bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Placental DNA methylation in caesarean sections – a pilot study
Authors: Słabuszewska-Jóźwiak Aneta , Włodarczyk Marta , Ciebiera Michał , Zwolińska Joanna , Wojtyła Cezary , Nowicka Grażyna , Jakiel Grzegorz , Raczkiewicz Dorota
Published: May 2020

Introduction

Caesarean section (CS) is the most common medical procedure performed in women all over the world. There is a hypothesis that caesarean section changes DNA methylation, and it has been linked to immune-mediated diseases such as diabetes in late infant health outcomes. The aim of the study was to evaluate the relationship between caesarean section and DNA methylation patterning in the placenta by measurement of global DNA methylation.

Material and methods

We included in the study 111 healthy, pregnant women in singular pregnancy at term of delivery (gestational age at least 37 weeks). The study involved global methylation in placental tissue from 46 pregnant women, delivered by vaginal route, and 49 pregnant women, delivered by elective caesarean section (ECS) before the start of labour. In 16 of the elective caesarean section cases, regular uterine contractions were declared. An ELISA-based kit was used for an assessment of the global DNA methylation.

Results

Global DNA methylation in the placenta in elective caesarean sections (3.02 on average) was significantly lower compared to intrapartum caesarean sections (3.71 on average) and vaginal deliveries (3.64 on average), but did not significantly differ between intrapartum caesarean sections and vaginal deliveries. Global DNA methylation in the placenta in male newborns was significantly higher (4.86 on average) than in female newborns (3.31 on average) in vaginal deliveries but not in either elective or intrapartum caesarean sections.

Conclusions

Caesarean sections performed without uterine contractions significantly influenced global DNA methylation in the placenta. Moreover, a sexual dimorphism at the level of placental global DNA methylation was demonstrated. Further studies investigating different panels of genes may help to identify genes with aberrant methylation in newborn infants delivered by caesarean section compared to vaginal delivery, as well as demonstrate sexual dimorphism.
The Dark Triad of personality and momentary affective states: an experience sampling study
Authors: Pilch Irena , Lathia Neal , Wiesebach Krzysztof
Published: May 2020

Background

The Dark Triad (DT; Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy) refers to three distinct but interrelated socially undesirable traits which are associated with an antagonistic and exploitative strategy of conduct. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationships between the DT traits and momentary affective states using a longitudinal approach.

Participants and procedure

University students (N = 81) completed personality measures and participated in an 8-day experience-sampling study. Subjects provided n = 2572 responses. Multilevel analyses were used to assess relationships between the DT and affect.

Results

All the DT traits were associated with negative affect: the two psychopathy dimensions (boldness and mean-ness) negatively, and the remaining traits positively. Boldness and grandiose narcissism were associated with positive affect. The presence of others differentiated the relationships between Machiavellianism and mean-ness and negative affective states.

Conclusions

The findings showed a tendency to experience more negative affect in everyday life in people with higher lev-els of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, Machiavellianism, and disinhibition.
Scores of short and free scale for Big Five explain perceived stress at different stages of life: validity, reliability and measurement invariance of the Polish adaptation of Mini-IPIP
Authors: Czerwiński Stanisław , Atroszko Paweł
Published: May 2020

Background

Big-Five personality traits are related to a variety of quality of life outcomes; therefore, they should arguably be controlled for whenever health and well-being are investigated. Valid and reliable short measures of these constructs may enable large scale epidemiological studies. Stress is a well-recognized risk factor for a host of health-related outcomes and its relationship with Big-Five personality is well-evidenced. The aim of this re-search was to investigate psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Mini-IPIP scale measuring Big Five personality factors. This included measurement invariance between genders and between two samples representing different stages of life – an employee sample and an adolescent sample – and investigating the relationships of Big Five personality traits with perceived stress.

Participants and procedure

Sample 1 comprised 723 employees from a wide range of professions and sample 2 comprised 765 high school students. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4) was used in each sample.

Results

The Mini-IPIP had an acceptable fit and reliability in both samples and showed measurement invariance be-tween samples and between genders within the samples. Big Five personality traits explained the variance in perceived stress similarly in both samples, and analogously to previous studies.

Conclusions

The present study shows that the Polish version is a valid and reliable psychometric tool and provides evidence that the relationship between personality and stress is relatively stable at different life stages, and can be effec-tively investigated with short measures.
Management of patients with COVID-19 in radiology departments, and indications regarding imaging studies – recommendations of the Polish Medical Society of Radiology
Authors: Cieszanowski Andrzej , Czekajska Elżbieta , Giżycka Barbara , Gruszczyńska Katarzyna , Podgórska Joanna , Oronowicz-Jaśkowiak Agnieszka , Serafin Zbigniew , Szurowska Edyta , Walecki Jerzy M.
Published: May 2020

The pandemic involving COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, due to its severe symptoms and high transmission rate, has gone on to pose a control challenge for healthcare systems all around the world. We present the second version of the Recommendations of the Polish Medical Society of Radiology, presuming that our knowledge on COVID-19 will advance further rapidly, to the extent that further supplementation and modification will prove necessary. These Recommendations involve rules of conduct, procedures, and safety measures that should be introduced in radiology departments, as well as indications for imaging studies.
Physical therapy for old-timer athletes with chronic back pain
Authors: Honcharov Alexey , Ruban Larisa , Litovchenko Andrey , Okun Daria , Turchinov Artem
Published: May 2020

Introduction

The purpose of the study was to assess the effectiveness of a physical therapy program for old-timer athletes with chronic back pain, which is a common complaint in this group, especially among wrestlers. It results from the fact that in wrestlers, the load is usually borne by a specific muscle group. Recent data on the effectiveness of the treatment and prevention of chronic back pain among old-timer athletes have shown a significant role of physical therapy. Increasingly used in dystrophic diseases of the spine, it is economically justified, does not require special conditions, and is not accompanied by complications. The only question that remains is what actions are rationally applied, depending on clinical manifestations.

Methods

The study involved analysis of current literature on the visual analogue scale for Oswestry questionnaire, research methods for spinal motor properties described by Weiss and Zembaty, Schober test, Thomayer test, methods of mathematical statistics.

Results

A physical therapy program was developed which was prescribed for 3 periods: muscle relaxation, myocorrection, and myotonization; they differed in motor activity, direction, and means of physical therapy. The physical therapy means included morning hygienic gymnastics, post-isometric relaxation, hydrokinesiotherapy with traction elements, kinesiotherapy with Pilates elements, phonophoresis with hydrocortisone, massage. The program improved spinal mobility and life quality in old-timer athletes with chronic back pain.

Conclusions

The physical therapy program for old-timer wrestlers statistically significantly improved the empirical parameters and quality of life, reduced as a result of chronic back pain.
Osseous manifestations of sarcoidosis
Authors: Kucharz Eugeniusz Józef
Published: May 2020

Sarcoidosis is a systemic multisystem inflammatory disease of unknown etiology. The disease is characterized by formation of non-caseating granulomas. The most common presentation is bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy and lung infiltration, but the disease is very heterogeneous, with an unpredictable clinical course. Musculoskeletal manifestations are common. Bone involvement is less frequent, and usually occurs in patients with chronic multisystem course of the disease. They are most commonly found in the phalanges of hands and feet, and are usually bilateral. The skull, long bones, ribs, pelvis, and axial skeleton may also be affected.

Osseous involvement may be asymptomatic but in some cases can cause a severe disability.

Imaging techniques are important for diagnosis. Radiological investigations revealed sclerotic or destructive lesions (involving also joints), cystic and punched out lesions and cortical abnormalities. Biopsy is required for differential diagnosis with respect to malignancy. Treatment is a part of systemic therapy and is not needed in all cases. Glucocorticoids and TNF-a antagonists are used for management.
The City with Imaginary Walls
Authors: Vidal Cécile
Published: May 2020

This chapter shows that racial formation was also shaped by the relationships French New Orleans maintained with its hinterland. Racial tensions were instrumental in developing a sense of collective belonging among urban dwellers of European descent that was defined in confrontation with the world beyond the city’s imaginary walls. The Natchez Wars in 1729–1731 and slave unrest afterward played a crucial role in the construction of the Louisiana capital as a white civic community. In contrast, for the slaves living on the plantations nearby, the urban center increasingly symbolized both a place of greater autonomy and a place of repression.
The Hustle and Bustle of City Life
Authors: Vidal Cécile
Published: May 2020

This chapter investigates how the ancien régime culture, with which officials and settlers came to French Louisiana and which made them highly sensitive to the issue of maintaining their rank in public, intersected with the process of racialization. As the urban milieu facilitated cross-racial encounters and exchanges of all kinds in public civic and religious ceremonies, drinking houses, and street encounters, most whites quickly became aware of the need to maintain some appearance of social superiority and to display and instill the socio-racial hierarchy by their exclusive and violent behaviour in the public space. Still, people of African descent never ceased to fight against their domination, invisibility, and segregation.
Spartina, Mon Amour
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

In this chapter, Huler canoes along a path similar to one Lawson took around the South Carolina coast. Huler discovers the environment and scenery of Lawson’s journey along the salted marsh rife with Spartina alterniflora, or marsh grass. Huler continues paddling across the Charleston Harbor through the tides, and to the mouth of the Santee, which he learns is not easy. Huler begins to appreciate the danger Lawson encountered while canoeing through the waves along the coast from Charleston to coastal communities and islands nearby. On the other hand, Huler learns to paddle and adventure through the wind despite exhaustion. Huler’s first journey ends with his stay at McClellanville.
Coffee with the Huguenots
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

This chapter assesses Lawson’s adventure through the swamp where he encounters the Huguenots and explores the life of Indians; he describes the Santee Indians and their agricultural practices. Corresponding to Lawson’s journey, Huler travels through the swamp where he encounters the Guerry, Huguenots, and Longleaf pines. Interwoven with Huler’s journey is information about the swamp ecosystem and the history of the Huguenots.
The Corps’s Work Is Never Done
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

This chapter reviews Lawson’s adventure with the Santee Indians. During Lawson’s stay with the Santee, he learns of their customs and traditions, and even discovers a dark past. Huler emphasizes the slavery trade between the British and the Indians. Additionally, Lawson records his study of diseases such as syphilis, comparing Europe’s spread of syphilis to that in North American. In a reflection of Lawson’s period with the Santee, Huler visits the Santee tribe and Vice Chief Peggy Scott who tells him stories and of her appreciation for Lawson. She reflects on bettering her tribe and her appreciation for their traditions.
The Most Amazing Prospect
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

In this chapter, Huler travels on foot and camps in the way that Lawson did. Huler reflects on the beauty of nature as he walks Lawson’s trek. He records his sleeping schedule and describes his experience in the tent as rough but satisfying. Huler also explores South Carolina’s small towns and explores the history of the Revolutionary War through old revolutionary-era sites.
The Anthropocene and the Catawba
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

This chapter explores Lawson’s observation of nature and the history of the Catawba. Huler reviews Lawson’s recordings of birds, particularly the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon. During Huler’s stay in Catawba, he takes interest in the pottery displays at the Native American Studies Center. Huler compares the land from Lawson’s period to modern time and describes Lawson’s experience with the Indians there and their loss of territory.
Losing the Way
Authors: Huler Scott
Published: May 2020

In this chapter, Huler loses his way from Lawson’s trek. Huler crosses the Neuse, a river going through the Piedmont, and passes the coastal plain into the Pamlico Sound. He compares Lawson’s writings to the modern environment in time, pointing out the size and current of the river. However, Huler mentions that the waterfall that Lawson found cannot be the Falls of the Neuse. After realizing that Lawson disappears past Hillsborough, Huler begins south of Raleigh where he passes many churches, religious buildings, and minority communities. Huler makes a couple of stops in Clayton to eat and rest before crossing the Neuse and coming across tobacco country.
Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

The introduction explains how yoga, mindfulness, and meditation entered the U.S. cultural mainstream, including public schools, between the 1970s and 2010s, and why it matters for education, law, and religion. In the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited public schools from endorsing prayer and devotional Bible reading. Yoga and meditation advocates reframed these practices as secular by downplaying religious beliefs and advertising scientific evidence of health benefits and cultivation of universal morality and ethics. Certain promoters used tactics of self-censorship, camouflage, code-switching, or frontstage/backstage behaviour to win a “Vedic Victory” or skilfully advance “stealth Buddhism.” Drawing on the author’s experience as an expert witness in four legal challenges, the introduction examines key terms: “yoga,” “mindfulness,” “meditation,” “Hinduism,” “Buddhism,” “religion,” “secularity,” “spirituality” and “science.” Because meanings of these terms are contested, social institutions such as schools and courts must arbitrate disputes by formulating and applying definitions for policy purposes. The introduction argues that the school programs considered are both
secular
and
religious, and that their integration into public-school curricula may result in an unrecognized, fundamental historic and legal transformation: the reestablishment of religion in America.
Introduction
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

A third grader begins Opening Sequence A—Sun Salutations—welcoming the sun by raising her hands up high, palms pressed together above her head in añjali mudrā. She bends low to the ground, calming her mind by coordinating breaths, gaze, and movements, before rising up to face the sun. Cued by the sound of a bell, she sits in Lotus—cross-legged with feet above the knees, eyes closed, thumbs and forefingers circled into ...
Education and Law
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 1 illuminates the educational and legal contexts in which yoga and meditation entered the U.S. cultural mainstream. Beginning in the seventeenth century, public schools taught Protestant Christianity. Since the mid-twentieth century, public schools have been tasked by courts with providing a secular education and by educational reformers with shaping moral character and ethical behavior. Yoga and meditation appeal to educators because they promise not only to enhance physical, mental, and emotional health but also to instill morality and ethics without promoting religion. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of landmark rulings, among them Engel v. Vitale (1962) and School of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), that prohibited public schools from endorsing religious practices such as prayer
and
Bible reading. The Court developed constitutional tests, the Lemon test, endorsement test, and coercion test, for identifying violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, based on principles of religious voluntarism, equality, and nondiscrimination. Through the federal cases Malnak v. Yogi (1979) and United States v. Meyers (1996), courts developed the Malnak-Meyers indicia of religion. In 2008, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) identified the imposition of yoga and meditation as reverse religious discrimination.
Transcendental Meditation
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 2 examines Malnak v. Yogi
(1979), the first federal appellate case to scrutinize under the Establishment Clause meditation practices from a religion other than Christianity. Malnak found that a New Jersey elective high-school course in the Science of Creative Intelligence/Transcendental Meditation (SCI/TM) was “religious” despite being marketed as “science.” A concurring opinion by Judge Arlin Adams articulated criteria for identifying “religion.” Malnak analyzed the textbook written by Indian-born Hindu Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (c. 1918–2008) and chants used in the pūjā ceremony—which involves prayers for aid from deities, bowing, and offerings to the deified Guru Dev—where students received a secret Sanskrit
mantra, identified by Maharishi as “mantras of personal gods.” Following Malnak, TM was rebranded as “TM/Quiet Time” and, although students still receive secret Sanskrit mantras in a pūjā, TM continues to be taught in public schools with funding from the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. Because Malnak identified “religion” through belief statements, subtracting the textbook and adding scientific studies deflected attention from how the practice of mantra meditation might encourage acceptance of metaphysical beliefs. The chapter argues that secularly framed programs may be more efficacious than overtly religious programs in promoting religion.
Yoga in America
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 3 explains how yoga won an American audience as marketers advertised health benefits and downplayed religious associations, while gesturing toward spirituality. Although many people perceive yoga as secular, religion and spirituality are pervasive in the contemporary yoga scene, including “Christian yoga” and yoga-based “health and wellness” programs in public universities and K-12 public schools. School-yoga advocates who defuse objections by subtracting religious-sounding language claim to have won a “Vedic Victory.” Some who argue that yoga is appropriate for public schools because it is secular also argue that yoga should be exempt from sales taxes because it is spiritual, and therefore protected as free exercise of religion by the First Amendment. Surveys—importantly Yoga in America studies commissioned in 2012 and 2016 by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance—suggest that many practitioners have spiritual experiences and that longer-term, more frequent practice correlates with spiritual motives. Yoga has attracted enthusiasts and provoked controversies worldwide, including in India, because it has religious and spiritual associations—and political and financial implications. Certain Christians and Muslims, among others, view compulsory participation as violating conscience. The chapter argues that yoga epitomizes the blurred boundaries between the secular and religious in American public life.
After Sedlock
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 7 narrates Foundation activities beyond Encinitas and after Sedlock. Sonia Jones rebranded the Jois Foundation as the Sonima Foundation (Sonima Health and Wellness Foundation) in 2014 and as Pure Edge in 2016, and provided funding, curriculum, training, and support to schools in Nairobi, Kenya; San Diego, California; New York City, New York; Houston, Texas; East Palo Alto, California, and Louisville, Kentucky. Seeking to avoid future lawsuits, the Foundation subtracted linguistic references to Ashtanga, but continued to teach core Ashtanga practices—including Sun Salutations, Lotus, and Rest—increasingly coupled with mindfulness meditation. Once the threat of litigation seemed safely past, Foundation leaders reintroduced references to Jois, Ashtanga, Hinduism, Buddhism, and spiritual goals through a visually distinct website, Sonima.com. This gave the Foundation perceptual distance to become more involved with funded schools by requiring use of a proprietary curriculum, mandatory
training and supervision, and formal evaluation of results. The chapter argues that having won a victory for yoga in Encinitas, the Foundation accelerated its missional work of bringing the philosophy, teachings, and values of Pattabhi Jois to youth in underserved communities across the country and around the world.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 8 unpacks the modern American concept of “mindfulness.” Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979, provides a model for mindfulness-based programs (MBPs), such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). MBSR is nominally “secular” and supported by scientific research, yet infused at every level—concept, structure, teaching training, and graduate resources—with systematic instruction in Buddhist-derived assumptions, values, and practices, what Kabat-Zinn interprets as the “essence” of Buddhism. Many MBPs exhibit the Malnak-Meyers indicia of religion. Certain mindfulness missionaries conceptualize their tactics as “skillful means,” “Stealth Buddhism,” “Trojan horse,” or “script.” Other proponents may understand mindfulness teachings as self-evidently true and “universal,” without recognizing that supposedly “secular ethics” are socially constructed and contested by others, including Christians and certain Buddhists. MBPs exemplify the difficulty of extracting the “secular” from the “religious.” Mindfulness is “secular” in privileging present experience and “religious” in comprising a world view and way of life premised on more-than-physical assumptions about the nature of reality, self, and the path to salvation from suffering. The chapter argues that secularization requires more than subtracting religious language and adding scientific framing: rebuilding from foundations uncontrolled by assumptions about the nature of the self and the world.
Mindfulness in Education
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 9 assesses MindUP, Mindful Schools, and Calmer Choice as representative examples of mindfulness-based
programs (MBPs) with a mission of weaving “secular mindfulness” into the fabric of public-school curricula and school culture. Public-school MBPs foreground neuroscience, while avoiding religious-sounding terms such as “Buddhism” or “meditation.” Many MBPs were developed by Buddhists or Buddhist sympathizers and/or reflect Buddhist-derived assumptions, values, and world views. Controversies, notably a legal challenge to Calmer Choice in 2016, center on complaints of religious coercion. Certain Christians, Buddhists, and meditators note barriers to “opting out” of school programs and/or complain that mandatory mindfulness violates conscience. Because MBP leaders envision mindfulness as more than a curriculum—a way of life—training and certification often require public-school teachers to commit to personal practice, participation in retreats (often led by Buddhists at Buddhist centers), and supervision by guiding teachers (many of them Buddhist meditators). Guidelines for “ensuring secularity” advise subtracting religious language, gestures, and objects, without questioning assumptions undergirding the “core practice.” The chapter argues that secular framing paradoxically increases the potential of public-school MBPs to instill beliefs, values, and practices widely associated with religion.
Superbrain Yoga
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 10 analyzes decisions by the Pennsylvania Department of Education
Charter School Appeal Board (CAB) first to grant and then to rescind an elementary school charter in Education for New Generations Charter School v. North Penn School District
(2016). CAB determined that school ties to Pranic Healing and Arhatic Yoga (PHAY) and plans to teach Superbrain yoga
(SBY) constitute sectarian religious instruction. Master Choa Kok Sui (1952-2007) avowedly developed PHAY in the Philippines to manipulate subtle energies; SBY makes the brain “super” by increasing intuitive intelligence through activating heart and crown chakras to open the gateway to God. One of the proposed school’s co-founders argued in an unrelated case that PHAY is a religion for free exercise purposes. CAB almost granted the charter, illustrating that less familiar religions can be difficult to recognize when framed as scientific techniques with educational benefits. Comparing Sedlock with Education for New Generations, this chapter argues that resource disparities between those issuing and defending against religious charges exert a surprising degree of influence on legal determinations; the California school district had financial motives for teaching yoga, whereas the Pennsylvania district had financial reasons to block a charter school that happened to be based on yoga.
Waldorf Methods
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 11 considers Pennsylvania’s Hatboro-Horsham School District (HHSD)’s determination that the proposed Good Earth Charter School (GE) is religiously sectarian. GE is a Waldorf Methods school, premised on Rudolf Steiner’s (1861-1925) anthroposophy, a religious cosmology that explains humanity’s spiritual evolution from cosmic origins and anticipates humanity’s attainment of divine nature. Although Waldorf charter schools withstood a legal challenge in California in PLANS, Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified School Distict, Twin Ridges Elementary School District (1998–2012), HHSD found that GE’s curriculum, teacher training, and affiliations reflect its anthroposophic foundations. Contrasting the California and Pennsylvania cases illustrates how resource disparities can affect legal determinations of what counts as religion. This chapter argues that Waldorf Methods charter schools illustrate how a pedagogical approach can be secular and religious. GE’s curriculum is aligned with state educational standards, and there are public Waldorf Methods schools that promote secular interests by offering an arts-focused education to students who otherwise could not afford it. Yet, Waldorf’s distinctive pedagogy—including its meditation practices—is an outgrowth of Steiner’s esoteric understanding of child development. Modern anthroposophists have in two separate court cases argued successfully that anthroposophy is a religion for free exercise purposes.
Science
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 12 contextualizes scientific claims about health benefits and considers evidence of adverse effects. The chapter argues that scientific support for school-based yoga, mindfulness, and meditation is weaker than often claimed and falls short of demonstrating that programs are secular, safe, or superior to alternatives. Low-quality studies report health benefits, using uncontrolled, pre-post designs, or nonactive controls, with small sample sizes, and high risk of bias, including expectation bias, researcher allegiance, publication bias, and citation bias; higher quality studies show less efficacy. Scientific evidence is not equivalent to evidence of secularity; research studies report that meditation in religious contexts, as well as prayer and Bible reading, can benefit health and activate specific brain regions. Some participants report challenging experiences with meditative practices, including anxiety, depression, physical pain, reexperiencing of traumatic memories, anger, and suicidality. Meditative practices may be contraindicated for participants with a history of trauma, PTSD, addiction, psychosis, anxiety, depression, or suicidality. Research shows that alternatives, such as aerobic exercise, math, music, nutritious food, or different behavioral therapies, can produce comparable benefits, including training the brain through neuroplasticity. Yet marketers rarely disclose risks of adverse effects, screen for contraindications, or provide information about alternatives.
Religion
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 13 reports on research that demonstrates a correlation and supports a causal connection between longer-term, more intense participation in nominally secular yoga or mindfulness and changes in religious self-reporting and affiliations. The chapter develops a theory to explain how embodied practices may produce religious effects. Participating in practice communities may shape perception through 1) intensification and heightened awareness of sensory experiences; 2) reinterpretation of experiences through the lens of socially constructed beliefs and values; and 3) cultural associations that remain after subtracting religious language. This interplay may elicit emotional and affective responses, inspire attitudes performed metaphorically, and establish ideas in memory. Because meditative practices are embodied, regularly repeated, and emotionally charged, such practices may be more efficacious than doctrinal teachings in conveying and reinforcing religious meanings. This chapter argues that marketing yoga and mindfulness as secular science can both veil and heighten religious effects through encouraging involvement by those who would abstain if they initially perceived these practices as religious. Practitioners may experience emotional reactions or affective
responses that motivate actions to generate desired emotions; internalize metaphorically enacted attitudes; and interpret experiences as confirming truth and goodness of religious assumptions, values, and world views associated with yoga or mindfulness.
Ethics
Authors: Brown Candy Gunther
Published: May 2020

Chapter 14 advances an ethical argument that respect for cultural and religious diversity and informed consent require transparency and voluntarism. Many school yoga and meditation programs borrow from Asian religious traditions, as interpreted by middle-to-upper-class European Americans, and then target low-income African Americans and Latinos. Such programs risk dual racialization and cultural stereotyping of Asian Hindus and Buddhists as well as American people of color; positive orientalist stereotypes imagine Asians as wiser and more spiritual, while negative stereotypes encourage racial disciplining of black and brown boys to manage classroom behavior. Differentials in wealth and power can also produce hegemony, where interests of one group pass for interests of society. Programs risk cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism by extracting and potentially distorting cultural resources from one socially and politically less-privileged group of cultural ‘others,’ and imposing those resources on still-less-privileged ‘others,’ for the primary benefit of the socially dominant group. School programs sometimes disclose religious roots but are rarely transparent about ongoing religious associations. Informed consent implies that participation is voluntary. Yet coercion is inherent in classroom yoga and meditation, even if opting out is permitted, because teacher authority and peer pressure exert indirect pressure to conform to social expectations.
Sovereign Entrepreneurs
Authors: Lewis Courtney
Published: May 2020

By 2009, reverberations of economic crisis spread from the United States around the globe. As corporations across the United States folded, however, small businesses on the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) continued to thrive. In this rich ethnographic study, Courtney Lewis reveals the critical roles small businesses such as these play for Indigenous nations. The EBCI has an especially long history of incorporated, citizen-owned businesses located on their lands. When many people think of Indigenous-owned businesses, they stop with prominent casino gaming operations or natural-resource intensive enterprises. But on the Qualla Boundary today, Indigenous entrepreneurship and economic independence extends to art galleries, restaurants, a bookstore, a funeral parlor, and more.
Lewis’s fieldwork followed these businesses through the Great Recession and against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding EBCI-owned casino. Lewis's keen observations reveal how Eastern Band small business owners have contributed to an economic sovereignty that empowers and sustains their nation both culturally and politically.
Introduction
Authors: Lewis Courtney
Published: May 2020

This introduction describes how encouraging a diversity of small businesses can help support a Native Nation’s long-term economic stability, but goes further to demonstrate this uniquely through the eyes of the small-business owners themselves along with an in-depth examination of their local, national, and international contexts. In doing so, it describes how this book also addresses the ways in which Native Nations, by supporting small business resilience, are responding in politically and socioeconomically meaningful ways to settler-colonial economic subjugations.
This introduction further describes how the book unpacks the layers of small-business complications specific to Native Nations and American Indian business owners while speaking to larger theoretical questions regarding the impact of small businesses in a global indigenous context. Debates regarding economic sovereignty versus economic power,
measures of autonomy, land status, economic identity, fluctuating relationships with settler-colonial society, and the growth of neoliberalism (along with its accompanying “structural adjustment” policies) meet with specific practices, such as the implementation of guaranteed annual incomes, cultural revitalization actions, environmental justice movements, and the potentially precarious choices of economic development—issues that are exacerbated during times of economic precarity, such as the Great Recession.
Economic Identities
Authors: Lewis Courtney
Published: May 2020

Sorting out the diversity of small businesses and small- business practices begins with two seemingly simple but central questions: Who owns these businesses, and what markets do they serve? To delve into these questions, this chapter begins by examining the contextual distinctiveness of American Indians’ economic identities and their related experiences, especially in the context of capitalism. Addressing these constructions helps refine our theoretical understandings of what has been termed Indigenous entrepreneurship by following how the external shaping of Indigenous economic identity has hindered its representation as well as its expression. Family business ownership is highlighted here, followed by an examination of issues for tourism businesses, including buffering for privacy as well as complications of the “Buy Local” movement for tourism-based businesses.
Tourism
Authors: Lewis Courtney
Published: May 2020

To ignore the obvious proliferation of tourism-based small businesses on the Qualla Boundary is to ignore a principal element of the EBCI’s economy and its rich history of business owner ship. Furthermore, the importance of the tourism industry for Native Nations across the United States has been growing in recent years, as seen, for example, in the institution of the 2016 Native American Tourism and Improving Visitor Experience (NATIVE) Act. It is for this reason that I dedicate an entire chapter to this topic. Here, the differences between the town of Cherokee and the rest of the Qualla Boundary are clearest, as almost all of the tourism that takes place on the Qualla Boundary is concentrated in Cherokee proper.
This chapter focuses on the concept of authenticity, what is “authentic” in tourist’s eyes, and how the EBCI have asserted their representation from the times of nostalgia tourism to the cultural and heritage tourism of today, a change that is financially supported by the casino. This tourism discussion includes topics such as the development of the Qualla Co-operative and branding, such as the “authentically Cherokee” brand.
Pillars of Sovereignty
Authors: Lewis Courtney
Published: May 2020

The practices of political sovereignty, such as nation building, and the achievement of a stable economy through practices of economic sovereignty are intimately intertwined— and the role of small-business diversity in creating this economic stability can be indispensable. Consequently, these relationships and the situational interdependence of government-owned corporations (e.g., gaming) and privately owned small businesses, especially in the case of the EBCI, are vital to supporting the practices of both political and economic sovereignty, especially when countering the effects of the US governments’ economic hegemony.
Drawing on the economic anthropology literature helps to complicate notions of “per caps” (dividends) operating as universal basic income and guaranteed annual income on the national level while also expanding notions of entrepreneurial impacts, such as in the realm of cultural reclamation.
Introduction
Authors: Tutino John
Published: May 2020

Engages the intersection of demographic explosion, urbanization, and globalization to offer a new vision of the historic transformation that marked the Americas and the world from the 1950s. Focuses attention on capitalist concentrations of wealth and power, the spread of social marginalization in expanding urban areas, and the persistence and limits of democratic participations. Notes the parallel yet differing experiences of cities across the Americas
Boom, Echo, and Splinter
Authors: Healey Mark
Published: May 2020

Buenos Aires began the twentieth century as a prosperous port drawing European immigrants to serve a booming export economy. It expanded outward from its core of urban power and prosperity through suburbanization, early on segregating slaughterhouse zones from sites of recreation for the comfortable. Mid-century industrialization drew workers to the peripheries—which became zones of labor politics and bases for active citizenship and Peronist power. Peronist economic and political power sustained an unequally shared prosperity past World War I. Then de-industrialization in times of population expansion accompanied by military dictatorship (1976-1983) and a new suburbanization to protect the wealthy brought the polarizing mix wealth and marginality, formality and informality faced earlier in other New World cities. Re-democratization failed to bring more shared prosperity—or an escape from repeated cycles of promise and crisis.
Montreal in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Dagenais Michèle
Published: May 2020

Montreal began the twentieth century as Canada’s primary city, its major port with an emerging industrial sector, ruled by an Anglophone Protestant elite while populated by a Francophone Catholic majority—the two solitudes. Diverse European immigrant communities created a third solitude, producing a city of complex communities. Linguistic and educational segregations drew newcomers to difficult choices. The city juggled its diversity through the depression; World War II and early cold war times brought prosperity. The opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 ended Montreal’s primacy; Toronto rose to become Canada’s financial and industrial capital—while the Quiet Revolution for Francophone rights in Quebec propelled Montreal to become a more regional cultural capital. That movement helped Montreal protect key industries while immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and the Islamic world created new ethnic diversity. Urban processes mixing separations, aggregations, and integrations allowed Montreal to grow through urban sprawl and keep solid prosperity, fair distributions, and open opportunities, limiting marginalities.
Negro Distrust of the Police Increased
Authors: Balto Simon
Published: May 2020

The first chapter opens with scenes from Chicago’s Red Summer race riot in July of 1919. It explores the cascade of white violence that characterized the riot, as well as the armed self-defense that Blacks deployed in response. It also tracks the ways in which both police brutality and police neglect were features of how Black Chicagoans experienced the Chicago Police Department during those awful summer days in which thirty-eight Chicagoans in total were killed. From there, it shifts in the 1920s, when segregation in Chicago became more rigid, and explores how police corruption and political corruption worked hand in hand to shape the city’s Prohibition decade. It documents how politicians especially used the police department to their advantage, in particular by variously allowing vice operators to set up shop in less politically influential Black neighborhoods, and subsequently cracking down on low-level vice offenses by Black people. It also explores the long reach of police torture of civilians in 1920s Chicago.
Epilogue
Authors: Balto Simon
Published: May 2020

The book’s epilogue discusses how the history told in the book’s core chapters can inform our understanding of the present. It explains how the modern, massive racial disparities evident in the system of mass incarceration and the systems of policing that drive it built directly from those disparities and systems that local police department’s like Chicago’s implemented decades and generations ago. It explains how exploding police budgets like Chicago’s do and have done little to keep people safe and have, indeed, done significant harm to certain communities. And it shows how modern movements to demand reparations for police torture, to challenge police surveillance, harassment, violence, and racism, and make, as the demand goes, Black Lives Matter, are part of a long tradition of Black resistance to abusive and anti-Black police power.
At the Crossroads of Hope and Despair
Authors: Jacobson Matthew Frye
Published: May 2020

This chapter offers a study of the early Obama years against the backdrop of national optimism and the darkness of the Great Recession. Images capture street protests, good humor, and political division against a backdrop of economic devastation and distress.
American Studies Road Trip
Authors: Jacobson Matthew Frye
Published: May 2020

This chapter covers the documentarian’s reflections on the experience of his travels—what it felt like to be in the contested spaces of Obama’s America, from Seattle, to Tucson, to New Orleans, to Gainesville, to Allentown, to New York.
I Want My Country Back
Authors: Jacobson Matthew Frye
Published: May 2020

This chapter contains images and analysis of the emergent politics of white dispossession and grievance in response to the nation’s first African American president—a precursor of Trumpism.
Afterword
Authors: Jacobson Matthew Frye
Published: May 2020

The only section of the book written after the 2016 election, this afterword provides the author’s reflections on the exercise of thinking historically about the present—and using a camera to do it—and on the rise of what we now know as Trumpism.
Khomeini’s Perplexed Pakistani Men
Authors: Fuchs Simon Wolfgang
Published: May 2020

This chapter argues that during the early months and years after the Iranian Revolution, Pakistani Shi‘i ‘ulama remained primarily occupied with domestic events. Even ardent supporters of Khomeini were not sure what his authority should mean for them outside of Iran. Additionally, Pakistan’s Shi‘is at that time were engaged in their own political mobilization against the military dictator Zia ul-Haq (d. 1988). A second step in the reception can be discerned with the rise of the young cleric Sayyid ‘Arif Husayn al-Husayni (d. 1988) to the helm of Pakistan’s most influential Shi‘i organization at the time, the Movement for the Implementation of Ja‘fari Law (TNFJ), in 1984. Husayni clearly and consistently drew on the hallmark themes of the Iranian Revolution. In doing so, however, he was often forced to bend aspects of the revolutionary message, like Muslim unity or the leadership of the clerics (vilayat-i faqih), to his Pakistani context. The chapter also pays attention to the unprecedented embrace of Iranian ideas that is anchored in contemporary Lahore.
Longing for the State
Authors: Fuchs Simon Wolfgang
Published: May 2020

This chapter studies the changing discourses of sectarianism since the 1970s. During this decade, anti-Shi‘i rhetoric was the prerogative of Ahl-i Hadis scholars with close ties to Saudi Arabia. The polemics of the famous agitator Ihsan Ilahi Zahir (d. 1987) were centered on doctrinal points. The chapter contends, however, that for the ‘ulama of Pakistan’s most virulent anti-Shi‘i group, the Sipah-i Sahabah-i Pakistan (Army of the Companions of the Prophet; SSP), the Iranian Revolution constituted a threatening attempt at world domination and subversion of the fundamentals of Islamic politics. Even though these Deobandi scholars—in the vein of Zahir—still highlighted doctrinal incompatibilities between “real” and Shi‘i Islam, the Shi‘is were now primarily framed as a political problem: they blocked Pakistan from being molded into its true form: namely, that of a Sunni state with aspirations to global leadership. In formulating their answer to Khomeini, these sectarian Sunni ‘ulama attempted to reclaim the caliphate as a divinely sanctioned office that strikingly resembled and transcended Iran’s model of government.
The Favela of the Social Sciences
Authors: Valladares Licia do Prado
Published: May 2020

The chapter begins by emphasizing three dogmas: the specificity of the favela seems particularly resistant; the favela as the space of poverty is also resistant but less so; and the unity of the favela is also being partly shattered. This chapter then focuses on graduate education in Brazil during that late 19th century. It describes the rise of social sciences as the area of study for many students. With that came more focus on urban poverty and public policies, such as the Policy of Removal. Once again, the author emphasizes the need to see favelas not as a problem to be removed but a problem to be improved. Finally, the chapter’s last pages focus on Survey Research with regard to favela and favela residents.