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Since colonization, Canadians and Americans have viewed religious matters differently. While this is not surprising given contemporary Canadians' reluctance to embrace U.S.-style social conservativism, the roots of the phenomenon are seldom examined. J.I. Little seeks to correct this oversight withBorderland Religion. Focusing on the settlement period of the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, Little addresses the role played by religion in forging a distinctive national identity for English-Canadians. While radical evangelical churches and sects developed in the hill country of New England, they failed to gain a strong foothold in the neighbouring Eastern Townships despite the majority of the population there being of American origin. Rather, the British-based Church of England and Wesleyan Methodist Society became much the largest denominations in this border region. Borderland Religionis effectively a borderlands study in reverse. Rather than examining the dynamics of contact between two distinct cultures in a common geographical space, or middle ground, it explores how a common culture became differentiated on either side of an international boundary line. In the process, it also illuminates the woefully neglected history of Protestantism in Quebec.

The Eastern Townships region of southwestern Quebec is an area of unique culture and history. Surrounded by a French-speaking majority, yet predominantly settled by Americans and British emigrants, the area has historically been distinguished by its anglo-protestant character. In The Other Quebec , J.I. Little – one of the foremost scholars on the Eastern Townships and on rural society in Canada – assembles seven of his essays and one by Marguerite Van Die on this unique region into one volume. The collection examines the role and influence of religion in the Eastern Townships. Little uses a microhistorical method, focusing on individuals who left behind informative and revealing diaries or personal letters, including those of a religious ecstatic, an Anglican clergyman, a genteel Englishwoman, and an entrepreneur. Through intimate glimpses into the lives of ordinary people, The Other Quebec explores some of the complex ways that religious institutions and beliefs affected the rural societies in which the majority of Canadians still lived in the nineteenth century. Little provides an intimate look at both a time and a place of singular importance and unique character in Canadian history.

This study explores how authoritarian distributive policies may not only generate political support for the autocrat but may also help sustain powerful and lasting authoritarian legacies. We use microlevel data from South Korea’s New Village Movement, a 1970s rural development program implemented under dictator Park Chung-hee and widely touted as contributing to the country’s rapid economic development. Our analysis shows that townships in receipt of larger cash transfers cast more votes for Park’s incumbent party in the subsequent election. More importantly, we show that the effects of the subsidies still appeared almost four decades later in 2012, when the dictator’s daughter was democratically elected as the president of South Korea. We show that these effects were not driven by villagers’ long-term income gains or enhanced social capital due to the program but by the unwavering support of the beneficiary villagers for the dictator, whose legacy remained strong long after democratization.

This study grounded in hegemonic masculinity theory, explores how masculinity is constructed in the marginalised African townships of Bophelong (Gauteng) and Nyanga (Western Cape) and how it intersects with violence. The research questions were: How do the concepts of manhood in African townships shape the way that marginalised African young men construct and practice masculinity, and how do these concepts intersect with violence? An exploratory qualitative approach was adopted, allowing participants to share their perspectives through focus group discussions and face-to-face interviews. Tesch's (1990) method of data analysis was used. Findings show that in the face of marginalisation, some young men from Bophelong and Nyanga find their masculine identity in gangs – and violence becomes a tool for asserting dominance and proving their manhood. The study proposes empowering young men to critically analyse their internalised ideas of masculinity, challenging the harmful constructions that contribute to toxic behaviors and violence.

Focusing on a planned scheme of resettlement undertaken in Ghana in the wake of independence in 1957, this essay explores how midcentury plans for modernization exist in disjunctive relation to unrealized material infrastructures. Drawing on ethnographic research in resettlement townships, the account describes the contemporary afterlives of the plan, tracing how its promised futures shadow present understandings of contemporary and future life. The essay examines the distinctive form that ruination takes not as once-functional, now-decaying infrastructure, but as the ongoing effects of an unrealized plan. Here, experiences of ruination are associated with a set of spatial and temporal dynamics that emerge as the felt negation of linear time and Cartesian space. Insofar as the recent scholarly turn to ruins assumes the existence of modernization, it in fact eclipses what is conceptually at stake in situations where modernization exists only as a promise.

The Alzheimer Society of the Eastern Townships began 40 years ago with 6 volunteers bringing together professionals and caregivers to provide information to the families of people with Alzheimer's disease in the Sherbrooke region. As a non‐profit company, it was financed by donations from the public to pay for equipment and installation. It has gradually extended its services to the entire region covering more than 1100 square km and a population of 300,000 inhabitants. It now offers training to professionals and caregivers. Lectures by health professionals, lawyers and psychologists, monthly and open to the general public, cover the psychological, biological, social and legal components of Alzheimer's disease and related diseases. Day centres offer creative and enhancement activities in addition to music and pet therapy, no competent animators. In‐home respite services by trained staff help with home care. Supervised peer meetings reach both people with dementia and caregivers. A monthly newsletter is published and a dynamic but easy‐to‐access website is updated weekly. She collaborates with the Quebec Federation of Alzheimer and Alzheimer Societies Canada. The annual budget of a few thousand dollars now exceeds $1.5 million, partly supported by government subsidies for services not available in the public system. A house for temporary stays will soon be in operation

In this article, I explore the politics of infrastructure in South Africa by focusing on the \"travels\" of a small technical device. Since the end of apartheid, prepaid meters have been widely deployed in South Africa's townships to curb the nonpayment of service charges. Yet many residents have bypassed their meters, enabling them to illicitly access electricity or water. I track the micro-political battle between residents tinkering with the technology and engineers trying to secure it, arguing that infrastructure itself becomes a political terrain for the negotiation of central ethical and political questions concerning civic virtue and the shape of citizenship. To investigate this techno-political terrain, I trace a genealogy of the meter from Victorian Britain, when it was invented as a tool of working-class \"moral improvement,\"to the late-apartheid period, when it was reassembled as a device of counterinsurgency against the anti-apartheid \"rent boycotts.\" In each moment, I suggest, the meter was harnessed to distinct ethical regimes and political projects. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork with engineers in contemporary South Africa, I explore the semiotic-material work required to make the device functional in the post-apartheid moment. Tracing the travels of a small technical device across time and space, I argue, opens up conceptual space to rethink the relationship between ethics, politics, and technics.

In the face of struggling native-owned informal grocery businesses, immigrant-owned shops in Johannesburg townships have demonstrated remarkable success. While research on this topic has been primarily informed by shopkeeper data, this article explores the phenomenon from the viewpoint of customers. Given that customers play a significant role in facilitating the success of businesses, the dearth of a customer perspective of the success of immigrant shopkeepers presents a gap in knowledge. This study addresses this gap by investigating the interaction between shopkeepers and customers from the perspective of customers. Drawing on the theories of customer value and customer satisfaction, the author proposes that customers prefer to patronize immigrant shopkeepers due to the considerable value they provide. The study was conducted in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra and involved the collection of cross-sectional quantitative data from 400 households. The findings indicate that customers patronize immigrant-owned businesses due to the superior value they receive, thereby enabling their success. This research highlights the importance of providing value to attract customers and contributes to the literature on the role of customers in informal business performance. Furthermore, the study sheds light on the contribution of customer reciprocation of shopkeeper value and has important implications for policymakers, business owners, and scholars alike. It underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics underlying the success of immigrant entrepreneurs in South Africa's informal retail sector.

Slum tourism as a topic of investigation has seen significant growth since the beginning of this decade with increasing theoretical and empirical depth. With this growth, some inconsistencies in conceptual framing and use of terminology have emerged. The purpose of this paper is to argue for township tourism in Soweto to be regarded as a form of heritage tourism rather than slum tourism—a notion which has entered the township tourism literature in recent years. This argument is presented through two sections of analysis and debate, using Vilakazi precinct in Soweto as a case study. Firstly, the paper analyses the emergence of township tourism as an academic focus in the literature and how it came to be classified as slum tourism, considering definitional conundrums. Various South African authors emphasise the struggle heritage character of township tourism. Secondly, the historical development of townships and tourism in these areas are interrogated. The empirical data offer the perspectives on tourism in their area from: (a) residents living in and around Vilakazi Street; and (b) tourists visiting the Vilakazi precinct. The analysis reveals that neither residents nor visitors consider the Vilakazi precinct or the larger area of Orlando West as a slum; rather they perceive tourism is the area to be connected to its struggle heritage. We accordingly stress that the term ‘slum tourism’ to describe township tourism in Soweto is inaccurate and is inconsistent with the views not only of residents and visitors, but also South African authors.

BackgroundIt is unclear whether the enhancing contact model (ECM) intervention is effective in reducing family caregiving burden and improving hope and quality of life (QOL) among family caregivers of persons with schizophrenia (FCPWS).MethodsWe conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial in FCPWS in eight rural townships in Xinjin, Chengdu, China. In total, 253 FCPWS were randomly allocated to the ECM, psychoeducational family intervention (PFI), or treatment as usual (TAU) group. FCPWS in three groups were assessed caregiving burden, QOL and state of hope at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1), 3-month (T2), and 9-month (T3) follow-up, respectively.ResultsCompared with participants in the TAU group, participants in the ECM group had statistically significantly lower caregiving burden scores both at T1 and T2 (p = 0.0059 and 0.0257, respectively). Compared with participants in the TAU group, participants in the PFI group had statistically significantly higher QOL scores in T1 (p = 0.0406), while participants in the ECM group had statistically significantly higher QOL scores in T3 (p = 0.0240). Participants in both ECM and PFI groups had statistically significantly higher hope scores than those in the TAU group at T1 (p = 0.0160 and 0.0486, respectively).ConclusionsThis is the first study to explore the effectiveness of ECM on reducing family caregiving burden and improving hope and QOL in rural China. The results indicate the ECM intervention, a comprehensive and multifaceted intervention, is more effective than the PFI in various aspects of mental wellbeing among FCPWS. Future research needs to confirm ECM's effectiveness in various population.