and mitigating climate change. Coupled with adopting the Paris Agreement and the SDGs, Green finance became a vital tool in creating a pathway to sustainable development, as it connects the financial world with environmental and societal benefits.

Social media have been associated with social benefits and enhanced psychological well-being among non-disabled individuals; the purpose of this study is to examine whether social media may have similar benefits for young neurodivergent adults with autism, anxiety, or attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder who may experience communication differences. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this first-of-its kind study explores the nature of social media use and related psychological well-being among neurodivergent college undergraduates.

This qualitative study is part of a larger effort. The authors surveyed undergraduates with and without disabilities at U.S. higher education institutions on their social media use and psychological well-being. A total of 131 students responded, including 24 neurodivergent individuals, the results of which are reported elsewhere. Participants were 18–25 years old, of varied genders and racial/ethnic backgrounds; for neurodivergent adults, questions focused on social challenges. From the survey, a sample of five neurodivergent individuals was drawn for this small-scale, exploratory interview study.

This paper reports descriptive statistics from survey results to contextualize analysis of students’ social media use (e.g. purposes, practices, benefits and harms). Students used mainly Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to promote well-being primarily through engaging positive relationships and positive emotions. Students reported several benefits of using social media to develop their disability identity and few harms.

Understanding the impact of social media use on undergraduates with disabilities could help us not only improve services as teachers, counselors and other helping professionals who support young adults to leverage their everyday technologies-in-use but also address digital equity issues.

This study aims to examine the impacts of global geopolitical risks (GPRs) and COVID-19 pandemic stringency on the size of Sukuk issuance in Malaysia.

To examine the issue, this paper collected yearly data for the Sukuk issuance from the DataStream, and the rest of the variables, including the control variables from the World Bank, were from 2018 to 2022. Several econometric approaches have been used, that is, ordinary least square (OLS), two-stage least squares (2SLS) and generalized method of moment (GMM) with fixed effects and random effects in examining the impacts.

The results demonstrate that global GPRs negatively impact the size of Sukuk issuance due to the investment risk during the high global geopolitical conflicts, war and rampant terrorism. Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic-related stringency also similarly affects the country's Sukuk issuance market because of the long-time lockdown measures, border closures, travel restrictions and low access to the market. The control variables also demonstrate similar results except for the gross domestic products, which shows positive and significant impacts on the Sukuk market of Malaysia.

The study's policy implications for Sukuk investors and issuers stress the importance of disclosing risk mitigation procedures, strengthening the regulatory framework and raising investor knowledge to attract and protect investors in the Sukuk sector.

This study focused on Ivorian track and field athletes who were current or former members of the Ivorian national team to understand athletes’ experiences with migration, diaspora and sport.

Participatory action research (PAR) methodology was used in this research study (Lenette and Nesvaderani, 2021). According to Schinke and Blodgett (2016), PAR is a type of qualitative research used to engage the researcher and researched. The researcher and researched work together to understand the issues of a situation and communicate a plan to work toward resolving those issues (Kemmis et al., 2014). Using PAR helped to engage multiple people in the study, and as more research studies explore forced migration and sport, more scholars are starting to lean on the methodology to create a more diverse perspective and to include marginalized populations in the world of scholarly research (Stone, 2018; Robinson et al., 2019).

Key findings illustrate Ivorian athletes’ ability to forge a bond that transcended tribal and political differences through geographical proximity and sport opportunity, allowing them to (re)connect with their Ivorian diaspora by representing the national team.

This research paper expands on past studies in sport and migration by showcasing the fluid nature of how diaspora constructs an athlete’s national identity once they are forced to leave their homeland.

The purpose of this article is to elicit understanding of how forgiveness, religion and spirituality, and relationships can better our lives. It draws from the life of Everett L. Worthington, Jr, a positive psychologist and Commonwealth Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has published almost 50 books and over 500 scholarly articles or chapters.

This is a case study, followed by a ten-question interview. The core methodology is positive autoethnography which is embraced by Worthington to reveal life lessons from things he has done.

Worthington reveals a life honoring the interwoven lives of people. He has studied forgiveness intensively and finds it to be an essential way of making our way in the world and in a world community that all too often hosts hurt.

An extensive literature has developed to understand what forgiveness is, how it comes about naturally and how the REACH Forgiveness method can help people who struggle to forgive themselves or others, and do it more quickly, thoroughly and frequently. Forgiving has psychological, social, spiritual and physical benefits to the forgiver.

This article is filled with practical information on how to forgive and how to pursue eudaemonia, which Worthington defines as virtue for oneself.

Forgiveness has widespread social implications. Good relationships are those that can help form, maintain, grow and repair when damaged close emotional bonds. Forgiveness helps repair, maintain and grow those bonds.

Worthington has been instrumental in the establishment and growth of the subfield of forgiveness studies and in the study of humility.

This study aims to understand the social cooperative model's empowerment and social cohesion impacts based on the case of a cooperative with the partnership of local and refugee women in southern Türkiye to give evidence for the potential and challenges of women cooperatives.

The authors conducted surveys and focus group interviews with both members and board members. The authors grounded the findings in dimensions extracted from literature on the impact of cooperatives on their members and the wider community.

The social cooperative economically empowers women through employment and income generation, and skill training while enhancing them socially with increased decision-making power, autonomy, self-esteem and respect. It fosters social cohesion between local and refugee members by building trust and peace, solidarity, knowledge sharing and collective action. However, the cooperative faces challenges in managing sustainable business models, and cooperative membership does not ensure a steady income, social security, economic independence or a fairer division of domestic work.

The challenges and limited outcomes of social cooperatives are primarily due to resource scarcity. Hence, these needs must be considered by policymakers and sponsors of women empowerment programmes so that they can offer response actions to empower social women cooperatives. During the research period, the COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant threat to the survival of the cooperative. Moreover, the restrictions imposed by the pandemic made it impossible to engage Syrian women in focus group discussions. Consequently, the focus group interactions were limited to two Palestinian members, while Syrian members were included in survey interviews.

This study is one of the few attempts to examine the social cooperative model’s impact on women’s empowerment and social cohesion in the context of a mixed membership of local and refugee women in Türkiye. Fieldwork evidence on cooperatives that improve gender equality and inclusive growth can contribute to the advocacy of support for women’s cooperatives in the context of refugees.

This paper aims to discern the potential dimensions amid the duality of heritage tourism and peace. Reflecting on the phases of destruction and rebuilding of Seated Buddha of Jahanabad, this study used the content analysis of 40 news sources, to unravel the resultant avenues of heritage tourism and peace.

Following the qualitative research strategy, the interface of NVivo 12 has been used to transcribe the textual and visual content of media news. The media news aired on the incident of destruction phase in 2007, and rebuilding drive in 2012–2016 were the two sets of collected data. A hierarchy of thematic analysis was adopted to identify nodes, subthemes and themes.

Findings of this study highlighted six themes: peaceful imagery, PI; heritage dissonance, HD, vs interfaith harmony, IH; peace allegory through restoration, PAR; precursor of heritage sustainability, PHS; community heritage consonance, CHC; and heritage touristic valuation, HTV.

This study lacks statistical data of the quantitative research domain. Aimed at a single heritage site, it analyzed limited number of news sources.

This study offers implications for industrial, theoretical, managerial and governmental stakeholders in their respective domains. Moreover, it also provides takeouts for common readers.

This study contends a significant research issue and analyzes the destruction and rebuilding of a heritage site in a developing country. Primarily in the sociogeographic context of the research issue, the resultant dimensions are novel and demanding.