In 2020, Bill C92, or an Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Metis Children, Youth and Families, came into force in Canada. The Act historically recognized and affirmed Indigenous jurisdiction over child and family services and established national minimal standards for service delivery. In 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of the Act in an appeal from a Quebec Court of Appeal reference case. The Court stressed all parts of the Act must be viewed as “integrated parts of a unified whole” and required the braiding together of Indigenous laws, state laws and international laws into a “single strong rope.” The Act’s aspirations remain in tension with ongoing challenges in implementation. This article outlines the main provisions of the Act. It then examines the law-making efforts and accomplishments of Indigenous governments exercising jurisdiction using the Act, along with some of the hopes and obstacles encountered through this work. Next, it considers some of the emerging jurisprudence interpreting the Act, and some of the implications this case law has on whether the stated purposes of the Act are being achieved. It concludes by highlighting the ongoing uncertainty and hopes for realizing the full potential and aspirations of the Act.

The human need for belonging and identity (stemming from the need for belonging) is strong. This article begins by discussing these needs, drawing on the theories of Abraham Maslow and Erik Erikson. Forceful societal trends in the early twenty-first-century world have been creating a new societal context that tends to disrupt historical, relatively simple trajectories of identity formation. These trends are then subsumed under two megatrends that operate in the contemporary world. The first is globalisation, evident in the world since c.1990 as “Globalisation 3.0”. One outcome of Globalisation 3.0 is identity flux. Around 2015, a trend of deglobalisation became evident around the world. Populism is one of the manifestations of this counter-trend, a manifestation that is also visible in identity formation patterns. Education, citizenship educationin particular, has long been looked up to as instrument of political socialisation and identity formation, and these counter-trends tend to impact it, as well. The thesis of this article is that citizenship education, as it is presented in the education systems of the contemporary world, could be deemed to be anachronistically simple and hence requires adaptations in response to the exigencies of this new, changed global context. Finally, we suggest some guidelines for a reconceptualised citizenship education attuned to the exigencies of the new unfolding global context.

Wealth and power have been recognized as being unequally concentrated within specific families. While research on social mobility has been limited to defined outcomes (e.g., occupation, income, and education) in specific contexts, the rise of big data has spurred broader network analysis. Using a comprehensive genealogical database of 30 million individuals in the Western Hemisphere, we analyzed how familial background, gender, and occupational domains influence the probability of individuals attaining “fame” in their lifetime. Individuals with famous parents are more likely to become famous themselves, especially males. Unexpectedly, we identified more than 10,000 famous individuals who are closely related, comprising 25.6% of all famous individuals in the entire dataset. While the underlying sample may have representativeness issues, the findings suggest that famous individuals are not isolated figures but often part of broader interconnected family networks.

This paper examines secondary rock art practices in southern Africa and how they served as mechanisms for expressing and negotiating identity through iterative engagement with existing artistic traditions. Often dismissed as mere ’graffiti’ or vandalism, these practices of modifying, adding to, or reinterpreting historic rock art represent sophisticated forms of engagement with inherited cultural landscapes. Through detailed analysis of mode, placement, and technique, this article demonstrates how secondary artists used existing imagery as both physical and symbolic resources, selectively mobilising earlier artforms to articulate their own positions within changing social worlds. With their technical choices encoding specific attitudes towards inherited traditions, secondary artists appear as one of many audiences—a range which includes contemporary researchers—engaging with these artistic traditions as subjects of common interest, their modifications creating material epistolaries that capture how different communities understood and positioned themselves relative to their own imaginations of the past. By reconceptualising these practices as meaningful interpretive acts rather than degradation, this paper contributes to broader discussions about how African identities have been articulated, contested, and preserved through active engagement with cultural heritage across time.

This ethnographic study explores the Durham Bubble Tea Society as a site of cultural identity and transnational belonging among university students. Through qualitative data collection, including interviews and questionnaires, this research investigates why students feel the need to establish a society centered around bubble tea, a drink with deep cultural resonance in East Asia but also a globalized product. The study identifies three overarching themes: maintaining original lifestyles amid transnational mobility, cosmopolitan aspirations and the symbolism of bubble tea, and the hybrid space of the Bubble Tea Society. These themes highlight how the society functions as a third space, bridging cultural divides and fostering transcultural connections. The findings contribute to broader theoretical discussions on transnational identity, cosmopolitan belonging, and the role of cultural artifacts in shaping globalized identities. This study underscores the importance of third spaces in fostering inclusivity and understanding, emphasizing the need for critical engagement with cultural symbols to ensure authentic cosmopolitan belonging.

This article ‘Ngā Kare-ā-roto: The Ripples Within’ provides an overview of findings related to Māori views, understanding and expressions of emotions through a Māori cultural lens. One of the key findings from the research project ‘Ngā Kare-ā-roto’ highlighted that emotions are expressed through a range of cultural practices that have served to bring collective understandings to support emotional wellbeing for Māori. At the centre of this research is the revitalisation of ancestral knowledge and practices to support emotional expression. The social and cultural significance of this project is highlighted by Indigenous researchers who have noted the direct relationship of emotions such as grief and trauma to wellbeing. This article provides an outline of kaikōrero (speakers/participants) views on the place of whakataukī (proverbial sayings) in the expression of emotions and emotional states of being. We begin with an overview of the significance of this work to supporting wellbeing and healing. We then move to providing a range of examples that were shared throughout the project that give insights into the ways in which emotions for Māori are framed within our ancestral and cultural understandings, in particular in regards to collective expressions of tikanga (cultural practices) and whakataukī that have been handed down through te reo Māori (Māori language) as sources of knowledge, guidance and learning.

This essay examines relationships between adoptees and the (extended) adoptive family, focusing on the inheritance rights of adopted persons as entry points into levels and cycles of their belonging and un-belonging. The essay contextualizes a case report (or summary reports) on the kind of estrangement in the adoptee world that is fueled by inheritance disputes. It delves into postadoption perceptions and thus into the “unwritten” truths about adoption and its possible fallout. It draws from archival sources, semi-structured interviews (life-story interviewing), and life writing by adoptees, and also from a sequence of real-life exchanges dating back to 2018. All these sources focus on the contested inheritance of children, now older adults, who were adopted from Greece in the 1950s–60s and who became (or should have become) subsequent heirs to the estates of their adoptive parents and/or relatives. The Greek out-of-country adoptions of the postwar and early Cold War era involved more than 4000 children, most of whom were sent to the United States. The various testimonies and sections reflect critically on the continuing trend to infantilize the adopted persons, forever the adopted children, to push their origins back into the past and into geographical distance, to untie the family connections they have forged over the course of half a century. The examples take the reader from the adoptive family’s pre-adoption attempts at disowning the child through the postadoption stage of the end of an adopted lifetime, including cases of the extended adoptive family’s attempts at “de-adopting” the adopted person. This essay includes various sources of life-cycle documentation, among them an extensive case study and online obituaries. It adheres to truth and authenticity by incorporating fairly long original quotations, which, in the case study of the second half especially, assist the reader in comprehending much historical information in a question-and-answer format. This bolder structure offers the advantage of taking the reader step by step through the transactions of a prominent Greek adoption scheme (Rebecca and Maurice Issachar) and also through the various layers of the postadoption mindset and minefield. The material presented here is intended to raise awareness that change can and must still benefit the Greek adoptees today, whose lives may have been permeated by conditionality and nonlinearity. I conclude that, in the cases discussed here, the child’s orphanhood may well be a perpetual state, with the adoptee being orphaned of individuality and of a protective family on more than just one occasion.

Set within the context of the calls for a critical approach to the integration of international students, this paper draws on decolonial theories to examine the experiences of international students from Asian and African countries as they make sense of institutional policies designed to support their integration. The study uses a phenomenological approach to analyse focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with international postgraduate students. The findings reveal how international students demand the decolonisation of a “Eurocentric” curriculum and a pedagogical framework that acknowledges their experiences and agencies as epistemic equals. Participants expressed diverse opinions about the institution’s academic culture, while inclusion policies are perceived as “tokenistic gestures” that fail to address racial invalidation and microaggressions. Findings from this study suggest the need for institutions in “post-race” times to transcend superficial equality discourses that commodify diversity as “good business sense”, targeting raced, mobile, and gendered “others” for inclusion by situating EDI strategies within a much longer history of global entanglements shaped by colonial, capitalist relations, rationalities, and subjectivities.

This paper explores the intersection of art, fashion, and decolonisation within First Nations communities, focusing on how clothing and adornment are powerful tools for healing, cultural survival, and resistance. Through art programs, fashion workshops, and community-based projects, First Nations peoples reconnect with culture, land, and history, fostering identity and continuity while addressing the traumas of colonisation. This paper examines how First Nations artists and designers engage with traditional garments, such as kangaroo skin cloaks and shell necklaces, to reclaim ancestral practices and challenge colonial traumas. By reinterpreting colonial clothes and creating new forms of fashion, artists engage in truth-telling, amplify resilience, and promote reconciliation. This paper highlights the role of art and fashion as an aesthetic expression and a strategy for cultural survival and resistance. It concludes by offering recommendations for policies and programs that support First Nations fashion initiatives, fostering economic opportunities, social well-being, and intergenerational healing. Ultimately, this paper advocates for the transformative power of art and fashion as pathways to decolonisation and empowerment for First Nations communities.

Afghan refugees are at the forefront of international attention amidst the unfolding global refugee crisis. Having borne witnesses to the horrors of war, fled their homeland, and endured the tragic loss of loved ones, they suffered a psychological trauma that reshaped their cognitive and emotional frameworks. This cross-sectional survey explores the prevalence and comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder among Afghan refugees living in Haripur, Pakistan, and the intergenerational transmission of PTSD across their three generations. Researchers collected data from 48 male participants representing three generations of 16 Afghan refugee families using the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale for DSM-5-TR. The findings revealed a significant positive correlation between posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, indicating a substantial co-occurrence of posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. About 79.20% of total participants were diagnosed with posttraumatic obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it was more prevalent among the first generation (87.5%) than in the second and third generations (75.0%) each—additionally, significant variability across generations in the prevalence of PTSD. The first-generation refugees experienced severe and very severe symptoms (12.5%), the second-generation experienced moderate symptoms, and the third-generation experienced mild symptoms (16.6%). These results emphasize the importance of addressing the comorbidity of both disorders in refugee communities to underscore their intergenerational adverse mental health outcomes.