Abstract Research on everyday encounters between immigrants and host society members has yielded fresh insights into ways that incomers pursue belonging in new environments. How friendships between incomers and locally born residents contribute to community building has also generated interest, however few studies of friendship formation in urban multicultures present findings from long-term ethnographic research. This article, based on ongoing anthropological fieldwork in Lecce, Puglia, contributes to understandings of community building in a multicultural setting through its examination of some cultural expectations and practices that surround friendship. As Lecce becomes better known for beauty, climate, and affordability, growing numbers of North Americans, Australians, Western Europeans and others are relocating there. For many of these women and men, establishing friendships with locally born residents is an aspirational goal that resonates with their ideas about belonging and community. Research findings presented in this article suggest that those friendships may remain elusive when cultural expectations surrounding their enactment go unrecognized or are misunderstood. The article also extends recent work on community organizations as settings for multicultural community building and friendship formation, directing attention to the role of less structured activities in which members participate outside of regular meetings. Those activities strengthen social ties and facilitate reciprocal social learning and solidarity. The analysis utilizes Van Gennep’s concept of rites of social incorporation and draws from Turner’s work on the ludic and potentially transformative dimensions of liminoid social spaces.
This community engagement program addressed the limited value-added utilization of moringa in Triharjo Village, Merbau Mataram Subdistrict, South Lampung Regency, Lampung Province, by providing practical training on producing moringa-based solid bath soap as a household product with economic potential. The program aimed to improve participants’ knowledge and hands-on competence in safe soap-making, introduce a simple standardized procedure, and strengthen readiness for small-scale entrepreneurship. The activity began with coordination and needs identification with local stakeholders, followed by an interactive session on ingredients, safety, and basic formulation principles, and a guided workshop to produce solid soap using moringa powder. Post-training assistance was provided during molding, cutting, curing, and simple packaging. Evaluation used pre-activity and post-activity knowledge tests (30 participants), participant feedback, and basic product observations including appearance, aroma, texture, and acidity level after curing. Results indicated substantial knowledge improvement, with average correctness increasing from 51.1 percent to 86.7 percent, alongside increased participant confidence to reproduce the process independently. The training also resulted in feasible soap bar prototypes with homogeneous appearance and acceptable sensory characteristics for household use. In conclusion, moringa-based solid soap training effectively strengthened community capacity and produced a feasible prototype product, supporting follow-up mentoring toward consistent quality, improved packaging, and sustainable community-based microenterprise development.
This study aimed to asess the intention to use of digital payments among sellers in Flower Market Rawa Belong. The digital payments are including electronic wallets, mobile banking or digital banking. This study use the original Technology Acceptance Model framework to investigate and analyze the usage plan among the micro, small and medium enterprise. This study applies all the core concepts of TAM which consist of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, behavioral intention and actual system use (Davis, 1989). The quantitative method was adopted, in which the target population of 500 flower sellers, was conveniently selected samples, 250 flowers sellers. A structured questionnaire was developed using indicators instrument. The data is analyzed with descriptive statistic and presented in table of frequency. The findings shows first three indicators (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and attitude) are positive, however behavioral intention and actual system use shows different trends. Additional features like promotions, cashback offers, and integration with other platforms also made the sellers more interested in using it. The drawback from the seller is the transaction is not real time, unable to use the cash directly, the difficulties to transfer the funds to other asset quickly and they have to provide more than one application because the customers have different apps. However, the sellers have the intention to learn more about the digital payment because it improves efficiency and convenience, safety and security. The most used digital payment applications consist of OVO, GoPay, and Flip, with mobile banking provider is BCA and BRI. The findings suggest that these technologies are well aligned with governmental initiatives aimed at advancing financial inclusion and fostering the transition toward a cashless society. Furthermore, the results offer practical implications for digital payment providers, underscoring the importance of enhancing user interface design, ensuring system reliability, and developing innovative features to strengthen their competitive position in the market.
Ethical considerations relating to the anonymity and acknowledgement of contributors are common in all social science research. However, the issues faced in community-based participatory research can be more complex when community members work in partnership with academics, not just as informants or participants but as co-researchers. This article focuses on ethical issues relating to the naming and crediting of community researchers engaging in participatory research. After a short introduction, it opens with an account (a 'case') from a community-based researcher of her perspective on the use of pseudonyms in outputs from a participatory health research project on which she worked with an Australian academic in Eswatini, southern Africa. The case includes a decision by the academic not to name the community researchers on a conference poster due to political instability in Eswatini and the need to protect the community researchers from any adverse reactions to the research. This is followed by two reflective commentaries from a clinician and academics based in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands. Commentary 1 raises questions about power, privilege and the invisibilization of community researchers from the Global South under the guise of protection; while Commentary 2 draws on the ethics of care to recommend 'care-full' deliberation between all co-researchers to explore the complexities of naming and acknowledgement.
Community organizers and social movement leaders often struggle to understand each other's approaches to social action and social change, reflecting a long history of tension between these traditions. From the perspective of each side, the approaches of the other can seem illogical and misguided. This article argues that there is a discernible pattern in these conflicts, grounded in a set of key conceptual disagreements. Because each tradition is addressing different pragmatic challenges and seeking different goals, they have developed very different logics of strategy and action. The article focuses on three areas of conceptual divergence: theories of power, approaches to structure, and the aims of action. If organizing and social movement groups can better understand why they approach social action differently, the two traditions may be able to find ways to work more effectively together and gain new insights about ways to foster social change.
This contribution explores the parallel thought processes of the Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921), and the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921-1997) concerning radical reform to educational practice, asking whether the former deserves space in academic study of liberation-oriented pedagogies. Specifically, it examines Kropotkin's advocacy of fostering critical consciousness, albeit not in the same terms, in his 1885 article, What Geography Ought to Be, and demonstrates the ways that this renowned anarchist laid the theoretical foundations for Freire and others to build on some eight decades prior to Freire's (1968) most celebrated text, known in English as Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Although centred on geography, Kropotkin (1885, p. 940) posits the field as core to broader 'hard' and 'social' science ('Biology, Climatology, Anthropology, and Comparative Ethnography' among them), stating that by engaging in critical praxis of any kind, a given actor 'shows their mutual action and consequences with regard to the superficies of the globe'. Whether the intended outcome or not, by interacting with the world, he believed that none of us 'could [& mldr;] remain an outsider to the general scientific movement' (ibid.). Consequently, geography in its breadth permits what he believed to be an accessible entry point to a deep dialogue on pedagogy, wider educational discourse, critical reflection on the purpose of learning, and exploration of the socio-political systems that govern our lives when we permit them to.
There is an extensive literature on using construction procurement to achieve social justice objectives through Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs). These require developers to share project benefits, such as subsidized housing, community centres, childcare facilities, recreational programmes, parks and, occasionally, direct compensation with affected communities. A subset of CBAs focuses primarily on employment and training benefits, particularly for local communities and designated equity groups. However, these CBAs often fail to achieve their promised results because they rely on contractors and unions to deliver their progressive social and equity objectives on construction sites. Government efforts to maximize training and employment benefits from their procurement fall short because they do not control onsite employment practices. This article assesses the British Columbia (BC) government's decision to establish a public corporation, BC Infrastructure Benefits (BCIB), to overcome these deficiencies by directly employing the construction workforce. Contractors still supervise the work but must use BCIB's unionized workers under the terms of their procurement contracts. Its CBA with the building unions includes ten major public infrastructure projects. BCIB's innovative payroll-based employment data tracking system has documented over 7.5 million onsite employment hours between 2018 and 2024, confirming that its local hire, training and equity employment outcomes are overcoming key weaknesses of other private and public CBAs.
Smong, a tsunami narrative from Simeulue Island in Aceh, Indonesia, has long served as a cultural early warning system, enabling communities to survive the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami with remarkably few casualties. This article examines how Smong operates not only as local knowledge for disaster risk reduction but also as a resource for community development. Drawing on a critical desk-based review of thirty-seven academic publications and policy texts, complemented by three semi-structured interviews with researchers involved in drafting Aceh's disaster education Qanun (regional regulation), this study analyses the ways in which Smong has been reproduced, institutionalized, and translated into formal education and policy. It shows how academic engagement with Smong has helped to sustain collective memory, strengthen intergenerational transmission of knowledge in schools and Islamic boarding schools, and support collaborative governance between local communities, universities, and government agencies. A comparative discussion with Central Sulawesi, where local oral traditions related to tsunamis and liquefaction have not been similarly institutionalized, highlights the risks that arise when such knowledge remains fragmented and unsupported. The article argues that recognizing and co-producing local knowledge, such as Smong, within community development processes can enhance disaster preparedness, promote socially embedded early warning systems, and contribute to more equitable and resilient coastal development.
This research aims to understand what determines the long-term sustainability of ecovillages. To achieve the aim, the current research proposes the main research question: what types of resources enable ecovillages to be more sustainable? In this research, the sustainability of ecovillages is understood as the ability of ecovillage communities to fulfil their basic needs while maintaining a long-term balance among ecological integrity, economic fairness, social cohesion, and cultural relevance to thrive over time. To this end, seventy well-established ecovillages were selected from the Foundation for Intentional Community and Global Ecovillage Network platforms. The analysis of ecovillages was done by identifying their practices, and the collected data was analysed thematically. Findings revealed that ecovillages have eighty-seven tangible and intangible resources, categorized into environmental, community, communal economy, and cultural pillars. The key finding is that intangible resources, like participatory decision-making, shared vision, shared ownership, non-monetary transactions, social cohesion, and culture of sustainable living, were found to be more critical than physical assets for the long-term sustainability of ecovillages. This offers new insights into the resource-based view framework by showing that non-material factors play a more significant role, as compared to tangible resources. The practical implication is empowering emerging ecovillages by offering a detailed understanding of the more important practices of ecovillages, which play a vital role in their success.
