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This study explored the cultural perception of the Akan woman in Ghana and critically evaluates the claim that she is marginalised and considered inferior to her male counterparts. Using Inculturation and Liberation Hermeneutics, along with womanist theological perspectives, the research examined selected Akan proverbs that reflect societal attitudes towards women. These findings were then juxtaposed with the values of the enterprising woman described in Proverbs 31:10–31. The study revealed that, despite outdated cultural practices, the depiction of the Akan woman as inferior is misleading. Instead, the gender-based roles within Akan society are mechanisms for shared societal responsibility.ContributionThe article proposes a redefined paradigm of Akan womanhood that reflects dignity, capability and egalitarian partnership.

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth critically examines colonialism, highlighting its violence, exploitation and dehumanisation. He argues that colonialism creates a stark division between the privileged colonisers and the marginalised colonised, leading to what he terms ‘atmospheric violence,’ which results in anxiety, depression and feelings of inferiority among the oppressed. True liberation, for Fanon, requires a radical break from this oppressive framework. Similarly, Black theology critiques the role of Western Christianity in sustaining colonial and systemic oppression, advocating for liberation rooted in the experiences of marginalised communities. The song State of Emergency by Simphiwe Dana reflects these themes, addressing the ongoing struggles of Black South Africans even after political liberation, and calling on younger generations to engage with the incomplete liberation project inspired by the 1976 youth uprising.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implicationsThis study employs critical discourse analysis to examine themes of marginalisation and the quest for liberation in both Fanon’s work and Dana’s music, demonstrating how language reflects and sustains power dynamics. Critical discourse analysis aligns with decolonial thought, emphasising that genuine liberation requires addressing systemic inequities and restoring dignity to marginalised communities. Both Fanon and Dana assert that emancipation involves dismantling entrenched power structures beyond political change.

This article proposes that survival may be considered a research method for social researchers, especially if they are undertaking fieldwork within marginalised communities of which they are a part. Drawing on an autoethnographic account of conducting research while trans, it shows how marginalised researchers may encounter both challenges common within the neoliberal university, and troubles specific to the researcher’s social identity, touching on experiences of casualisation, distressing fieldwork, trauma, and suicide. The article concludes that marginalised researchers should not be held individually responsible for their own survival; rather, they require the active support of research communities and institutional frameworks.

The daily lives of female artisanal and small‐scale miners revolve around an array of complex and labour‐driven activities. The complexities and labour demands vary depending on the type of artisanal and small‐scale mining involved, the underground pit (ghetto) or surface mining. Few studies have explored how gender roles manifest in the two major mining types to inform policy on the creation of a gendered mining environment for women. This paper fills the lacuna in the literature by investigating gender roles and the consequential effects on female artisanal miners' daily lives and practices along the underground pit and surface mining. The liberal feminist theoretical lens is employed as a framework. Data were sourced through field observations and in‐depth interviews with 13 lead miners (men) and 67 female miners in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Findings show that sociocultural marginalisation of women is predominant in underground pit/ghetto mining. Women are content to work in surface mining operations and can form gangs to operate independently; nevertheless, sociocultural framings have limited women's space and access to mineralised concessions. The study argues that steps towards promoting gender equality in artisanal and small‐scale mining should explore a gendered mineralised concessions distribution; thus, the distribution of mining concessions under the community mining project by the government of Ghana should be gender‐sensitive. Short The daily lives of female artisanal and small‐scale miners revolve around an array of complex and labour‐driven activities. Few studies have explored how gender roles are exercised under the two major ASM types and how a gender‐sensitive ASM environment can be created for women. Sociocultural marginalisation of women in ASM operations is predominant under the underground/ghetto mining.

Although interest in studying the nexus of language economics and language planning has been increasing, much of it focuses on global languages such as English and how they facilitate speakers’ entry into job markets. In contexts where indigenous languages are still breaking into public domains of usage, proficiency in these languages is an important part of speakers’ human capital portfolio. The drive to develop and promote indigenous languages has thus become salient in the language policies of African countries. This paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical notion of ‘language as capital’ to discuss the intersection of language policy and language economics in South Africa and Zimbabwe. It examines how post-colonial language policy initiatives in education contribute to the revalorisation of indigenous African languages in a globalising world. We also build on the premise that for African languages to accrue prestige, enabling conditions must be created to foster their use. Language policies thus legitimatise and create opportunities for African languages in the linguistic market, potentially translating this linguistic capital into economic capital for their speakers. However, we argue that language policy proclamations must be complemented by implementation and continuous development of African languages to become attractive for acquisition and use.

Although interest in studying the nexus of language economics and language planning has been increasing, much of it focuses on global languages such as English and how they facilitate speakers’ entry into job markets. In contexts where indigenous languages are still breaking into public domains of usage, proficiency in these languages is an important part of speakers’ human capital portfolio. The drive to develop and promote indigenous languages has thus become salient in the language policies of African countries. This paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical notion of ‘language as capital’ to discuss the intersection of language policy and language economics in South Africa and Zimbabwe. It examines how post-colonial language policy initiatives in education contribute to the revalorisation of indigenous African languages in a globalising world. We also build on the premise that for African languages to accrue prestige, enabling conditions must be created to foster their use. Language policies thus legitimatise and create opportunities for African languages in the linguistic market, potentially translating this linguistic capital into economic capital for their speakers. However, we argue that language policy proclamations must be complemented by implementation and continuous development of African languages to become attractive for acquisition and use.

Separatist embers in Southeast Nigeria, emanating from the legacies of the Nigerian Civil War, have caused the emergence of groups like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Relying on the greed and grievance theory, this study argues that although engendered by grievances, vested interests in the separatist group, security forces, and criminal groups appear to be taking advantage of the crisis to further personal objectives. Consequently, opportunistic behaviour like embezzlement of separatist funds by members of the separatist group, extortion and exploitation of civilians by Nigerian security forces, and kidnapping for ransom by criminals have escalated and prolonged the conflict. To address these issues, we recommend that both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches, involving negotiation and military action, be employed by the Nigerian state in order to resolve separatist agitations in the region.

This study evaluates whether older people’s problems are recognised as newsworthy by studying the level of attention they are given in a Slovenian daily newspaper. The data source was Slovenian newspaper articles on old age published in Delo between 2004 and 2018. Quantitative content analysis was used to evaluate the prevalence of older people’s problems. The study found that 124 (or 10%) of all the articles sampled (N = 1243) on old age in the newspaper reported on older people’s problems in Slovenia. The finding is discussed in relation to the news values theory and sociological scholarship on ageing. According to the results, older people’s problems are less likely to be recognised as news by journalists and editors because they do not align fully with news values.

Structural causal models (SCMs), also known as (nonparametric) structural equation models (SEMs), are widely used for causal modeling purposes. In particular, acyclic SCMs, also known as recursive SEMs, form a well-studied subclass of SCMs that generalize causal Bayesian networks to allow for latent confounders. In this paper, we investigate SCMs in a more general setting, allowing for the presence of both latent confounders and cycles. We show that in the presence of cycles, many of the convenient properties of acyclic SCMs do not hold in general: they do not always have a solution; they do not always induce unique observational, interventional and counterfactual distributions; a marginalization does not always exist, and if it exists the marginal model does not always respect the latent projection; they do not always satisfy a Markov property; and their graphs are not always consistent with their causal semantics. We prove that for SCMs in general each of these properties does hold under certain solvability conditions. Our work generalizes results for SCMs with cycles that were only known for certain special cases so far. We introduce the class of simple SCMs that extends the class of acyclic SCMs to the cyclic setting, while preserving many of the convenient properties of acyclic SCMs. With this paper, we aim to provide the foundations for a general theory of statistical causal modeling with SCMs.

This article investigates systemic oppression by mapping the intersection of stigmatization, exploitation, and marginalization in the cinematic representation of female sex workers in contemporary Bollywood films. It centers on how layered structures of power restrict agency and perpetuate cycles of exclusion, while also normalizing discrimination within popular narratives. The analysis reveals that systemic oppression functions through interlinked social, economic, and cultural mechanisms that silence, exploit, and marginalize sex workers. By foregrounding systemic oppression as a critical lens, the study highlights the ways in which Bollywood simultaneously reinforces and unsettles dominant ideologies surrounding gender, morality, and respectability. The paper holds implications for the burgeoning research on power and inequality in media discourse, and emphasizes the responsibility of filmmakers in challenging oppressive structures and reshaping the representation of marginalized communities.