Shampa Mazumdar

Older people in America's immigrant families: Dilemmas of dependence, integration, and isolation.

Abstract Immigration to the US has given rise to a population of older people who migrate here to be close to their children. Although highly integrated into their intergenerational families, these seniors voice dissatisfaction with their lives in the US. Intensive interviews with 28 transnational seniors demonstrate that their dissatisfaction stems from the contradictions between high cultural expectations for family sociability and structural constraints on kin interaction in the US. Their dissatisfaction is exacerbated by factors isolating them from social contacts outside the family. Although mobility limitations and not speaking English contribute to their isolation, immigrant families play a role. Older people are sometimes isolated by heavy domestic responsibilities in their childs household, solicitous offspring who insulate parents from practical aspects of daily life, and by a collective family ethos that calls on aging parents to subordinate their needs to those of other family members.

Religious Placemaking and Community Building in Diaspora

Community and loss of community have received much scholarly attention, whereas community formation and placemaking have been less well studied. Similarly, several studies have documented the role of religion in the lives of new immigrants, but little has been written about religious placemaking and community formation. Through an empirical study of a new immigrant group—the Hindus of Southern California—this article shows how religious placemaking helped build community. It details three salient components, namely, place planning and organization, place design, and place rituals, and also how these helped form and sustain community. It describes some challenges encountered and strategies used to negotiate, mitigate, or minimize them. In providing these delineations, it shows how religio loci and place nostalgia influenced and aided community building.

The Role of Place Identity in the Perception, Understanding, and Design of Built Environments

Description: In an era of globalization, where the progressive deterioration of local values is a dominating characteristic, identity is seen as a fundamental need that encompasses all aspects of human life. One of these identities relates to place and the physical environment. Place identity is concerned with a set of ideas about place and identity from the perspective of a wide range of disciplines. Mainly, it refers to the meaning and importance of places for their inhabitants and users. Readers of this e-book will gain an insight on the role of identity as a basis for the perception, experience, and appreciation of the form of built structures. This e-book explains knowledge in relation to place identity, focusing on peoples identity, and those factors that play a significant role in this process. Most of all, it enables to gain further insight about place identity with regard to global and local contexts, and across multifaceted and multicultural societies. The theme is approached from a number of disciplines that include environmental psychology, philosophy, urban sociology, geography, urban planning, urban design, architecture and landscape architecture.

How Organizations Interface with Religion: A Typology

In the West, institutions and businesses have for the most part been seen as secular and unconcerned with religion. Interestingly, our study reveals that religion has been present in organizations in several ways. How do organizations respond to religion? Based on our research, in this paper we present a four-part typology of the complex relationship between organizations and religion. These are religion dominated, religion included, religion accommodating, and religion insensitive organizations. We describe how these differing organizations interface with religion, examining the focus, attitudes of owners, employees, and client communities, the products and production processes, services, and the handling of religious activities, rituals, objects, and artifacts. We note that organizations interface with religion in overt and explicit ways and sometimes in subtle and nuanced ways. We conclude with a commentary on the ways religion in organizations have been viewed and identify a potentially useful line of future inquiry.