Climate-induced migration is widely acknowledged as a multifaceted phenomenon shaped by the interaction between climatic stressors and socioeconomic, environmental, political, and institutional conditions. This systematic literature review examines the relationship between climate-induced migration, livelihood vulnerability, and associated adaptation strategies, while recognizing that migration is rarely driven by climate change alone. Following the PRISMA framework, a rigorous selection process yielded 28 peer-reviewed articles published between 2008 and 2023 from Scopus and Web of Science databases. Integrative and thematic analysis were applied to synthesize the evidence and identify key dimensions of livelihood vulnerability and adaptation associated with climate-induced migration. Six themes were identified: economic, social, environmental, health, cultural, and political factors that mutually influence migration experience, livelihood vulnerability, and adaptive responses. Climate-induced migration could increase income insecurity, asset loss, food insecurity, social isolation, inadequate access to basic services, health risks, culture disruption, and insufficient institutional support. The results indicate that climate-related stresses can undermine livelihoods through financial losses and other socioeconomic pressures. Migration may facilitate adaptation through remittances, livelihood diversification, employment opportunities, social networks, and institutional support; nevertheless, it may also intensify vulnerability. The reviewed literature provides global coverage, with a strong focus on climate-vulnerable regions, specifically South and Southeast Asia, alongside evidence from Africa, Latin America, Pacific Islands, North America, and Australia. The review shows that climate-induced migration should be understood as a multidimensional and interactive process rather than as a direct consequence of climate change alone. Migration can function as an adaptation strategy and a source of strengthened vulnerability. The findings also highlight the need to use region-specific, gender-responsive, and institutionally coordinated perspectives in addressing the vulnerabilities and adaptive capabilities of climate migrants.
IntroductionDigital transformation has intensified the use of platforms, automated systems, artificial intelligence tools, online reporting, and algorithmic performance metrics in general and financial services. This study examines how algorithmic fatigue, human talent adaptation, digital organizational support, digital dynamic capabilities, and responsible algorithmic governance combine to explain high perceived digital competitiveness.MethodsA quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, exploratory-configurational design was used. From an institutional population of 581 Business Administration students, 128 employed participants working in general or financial services met the inclusion criteria. A 60-item, five-point Likert instrument measured six constructs. Analyses in R included descriptive statistics, reliability, Spearman correlations, an auxiliary linear model, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).ResultsHuman talent adaptation was the only potentially necessary condition for high perceived digital competitiveness. Three sufficient pathways emerged: digital dynamic capabilities, responsible algorithmic governance, and the combination of human talent adaptation and digital organizational support, which was the most consistent pathway. Algorithmic fatigue acted as a risk condition but could coexist with high perceived digital competitiveness when compensatory resources were present.DiscussionThe findings indicate that perceived digital competitiveness arises through alternative combinations of human, organizational, technological, and governance resources, supporting a configurational rather than a single universal pathway interpretation.
Smart-grid IoT networks require post-quantum protection, resilient routing, and continuous trust enforcement without excessive communication overhead. This study proposes a coordinated migration-oriented framework that integrates ML-KEM-1024 key establishment, ML-DSA-87 authentication, authenticated RPL mesh routing, and route-aware zero-trust validation. Its main novelty is the unified binding of post-quantum device identity with route admission, continuous trust scoring, compromised-node isolation, trusted failover, session rekeying, and controlled reintegration. The framework was evaluated using NS-3 simulations, Raspberry Pi cryptographic measurements, adversarial emulation, and ProVerif analysis across five controlled configurations with 75 legitimate nodes, four adversarial nodes, and 30 independently seeded runs. Under nominal traffic, the complete configuration achieved an RTT of 44.7±3.0 ms and a PDR of 99.2±0.4%. Under high load and primary-router failure, it maintained 99.1±0.6% PDR and recovered in 11.6±2.1 s. Relative to the post-quantum mesh configuration without continuous zero-trust enforcement, it reduced combined MITM and route-manipulation success by 82.6% and DDoS recovery time by 52.8%, with only a 1.5-percentage-point increase in control overhead. Compared with the reproduced ETX–Trust Secure-RPL baseline, PDR improved by 0.5 percentage points and DDoS recovery was 6.0 s faster, although RTT increased by 3.9 ms. ProVerif symbolically verified session secrecy, mutual authentication, replay resistance, route-admission integrity, failover, and post-rekey security. The framework provides a practical security and migration layer for AMI, DER, and substation communication, while full standards interoperability and utility-scale validation remain future requirements.
Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are rapidly emerging as a dominant paradigm in applied AI. However, existing architectures are developed and evaluated predominantly in high-income, English-speaking, and well-connected contexts, embedding structural assumptions that do not apply to much of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This article addresses the absence of a systematic characterization of the contrast between agentic AI architectures and the multidimensional constraints of the LAC operational context. To this end, a data-driven conceptual framework development methodology is employed, through which four structural dimensions are identified: (1) digital infrastructure heterogeneity, (2) linguistic marginalization of Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages, (3) regulatory fragmentation, and (4) asymmetric access and adoption patterns. Building on this characterization, the LAC Contextual Adaptation Framework (LATAM-CAF) is proposed, a three-layer architecture comprising context profiling, an adaptive execution engine, and a contextual evaluation suite. The results suggest that deploying standard agent architectures in Latin America without contextual adaptation risks replicating and amplifying existing structural inequalities.
The current study attempts to explore the level of the effect of the role social media plays in increasing the awareness of the legal rights of women living in rural Jordan. It also endeavors to highlight the role of social media in increasing women empowerment living in rural Jordan. A quantitative approach was used to answer the questions of the study. A descriptive analytical approach was used through a quantitative method. A group of females were interviewed about women's rights to help design and develop the questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into three main parts. The first part aimed to collect the demographic data of the respondents. In the second part, the respondents were asked to respond to 19 points related to the rights of females using a 5-point Likert scale. These points were categorized into five main categories of women's rights: civil, political, economic, and cultural. The third part consisted of three open-ended questions for the respondents to answer related to women's empowerment. To help design the questionnaire, 20 females living in rural areas in Jordan were interviewed. They were chosen through the convenience sampling technique nominated by women leaders who work in networks and organizations related to women empowerment. The sample for answering the questionnaire, the quantitative approach, was chosen by a convenience sampling technique that consisted of 600 females/ women in rural areas all around Jordan. But only 460 female/ women responded. The study concluded that women have known and learned about their rights, whether civil, political, economic, social, or cultural, from different social media platforms, but especially Facebook. Moreover, this fact does not only relate to women who are not employed or educated. This conclusion can also apply to educated and employed women in rural regions in Jordan. The study also concludes with the importance of social media in increasing women's empowerment in different ways, such as learning from other women's experiences, and others. There is a lack in the studies that tackle the role of social media in women's empowerment and especially in spreading legal literacy among women in Jordan's rural regions. The current study filled the gap in this area.
Self-harm among young women is increasing globally, yet many do not disclose their distress, leaving families and communities unsure how to respond. Research shows that small, attuned gestures of presence and connection are often the most meaningful forms of support. ReBloom, an immersive interactive installation, was co-created to translate these insights into a publicly accessible, multimodal encounter. Created through collaboration among mental health researchers, creative technologists, artists, and 27 young women with lived experience of self-harm, the project translated research evidence into a publicly accessible encounter designed for embodied, sensory, and relational engagement. Using gesture-responsive interaction, motion capture, color transitions, sound, and narrative movement, ReBloom enabled participants to enact metaphors of attunement, emotional openness, and care. Installed in a large metropolitan shopping center, the work engaged diverse publics across ages and cultural backgrounds, generating forms of interaction ranging from playful exploration to reflective and emotionally resonant encounters. Ethnographic observation and thematic evaluation revealed that participants intuitively recognized the emotional arc of the work and frequently linked the experience to their own understandings of support, empathy, and mental health. The installation also surfaced important paradoxes in public engagement, including the tension between visibility and the desire for more private, cocoon-like spaces for reflection. This case study demonstrates how immersive, distributed storytelling can function as a powerful mode of arts-based knowledge translation, offering new pathways for communicating sensitive mental-health research in accessible, non-stigmatizing, and emotionally meaningful ways.
IntroductionThe digitalization of judicial systems has introduced e-litigation as a mechanism for improving access to justice and procedural efficiency. In Jordan, however, the coherence between formal legal frameworks and their practical implementation remains uncertain, particularly regarding electronic notification. This study examines the relationship between legal norms, judicial interpretation, and institutional adaptation in Jordanian civil e-litigation.MethodsA doctrinal and comparative legal approach was employed. The analysis examined the Jordanian Code of Civil Procedure, Regulation No. 95 of 2018, and two purposively selected Jordanian judicial decisions concerning electronic notification issued in 2022 and 2023. Exploratory consultations with five legal practitioners were used solely as supplementary contextual evidence. The analysis was informed by institutional isomorphism, procedural justice, and path dependency frameworks.ResultsThe analysis identified contrasting judicial approaches to the validity of electronic notification and verification of the intended recipient's telephone number, together with broader doctrinal fragmentation between traditional and electronic procedural rules. Institutional differences in infrastructure, training, and readiness may also affect implementation; however, the absence of publicly available court-level data prevents reliable quantitative comparison of adoption or performance across Jordanian courts.DiscussionThe findings indicate that the principal barriers to coherent e-litigation in Jordan are institutional and doctrinal rather than primarily technological. Greater legislative coherence, standardized electronic-notification procedures, clearer verification mechanisms, and coordinated institutional implementation are needed to strengthen procedural predictability, equitable access to justice, and the reliability of digital judicial processes.
This Perspective examines the coexistence of population mobility and forced immobility among Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon under conditions of environmental change. It advances a single analytical argument: environmental shocks, particularly extreme droughts and deforestation, interact with path-dependent institutional constraints to narrow the range of viable adaptation strategies available to Indigenous peoples. Drawing on political ecology and historical institutionalism, the analysis shows that institutional weakening after 2016 created enforcement gaps that allowed land appropriation to advance, while subsequent climate shocks intensified livelihood pressures. These conditions simultaneously generate incentives for short-term mobility and powerful structural disincentives to leave, because departure carries a high risk of permanent territorial dispossession. Policy responses since 2023, although marked by renewed federal commitment to Indigenous rights and territory demarcation, continue to be filtered through congressional veto points, federal–local tensions, and informal patronage networks. As a result, even progressive policy intentions have limited effect on the structural conditions that produce constrained adaptation. The Brazilian case illustrates how climate-related mobility and immobility are jointly produced by environmental degradation and historically sedimented institutional arrangements, rather than by climate impacts alone. It calls for greater attention to the domestic institutional mechanisms that mediate the relationship between environmental change and Indigenous adaptation, and for stronger Indigenous participation in the decisions that shape territorial security and climate resilience.
Imagine entering a house with no walls or rooms, just a few bespoke pieces of furniture that, upon use, open up to reveal imaginary domestic environments. A house where your daily routines, movements, and behaviours unlock room-like, narrative pockets hidden around each corner, each touch. Interacting with so-called “physical assets” —virtually expanded, second-hand pieces of furniture— you could take a bath in nature when washing your hands or gather and cook food in a surreal, fairytale-like forest. Led by Paula Strunden, a transdisciplinary Extended Reality (xR) artist with a background in architecture, and Mira Müller, a product designer with a background in carpentry, a diverse group of eighteen Bachelor and Master students from product design, media art, and media architecture designed and built The Sensing House. The 5 × 5 m inhabitable xR installation, exhibited as part of the 2025 Summer Show at Bauhaus University Weimar, showcased a family of full-scale xR furniture prototypes—a sink, table, chair, cushion, bed, loom, and swing—each extended by a multisensory Virtual Reality (VR) experience. This paper discusses the process of guiding the students, with their different areas of expertise, through the development of a shared, embodied, multisensory experience. Analysing participants’ reflections and observations, the paper initiates a transdisciplinary discussion posing the question: How can the pairing of real-time tools with physical objects and multisensory interactions transform disciplinary perception by challenging its boundaries? This question is explored in a discursive format, as an open-ended conversation between Strunden and Müller. The discussion begins with an overview of the existing teaching infrastructure at Bauhaus University, which made transdisciplinary education possible, and moves through the potentials and challenges of such environments. The authors reflect on their own collaboration across disciplines and the difficulties of teaching a still-evolving design practice grounded in shared, embodied experience. Finally, they describe their technical setup and reflect on the insights gained during the semester, including the self-empowerment of students through AI-assisted coding.
IntroductionYoung people in the rural areas, and the workers in the agricultural areas of developing countries might experience problems with career opportunities as farming is often perceived as low margin and high-risk work. This is why the agripreneurship-type entrepreneurial undertakings, such as farm production, processing, marketing, and value chain enhancements- have become a prospective avenue that can be used to empower rural livelihoods and generate improved employment opportunities. The relevance of realizing the agripreneurial intentions of farmers in this type of context is of great importance as it can influence the rural development policies and the type of entrepreneurship support programs. Thus, it examines how the combined influences of an entrepreneur mindset, subjective norms, self-efficacy, personality related factors, and entrepreneurship education lead to farmers becoming agripreneurs in western Uttar Pradesh.MethodsIt employed a descriptive cross-sectional survey methodology and collected data on 400 farmers in five districts through a standardized questionnaire. To measure this, Likert scale items were used to examine the items that are relevant to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) that encompasses constructs such as personality traits, entrepreneurship education and the agripreneurial intention, in general. After this, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was analysed; an initial examination was performed via Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to verify the measurement model followed by a transition to path analysis with the use of bootstrapping to test the direct and the mediated relationship between variables.ResultsThe findings revealed that the most effective influences on agripreneurial intention were an entrepreneurial mindset (= 0.36, p = 0.001) and self-efficacy ( = 0.33, p = 0.001). Concurrently, the impact of subjective norms was less but statistically significant (0.12, p < 0.05). Entrepreneurship education, and personality factors had both direct, and indirect influences on agripreneurial intention, through entrepreneurial attitude and self-efficacy, which suggests that there are partial mediation effects. A substantial portion of agripreneurial intention was accounted by the structural model, (R² = 0.68) and the model fit measures were satisfied (CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.92, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04).DiscussionThis research work contributes to the body of literature on agripreneurship since it provides empirical data of the agricultural sector in a developing country, not to mention that it does so by applying an elaborated version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour paradigm. In general, the results highlight the importance of solidifying the entrepreneurial attitudes, self-efficacy, and the entrepreneurship education in local development programs to ensure that policymakers, education systems, and the agricultural extension departments can go back to the drawing board with practical working notes. Such efforts (in turn) can support agripreneurship and contribute towards enhancing more sustainable livelihood opportunities both of farmers, and of youth in rural areas.
IntroductionWaste management remains a major environmental challenge in developing countries, particularly in Indonesia, where increasing waste generation continues to exceed management capacity. Although community-based waste management has been widely promoted, limited research has examined women's participation, the barriers they encounter, and the strategies needed to strengthen their contributions to sustainable waste governance. Drawing on the Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) perspective, this study explores women's roles as agents of change in community-based waste management in Bandung, Indonesia.MethodsThis study adopted a qualitative approach grounded in a constructivist paradigm. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 13 participants actively involved in community-based waste management initiatives, including waste-bank managers, environmental educators, community facilitators, PKK cadres, recycling activists, and maggot-house supervisors. The interviews were conducted between July and September 2025. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's six-step thematic analysis framework to identify recurring patterns related to women's participation, challenges, and strategies for strengthening their roles.ResultsThree major themes emerged from the analysis. First, women participated extensively in waste management through household waste sorting, environmental education, waste-bank management, organic waste processing, and community leadership. Women functioned not only as waste managers but also as environmental educators, community mobilisers, and local sustainability leaders. Second, women encountered several barriers, including low public awareness, resistance to waste sorting, limited facilities and infrastructure, inconsistent community participation, inadequate institutional support, difficulties in changing community behaviour, and residents' time constraints. Third, participants identified several strategies for strengthening women's contributions, including continuous environmental training, collaboration with local stakeholders, practical community-based education, incentive and reward systems, digital environmental campaigns, strengthening women's environmental networks, school-based environmental education, and public recognition of women's environmental contributions.DiscussionThe findings demonstrate that women play a central role in connecting household environmental practices with broader community-level sustainability initiatives. Consistent with Feminist Political Ecology, women's environmental agency extends beyond domestic responsibilities to include leadership, behavioural change, and community mobilisation. However, their contributions remain constrained by behavioural, infrastructural, and institutional barriers. Strengthening women's participation therefore requires integrated efforts involving capacity building, multi-stakeholder collaboration, supportive infrastructure, institutional recognition, and long-term environmental education. This study contributes to the Feminist Political Ecology literature by showing that women are not merely environmental caretakers but active leaders who facilitate behavioural change, community engagement, and local sustainability transitions.
This study examines how rural landscape mentality shapes the heritage built environment through the everyday practices and narratives of inhabitants in a former sixteenth-century pueblo de indios. It explores how ecological and cultural practices are embedded in the production, use, and valuation of natural and built spaces. The study employs a qualitative ethnographic approach, with participant observation, semistructured and open interviews, a focus group with 41 children from nine localities, and documentation and photographs collected during two field campaigns in 2023 and 2024. Landscape mentalities and heritage built environments are analyzed through a thematic approach that integrates discourse, ritual, social organization, and intergenerational transmission. The findings suggest, first, that parish exconvents and religious architectures serve as central mental habitats; second, 53.9% of residents speak an Indigenous language, primarily Nahuatl, which structure how people classify and appropriate the built and natural environments; and third, in community-based governance, churches, chapels, plazas, and streets are maintained, used, and transformed directly, while migration and architectural modernization are transforming vernacular stone and palm houses into concrete constructions, reconfiguring the heritage built environment and generating tensions. In Huatlatlauca, mindscapes are not one unified construct, but rather overlap with, age, and institutional power. It illustrates how patrimonialization processes are simultaneously inclusive and exclusionary, contributing to heritage studies, rural anthropology, and critical landscape theory. The study contributes ethnographically to the debate about how mental habitats are produced, since it argues that Indigenous rural contexts are crucial to broaden prevailing understandings. Through a more holistic approach to heritage preservation and territorial planning, it focuses on community institutions, linguistic continuity, and cosmovisional ties to landscape.
IntroductionWhat is the underlying structure of resistance to the adoption of artificial intelligence in media organisations? This study is the first to combine Ising network analysis with latent class analysis (LCA) to map the architecture of barriers to the adoption of artificial intelligence and to identify individual-level archetypes of resistance, interpreted through the lens of institutional logic.MethodsData were collected in March 2026 from 151 media and marketing professionals from the UK and the US via the Prolific platform. Seven barriers were measured as binary indicators. The analysis combined Ising network analysis (IsingFit, with a comparative EBICglasso estimation and bootstrapped stability checks), latent class analysis (poLCA, K = 2–5), Kruskal-Wallis tests with effect sizes, and binary logistic regression supplemented with IRT composites.ResultsThe Ising model reveals a sparse 'hub-and-spoke' network of barriers (2 out of 21 possible edges), in which mistrust acts as a central node linking legal risk (w = 2.832) and quality concerns (w = 3.431), whilst the five remaining barriers function as conditionally independent dimensions. LCA (K = 2, BIC = 1063.6, entropy = 1.000, bootstrap stable in 99.5% of 200 resamples) identifies two qualitatively distinct archetypes: T1 Practical Opponents (42.4%, n = 64), characterised by structural and capacity barriers in the complete absence of distrust [P = 0.000 (95% CI: 0.000, 0.000)]; and T2 Distrustful Sceptics (57.6%, n = 87), defined by absolute distrust [P = 1.000 (0.934, 1.000)] and saturated legal (P = 1.000) and qualitative barriers (P = 1.000). A sensitivity LCA without distrust confirms the two-class structure (BIC = 972.2, entropy = 1.000), thereby establishing robustness beyond a simple division based on distrust. Membership of an archetype is not predicted by organisation type, frequency of AI use, or perceived risk/benefit scores (binary logistic regression, all p > 0.24; Nagelkerke's pseudo-R2 = 0.040). T2 sceptics demand significantly greater transparency regarding AI content (M = 4.44 vs. 3.97; H = 9.401, p = 0.002, r = 0.250), whilst exhibiting comparable preferences for human oversight to T1.DiscussionValidation of the theory of resistance to innovation confirms that T1 are passive resisters (functional/psychological ratio F/P = 1.16) and T2 are active resisters (F/P = 0.61; H = 70.324, p < 0.001, r = 0.682). The findings are consistent with an interpretation of archetypes as epistemological rather than structural constructs, although the absence of significant predictors does not by itself exclude measurement limitations or limited statistical power.
Digital platforms now mediate most of the contemporary job search, and the cost of creating a job posting has fallen close to zero. One underexamined consequence is a quiet reallocation of labor: tasks that an employer’s hiring process once absorbed—establishing that an opening is genuine, that an application will reach human review, and that a role is a viable match—are increasingly borne by the job seeker, who must now screen the posting itself before investing effort in it. This Perspective argues that the digitalization and partial automation of hiring has shifted a layer of uncompensated, largely invisible screening labor onto applicants, and offers a conceptual lens for understanding this shift. We frame the problem through information asymmetry: the posting entity knows a listing’s true status, while the seeker cannot directly observe it. To organize the forms this opacity takes, we present a taxonomy of hiring-intent signals derived from a job-analysis platform, drawing on observations from 784 postings to illustrate that these signals appear routinely in practice rather than only in principle. We make no claim about how common any signal is in the labor market at large; the data are heavily clustered (most postings contributed by a small number of users, predominantly U.S.-based and in software roles) and serve only an illustrative purpose. We close with research propositions and directions for measuring the shifted burden of search and considering how platform and policy design might rebalance it.
Although technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are extensively discussed in contemporary advertising research, there is currently no comprehensive framework that explains the collective impact of these technologies within the Society 5.0 paradigm. This study aims to fill this gap by developing a new advertising model specifically designed for the Society 5.0 era. A hybrid methodology was employed, combining a strategic literature review with text mining analysis of 175 peer-reviewed academic articles published between 2017 and 2024. The research employed qualitative coding and quantitative frequency analysis to identify core technological patterns and their functional roles within the advertising process. The study identifies six core technology themes categorized as “C-6”: Personalization, Automation, Creativity Enhancement, Measurement, Physical-Digital Integration, and Ethics. These themes have been systematically aligned with a five-stage advertising sequence comprising Data, Insight, Creativity, Presentation, and Measurement. Together, these elements form an integrated advertising model structured along the “C-6 × 5 Block” axes. This article presents the first text-based conceptual model that systematically links Society 5.0 technologies with the infrastructure of modern advertising. Offering a multidimensional tool for academics and industry professionals, the proposed model facilitates the design of technology-focused yet human-centered advertising strategies, providing both theoretical robustness and practical applicability in an increasingly digital society.
AI-enabled HR analytics is changing how organizations understand employee engagement, workforce risk, and managerial intervention. These tools can help organizations identify problems earlier and design more targeted responses. However, they also raise an important governance question: when does analytics support employees, and when does it become a source of surveillance, opacity, and control? This question is especially important in emerging economy workplaces, where rapid digital adoption often occurs alongside uneven digital literacy, developing data-governance systems, hierarchical managerial cultures, and limited employee voice mechanisms. This conceptual analysis argues that AI-enabled HR analytics should be understood as a human-centered governance practice, not only as a predictive tool. The article develops the TRUST-AI framework for responsible and sustainable HR analytics. The framework includes six dimensions: transparent data relations, responsible algorithmic stewardship, user and employee voice, sustainable well-being orientation, trust-building managerial use, and accountable intelligence. Together, these dimensions show how organizations can move beyond algorithmic engagement measurement toward sustainable work by strengthening data legitimacy, interpretive fairness, employee participation, managerial responsibility, and long-term human sustainability. The article contributes to digital HRM, responsible AI, employee engagement, and sustainable HRM scholarship. It shows that the value of AI-enabled HR analytics lies not only in prediction or efficiency, but also in whether employees experience data-driven HRM as understandable, contestable, fair, supportive, and trustworthy. Practically, the framework offers HR leaders, line managers, technology vendors, and policymakers a governance guide for implementing AI-enabled HR analytics in ways that strengthen transparency, employee voice, accountability, trust, and sustainable work.
Digital dating apps have proliferated rapidly among young people in China, yet existing research has largely focused on static characteristics such as usage motivations and partner preferences, with comparatively little attention to how users dynamically recalibrate exchange logics and relational expectations across sustained platform engagement. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET) as its primary analytical framework, this study employs an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design-combining a two-stage survey, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and walkthrough observation—to examine recurring perceived patterns among university students aged 18–25 in Shanghai. It should be noted that the study adopts a cross-sectional design; the dynamic processes identified are grounded primarily in users’ retrospective accounts, and the patterns described represent perceived trajectories rather than developmentally verified stages. Three experiential levels are proposed: Level 1 (exploratory entry), characterized by uncertainty-driven motivational logic and heightened attention to immediate interactional feedback; Level 2 (strategic recalibration), marked by increasingly selective filtering and efficiency-oriented cost management as experience accumulates; and Level 3 (reflexive negotiation), in which users attend more closely to relational sustainability and begin to reflect on the meaning of intimacy itself. The study further identifies “underground usage” as a culturally specific pattern of stigma negotiation shaped by Chinese face (“mianzi”) culture, and introduces “love-efficacy” to describe users’ perceived shifts in subjective confidence in navigating digitally mediated intimacy. By extending SET from a static “costs-rewards” evaluation model toward a processual account of the “matching–interaction–feedback–adjustment” cycle, this study repositions digital dating as an intimate socialization process co-shaped by platform structures, exchange logics, and cultural norms.
IntroductionParticipatory and reflexive approaches in migration research are often presented as ethical alternatives to extractive forms of knowledge production. Yet participation and insider proximity do not automatically dissolve power asymmetries. This methodological reflection examines the ethical, emotional, and epistemic consequences of researching one's own displaced community.MethodsThe article draws on relational ethnographic fieldwork and reflexive autoethnographic analysis with Syrian refugee families in Germany. It is grounded in sustained engagement with Syrian refugee adolescents and families between 2022 and 2024, as well as earlier community-based educational work that became a critical entry point into the field. The analysis brings feminist situated knowledge, autoethnography, ethics of care, debates on migration knowledge production, and literature on secondary traumatic stress into dialogue with ethnographic vignettes.ResultsThe article shows that refugee positionality can open forms of trust, shared language, and affective recognition through which otherwise hidden or fragmented narratives become speakable. At the same time, insider proximity produces unstable boundaries between researcher, teacher, community member, mother, and trusted listener. Insider positionality is therefore conceptualized not as an automatic epistemic advantage, but as a liquid, relational, and power-laden condition that enables access while also creating blind spots, expectations of care, and forms of double exposure to trauma.DiscussionThe article contributes to debates on “Nothing About Us Without Us” by showing that refugee-led research requires more than inclusion or representational proximity. It demands critical attention to authority, vulnerability, institutional power, emotional labour, and the costs of producing knowledge from within displacement.
Artificial intelligence-enabled financial technology is reshaping the ways in which small and medium-sized enterprises access, use, and evaluate formal financial services. The theoretical problem addressed in this study is that firms with comparable levels of AI-enabled FinTech adoption may achieve substantially different levels of business financial inclusion. This inconsistency suggests that adoption creates a technological opportunity structure, but does not by itself ensure effective access, use, quality, or value creation. Digital financial capability is therefore positioned as the capability-conversion mechanism through which SMEs transform AI-enabled financial tools into meaningful financial participation. This study identifies the configurational pathways through which AI-enabled FinTech adoption and digital financial capability are associated with high business financial inclusion among small and medium-sized enterprises in northern Peru. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design was applied to 120 complete responses from owners, managers, and administrators with direct knowledge of their firms’ financial and digital operations. The analysis used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, incorporating six causal conditions: AI-enabled FinTech adoption, digital financial capability, perceived usefulness, AI familiarity and integration, digital financial skills, and digital financial self-efficacy. The findings show that no single condition is strictly necessary for high business financial inclusion. Nevertheless, digital financial capability emerged as the condition closest to necessity. The intermediate solution identified two equifinal configurations leading to high inclusion, both combining AI-enabled FinTech adoption, digital financial capability, perceived usefulness, and digital financial skills, while AI familiarity and digital financial self-efficacy operated as alternative reinforcing mechanisms. The results also confirmed causal asymmetry, as low inclusion was explained by configurations centred on deficits in capability and AI-FinTech adoption rather than by the simple inverse of high-inclusion pathways. The study extends FinTech and financial inclusion theory by demonstrating that business financial inclusion is not a direct result of AI-enabled FinTech adoption, but an outcome of capability conversion operating through multiple configurational pathways.
IntroductionIntegrating digital reading into teacher education is critical for preparing pre-service teachers (PSTs) for 21st-century classrooms. This study addresses a significant research gap by investigating PSTs’ perceptions of digital reading within a specific, underexplored context. This study aims to understand how digital platforms influence PSTs, identify effective integration strategies, and pinpoint key barriers and enabling factors to inform strategic policy development in teacher education.MethodEmploying a qualitative case study design, this research engaged ten PSTs from a teacher education program in Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis facilitated by Atlas.ti software (Version 25). This approach allowed for an in-depth exploration of the participants’ lived experiences and perceptions of digital reading.ResultsThe analysis revealed that PSTs perceive digital reading tools as instrumental in fostering critical and creative thinking, flexible and personalized learning, digital literacy skill development, and motivation through community building. Key strategies for effective integration include constructivist approaches, blended learning models, collaborative opportunities, and culturally relevant content. However, significant barriers persist, including limited access to technology and digital resources, gaps in institutional policy and support, resistance to pedagogical change, and a lack of linguistically and culturally relevant materials.ImplicationsThese findings underscore the necessity of strategic and policy-driven actions in teacher education. To harness the benefits of digital reading while mitigating barriers, this study proposes a policy framework incorporating a contextualized digital reading curriculum and intensifying sustainable digital training and professional development programs for both teachers and pre-service teachers to ensure a culturally responsive learning experience. Such strategic measures are essential for cultivating a digitally competent, pedagogically innovative, and culturally responsive teaching workforce.
