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Cultural Complexity (cultural + complexity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Independence and interdependence in diverse cultural contexts

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD & ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, Issue 87 2000
Melanie Killen
In this chapter, we propose that the individualistic-collectivistic construct ignores cultural complexities, and we illustrate our points by using examples from our empirical research conducted in Japan, Colombia, and the Middle East. [source]

,My biggest fear was that people would reject me once they knew my status,': stigma as experienced by patients in an HIV/AIDS clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa

HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 2 2010
Leah Gilbert BA MPH PhD
Abstract Stigma is not a new concept; however, it remains highly significant in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. There is wide consensus that HIV/AIDS-related stigma compromises the well-being of people living with the disease. This paper is part of a larger study that seeks to understand the social and cultural complexity related to the provision and outcomes of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in South Africa. It explores and analyses how patients on ART perceived and experienced stigma and how it has shaped their behaviour towards, as well as their understanding of the epidemic. The data have been collected by means of in-depth face-to-face interviews, conducted between June and November 2007, with a sample of 44 patients in an HIV/AIDS clinic in a resource-limited setting in Johannesburg, South Africa. The findings reveal that the level of felt and anticipated stigma is intense and affects all dimensions of living with HIV/AIDS, particularly disclosure and treatment. Stigma permeates the experience of HIV-positive people on ART who participated in this study. The intensity of HIV/AIDS-related stigma can threaten to compromise the value of ART, thus impacting on the daily lives of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). This study suggests that three decades into the epidemic, stigmatisation remains a core feature of the patient experience of HIV/AIDS. In the clinic in which this research was conducted, HIV/AIDS was regarded as a chronic condition increasingly manageable by ongoing access to ART. However, this approach was not shared by many family members, neighbours and employers who held highly stigmatised views. [source]

Eisenhower, King Utopus, and the Fifties Decade in America

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2002
Philip Abbott
Assessment of presidential performance across time has become a major interest of students of the office. This article examines the reassessments of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a function of contested appraisals of the 1950s. The author shows that disagreements about the normative character of the decade are so starkly drawn that the fifties mimic the basic features of Utopian discourse. As such, assessments of Eisenhower's presidency parallel, admittedly in a secluded fashion, assessments of King Utopus, the founder of Utopia, as well as other founding figures in Utopian fiction. Of course, Eisenhower was not a Utopian founder; nor was his career identical to that of King Utopus. Nevertheless, we can profitably understand the differences and fluctuations in assessments of the Eisenhower presidency by utilizing this Utopian format. Not all decades are cast in this particular framework, but the case of Eisenhower illustrates the cultural complexity of assessments of presidential leadership. [source]

TRADITIONS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2009
KEVIN ORR
This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delineation of multiple traditions heightens the sense that local government is not a unified homogeneous organizational entity, but rather a melange of voices, interests and assumptions about how to organize, prioritize and mobilize action. They can be used to engage practitioners with the idea that different traditions inform political and managerial practices and processes in local councils. The approach embraces the significance of participants' constitutive stories about local government rather than the search for essential truths about the politics and management of the public sector. [source]