Human OrganizationPub Date : 2024-06-27eCollection Date: 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1080/00187259.2024.2351372
Gideon Lasco, Anita Hardon
{"title":"Sensing, knowing, and making water quality along Marikina River in the Philippines.","authors":"Gideon Lasco, Anita Hardon","doi":"10.1080/00187259.2024.2351372","DOIUrl":"10.1080/00187259.2024.2351372","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Water quality is a major concern around the world, but assessments of quality often privilege producers, regulators and experts over consumers. With water supplies and sources constantly in flux, how do ordinary people experience and \"sense\" quality? How do they define \"good\" or \"good enough\" water, and what practices do they engage in to \"make\" good water? In this article, we attend to these questions by presenting findings from an open-ended qualitative study carried out along the Marikina River, Manila, the Philippines - a waterway that courses from rural and mountainous villages to highly urbanized communities. First, we describe the sensorial and cognitive attributes that people associate with the different water sources in their environment, as well as their decision-making regarding what kind of water to use for which purposes. Second, we present the \"making\" of water quality: how, in a context of polluted environments and water scarcity, do people try to secure water they consider acceptable for themselves and their families. Our findings reveal water quality as a contested, relational domain-one that reinforces social and health disparities and calls for further scholarship.</p>","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"83 2","pages":"145-158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11225946/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141556470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"FOOD NEVER FORGETS: DIGITAL FOODPRINTS AND COLLECTIVE MEMORIES OF VIETNAMESE FACEBOOK GROUP","authors":"Alisha Nguyen","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.320","url":null,"abstract":"To understand how the Vietnamese diasporic community navigates the tensions and conflicts with both home and host countries, in this article, I draw on a study designed to transcend geographical boundaries and follow the community’s digital footprints on Facebook. I describe how participants of the Vietnamese Food Group, as a segment of the Vietnamese diasporic community, have used their online foodways sharing to reclaim collective memories across borders and imprint their collective memories as legitimate historical accounts. I illustrate the potential sociocultural power of food and online foodway sharing to broaden geographic boundaries; overcome dialectal differences, discrimination, and political conflicts; and imagine and connect communities.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139265108","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"THE JAPANESE PARADOX: BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING IN JAPANESE APPROACHES TO THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC","authors":"Jon D. Holtzman","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.309","url":null,"abstract":"Using an anthropological approach that emphasizes understanding the total social and political context of eating behavior, I draw on ethnographic research in Japan in order to understand factors that enable or mitigate obesity. Japan is an important comparative example in obesity research because of its low obesity rates despite being a wealthy nation with affordable access to high-caloric foods. This is found to be an outcome of social and institutional processes that limit food intake and stigmatize weight, producing desirable outcomes in physical health but through pressures that have negative implications for psychological/emotional health. Consequently, while Japan provides an intriguing cross-cultural model for weight control, the possibility or desirability of replicating this elsewhere may be limited.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139264595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"EMBODYING THE EVERYDAY: HEALTH AND HERITAGE PRACTICE RELATIONSHIPS IN LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN NEW YORK CITY","authors":"Kristina Baines","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.331","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.331","url":null,"abstract":"The sociocultural factors related to immigrant health perceptions and practices have been long flattened and essentialized in discussions of urban community health, leading to programs and policies that fall short in holistically addressing community needs. Responding to this shortfall, in this article, I take a phenomenological approach to understanding the relationships between ecological heritage practices and health in Latin American and Caribbean immigrant communities in New York City. Through ethnographic accounts of heritage practices, I identify broad themes related to everyday practice: health care pluralism, space and time constraints, social identity, and biological health. Foodways and the preparation of traditional dishes featured prominently in the 20 semi-structured interviews and participant observation across four diverse neighborhoods. I use the embodied ecological heritage (EEH) framework to theorize the connections between the practice of heritage traditions and the well body. I illustrate how everyday negotiations around how practices are defined and described as “normal” in the context of the new environments of the immigrant experience, so capturing the fluidity of the heritage practices and the traditional body as a site of wellness. Focus on this fluidity of heritage practice stands to improve the ways in which immigrant community health resources might be developed and deployed, providing a holistic lens often lacking in urban public health systems.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139262611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"CONSUMER GENETICS: WHAT ABOUT INFORMED CONSENT?","authors":"Matt Artz, Doug Henry, C. S. Mena","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.394","url":null,"abstract":"With the dramatic rise in Direct-to-Consumer Genetics has come increasing concern for the potential abuse of consumer health data, often presumed confidential. Companies exchange and monetize their customers’ DNA in a competitive marketplace, obtaining consent through complex legal contracts that consumers must sign. However, drawing on ethnographic data, we show that this consent is rarely “informed.” Particular concerns include lack of contractual knowledge, misunderstanding of the potential benefits and risks, privacy, and low genetic literacy.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139262955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MEMORY IN ANALOG: ANALYZING THE IMPACTS OF RAPID URBAN GROWTH ON YOUTH","authors":"Esteban M. Gómez","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.369","url":null,"abstract":"Denver, Colorado, has experienced rapid gentrification, impacting people of all ages. Photography was included as one part of a larger ethnographic exploration of how high school students in southwest Denver perceived and navigated the impacts of rapid urban growth. A collaborative research methodology that featured map making and photography were used to better understand loss of place, urban segregation, and transportation inequities experienced by students displaced as a result of the United States Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 and the subsequent gentrification of United States neighborhoods. I illustrate how creative practice, discussion, and action can contribute to a shared understanding of the effects of rapid urban growth on educational achievement and the importance of student voice in contesting urban policies that have led to segregation and the displacement of marginalized communities.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"21 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139263028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"RESPONSIBLE DRIVING IN THE AGE OF SMARTPHONES: APPLIED RESEARCH FOR IMPROVING ROAD SAFETY IN THE MOTOR CITY","authors":"Yuson Jung, Andrea Sankar, Kaitlin Carter, Yen-Ting Chang, Bianca Dean, Travis Kruso, Colleen Linn, Emily Lock, Craig Meiners, Molly Sanford, Haley Scott, Jasmine Walker","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.382","url":null,"abstract":"Smartphones have become ubiquitous commodities in our contemporary lives and essential to our daily experiences. With limited public transportation in the United States and dependence on cars, the combination of smartphones and driving raises important questions of safety. We discuss our collaboration with Chevrolet-GM in Detroit in product development and user experience research, namely beta-testing a mobile phone app that was developed by Chevrolet to eliminate texting while driving, thereby improving car and road safety. We illustrate that the heightened awareness of distracted driving to self and others created spaces for young adult drivers to demonstrate their moral personhood through the care of and for others in their individual use of the app and in their promotion of its use to family members and friends. The practical applications of this finding resulted in a successful app product and its launch campaign, which incorporated the emerging insights from this study.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139263464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abby M. Vidmar, E. C. Wells, Madeleine Zheng, Nora Awad, Sarah Combs, Diana Diaz
{"title":"“THAT'S WHAT WE CALL ‘AESTHETICS,’ NOT A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE”: THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF TAP WATER MISTRUST IN AN UNDERBOUNDED COMMUNITY","authors":"Abby M. Vidmar, E. C. Wells, Madeleine Zheng, Nora Awad, Sarah Combs, Diana Diaz","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.342","url":null,"abstract":"In the United States, underbounded communities—urban disadvantaged unincorporated neighborhoods characterized by high-poverty and high residential density lying just outside the border of an incorporated municipality—often lack consistent access to clean and safe water. Poor water quality and inadequate infrastructure shape residents’ risk perceptions, often leading to tap water mistrust, but little is known about the broader social, political, and economic drivers of water quality in these settings or about how such drivers inform the social construction of risk across different stakeholder groups. Using an underbounded African-American/Hispanic neighborhood in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region as a case study, we illustrate how tap water mistrust is socially constructed and how these constructions contrast between neighborhood residents and government officials. Interviews and participant observation with these groups reveal that tap water mistrust emerges from the nexus of inadequate infrastructure, poor housing conditions, challenges relating to the affordability of piped water, and jurisdictional disconnects. We call for interventions that foreground participatory research, integrate social and cultural context into technical solutions, and prioritize equitability in decision making.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"47 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139264798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MPAs AS PROTECTED DESTINATIONS: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING FISHING, AND PERCEPTIONS OF MARINE RESERVES IN PUGET SOUND, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES","authors":"Marc L. Miller, R. Pollnac, Patrick J. Christie","doi":"10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.4.354","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last several decades, marine protected areas (MPAs)—including reserves, parks, sanctuaries, natural monuments, natural resource management areas, heritage areas, and the like—have proliferated throughout the world. In this conceptual and empirical paper, we explore the diversity and nature of MPAs in Puget Sound, Washington, focusing on outdoor recreational uses. Puget Sound MPAs qualify as marine protected destinations (MPDs) and—when taken together with adjacent gateway regions—constitute protected destination systems (PDSs). Internal PDS dynamics are examined with a human-artifactual-natural system (HANS) framework. A face-to-face social survey (N=1532) of people who frequented Puget Sound marine reserves reveals, among other findings, that (1) a great diversity of recreational activities (and associated hard and soft artifacts) populate the MPAs, (2) type of recreational activity is related to perceptions of MPAs as conservation solutions and symbols, (3) level of education is positively correlated with perceptions of MPAs as conservation solutions, (4) respondents with higher levels of education are less likely to engage in recreational fishing and more likely to recreate on the beach than those with less education, and (5) respondents with higher levels of income are more likely than those with lower incomes to recreate on the water. Looking ahead, recommendations are offered regarding social science research addressing MPA recreation and tourism issues.","PeriodicalId":47620,"journal":{"name":"Human Organization","volume":"24 06","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139265741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}