Disaster Relief as Social Action: A Weberian Look at Postdisaster Donation Behavior

Disaster relief involves a broad range of participants, which often results in a disjunction between actual disaster needs and the perception of appropriate strategies in relief provision. This research examines data collected through interviews with donation drive operators responding to Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and the May 2013 Oklahoma tornadoes. Using Weber's ideal types of social action to understand motivations for engaging in disaster relief, this article argues that motivations for participating in and organizing such drives influence donation strategies, and these motivations can be used to explain persistent donation of nonuseful materiel items. Findings indicate several different motivations for involvement and that donation type appeared linked to motivation. We suggest that motivation for engaging in social action is a valuable approach to better understanding donation behavior and, consequently, addressing the social problem of materiel convergence in the postdisaster environment.     

Who cares? A lack of self‐care for women in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector

In this article I examine the lack of self‐care regimes for women working in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector. While I draw on ethnographic research conducted in the Malaysian context of women's organizations, the issue of self‐care for activists and feminist activists is a global one that crosses borders and boundaries. I explore the gendered nature of care and care professions to demonstrate how women are predominantly affected in these working environments. To date, there has been little scholarship on self‐care and care in non‐profit/non‐governmental working environments. Using interviews with women working in the sector, I argue that women's emotional, mental and physical health comes at a cost in these hectic workplaces. This article contributes to the literature on gender, work and care in women's organizations by taking seriously women's concerns working in these spaces, where they experience self‐neglect and institutional barriers in care regimes.     

Contextual identity experiencing facilitates resilience in Native American academics

This article discusses the socio-cultural dynamics that interact with ethno-racial identity experiencing in a previously under-researched group. A qualitative interdisciplinary study with 40 Native American academics from 28 mainstream universities across the U.S. served as a case example with findings that contrasted with historically influential theoretical frameworks postulating identity confusion and conflicts at the intersection of one’s mainstream education and profession versus one’s ethno-racial community grounding. Instead of feeling pressure to identify with only one worldview, the contextual, dynamic identities associated with the inclusive and flexible self-concept of tribal participants allowed them to in turn take advantage of two divergent cultural meaning systems pertaining to their distinct socio-cultural contexts. These shifts were experienced as not endogenous but rather exogenous variables, which did not cause the historically theorized issues. Participants felt their tribal identities instead facilitated meaningful integration of the existing incongruences, which resulted in unexpectedly resilient subjective experiencing.     

Family Characteristics and Mate Selection: Evidence From Computer‐Assisted Dating in Japan

Research on mate selection rarely considers singles' preferences for their future partners' family configurations and experiences. Using online dating records from a matchmaking agency in Japan, a society with a strong emphasis on family and kinship, we examine how singles' responses to date requests correspond to potential mates' family circumstances. Results showed that singles' preferences for potential partners' family characteristics stem from a concern about future obligations toward the partner's family and stereotypes associated with certain family traits. Singles are less likely to accept requests from those from large families, which are seen as traditional. Being from a large family, however, hampers individuals' dating chances more if they are firstborn and have no brothers, two conditions that make them the designated child to care for elderly parents. We also find that Japanese singles seek partners with more of the universally valued family traits rather than traits similar to their own.     

‘Notorious Beyond Any Other European Woman of Her Generation’: The Case of Count(ess) Sarolta/Sándor Vay

The paper investigates the curious case of the Hungarian Count(ess) Sarolta/Sándor Vay, journalist and writer, but, above all, a notorious gender bender in late nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The article examines her case in the context of the history of European cross-dressing and of narrative transvestism. The author argues that nineteenth-century dandyism provided an effective cultural framework for Vay’s contemporaries to accept her unconventional presence in fin-de-siècle Hungarian society. Moreover, she claims that Vay’s narrative transvestism may also be construed within the cultural phenomenon of dandyism, as her writing practices prove to be further instruments for her self-fashioning. Finally, she concludes that Vay’s gender performance and narrative transvestism become illustrative examples of instances that both frame and confuse accepted cultural patterns, destabilize gender binarism, and participate in its maintenance.     

Parenting in the Context of Deportation Risk

Nearly 5.1 million children younger than age 18 live with at least one undocumented parent, about 7% of the U.S. child population. Between 2010 and 2013, an estimated 300,000 parents of U.S. citizen children were deported. Raising children in the context of deportation risk increases overall parenting stress for undocumented Latino parents. To investigate this and understand the experience of undocumented parenting, the authors interviewed 70 undocumented parents in two Southwest cities from 2012 to 2013. The authors frame their analysis using the lens of the problem of “illegality.” There are three domains of stressors associated with parenting in the context of deportation risk: trapped parenting, threat of family separation, and altered family processes. The authors discuss these findings in the context of the literature on undocumented families and parenting stress and connect these findings to the current sociopolitical context experienced by Latino families in the United States .     

Measuring and Achieving Equity in Multiperiod Emergency Material Allocation

Emergency material allocation is an important part of postdisaster emergency logistics that is significant for improving rescue effectiveness and reducing disaster losses. However, the traditional single‐period allocation model often causes local surpluses or shortages and high cost, and prevents the system from achieving an equitable or optimal multiperiod allocation. To achieve equitable allocation of emergency materials in the case of serious shortages relative to the demand by victims, this article introduces a multiperiod model for allocation of emergency materials to multiple affected locations (using an exponential utility function to reflect the disutility loss due to material shortfalls), and illustrates the relationship between equity of allocations and the cost of emergency response. Finally, numerical examples are presented to demonstrate both the feasibility and the usefulness of the proposed model for achieving multiperiod equitable allocation of emergency material among multiple disaster locations. The results indicate that the introduction of a nonlinear utility function to reflect the disutility of large shortfalls can make the material allocation fairer, and minimize large losses due to shortfalls. We found that achieving equity has a significant but not unreasonable impact on emergency costs. We also illustrate that using differing utility functions for different types of materials adds an important dimension of flexibility.     

Providing a secure base for LGBTQ young people in foster care: The role of foster carers

The experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) young people in care have been overlooked in England, in both policy and research. This paper reports on findings from the first study of LGBTQ young people in care in England and focuses on the nature of foster carers' experiences and perspectives on caring for LGBTQ young people. Qualitative interviews regarding the fostering role in caring for LGBTQ young people were conducted with a sample of foster carers (n = 26) and analysed thematically. Foster carers described the importance of offering LGBTQ young people not only the nurturing relationships that all children in care need but also availability, sensitivity and acceptance to help young people manage stigma and other challenges associated with minority sexual orientation and gender identity. The Secure Base caregiving model provided a framework for analysing the different dimensions of these relationships. Understanding caregiving roles and relationships for LGBTQ young people in care has important implications for recruiting, training, matching and supporting foster carers to care for LGBTQ young people effectively.     

Europeanisation and the Youth Guarantee: The case of France

In 2013, the European Council approved the Youth Guarantee (YG) to counteract youth unemployment. Because of its specific features, the YG is useful for understanding whether the EU has triggered policy change in national youth unemployment policies. Contrary to most of the literature on similar topics, we focused in this study on the effect of this specific European measure rather than on broader EU strategies or policies. The study contributes to the literature by qualifying the degree of fit/misfit and suggesting a counterfactual analysis, using the case of France. We first situate the article within the broader Europeanisation debate and present our research design. The second section introduces the policy structure of the YG and investigates youth unemployment policy in France, prior to and after the European initiative. The third section discusses whether the French youth unemployment policy would have been developed in the same way without the YG. A final section concludes.     

Bioecological Implications of Narrative Exposure Therapy in Low‐Resource Settings: Individual,Family, Community,and Socio‐Political Contexts

Traumatic stress can have detrimental effects on individuals, families, and communities. Narrative exposure therapy (NET) is an evidence‐based intervention for decreasing individuals’ post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and has been tested in some of the most challenging contexts, such as in post‐conflict refugee camps. Although the focus of NET is on reducing individual PTSD symptoms, the impact of NET can be seen beyond the individual level. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the ecological implications of using NET with trauma‐affected populations in low‐resource settings. We describe the implications of NET at the family, community, and sociopolitical levels using several case examples. Finally, we outline limitations and future directions for improving the delivery of NET in settings with limited resources.