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For several decades, scholars in the field of community music have largely concentrated on community music practices in the Global North. Such interest has not been as prevalent in certain parts of the world, like the Caribbean. Consequently, this qualitative multiple case study focuses on three Puerto Rican community music initiatives that foster the country's indigenous music: Bomba, Plena, and Música Campesina. Scholars have documented the evolution and characteristics of these musical traditions. In contrast, this article centers around the practices of Taller Tambuyé, a female-led Bomba organization, Decimanía, a national Música Campesina initiative that funds other community music projects, and La Junta, a community-based project tied to the sector of El Machuchal in the capital of Puerto Rico. This paper presents and analyzes their practices through the lens of Australia's Sound Links project and its nine domains of community music. The multiple case study methodology's cross-case analysis revealed notable divergences among the projects in terms of learning practices, promotion of the indigenous music tradition, and the connection between the musical initiative and their community. Additionally, researchers found the framework established by Sound Links to be a comprehensive tool to analyze community music practices outside of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom is one of the most spatially unequal Western countries. There have been continuing policy efforts to address this issue: the latest was a ‘levelling’ up strategy by the previous Conservative government. At the time of writing a new Labour government has dismissed the strategy as a slogan but the problem remains. The paper examines the detail of the Conservative’s levelling up policy and the theory underpinning it. It queries its basic premise that the problems of localities can be addressed in isolation. The paper argues that promoting mainly low-productivity jobs would not have instigated fundamental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Birth registration is an important channel that allows children to be documented, providing them with legal identity and nationality early in life and protecting them against violence, abuse and exploitation. However, this privilege has been denied to millions of children, particularly in developing countries. Registration is limited in Nigeria with about three in every five births unregistered. Using data from three waves of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, we adopt a geostatistical model to assess the space-time variations in registration coverage across Nigeria and compute the exceedance maps at different probabilities. The findings indicate a North-South divide in coverage but with improved coverage over time across the country. The probability of attaining about 60% coverage is low in the northern part of the country. The generated maps provide guiding tools to the Nigerian government to set priorities in order to scale up birth registration coverage in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The North-South divide forms the central axis along which scholars study the contemporary global order. Yet many countries fall in-between the cracks of a world divided into core and periphery. This paper develops a structural account to understand the position of countries in this space of in-betweenness. The focus is on Central and Eastern Europe. I draw on already existing scholarship on liminalities, the varieties of capitalism and transition studies to argue that a liminal identity of in-betweenness goes hand-in-glove with a domestic logic of transitioning, as the state seeks to move somewhere else. Furthermore transitioning dynamics position the state in the semi-periphery, as the transition to the civilizational core requires capital and know-how from abroad. The resulting semi-peripheral position further underlines the liminal identity. The paper uses this apparatus to understand why CEE countries are typically climate change laggards within the EU. Their continuing liminal identity results in frustration over and resistance against the schooling tendencies of Brussels and Western European capitals. The dynamics of a sense of imposition of climate change mitigation policies stem from CEE's liminal positioning as apprentices, but the reasons for the perceived alienness of such policies are located in domestic societal dynamics, and CEE countries' economic structure. The specific political structures of communism and the communist transition have strengthened particularistic personal ties of friendship and family between individuals and the localities they live in, while simultaneously weakening general and abstract conceptions of the public good. Accordingly initiatives for preserving specific localities can be strong, but conceptions of protecting an abstract, global climate, are not well developed. Additionally, the material costs of protecting the climate are higher in post-communist economies due to their comparative advantage in resource and labour intensive industries, their reliance on foreign capital, and a lack of domestic innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global literacy partnerships between the Global North and Global South inevitably reside in the expansive waters of neoliberal reforms and coloniality. Global North and Global South literacy educators within global literacy partnerships must decolonize life through a liberatory praxis whereby they are convinced of the right and the duty to fight, to denounce and to announce. Nonviolent Communication, with its focus on speaking honestly and listening empathetically, provides a framework for cultivating the criticality, awareness, and connection needed to disrupt neoliberal reforms and coloniality within partnerships. Through NVC, the everyday dialogic experiences of Global North and Global South educators can generate a "power with" relationship instead of a "power over" relationship of oppression and coloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching and learning cultural policy are not as open as the research practice emphasising inclusiveness and equal participation suggest. Existing references and theoretical frameworks are mostly from the Global North, even when subaltern and peripheral phenomena are explored. In mainstreaming subaltern epistemic perspectives, the first step demands emancipation of subalterns, enabling them to gain self-confidence in their own capacities. Therefore, a classroom is not about the transfer of knowledge or the development of skills but about 'decolonising minds'. Through an auto-ethnographic approach, different classroom experiences that questioned situations of subalternity and exclusion were documented and further explored. This paper refers to three cases of 'tears in the classroom' when the students (Kurd from Iran; working-class student in the post-industrial academic world, and Palestinian from Old Jerusalem), realising that their experiences and values are not part of the class body of knowledge, felt double-excluded. I question how subaltern knowledge might enter the academic world of cultural policy and how it will be used in more and more multicultural classrooms. Also, if the voice is given to subaltern and peripheral social locations, what might guarantee that the knowledge coming from there would mean 'thinking from a subaltern epistemic location'? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critiques the prevailing North- South divide within the discourse on decolonizing design, recognizing its historical significance while exposing its limitations in advancing decolonial agendas. The uncritical adoption of this dichotomy often leads to oversimplification, exclusion, and isolation, limiting the practical impact of decolonizing efforts. Drawing on insights from a global design anthropological study on energy exchange, we advocate for a post-development perspective that transcends the North-South divide. Our study presents three key insights: colonization is rooted in ideology and requires global reform for decolonization; mutual learning between the Global North and South is essential; and infrastructure plays a crucial role in envisioning and implementing decolonial alternatives. This work aims to stimulate further discourse toward a dialogic, contextual, infrastructural, and comparative post-development paradigm in decolonizing design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Improving the public's understanding of how regional and socioeconomic inequalities create and perpetuate inequalities in health, is argued to be necessary for building support for policies geared towards creating a more equal society. However, research exploring public perceptions of health inequalities, and how they are generated, is limited. This is particularly so for young people. Our study sought to explore young people's lived experiences and understandings of health inequalities. Methods: We carried out focus group discussions (n = 18) with 42 young people, aged 13–21, recruited from six youth organisations in England in 2021. The organisations were located in areas of high deprivation in South Yorkshire, the North East and London. Young people from each organisation took part in three interlinked focus group discussions designed to explore their (i) perceptions of factors impacting their health in their local area, (ii) understandings of health inequalities and (iii) priorities for change. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most discussions took place online (n = 15). However, with one group in the North East, we carried out discussions face-to-face (n = 3). Data were analysed thematically and we used NVivo-12 software to facilitate data management. Results: Young people from all groups demonstrated an awareness of a North-South divide in England, UK. They described how disparities in local economies and employment landscapes between the North and the South led to tangible differences in everyday living and working conditions. They clearly articulated how these differences ultimately led to inequalities in people's health and wellbeing, such as linking poverty and employment precarity to chronic stress. Young people did not believe these inequalities were inevitable. They described the Conservative government as prioritising the South and thus perpetuating inequalities through uneven investment. Conclusions: Our study affords important insights into young people's perceptions of how wider determinants can help explain the North-South health divide in England. It demonstrates young people's contextualised understandings of the interplay between spatial, social and health inequalities. Our findings support calls for pro-equity policies to address the structural causes of regional divides in health. Further research, engaging young people in deliberative policy analysis, could build on this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Sustainable Security Index (SSI), a new measuring tool with the potential to advance research and policy analysis in international security by looking beyond militarised security solutions. The proposed index integrates the multi-dimensional concept of security and sustainability with weighted drivers of instability. Using the index, we rank 168 countries in terms of their contribution to global peace and stability in 2021, with particular attention to their environmental, political and economic governance. The majority of the top ranked countries are in Europe and North America while the lowest scoring countries are in Asia and Africa, highlighting the need to consider regional and global north-south divides. The SSI can encourage discussion about which type and level of intervention may benefit international stability. The Index can also forecast security risks around the world and thus contribute to creating watch lists of countries and regions of concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on fifteen years of European crises leaves the reader with a puzzle. Prominent accounts of the longest crisis – that of the euro area (EA) – assert that the EA is deeply divided between North and South, with Central Eastern European (CEE) member states being ignored. This makes it hard to explain how the union has managed to reform since 2008 and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Scholars have started to talk of transnational coalitions, but they equate coalition-formation with bringing together the like-minded, typically over solidarity versus sovereignty and more or less integration. However, coalitions of the like-minded are typically too small to sustain reforms and compromise has to be sought with others who have different preferences. To establish empirically how stable or fluid transnational coalitions are, we exploit the EMU|Choices database (Wasserfallen, Leuffen, Kudrna, and Degner 2019) [Analysing European Union decision-making during the Eurozone crisis with new data. European Union Politics, 20 (1), 3–23] on EA reforms and our own original data on Covid-19 reforms. Our findings show a stable pattern but no geopolitical divide – coalitions have varying CEE members. These findings can provide a basis for developing a more plausible conceptualisation of transnational coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some practices available to some actors in world politics, but not to others? In this theory note, we develop a theory of agency as positionally distributed: In global politics, the action potentials of groups and individuals vary depending on their location in the macrostructures inherited from common histories of colonial domination and exploitation. We contribute to the understanding of subordinate agency by exploiting the many synergies between International Practice Theory and Postcolonial Theory. Where the former sometimes struggles to capture deep macrostructures, the latter emphasizes the constitutive effects of coloniality. Conversely, where the postcolonial gaze faces the aporia of giving voice to the subordinate, a practice approach helps make sense of the indexicality of agency, including defiance and subversion. Based on these complementarities, we develop a structural concept according to which agency, including subordinate forms, is a relational effect of an unequal playing field characterized by centuries of (post)colonial dynamics. Overall, the theory note helps explain why the very same practices, such as border crossing, seem to be distributed unequally across groups depending not on their competence but on their position in social and international structures such as the North–South divide or the global color line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a monetary perspective on capital flows and the Eurozone's north-south divide. It argues that finance-centric narratives in comparative political economy rightly emphasize financial instability in the periphery, but that the role of capital flows therein requires clarification. The article draws on post-Keynesian monetary theory, coherent accounting, and balance-of-payments data to make three points. First, the focus on the financial account as a driver of current accounts should be abandoned in favor of an analysis of gross capital flows. Gross flows need not stem from excess savings in core countries and can be independent from trade flows. Second, explanations of financial instability in the periphery should go beyond bank flows and consider speculative portfolio flows into bond markets and foreign direct investment into real estate. Third, rising spreads in the periphery during the Eurozone crisis and the outbreak of the pandemic were not triggered by balance-of-payments problems but by a reversal of speculative bond flows. Comparative political economy should thus dedicate more attention to institutions that render peripheral countries susceptible to speculative flows into asset markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduces the second collection of 'Geography in the World'. It highlights three key concerns raised by the contributors: the tension between conservative and radical approaches; collaborating across the global North–South divide; and diversity in Geography teaching programmes. Building on Part 1, the collection offers a resource for exploring some of the key challenges and opportunities geographers face globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we scrutinise the importance of researchers' positionality vis-à-vis the 'Global South'/'North' binary in the field of international and comparative education. Accounting for the different places we speak from, we reflect on our past experiences as doctoral researchers examining teachers' role as agents of peace and/or conflict in divided and (post-) conflict societies. In doing so, we challenge the rigidity of the 'North'/'South' demarcation as a singular marker of insider/outsider status. Instead, we propose hybrid positions that are susceptible to change over time and in relation to socio-political contexts and structural power relations. To conclude, we situate our experiences along an intersecting insider-outsider and decoloniality continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productivity is key to the regional inequalities in the UK. Following work published last year by Metro Dynamics1 on Greater Manchester, this paper seeks to understand productivity trends in neighbouring regions which have also managed to start to close the productivity gap in the decade to 2020. The paper also unpacks the differences in productivity trends within the North of England's various economic sub-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sustainable Development Report (SDR) provides comprehensive global rankings based on countries' performance and efforts toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the spillover effects reflecting how one country's actions influence others remain underexplored, especially regarding their interplay with SDGs performance. This paper delves into the cross‐border adverse impacts on the environment and society arising from these spillovers, examining their correlation with SDGs rankings within the context of the North‐South divide and foreign direct investment (FDI). The analysis reveals a pronounced association between higher SDGs scores and amplified negative spillover effects. While this trend is predominant among advanced Northern countries, certain developing Southern nations also exhibit similar tendencies, potentially obstructing the SDGs of more vulnerable states. This paper argues that many countries achieve their SDGs by exploiting the ecological and social resources of others, suggesting a deviation from genuine sustainability and the core ethos of the 2030 Agenda: "Leave No One Behind." To provide a clearer perspective on countries' developmental trajectories, this paper proposes conceptual metrics and utilizes data visualization to re‐assess sustainability progression over time. It also introduces four developmental tendencies: exploitative, degraded, waning, and sustainable development. The findings emphasize that countries aiming to transition from exploitative or degraded development to sustainability must address consumerism, prioritize SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and counteract the degradation of SDG 13 (Climate Action). Crucially, a competitive mindset and a lack of international collaboration will hinder SDGs, underscoring the pressing need for collective action on environmental and social justice and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay theorizes radical struggles at the world's end, emergent from registers of organizing against colonial–imperial–capitalist violence in the Global South. Working through the ongoing genocidal violence carried out by Israel in Gaza, I explore the role of voice infrastructures in the Global South as the spaces where Global South theories are imagined, tested, and continually transformed. The tenets of the culture-centered approach (CCA), reflected in the everyday organizing work of the Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), guide the conceptualization of the relationship between theorizing and struggle as embodied practice. For radical organizing to materialize at the world's end, I argue the urgency of reorganizing the relationship between struggles and theorizing, cultivating a rhetoric and politics of suspicion, enacting sovereignty, forging connections, and sustaining a politics of preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits the "threat or use of force" in interstate relations. States and scholars from the Global North have traditionally interpreted this article as an instrument-based prohibition: the employment of military weapons was necessary to qualify as a use of force, and therefore economic sanctions could never implicate Article 2(4). In contrast, scholars and states from the Global South have objected to this narrow interpretation, arguing that since economic coercion can produce disastrous humanitarian consequences that mirror the effects of traditional military acts, economic sanctions should thus qualify as a use of force. Despite this alternative approach, the Global North's instrument-based interpretation of Article 2(4) has been adopted as customary international law, and economic coercion is explicitly disqualified from classification as a use of force under the current international legal framework. However, due to the rising threat of cyberattacks, the Global North has begun to recognize that the conventional interpretation of "force" is insufficient in an era of digitized economies and advancing technology. In recent years, scholars and states have increasingly abandoned the instrument-based approach in favor of an alternative framework: violations of Article 2(4) should be determined based on the "scale and effects" of a state action, rather than on the instrument used. In light of the evolution of Article 2(4) interpretation, this Article presents a novel contribution to scholarship by applying the new "scale and effects" framework to the traditional debates around economic coercion, arguing that certain economic sanctions--those which are both extraterritorially applied and comprehensive in nature--may constitute a use of force when their "scale and effects" resemble acts universally recognized as violating Article 2(4). In applying this new framework, this Article suggests that the Global South's traditional conception of economic coercion is increasingly viable in light of the newly adopted Article 2(4) interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of COVID-19 continues to present social and biomedical challenges that this article endeavors to explore through a systematic critical review of the literature. The article has also benefited from the researchers' intuition and experiences they have acquired from investigating trends of SARS-CoV-2 virus dynamics. It has also benefited from engaging in informal conversations with researchers and lay people interested in addressing the myriad challenges posed by COVID-19. Findings have generated the following thematic discussions: stigma and stigmatization surrounding the disease, skewed global response, gender disparity, human rights dynamics, vaccine dynamics and dilemmas, and poverty associated with coronavirus advent. The article concludes by recognizing both biomedical and socioeconomic implications and the emerging social disparities and unequal access to pharmacotherapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastronomic tourism is a developed research stream in tourism studies. Previous literature, however, has mainly shed light either on the micro-context of food itself or on meso-contexts such as heritage and regional food sourcing. Given this situation, previous research has called for examining this aspect of food tourism, aptly named the 'cultural turn' in food tourism. This paper adds to extant theoretical conversations by studying popular international gastronomic tourism videos. As the world becomes increasingly globalized and cultural products suffuse across borders, travellers, particularly those from the Global North, sample and judge local cuisine and this incurs reactions from onlookers. Watched by millions of people, vlogs provide a virtual immersive socio-cultural experience to a tourist site. In this regard, this article asks the following research question: how does the Global North-South divide manifest in vlogged gastronomic tours and what responses do such phenomena provoke among international audiences? Using the approaches of textual analysis, content analysis and sentiment analysis, this study explores the afore-mentioned research question using the canvas of nine gastronomic vlogging tours as played out on YouTube. The authors analyse the most popular food vlogs of all time and use a gamut of more than three hours of video (with more than 215 million views) and more than 128,000 comments. The results show how vlogs may provide authentic cultural experiences and how the Global North-South divide is ameliorated through vlogging gastronomic tours. The question is important not only helpful for guiding destination marketers and tourism service providers about the multifaceted aspects of a destination, but also for understanding how particular social phenomena can foster connections among different peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the perception of the north of England as distinct from the rest of the country, both culturally and politically. It discusses the deep-rooted historical roots of this perception, including the industrial revolution and regional inequalities. The article also examines the role of northern identity and its relationship with Englishness, as well as the political implications of this distinctiveness. It concludes by suggesting that the future of a politics of northernness is uncertain and will be influenced by evolving governance arrangements and the changing political landscape. [Extracted from the article]

Economic resilience focuses on how localities react and respond to shocks. A recent conceptual advancement, known as the agency perspective and rooted in evolutionary thinking, highlights that economic actors (e.g., practitioners, firms, and institutions) play an essential role in localities' resilience. However, empirical investigations into the role of economic actors have been scarce. To address this shortcoming, in this study we conducted in‐depth interviews with 22 practitioners (economic development officials) from various cities in Ontario, Canada. Through an evolutionary lens, we examine practitioners' perceptions of and responses to endogenous shocks—notably, major industrial plant closures over the past 20 years. We find that practitioners influence localities' resilience through each dimension of the resilience process. Most notably, they support their localities' adaption through various short‐ and long‐term adaptive strategies. Also, we find that economic actors have different capacities and resources at their disposal to respond to shocks depending on the size of their city and its geographical location. Regarding the latter, we reiterate a commonly noted north‐south divide in the province. In addition, we find that economic actors are constrained by multi‐scalar policies, and thus operate in the confines of existing power and political structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text is a book review of "Oneness Pentecostalism: Race, Gender, and Culture" and "Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision." The review discusses the content and contributions of both books. "Oneness Pentecostalism" explores the history and diversity of the Oneness Pentecostal movement, focusing on issues of ethnicity, race, class, and gender. "Righting the American Dream" examines the impact of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the media's role in promoting a combination of evangelical faith, free enterprise, patriarchy, personal responsibility, and American exceptionalism. The review praises both books for their insights and accessibility. [Extracted from the article]

This research compares the global debt trends in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on economies that frame the North and South divide. The research centers on debt ratios, which serve as indicators of countries' ability to finance recovery and development projects. The study period runs from 2015 to 2022 and follows the IMF's country classification, which divides the world into advanced economies (AE) and emerging market and developing economies (EMDE). The research employs panel data regressions to assess three key debt ratios—external debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), external debt to exports, and public debt to GDP—against various pandemic-related indicators and control variables. The analysis provides three major contributions. Firstly, an examination of external and public debt burdens is conducted, showing that escalated external and public debt burdens in EMDE contrast with increasing public debt in AE, primarily due to fiscal stimulus. Secondly, it is argued that the ongoing pandemic has intensified the widening economic gap between the North (AE) and the south (EMDE). Thirdly, a review is presented of both orthodox and heterodox policies identified in existing literature that are considered capable of mitigating external vulnerabilities in EMDE. Findings highlight the critical need for multifaceted measures to address debt vulnerability and promote sustainable economic recovery in a post-pandemic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development discourses have been widely criticized for creating hierarchical dichotomies, such as "developed" (the global North) and "developing" (the global majority), with the former being the ideal standard to which the rest must catch up. The development paradigm has infiltrated academic spaces globally, including international research collaborations, creating various categories such as (non)scientific (local) expertise. We see such hierarchies as mechanisms of legitimation to maintain the ongoing subjugation of African scholars based on the historical and contemporary asymmetries in global knowledge production. Informed by the experiences of five female African doctoral researchers in the Netherlands, this paper problematizes and disrupts the concepts of "Expert" and "local expert". We question the relevance of these concepts in a context where global knowledge production continues to feed from coloniality and also question the old power relations that continue to enable knowledge inequalities between the global North and global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report develops interrelated perspectives on North–South collaboration, with a particular focus on joint PhD research. A specific – but perhaps atypical – case will be presented, in which the doctoral student is located and collects data in the Global North but is co-advised by supervisors from both Ghent University (Belgium) and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) in the context of a strategic inter-institutional partnership between the two universities. The report details how the research project is inserted into interdependent trajectories and attends to crucial questions about academic cooperation in a transnational context across institutional, geographic and socio-cultural settings and with global academic aspirations. Is joint research only a matter of academic collaboration with relevant expertise? How does the project connect to pressing challenges of (sociolinguistic) knowledge production and – in this particular case – the theme of decolonisation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims Marine macroalgae ('seaweeds') are critical to coastal ecosystem structure and function, but also vulnerable to the many environmental changes associated with anthropogenic climate change (ACC). The local habitat conditions underpinning observed and predicted ACC-driven changes in intertidal macroalgal communities are complex and probably site-specific and operate in addition to more commonly reported regional factors such as sea surface temperatures. Methods We examined how the composition and functional trait expression of macroalgal communities in SW England varied with aspect (i.e. north–south orientation) at four sites with opposing Equator- (EF) and Pole-facing (PF) surfaces. Previous work at these sites had established that average annual (low tide) temperatures vary by 1.6 °C and that EF-surfaces experience six-fold more frequent extremes (i.e. >30 °C). Key Results PF macroalgal communities were consistently more taxon rich; 11 taxa were unique to PF habitats, with only one restricted to EF. Likewise, functional richness and dispersion were greater on PF-surfaces (dominated by algae with traits linked to rapid resource capture and utilization, but low desiccation tolerance), although differences in both taxon and functional richness were probably driven by the fact that less diverse EF-surfaces were dominated by desiccation-tolerant fucoids. Conclusions Although we cannot disentangle the influence of temperature variation on algal ecophysiology from the indirect effects of aspect on species interactions (niche pre-emption, competition, grazing, etc.), our study system provides an excellent model for understanding how environmental variation at local scales affects community composition and functioning. By virtue of enhanced taxonomic diversity, PF-aspects supported higher functional diversity and, consequently, greater effective functional redundancy. These differences may imbue PF-aspects with resilience against environmental perturbation, but if predicted increases in global temperatures are realized, some PF-sites may shift to a depauperate, desiccation-tolerant seaweed community with a concomitant loss of functional diversity and redundancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Malnutrition among under five children in Nigeria remains a major public health burden. It has been shown to be one of the leading causes of childhood death and has permanent consequences for cognitive development, school attendance, economic productivity in adulthood and maternal reproductive outcome. Understanding the associated risk factors of malnutrition is critical for developing appropriate interventions because its determinants interact at different degrees to affect these children. Thus, it is important, for programmatic purposes, to continue to identify the important risk factors and geographical variations especially in a country with massive variations in cultural belief and socioeconomic status of its populace. A multilevel structured additive regression, based on cumulative probit link function was adopted to explore the spatio-temporal variations on severity of three anthropometric indices among children in Nigeria using the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey data from 2003 to 2018. Within a Bayesian context, appropriate priors were assigned on all functions and parameters. Evidently, strong and significant spatial variations was found to exist on severity of malnutrition among under five children in Nigeria showing a north–south divide. We found young age at first marriage, episodes of child illnesses, child birth weight, religion, mother's education and household wealth to be associated with undernutrition. Findings will guide in developing effective strategies to combat the devastating effect of child malnutrition in Nigeria. Consequently, there can be hope of attaining the relevant sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating traditional in-person and online learning, commonly called blended learning, has gained immense popularity and is proposed as a sustainable solution to higher education crises. However, numerous studies, including review studies, have identified challenges within the blended learning paradigm. Despite such efforts, there is a dearth of a comprehensive study that formulates a barriers model considering the impediments faced simultaneously by key stakeholders, namely students, teachers, and administrators, while also being sensitive to the global educational landscape amidst the recent crisis. To address this void, we conducted a systematic literature review combined with an integrative literature review, leading the selection of 39 relevant studies out of an initial pool of 642, published from 2000 to 2023, strictly adhering to the PRISMA guidelines. The data was analysed based on inductive and deductive coding in accordance with the research questions. The main findings of this study introduce a conceptual barriers model of blended learning, informed by the Community of Inquiry framework, comprising the 16 identified barriers hindering the implementation of blended learning. Significantly, our study brings to light the differing nature of blended learning barriers affecting the Global North and Global South. Besides, the review underscores passive learning, design limitations, and deficiencies in training as central challenges in the blended learning domain among the 16 identified barriers. We also develop a 12-factor conceptualisation of the term blended learning. Further, our review highlights a significant gap in scholarly research on blended learning barriers emerging from the Humanities and Social Sciences, particularly at the postgraduate level. Additionally, it underscores a lack of multi-stakeholder approaches and cross-disciplinary analyses in the existing literature. Findings from this study have implications for students, teachers, and institutions by providing insights for successfully implementing blended learning practices. It underscores the necessity for tailored, region-specific policy interventions to mitigate blended learning challenges. The study concludes by proposing the potential of the blended learning barriers model for identifying specific areas that warrant further exploration and enhancement within the field of blended learning.

This study addresses an under-researched area in corporate behavior by examining the impact of a CEO's cultural background on corporate overinvestment decisions. We focus on the unique cultural dichotomy between northern and southern China as our context of study. Additionally, we scrutinize the interactions between a CEO's age and the type of company ownership in influencing overinvestment tendencies. Our aim is to enrich theoretical understanding of factors influencing corporate overinvestment, offering practical implications for businesses within and beyond China. By filling this gap in the literature, our study sheds light on the nuanced determinants of overinvestment decisions, aiding businesses in refining their investment strategies and governance mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Caesarean section is a clinical intervention aimed to save the lives of women and their newborns. In Ghana, studies have reported inequalities in use among women of different socioeconomic backgrounds. However, geographical differentials at the district level where health interventions are implemented, have not been systematically studied. This study examined geographical inequalities in caesarean births at the district level in Ghana. The study investigated how pregnancy complications and birth risks, access to health care and affluence correlate with geographical inequalities in caesarean section uptake. Methods: The data for the analysis was derived from the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey. The log-binomial Bayesian Geoadditive Semiparametric regression technique was used to examine the extent of geographical clustering in caesarean births at the district level and their spatial correlates. Results: In Ghana, 16.0% (95% CI = 15.3, 16.8) of births were via caesarean section. Geospatial analysis revealed a strong spatial dependence in caesarean births, with a clear north-south divide. Low frequencies of caesarean births were observed among districts in the northern part of the country, while those in the south had high frequencies. The predominant factor associated with the spatial differentials was affluence rather than pregnancy complications and birth risk and access to care. Conclusions: Strong geographical inequalities in caesarean births exist in Ghana. Targeted and locally relevant interventions including health education and policy support are required at the district level to address the overuse and underuse of caesarean sections, to correspond to the World Health Organisation recommended optimal threshold of 10% to 15%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the international climate regime, legal aspects surrounding loss and damage (L&D) are contentious topics, implicating liability, compensation and notions of vulnerability. The attribution of responsibility and the pursuit of redress for L&D present intricate legal and governance challenges. The ongoing debates under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are characterized by a pronounced North–South divide and have done little to provide tangible support to those most affected by L&D. This apparent neglect has prompted exploration of alternative avenues for climate harm redress. The burgeoning field of litigation for liability and compensation of climate harm holds potential significance for L&D discourse, but its efficacy, especially in compensation claims relating to the adverse effects of climate change, is uncertain. There is, as yet, no precedent of plaintiffs succeeding in an L&D case, with numerous legal, evidentiary and practical barriers persisting, particularly for Global South plaintiffs aiming to hold Northern governments and actors accountable. This article scrutinizes recent advances in climate litigation and their potential to facilitate or obstruct L&D litigation. Focusing on seminal L&D cases, namely, Lliuya v RWE and Asmania et al v Holcim, we present a novel legal critique of climate litigation's capacity to assist climate‐vulnerable States, populations and communities in pursuing redress for L&D, based on pertinent case law and an examination of overarching issues of attribution and extraterritorial jurisdiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text explores locally recruited staff within a growing category of organisations in the international aid industry: Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). DFIs are banks that offer risk capital to development projects in the global South, increasingly using tax-funded aid money. Based on interviews with 13 DFI investment managers, I show how Kenyan DFI staff challenge three of the signature attributes commonly assigned to local development professionals: their 'local' expertise does not contrast with or preclude international expertise, but rather overlaps with it; their formal authority and career ladders are not restricted to technical or support positions – many field offices are headed by local employees; and they rarely face job insecurity given their competitive qualifications and permanent employment contracts. Meanwhile, decisions on investments are rarely taken by these field office staff but by their colleagues at headquarters, and unlike the latter, even those local recruits who head their field offices usually lack a secure place in the global organisation of their DFIs. This suggests that structural inequalities between donor and recipient country staff – integral to the development industry – have not disappeared in DFIs but rather relocated: from within the walls of field offices to the relationship between these offices and headquarters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The migration of people affects the geographical distribution of the population and the demographic composition of areas over the short, medium and long terms. To recognise and respond to the corresponding needs and challenges, including consequences for service provision, social cohesion and population health, there is a continuing need to understand migration patterns of the past and present. Area classifications are a useful tool to simplify the inherently complex data on migration flows and characteristics. Yet, existing classifications often lack direct migration measures or focus solely on cross‐sectional data. This study addresses these limitations by employing Group‐Based Multi‐Trajectory Modelling (GBMTM) to create a longitudinal, migration‐specific classification of Great Britain's wards from 1981 to 2011, using six migration indicators. Using U.K. census data, we reveal six distinct migration clusters that highlight the rapid growth in studentifying neighbourhoods, the continuous influx of migrants into inner cities, and a noticeable North–South divide in terms of movers' tenure enforced by persisting income selectivity. Additionally, the geographical distribution of clusters shows a common pattern in urban areas irrespective of size or location. The longitudinal perspective of our GBMTM classification highlights trends and changes in migration patterns that are not well reflected in either the general purpose or the cross‐sectional migration classification that we used as comparators. We conclude that the method presented and the classification generated offer a novel lens on migration and provide new opportunities to explore the effects of migration on a variety of outcomes and at various scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to propose an approach towards reducing differences between national economies and living standards existing between the world's wealthiest and least affluent nations. Design/methodology/approach: A systemic review identifies the impeding purpose as proposed above: an entirely new initiative. Findings: The efforts recommended are vital for preserving the human species and ensuring the integrity of our planet. For both the future of the human species and the planet itself, it is essential to reduce the divide between wealthy and poor. Now is the time to give force to the types of implementation necessary to meet these combined goals. Research limitations/implications: This essay avoids dissecting problems of current geopolitical and ideological character. Despite their sometimes contentious nature, they are often reduced by intelligent diplomacy. Originality/value: The study proposes a holistic approach to bridging the North-South divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second decade of the 21st century has seen some unexpected twists in the world order. Europe, which has gotten accustomed to an extended era or peace, now confronts a war in its heart. If Russia's aggression against Ukraine has revived the idea of an East-West conflict, the close alignment between Moscow and Beijing has reinforced it. Meanwhile, the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic ana the Ukraine war on developing countries has brought the forgotten North-South contradictions to the fore. This essay unpacks some of the complexities underlying the "Global South" narrative by looking at India's recent surprising championship of the idea. It argues that today's Global South debate is very different from the one that dominated the global discourse in the 1960s and 1970s. As the West tries to reengage the developing world on a pragmatic basis, India is a natural bridge to the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish ambassador, Emilio Menéndez del Valle, highlights that multilateralism is in decline in the current international order, as non-Western powers such as China and Russia challenge the liberal order led by the West. The Global South demands genuine global justice and calls for reforms in the UN, such as the elimination or modification of the veto power of the Security Council. The importance of achieving consensus between the United States and China to promote multilateralism is emphasized, as well as the need for effective multilateral action to address climate change. The Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, is working on restoring trust in multilateralism through the Pact for the Future. [Extracted from the article]

Despite longstanding debate, research on social capital in Italy is waning. This article resumes the topic through new methodological and theoretical advances. We shed new light on the subject by combining classical social capital dimensions (civicness, social relations) with environmental attitudes. By applying an original clustering technique to individual-level data, we show that certain regions of the Mezzogiorno depart from the traditional North-South divide in social capital. The findings challenge the conventional regional cleavage by demonstrating greater pro-environment behaviours in certain Southern regions, providing fresh perspectives for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates a measure of coal price for all NUTS3 Italian provinces between 1861 and 1911. Italy was a latecomer country and its late industrialization was characterized by the absence of coal in a time when the steam engine powered factory work. The new variable accounts for the main input factor of manufacturing production during that period in which the Italian economy registered a long-term growth of GDP and an increase in its industrial activity. The measure allows to speculate on the importance of coal for Italian industrialization and on the origins of the North–South divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text discusses the urgent need for global action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a major public health threat, with 5 million deaths annually attributed to AMR. It highlights the interconnected nature of AMR across human, animal, and environmental health sectors, emphasizing the importance of a One Health approach. Despite previous commitments, progress has been insufficient, prompting calls for accelerated responses and concrete actions to address AMR. The text also suggests innovative solutions, such as engaging behavioral scientists and implementing sophisticated tracking systems, to combat AMR effectively on a global scale. [Extracted from the article]

There is a key tension associated with ethnographic explorations into the lives of people in the Global South – 'outsider' researchers from the Global North who lack experience of the environments they are seeking to understand. A considered response, therefore, is for scholars to seek physical immersion in a field—to live among those they are trying to understand. Such ethnographic inquiries are optimal when researchers have the capacity to engage over long periods of time. However, in some circumstances, this may not feasible. Thus, questions arise about the veracity of field work investigations that are not only temporally brief but undertaken by scholars who lack local experience. This paper reflects on the experiences of a researcher who was faced with those challenges. It provides guidance as to how scholars might prepare for short-term ethnography (STE) in field work, along with the limitations and constraints of such an approach. The research centered on a sport for development and peace study into intergroup relations and ethnic separatism in Fijian sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the biggest disruptions in human life. We were all confined within the walls of our homes or offices with day-to-day life worldwide seriously affected. In this context, access to and efficient use of technology determined the course of daily life for vast sections of the world's population. However, there was (and still is) a severe pre-existing global divide between the Global North and Global South vis-à-vis digital access. This paper attempts to understand this digital divide and how it has widened during the pandemic in the Global North and Global South with reference to India and the United States (US). This is initiated by analyzing certain factors within each country, namely positional and personal categorical inequalities. Through the cases of the US and India, the authors conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global digital divide between the two worlds, affecting core social sectors like education and health. The larger implication of this is a broadening inequality between the Global North and Global South in leading development indicators like the Human Development Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the complex dynamics of financial innovation in early modern times, challenging linear models of temporal and spatial divisions that tend to shape our understanding of the evolution of financial systems. It supports the idea that innovation should be viewed as a non-linear and contextual process, involving diverse stakeholders and characterised by interactions and unexpected occurrences. The study focuses on the dissemination and trajectories of financial innovations, specifically the bill of exchange and its variation, the ricorsa , as well as the transferability and negotiability of commercial paper. It does so by investigating the interactions and exchanges between merchants and bankers from diverse backgrounds during the sixteenth-century Lyon fairs, using the archival records of one of the first Italian banks in Lyon (Salviati). The study reveals the mutual influence and acculturation among these agents and challenges the compartmentalisation of financial expertise. Through an analysis of transactions recorded in the Salviati bank's ledgers, the article highlights previously unknown uses of commercial paper by Southern merchant communities and discusses the factors that may have hindered the full-scale development of endorsement and discount in the Lyon trading networks, despite their potential benefits. The results provide insights into the intricate nature of financial innovation and the influence of structural and cultural factors on its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this work is to offer a proposal for the dialectal classification of Colombian Spanish based on the dialectometric analysis of lexical data from the Atlas Lingüístico-Etnográfico de Colombia (ALEC). The study involvedtwo hundred lexical maps from the ALEC which were randomly selected and processed in the Gabmap dialectometric analysis software. The similarity measure used was the Relative Index of Identity (Goebl 1984) and the visualization was carried out using the fuzzy clustering method. Based on the analysis of the results, the division of Colombian Spanish into three superdialects is proposed: central-eastern Andean, central-western Andean and Coastal. The Andean superdialects are divided from north to south (taking into account the dialect continuum) into high, middle and low dialects, while the Coastal superdialect distinguishes Caribbean and Pacific varieties. Finally, twenty-two subdialects corresponding to specific regions of the country are presented, along with their respective municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Regional variations in healthcare outcomes in England have been historically reported. This study analyses the variations in long term colorectal cancer survival across different regions in England. Methods: Relative survival analysis of population data obtained from all cancer registries in England between 2010 and 2014. Results: Totally, 167,501 patients were studied. Regions in the southern England had better outcomes with Southwest and Oxford registries having 63.5 and 62.7% 5 year relative survival. In contrast, Trent and Northwest cancer registries had 58.1% relative survival (p < 0.01). The regions in the north fared below the national average. The survival outcomes reflected socio-economic deprivation status, the best performing regions in the south having low levels of deprivation (5.3 and 6.5% having maximum deprivation in Southwest and Oxford, respectively). The regions with worst long term cancer outcomes had high levels of deprivation with 25% and 17% having high levels of deprivation in Northwest and Trent regions. Conclusion: There are significant variations in long term colorectal cancer survival between different regions in England, southern England had better relative survival when compared with the northern regions. Disparities in socio-economic depravation status in different regions may be associated with worse colorectal cancer outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]