Mapping Platform-Mediated Proximities With the TikTok Global Observatory

Understanding plant significance across cultures and borders is a driving goal in ethnobotany. Often, empirical studies aim to highlight and explain variation in plant knowledge and uses between communities across national, geographic, and cultural boundaries. However, such studies underinvestigate commonality of values and practices between communities. In this cross-border study of highland pastoral communities in both Caucasian Georgia and Turkey, we propose and implement an approach that synthesizes Cultural Importance (CI) and Identified Cultural Importance (ICI) indices. We label this method a “Unified Cultural Keystone Species (UCKS)” approach. We demonstrate that such an approach is uniquely capable of perceiving shared Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and practices across cultures and borders. Our results identify three primary Cultural Keystone Species (CKS) that cut across cultural and political boundaries in the Western Lesser Caucasus. We argue that these findings allow for a more comprehensive understanding of ethnobotanical knowledge and practices in the study area. This, in turn, can enhance conservation and restoration strategies in the study region and beyond by highlighting the breadth of biocultural knowledge and value held within shared traditions and landscapes. By so doing, we show a way to heighten scientific perceptions of the importance of cultural and linguistic connections to environmental well-being in specific places.

The Journal of Perpetrator Research (JPR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal committed to promoting the scholarly study of perpetrators and perpetration of political and mass violence, terrorism, and genocide. One of the journal’s aims is to engage critically with the very concepts of “perpetrator” and “perpetration”.JPR fosters scholarly discussions about perpetrators and perpetration across the broader continuum of political and mass violence without confining its attention to any particular geographical region or historical period. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for scholarship taking place across a broad range of fields including history, criminology, law, forensics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, memory studies, cultural studies, literary studies, film and media studies, museum studies, and education. JPR was created with the explicit aim of providing an inter- and cross-disciplinary space for the study of perpetrators and perpetration, including critical reflections on theories, methods, and approaches beyond, and between, and across disciplinary boundaries. JPR not only addresses past and present issues related to perpetrators and perpetration. Fundamental questions informing the journal include, for example, questions of terminology, motivation, ideology, agency, processes and dynamics, as well as questions of prevention: Who or what is a perpetrator? How is such a label applied and by whom? How do such labels evolve? What drives people to participate in mass violence and how do their crimes unfold? What measures can be taken to identify potential perpetrators before they act, and prevent them from committing crimes? What can be done to rehabilitate perpetrators after the fact?Another set of questions informing JPR pertains to the status and significance of the perpetrator as a discursive formation in legal, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural settings. How do societies come to terms with acts of perpetration and with the perpetrators themselves? What role does the figure of the perpetrator play in the popular imagination for different audiences? How do representations of perpetrators change over time and across geographical and cultural boundaries, as well as across different media, genres, and traditions? Finally, JPR is also interested in exploring questions of theory and method. What are the ethical and moral implications of studying perpetrators? How do ethical considerations influence the methodological and theoretical criteria of the inquiry? How does one address the inherent ambiguity, limitations, and contentiousness of labels such as “perpetrator,” and the strategic and political implications of their application in different contexts internationally?We seek innovative work on any aspect of the study of perpetrators and perpetration, both broader theoretical and methodological interventions into the field and work centering on more specific case studies and examples. Because of the journal’s interdisciplinary and global scope, all contributions should be written with an interdisciplinary and international readership in mind.We also invite proposals for special issues or special sections clustered around a particular topic or theme. If you would like to propose a special issue or section, please contact one of the editors.

The Journal of Perpetrator Research (JPR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal committed to promoting the scholarly study of perpetrators and perpetration of political and mass violence, terrorism, and genocide. One of the journal’s aims is to engage critically with the very concepts of “perpetrator” and “perpetration”.JPR fosters scholarly discussions about perpetrators and perpetration across the broader continuum of political and mass violence without confining its attention to any particular geographical region or historical period. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for scholarship taking place across a broad range of fields including history, criminology, law, forensics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, memory studies, cultural studies, literary studies, film and media studies, museum studies, and education. JPR was created with the explicit aim of providing an inter- and cross-disciplinary space for the study of perpetrators and perpetration, including critical reflections on theories, methods, and approaches beyond, and between, and across disciplinary boundaries. JPR not only addresses past and present issues related to perpetrators and perpetration. Fundamental questions informing the journal include, for example, questions of terminology, motivation, ideology, agency, processes and dynamics, as well as questions of prevention: Who or what is a perpetrator? How is such a label applied and by whom? How do such labels evolve? What drives people to participate in mass violence and how do their crimes unfold? What measures can be taken to identify potential perpetrators before they act, and prevent them from committing crimes? What can be done to rehabilitate perpetrators after the fact?Another set of questions informing JPR pertains to the status and significance of the perpetrator as a discursive formation in legal, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural settings. How do societies come to terms with acts of perpetration and with the perpetrators themselves? What role does the figure of the perpetrator play in the popular imagination for different audiences? How do representations of perpetrators change over time and across geographical and cultural boundaries, as well as across different media, genres, and traditions? Finally, JPR is also interested in exploring questions of theory and method. What are the ethical and moral implications of studying perpetrators? How do ethical considerations influence the methodological and theoretical criteria of the inquiry? How does one address the inherent ambiguity, limitations, and contentiousness of labels such as “perpetrator,” and the strategic and political implications of their application in different contexts internationally?We seek innovative work on any aspect of the study of perpetrators and perpetration, both broader theoretical and methodological interventions into the field and work centering on more specific case studies and examples. Because of the journal’s interdisciplinary and global scope, all contributions should be written with an interdisciplinary and international readership in mind.We also invite proposals for special issues or special sections clustered around a particular topic or theme. If you would like to propose a special issue or section, please contact one of the editors.

This article examines Hipster Hitler, a 2011 webcomic by James Carr and Archana Kumar, where the figure of Adolf Hitler is amalgamated with a generic version of a contemporary hipster, with the apparent purpose of turning both Hitler and hipsters into targets of ridicule. We engage with contemporary scholarship on the representation of Holocaust perpetrators—particularly Adolf Hitler—to examine the implications of a perpetrator of such magnitude becoming so familiar that a few strokes of the pen make him not only immediately recognizable, but also a usable go-to villain whose utilization as a means of generating humorous reactions runs the risk of separating him from his deeds. As the comic appears to emphasize the randomness and shallowness of Hipster Hitler’s horrifying deeds, we ask whether this particular comedic angle can produce valuable engagement with the mechanisms that enabled the relentless and precise work of annihilation orchestrated during Hitler’s regime.

The Journal of Perpetrator Research (JPR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal committed to promoting the scholarly study of perpetrators and perpetration of political and mass violence, terrorism, and genocide. One of the journal’s aims is to engage critically with the very concepts of “perpetrator” and “perpetration”.JPR fosters scholarly discussions about perpetrators and perpetration across the broader continuum of political and mass violence without confining its attention to any particular geographical region or historical period. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for scholarship taking place across a broad range of fields including history, criminology, law, forensics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, memory studies, cultural studies, literary studies, film and media studies, museum studies, and education. JPR was created with the explicit aim of providing an inter- and cross-disciplinary space for the study of perpetrators and perpetration, including critical reflections on theories, methods, and approaches beyond, and between, and across disciplinary boundaries. JPR not only addresses past and present issues related to perpetrators and perpetration. Fundamental questions informing the journal include, for example, questions of terminology, motivation, ideology, agency, processes and dynamics, as well as questions of prevention: Who or what is a perpetrator? How is such a label applied and by whom? How do such labels evolve? What drives people to participate in mass violence and how do their crimes unfold? What measures can be taken to identify potential perpetrators before they act, and prevent them from committing crimes? What can be done to rehabilitate perpetrators after the fact?Another set of questions informing JPR pertains to the status and significance of the perpetrator as a discursive formation in legal, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural settings. How do societies come to terms with acts of perpetration and with the perpetrators themselves? What role does the figure of the perpetrator play in the popular imagination for different audiences? How do representations of perpetrators change over time and across geographical and cultural boundaries, as well as across different media, genres, and traditions? Finally, JPR is also interested in exploring questions of theory and method. What are the ethical and moral implications of studying perpetrators? How do ethical considerations influence the methodological and theoretical criteria of the inquiry? How does one address the inherent ambiguity, limitations, and contentiousness of labels such as “perpetrator,” and the strategic and political implications of their application in different contexts internationally?We seek innovative work on any aspect of the study of perpetrators and perpetration, both broader theoretical and methodological interventions into the field and work centering on more specific case studies and examples. Because of the journal’s interdisciplinary and global scope, all contributions should be written with an interdisciplinary and international readership in mind.We also invite proposals for special issues or special sections clustered around a particular topic or theme. If you would like to propose a special issue or section, please contact one of the editors.

The Journal of Perpetrator Research (JPR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal committed to promoting the scholarly study of perpetrators and perpetration of political and mass violence, terrorism, and genocide.JPR does not confine its attention to any particular geographical region or historical period - instead, it fosters scholarly discussions about perpetrators and perpetration across the broader continuum of political and mass violence. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for scholarship taking place within a broad range of fields including history, criminology, law, forensics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, memory studies, cultural studies, literary studies, film and media studies, museum studies, and education. In providing an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary space, the journal moves academic research on perpetrators and perpetration beyond, and between, disciplinary boundaries. JPR not only addresses issues related to perpetrators and perpetration in the past but also responds to present challenges. Fundamental questions informing the journal include, for example, questions of terminology, motivation, ideology, agency, processes and dynamics, as well as questions of prevention: Who or what is a perpetrator? How is such a label applied and by whom? How do such labels evolve? What drives people to commit acts of mass violence and genocide and how do these acts unfold? What measures can be taken to identify potential perpetrators before they act, and what can be done to prevent mass violence from occurring? What can be done to rehabilitate perpetrators after the fact? Another set of questions informing JPR pertains to the status and significance of the perpetrator as a discursive formation in legal, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural settings. How do societies come to terms with acts of perpetration and with the perpetrators themselves? What role does the figure of the perpetrator play in the popular imagination? How do representations of perpetrators change over time and across geographical and cultural boundaries as well as across different media, genres, and traditions? Finally, JPR is also interested in exploring questions of theory and method. What are the ethical and moral implications of studying perpetrators? How do ethical considerations influence the methodological and theoretical criteria of the inquiry? How does one address the inherent ambiguity, limitations, and contentiousness of labels such as “perpetrator,” and the strategic and political implications of their application?

Review of: Anacleto Ferrer, Facticidad y ficción: Ensayo sobre cinco secuencias fotográficas de perpetración de la Shoah (Santander: Shangrila, 2020). 228 pp. ISBN 978-8-4122-5680-2.

The Journal of Perpetrator Research (JPR) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal committed to promoting the scholarly study of perpetrators and perpetration of political and mass violence, terrorism, and genocide. One of the journal’s aims is to engage critically with the very concepts of “perpetrator” and “perpetration”.JPR fosters scholarly discussions about perpetrators and perpetration across the broader continuum of political and mass violence without confining its attention to any particular geographical region or historical period. The journal's mission is to provide a forum for scholarship taking place across a broad range of fields including history, criminology, law, forensics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, political science, memory studies, cultural studies, literary studies, film and media studies, museum studies, and education. JPR was created with the explicit aim of providing an inter- and cross-disciplinary space for the study of perpetrators and perpetration, including critical reflections on theories, methods, and approaches beyond, and between, and across disciplinary boundaries. JPR not only addresses past and present issues related to perpetrators and perpetration. Fundamental questions informing the journal include, for example, questions of terminology, motivation, ideology, agency, processes and dynamics, as well as questions of prevention: Who or what is a perpetrator? How is such a label applied and by whom? How do such labels evolve? What drives people to participate in mass violence and how do their crimes unfold? What measures can be taken to identify potential perpetrators before they act, and prevent them from committing crimes? What can be done to rehabilitate perpetrators after the fact?Another set of questions informing JPR pertains to the status and significance of the perpetrator as a discursive formation in legal, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural settings. How do societies come to terms with acts of perpetration and with the perpetrators themselves? What role does the figure of the perpetrator play in the popular imagination for different audiences? How do representations of perpetrators change over time and across geographical and cultural boundaries, as well as across different media, genres, and traditions? Finally, JPR is also interested in exploring questions of theory and method. What are the ethical and moral implications of studying perpetrators? How do ethical considerations influence the methodological and theoretical criteria of the inquiry? How does one address the inherent ambiguity, limitations, and contentiousness of labels such as “perpetrator,” and the strategic and political implications of their application in different contexts internationally?We seek innovative work on any aspect of the study of perpetrators and perpetration, both broader theoretical and methodological interventions into the field and work centering on more specific case studies and examples. Because of the journal’s interdisciplinary and global scope, all contributions should be written with an interdisciplinary and international readership in mind.We also invite proposals for special issues or special sections clustered around a particular topic or theme. If you would like to propose a special issue or section, please contact one of the editors.

<JATS1:p>This interdisciplinary collection by Jennalee Donian and Andrea Hurst brings together insights from various humanities disciplines to examine humor’s role in navigating complex political, cultural, and personal landscapes.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>Humor as Social Critique: Widening the African Perspective explores how humor functions as a powerful tool for social critique in the African context. Part I delves into humor's relationship with political critique, analyzing how comedians, writers, and artists use humor to resist oppressive power structures and foster dialogue. Part II examines humor’s potential for socio-cultural critique, exploring how it reflects and shapes cultural norms, identities, and power dynamics. Part III investigates the role of humor in self-critique, highlighting its therapeutic potential and ability to promote humility and self-awareness. By centering African perspectives while engaging with global voices, Humor as Social Critique challenges the notion that humor is a uniquely localized phenomenon. Instead, it celebrates humor’s ability to transcend geographical and cultural boundaries, enriching the tapestry of human experience. This book offers valuable insights for scholars and readers interested in the intersections of humor, culture, and social justice.</JATS1:p>

Writing pedagogy in the early years: A study of teacher beliefs, classroom practices and influences

The utilisation of theory, the conceptual framework, the theoretical framework, and the research framework is frequently required to be clearly articulated in academic studies. However, these terms are often used interchangeably without a clear understanding of their distinctions. This scenario is complicated because the terms theoretical, conceptual, and research frameworks are employed differently in different research approaches. This article aims to define these concepts and explain their usage with two research approaches: the objectivist deductive approach, which goes from theory to data, and the subjectivist inductive approach, which goes from data to theory, together with a research framework. The theoretical framework provides the foundation of established theories and principles underpinning the study, offering a broad lens through which the research phenomenon is understood. The conceptual framework, derived from the theoretical framework, refines the understanding by delineating specific constructs and their interrelationships, serving as a guide to address the research objectives. Meanwhile, the research framework translates these constructs into operationalised variables and methodologies, facilitating the systematic collection and analysis of data. Together, these frameworks ensure the study's alignment with established knowledge while enabling methodological rigour and clarity in addressing the research problem. Furthermore, the integration of research, conceptual, and theoretical frameworks not only guides the logical flow of a study and strengthens its academic foundation but also enhances its potential to generate meaningful insights across diverse domains, including business innovation and strategy, international business and marketing, technology and operations management, corporate governance and ethics, human resource and project management, and entrepreneurship.

The concept of boundary represents one of the fundamental philosophical issues triggered and required by the reflection upon geography – and ontology of geography specifically. But what kind of entity are geographical boundaries? What sorts of boundary have been identified by contemporary ontologists of geography? How can boundaries be classified from a geo-ontological point of view? What are the main contemporary classifications of geographical boundaries? How can culture and human beliefs influence such classifications? These questions represent the starting point of this paper, aimed at analyzing how the notion of boundary has been conceived by contemporary ontologists of geography, what kinds of geographical boundaries have been identified and categorized, and the influence eventually exerted by cultural diversities and human beliefs on such geo-ontological classifications. Primarily, we will take into account Smith’s and Galton’s taxonomies, which represent two of the most cited examples of comprehensive classifications of geographical boundaries encompassing physical, biological, psychological, social, and political phenomena. Secondly, starting from Smith’s and Mark’s considerations, the importance of cultural diversities and human beliefs for geo-ontological classifications will be discussed. As third, we will analyze the possibility of the existence of cultural boundaries and the prospect of categorizations that can influence, in their turn, beliefs, culture and individual or collective behavior. The idea is to show three different modalities through which culture and beliefs may have an influence on (and the power to modify) the definition and the individuation of geographical boundaries.

The notion of scenes has helped frame how particular clusters of cultural activities, practices, and "happenings" simultaneously replicate and transform global practices in specific localities. The study of scenes has aided us in examinations of how geographic and virtual localities create and shape global industries, movements, and genres. In this article, I focus on the Toronto game production scene to examine how it replicates and transforms the wider cultural norms, working conditions, and genre productions of the global game industry. Based on a two-year ethnography of the scene, I survey how gamemakers maintain and challenge the expected norms and practices of industry and platforms in the production of local games. To identify these clusters of cultural activity, I develop the notion of scenes as palimpsests to trace how gamemakers replicate and transform industry cultural norms and practices in the local scene. The last decade has seen the emergence of social media platforms as a venue for participants of scenes to discuss, create, and disseminate their works with geographically local and global audiences. The textual spaces of these platforms connect participants of local production scenes to a global community defined by geography, industry, and genre. By tracing scenes through its inscriptions, I examine how these platforms are centers for encounters between the values and practices of the Toronto game production scene and the wider industry. This article is about how the geographical cultural activities of scenes are shifting into virtual environments, and how these virtual spaces are transforming the cultural norms and practices of gamemaking and its associated activities, such as socials, game jams, and "talking shop." I argue that analyses of globalization must consider the wider physical and virtual infrastructures of local production to understand how cultural media are produced and circulated around the globe.

The method of residuals was recently used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to delineate seven flood regions for the state of Kentucky. An alternative approach is to use cluster analysis in conjunction with important statistical properties of the maximum annual flood‐peak series. Applying the FASTCLUS clustering procedure of the Statistical Analysis System, five cluster regions are identified using a similar data base as the USGS study. Flood regions delineated under these two methods of flood regionalization are then compared by examining trends in important hydrological characteristics within each of the regions, and through a discriminant analysis based upon watershed physical attributes. Results show that, although cluster regions are in no way similar to those defined by the method of residuals nor coincident with geographical boundaries, they are more distinguishable and better discriminated in terms of the hydrological characteristics controlling flood response than the USGS regions. Furthermore, standard errors associated with the regression equations relating the log‐Pearson, Type‐III 50‐year flood estimate to watershed physical attributes are comparable under the two methods of regionalization.

In this paper, we ask whether it is possible to build an IP address to geographic location mapping service for Internet hosts. Such a service would enable a large and interesting class of location-aware applications. This is a challenging problem because an IP address does not inherently contain an indication of location.We present and evaluate three distinct techniques, collectively referred to as IP2Geo, for determining the geographic location of Internet hosts. The first technique, Geo Track, infers location based on the DNS names of the target host or other nearby network nodes. The second technique, GeoPing, uses network delay measurements from geographically distributed locations to deduce the coordinates of the target host. The third technique, GeoCluster, combines partial (and possibly inaccurate) host-to-location mapping information and BGP prefix information to infer the location of the target host. Using extensive and varied data sets, we evaluate the performance of these techniques and identify fundamental challenges in deducing geographic location from the IP address of an Internet host.