Arts and Humanities

Abstract: While humour requires closeness, it may also be understood at distance, in books or newspapers, where jokes play an important role both as attractive elements for reading and as political and social devices. One of the problems that shall be discussed is a particular case of 'Anglobalization': the reception and appropriation of British cultural and political influence via the translation of British authors or through the satire on the influence of British Army officers. Thereafter, along with the concept of the British presence in Portuguese reading materials, the question is to understand whether we may speak about British humour or about Portuguese humour on British characters. While the meanings of jokes change, being far from the cultural area where texts were born and understood, they may still function for different readers. Humour is a strong case in discussing cultural transfer and reading expansion, as readers deal with jokes meant to be heard or to be seen, and hardly to be read.

Abstract: Sunday Schools provided access to books that would otherwise have not been available to rural children and teenagers in Australia. These books were largely written in the late nineteenth century by lower middle-class women, the daughters of clerks and grocers in England. The books produced by these writers were hardly sedate or regimented but laced with techniques deriving from the sensation novel, with unreliable narrators and unreliable figures of authority. An examination of one young woman’s reading choices reveals a world characterized by insecurity in identity, danger and uncertainty.

Abstract: Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) has long been employed across multiple re-search domains to document surface textures, inscriptions, and fine morphological features, including in paleontology. However, RTI requires specialized equipment and controlled acquisition protocols that are often impractical in fieldwork or heterogeneous documentation contexts. To overcome these limitations, Virtual Reflectance Transfor-mation Imaging (VRTI), based on high-resolution 3D models acquired through photo-grammetry or structured light scanning, has emerged as a promising alternative. This study investigates whether VRTI offers an operationally simpler yet perceptually equivalent alternative to conventional RTI for dinosaur footprint interpretation, while providing a standardised FAIR-compliant VRTI workspace implemented in an open-source 3D environment. A comparative protocol was developed and validated through a classroom experiment involving paleobiology students, who performed footprint delineation and morphological interpretation using both RTI and VRTI da-tasets derived from a dinosaur footprint from the Geological Collection of the "Giovanni Capellini Museum" of the University of Bologna. The evaluation combines quantitative statistical analysis with qualitative expert assessment to compare interpretative per-formance, while optimal PTM-based raking lighting conditions are also investigated. The results indicate that VRTI achieves footprint readability comparable to conventional RTI without introducing perceptual bias. Building on this validation, the proposed workspace demonstrates satisfactory usability and offers a reproducible, interoperable, and scalable workflow for cultural heritage documentation.

Abstract: The concept of sense of place has long been central to human geography, environmental psychology, landscape studies, and heritage discourse. Traditionally understood as the emotional, experiential, and symbolic meanings people attach to places, sense of place has evolved alongside changing interpretations of landscape and heritage. This paper revisits the concept of sense of place and critically examines its interaction with landscape and heritage frameworks. By tracing theoretical developments and exploring contemporary challenges—such as globalization, heritage commodification, and climate change—the paper argues that sense of place remains a vital integrative concept. It enables a deeper understanding of how landscapes and heritage sites are lived, remembered, contested, and managed. The paper concludes that recognizing the dynamic and relational nature of sense of place is essential for sustainable landscape planning and inclusive heritage practices.

Abstract: This critical narrative review and theoretical framework explains the conditional role of music in learning by shifting the focus from whether music directly improves academic achievement to how it regulates learning readiness. Learning readiness refers to the proximal psychological–neural conditions surrounding entry into a specific learning task, including emotional stability, attentional accessibility, motivational activation, cognitive-load fit, and interpersonal safety. Drawing on research on musical emotion, the reward system, cognitive load, learning engagement, and classroom interaction, the review proposes a path model linking musical features, emotion–reward–cognition mechanisms, learning readiness, and learning processes or outcomes. Music is more likely to facilitate low-load tasks, emotion-startup tasks, and collaborative-expression tasks, whereas it may interfere with tasks involving high language load or high executive-control demands. Educational applications should therefore be designed around the task, the learner’s state, individual differences, and the classroom context.

Abstract: In the central Andes, the use of fire in non-domestic contexts is widespread and deeply rooted in tradition. Due to its sacred nature and transformative power, fire has been an important component of ritual performances, past and present, to cleanse and purify, to diseases, to communicate with powerful invisible agents, and above all, to protect the community. Archaeological evidence from the Acari Valley, on the south coast of Peru, demonstrates that fire was used continuously in ritual contexts from as early as the Initial Period up to the time of the Inka state. Throughout this long period of time, fire was used either to signal the beginning or to mark the culmination of rituals.

Abstract: This research paper examines the evolving role of police forces in enforcing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in India, a critical yet underexplored dimension of India's intellectual property regime. As India transitions into a knowledge-based economy and strengthens its IPR framework to comply with international obligations under TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), law enforcement agencies have assumed increasingly significant responsibilities in combating IP crimes. This paper analyzes the legal framework empowering police action in IPR cases, examines specialized police units established for IP enforcement, evaluates operational mechanisms and challenges, and proposes recommendations for strengthening police capacity in this domain. Drawing on scholarly literature, legal provisions, and case studies, the paper reveals that while India has made notable progress in establishing specialized IP crime units and providing legal powers for police intervention, significant challenges persist including inadequate training, resource constraints, jurisdictional complexities, corruption, and coordination gaps between stakeholders. The findings underscore the need for comprehensive capacity building, inter-agency collaboration, technological modernization, and policy reforms to enhance the effectiveness of police in protecting intellectual property rights in India.

Abstract: This article presents the results of a research study aimed at designing and evaluating sustainable housing (SH) in post-disaster contexts in Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, Mexico, following the 2017 earthquakes. The proposed model integrates four funda-mental dimensions: i) housing design using traditional architecture; ii) analysis of the environmental impact of materials using indicators of CO2 emissions, energy consump-tion, and thermal performance; iii) comparative evaluation of construction costs relative to conventional housing (CH); and iv) implementation of a Social Production of Habitat (SPH) approach. A mixed-methods design was adopted, involving literature review, data collection through an environmental and hygrothermal impact study, comparative cost estimates, and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that the use of local, low-impact materials, together with participatory processes, not only reduces costs and environmental externalities but also strengthens the social fabric and contributes to a more equitable reconstruction that is contextualized within traditional architecture. The housing model developed is proposed as a replicable alternative in areas affected by natural disasters, not only in Mexico but also in other countries.

Abstract: Why did Portuguese diplomacy survive in Benin and Warri while Christian conversion failed to produce lasting social transformation? What explains the survival of diplomatic exchange in the face of the fragility of missionary success? This paper explores the diplomatic and religious aspects of Portuguese relations with the kingdoms of Benin and Warri from the late fifteenth century to 1725. It argues that African political agency, rather than European initiative, was the decisive structural feature of early Afro-Portuguese relations in the Bight of Benin. Diplomacy endured because the Oba of Benin and the Olu of Warri found Portuguese engagement useful for trade, prestige, military advantage, and external legitimation. Christianity, however, failed to achieve lasting social transformation because it threatened the sacred foundations of kingship in Benin and, in Warri, remained largely a court religion rather than a socially translated and locally sustained faith. The divergence between diplomatic success and missionary failure was therefore not incidental: it reflected African rulers’ capacity to select, adapt, and refuse foreign influence according to local political priorities.

Abstract: This research paper examines the critical intersection of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) protection, dam development, and glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) mitigation in mountain regions, particularly the Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKKH) region. Drawing from 77 peer-reviewed studies, this review synthesizes evidence on how indigenous and local knowledge systems can be protected and integrated into large-scale infrastructure projects and disaster risk reduction strategies. Key findings reveal that while TEK offers invaluable insights for GLOF early warning systems and community-based adaptation, significant gaps persist in formal protection mechanisms, particularly in dam planning contexts. The paper identifies successful participatory frameworks, documents persistent challenges in knowledge integration, and proposes policy recommendations for safeguarding TEK while enhancing climate resilience in vulnerable mountain communities. This synthesis is particularly timely given the accelerating impacts of climate change on glacial systems and the expansion of hydropower infrastructure in high-mountain Asia.

Abstract:

The thesis of this essay is this: the concept of “national sovereignty” is a “poisoned candy”. Their universalization prevents, among other things, the existence of “nations of nations”. Perhaps the clearest example is the “Spanish nation”, which includes territories that, for centuries, have been called “nations” without ceasing to be part of the “Spanish nation” or posing problems of sovereignty. Only the recovery of the original meaning of the Latin “natio” can eliminate this unavoidable lexical problem, which has become a conceptual obstacle. The author traces the history of the two words involved in the question, both from their Latin origin: “natio” and “soberanitas”. To explain their union, he then reviews the various forms and political theories with which the concept of “supreme authority” has been attempted to be expressed until he reaches that of “national sovereignty” with Sieyès. This forces him to review more than two millennia of history of political thought, from the fifth century B.C. to the end of the eighteenth century.

Abstract: Artificial intelligence is commonly portrayed as a technical innovation that inaugurates a new social epoch defined by efficiency, automation, and rational governance. This article advances a dialectical anthropological critique of such narratives by situating artificial intelligence within the historical dynamics of capitalism, colonial power, and struggles over labor and knowledge. Drawing on Marxian political economy, Fanonian analyses of colonial domination, Gramscian theories of hegemony, Polanyian insights on market disembedding, and Comaroffian critiques of contemporary capitalism, the article conceptualizes artificial intelligence as a social relation rather than a neutral technology. It argues that artificial intelligence represents an intensified moment in the commodification of intelligence itself, reshaping labor, epistemology, and governance while reproducing global inequalities. At the same time, artificial intelligence generates contradictions that destabilize established regimes of value and authority, opening spaces for contestation and alternative futures. By foregrounding historical materiality, contradiction, and praxis, the article calls for a critical anthropology of artificial intelligence that is attentive to power, committed to decolonial epistemologies, and oriented toward emancipatory transformation.

Abstract: This article examines Byzantine-period churches and nineteenth-century Greek Orthodox churches in Bursa and its surroundings as an interrelated corpus of Christian sacred architecture in Ottoman Bithynia. Rather than treating the two groups as separate historical categories, it asks how Byzantine spatial and liturgical memory was selectively retained, transformed and made visible under late Ottoman conditions. Drawing on architectural documentation, conservation records, field observations and comparative regional literature, the study analyses plan typology, apse and bema organization, narthex and gallery arrangements, structural systems, material use, façade articulation, ornamentation and public visibility. The comparison shows that nineteenth-century churches did not preserve Byzantine forms unchanged. While domed masonry systems, pastophoria and complex centralized plans were reduced or reconfigured, key liturgical principles, including east-west orientation, apsidal focus and the separation of the sacred core, remained persistent. At the same time, timber roofs, composite masonry, galleries, legible façades and occasional bell towers reflected local building practice, legal reform and communal representation. Bursa thus emerges as a regional case in which post-Byzantine architectural memory was neither passively inherited nor simply lost, but actively reworked within the material, social and spatial conditions of the Ottoman province and within wider debates on Anatolian Christian heritage studies.

Abstract: An under-discussed impact of AI is the potential emotional and serious mental health consequences of its misuse. This paper examines the relationship between emotion and intelligence and argues for greater care in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence, especially artificial superintelligence.

Abstract: This article examines non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul as multicultural urban heritage landscapes, focusing on the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery as a case exemplar. Rather than treating cemeteries solely as religious or funerary spaces, the study frames them as material archives of urban memory, minority presence, spatial displacement, and heritage governance. Based on literature review, historical documentation, mapping, and field observation, the article first outlines the transformation of non-Muslim cemeteries from the Ottoman period to the Republican era, with particular attention to their relocation, disappearance, and reuse within processes of urban modernization. It then analyses the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery in terms of its foundation, multinational administrative structure, architectural and funerary features, transferred memorial elements, digitisation practices, and conservation initiatives. The case demonstrates how cemetery heritage can reveal the layered relationship between urban development, multicultural identity, and sustainable conservation. The article argues that surviving non-Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul should be understood as living memory spaces and cultural landscapes whose protection requires documentation, public awareness, and multi-actor heritage governance.

Abstract: Peer teaching has been proposed as a pedagogical mechanism to foster independent learning, willingness, and confidence in students' learning processes (Doyle, 2008). However, the empirical evidence supporting these claims in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts remains limited, with few studies examining the applicability and effectiveness of peer teaching approaches in African educational settings. This quasi-experimental study examines the effect of peer teaching on students' classroom engagement—comprising behavioral, cognitive, and emotional dimensions—and English language achievement in Ethiopian secondary EFL classrooms. The study involved 91 Grade 11 students from two randomly selected sections at Dangila Higher Education Preparatory School. Six students from the experimental group (n=45) were selected and trained to peer-teach grammar lessons over a four-week period, while the control group (n=42) continued with conventional teacher led instruction. Data were collected using a classroom engagement questionnaire (Cronbach's α = 0.82) and grammar tests administered both before and after the intervention, with independent samples t-tests employed for statistical analysis. The findings revealed no statistically significant effect of peer teaching on either students' engagement or language achievement. Unexpectedly, the experimental group showed a slight decline in behavioral engagement compared to the control group, while no significant differences were observed for cognitive or emotional engagement, nor for language achievement between the two groups. These findings challenge assumptions about the universal effectiveness of peer teaching in EFL contexts, suggesting that contextual factors—including learner readiness, implementation quality, and cultural considerations—may significantly moderate its pedagogical impact. The study underscores the critical need for careful consideration of implementation conditions and learner characteristics when adopting peer teaching approaches in similar educational settings, and highlights the importance of contextual adaptation rather than uncritical adoption of pedagogical innovations.

Abstract: This paper explores the intertwined history of Africa and Atlantic Europe between 1400 and 1800. Unlike other works that view Africa as only a passive subject of Europe's outward expansion, this paper demonstrates that African kings, traders, priests and intellectuals were key players in the construction of the Atlantic world. Using four overlapping themes: political diplomacy; commodity knowledge; religious translation; and cartographic imagination, the paper shows that the histories of Africa and Europe during this period cannot be accurately reconstructed through the lens of a single region in isolation.

Abstract: Innovation is often analysed through economic or technological perspectives, yet rarely as a metaphysical, epistemic, and ethical process. This paper introduces Innovationology as a transdisciplinary philosophical framework that reinterprets innovation as a systemic and emergent phenomenon grounded in moral and cognitive dimensions. Drawing on philosophy of science, complexity theory, and ethics of technology, it proposes the Universal Innovation Equation (UIE)—a model capturing the dynamic interplay of knowledge, intelligence (human and artificial), context, potentiality, and ethical responsibility. Through comparative examples from Africa, Europe, and Asia, the study demonstrates how Innovationology supports a pluralistic, anticipatory, and ethically grounded understanding of transformative innovation. It argues that innovation is ontologically prior to technologies or institutions, representing a meta-force of transformation linking intelligence, creativity, and responsibility within an evolving planetary system.

Abstract: The concept of civilization has long occupied a central place in historical, sociological, and anthropological inquiry. Classical theories frequently portrayed civilizations as coherent cultural entities, developmental stages, or large-scale historical organisms. More recent scholarship, however, has emphasized fragmentation, power asymmetries, colonial entanglements, epistemic plurality, and the contested nature of social order. This article proposes a relational theory of civilizational intelligence that seeks to bridge these traditions without reducing civilizations to unified organisms or deterministic historical trajectories.Rather than treating civilizations as bounded entities possessing collective minds, the article conceptualizes them as contested relational assemblages composed of heterogeneous actors, institutions, knowledge systems, infrastructures, ecological processes, and power relations. Civilizational intelligence is defined as the capacity of these assemblages to negotiate complexity, manage conflict, integrate diverse forms of knowledge, respond to socio-ecological transformations, and sustain conditions for collective adaptation under uncertainty.Drawing on complexity theory, political ecology, critical governance studies, anthropology, and decolonial scholarship, the article develops a multidimensional framework organized around relational adaptation, epistemic plurality, power-sensitive governance, ecological embeddedness, collective learning, and anticipatory coordination. Comparative illustrations from historical and contemporary societies demonstrate how adaptive capacities emerge not from systemic coherence alone but from the dynamic interaction of cooperation, contestation, and institutional transformation.The article argues that future civilizational resilience in the Anthropocene will depend less on technological sophistication or economic expansion than on the capacity to navigate diversity, inequality, ecological constraints, and planetary interdependence. In this sense, civilizational intelligence is not a property of civilizations as unified entities but an emergent and continuously negotiated process operating across multiple scales of human organization.

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between middle-class formations and authoritarian governance through the prism of social reproduction, insecurity, and political continuity. Rather than interpreting middle-class engagements with authoritarian regimes primarily through ideology, coercion, or political alignment, the article argues that authoritarianism increasingly functions as a reproductive regime: a set of institutional, moral, and bureaucratic arrangements that promise continuity amid economic volatility, institutional erosion, and social fragmentation. Positioned between declining material security and enduring aspirations of stability, middle classes emerge as a contradictory social formation whose strategies of reproduction are both enabled and constrained by authoritarian power.Drawing on Marxist theories of reproduction, Polanyi’s analysis of social protection, Bourdieu’s work on habitus and distinction, Weber’s sociology of authority, and anthropological scholarship on governance and uncertainty, the article conceptualizes authoritarianism as a historically situated response to crises of reproduction. Through comparative illustrations from Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, it shows how authoritarian governance reorganizes access to housing, education, employment, legality, and respectability—key infrastructures of middle-class life. The article contributes to dialectical anthropology by reframing authoritarianism as a dynamic field of class practice, contradiction, and struggle rather than a fixed political form.