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This paper explores the juristic discussions about women’s access to their financial rights during late Ottoman Egypt. Taking fatwa collections as a source of social history, one can recognize that women sometimes gave up their financial entitlements to their male relatives voluntarily. This concession is thought to have occurred due to the influence of deeply ingrained social customs in some tribes. While various historical and anthropological studies have explored this social practice, this paper focuses instead on the Islamic law ruling concerning this phenomenon. I discuss in this paper how some ostensibly conservative ulama in nineteenth-century Egypt, in pursuit of upholding women’s financial rights against patriarchal oppression, recognized an important principle of social coercion. By considering fear of social stigma as a constraint on women’s free will and thus as a form of legal duress, those ulama enabled women to reclaim their rights when possible— likely following the death of their male relatives. This paper urges us to rethink the position of the ulama in nineteenth-century Egypt regarding women’s rights. Furthermore, it illuminates an overarching concept of coercion in Islamic law, which holds relevance to various modern debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical framework to think about employees' effort choices, and applies this framework to assess the ability of existing experimental designs to identify the effect of pay inequality on worker effort. The analysis shows that failure to control for a number of confounds—such as reciprocity towards the employer in multi-lateral gift-exchange games (vertical fairness), or the incentive to increase effort when feeling underpaid under piece rates (income targeting)—may lead to inaccurate interpretation of evidence of treatment effects. In light of these findings, the paper provides a set of recommendations on how to improve identification in the design of controlled experiments in the future. • We develop a model to study employees' effort choices in experiments. • We formally assess the design of experiments on the effect of pay inequality on effort. • We find a number of confounds that may impair identification of treatment effects. • Confounds include vertical fairness, income targeting, repeated interactions, procedural fairness. • A set of recommendations to improve identification in experiments is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the role of accounting in disaster mitigation and the importance of transparency to avoid corruption. During the Ukrainian war, accounting has allowed the redistribution of war material, the quantification of economic aid, or the efficient management of humanitarian aid. This paper aims to set a research agenda on transparency and corruption in foreign aid to a fragile and conflict‐affected country. In order to analyze the situation of corruption in Ukraine during the war, first a review of the latest corrupt events is carried out and its position in the Corruption Perception Indicator is analyzed. Subsequently, we analyze the aid that Ukraine has received from other countries and institutions, and whether it is transparent. The possible dependence of the Corruption Perception Indicator on the transparency index of each country in the management of aid to Ukraine is studied. This article links corruption, transparency and accounting in the context of the Ukrainian war, highlighting the important role of auditing and financial controls, and presents proposals for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The funeral rite, locally called oshwue-aji, is a funeral condolence outing among the Nsukka Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. It features performances, enlivened with art objects and costumes. It is imbued with remarkable social significance. This paper examines varying performances and costumes associated with the oshwue-aji rite. The condolence trip displays exquisitely crafted bracelets, pendants, clothing, and other fashion accessories worn by the bereaved – children, daughters, sons, as well as daughters' and sons’ in-laws with their spouses. Relying on Paul Horwich's use theory of meaning, this paper discusses the distinctive nature of these visual art objects to understand their symbolic and social functions. It equally presents the phenomenon of oshwue-aji, directed towards understanding the nature of sociality these incorporated artistic dimensions generate within the social space per time. Interviews and personal observations were relied on for data collection from people performing the oshwue-aji rite because they are bereaved. Being a qualitative study, the art forms and related objects that constitute the data were analyzed descriptively. Beyond serving to epitomize vivacity and gaiety, these artistic creations remain an orchestration to appreciate, publicize, and promote. The paper finds that people's engagements in funerals with creative elements and donations and/or exchange of gifts build social solidarity in traditional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the donors' register of the Zurich Bürgerbibliothek ('citizens' library') to explore how the collection of the city's first public library developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The donors' register records over 3,000 gifts from some 900 local and foreign benefactors between 1629, the year of the library's founding, and 1769. Unlike a standard library or auction catalogue, the donors' register allows us to observe engagement with the Bürgerbibliothek over time and reveals that, while a remarkable influx of patrons in the first decade of the library's existence secured its position in the cultural and intellectual fabric of Zurich society, international interest in the institution dropped significantly by the end of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, the Bürgerbibliothek's consistent growth across the period attests to the popularity of the library and its accessible collection at a local level as well as its benefactors' belief in the reciprocal value of patronising this new type of civic institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted labor markets around the world. Workers and corporations scrambled to adjust their workstyles to a new normal, by avoiding the commute and working remotely from their homes or elsewhere. Japan is a country that stood out for its inability to adjust to the remote work imperative. Comparative statistics show that Japan reported the lowest number of people engaged in remote work among the OECD countries, as well as the lowest percentage of corporations that offered remote work policies. In this article, I investigate why telework in Japan is difficult. The lack of telework in Japan may seem paradoxical, given the country's reputation for being technologically advanced. I argue that it is not the technological infrastructure that is lacking in the Japanese workplace, but distinct features of work embedded in Japanese culture and its collectivist roots that prevent the effective implementation of telework. I rely on recently published data from various sources, and apply key sociological theories such as implicit contracts, gift exchange, dramaturgy, and impression management to substantiate my main arguments. The paper concludes by drawing on implications for the future of work in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of gift-giving in human relationships, with a particular focus on traditional Korea. It discusses how gift exchanges create value and satisfaction for both parties involved, and examines the principles of gift exchange as outlined by anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi. The article also explores the practical and symbolic functions of diplomatic gifts in establishing and fortifying international relationships and political order. It provides examples of diplomatic gift exchanges between China and neighboring countries, as well as between European countries and China. The article concludes by mentioning three papers that will further examine the practice of diplomatic gifts in East Asia, with a focus on Korea. [Extracted from the article]

Close-kin ownership, to own one's kin, has been researched from the perspective of emancipatory strategies or economic exploitation, hereby overlooking the complexity of kinship bonds in slave societies. This paper addresses the complexities of slavery and kinship and analyses close-kin ownership from the perspective of kinship. In the process of manumission, relationships of obligation were created that continued in life after slavery. When former-owner and enslaved were kin, a layering of obligations took place that extended beyond the widely accepted dichotomy of viewing close-kin ownership as either an emancipatory strategy or economic exploitation. To analyse these concepts and relationships 44 examples of close-kin ownership were selected from a database of 392 manumission petitions from Suriname. In these 44 examples, kin owned enslaved kin. From this sample, five cases of presumed close-kin slavery were identified, kin not only owned enslaved kin, the enslaved were treated as any other slaves and kinship was no extenuating circumstance. By analysing these cases, we have found that close-kin ownership and slavery were interconnected practices that should be studied in unison to grasp the tension between emancipatory strategies and economic gain. Furthermore, the variety in circumstances shows that additional research is needed to continue the creation of a broader framework of kinship and slavery, so that this can be applied to slave societies around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many jobs serve a social purpose beyond profit maximization, contributing positively to society. This paper uses a modified principal-agent gift-exchange game with positive externality (prosocial treatment) to study how workers' prosocial motivation interacts with the use of efficiency wages in stimulating effort. We find that prosocial motivation and efficiency wages are independent in stimulating effort: compared to a standard gift-exchange game (GE treatment), the presence of the externality shifts the agents' effort choice function upwards without affecting its slope. Thus, if principals were profit-maximizers, wage offers should be the same in both treatments. However, principals offer higher wages in the prosocial treatment. We show that this is due to principals in the GE treatment highly underestimating agents' reciprocity and thereby offering wages below the profit-maximizing level. Results from robustness-checks further suggest that our findings are unlikely to be driven by a simple efficiency effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern in a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatists are interested primarily not in representing a purportedly unchanging Reality but in articulating prophetic future possibilities on the basis of the values most venerated by a culture/society in the present. This makes pragmatism sound a little like 'Conceptual Engineering'. Conceptual engineers too are interested in transforming our ways of talking, which implies some notion of how such improvements are to be evaluated. Nevertheless, this paper argues that accounts of conceptual engineering that regard it as key to the project of elucidating an externalist semantics find it difficult to accommodate on their own terms the problem-phenomena taken to be of shared interest: regions of discourse where the demand for change are at their most pressing culturally. This difficulty takes the form of what I call the Conceptual Engineering Dilemma (CED), an inability to accommodate simultaneously the ethical and ameliorative dimensions of contestation. I argue that acknowledging the formalist commitments that undergird CED should make pragmatism more appealing to the practically-orientated analytic philosopher and conclude with a brief survey of some of the tools that it makes available for the pressing work of changing minds for the better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An instrument of wealth accumulation and racial segregation in housing markets, the intersections between zoning and labor are often overlooked. Extending theories of space, race, and class, and drawing on historical and archival evidence, I elaborate three ways that American land-use zoning emerged to shape labor markets in the early 20th century: (1) zoning constrained households from engaging in subsistence and direct market activity, acting as a regulatory source of labor commodification; (2) zoning first emerged as a xenophobic tool for regulating labor competition; and (3) zoning introduced racialized boundaries distinguishing formal work from a sphere of economic informality. I illustrate these theoretical-historical propositions with a study of the frontier origins of American land-use zoning laws in late-19th -century Los Angeles. This first and influential approach to residential zoning emerged amid racial dynamics of western settlement and the class politics of a national "free" labor market. I demonstrate how efforts to regulate the settlement and labor practices of poor urban households and Chinese immigrants on in Los Angeles became the direct legal basis for the dichotomous categories of "residential" and "industrial" districts that the city first defended before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915. By theorizing the intersections of land-use zoning and labor markets, this paper provides a theoretical framework and historical genealogy for future work to consider entanglements of housing and labor politics amid the concurrent flexibilization of work and land use in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes visible austerity-based infant food exchange as a contemporary food acquisition practice outside of commercial and regulated foodscapes. It presents results from a netnography conducted within two popular online platforms in Canada between April 2017 and February 2018: the Kijiji classified advertising site, and Facebook. Qualitative analysis of over 2000 user generated secondhand exchange ads show practices from selling, trading, sharing, and seeking whereby infant foods works as a form of currency to acquire either economic capital when sold, an alternative food capital when traded, or are gifts in the moral economy of exchange. While infant food exchange is often collaborative in nature, it is austerity-driven involving different forms of capital parents have or seek to accomplish the responsibility of feeding. As excluded consumers, posters are motivated by a complex mixture of desperation, innovation, ecological concerns, and morality to care for others when mainstream food access is out of reach within the current political and economic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of one's identity in late modernity is sometimes viewed as a project of the autonomous self in which one's identity may shift or change over the course of one's existence and development. For the Christian, however, one's identity is both a divine gift, and a task of ecclesial formation, and for both the gift and the task, Christian baptism is fundamental. Baptism represents the death of the self and its rebirth in Christ, a decisive breach with the life that has gone before. Baptism establishes a new identity, a new affiliation, a new mode of living, and a new life orientation, direction, and purpose. This paper explores the role of baptism in the formation of Christian identity, finding that Christian identity is both extrinsic to the self and yet also an identity into which we are called and into which we may continually grow. The essay proceeds in three sections. It begins with a survey of recent philosophical reflection on the concept of identity, continues by reflecting on the nature of Christian baptism in dialogue with this reflection, and concludes by considering in practical terms how baptism functions in the process of conversion–initiation toward the formation of mature Christian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museum artifacts are the main way for visitors to experience and learn about cultural heritage. Augmented reality (AR) allows for high interactivity and is increasingly applied in museums to improve tourists' experience and learning. It also supports the extension of museum experience to outside of the physical museum space, contributing to the visiting trajectory and takeaway experience. In this paper, we present our design of two tangible AR interfaces for cultural artifacts: Postcard AR and CubeMuseum AR, followed by three user studies that evaluate and optimize the design. In Study 1, we conducted a within-subjects study (N = 24) that compares the two AR interfaces with a baseline condition (Leaflet). Our results demonstrate the positive effects of tangible AR interfaces on users' motivation and engagement in learning cultural heritage. In Study 2, we further explored how to optimize CubeMuseum AR by adopting a user-centered design approach. Through the analysis of expert interviews (N = 7) and an online survey (N = 207), the results specify a series of requirements and design guidelines for tangible AR interfaces to be used as a learning tool and a hybrid gift. Based on the findings, the design of the CubeMuseum AR was optimized and evaluated in Study 3. A between-subjects user study was conducted (N = 32) to compare the optimized design with the initial design. The results verified the positive effects of gamified tangible AR interfaces on users' motivation, engagement, and performance in learning cultural heritage. We present our design and evaluation results, and discuss the implications of designing tangible AR interfaces for cultural heritage learning and museum gifting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite intense interest in how social capital can facilitate informal learning, few attempts have been made to synthesize the interface between social capital and informal learning. Social capital is an important factor in the application of informal learning, especially in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This paper first presents a review of the literature that has explored the relationship between social capital and informal learning in STEM education. We then present two case studies illustrating how social capital plays a pivotal role in enhancing informal learning outcomes in postsecondary STEM education. These cases offer insights on how to promote optimal informal learning in STEM education. Implications for understanding the importance of social capital in informal learning are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, scholars across all areas of marketing have studied consumer gift‐giving behavior. Despite the growing popularity of this research topic, no extensive review of the gift‐giving literature exists. To that end, this paper offers an expansive review of research on consumer gift‐giving, focusing primarily on work coming from within the marketing discipline, but also drawing on foundational pieces from other fields. We review extant scholarship on five of gift‐giving's most important aspects—givers' motivations, givers' inputs, giver‐recipient mismatches, value creation/reduction, and the greater gift‐giving context. In doing so, we illuminate the literature's key agreements and disagreements, shed light on themes that traverse ostensibly disparate gift‐giving findings, and develop deeper conceptualizations of gifting constructs. Moreover, we identify opportunities for improvement in the gift‐giving literature and use them to create key agendas for future gift‐giving research. In sum, this paper offers a single point of reference for gift‐giving scholars, improves academia's current understanding of gift‐giving, offers several theoretical contributions, and generates multiple paths for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that to understand the impact of former U.S. President Donald Trump on the U.S.-Mexico border, his presidential agenda needs to be compared with other presidential administrations from the 1990s to the present. It looks at presidential policy agendas, as seen in executive orders, legislative policies, binational initiatives, deployment of the National Guard and military, presidential visits, and use of the bully pulpit with visits to the border region. These are compared to border operations indicators, highlighting formal and informal crossings of people and movement of goods. Though Mr. Trump has been specifically negative and aggressive toward the border, the securitization of the region has been part of presidential agendas since the 1990s. A key takeaway is to think about and discuss these results to ensure the border is livable, manageable and ready for the challenges of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper presents a framework that integrates 11 forms of voluntary payments as seemingly disparate as bribes and bequests, and gifts and gratuities to show that "voluntary" payments vary in the shades of gray not only in terms of how much like bribes they are but also in terms of how voluntary they actually are. We provocatively suggest that these payment types might be susceptible to becoming entrenched through self‐reinforcing norms because the voluntary payments are not necessarily voluntary and to an extent akin to bribes. Specifically, it provides an overarching framework to showcase the similarities and differences between bribes, lobbying efforts, suggested fees, pay what you want, tips, bequests, legacies, charity, crowdsourcing, dowry, and gifts, identifying gaps in domains that are under‐researched. Starting with the question as to whether a service has been, is being, or will be performed for the voluntary payment, and whether payments are made to an individual or a cause, the framework highlights the following: (1) the differences in the purpose underlying these payments, (2) the different modes of payment used; (3) the economic and social norms governing the payments; and (4) external and internal emotions associated with these payment types. The integrative framework allows for an amalgam of disparate literatures ranging from morality and behavioral pricing to charity and gift giving. The process model suggests a multitude of areas for future research in the domain of consumers' voluntary payment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the role of parental gifts in neighbourhood sorting among young adult homebuyers. We make use of high-quality individual-level registry data for two large urban metropolitan areas in the Netherlands. While previous studies have shown that young adults receiving gifts purchase more expensive housing, little is known about the role of gifts in where young adults buy. Our study finds that parental gifts flow into the housing market in a spatially-uneven way. Movers supported by substantial parental gifts are more likely to enter owner-occupied housing in high-status and gentrifying urban neighbourhoods compared to movers without gifts. This study shows that this can only partially be explained by household and parental characteristics and by the uneven distribution of housing values. The remaining effect suggests that parental gifts also play a role in trade-offs regarding spatial residential decision-making. The conclusion discusses the ramifications of our findings for debates on (re)production of class and intra-generational inequalities through housing, and provides avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the 'spirit of the gift' as a framework for the analysis of the moral and political economy of public housing delivery in South Africa since democracy. The paper compares the gifts of Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses delivered by the state to 'beneficiaries', selected from long waiting lists in cities, towns and some rural places, with the homes built by families as gifts for their ancestors in their former homelands and rural areas. One of the central features of gifts, according to anthropologists, is that they are meant to be inalienable possessions, things that should not be sold or commodified. They are also assumed to carry a spirit, an aura or identity that binds them to the givers and communicates a relationship with those who receive the gifts. In post-colonial societies scholars tend to discuss the delivery of public goods and infrastructures within a framework of rights and entitlements. What they overlook is the extent to which public goods are also sometimes conceptualised and received as gifts that carry a sense of expectation, obligation, and the spirit of social exchange. The paper focuses on what happens when the 'spirit of the gift' of public housing is not honoured or reciprocated by beneficiaries as the gifts develop new social lives outside the parameters of those intended in the original policy. The ethnographic and historical evidence presented in the paper is drawn from numerous research projects undertaken by the author in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematizes gift relations in criminal organizations. It adopts a symbolic interaction perspective to focus scholarly attention on the way in which actants skillfully maneuver within the social expectations inherent in gift‐giving relations. The study is based on insights from twenty interviews with ex‐convicts and ten interviews with police officers or associates, and an in‐depth analysis of memoirs, police reports, and newspaper articles. Our study expands the scope of symbolic interactionism by considering how the exchange of gifts and favors is emotionally stylized to achieve both social and operative goals. We aim to carefully deconstruct the performance of gift‐giving and favor exchange in Israeli crime organizations, to understand how it is orchestrated to elicit genuine feelings among givers and recipients, as well as to control the use of violence. Finally, we identify gift‐giving as a double‐edged sword designed to lure recruits into a network of binding obligations, only to form a durable system of credit and debt wherein any transgressions are strictly punished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saint Pope John Paul II once suggested that the world is a gift to man and man is a gift to the world. This paper seeks to interpret this felicitous phrase in the light of the metaphysical anthropology of the German philosopher and theologian Ferdinand Ulrich (1931-2020). Building upon the comprehension of creatio ex nihilo as a "metaphysics of gift" and Aquinas' assertion that esse is "completum et simplex sed non subsistens" (De pot. q.1 a.1 ad.1), Ulrich, in his Homo Abyssus, describes the human person's role in creation as a "Gift-Task" (Auf-Gabe) that must be accepted and fulfilled. Man, as frontier and microcosm, is the only creature that can perform the act of reditio completa, yet what Ulrich proposes is that, through the act of naming-a spoken word uniting love and knowledge-man incorporates other creatures into his very soul, helping them achieve a fulfillment they could not otherwise achieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper which comes under the theme of macro-historical perspectives and Mediterranean history I shall discuss the exchange of gifts in three sections: first between the Lusignan kings of Cyprus and the sultans of Mamluk Egypt and Syria, between the Lusignan kings and the Turkish emirs of Anatolia, and thirdly between the Venetian rulers of Cyprus, including Queen Catherine Cornaro, and the Mamluk sultans for the period postdating 1473. Many of these exchanges of gifts took place during times of war, sometimes during the prelude to hostilities and sometimes immediately after their end. In addition, exchanges of gifts between Christian and Muslim rulers occasionally took place at times of peace. The reasons why gifts were exchanged, the type of gifts exchanged when these are described, not an invariable occurrence, and the symbolism underlying these exchanges of gifts will also be analyzed where possible. Furthermore, occasions when the recipient refused to accept the gift and why it was rejected shall also be examined. Where possible, comparisons with the exchange of gifts taking place in other societies and countries of the Eastern Mediterranean will be alluded to and discussed. In terms of source materials, the Cypriot chronicles of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries will form the principal source but reference shall also be made to diplomatic correspondence of the period under discussion. The exchanges of gifts normally took place within a diplomatic setting, this being the arrival of embassies, and gifts were sent sometimes to the close advisers of a ruler who could influence his policy and decision-making. On certain occasions, however, the exchanges of gifts could take place outside of this diplomatic context, for example as an expression of gratitude for assistance received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to explore the literature on professional ethics in law. The research is twofold, descriptive and analytical, to offer an overview of how professional ethics is understood in this field; that is, the approaches and concerns of those who reflect on it. This exercise, in turn, aims at making a normative proposal to understand professional ethics in law and its implementation in learning and practicing legal professions. A mixed method is used for this purpose; the works from a search in Google Scholar and Mendeley databases are selected and analyzed. This paper is divided into five sections: The first presents the theoretical framework for approaching ethics and professional ethics in law; the second part explains the methodology followed; the third part shows the results; the fourth part discusses the results, and the last one proposes some lines of research concerning professional ethics in law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many competent voices who estimate that in recent years ecumenism has been going through a crisis. Concern for ecumenical dialogue is becoming secondary for many theologians or members of the clergy, including hierarchs, who are preoccupied almost exclusively with addressing the problems facing their local and confessional communities. As a result, receptivity to ecumenical dialogue and cooperation is even lower among the faithful, who are preoccupied with assessing their own Christian identity in a socio-cultural context marked by rapid change and unprecedented challenges, of which secularism is only one of many. The disappointing assessment of the state of contemporary ecumenism, has led some ecumenists to an effort of identifying solutions for reimagining interconfessional dialogue in an ever-changing world. Theologians from all Christian traditions seek to contribute to identifying ways to unblock the current situation and to propose concrete approaches for rethinking ecumenism for future generations of believers. One of the ways suggested in the literature is to think of ecumenism less in terms of theological agreements, and more in terms of a process of mutual learning, considering that we can receive and offer our gifts in a mutual process, being aware of the need for each community to be open to such a perspective. In this paper, we argue that the constant receptivity to Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae's theology, and to his anthropology in particular, that exists in Western traditions can be an opportunity for revitalising the ecumenical dialogue through the gift exchange model described above. We start from the premise that Fr. Stăniloae's work represents an important gift not just for the Orthodox, but also for many Protestant and Catholic theologians, and we suggest that this direction can produce a reciprocal effect on Orthodox theologians to open up and receive the gifts of Western theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 20th century activity spaces have mainly been perceived as a niche concept in German-speaking spatial research. Meanwhile, international research on activity spaces has developed further and gained quite some attention recently. This paper elaborates a comprehensive definition of activity spaces and presents current fields of application with special regard to research on travel behaviour, segregation and public health. Activity spaces as a concept improve estimates of the interactions between individuals and their respective social or built environments. Therefore, insights on activity spaces might ease the development of adequate planning and policy measures. In order to facilitate the systematic generation of future research questions, hypotheses, research designs and practice-oriented insights, this paper presents both a novel analytical concept and established methods for the study of activity spaces. The paper closes with considerations on possible research perspectives that lie beyond the current state of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I investigate experimentally how wage transparency affects labor relationships. • Treatments compare exogenous and endogenous wage transparency. • Exogenous transparency is correlated with a higher share of equal offers. • When associated with costs for employees, wage transparency is rarely induced. • Employees almost always request wage information when this is costless. This paper experimentally investigates how exogenous and endogenous wage transparency affect the interactions between employers and employees in a labor environment characterized by gift exchange. After the first part of the experiment in which wage offers always remain private information, three treatments in the second part either make wages fully transparent or leave the choice to establish (costly) wage transparency either to employees or employers. When full transparency is induced exogenously, the share of equal wage offers increases in the second part. At the same time, employers and employees rarely induce wage transparency themselves. Moreover, in the treatment where employees could enforce transparency, average wage offers and performance are significantly lower than in the other treatments. Results from a control treatment indicate that employees' requests for wage information are cost-sensitive. If information about co-employees' wage offers is costless, employees almost always ask for this information, thus achieving nearly full wage transparency. Further analyses reveal that wage offers in the second part seem to be higher under transparency than under non-transparency of wage offers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gifts are a powerful way to acknowledge and strengthen interpersonal relationships. As with any relational space, gifting plays various roles in forming and maintaining relationships in political contexts, but its contribution to relationship-building has attracted little attention. This paper examines how politicians in Aotearoa New Zealand both engage with gifting and how they navigate the perceptions of others. Four current members of parliament (MPs) and six retired MPs participated in semi-structured interviews with questions on common practices and common understandings about political gifting. Their responses indicate their use of four different processes: formal processes are the guidelines provided by the government on gifting, but when these are insufficient, contextual processes regarding perceptions of the media, constituents or colleagues are used, or, alternatively, MPs rely on personal values or view gifting in terms of transactional processes with both parties receiving benefits. The paper explores perceptions and complexities of a sequence of gifts during events (event gifting). The authors recommend an improved awareness and understanding of the contribution of gifting practices to political relationship building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is the discussion about the perception and identity construction reflected in the act of gift giving under the context of a loving relationship. Therefore, we used a theoretical framework based on identity and gift giving. In its methodology, we use of an interpretative approach based on the technical analysis procedures from the Grounded Theory proposed by Charmaz. Design/methodology/approach: 26 interviews were conducted with 15 men and women who declare themselves committed in romantic relationships, which resulted in approximately 21 hours of recording. Research, Practical & Social implications: The paper contributes to consumption studies because focus on the behavioral relationship of a couple, going beyond the common place of studies focused on individualized consumption. Originality/value: As a result, the paper presents two theoretical schemes that debate, respectively, the formation of the couple's identity and the evolution of the act of gift giving in a context of loving relationship, resulting in a final debate about the formation of the couple's identity as a process that occurs concurrently with the increase in the symbolic level of the gifts, reflecting this construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gift tradition is a universal and functional culture pattern that is encountered in all cultures. This tradition has been maintained in both primitive and contemporary cultures. In modern cultures, gift-giving has been offering more opportunities to consumers than previous eras In the gift of gift tradition, it is necessary to be brought together fields such as consumer behavior, history of economy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and culture in order to be able to examine the behavior of women in buying gifts, giving gifts, and accepting gifts from the others. The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the feelings, thoughts and expectations of women about gift-giving. For this purpose, firstly the concept of gift-giving, and in this direction the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of women in gift-giving were thoroughly examined from the past to the present and new suggestions were made as stated in the results obtained from this paper [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of prosody in the processing of garden-path sentences in Brazilian Portuguese. The structure investigated presents a dicendi ('saying') matrix verb with two thatclauses (A alunai disse à professoraj que - estava atrasada que -i precisaria sair da sala - 'The student told the teacher that was late that she would need to leave the room'). The first that-clause is temporarily ambiguous between a Complement Phrase (CP) and a Relative Clause (RC) analysis. We assume that prosodic phrasing influences the resolution of the ambiguity, supporting prosodyfirst accounts of processing. A Cross-modal Completion Task was carried out and 40 participants listened to the initial portion of sentences and chose an answer between two options to complete the fragment heard. The results showed that prosody influenced subjects' parsing of the auditory stimuli and they chose the option compatible with the prosodic phrasing they had been exposed to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a type of zero-determinant strategies, the extortion strategy was found to be an evolutionarily stable strategy in structural groups. However, instead of complex networks structure, this paper focus on a multi-group game in hypernetworks, using the framework of a gift giving game driven by replicator-like dynamics. We find that the extortion is evolutionarily stable in the hypernetwork structure. The extortion game in hypernetworks can promote the emergence of the cooperative behavior compared to the traditional dual-strategy game and the extortion game in complex networks. The results show that the cooperation behavior attracts most of the groups for the smaller benefit value. With the increase of benefit value, cooperators turn into defectors and extortioners, but cooperation behavior still survives in hypernetworks under extreme conditions. Moreover, small-scale groups are more conducive to cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to document the participation of intra-household decision-making activities by older adults in India. Design/methodology/approach: This study has used a nationally representative sample of 21,662 older adults (aged 60 and above) from the Longitudinal Ageing Study of India data of 2017–2018. Intra-household decision-making participation is measured based on decision-making activities that includes marriage of daughter/son, buying and selling of property, giving a gift to the family, education of family member and arrangement of social/religious events. This paper used bivariate analysis and binary logistic regression model to examine the factors associated with the participation of older adults in the intra-household decision-making activities. Findings: The result has shown that older persons' participation declined with increased age. This study has also found a difference in the participation of intra-households decision-making activities between male and female, rural and urban older adults, poor and rich older adults. Older adults with good health status who maintain social engagement and a good lifestyle are more likely to participate in the household's decision-making activities. Practical implications: Older adults with better economic and social status are more likely to participate in intra-household decision-making activities that make their life happier than the counterpart. Therefore, emphasis should be given to those vulnerable older adults who do not have any social and economic security in the society. Originality/value: There are limited studies available on intra-household decision-making participation by older adults. This paper documents the intra-household decision-making participation by older adults in India with a nationally representative large sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on both published and unpublished material from the State Archives in Dubrovnik (fond 27 Lettere e commissioni di Levante and fond 34 Reformationes), as well as relevant literature, the paper describes the gifts offered by envoys from Dubrovnik to the Balšić family, the rulers of the Principality of Zeta, between 1360 and 1403. In the introductory part, the paper defines the historical framework and outlines the relationships between the Balšić family and Dubrovnik, as revealed by the documents that allowed free and safe trade to Dubrovnik merchants. Next, the situations in which the Dubrovnik people or the Balšić turned to each other for assistance or services are described, along with interpretation of the choices of gifts involved. In fact, the gifts were implicit diplomatic messages. The people of Dubrovnik used the gifts manipulatively as strategic tools to achieve pragmatic objectives at specific moments in time. The paper discusses the importance and meaning of gifts in diplomacy, gifts as means of non-verbal communication, as conveyors of political and economic influence in regard to Dubrovnik, as well as signs of respect, trust, affection, friendship, and peace. The motives guiding the selection of gifts are interpreted in the context of relations aspired to, established, or developing between the city of St. Blaise and the Principality of Zeta. The gifts are considered separately per type: fabrics, weapons, food, money, civil rights, and health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilateral gift exchange is often shown to benefit the gift-giver, but the effect is largely unknown when gift competition exists in a multilateral interaction. This paper studies gift competition in two-giver-one-recipient interaction based on a real-effort task on the recipient side. We find that exogenously introducing gift competition opportunity benefits the recipients and hurts the givers. This is because recipients respond more to the relative than the absolute size of the gifts under limited resources (i.e., time in our case). Explanations based on recipients' preference change and givers' erroneous beliefs are investigated and excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strengthening inner urban development is a guiding principle of Germany's sustainability policy and the key to achieving the 30-hectare target. To date, however, it is hardly possible to determine retrospectively the share of building construction activity realized as inner and outer urban development. On the one hand, there is the genuine fuzziness of the inner urban area (Innenbereich) as a spatial construct, and on the other hand, there is the lack of available small-scale data on building construction activity. Against this background, this paper presents for the first time amethodological approach to determine and evaluate the relevance of inner urban development for large areas and over longer periods of time for Germany. The method is applied for the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the housing construction activity from 1979 to 2011. The result shows a positive trend, indicating that cities and municipalities have succeeded in realizing more housing as inner urban development over time. At the same time, significant differences between urban and rural areas are apparent. A central conclusion is therefore to support smaller municipalities in their efforts for more inner urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to stimulate discussion on how best to protect individuals from undue influence when gifting to religious institutions in England and Wales. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on the law relating to undue influence in England and Wales and draws from the literature regarding gifting to religious institutions and accountability of such institutions. Findings: This paper identifies that more needs to be done to protect individuals, so as to ensure they are gifting to religious institutions using their own free will. It highlights that although the law attempts to define undue influence, there is little guidance on where the line between persuasion and coercion lies. The paper recognises that religious institutions need to do more to adopt safeguarding policies and that the Charity Commission ought to better support such policies by creating a single point of reference. Practical implications: Steps need to be taken to prepare a cohesive set of principles that religious institutions of all denominations can follow to ensure they protect themselves from being accused of undue influence, as well as safeguarding individuals from abuse. Originality/value: There are limited studies that consider the dichotomy between religious gifting and undue influence. This paper adds to the existing discussion and considers ways in which individuals can be protected. The author is not aware of such considerations being directly contemplated as resolutions to this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the role of science and technology studies (STS) journal editors in organizing and maintaining the peer review economy. We specifically conceptualize peer review as a gift economy running on perpetually renewed experiences of mutual indebtedness among members of an intellectual community. While the peer review system is conventionally presented as self-regulating, we draw attention to its vulnerabilities and to the essential curating function of editors. Aside from inherent complexities, there are various shifts in the broader political–economic and sociotechnical organization of scholarly publishing that have recently made it more difficult for editors to organize robust cycles of gift exchange. This includes the increasing importance of journal metrics and associated changes in authorship practices; the growth and differentiation of the STS journal landscape; and changes in publishing funding models and the structure of the publishing market through which interactions among authors, editors, and reviewers are reconfigured. To maintain a functioning peer review economy in the face of numerous pressures, editors must balance contradictory imperatives: the need to triage intellectual production and rely on established cycles of gift exchange for efficiency, and the need to expand cycles of gift exchange to ensure the sustainability and diversity of the peer review economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role does social media play for interprofessional education in a pandemic? This is the first pandemic to occur in a world filled with social media, where digital communication is ubiquitous and a high percentage of those affected are digitally literate. This paper situated within a United Kingdom (UK) context explores this new phenomenon, discussing the ways in which digital gift giving toward health and social care professionals has developed on a variety of social media platforms. This discussion proposes a theoretical understanding of digital gift giving and raises the importance of digital resilience for interprofessional learning and working. Reflections are made on the expected and imagined reciprocity of digital gift giving and the talismanic nature of employing symbols digitally to ward off COVID-19. This paper employs an ethnographic lens to unpack the issue of digital gift giving and recommends preparing students for the onslaught of digital gifts they may be exposed to upon entering the workplace. Academics are called on as the mediators of these recommendations, and suggestions are made as to how students can be best prepared for a digitally saturated interprofessional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars have long been interested in distinguishing gift giving from bribery, the impact of the degree of guanxi between a giver and a recipient on this distinction remains unclear. Drawing on a bystander perspective, this paper investigates how people distinguish between two types of giving behavior: gift giving and bribing. In three studies, we examined how guanxi (Study 1, n = 143 Chinese students), the price of a present (Study 2, including 106 students and 55 employees), and the motivation for giving a present (Study 3, n = 33 Chinese students) influence people's perception of a present (i.e., as a gift or a bribe). The results largely supported our expectation that presents were more likely to be considered a bribe when guanxi utility was high, if the present held high economic value, and if the giving motivation was instrumental-oriented. Implications of our findings for future research and business practitioners in Chinese culture are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper "An archeology of corruption in medicine" (2018), Miles Little, Wendy Lipworth, and Ian Kerridge ("the authors" or "Little et al.") present an account of corruption and describe its prevalent forms in medicine. In presenting an individual-focused account of corruption found within "social entities" (organizations, institutions, and systems), Little et al. argue that these entities are corruptible by nature and that certain individuals are prone to take advantage of the corruptibility of social entities to pursue their own ends. The authors state that this is not preventable, so the way to remedy corruption is via management and, where necessary, punishment. This commentary will briefly lay out the key features and functions of corruption as presented by Little et al., before providing a critical discussion that will focus on whether corruptibility is a necessary feature of social entities. I will propose that it is not a necessary feature, though it may frequently arise where individualistic values are unchecked. Corruption can be prevented within social entities by enhancing structures that direct toward virtue and which promote and reward cooperation instead of competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of a wider research, this article analyzes the first stage of Jesús Martín-Barbero's work, more precisely his writings in the 1970s, in order to recover his most significant contributions to the field of communication/education during that decade. The corpus of analysis is made up of Martín-Barbero's doctoral thesis entitled La palabra y la acción, finished in 1972, and two later books, Comunicación masiva: discurso y poder, written in 1978, and Comunicación educativa y didáctica audiovisual Elementos teóricos-metodológicos para la producción de ayudas audiovisuales didácticas, published a year later. The aim of this paper is to characterize these reflections, explain them, and systematize them in order to identify the points of continuity and rupture between those deliberations. This will in turn let us, on the one hand, establish the lines of research that will allow us to relate the other stages of the intellectual production of the author in this field and analyze the evolution of these first contribution, and, on the other hand, to evaluate to what extent these approaches and their subsequent developments and transformations can still be useful to investigate the phenomena related to communication/education in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on three ethnographic studies of surrogacy we carried out separately in different contexts: the western US state of California, the south Indian state of Karnataka, and the western Russian metropolis of St Petersburg. In our interviews with surrogate mothers, intended parents, and surrogacy professionals, we traced the meanings and ideologies through which they understood the clinical labour of surrogacy. We found that in the US, interviewed surrogates, intended parents and professionals understood surrogacy as an exchange of both gifts and commodities, where gift-giving, reciprocity, and relatedness between surrogates and intended parents were the major tropes. In India, differing narratives of surrogacy were offered by its different parties: whilst professionals and intended parents framed it as a win-win exchange with an emphasis on the economic side, the interviewed surrogate mothers talked about surrogacy as creative labour of giving life. In Russia, approaches to surrogacy among the interviewed surrogate mothers, professionals and intended parents overlapped in framing it as work and a businesslike commodity exchange. We suggest these three different ways of ethical reasoning about the clinical labour of surrogacy, including justifications of women's incorporation into this labour, were situated in local moral frameworks. We name them "repro-regional moral frameworks", inspired by earlier work on moral frameworks as well as on reproductive nationalisms and transnational reproduction. Building on these findings, we argue that any international or global regulation of surrogacy, or indeed any moral stance on it, needs to take these local differences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Islamic material culture is often either discussed in terms of its typology or its technological characteristics, as defined by scientific analysis, sometimes leading to its provenance. Here these aspects will be discussed in terms of their contrasting social, political and ritual contexts along the Eurasian Silk Roads. The concept of the terrestrial and maritime "Silk Roads" as routes of interaction is considered in terms of its definitions and indeed whether it is a useful term to use. The political context in which production occurred is considered, especially during the Abbasid caliphate, when the political centre shifted from Damascus to Baghdad. This shift in the centre of power is discussed in terms of the way it affected the growth and mass production of ceramics and glass during the golden age of Islam. The use of scientific analysis to investigate glass feeds into this discussion by providing evidence for increasingly more precise provenances and for trade, recycling and for production of different decorative vessel types in specific cosmopolitan hubs and therefore specialization. Moreover, evidence for a decentralized production model for glass and ceramics is discussed. Although the emphasis here is on glass in western Asia, the paper considers Islamic ceramics and glass in eastern Asia, especially during the Tang Dynasty. The social provenance of "exotic" material culture is tied to trade, exchange and gift giving and, in turn, to the acculturation of foreign populations in China, including Arabs and Sogdians. All these activities and factors, and the use of scientific analysis feed into the social, ritual, and economic values of material culture that occurs along the Silk Roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exchange of gifts, which represent significant functions in the triangle of human, society and culture, are among the cornerstones of social interaction. Having considered the reciprocity concept in primitive society in light of ethnographic data, Mauss laid down how gift exchange and potlatch culture functions in a self-producing cycle. Self-production is one of the basic concepts of Luhmann. self-production of functional systems is carried out over communication channels. This paper is intended to show and stress the importance of gift exchange within the social system with a focus on its past and current functions. Consequently, principles of exchange defined by Mauss is one of the mechanisms that Luhmann calls as a communication system. In Luhmann's words, principles of gift exchange operate as choice and motivation mechanisms and their meaning are ascribed based on the way choices are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many low‐income countries, such as Burkina Faso, rates of malnutrition are high among children. Research indicates that animal source foods may provide important elements to improve growth and development of young children, especially during periods of rapid development, such as the first 1,000 days of life. The Un Oeuf study is designed to test an innovative behaviour change communication strategy to increase egg consumption in children 6–24 months in Burkina Faso, thereby improving dietary diversity and nutritional outcomes. This 1‐year cluster randomised controlled trial tests whether the gifting of chickens by a community champion directly to a child, combined with a behaviour change package of integrated poultry management and human nutrition trainings, can significantly increase egg consumption among children under 2 years in rural communities where egg consumption is very low. The nutrition‐sensitive behaviour change package is designed to increase egg consumption through improving livestock production, women's empowerment and food security at the household level. This paper presents a detailed account of the study design and protocol for the Un Oeuf study, alongside a description of the study population. Baseline data show a study population with high rates of malnutrition (stunting 21.6%, wasting 10.8% and underweight 20.4%) and a very low rate of egg consumption—less than 10% among children. Although poultry production is quite common, egg consumption is low reportedly because of cultural norms, including widespread practice of allowing eggs to hatch and a lack of knowledge about the nutritional benefits of egg consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the medical practice in China, giving and taking "red envelopes" (monetary gifts) is a common phenomenon although few openly admit it. This paper, based on our empirical study including data collected from interviews and questionnaires with medical professionals and patients, attempts to explore why "red envelopes" have become a serious problem in the physician-patient relationship and how the situation can be improved. Previous studies show that scholars tend to correlate the spread of "red envelopes" in health care sector to the commercialization trend, the general erosion of traditional values, and the lowering of the moral level in the medical field. However, in this paper, the authors argue that medical professionals' choice of taking "red envelopes" is actually more a way to compensate for their problematic self-image and marred dignity in real practice. Medical professionals in China as a whole are in an embarrassing situation where the work pressure and income, and the sense of pride that used to be part of their profession are not comparable to each other. Under this circumstance, we believe that the effective way to deal with the "red envelopes" issue does not lie solely in introducing more stringent regulations or granting medical professionals higher payments, but rather in protecting and enhancing the professional dignity of all those working in healthcare. And on top of that, there must also be effort to cultivate a more favorable moral environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the choice, reception and afterlife of both the Chinese and the British gifts given during Britain's first embassy to China. Earlier studies have tended to fault the Qing court for understanding the gifts they received as tribute and failing to appreciate the scientific items given by the British. However, gift-giving was a highly charged political issue in the domestic politics of both countries at this time and the terms in which the argument was conducted differed widely. This paper argues that the Chinese term that has been translated into the English 'tribute' did not have the same resonance in China, and that instead the gifts were received by both sides as part of the negotiations that accompanied the embassy. The most successful gifts in this context were those with an accepted monetary value in the existing trade between the two countries, notably high-quality textiles. British military gifts were also of importance in shaping the outcome of the embassy. However, attempts to use the gifts to present the culture or wider philosophical outlook of the giver were much less successful in this diplomatic context. After the embassy ended the vast majority of gifts given by both sides became exotic items in royal collections where they added to the glory of the recipient rather than that of the donor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]