Evidence is accumulating that well-being in high-income societies may be static or in decline. One influential theory argues that this is because 'modern' societies are influenced by values of materialism, individualism and consumerism. Does this intellectual critique resonate with ordinary people? This article reports on interviews with purposefully selected groups in Scotland, where the relev...

This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from perspective global shamanic vocation. If encounters with are said to revitalize forms in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest cases where individuals understand themselves be called lead ceremonies. Recognizing scale shamanism, we compare facilitators ceremonies two societies discern differences and similarities how vocations e...

Abstract In 2018, China's general secretary, Xi Jinping, announced a three-year war on “black societies and evil forces” promised to take down various forms of organized crime forces within society. This article examines the operational features this particular crackdown how they diverged from previous “strike hard” campaigns. campaign adopted novel strategies including embedding instructions l...

Abstract Is the social integration of contemporary Western societies at risk? We will not provide an answer to this question, which is high on political agenda. Instead, in our introduction special issue, we first offer conceptual clarifications. What a theoretically sound and empirically useful understanding modern societies? Second, ask three basic questions for adequate answers have yet been...

Home baking is very popular in the UK: in 2007 sales of home baking products totalled £457m and in 2010, the estimated revenue from home baking was £576m (Mintel, 2010). Why is home baking so popular? The emergence of the phenomenon seems to be due to a number of factors. Campbell (2005) suggests that in late modern capitalist societies we have seen the gradual development of craft consumption ...

In contemporary computing systems accesses to information objects are traced and logged for various reasons. In this paper we shall show how information about the role structures of information communities/societies may be deduced from available trace files which record the interactions of users with information systems. The key idea is that in the future social roles of individuals will be det...

This essay demonstrates how key concepts from ecology can be applied within historical analyses in order to gain insights regarding contemporary environmental change. We employ a coupled human and natural systems conceptual framework in a nascent historical analysis of rapid societal and environmental change in colonial New England, where European colonization led to stark and rapid transformat...