The respect pyramid: A model of respect based on lay knowledge in two cultures

Respect is a common social concept, yet how lay people define it has not been thoroughly investigated. This study used a grounded theory approach, using in-depth interviews, to conceptualize respect according to lay knowledge. 40 participants from two cultures in the Middle East—20 Jewish Israelis and 20 Palestinians—reported how they define respect ( Kavod in Hebrew and Ihtiram in Arabic). The findings define respect as a complex, multidimensional concept. Based on the findings, a respect pyramid model was developed, which includes four dimensions: avoiding disrespect, deserved/normative respect, conditional respect, and considerate respect. Each dimension indicates an increase in aspects that make the respect less conditional and more intrinsic, while requiring higher sensitivity and greater effort. The implications of the respect pyramid for relationships and the cultural differences regarding definitions of respect are discussed.

The Cows May Safely Graze: Placing Expert-Lay Relationships at the Center of Overcoming the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide

Many scholars agree that both expert and lay knowledge are needed to gain a fuller understanding of environmental problems, both to find answers to the problems and to improve relations between experts and lay people. When experts ignore lay knowledge, lay people can resist by accusing experts of arrogance or conspiracy. Rural people who live among large carnivores like wolves and grizzly bears sometimes distrust expert knowledge or even promulgate conspiracy theories.One’s knowledge is inextricably linked with one’s identity and social relationships. In this ethnographic study, I examine how a Montana-based non-profit, Blackfoot Challenge (BC), facilitates the exchange of knowledge between experts and lay people for carnivore management. Nurturing expert-lay relationships is one strategy that BC uses in concert with two others to bridge the expert-lay knowledge divide: facilitating learning experiences and relying on intermediaries. Knowledge exchanged within expert-relationships allows experts to better understand the needs of lay people and adapt their work to meet those needs while also disseminating expert knowledge to lay people in a way that earns their trust. The trust built within expert-lay relationships facilitates the exchange of knowledge, but the way experts and lay people exchange knowledge also builds trust.

Making context matter: unraveling functional foods’ constructions by Tunisian consumers

Purpose This paper aims to explore the socio-cultural meanings of functional foods for Tunisian consumers and to understand how these meanings shape their preferences and practices in the particular context of a Middle-East and North African (MENA) region. Design/methodology/approach A constructivist perspective based on multi-qualitative methods was designed allowing data collection in a natural setting through focus groups interviews, individual in-depth interviews and projective techniques among Tunisian consumers. Findings Findings show the complexity and importance of conscious and unconscious non-health-related socio-cultural factors in the construction and acceptance of functional foods by the Tunisian consumer. Common sense knowledge, social environment and tradition shape the constructions and practices of functional foods. These factors may act as a shortcut to compensate for unhealthy behaviour and as a social marker to reflect trendiness and identity. Research limitations/implications The findings are specific to the Tunisian setting and may be not transferable to other settings. Practical implications The role of information is central in functional food acceptance. Communication on health effects should consider not only the formal nutritional health benefit but also lay knowledge. Social implications The findings of this research contribute in the government’s understanding of Tunisian’s constructions of health and well-being by suggesting that besides health motives, non-health-related factors such as lay knowledge, social influences and conspicuous consumption play an important role in functional foods choice. Originality/value This paper contributes to extend functional foods literature by exploring the complex interconnected conscious and unconscious socio-cultural constructions behind functional food choice. It contributes also to the understanding of the food consumer behaviour in the specific cultural context of the Arab-Muslim MENA region, an under investigated setting.

Deficit Lay or Deficit Expert: How Do “Experts” in Environmental Projects Perceive Lay People and Lay Knowledge?

This research reveals expert perceptions of lay people and lay knowledge in environmental projects, such as information giving activities, research projects, and environmental planning projects. A semistructured interview method was employed with six researchers from a university in Sweden. Although the expert–lay relationship has traditionally been discussed within a “deficit model,” many experts in this research expressed a more positive view of lay people and lay knowledge; however, situations where lay knowledge was considered useful varied. The experts’ motivation for communication was analyzed within the four communication modes of education, responding, supplementing, and dialogue. Their recognition of the “deficit expert” was one of the remarkable findings: the experts acknowledged their knowledge and competence in understanding “reality” had its limitations and questioned the objectivity and universality of science in relation to environmental science.

How context affects people’s willingness to register for the deceased organ donation programme

Background The deceased organ donation programme is new in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and to improve acceptability, a broad understanding of public perspectives is thought to be helpful. Therefore, this study aims to explore the extent to which context plays a role in the willingness to register for the deceased organ donation programme in Dubai, UAE. Methods This study used a qualitative methodology and was gauged by the tenets of a social ecological model and lay knowledge. Audio-recorded semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 participants. The data were subsequently analysed thematically. Results Four themes emerged from the dataset: fear and body integrity, family, relational ties and the identification of the recipient, religious conviction, and knowledge and personal experiences. The participants feared the whole process, were not aware of the religious outlook, and their knowledge regarding the programme was scarce. In addition, family-related factors, such as parental authority and hierarchy in the family, were also major influencers. Conclusion Using the social ecological model and lay knowledge helped to unravel the contextual factors that affected the willingness of participants to register for the deceased organ donation programme in Dubai, UAE, thereby enabling the development of a holistic understanding of deceased organ donation. The responses mainly stemmed from participants’ social contexts; hence, awareness campaigns should be tailored to inform people about the technical aspects and address their contextual concerns.

Towards ‘Creative Participatory Science’: Exploring Future Scenarios Through Specialist Drought Science and Community Storytelling

There is a growing interest in different forms of participatory modeling that bring science and lay knowledge into the same space. This recognizes that, traditionally, the environmental science community has mostly seen stakeholder engagement as a ‘follow on’ activity to be undertaken once the key scientific research has been completed. By excluding communities from the scientific process, or at best approaching communities in one-way communication, scientists are missing out on the wealth of local community knowledge about the very facets of the environment which they seek to understand. The challenge, however, is in identifying, developing and adopting appropriate platforms for communication and co-creation to allow scientists and local communities to have effective dialogue, efficiently gather, interpret and evaluate lay knowledge, and develop relevant, scientifically robust, but widely comprehensible, results. DRY (Drought Risk and You) was a 4-year project, funded under the RCUK Drought and Water Scarcity Program, with the aim of developing an evidence-based resource to support better decision-making in United Kingdom drought risk management. In DRY, scientific data and multiple narrative approaches have been brought together to facilitate decision-making processes and improve community resilience. Creative experiments were designed by the DRY interdisciplinary team to engage local communities in using specialist science as a stimulus for storytelling at catchment level, but also to give scientists the insight required to develop meaningful scenarios of local change to explore potential drought impacts in a particular river catchment. One challenge of working with storytelling is that it is very often retrospective and linked to past experiences and memories. It can be seen as a backward-looking activity, learning principally from what has happened before. The participatory approaches applied in DRY demonstrated that storytelling can be also used to imagine, interrogate and plan for a future that communities might collectively wish to subscribe or adapt to. In particular, by co-designing and facilitating storyboarding workshops, the DRY team, together with local stakeholders, have been exploring the ‘scenario-ing’ of possible futures as a way of creating a story and visualizing a picture for the future of the community. By allowing the scientists, community and local stakeholders to develop model drought scenarios iteratively together using storytelling, these scenarios should not only be scientifically accurate, but should also reflect local interests and aspirations, as well as local drought mitigation practices. This process integrates valuable knowledge exchange and the building of mutual capital to support local risk decision-making - scaling up from the level of the individual to the collective.

A Survey of Lay Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Malaysia

Today, increasingly more people worldwide are aware about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, their actual understanding about ASD is yet unknown. In this study, the lay knowledge on the social communication and language deficits of ASD was investigated using a brief survey involving an elite sample in Malaysia. The survey findings revealed that the vast majority of the respondents had superficial understanding about the social communication and language deficits of ASD. In general, they could relate to ASD as a type of learning disability, but they were less familiar with the diagnostic features and remedial needs of ASD. Another key finding was that the respondents reported different sources of obtaining ASD knowledge according to their demographic profiles (namely age, gender, education and occupation), which correspondingly led to variability in the type of knowledge they obtained. Together, the findings implied that content-specific ASD awareness programs through the right channels are warranted for optimizing efficacy in knowledge transfer and minimizing redundancy in existing ASD awareness campaigns. Increased lay knowledge on ASD will provide a public guardian ground for children with ASD to ensure that the challenges faced by them can be identified at an early age for optimizing the remedial outcomes.

Typologies, Typifications, and Types

This article positions types at the center of anthropological knowledge production, considering them both from the abstract, analytical perspective of expert typologies and from the tacit, phenomenological perspective of everyday practices of typification. Proposing what an “anthropology of types,” broadly construed and across these two scales, might look like, I examine the histories and uses of types and typological thinking in anthropology, highlighting the empirical, analytical, methodological, ethical, and political questions they have raised. I then describe the phenomenological foundations of typification, how sociocultural and linguistic anthropologists have approached it, and the accompanying challenges related to translation and representation. Finally, I review ethnographies of expert practices of type production, tracing the circuit of typification–typology–type and back again to show how forms of expertise institutionalize lay knowledge in ways that further solidify the misrecognition of types as natural, and examine visual and arts-based interventions that draw attention to these processes.