ABSTRACT. A found poem is ‘a poem constructed using direct quotes from others and offers an arts-based approach to presenting literature or research findings’ (Chaffe, 2020: 111). This involves researchers taking and rearranging verbatim quotes to represent a particular theme in a poetic manner. Found poems became popular in qualitative research around the 1990s where researchers, particularly feminists, became entangled in ethical struggles surrounding voice, power, and representation (Butler-Kisber, 2019). Such researchers sought to find alternative and experimental ways to analyse and represent data that could ‘retain the voices of their participants, and to communicate more evocatively and accessibly’ (Butler-Kisber, 2019: 3). Found poems are forms of “poetic inquiry” which can be seen to “queer” texts by challenging normative ways of presenting and examining research data. This approach is reflected by Hirschfield (1997: 7) who suggests that poetry gives way to ‘a different way of knowing’.

My doctoral thesis applies found poems to a disability studies context, exploring how creative methods can support data analysis. Found poems were employed in my research as a tool for data analysis, helping me to identify patterns and themes throughout my data. Taking verbatim quotes from my participants, along with notes from my own ethnographic observations, I developed poetry by combining similar ideas together to help me understand issues important to my participants and develop thematic codes. This fused together mine and my participants' voices, ensuring analysis was guided by patterns present in my data. This presentation will explore what found poems are, how they have currently been utilized in sociological research, and how to develop found poems as a tool for data analysis, sharing my own found poems as a guide.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project conducted within the framework of the PRIN programme TraMigrArt. The project aims to investigate the narrative production of migrant writers in Italy between 2013 and 2024, with a specific focus on novels and autobiographical novels catalogued in the BASILI-LIMM database. The selected corpus comprises works by first- and second-generation non-European authors who write in Italian and thematically engage with the migratory experience.

The research pursues multiple analytical objectives. First, it examines the distribution of gender and nationality among the authors. Second, it explores the thematic evolution of migrant literature in the Italian context, paying particular attention to the representational modes through which migrant subjectivities are constructed. Third, the study aims to identify the semiotic field underpinning the narrative discourse and to trace how individual and collective migratory experiences are transformed into literary form.

Methodologically, the project adopts a mixed approach, combining quantitative and qualitative tools. The analysis relies on the use of T-LAB software for text analysis, enabling the identification of recurrent semantic clusters and discursive patterns across the corpus. The current stage of research is based on an exploratory analysis of a sample of 18 novels.

In order to assess both continuities and ruptures in the trajectory of migrant literary production in Italy, the findings will be critically compared with the trends observed in the 1990–2012 period, as outlined by Gibellini (2013). This comparative perspective allows for a diachronic understanding of the evolving forms of cultural expression within migrant literature and contributes to broader debates on literature, identity, and social change in contemporary European societies.

ABSTRACT. This paper develops an ethnographic study of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City, exploring how Future Screen technologies reshape urban space, audience engagement, and content consumption within an immersive digital world. Positioned within the broader discourse on creative and entertainment industries, the study examines the social and individual impacts of emerging screen-based technologies. Firstly, the paper investigates how Cyberpunk 2077 reimagines urban environments through virtual spaces, blending technology and architecture. Night City’s diverse districts—ranging from skyscrapers to industrial slums—reflect distinct cultural identities, redefining geography, mobility, and material culture. These digital spaces serve as both dystopian landscapes and interactive playgrounds, shaping the experiences of their virtual inhabitants. Secondly, the study examines the role of new media and videogames in transforming content creation and consumption. Procedural storytelling and player agency reflect a shift towards participatory narratives, enabling personalized and embodied experiences. The styles, behaviors, and identities of Night City’s inhabitants — corporate elites, rebels, mercenaries — illustrate the connection between technology, identity, and material culture in speculative digital environments. Additionally, the research highlights the decentralized and participatory nature of creative practices in future screen spaces. The aesthetics and cultural expressions within Night City provide a case study for hybrid creative communities and new narrative structures. The game blurs between reality and simulation, encouraging reflection on the social implications of new media. Beyond its analytical contributions, this study also underscores the potential of digital ethnography as a pedagogical tool. By engaging with virtual urban environments, students can develop critical ethnographic skills in a controlled setting, allowing them to observe, interpret, and analyze social behaviors, cultural markers, and spatial configurations in a way that mirrors real-world fieldwork. This approach expands the possibilities for teaching ethnography, demonstrating how immersive digital worlds can function as laboratories for exploring social interactions and the relationship between technology and urban life.

ABSTRACT. Compared to more common creative methods like theatre or storytelling, Kamishibai —a Japanese puppetry technique combining illustrated cards and narration— has been underexplored as an art-based method for dissemination and, especially, for data collection in social research. Its multimodal nature —storytelling, illustration, and performance— offers a unique tool for participatory, creative, and visual practices in qualitative research, allowing deeper engagement with participants and revealing themes that may otherwise remain invisible or unspoken. Kamishibai also creates a space for marginalized voices and perspectives, where personal beliefs, lived experiences, and social injustices can be explored. This paper presents two case studies where Kamishibai was employed in educational and research settings. The first case comes from a University of Bologna course for disability support teachers, where students used Kamishibai to challenge stereotypes related to race, gender, and ableism. Participants adapted existing stories and created original narratives and illustrations, confronting their biases and deconstructing stereotypes. However, the introduction of Kamishibai revealed key challenges, such as the persistence of personal biases despite theoretical competence, the difficulty of addressing intersectional stereotypes, and the risk of reinforcing new stereotypes, particularly through narratives of exceptionalism. The minimal text format of Kamishibai also prompted discussions on the power of language, the use of medicalized terms, and the importance of inclusive visual representation. The second case comes from an art therapy workshop with autistic adults in Bologna, where Kamishibai was used to empower participants to express themselves beyond verbal communication. Ethical challenges arose, particularly regarding authorship, consent, and ownership, especially when considering the potential sharing of participants' creative work. Despite these challenges, Kamishibai proved to be an invaluable tool for participatory data collection in social research, promoting critical reflection, collaboration, and engagement with complex social issues.

ABSTRACT. Graphic narratives are increasingly recognized as both methodological and communicative tools in the social sciences. By integrating text and image, they expand the ways researchers interpret and represent social phenomena, opening up new possibilities for sociology to engage with embodied, affective, and multilayered portrayals of social reality.

Unlike traditional textual narratives, graphic narratives rely on spatial and sequential arrangements, multimodal storytelling, and visual metaphors. These affordances enrich sociological inquiry by capturing lived experience in ways that embrace its complexity, contradictions, and subjectivities. As such, graphic narratives can serve as powerful tools for empirical research, autoethnography, and theoretical exploration. At the same time, their distinctive qualities raise critical questions of representation, reflexivity, and positionality, inviting deeper reflection on how they construct meaning and enhance our understanding of the social world.

This presentation results from an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue between a sociologist and a graphic artist on the intersections of sociological inquiry and visual storytelling. Drawing from our experience co-organizing a creative methods school on Graphic Narrative for the Social Sciences, we explore how comics and illustration can be used to produce and disseminate sociological knowledge. The school is structured around four interconnected dimensions: auto-reflexivity, memory and representation, fiction and imaginaries, and communication and knowledge-sharing. By positioning graphic narratives not only as a means of dissemination but also as a generative tool in the research process itself, the school fosters an experimental approach to interdisciplinary exploration, offering different ways of thinking through and representing social life.

Through a reflection on the school’s structure and outcomes, this presentation examines how graphic narratives and sociological inquiry can challenge and enrich each other. We critically explore the intersections, tensions, and possibilities that arise when integrating these two modes of knowledge production, questioning their potential as both analytical tools and alternative forms of sociological engagement.

ABSTRACT. My PhD project explores gender transitions and trans embodiment creatively, moving beyond conventional understandings of transness and transitioning. Conceptualising trans embodiment as a relational, multiplicitous, and messy process, this research engages with the boundary-making processes between human/non-human and body/non-body and interrogates transnormative frameworks that prioritise linear progression or bodily incongruence.

As transdisciplinary project, it draws on trans studies, critical disability studies, and new materialisms, among others. The methodology is grounded in non-representational ethnography, creative methods such as collaging, drawing and reflexive mapping, and semi-structured interviews. These methods are employed to approach the more-than-human aspects of embodiment playfully where participants can experiment with (re)presenting their transitions in non-verbal and creative ways. Simultaneously, this approach allows for a deep engagement with participants’ lived experiences and captures the affective flows and fluidities of transitioning, while troubling anthropocentric and individualistic frameworks of knowledge production.

Preliminary findings suggest transitions are often labour-intensive, experimental processes characterised by diverse temporalities, e.g. slowness, circularity, and incoherence, rendering transing embodiments as open-ended endeavours of un/re/doing, sensing and experimenting. This project contributes a more-than-human perspective of gender transitions by exploring alternative ways of thinking about subjectivity and relationality in this context.

ABSTRACT. Adopting a methodology that, in continuity with Morin’s (2017) teaching, considers the novel to bring to sociology a possible cognitive resource (Lassave 2002; Baroni 2006, Meizoz 2006; Merrone2006), this study focuses on a corpus of novels published in Italy and France since 2009 - the year following the spread of Facebook in the two countries - in order to observe according to which interpretive modes they discuss the relationship between the human and the social media, particularly with regard to the processes of production, dissemination and fruition of culture. We will focus on one of the most defining contradictions in contemporary society: the tension - of Enlightenment origin, and exacerbated by the spread of digital devices (Doueihi 2022) - that pits two competing models for the circulation of knowledge. On the one hand, the aspiration for the most capillary dissemination of knowledge possible; on the other, a vision that tends to relegate “digital” production - metonymically represented by smartphones and social media - to an ancillary role with respect to “high” and “institutional” cultural expressions. By identifying the narratological and metaphorical structures (Ricoeur, 1984) underlying the construction of characters in a selection of novels (including Alexandre Postel’s Un homme effacé (2013), Stépanie Dupays’ Comme elle l’imagine (2019), This is not what I dreamed of as a child by Sara Canfailla and Jolanda Di Virgilio (2021), Irene Graziosi’s The Profile of the Other (2022)), and placing them in dialogue with more recent sociological theories on digital culture (e.g., The Digital Culture. Cardon 2019, Balbi 2022, Carboni 2022), we will advance the hypothesis that in the topos of the “disgraced cultural professional” it is possible to identify the figure that is emerging to represent the anxieties related to the processes of democratization of culture fueled by digital technologies.

ABSTRACT. The 'Lived Democracy in Small Island States: Sociopolitical Dynamics of Governance, Power, and Participation in Malta and Singapore' research employs a multimodal ethnographic approach to examine the lived experience of democracy in small island states, focusing on Malta and Singapore. By integrating participant observation, political ethnography, and digital ethnographic tools, this research critically engages with how power, governance, and civic participation are enacted and contested within these unique sociopolitical environments​.

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, the study explores how political networks, patronage systems, and informal governance shape democratic engagement​.

Ethnography serves as a reflexive method for capturing both the embodied and digital dimensions of participation, revealing the interplay between institutional mechanisms and everyday lived experiences. The research foregrounds the tensions between traditional cultural norms and modern democratic ideals, particularly in contexts where democracy is mediated through symbolic power and exclusionary politics​.

This methodological reflection considers the epistemological challenges of studying governance in small states, where political proximity heightens the researcher’s positionality and influences access to data​.

The study adopts a situated knowledge framework, recognising that meaning-making is contingent on specific historical, social, and cultural contexts​.

Furthermore, by integrating multimodal techniques such as video, photography, and digital fieldwork, it expands the heuristic potential of ethnography to capture contemporary political transformations​.

Ultimately, this research contributes to methodological debates on reflexivity in political ethnography, demonstrating how multimodal techniques enhance the production of context-specific knowledge in studying governance, power, and civic engagement in small island states​.

ABSTRACT. In our contribution, we aim to illustrate the commonalities and differences in ethnographic processes based on two pedagogical organizational research studies with an ethnographic focus. The first research project is conducted in cooperation with an organization in child and youth welfare, whereas the second study examines a purpose-driven business enterprise. With an organizational-pedagogical focus, both projects are particularly interested in learning and culture within and across organizations. Ethnographic approaches in the context of organizational research are often understood as in-depth methods that enable the reconstruction of organizational cultures, thereby making them accessible for analysis. However, these approaches can vary significantly and lead to distinctly different procedures. Differences within the two research projects can be found, for example, in the types of organizations and in their research objectives. A key commonality between both studies is the question of organizational cultures and the significance they hold for organizational members. By comparing these two research projects, we seek to highlight how ethnographic work generates knowledge and what potential challenges arise in the process. In our presentation, we will conduct a critical analysis based on this comparison, discussing what kind of results are produced through different approaches and the role that researchers' perspectives and attitudes play in this process.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the value of the ‘in place’ approach to ethnography (Lindquist, 2009), within a multi-sited research focused on solidarity initiatives along the Western Balkan route. The researcher undertook fieldwork in a highly engaged and participatory way, volunteering for a year in the "free shops" of two local NGOs in Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Zagreb (Croatia). These NGOs provide support to migrants in transit, asylum seekers, and local marginalized groups. The term "free shop" is used by the staff to refer to a room set up like a ‘store’, where people can freely take the pieces of equipment they need.

As suggested by Lindquist (2009), examining mobility dynamics from the ‘station’ – that is, adopting a ‘static’ perspective – proves particularly valuable for understanding its social organisation. Along the routes, solidarity groups, by forging alliances with migrants, contribute to the social organisation of their journeys to the EU. In both Sarajevo and Zagreb, citizens have taken active steps to create NGOs – or, following the metaphor, ‘stations’: solidarity spaces where both permanence and mobility are renegotiated, within these two ‘migratory crossroads’ (Queirolo Palmas, Rahola, 2020). For the researcher, volunteering alongside the local NGOs staff became intertwined with the activities of ‘doing’ and ‘writing’ ethnography (Emerson et al., 1995).

In conclusion, by focusing on solidarity actors and assuming their static position along the Western Balkan route, this proposal discusses the pivotal role of engaging in daily activities with research participants, where the process of doing things together becomes a key element informing both the ethnographic work and the selection of the research sites. Furthermore, in analysing field access, this proposal highlights the crucial role of shared biographical traits between the researcher and participants, emphasising the importance of grounding knowledge in a highly participatory research design within the context of social work.

ABSTRACT. This article presents a 360-degree ethnographic methodology for studying feminist activism, focusing on Instagram influencers in Italy. The approach integrates both online and offline spaces to provide a comprehensive understanding of how these hybrid activists navigate the digital and physical realms in shaping feminist discourse. The study centers on influencers with at least 10,000 followers, whose notoriety has primarily been built through digital platforms and who focus on feminist content.

At the heart of this methodology is a participatory, collaborative approach, where influencers are not only subjects of observation but also active participants in the research process. By involving the influencers as co-creators of knowledge, this framework allows their insights, motivations, and experiences to inform the analysis, ensuring their perspectives guide the study of their roles as feminist activists.

The research involves participant observation of the influencers’ online content—such as posts, stories, and reels—alongside co-constructed interviews to explore their engagement with digital platforms, motivations, and feminist perspectives. These interviews provide influencers with the space to steer the conversation and reflect on their activism. Additionally, the study extends to offline events, such as book presentations, public debates, and other activist gatherings, to explore how the influencers translate their digital presence into real-world engagement. These offline observations offer a richer understanding of how their digital activism intersects with face-to-face interactions and community-building.

The article also addresses the ethical challenges involved in researching digital activism, particularly in relation to ephemeral content, consent, privacy, and the responsibilities of including influencers as active participants. This 360-degree ethnographic methodology offers a more holistic and nuanced perspective on feminist activism, highlighting how online and offline spheres converge in hybrid forms of engagement.

ABSTRACT. For a long time, discourse research was mainly concerned with data that was produced without majour intervention or construction by the researcher. New approaches are now choosing ethnographic approaches to the research field and thus expanding classical discourse analysis to include the method of participant observation and interviews (Keller, 2019). The focus is then no longer solely on the reconstruction of social reality production, but on the everyday negotiation and production of discourses. Here, the interplay of discursive and non-discursive practices and materialities is of fundamental importance (Foucault, 1994, p. 74). The methodological considerations for the investigation of this interplay is the topic of my contribution. In this session, I would like to present the structure and initial results of my transnational dissertation project. I am investigating security and migration discourses in the practical field of schools in Germany and France. The central question is how orders of knowledge about security in the migration society are (re-)produced in social practices in the school environment. I understand security as a phenomenon negotiated in everyday discourses and produced in social practices, which in Europe is related to migration discourses (Bigo, 2002, p. 64). I examine the everyday negotiation and production of discourses using an ethnographic research design. I would like to focus in particular on the relationship between discourse and materiality and the empirical investigation of this relationship. How can materiality be methodologically appropriately addressed in discourse analytical work? Bigo, D. (2002). Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease. Alternatives, 27, S. 63-92. Foucault, M. (1994). Dits et écrits. 1954-1988. 3e volume (ed. D. Defert & F. Ewald). Gallimard. Keller, R. (2019). Die Untersuchung von Dispositiven. Zur fokussierten Diskurs- und Dispositivethnografie in der Wissenssoziologischen Diskursanalyse. In: S. Bosančić & R. Keller (Hrsg.), Diskursive Konstruktionen(S. 51-73). Springer.

ABSTRACT. Guided by critical pedagogy and decolonization theory, this study critically examines how Discover Canada, the official citizenship guide, represents First Nations Peoples and their histories. Employing discourse and visual analysis, I investigate the textual and visual narratives that shape newcomers’ understanding of Canadian identity (Hyslop-Healy, 2022; Nordquist, 2020). Through this lens, I aim to reveal the deeper implications of how the guide portrays the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.

Methodologically, the study scrutinizes language use, such as emotionally charged terminology and structural elements, alongside imagery within the guide. By referring to settlers as "invaders" or "colonizers" and addressing colonialism’s enduring impacts, this approach challenges dominant narratives and exposes how colonial ideologies remain embedded in Canada’s historical storytelling (Jafri, 2012).

Preliminary findings indicate that Discover Canada frequently oversimplifies or distorts Indigenous histories, perpetuating narratives that reinforce settler-colonial ideologies. For instance, while recent revisions have removed problematic phrases, the guide still omits critical details, such as the true implications of treaties and the legacies of residential schools (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). Visual elements further contribute to this distortion, often sidelining Indigenous perspectives in favor of glorified settler narratives (Hyslop-Healy, 2022).

These misrepresentations have profound implications, shaping how newcomers perceive Canada’s past and its reconciliation efforts. As Yoshida (2014) notes, such biased education risks perpetuating structural racism, while research by the Environics Institute (2016) highlights that immigrant are eager to learn about Indigenous histories and support reconciliation.

This research calls for a reimagining of the citizenship guide—one that authentically integrates Indigenous narratives. By addressing representational gaps, we can contribute to a more inclusive and truthful vision of Canadian identity, fostering mutual respect and understanding.

ABSTRACT. Photography as a research tool in violence prevention is not only applicable to the city of Pomona but also offers valuable insights for international comparisons. By capturing the lived experiences of communities affected by violence, photography provides a universal medium for analyzing socio-environmental factors across different cultural and geographical contexts. While traditional (police) data collection methods vary between countries due to differences in reporting structures, legal frameworks, and social attitudes toward violence, photography transcends these limitations by visually documenting commonalities and contrasts in the urban landscapes where violence occurs. Internationally, photography can reveal patterns of violence linked to environmental neglect, social marginalization, or inadequate urban planning, enabling researchers to identify similarities between cities facing high crime rates. For example, visual documentation from different regions can highlight shared risk factors such as poorly lit areas, abandoned buildings, or lack of community spaces—issues that contribute to insecurity across various cross-national contexts. Moreover, photography facilitates cross-cultural dialogue by allowing local communities to express their perceptions of violence and safety in ways that resonate beyond national borders. Additionally, photography enhances participatory action research across diverse contexts. For example, in a European, North American, or Latin American context, community members can use photography to document their realities, providing policymakers and researchers with grassroots perspectives that are often absent from official crime statistics. This approach fosters a comparative understanding of how social, economic, and political structures shape experiences of violence and prevention efforts worldwide. By integrating photography into international research on violence prevention, we can create a more holistic and inclusive analysis that highlights both localized and global trends. This visual method can bridge gaps between data-driven approaches and human-centered narratives, making it a powerful tool for shaping policy discussions on a broader scale.

ABSTRACT. Cultural and political movements are created and expressed visually, among other means. Cinema, cable television, and contemporary online video platforms distribute loaded messages that shape our worldviews. Analyzing the visually conveyed cultural messages on a large scale is thus essential for understanding culture. However, there is still a lack of sophisticated means and approaches for doing that. In this article, we propose a pipeline for detecting, typologizing, and quantifying visual cultural phenomena. As a case study, we first analyze the visual representation of Leninism – one of the foundational doctrines of the Soviet Union as it is presented in the central Soviet newsreel series Soyuzkinozhurnal, and Novosti Dnya from 1918 to 1992. Using multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs), we introduce a method for creating a ‘Leninism score’ - a heuristic score to identify different types of temporally evolving phenomena. This allows us to detect, typologize, and quantify the portrayals of Leninism and quantify their prevalence frame by frame. The proposed pipeline merges the nuanced understanding of the culture of the humanities with the large-scale and systematic approach of computer vision while simultaneously exploring the benefits and limitations of the computational study of visual cultural phenomena. Our pipeline proposes a method for creating meaningful prompt questions and is independent of any particular model, making it transferable and comparable with newly developed models. The proposed pipeline can also be applied to detect and study other visual cultural phenomena on a large scale, opening the venue for cultural and cross-cultural comparison on a large scale.

ABSTRACT. Narrative research methods are based on the idea that our lives are stories we reflexively engage with and that can be changed by events. Life mapping is a visual method used to enhance this process, with well-documented advantages such as the ability to adapt to different ways of thinking (verbal or visual) and to improve the researcher-respondent relationship. However, the advantages of life mapping in longitudinal qualitative studies specifically remain underexplored in the academic literature. So, what does it mean to use life mapping to study developments over time? And how can it help a diverse research population engage with their life stories? This paper addresses these questions by discussing a repeated life map design developed for a longitudinal study of people moving between sheltered and paid employment. We developed this design to understand the relationship — changing over time — between past experiences and the meaning of work in the present and future. The central question of this paper is: What are the potential advantages and challenges of repeated life mapping in longitudinal qualitative studies? We found that, rather than simply asking whether anything has changed, the use of repeated life maps offers an opportunity for deeper reflection —sometimes even any reflection at all — on the evolving relationships between past experiences and the meaning of work. In the results, we reflect on adapting repeated life mapping to individual needs and abilities within a diverse research population. With this paper, we hope to inform and perhaps inspire researchers who are considering the use of repeated life maps and similar visual elements in longitudinal qualitative studies.

ABSTRACT. What is the value of applying visual methods in researching sensitive topics among hard to study populations, such as orphaned children in southern Africa? The premise of this paper is that it might be more accessible or easier for certain children to draw about sensitive themes than to talk about it. For example, Mitchell (2006) states that ‘a drawing may sometimes express what a child cannot or does not wish to say aloud’. Orphaned children in southern Africa, who lost one or both parents in the context of the HIV epidemic can be considered a hard to study population. These children are not used to be asked for their opinion, topics as HIV/Aids and death are surrounded by taboos, and parental death is a sensitive topic to explore. Studies that explored this theme, describe that responses remained limited when young orphans were interviewed on their feelings about their parent’s death. Therefore, visual methods can be an important tool in data collection among such groups. Firstly, this paper presents a literature review on the use of visual methods to study sensitive topics among children. Secondly, it examines the use of drawings and paintings in an ethnographic study on twenty-one orphaned children in rural Namibia. It presents a few cases where drawings elicited insightful information on death and disease that children had not expressed in verbal interviews.

ABSTRACT. Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is commonly defined as any computational technique capable of mimicking human behavior and decision-making, either with human intervention or, in its most advanced forms, autonomously (Russell & Norvic, 2021; Micalizzi, 2024). A significant part of the academic debate revolves around whether AI can genuinely be considered “intelligent,” with scholars highlighting the ontological ambiguity of the term (Esposito, 2017; 2022). The anthropomorphization of AI further complicates this discourse, as language often attributes human-like abilities to algorithms, reinforcing misconceptions about their actual cognitive capabilities (Hertmann, 2018).

From a socio-cultural perspective, AI can be understood both as a medium that influences cultural production and as a tool for analyzing digital environments. As a medium, AI interposes itself in everyday relationships, shaping meaning-making processes and mediating interactions. Simultaneously, its computational power enables the extraction, processing, and categorization of vast amounts of digital content, positioning it as a crucial instrument for research and data analysis (Birchan & Salah, 2022; Deranty & Corbin, 2022). These dual roles make AI both an object of study and a methodological asset for investigating digital cultural phenomena. Platforms, algorithms, and deep learning models can be observed as cultural artifacts, reflecting societal patterns and values. At the same time, AI can function as a powerful analytical tool, facilitating large-scale data analysis through interactive processes such as prompt-based research. Unlike traditional participant observation, AI-assisted research introduces a new form of participated observation, where scholars engage in dialogic interactions with AI to identify patterns, extract insights, and navigate extensive datasets. This papers aims to explore these two intertwined dimensions, hrough empirical studies and theoretical reflections.

ABSTRACT. Stakeholders involved in designing, developing, and deploying AI systems often overlook the negative social implications of the technologies they produce. This study, conducted within an Italian software house developing an AI system, combines an ethnographic approach with assessment frameworks to foster awareness and mitigate the social implications of their AI systems. The research has two main objectives: first, to understand the practices implemented by developers throughout the AI system’s development cycle; second, to foster a reflexive process among stakeholders, encouraging them to identify the system’s social implications. We argue that ethnography can bridge gaps between stakeholders and enhance their capacity for planning, developing, and assessing AI systems, providing a more comprehensive understanding of their social implications. Participant observation supports organisations in developing reflexivity, allowing them to reconsider motivations and practices, thus reinforcing their awareness to confront their systems critically. Reflexivity plays a crucial role in encouraging stakeholders to acknowledge and engage with the broader societal implications of AI. This process enables a deeper understanding of both the system and the organisational practices surrounding it. By fostering reflexivity, previously unacknowledged aspects—often constrained by institutional priorities, strategic communication, or corporate limitations—can emerge. This leads to greater openness toward research objectives, particularly when addressing socially relevant issues. Additionally, reflexivity exposes the ethical challenges of withholding certain information, making visible the tensions between corporate strategies and the societal implications of AI. This research strategy promotes an organisational culture of continuous evaluation and learning, potentially shaping attitudes, motivations, and behaviours regarding AI development. From a methodological perspective, this study highlights how ethnography, particularly participant observation, can facilitate collaboration with stakeholders who might initially resist reflexivity due to organisational constraints. The findings indicate that participant observation fosters cultural change, enhances openness to assessment practices, and provides a promising pathway toward responsible AI development.

ABSTRACT. A Sociodigital approach is critical to understand contemporary manifestations of hate speech and mis/disinformation. It is recognised that hate speech and mis/disinformation targeting minorities and marginalised communities are often intersubjectively or socially constructed and disseminated via social media. However, they are often studied with a focus on their content and their supply or suppliers and typically examined through quantitative content analysis, which relies on scraping text from documents, the media, or social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter/X. Counting the frequency of certain types and texts of hate speech and mis/disinformation, highlighting and visualising the most prominent among them, and demonstrating their significance through statistical and other quantitative techniques may fail to capture the intersubjectively and socially constructed and disseminated nature of these phenomena. I propose digital ethnography and/or qualitative content analysis as often more effective methods for studying hate speech and mis/disinformation. I illustrate this through the example of anti-Rohingya hate speech and mis/disinformation in Myanmar from 2012 to the present. Digital ethnography This approach can also be applied to similar sociodigital phenomena and behaviours of hate speech and mis/disinformation relating, for example, to citizens from minority backgrounds, naturalised citizens, migrant workers, refugees, asylum seekers, and other types of irregular migrants. However, the effective implementation of this qualitative approach requires dedicated long-term digital ethnography, native-language fluency to interpret nuanced meanings, and contextual knowledge.

ABSTRACT. Background: Digital health apps can play a role in changing purchasing, cooking, and eating habits. Providing education and skill-focused messages may help to improve the perceived capability and opportunity to consume a sustainable and healthy diet, and, hence, shift diets. Since diet is deep-rooted in routines, we need to understand how people interact with behaviour change apps over time and space. Our pilot study explores engagement with, and perceptions of, app-based educational messages and recipes and any changes in the consumption of meat and legumes.

Methods: Collaborating with an industry partner, our mixed methods study will research the “See Yourself Differently” (syd) app, a general health and wellbeing mobile app. Following up 99 users for 10 weeks, quantitative data will comprise metrics of app engagement and self-reported dietary intake from 24-hour recalls. Qualitative data will be collected through Think Aloud interviews, to understand reactions to the app content in real time, and ethnographic “go-along”s, to highlight how the app is used amid daily activities. The study received ethical approval from the LSHTM Ethics Committee (ref: 28317) and is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (ID: NCT06833736).

Findings: Analyses linking app engagement and dietary data will estimate which features are used most and, if at all, drive changes in meat and legume consumption. We will explore what “effective engagement” means for different demographic groups by focusing on the breadth of engagement across the information pages and recipes. Qualitative data will be analysed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis on a participant-by-participant basis before developing common themes.

Discussion: This explorative study will help to understand the position of apps within digital and wider food environments, making up the “sociodigital” world. Our findings will highlight participant experiences of using the syd app and if or how it supports change in healthy and sustainable dietary perceptions or behaviours.

ABSTRACT. Digital displays unique forms of being and operating compared to the non-virtual. As it becomes almost unavoidable in socio-cultural realities and interactions, researchers who utilize ethnographic and other qualitative methods show an increasing interest in digital studies. However, the ethnographer, who used to be represented as a physically “on-site”, socially active figure, is now confronted with screens, big data, and the computational systems to which the existing ethical and legal guidelines may not be suitable (Postill & Pink, 2012). This “messy, ambiguous, and material” environment (Abidin & de Seta, 2020) pushes the researchers who wish to produce knowledge on and with the digital to always re-navigate themselves and be self-conscious within the field. Moreover, like the "traditional" non-virtual research sites, digital fields, researchers, and subjects are equally vulnerable to the existing socio-political dynamics and power relations. These can trouble early career researchers and graduate students researching “risky groups” online as they may suffer from the “messiness” and the context-bound ambiguity of the digital field the most. Consequently, this paper presents the methodological, ethical, legal, affective, and safety-related challenges and the potentialities they led to in my thesis as a graduate student researching right-wing extremists on Turkey’s social media platforms with qualitative methodologies. Drawing from the literature on “digital ethnography" and “dark ethnography”, I will discuss how “self-reflexivity” is a common and impactful suggestion in the debates around both “fields” but may become a new methodological anxiety to "junior" researchers as an especially hard-to-navigate tool when dealing with sensitive issues and problematic discourses online.

References

Abidin, C., & De Seta, G. (2020). Private messages from the field: Confessions on digital ethnography and its discomforts.

Postill, John & Pink, Sarah. 2012. Social Media Ethnography: The Digital Researcher in a Messy Web, Media International Australia 2012 145:1, 123-134

ABSTRACT. Discourses in need of the scrutiny of sociological critical analysis are overwhelmingly going multimodal and mediated by sociodigital systems resulting from the intra-actions of heterogeneous dispositifs. Critical discourse analysis itself needs to be integrated by multimodal analytical tools and by close attention to the role verbal and visual languages play in discursive practices in busy, relatively unregulated digital contexts, which provide a space for multiple voices and perspectives to be heard. We propose critical multimodal discourse analysis as a methodological dispositif to explore, within a collected web-ethographic corpus - from Mumsnet and Netmums - the key concepts of fetus, baby, body, gender, normality and disability as used in the process of entangling technoscientific infrastructures (3d and 4D sonographers) and narratives of women’s pregnancies on the web, while performing the social representation of the fetus. Relevant methodological challenges are described as being faced and overcome in all phases of the research process, from the making of the objects of study to data construction, analysis and results' theoretical understanding. The female body, conceived in the field of biomedical diagnostic as the site of control of pregnancy, becomes the site for the construction of the socio-digital fetus, as a result of the embedding of the imaging technologies and communication practices on the Web. At the same time, the dis-embedding of the fetus from the mother’s body becomes a performative result of sociotechnical and sociodigital dispositifs while it enforces the possibility of thinking of the fetus itself as a commodity or as a service-demanding agent in a newborn bio-market.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, the agricultural sector in Italy has faced a shortage of labor. Since Italy largely depends on seasonal foreigners’ work, cases of seasonal and irregular workers working under precarious conditions, managed by individuals with no "institutional" role and no scruples, have become increasingly frequent. These workers operate in precarious sanitary conditions (MSF report). The working conditions have often been described as dangerous, degrading, as a new form of slavery. The history of slavery is nearly as old as that of sedentary humans, but some clarifications are necessary: with regard to ancient slavery, Bales (2002) argues that, despite being widespread, slaves were considered valuable goods, as they were not easily available. With the demographic explosion of the past two centuries, the potential availability of slaves has increased, reducing their value and making them disposable. It is important to emphasize that today, especially in the Global North, the buying of people is rare, while forms of exploitation and submission are implemented that allow us to define these individuals as "new slaves." Often, migrants are aware of the exploitation and harassment they face, but submit to it because it represents the "lesser evil" (Cristaldi, 2015). Many studies suggest that migrants experience a dual condition of estrangement: deprivation of any qualitative relational link with the community and territory. The placement of new immigrant workers, isolated in fields and the invisibility of ghettos, ends up uprooting individuals from the land, depriving them of connections with the land and with those living outside the ghetto. To break this condition, art can play a crucial role. This presentation aims to show how culture and integration are interrelated. The case study is the Orchestra of Agricultural Workers, which brings together musicians, farmers, and workers from different nationalities united by the same work life in agriculture. These good practices will be analyzed, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the integration process. Music can be a powerful tool for integration and dialogue. Through its performances, the Orchestra seeks to raise public awareness about illegal hiring and labor exploitation, as well as offer a way out of poverty and precariousness for both Italian and foreign men and women. Social integration is possible when an identity is considered worthy and thus recognized in its value through its social, relational, and economic capital. Identities have been commodified. Immigrants are linked to stories about labor market conditions, marginalization, and harassment: this particular narrative creates a social perception of migration that makes it difficult to build a positive relationship between natives and migrants. Today, the orchestra has 10 members from 5 different countries: Italy, Burkina Faso, Gambia, India, and Nigeria. Among them are young people who have experienced the drama of migration and ghettos in Italy. The study of the orchestra was conducted through interviews and focus groups to better understand how culture and art can reach people and support social change, as well as raise awareness about labor exploitation, labor segregation, the ethnicization of heavy work, social marginalization, and the protection of human rights. Work remains a relational space where we learn forms of coexistence and how to be part of a network. It is possible for the economic accounts to be in order, while at the same time, the individuals—who constitute the most valuable asset of a company—are humiliated and insulted in their dignity. The individual's determination, shaped by work, is immense, due to the time dedicated to it and the returns from it, but especially because, in answering the question "Who am I?", it satisfies the need to build an identity. As Polanyi (2013) reminds us, society and justice are correlated because if there is a perception of injustice, social cohesion problems arise that even the state cannot manage, as the demands of different subjects and groups will be irreducibly opposed. According to the scholar, a society of this kind would lose the ability to progress, even in terms of economic development. Only the most egalitarian societies can succeed in their growth journey, because a society that inspires greater trust through justice and equality is able to unleash energies generated by hope and trust.

ABSTRACT. Theories and methodologies concerning diaspora research predominantly emerge from the economic, political, and psychological domains of sociology. Space, especially its perceived, represented, and lived values (Lefebvre, 1974), is discussed less frequently. Moreover, its complex, plural, evolving, and interactive nature necessitates more diverse and appropriate scales to understand transregional contexts (Massy, 2005). My research on the transitions of Chinese international students at a Canadian university highlights the role of socio-geography in shaping individuals’ upbringing, as well as their experiences in and contributions to their host country.

Thanks to the flexibility of semi-structured interviews and my bilingual abilities, I tailored my questions for 20 individuals based on their input and discovered that students raised in more internationalized regions, regardless of their socio-economic status, adapted to university life abroad more smoothly. Their disposition aligns with Weenink’s (2008) theory on cosmopolitan capital, which represents a manifestation of human agency that enables individuals to navigate globalized environments with greater ease. All interviewees illustrated how they transferred the knowledge acquired back home to new spaces. Specifically, the varying adaptation rates among students from different backgrounds underscore the internal diversity within the population, despite their shared nationality and culture. Reflecting on the commonalities and differences among people from diverse origins, I propose a paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1962).

Social science research can only reflect and serve the globalized world by transcending traditional parameters and establishing more suitable ones. This phenomenological study integrates interdisciplinary theories and methodologies and possesses transnational significance. International students, along with many other foreign residents, are essential to their host countries’ economic development and cultural diversification. Canada and Italy share similar demographics characterized by aging local populations and significant immigration intakes. Besides a cosmopolitan perspective, I advocate for a human-centric approach to understanding individuals' distinct needs and dispositions to facilitate better integration for all.

ABSTRACT. The central purpose of this research is to explore the key parameters that would facilitate the redesign of agrifood systems in the Amazon basin according to the principles of global prosperity, and from an Indigenous perspective. There already exist in the Amazon region projects that promote a paradigm shift, while demonstrating in practice how to redesign agrifood systems for inclusive, holistic, and local prosperity. Focusing on the localized, bottom-up structure, this research analysed the Saberes y Sabores Ticuna, a woman-led community-based organization in the Colombian Amazon. It investigates how these women define prosperity (“good living”), the challenges they face, and how their innovative practices drive Indigenous-led transitions within the agrifood system, from chagra (farmland) to the table. Specifically, it examines how Ticuna women autonomously restore, innovate, and share traditional recipes, thereby preserving Indigenous food culture, reshaping agrifood systems, empowering women, and fostering a multispecies ethic that extends beyond human concerns. This research explores how niche practices like those of the Ticuna women serve as catalysts for system-wide transformation, generating ripple effects across individual, community, national, and global dimensions of social change. It integrates transition frameworks, such as multi-level perspective, transition management, and social practice theory, to analyze the interplay between vision, pathways, regime structures, and actors’ expectations and attempts within the agrifood system. By bridging ethnographic insights with transdisciplinary analytical frameworks, this study contributes to a methodological rethinking of agrifood system transitions, offering a case for Indigenous-led, community-driven approaches as leverage points for systemic change.

ABSTRACT. This article seeks to analyze the impacts of climate change on artisanal fishing, based on the perceptions of fishermen who work in the Araruama Lagoon, in the Lakes region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The empirical approach highlights the problem from the perspective of fishing workers, who work in this space and depend on water as a productive input. The arguments are formed by the perceptions of artisanal fishermen and their ability to adapt to changes. Thus, we seek to listen to a significant portion of workers who need this resource and who do not express themselves through appropriate channels, such as basin committees and their class entities, such as colonies and associations. The method used was Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices, in which it was possible to compile the information collected from fishermen in interviews with open questionnaires. As a result of this effort, it was possible to corroborate findings from the literature, by highlighting in their statements the rise in temperature, the intensity of rainfall, the migration of species, the accumulation of garbage in the lagoon, as well as the appearance of algae, as effects of the perceived climate changes.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the dynamics of residential segregation in Catania, a prominent urban center in Southern Italy, between 2011 and 2021. Employing Theil’s entropy-based H index and Shapley decomposition, segregation trends are analyzed at both micro and macro spatial levels, using two classifications: municipal districts and Urban-to-Extra-Urban (UEU) zones. Results reveal a duality in segregation processes, with micro-spatial level desegregation for all population sub-groups offset by macro-spatial level clustering of migrant populations, especially, of Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans. In shaping these patterns, the study highlights the pivotal role of Italians’ resettlement in the spatial clustering of migrant populations. By providing a nuanced distinction of subpopulation specific contributions to segregation changes, findings underscore the importance of targeted urban policies, including affordable housing and improved infrastructure, to mitigate segregation. The study enhances comprehension of spatial assimilation and stratification dynamics, offering actionable insights for policymakers and urban planners. Future research should apply the proposed method to other cities to build a comparative framework to address socio-spatial inequalities in Southern Europe.

ABSTRACT. Abstract. Research on immigration’s impact on natives’ well-being has largely focused on objective factors like wages and public spending, with less attention to subjective well-being, especially in Southern Europe. This study examines how immigrant presence at the neighborhood level influences well-being, satis-faction, and community attachment in Naples and Palermo. Using a 2024 survey combined with 2021 Italian census data, regression analyses explore four dimensions of subjective well-being: neighborhood satisfaction, local services, com-munity attachment, and civic engagement. Results show a positive effect of im-migrant presence on all four domains, which remains robust after controlling for demographic characteristics, employment, and subjective income sufficiency. These findings contribute to understanding the role of neighborhood diversity in shaping native well-being in Southern Europe.

ABSTRACT. The dominant neoliberal management model in large European and Spanish cities has resulted in a growing process of socioeconomic inequality whose spatial dimension clearly visualises its contradictions. These social contradictions affect more than a quarter of the Spanish population but are particularly acute in neighbourhoods where the migrant population is concentrated. For this reason, the study of accessibility to Social Infrastructures (SI) is particularly important, as these are spaces that favour integration and social cohesion in the city. Utilising gravitational models, OpenStreetMap and the use of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) we have developed an index of walking accessibility to the SI at the neighbourhood level to analyse its accessibility in the hot spots of the three main immigrant nationalities in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Finally, we reflect on the social and political implications of our results and the suitability of SI as an indicator of integration and an instrument for the design and evaluation of public policy in the city.

ABSTRACT. Research on migrants and their descendants is often accused of reiterating misleading representations of the non-native population. Foreign communities are often presented as monolithic and homogeneous, reinforcing the perceived difference between 'nationals' and 'non-nationals' (Sayad, 1999). This tendency is linked to epistemological biases, such as the use of 'groupist' visions in the social sciences (Brubaker, 2004), and to methodological shortcomings, such as the reiteration of research in the most accessible fields (e.g. large cities) and the lack of time to delve into case-studies (Calabretta, 2022). The risk is that studies on the non-native population reinforce preconceptions without advancing sociological knowledge. Against these tendencies, studies that critically reflect on the definitions used in migration research are necessary. To this end, it is essential to immerse in the research contexts, access less visible groups, and reveal the variety of social trajectories among research participants. This is the approach taken by the research project Growing Old, Feeling Like Citizens? (University of Padua and Milano Bicocca). Drawing on the lived citizenship perspective (Kallio et al., 2020), the project seeks to understand how Muslim migrants' descendants experience citizenship in everyday life in Italy as they enter adulthood. The theoretical premises of the project are closely linked to its methodological development. The study of the daily experiences of citizenship among these young people is pursued through a mix of qualitative methods (biographical interviews, participant observation, focus groups) to explore their everyday lives and understand their relationship with the local context. The paper reflects on the relationship between migrant descendants and their living environment, focusing in particular on the provincial dispersion that characterises the urban fabric of the Veneto region (Fregolent & Vettoretto, 2015). In this context, unexpected trajectories of social exclusion and inclusion take shape, renewing the definition of 'foreigner' in everyday experience.

ABSTRACT. The measure of urban segregation phenomena has generated a considerable body of literature over many decades – or indeed a century, if one thinks of pioneering African-American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois's work on Philadelphia [1]. A schematic summary could describe a history of segregation measures moving from single figure, a-spatial, two-group indices [2] to spatial and even multiscalar, multigroup measures of segregation [3, 4]. As populations become more and more diverse, segregation phenomena may be at play on much finer and subtler scales, corresponding to levels of entanglement within micro-neighbourhoods and even within individuals themselves (with multiple citizenships and/or multiple perceived origins and identities – eg the case of the so-called “new” citizens in Italy). This paper seeks to offer an overview of new statistical and mathematical tools that have the potential to provide social scientists with ways of measuring such complex phenomena unfolding at different scales. In particular, we explore methods inspired by topological data analysis, using machine learning to learn interactions between various scales and levels of identities and spatial distributions, as well as recently developed methods that make use of optimal transport theory [13, 14]. We also apply some of these new approaches to a data-set from specific metropolitan areas of Southern Italy characterized by comparative high levels of residential segregation and significant spatial inequalities [5, 6].

References [1] Du Bois, W. E. B.. UPenn Press, 1996 [1899]. [2] Duncan, O. D., & Duncan, B. (1955). American sociological review, 20(2), 210-217. [3] Reardon, S. F., & Firebaugh, G. (2002). Sociological methodology, 32(1), 33-67. [4] Olteanu, M., Randon-Furling, J., & Clark, W. A. (2019). PNAS, 116(25), 12250-12254. [5] Benassi, F., Bonifazi, C., Heins, F., & Strozza, S. (2020). Spatial Demography, 8, 269-290. [6] Benassi, F., Iglesias-Pascual, R., & Salvati, L. (2020). Habitat International, 101, 1022000.

ABSTRACT. A large body of research has consistently demonstrated that family-centered approaches across various contexts result in more positive outcomes for both individuals and family relationships. This highlights the pivotal role families play in enhancing educational success, fostering social competences, facilitating work-life balance, and mitigating the impact of various risk factors. Despite the recognized importance of supporting families through policies and practices, there remains a lack of instruments and tools to design and evaluate policies and services using a “family thinking” approach. This gap leaves practitioners insufficiently equipped to create programs that effectively address family well-being. This study explores how FamILens, the Italian adaptation of the Family Impact Lens (Bogenschneider et al. 2012), can help align policies and services with the specific needs of families. The study’s objective was to develop and validate four Checklists for key areas of intervention: family mediation, elderly home care, human resources management, and child protection social services. Each phase of the research included co-design sessions with professionals and stakeholders and a two-round Delphi process involving over 15 experts in each domain. The four adapted checklists feature a variable number of items across six “think family” principles: responsibility, stability, relationships, diversity, engagement, and networking. Following initial two-step Delphi tools validation , four large-scale survey (two completed, two ongoing) were conducted using checklists, targeting samples of professionals. The survey results were analyzed with factorial alalysis and their association with structural variables (e.g.,sociodemographic characteristics of the target population). The results show high levels of reliability, a six-factor structure and a good attention to family well-being within the two first contexts (management and family mediation). These newly developed tools could provide professionals with the means to design impactful, family-friendly programs, ultimately contributing to enhanced individual and family well-being.

ABSTRACT. Scholars have extensively used administrative records of police stops to uncover racial disparities and bias in law enforcement practices. Despite this, and due to lack of data recording such variables, we know very little about how other marginalized identities such as queerness and disability are policed. In this article, I fill this gap by analyzing $\sim200,000$ traffic stops in San Francisco between 2018 and 2023, looking at whether motorists who are perceived as either LGBTQ+ or disabled are disproportionately targeted by the police. Through multiple tests and models, I find consistent evidence that queerness and disability status are associated with a higher probability of being searched and arrested by the police. Then, drawing from an intersectional framework I test whether the interaction of race with either queerness or disability worsens police discrimination, and find that it does so especially for white civilians, who if LGBTQ+ or disabled are targeted in searches and arrests at similar rates to those of minorities. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for research and policy.

ABSTRACT. This study critically examines Italy’s National Adaptation Plan for Climate Change (PNACC) through an intersectional feminist lens, focusing on gendered climate vulnerabilities and regional disparities. While National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) globally aim to enhance resilience, socio-economic, cultural, and structural challenges often impede their effectiveness. Italy’s PNACC seeks to address regional imbalances; however, northern regions like Emilia-Romagna benefit from stronger economic and infrastructural support compared to southern regions such as Calabria, which face socio-economic challenges and elevated environmental risks. This research employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative policy discourse analysis, legislative review, and quantitative assessments of socio-economic indicators to evaluate gender equity within the PNACC. The regional contrast reveals how socio-economic status, cultural norms, and policy execution shape women’s adaptive capacities. Findings indicate that northern regions leverage community-driven adaptation strategies for stronger resilience, whereas southern regions encounter persistent barriers, including inadequate legal enforcement, unequal resource distribution, and limited participatory governance. These structural disparities underscore the need for tailored, inclusive strategies that address regional vulnerabilities. Feminist political ecology offers pathways for building resilience through localized, community-based solutions. Eventually, conclusions call for a reevaluation of Italy’s adaptation policies, emphasizing strengthened legal accountability, equitable resource allocation, and participatory governance approaches that prioritize gender equity. By situating these recommendations within global discussions on gender and climate justice, this study underscores the importance of socially grounded, context-sensitive adaptation measures for sustainable resilience.

ABSTRACT. This research explores the transformative role of digital environments in enhancing community participation and human rights activism among refugees in Europe. Whereas refugees are largely exposed to isolation and exclusion, virtual spaces have emerged as powerful forces in bridging such divides, as they provide avenues for refugees to connect, mobilize, and advocate for their rights. This study examines the ways in which online networks and virtual communities have enabled refugees to combat loneliness, build solidarity, and engage in transnational human rights activism. Through case studies, interviews, and digital ethnography, the article discusses how refugees use digital media to not only build a sense of belonging but also challenge political narratives, raise awareness, and influence policy. Ultimately, this research highlights the potential of virtual realms to reshape the dynamics of integration among refugees, creating fresh avenues for empowerment and activism in the European context.

ABSTRACT. This presentation explores the implementation of Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) in Canada's settlement and integration sector, adopting an intersectional lens to assess its potential for driving systemic change and promoting equity among newcomers. By examining diverse urban and rural contexts, the research addresses a significant gap in existing literature on GBA Plus implementation in settlement services. The findings highlight the importance of tailored support for rural agencies, which often face unique challenges in integrating newcomers. The presentation recommends leveraging GBA Plus as a comprehensive tool to develop targeted interventions that address the complex, intersectional needs of newcomers. This approach can foster a more equitable integration process across provinces by acknowledging and addressing the diverse experiences of gender, race, ethnicity, and other social factors. Ultimately, the research aims to inform policy and practice, enhancing the settlement sector's capacity to promote inclusive and equitable integration outcomes for all newcomers in Canada grounded in intersectionality.

ABSTRACT. While climate adaptation is often conceptualized through technocratic or infrastructural models, this study emphasizes the importance of situating adaptation within the broader socio-political conditions that shape climate vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Drawing on intersectionality as both a theoretical and methodological framework, the study investigates how overlapping identities—such as gender, age, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and (dis)ability—shape differentiated vulnerabilities to climate hazards, participation in adaptation processes, and access to adaptation resources. The study argues that climate vulnerability and adaptive capacity are not merely functions of technical or institutional capacity, but are deeply mediated through social inequality, power asymmetries, and exclusionary adaptation governance processes. Using a qualitative case study approach, the study engages with both institutional actors and residents in Agbogbloshie —an informal settlement in Accra, Ghana—to examine how adaptation interventions are conceptualized, implemented, and experienced by diverse social groups. By foregrounding intersectionality, the study contributes to advancing more contextually grounded understandings of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. It further contributes to ongoing academic and policy debates on integrating intersectional analysis into climate adaptation planning to promote more just and transformative urban climate governance. The study also reflects critically on the methodological and ethical challenges of conducting intersectional research in contexts of informality, and climate change, and offers insights for designing inclusive adaptation interventions that promote socially just outcomes.

ABSTRACT. Intimate partner violence is a pervasive global human rights issue that has prompted the establishment of various international charters and national-level comprehensive legislative measures to combat this problem effectively. To attain success, it is also imperative to contextualize intimate partner violence within its underlying precursors and address them systematically and methodically. In this article, we focus on two obstacles hindering the effort of policymakers to eradicate intimate partner violence in Ghana: wife-beating justification and restricted access to permanent or temporary shelters for victims. The aim is to investigate the correlation between these two indicators to determine if empowerment in property ownership can influence and unseat the belief that wife beating is justified. Leveraging data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey, we utilized a comprehensive theoretical approach by integrating normalization, social learning, resource, and gendered resource theories. Subsequently, we estimated a stepwise logistic regression, which revealed that while a higher proportion of women justified wife beating than men, empowering women with landed properties (arable or otherwise) significantly reduced the odds of justifying wife beating. However, among the men, a different pattern was observed. The findings presented in this article emphasize the protective nature of property ownership and stress the significance of improving women’s access to property. This enhancement aims not only to support livelihoods but also to diminish the inclination to justify wife beating.

ABSTRACT. The objective of this article is to contribute to the development of methodologies to deepen understanding of the complex interdependence among environmental challenges, conflict, community resilience, and child poverty to inform policies addressing these issues. A model is built to identify conditions that are mutually influential and important, yet neither necessary nor sufficient conditions when taken in isolation. Data from Western African countries are used to illustrate the model. Using georeferenced microdata from household surveys, the relationship between children in poverty and the presence of/ distance to schools or primary care health units is seized to explain community-level resilience to external shocks. Microdata are randomly displaced for confidentiality reasons. They can be connected (using open-source road maps) to the location of different public service providers, linking the individual and meso levels. Moreover, the distance of these communities to locations where violence has taken place throughout the country allows the connection of the community sphere (children and the public services that contribute to their resilience) with national violence developments. Additionally, sub-national employment shifts and price variations accumulate to shape national trends. All these elements can be correlated spatially to environmental risks, which occur supra-nationally. In addition, the effects can also be analyzed cascading from the influence of climate shocks (which do not “respect” country borders) to stress on national conditions. In turn, economic factors and the presence of (or potential for) violent episodes influences both the need (and desire) to promote resilience as well as potentially constraining the capacity for community resilience. The latter, also, is a driver of child poverty, closing the loop across the four levels. While the model is conceptualized to be empirically tested with quantitative data, qualitative evidence and information from interviews with community members are included in the analysis to better envisage the interaction across levels.

ABSTRACT. Understanding social change requires a measurement framework that captures interactions across multiple levels of analysis—from individual behaviors to planetary-scale transformations. This contribution explores the development of an integrated system for measuring change and mutual influence at and between the micro (individual), meso (community), macro (national), and meta (planetary) dimensions.

Bringing together insights from sociology, complexity science, and systems thinking, we will examine how different dimensions interact, the challenges of establishing coherent metrics across scales, and the potential for innovative methodologies—including network analysis, participatory data collection, and AI-driven pattern recognition. By bridging disciplinary silos and methodological gaps, this contribution aims to contribute to a holistic approach to measurement, informing both academic inquiry and policy interventions in an increasingly interconnected world.

ABSTRACT. The ageing of the population in Italy is a phenomenon of growing importance, especially for the female population. This study, conducted with a demographic and sociological approach, investigates how voluntary activities can mitigate loneliness after retirement age and in a state of widowhood. Through a longitudinal data analysis, it was possible to observe how there has been a significant increase in the number of women who cross the retirement threshold, often experiencing a period of life characterised by an unprecedented condition of loneliness. This condition is closely linked to an exponential growth in widowhood, a phenomenon that affects the female more, also due to the difference in life expectancy compared to men. At the same time, sociological literature highlights how forms of collaboration within the community, particularly volunteering, can represent an effective strategy to mitigate loneliness and promote active aging. In this perspective, the study includes an autoethnographic analysis conducted at the Third Sector organisation of the Red Cross - Bari Committee, aimed at understanding the composition and dynamics of volunteers over 65, with a specific focus on the role of women in this age group. The researchers' observation, interviews and participation in the activities made it possible to detect in which areas of the organisation the volunteers are most active and how their participation contributes to building socio-emotional support networks. The results provide a reflection on the potential of volunteering as a tool for preventing and fighting loneliness in old age, emphasizing the importance of policies and interventions aimed at enhancing the active participation of elderly women.

ABSTRACT. Climate change is intensifying and, in some cases, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Children are often more vulnerable to the effects of climate change compared to adults. However, there is a lack of research into how extreme weather events affect children. We present comparative and transnational research, that provides new insight into three dimensions of this research area.

First, we present a theoretical framework linking major environmental risks and multidimensional child poverty. This section includes a literature review of the state of the evidence on these issues in Africa.

Secondly, we provide empirical evidence about the relationship between child poverty and environmental risks in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda. Child-level survey data was drawn from national Demographic and Health Surveys and overlayed with environmental risk data extracted from public online databases. We describe the geographic distribution of multidimensional child poverty and use regression methods to evaluate whether poverty rates are higher among children exposed to flood and/or drought in the year preceding the survey. We adjust for key confounders including household elevation and urban/rural household location.

Thirdly, we discuss how our findings can be used to design social protection interventions (including climate insurance) that are different from the traditionally shaped paradigms. Our analysis could support equity-based criteria for prioritizing groups at highest risk of experiencing extreme weather events and/or poverty along a progressive path towards universal social protection. They should also be cognizant of environmental sustainability and financial challenges in low- and middle-income countries.

The findings provide valuable insights into the intersection of extreme weather events, child poverty, and social protection. Our theoretical lens, proposed methodology, and empirical analysis offers new possibilities for generating evidence to inform innovative social policy models that respond to the specific needs of children and their families in a context of climate change.

ABSTRACT. This paper introduces a novel approach to meta-analyzing qualitative research by systematically extracting and analyzing direct interview quotes across multiple studies. Using machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), we examined 122 qualitative interview quotes from 13 studies on barriers to women's education in Northern Nigeria. Our methodological contribution lies in identifying nuanced thematic patterns that may be overlooked due to researchers' biases and mental frameworks. Our analysis confirms previous findings on the role of child marriage in limiting girls' access to education, particularly in Hausa communities. However, we also highlight new factors such as mobility restrictions as a key factor linking child marriage to educational barriers. To test this hypothesis at a macro level, we integrate geocoded 2021 MICS data on child marriage and school attendance among girls with satellite data on school locations in Nigeria. This allows us to measure the distance between each household and the nearest school, providing further insight into how mobility constraints affect educational access.

ABSTRACT. In this research, I explore how different levels of governance interact to shape education within a marginalised school in Santiago, Chile. Chile’s education system has long been a case of privatisation, profoundly impacting schooling. In the past decade, policy reforms have addressed segregation, exclusion, and quality issues. Despite these changes, I argue that the broader socio-political landscape poses challenges beyond the school. My study situates these transformations within a shifting political and economic context, highlighting the interplay between statecraft, local governance, and school-level practices. Using a qualitative case study methodology focused on one school and a multi-scalar approach, I examine the intersection of governance and education at four levels. At the micro-level, I explore the everyday experiences of students, teachers, and administrators, focusing on affective expressions, agency, and the negotiation of structural inequalities. At the meso-level, I analyse how local governance and school administration mediate national education policies, revealing tensions between state-mandated reforms and on-the-ground implementation. The macro-level examines how national policies, rooted in neoliberalism and historical legacies, shape public schooling. Finally, at the global level, I explore the influence of transnational discourses and global education trends in reinforcing or contesting local and national educational practices, as well as the historical and cultural context of Chile as a post-colonial and post-authoritarian nation within the Global South. This layered analysis aims to understand how these interacting scales produce specific subjectivities and social futures within and beyond the school. By examining the tensions, resistances, and survival strategies in this complex landscape, my research seeks to contribute a renewed conceptual framework for analysing social problems through a multi-dimensional lens, offering insights into how power structures operate within marginalised spaces and shape young people’s lives by highlighting connections between global forces, national policies, and local experiences.

ABSTRACT. In contemporary cities, socio-economic disparities shape urban spaces, creating areas of persistent social disadvantage. This spatial concentration reinforces cycles of poverty and exclusion, deepening socio-economic inequalities over time. Traditional approaches to analyzing urban inequalities are based on aggregated territorial data, but they often lack the granularity needed to fully capture the spatial heterogeneity of socio-economic advantage and disadvantage at a fine scale. Starting from these considerations, the work presents an original methodological approach to measuring and mapping socio-economic inequalities at a micro-scale within the metropolitan areas of Milan, Rome, and Naples. By integrating diverse data sources and leveraging advanced multivariate and spatial statistical techniques, the analysis follows three key steps: 1) Redistribution of socio-economic data from inconsistent administrative units into a high-resolution hexagonal grid (0.50 km²) using a dasymetric binary interpolation method to ensure spatial uniformity; 2) Construction of a composite index of social advantage/disadvantage by synthesizing selected socio-economic variables through factorial analysis; 3) Spatial autocorrelation analysis to identify statistically significant clusters of index values, using a walking-time-based distance metric to define spatial relationships between hexagonal grid cells. This approach enhances the granularity of urban inequality analysis, enabling more precise regional comparisons and a deeper understanding of spatial patterns of disadvantage. The results provide valuable insights into the intensity and distribution of socio-economic disparities, supporting more effective urban policy interventions. Furthermore, the socio-economic index could be integrated with geolocated user digital content, enhancing the analysis and understanding of social phenomena in urban spaces. The proposed methodology is highly replicable and adaptable, offering a robust framework for studying inequalities across different urban contexts.

ABSTRACT. The analysis of social phenomena is inextricably linked to territory (Bergamaschi, M., & Lomonaco, A., 2022), and the use of user-generated georeferenced data has opened new frontiers in understanding social behaviors in spatial contexts (Niu, H., & Silva, E. A., 2020). However, access to such data is limited by privacy issues and the control exerted by technology platforms, creating significant obstacles for sociological research (Trezza, D., 2023). In response to these restrictions, this study aims to explore alternative sources of georeferenced data that were not originally designed for social research but could offer new opportunities for analyzing social dynamics in spatial contexts. To this end, research will be conducted at the Department of Aerospace and Geodesy of the Technical University of Munich, which focuses on the acquisition, management, and analysis of geospatial data through advanced remote sensing technologies, digital cartography, and geographic information systems. The results of this research will contribute, on the one hand, to assessing the potential of new data sources for analyzing the relationships between territory and social phenomena and, on the other hand, to identifying alternative data sources that meet quality and reliability criteria, allow for the evaluation of their suitability for social analysis, adhere to ethical and legal transparency principles, and offer multidisciplinary potential for use in various research contexts.

ABSTRACT. Social research increasingly recognizes the importance of spatial context in shaping social phenomena. Thus, many surveys ask respondents about neighborhood characteristics and computational approaches choose geospatial data giving context at a specific scale. An open question, however, is the appropriate scale of the spatial context: Is it the immediate neighborhood, the municipality, or the county that mostly influence the subjective perception of people’s environment? Understanding this issue is crucial for accurately capturing individuals' experiences and perceptions of their surroundings. In this study, we investigate the consistency between respondents' subjective perceptions and objective characteristics across these spatial scales. Using data from approximately 30,000 respondents in the recruitment survey of the German Longitudinal Environmental Study (GLEN), a newly launched registered-based panel study, we investigate how individuals assess their place of residence in terms of green spaces, mobility, and healthcare accessibility. We compare these subjective ratings with geospatial and administrative data across various spatial scales, aiming to find the level of highest consistency for each measure. Additionally, we examine if and how the consistency differs between socio-demographic groups, expecting differential effects based on factors such as age, gender, employment status, and urban vs. rural residence. With this approach, our study contributes to the broader discourse on spatial mechanisms in social research. We aim to enhance the understanding of spatial mechanisms in environmental perception by identifying the spatial scale that best aligns with subjective assessments and exploring how social and demographic factors shape these perceptions. Our findings offer practical guidance for researchers and survey practitioners in selecting appropriate spatial context data as auxiliary variables and in designing neighborhood-related survey questions that better capture respondents’ experiences.

ABSTRACT. The increasing availability of geographic data from social media has fostered research approaches that integrate the analysis of online phenomena with real-world events, yielding compelling insights. However, in the post-API era, the growing proprietary restrictions imposed by many platforms have made access to such data increasingly challenging. In 2023, access policies for X (formerly Twitter)—one of the primary sources of geolocated data—also underwent significant changes. Despite these mounting challenges, social media posts continue to contain valuable geographic information that can be extracted through geoparsing algorithms. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of various geoparsing algorithms in extracting geographically relevant data for social research. To this end, samples of posts from multiple platforms will be analyzed, evaluating each algorithm’s ability to extract georeferenced information. Finally, the study will examine the extent to which the extracted geographic data can generate meaningful insights for social research.

ABSTRACT. As in many other countries, social inequality is on the rise in Germany. These inequalities are manifesting themselves in a variety of ways, including increasing spatial disparities. Prosperous regions are facing structurally weak regions and cities are becoming socio-economically segregated, which is also accompanied by milieu-specific divergent values. Quantitative analyses of spatial inequality typically define these as administrative units. The approach chosen here adopts a different perspective and conceptualizes the spatial environment as a network space around the individual equipped with different central infrastructural facilities. The aim is to show how this everyday experienced material environment influences attitudes towards justice and inequality. Survey data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) is combined with other administrative and publicly accessible data to characterize the local environment of the respondents from the panel study. This reveals spatial patterns in the provision of important infrastructures (education, health, culture, transport links, etc.) and shows the influence of spatial differences on attitudes and the perceptions of inequality. The findings on the influence of material living conditions on attitudes towards inequality and justice thus provide important implications for explaining the persistence of social inequality.

ABSTRACT. The integration of geolocated data, both administrative and user-generated (USC), provides innovative tools for analyzing social and territorial inequalities. This research investigates how social practices, inequalities, and access to resources are distributed in space, leveraging digital sources to enhance knowledge on health and well-being. A key focus is obesity, a growing public health concern influenced by socioeconomic and environmental factors such as urban planning and access to nutritious food. By combining health-related data with geospatial analysis, we explore how spatial inequalities impact obesity rates and healthcare access. This study is part of the Cariplo Foundation project, which examines social determinants of health through interdisciplinary research on territorial disparities. The project integrates administrative health records and user-generated spatial data to reveal patterns in healthcare accessibility often overlooked by traditional systems. We adopt a mixed-method approach, merging official datasets (ISTAT, open data) with USC to analyze urban environmental quality, healthcare services distribution, and mobility. This enables a nuanced understanding of territorial disparities and their impact on public health. The research addresses two main questions: how can integrating official and USC data improve the understanding of territorial inequalities, particularly in health? What are the theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges of this approach? By comparing urban and provincial case studies in Italy, we highlight how geolocated data can reshape territorial and health analysis methodologies. Given the fragmented availability of local spatial data, we emphasize the need for integrative tools to better analyze the social production of space and health disparities.

ABSTRACT. The investigations on vulnerable population targets involve the adoption of specific strategies. The case to be illustrated concerns an investigation aimed at evaluating the effects of an income support measure for families in economic fragility, gathering the perspective of the beneficiaries themselves and comparing it with a control group (for a total of 5000 units), i.e., people who, although in similar conditions of economic weakness, were not reached by the measure. We are in the field of counterfactual design, specifically a quasi-experimental design with post-test and a control group. The steps of the investigation will be illustrated: from the challenging phase of recruiting subjects, to the strategies to engage them to agree to participate in the face-to-face interview conducted with a standardized questionnaire. It is precisely this phase of the investigation that highlights many methodological implications resulting from the use of a data collection technique on the boundary between qualitative and quantitative approaches, necessary to intercept and engage a population in a state of great social fragility. Special emphasis has been placed on the role of interviewers, who are the final link between the cognitive intention of the researcher and the data matrix: a crucial step that irrevocably closes whit the data collection process providing, as the final witness, the reliability of what has been observed. The data analysis was carried out by simultaneously using the collected data from beneficiaries within a multilevel model, as well as data from social services in the territories of the interviewees. This is an innovative aspect in data analysis that allowed for highlighting which of the services' functions had the greatest impact on the knowledge and access to income support measures. Therefore, the content of the presentation will focus on all the aspects of originality involved in carrying out this investigation.

ABSTRACT. The most recent studies on territories affected by the contraction of essential services and depopulation suggest "reversing the perspective" (De Rossi, 2018): examining inner areas — often defined as "remote" places and represented as inevitably destined for depopulation — poses theoretical and methodological challenges concerning dominant paradigms. Recognising that the margin — both geographical terms and service provision — is worthy of study is necessary. It may also contribute to understanding the center, the place of demographic density, economic activities, and life opportunities (Donzelli, 2020). From a methodological standpoint, the main challenges concern adapting data collection and observation techniques. This paper briefly presents an overview of the mixed methodological framework of research conducted in 2021-22 on everyday life in selected Calabrian inner areas targeted by Italy's National Strategy for "Inner Areas" (2014–2020). The study's findings have been mainly incorporated into the book Lento Pede. Vivere nell’Italia estrema (Cersosimo, Licursi, 2023). The paper analyses the methodological aspects of the research action, which focused on residents to investigate their choices regarding staying/leaving, as well as their perspectives on the conditions (both challenges and resources) of life in small and tiny towns located far from the most populated centers and better equipped with essential services in the field of health, education, and mobility. This research action included two CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview) surveys, reaching over 1,000 people. The target groups were twofold: young people (18–34 years old) and parents with underage children. This contribution reconstructs the phases of survey design—in dialogue with similar national studies (Membretti et al., 2023)—and their implementation, highlighting the necessary methodological adaptations. The snowball sampling strategy adopted was an adaptation to the difficulties of conducting sample surveys on demographically rarefied populations and addressing reachability challenges, which were further exacerbated by mobility restrictions during the pandemic.

ABSTRACT. Introduction: This presentation outlines the development of a self-report measure for identifying disability among children aged 10 to 13 years. The measure was developed for use in a regional longitudinal study planned for five data collections until the children reach young adulthood. Our objective was to assess disability through a relational model where disability emerges from the interplay between individual limitations and societal barriers, in line with the CRPD. The identification of both limitations and barriers was essential to the project. Method: Initially, we identified and reviewed several well-validated measures for self-reporting disability. These were subsequently tested in an iterative process. First, we did qualitative data collections involving individual cognitive interviews with pupils aged 10 to 13 in both ordinary and special education settings. Next, we did focus groups with senior high school students aged 17 to 20. Finally, post-survey interviews were conducted with four pupils in a special education setting, aged 12, immediately after their participation in the survey. Results: We developed a contextualised and age-appropriate measure comprising 14 questions. The first questions were derived from the Washington Group’s Short Set on Functioning (2022) and the Child Functioning Module (2020) to measure physical and cognitive limitations, with some adjustments. Based on the results from the qualitative data collection, the initial labelling of the response scale in WG-SS referring to the amount of difficulties was changed into a less abstract meaning content. Furthermore, four questions inspired by Statistics Sweden’s HBSC study (2018) were included to measure how often children perceive hindrances at school and during leisure due to the reported disabilities.

ABSTRACT. Collecting data on hard-to-reach and hard-to-interview populations poses methodological challenges, particularly regarding sample representativeness and measurement accuracy. Centenarians illustrate these complexities: while their frequent residence in institutional settings can facilitate access, participation may be influenced by health limitations, cognitive decline, and gatekeeping by caregivers. These elements may lead to selection bias, as the most vulnerable individuals are often underrepresented. A key approach to mitigating this challenge is the use of proxy respondents. However, the accuracy and reliability of proxy responses remain unresolved particularly in studies on the oldest-old. We use data from the SWISS100 – a multidisciplinary longitudinal study on centenarians living in Switzerland – including dyadic interviews with centenarians and their proxies. Baseline recruitment, based on a random sample of 1717 individuals from the Swiss Federal Statistical Office list, was conducted between 2022 and 2023. The dataset includes 122 dyadic interviews, 30 centenarian-only interviews, and 102 proxy-replaced interviews, conducted when centenarians were unable to participate (e.g., cognitive impairment). We first assess how the exclusion of the most fragile individuals (MMSE < 6) and those in nursing homes would impact key indicators of health, well-being, and social participation by examining differences in their distribution. Then, we analyse proxy reliability by evaluating the agreement between centenarians’ and proxies’ responses across various domains using percentage agreement and Kappa statistics. Preliminary findings suggest that excluding the most vulnerable leads to an overestimation of well-being and number of social relations and an underestimation of health conditions. Agreement between centenarians and proxies varies by domain, with higher consistency for objective indicators (e.g., marital status) than for subjective ones (e.g., depression, loneliness). Our results highlight the need for methodological strategies to improve representativeness in research on the oldest-old. Incorporating proxy respondents and evaluating their reliability can help ensure the inclusion of often underrepresented older individuals.

ABSTRACT. Older adults in institutional care remain underrepresented in population surveys, limiting our understanding of their living conditions and needs. There are few exceptions that offer key insights into the differences between nursing home residents and those living in private households, such as “D80+”, a dedicated cross-sectional study of individuals aged 80 and older in Germany . Building on the insights from this and other studies, we are now expanding longitudinal ageing research in Germany by integrating a sample of nursing home residents into the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) for the first time in 2026. DEAS is an ongoing national study of individuals aged 40 and above, conducted since 1996. To inform preparations for the DEAS 2026, we conducted a pilot study, testing methodological adaptations, including tailored interview formats and recruitment strategies. Our current focus is on refining the core questionnaire, optimizing sampling and recruitment approaches, and ensuring data comparability across residential settings. This presentation will outline the progression from cross-sectional insights to piloting innovative methods and our approach to fully integrating nursing home residents into longitudinal ageing research. Both the D80+ dataset and DEAS data (1996–2023) are already available to researchers, providing valuable resources for studying ageing populations. The first DEAS wave including nursing home residents (2026) will be available from 2027 onward.

ABSTRACT. Disability, as a category of analysis, is complex and multidetermined, since it intersects with social, political, behavioral, psychological and cultural aspects. These factors, to a large extent, interfere in social practices aimed at people who find themselves in this condition, known as people with disabilities in Brazil. In order to understand this concept, we need to be aware that it varies from different perspectives, reflecting social meanings that have historically been constructed and which influence positive or negative social attitudes towards this group of people. We currently have a number of models, or perspectives, for understanding disability, including: the medical model, which sees disability as an individual problem caused by organic, health-related issues, with a clinical approach; the social model, which seeks to analyze disability as a result of social and environmental inadequacies; and the metaphysical model, of religious origin, associating it with supernatural issues, for example. The aim of this study was to identify how 1568 university students from various public undergraduate courses in Brazil position themselves in relation to disability. To this end, the Intercultural Scale of Conceptions of Disability (LEITE, 2019) was applied virtually. The data underwent statistical treatment and was analyzed by age, gender, area of knowledge, among others. Overall, it is possible to say that the research instrument proved to be adequate and the findings reveal that students tend to disagree with the biological conception and agree with the metaphysical and social conceptions. This is important, as it was possible to find out how future professionals might position themselves in relation to people with disabilities in their environment, indicating that the issue needs to be better debated in the university context.

ABSTRACT. Surveys on sensitive topics, particularly sexuality, pose unique methodological challenges, especially in societies where sexual discourse is dominated by conservative norms and political narratives. In Turkey, young adults navigate their romantic and sexual experiences within a framework of gendered expectations, conservatism, and shifting social dynamics, yet quantitative research on these topics remains limited. Given the increasing reliance on self-administered online surveys for data collection, understanding the barriers to participation and developing strategies for reaching underrepresented groups is crucial for ensuring representative findings.

As part of my master’s thesis, this study investigates university students’ attitudes and behaviors regarding virginity, casual dating, dating app use, and sexual health awareness. It further explores how gender, sexual orientation, and religiosity shape these views. An online survey is being conducted at Boğaziçi University using quota sampling to improve representativeness across faculties and gender identities. Institutional constraints prevented the use of probability sampling, which raises concerns about generalizability and response bias. Anticipated challenges include reluctance to participate due to the topic’s sensitivity and potential underrepresentation of certain groups. By the time of the conference, data collection will be complete, allowing for a discussion of participation trends, difficulties in recruiting students for sexuality research, and measures taken to enhance inclusivity in survey-based studies.

This research contributes to both substantive and methodological debates. Empirically, it provides insight into the evolving sexual norms of young adults in Turkey, a society where the topic of sexuality remains politically and culturally contested. Findings will inform both academic discussions and policy considerations regarding sexual health education and gender equality. Methodologically, it highlights effective approaches for improving survey response rates in social research on sensitive topics.

ABSTRACT. The emergence of social order on darknet markets presents social scientists with a unique puzzle. Because these markets operate outside of conventional regulatory frameworks, there is a lack of legitimate oversight to monitor transactions and protect users from opportunistic behaviour. While existing literature often examines the role of reputation in increasing sales, little attention has been paid to mechanisms that mitigate fraud. This study fills this gap by examining one of the largest known darknet platforms, Alphabay, which was operational from December 2014 to July 2017. Using two Generalised Additive Models (GAMs), results show that costly signals, such as a positive reputation, sellers’ seniority and escrow services, are inversely associated with fraudulent activity on darknet markets. Conversely, cheap signals, such as long product descriptions characterised by complex vocabulary and a positive tone, correlate positively with opportunistic behaviour. The study provides empirical support for signalling theory, by showing that costly signals are more difficult to fake or manipulate and can reduce fraud. Conversely, the study also demonstrates empirically that cheap signals, while potentially effective in initially generating trust among buyers, are associated with an increase in fraud and opportunistic behaviour.

ABSTRACT. The proliferation of social media platforms has enabled Italian criminal organizations to actively construct criminal imaginaries, aligning themselves with journalists, writers, and screenwriters who have shaped their portrayal and culture for over a century (Ravveduto, 2024). While first-generation platforms like Facebook and Instagram provided initial spaces for self-representation, criminal culture finds new forms of legitimisation in the digital public sphere through the algorithmic logic of second-generation platforms such as TikTok (Gerbaudo, 2024). This study explores how Camorra’s culture is platformized on TikTok, examining how digital affordances influence the construction of criminal imaginaries through the encoding and decoding of vernacular cultural meanings (Burgess, 2006), and how communication goals define the relationship between usage practices and the algorithmic memetic logic. To address these questions, a case study was conducted on Camorra clans active in the city and province of Naples, through digital ethnography focused on 20 TikTok accounts linked to members of these criminal organizations. The accounts were selected using two complementary strategies: opportunistic sampling in collaboration with a key informant and the ‘follow the user’ methodological approach (Caliandro, 2024). Preliminary results highlight how the platformization of Camorra’s criminal culture on TikTok is structured along three main dimensions. The first concerns reputation and social consensus, which are structured through cultural production practices and public performances of violence and conspicuous consumption. The second dimension is economic. Women within these organizations promote the creation of grassroots economic circuits (both legal and illegal) through social commerce strategies, monetizing their criminal symbolic capital. Finally, the platform’s affordances, along with the ephemerality of virality, geolocation, and content modularity, seem to facilitate the dissemination and consolidation of Camorra symbols and narratives through memetic publics (Zulli & Zulli, 2022). These findings suggest that TikTok is not just a channel for representing organized crime but a space of economic intermediation, where Camorra culture takes the form of a digital meta-brand: an ecosystem of meanings and social practices negotiated among users, algorithms, and platform affordances. Moreover, the strategic use of digital grammar reveals how the Camorra on TikTok employs sophisticated adaptation strategies to evade social and algorithmic control, continuously redefining its presence on the platform.

References

Burgess, J. (2006). Hearing ordinary voices: Cultural studies, vernacular creativity and digital storytelling. Continuum, 20(2), 201-214.

Caliandro, A. (2024). Follow the user: Taking advantage of Internet users as methodological resources. Convergence, 1-24

Gerbaudo, P. (2024). TikTok and the algorithmic transformation of social media publics: From social networks to social interest clusters. New Media & Society, 1-18

Ravveduto, M. (2024). L'e-mafia: l'immaginario delle mafie nella rivoluzione digitale. In L. Chiara & R. Merlino (Eds.), Le mafie tra continuità e mutamento. Carocci, pp. 115-124

Zulli, D., & Zulli, D. J. (2022). Extending the Internet meme: Conceptualizing technological mimesis and imitation publics on the TikTok platform. New media & society, 24(8), 1872-1890.

ABSTRACT. This proposal presents the data extraction process used to map a network of drug traffickers in Brazil in the early 1970s. The source is the records of a Military Police Inquiry conducted between June 1970 and July 1971, just before drug factions such as the Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando began establishing their respective armed territorial domains in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Using grounded theory construction procedures, we extracted the names of 1,285 individuals from 197 testimonies and other evidence contained in the inquiry. From this total, we considered eligible all individuals involved in drug trafficking, excluding those limited to the role of mere consumers. In total, 187 relationships were identified, grouped into four broader categories: flow, coordination, affinity, and conflict.

The final network comprises 1,047 nodes, with dominance of a larger connected component that includes 1,013 nodes (96.7%) linked by 5,018 edges, which will be the focus of our analysis. This largest component exhibits a clear community topology with a small-world effect. It has an average path length of 4.24, an average clustering coefficient of 0.71, a modularity of 0.74, and is divided into 13 communities using the Louvain algorithm.

Based on this network, we tested three targeted attack algorithms aimed at identifying actors whose removal maximizes average path length: by degree, by betweenness, and by bridges between communities. Finally, we examined what would happen if, after each attack, the remaining actors could regenerate their ties based on coordination and affinity relationships. Under this scenario, the results show that the attacks fail to maximize path lengths, maintaining the potential ease of exchange flows intact.

ABSTRACT. The character of Scarface born in 1932 with Howard Hawks' film with Brian De Palma's 1983 reinterpretation takes on a mythical aura destined to permeate the contemporary collective imagination. In this second version, Tony Montana becomes the symbol of an American dream where social ascent passes above all through ambition and violence. Scarface's fascination lies precisely in its ability to offer an immediately usable model of power and wealth: a character who, starting from conditions of marginality, conquers a status of dominance, but at the price of criminal escalation. The diffusion of this imagery can also be found in Matteo Garrone's Gomorra (2008), where two young protagonists, addicted to the myth of Tony Montana, reproduce his iconic gestures and phrases, testifying to how the new generations recognise in Scarface not only a cinematographic reference, but a real ‘lifestyle’ where ‘the violent hero becomes a myth because society no longer knows how to give itself shared models’ (Eco 1979, p. 87). It is in this constant tension between desire for redemption and death drive that the character continues to seduce, promoting a cult of extreme individualism, becoming an example of how pop culture can transform a fictional character into a transgenerational symbol, consecrated by the media power of cinema and the culture industry (Ravveduto, 2019; 2023). His influence persists especially in a platform like TikTok through quotes, gadgets, memes and famous phrases, where young people adopt Scarface's mottos to celebrate an idea of transgressive power. The aim of the contribution is to map the way in which the imagery linked to Tony Montana defines social practices, languages and representations of criminal power, especially through the TikTok platform, by means of comparative and visual analyses, through a targeted netnographic investigation (Addeo et al., 2020).

ABSTRACT. The intervention aims to offer a cross-disciplinary contribution on the relationship between mafias and social networks in the district of Tor Bella Monaca, located in the eastern side of Rome. This research is based on a dual approach: ethnographic and n-ethnographic. The ethnographic phase (September 2021- nowadays) allowed to analyze the neighborhood through a variety of observational lenses which differ significantly from one another: the residents, the clans' associates who run the 24/7 cocaine dealing activity within the neighborhood and the officers of the Tor Bella Monaca Carabinieri station. The witness statements, gathered through semi-structured interviews serve as a critical tool for analyzing the drug trade in the area and the associated challenges. A key issue highlighted in the research is the struggle for some young people in Tor Bella Monaca to find a job within the formal economy due to multiple factors, causing a social marginalization that, combined with the related frustration, can lead to many young adults being willing to do anything in order to live a comfortable life. Juveniles happen to be, at the same time, victims and actors in a social setting that turns them into outcasts and outlaws, driving them to generate patterns of social disobedience, turning upside-down the standards of a society that wants them invisible and banished from the look of the wealthy Rome people. Additionally, there is the observational lens of the social network TikTok, an ideal tool for studying the self-representation habits of neighborhood clan associates whose overconfidence is conveyed through their social network pages. The research demonstrates how elements such as violence, domination, and power are normalized, both on physical and digital levels.

ABSTRACT. The term "digital crime" encompasses various phenomena unified by the production of social actions that rely on particular technological support systems, which offer unprecedented opportunities for conduct within traditional frameworks of criminal activity or contribute to the creation of criminologically original domains. Given the imperative to examine how technological infrastructure not only transposes pre-existing criminal behaviors into a digital dimension but also enables the realization of peculiar illicit conduct, it is essential to recognize that digital crime can be inherently conceived as "organized" crime. It is therefore necessary to delineate precise boundaries between the broad and heterogeneous definition of digital crime and the classical understanding of organized crime, by considering the differentiation between digital crime scenarios where a multiplicity of subjects and an organizational base are necessarily but generically co-occurring, and those that, instead, fundamentally derive from the pre-existing operation of a criminal organization acting within a digital context. In light of the implicit logistical and authorship-related complexity, a comparative analysis between these forms of crime – technically organized and digitally oriented – and pre-established scientific and legal analytical frameworks is crucial to assess whether innovative, integrative, or at least partially substitutive dynamics can be identified, considering their multi-subjective, multi-offensive, and multi-agent nature. Accordingly, it is necessary to reflect teleologically on the distinct typologies of digital illicit actions, which involves observing whether, within the interplay of real and virtual dimensions, certain behaviors can or cannot be classified as belonging to the paradigmatic category of criminal configurations represented by mafia-style crime. Finally, recognizing that any criminal act comprises both material and imaginary elements, it is essential to analyze how certain digital manifestations of illicit activities contribute, on the one hand, to giving tangible concreteness to illegal structures and, on the other, to implementing a specific cultural substratum within the virtual realm.

ABSTRACT. Populism has become a defining feature of European democracies, sparking scholarly debate over its implications for political processes. This study refines the measurement of populist attitudes in Europe using data from the European Social Survey, employing Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Measurement Invariance tests, and Regression Models to construct and validate scales based on the core dimensions of populism: Anti-Elitism and People Centrism. The findings confirm the conceptual distinction between these subdimensions and establish the cross-national validity and comparability of the proposed measures. Additionally, the study examines the relationship between populist attitudes, socio-demographic characteristics, and political behaviour, demonstrating the criterion validity of the scales. By providing a robust, replicable, and theory-driven methodological framework, this research enhances the reliability of comparative analyses and contributes to addressing the replication crisis in the social sciences. The validated scales offer a valuable tool for studying political polarisation and its broader democratic implications across diverse contexts.

ABSTRACT. The research reports the existence of systematic variations in people's attitudes towards gender and gendered roles in family and society in the European Union countries. The concept of "gender attitudes" has been operationalised through a novel combination of items administered by the European Values Survey in 2008 and 2017. The EVS sampling strategy is statistically representative at different geographical levels, according to the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS). The proposed measure has been validated by using the Rasch model to test its measurement invariance across countries (NUT-1) and regions (NUT-2), and over time. The inclusion of NUTs-2 was driven by the hypothesis that gender attitudes exhibit significant variability, primarily attributable to the distinct sociocultural milieu people inhabit. The findings from a hierarchical regression analysis substantiated the notion that gender attitudes are socially, culturally, economically, and historically situated, thereby demonstrating that sub-national variability can exceed that observed between European countries. The results challenged the current (and sometimes stereotypical) understanding of gender attitudes in Europe by showing that there are very 'traditional' regions in what are usually considered 'modern' countries, and vice versa. The findings of this study thus carry implications for both research and policy. From a research perspective, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors associated with people's attitudes towards gender and gendered roles in family and society. Furthermore, the European 'case' presented in this research could be considered as an example of what could be observed in other geographical areas, thus generating new research questions and propelling the debate forward. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that, in order to design appropriate interventions, policies promoting equity should focus on regional variability even more than on variability between countries.

ABSTRACT. In cross-national comparative studies, researchers frequently rely on self-report survey instruments to explore differences among respondent groups, such as citizens of various countries. A key methodological challenge in such studies is ensuring the configural invariance of the measurement instrument. This condition holds when the latent structure exhibits a consistent pattern across groups, ensuring that observed differences reflect actual variations rather than measurement inconsistencies. To address this issue, we adopt an exploratory approach based on graph theory. Specifically, within the context of multi-group comparative analysis, we explore the use of exploratory graph analysis to assess configural invariance in measurement instruments composed of ordered categorical indicators. In this framework, networks serve as representations emphasising the latent constructs, where the covariance between observed indicators is interpreted as a pattern of interactions between the items. Our central hypothesis is that if a measurement instrument functions equivalently across groups, the group-specific correlation-based networks should exhibit similar structural patterns. To test this, we estimate network structures using a Bayesian approach with sparsity-inducing priors and employ network embedding techniques to examine structural similarities. Additionally, mixture models are used to identify subgroups of homogeneous graphs. Through a combination of simulation studies and real-world applications, we demonstrate that this method effectively detects differences in latent structures. Finally, we apply our approach to assess the configural invariance leveraging on European Social Survey, showcasing the utility of graph-based techniques in strengthening cross-group comparisons in social science research.

ABSTRACT. Political competition has become increasingly centered around a cultural cleavage, dividing green, alternative, and libertarian (GAL) positions from traditionalist, authoritarian, and nationalist (TAN) stances. By overtly focusing on the party-level, scholarship so far has treated the set of issues within the GAL-TAN dimension as a cohesive whole, overlooking potential cross-national variation and relying on an implicit assumption of equivalence. Addressing this assumption, this paper investigates how the specific issues that citizens bundle together to form this cleavage diverge across countries. I argue that elite polarization and far-right issue entrepreneurship influence citizens’ incorporation of a particular issue into the cultural cleavage. Looking at two more peripheral issues on the cultural cleavage, LGBTQ rights and climate change, this study uses multilevel structural equation modelling to analyze how elite cues shape citizens’ embedding of these issues into the cultural dimension across 31 European countries. The findings suggest that party polarization strongly affects whether citizens link an issue to core GAL-TAN issues, while far-right issue entrepreneurship does not. In contexts where parties are more polarized along an issue, citizens’ attitudes towards it load more strongly on the latent GAL-TAN dimension. These results challenge the assumption of a uniform cultural cleavage across Europe and highlight how party polarization can act as an elite cue that guides different patterns of issue-bundling among citizens.

ABSTRACT. The question of whether measures of sexism are psychometrically equivalent across countries has been widely debated in social psychology and political science, with scholars such as Glick and Fiske (1996, 2001) emphasising the cultural embeddedness of hostile and benevolent (ambivalent) sexism. However, these works have not adequately addressed the issue of measurement invariance in cross-national survey research, limiting our ability to make meaningful comparisons of sexist attitudes across different social and economic contexts. As a result, comparative studies of sexism have often been discouraged due to concerns about measurement bias. This paper addresses this issue by assessing the measurement invariance of hostile sexism across twenty-four European countries and seven age cohorts using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 11. Specifically, we examine three commonly used indicators of hostile sexism (“women seek power over men”, “women are too easily offended”, and “women exaggerate claims of sexual harassment”) by applying a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) within a structural equation modelling (SEM) framework. Unlike prior research that has struggled to establish measurement equivalence, we demonstrate strict invariance, ensuring that hostile sexism is measured in a fully comparable way across time and space. This allows for valid cross-national comparisons and robust hypothesis testing on the structural determinants of sexism. We argue that achieving strict measurement invariance in such a large-scale study is a crucial advancement for comparative research on gender attitudes, enabling more reliable assessments of how sociopolitical and economic factors shape sexism across cultures. In conclusion, by rigorously testing and establishing measurement invariance, this project provides new methodological insights and empirical evidence that strengthen the foundation for cross-national studies of sexism, addressing a critical gap in the literature and countering prior claims that such comparisons are not possible.

ABSTRACT. Equivalent measurements constitute the foundational premise for comparative social science. Despite significant methodological advancements in cross-national comparative sociology over the past five decades, persistent data asymmetries impede rigorous analysis of culturally sensitive constructs. Particularly in the study of inequality perceptions, inconsistencies in survey coverage create substantial challenges in comparative datasets. This issue is particularly pronounced in the 2019 ISSP survey, where the absence of Chinese respondents’ perspectives on wealth inequality limits the scope of comparative analyses. To address this gap, this study develops a methodological framework to reconcile measurement incompleteness by harmonizing items from the Chinese Social Survey (CSS). Our study proposes a multidimensional normalization protocol that prioritizes items validity, scale interoperability, and subgroup heterogeneity. Building on this framework, we critically evaluate the transformative potential of large language models (LLMs) in addressing two persistent challenges: 1) automating semantic equivalence detection in international survey instruments, and 2) mitigating context-specific response biases through adaptive question framing. By bridging critical methodological gaps in measurement invariance testing—especially in culturally sensitive contexts—this framework enhances the empirical rigor of comparative research on value-laden constructs while foregrounding the sociocultural embeddedness of attitudinal measurement.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines the cross-national measurement equivalence of moral judgments among 36 European countries from the 2017 wave of the European Values Study (EVS). Using the Morally Debatable Behaviors Scale (MDBS) as conceptualized by Vauclair and Fischer (2011), the study investigates the scale’s ability to measure and compare moral attitudes — from justifications of cheating on taxes to attitudes toward euthanasia — while accounting for both cultural differences and methodological changes. Through principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), preliminary results reveal that the MDBS effectively distinguishes between legal-fair and personal-sexual morality. The legal-fair dimension demonstrates strong validity and cross-cultural comparability, supporting its use in intergroup analysis. In contrast, the personal-sexual dimension exhibits weak measurement invariance, indicating that respondents across countries may interpret these items differently. These findings support the results of previous research, arguing that while legal-fair morality is universal, personal-sexual morality depends on culture. Furthermore, the study uncovers significant differences in reported attitudes based on data collection methods. Specifically, comparisons between traditional face-to-face and web-based interviews reveal that these methodological changes may influence how individuals answer the survey questions. Such variations suggest that observed differences in moral attitudes could arise partly from the context of data collection rather than genuine shifts in values.

ABSTRACT. Social constructs across communities remain complex and varied across nations.The takeaways are the major sections of natives and the non natives where power positions dominates the living standards of the natives,which have proved true in global societies .Enduring mass discrimination from the mainstream Societies they have developed unique coping mechanisms at least to counter the challenges thrown at them. The paper studies the socio-economic and gender roles of the marginalized communities in developed societies and the challenges confronted by them in their holistic inclusivity in societal rightdoing

ABSTRACT. While identity-based politics continues to be central to contemporary socio-political discourse, they often rely on rigid binaries that reinforce exclusionary systems. This study examines the impact of binaries in shaping identity politics, particularly in the areas of gender and race. It explores whether these binaries can be eliminated and, if so, what political strategies can facilitate such a transformation. While scholars have critiqued binary identity constructions (especially in the modern and post-structuralist period), there is no consensus on how to effectively move beyond them. Furthermore, this study aims to contribute to the critical discourse on identity politics by positioning intersectionality as a core theoretical framework, questioning how identity is constructed through binaries and how intersectional approaches offer alternative ways to understand and engage with identity on the basis of critical discourse analysis. Drawing on post-structuralist and intersectional perspectives, it examines alternative frameworks that challenge rigid identity classifications and support a more fluid and nuanced understanding of identity. The findings suggest that traditional identity politics are based on entrenched binaries that maintain fixed identity categories and perpetuate social and political inequalities. However, alternative models such as intersectionality and coalition-based strategies provide more inclusive and dynamic approaches. These perspectives critique essentialist identity formations and offer ways to redefine identity beyond binary classifications. This study further interrogates how intersectionality, which emerges from such critiques, actively rejects binary-based narratives by reframing identity as a product of multiple, simultaneous interactions rather than a relationship between opposites. It critically analyzes how the intersectional perspective disrupts binaries and offers a more complex, intertwined understanding of social identities. This study highlights the limitations of binary-based identity politics and argues that embracing intersectionality and fluid identity models can create a more inclusive and egalitarian socio-political landscape.

ABSTRACT. Pentecostalism continues to be a religious phenomenon that predominantly grows at the base of the social pyramid, that is, in the peripheries. Although it includes a middle-class contingent, Pentecostal churches recruit most of their followers from among Black, poor, and peripheral people, and they differ based on the great theological, liturgical, aesthetic, organizational, and behavioral plurality. The small churches that establish themselves in slums and social housing complexes have expansionist characteristics and constitute a way to overcome the precariousness of living conditions in the peripheries of the State of Rio de Janeiro. This search is reflected in the creation of faith bonds within the territory, which provide some support in the face of everyday life problems, such as the imposition of a violent order controlled by drug dealers; poverty; informality; unemployment; and instability in family relationships. In a research study conducted in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes in the north of the State of Rio de Janeiro, through interviews and observations of activities in small churches, we focused on forms of communication and engagement for social and religious action, considering common experiences that expose the intersection between race, gender, religion, and territory, emphasizing possibilities and conflicts inherent to the sociability developed in the place.

ABSTRACT. The expert interview as such is an essential qualitative method in sociological research. They provide insights into specific contexts and help to see it through the eyes of the experts. In addition, strategic arguments are also placed in expert interviews and trained narratives are replicated. Furthermore, divergent roles often arise when the expert detaches himself from his function as an expert and talk privately. This holds many potentials but also challenges for the analysis of expert interviews, which we want to elaborate in more detail. The main point of reference so fare in the analysis of expert interviews is the research interest and the associated methodological decision for the expert interviews themselves. Do I interview experts to gain deeper insights into the field? Or am I trying to grasp the power dynamics and positioning in the field? The first approach would probably lead to a qualitative content analysis in the evaluation, whereas the second would favor a critical discourse analysis or frame analysis. However, the specific approach then loses sight of the other. Based on these considerations, we would like to address the existing blind spot in the analysis of expert interviews. So far, there have been few considerations that differ from the analysis of non-expert interviews. The rigid use of specific analytical methods can also be questioned in view of the richness of expert interviews. By using empirical findings from the LetsCare project, we want to present practical research considerations for the analysis of expert interviews. In the EU-Horizon-project, more than 100 expert interviews in the field of long-term care were conducted. We want to focus on the Austrian context and aim to provide an integrative approach to analyzing expert interviews that does justice to the richness of the data collected and strengthens the method as such.

ABSTRACT. Mixed marriages enrich traditional family structures by introducing new family models and testify to the diversity and dynamism of interpersonal relationships at international level. The growing number of such marriages is inevitably linked to demographic changes and calls for a redefinition of migration, integration and family policies that better reflect the realities of modern society and pay attention to the diversity of families. This study analyses the rates of mixed marriages based on statistical data on marriages between citizens of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter referred to as "LT") and foreign countries and presents the trends of mixed marriages in Lithuania in the period 2000-2023, focusing on gender and citizenship status. The results of the study show that during the period under study, the share of mixed marriages per year varied between 8-20%. In the period from 2000 to 2021, female citizens of LT were much more likely to marry foreigners than male citizens of LT. The analysis of the data shows that there is a significant difference in the preferences of the partners of female and male citizens in mixed marriages in terms of nationality. Women with citizenship of LT are much more likely to marry partners from EU countries than men, who prefer non-EU women. These trends reflect traditional gender roles, with men potentially seeking partners from countries where traditional male-female roles prevail, perhaps due to perceived economic advantages or cultural preferences, and women preferring socio-economic parity, which may be associated with stability and shared values and greater gender equality. These unequal patterns of marital behaviour in relation to gender illustrate the complexity of contemporary marital behaviour in a globalised context, reflecting not only economic and social exchanges, but also cultural expectations regarding gender roles.

ABSTRACT. This paper interrogates the uncritical adoption of intersectionality in qualitative research, arguing that its premature elevation to “theory” has fostered epistemic deference and methodological complacency. When researchers treat intersectionality as a fixed framework rather than interrogating its explanatory force and application, they risk reducing complex inequalities to additive identity matrices and recentralizing academic authority over community-defined knowledge systems. To counter these tendencies, this paper advocates for an approach that reframes intersectionality as a methodological provocation rather than a settled theory. Following Mari Matsuda’s call to "ask the other question," it emphasizes iterative, collective dialogues that expose power asymmetries at every stage of research. By scrutinizing how research practices reproduce or resist epistemic violence, we can develop solidarity-driven, praxis-based principles that reclaim and expand intersectionality’s radical intent—principles nourished by abolitionist and decolonial knowledge practices.