The article analyzes the art space of Kazan as one of Russia’s cultural centers through the lens of contemporary exhibition art projects initiated by museums, exhibition halls, and galleries. It addresses both the organization of significant large-scale exhibitions in the 2020s and their scientific and creative aspects, as well as their profound semantic resonance and broad social impact. The publication is accompanied by a historiographical review that focuses on key monographs, scientific articles, online reviews, and interviews related to the historical study of the city’s cultural landmarks and their role in shaping the artistic environment of Kazan. Through selected exhibition projects, the publication reveals a palette of some current collective exhibition projects, as well as exhibitions of individual artists whose art is of particular interest. As a result, these exhibitions identify the priority contemporary themes, the moods of the artists and the audience, the latest approaches to exhibition design, and the main trends and directions in the city’s art scene. It is noted that along with the permanent museum exhibitions of classical examples of visual art, the city successfully creates and develops projects by contemporary artists in various fields. It is this area, its changes and progress, that has particularly interested and attracted the attention of the authors, and as a result of the mutual collaboration between a teacher and a student, this publication has been created. A more detailed and in-depth analysis has been conducted on the following exhibitions: “Noah’s Ark” (2023), which provides a comprehensive analysis of individual works by various artists, and two exhibitions of the “Kazan Time” project. Artists of the 1990s at the Contemporary Art Gallery of the Republic of Tatarstan (2025), featuring the creative individuality of such masters as Evgeny Golubtsov and Oleg Ivanov, and “Our Avant-Garde” at the Benois Wing of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (2025), focusing on the phenomenon of the popularity of the ‘fathers’ of Russian avant-garde. The article raises questions about the future development of visual arts and the role of young artists in the 21st century. The modern development of the Kazan Art School and its role in the formation of Tatarstan’s visual arts are also discussed.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, Folklore
Ziv Epstein, Farnaz Jahanbakhsh, Tiziano Piccardi
et al.
The value alignment of sociotechnical systems has become a central debate, but progress depends on how human values are perceived in the content these systems surface and how such perceptions can be measured at scale. Social media platforms are a prominent class of sociotechnical systems where algorithmic curation shapes exposure to value-laden content at scale. Large-language models offer new opportunities for measuring expressions of human values (e.g., humility or equality) in social media data, but value expressions can be subjective: different people will annotate the same post with different values. In this paper, we draw on the Schwartz value system as a broadly encompassing and theoretically grounded set of basic human values, and introduce a framework to personalize the measurement of expressions of Schwartz values in social media posts at scale. We collect 32,370 ground truth value expression annotations from N=1,079 people on 5,211 social media posts representative of real users' feeds. Due to the subjectivity of the task, we observe low levels of inter-rater agreement between people, and low agreement between human raters and LLM-based methods. In response, we construct a personalization architecture for classifying value expressions by learning from a small number of highly informative calibration annotations per user. In evaluation, we find that modeling these differences successfully yields value expression predictions that people agree with more than they agree with other people. These results contribute new methods and understanding for the measurement of human values in social media data.
Raja Marjieh, Manuel Anglada-Tort, Thomas L. Griffiths
et al.
Understanding how cognitive and social mechanisms shape the evolution of complex artifacts such as songs is central to cultural evolution research. Social network topology (what artifacts are available?), selection (which are chosen?), and reproduction (how are they copied?) have all been proposed as key influencing factors. However, prior research has rarely studied them together due to methodological challenges. We address this gap through a controlled naturalistic paradigm whereby participants (N=2,404) are placed in networks and are asked to iteratively choose and sing back melodies from their neighbors. We show that this setting yields melodies that are more complex and more pleasant than those found in the more-studied linear transmission setting, and exhibits robust differences across topologies. Crucially, these differences are diminished when selection or reproduction bias are eliminated, suggesting an interaction between mechanisms. These findings shed light on the interplay of mechanisms underlying the evolution of cultural artifacts.
AI-generated images are increasingly prevalent on social media, raising concerns about trust and authenticity. This study investigates how different levels of label detail (basic, moderate, maximum) and content stakes (high vs. low) influence user engagement with and perceptions of AI-generated images through a within-subjects experimental study with 105 participants. Our findings reveal that increasing label detail enhances user perceptions of label transparency but does not affect user engagement. However, content stakes significantly impact user engagement and perceptions, with users demonstrating higher engagement and trust in low-stakes images. These results suggest that social media platforms can adopt detailed labels to improve transparency without compromising user engagement, offering insights for effective labeling strategies for AI-generated content.
Junyeong Park, Seogyeong Jeong, Seyoung Song
et al.
Content moderation is a global challenge, yet major tech platforms prioritize high-resource languages, leaving low-resource languages with scarce native moderators. Since effective moderation depends on understanding contextual cues, this imbalance increases the risk of improper moderation due to non-native moderators' limited cultural understanding. Through a user study, we identify that non-native moderators struggle with interpreting culturally-specific knowledge, sentiment, and internet culture in the hate speech moderation. To assist them, we present LLM-C3MOD, a human-LLM collaborative pipeline with three steps: (1) RAG-enhanced cultural context annotations; (2) initial LLM-based moderation; and (3) targeted human moderation for cases lacking LLM consensus. Evaluated on a Korean hate speech dataset with Indonesian and German participants, our system achieves 78% accuracy (surpassing GPT-4o's 71% baseline), while reducing human workload by 83.6%. Notably, human moderators excel at nuanced contents where LLMs struggle. Our findings suggest that non-native moderators, when properly supported by LLMs, can effectively contribute to cross-cultural hate speech moderation.
This paper addresses the critical need for automated crack detection in the preservation of cultural heritage through semantic segmentation. We present a comparative study of U-Net architectures, using various convolutional neural network (CNN) encoders, for pixel-level crack identification on statues and monuments. A comparative quantitative evaluation is performed on the test set of the OmniCrack30k dataset [1] using popular segmentation metrics including Mean Intersection over Union (mIoU), Dice coefficient, and Jaccard index. This is complemented by an out-of-distribution qualitative evaluation on an unlabeled test set of real-world cracked statues and monuments. Our findings provide valuable insights into the capabilities of different CNN- based encoders for fine-grained crack segmentation. We show that the models exhibit promising generalization capabilities to unseen cultural heritage contexts, despite never having been explicitly trained on images of statues or monuments.
AbstractSince the beginning of the twenty-first century, in alignment with globalization and the megatrend within the international socio-cultural sphere, China has initiated a large-scale “intangible cultural heritage (ICH) protection movement” through its proactive leadership and management of cultural heritage administration. As a significant component of Chinese cultural politics, this movement has profoundly influenced the cultural lives of Chinese society and its citizens and is poised to continue doing so. Some Chinese anthropologists have also participated in and significantly contributed to this movement in various ways. This paper comprehensively and meticulously examines these fundamental ways. Building upon this analysis, this paper further provides an overview and assessment of the research outcomes of anthropological research on Chinese cultural heritage, both domestically and internationally. The author posits that the paramount contribution of anthropologists, both domestically and internationally, to Chinese cultural heritages and the related protection endeavors lies in their academic research outcomes being predominantly based on their respective fieldwork practices. These outcomes, shaped and realized through on-the-ground fieldwork, hold exceptional value for cultural heritage administration and national cultural policies, as they effectively provide cultural criticism and dissenting perspectives.
The friendship paradox in social networks states that your friends have more friends than you do, on average. Recently, a stronger variant of the paradox was shown to hold for most people within a network: `most of your friends have more friends than you do.' Unlike the original paradox, which arises trivially because a few very popular people appear in the social circles of many others and skew their average friend popularity, the strong friendship paradox depends on features of higher-order network structures. Similar to the original paradox, the strong friendship paradox generalizes beyond popularity. When individuals have traits, many will observe that most of their friends have more of that trait than they do. This can lead to the Majority illusion, in which a rare trait will appear highly prevalent within a network. Understanding how the strong friendship paradox biases local observations within networks can inform better measurements of network structure and our understanding of collective phenomena in networks.
Nomadic People and their lives are full of challenges. The nomadic people often stand at the cross roads in comparison to other communities when any concerted efforts are made to sedentarize them. In the process of sedentarization, these people are not just uprooted from their territory, culture, customs, ecology, economy, but their entire identity faces challenges from many sides. When they are sedentarized, they encounter issues which lend them in a place where they face acute dilemma. Starting from experiencing cultural shocks, identity threats, and occupational overhaul. This article tries to shed some light on the Birhor tribe (a nomadic tribe) when experienced sedentarization, a series of changes started following. When a nomadic community is permanently settled the whole social milieu gets entangled in a situation which drifts them apart from their customary ways of living and doing things.
Memes are nowadays both a simple digital form and one of the most prevalent, widely shared contents in the field of creative freedom and digital culture, observed in this case as part of the so-called “Cyber Folk Art”. This paper aims to analyze Internet memes about the gusle (one-stringed instrument) and gusle players, primarily found on social networks such as Instagram and Facebook or obtained via Google searches. Based on the collected (internet) sources and materials, different levels of identification, symbolism, communication and stereotypes, which already emerge as the first associations with gusle practices, can be discerned. The cultural and social contexts will be included in the analysis and interpretation of memes, i.e. comprehensive performances and depictions of ethnic, national, musical and personal foundations of certain historical and public figures from the political and gusle music world will be interpreted through memes – a combination of image, text, and/or videos. As is the case with other genres of Internet memes and musical genres and styles, the creation of content based on social needs, the writing of social space into musical space and vice versa, as well as the mapping of a symbolic space and stereotypes are evident in the presented and analyzed memes. It can be said that memes about gusle and gusle players, i.e. gusle practices, represent a kind of simplified form of communication in terms of the use of stereotypes and symbolism that indicate different levels of identification, which is the topic with potential for further and more detailed research.
Marija Ajduk, Ljubica Milosavljević, Ana Banić Grubišić
The development of the Internet and digital technologies has influenced the ever- greater migrations of printed content to the digital sphere (blogs, online media, Internet portals, social networks), which has also brought with itself changes in readers’ habits and in the concept and format of texts as wells. Music press is no exception in that respect. In the context of South European states, these processes coincide with the period of political, social, cultural and economic transition, giving rise to the development of numerous regional and local specific forms of popular culture. The existence of the SFRY as a shared state enabled the creation of an authentic cultural space, which continued to develop even after its disintegration. This paper endeavors to shed light on one segment of that local authenticity through an analysis of music press. The aim the authors of this paper aspire to achieve is the presentation of the development path of the printed media in the first place inthe Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then in Serbia, as well as the reconstructions of the modality of the transformation of this media in the transition period from an anthropological perspective. The wish is to identify the perception and significance of music as a local culturalphenomenon through the qualitative analysis of the archival material and the available Internet sources as well, then to trace the cultural changes that have been going on over time as a result of global and local social and cultural turmoil. We do not refer to press only as the medium which has an informative role, but rather as the medium that reflects the local community’s attitudes, simultaneously constructing narratives on popular culture that are incorporated in our everyday life.
This study comprehensively analyzes China’s ethnic migration epic, “Lin-ge,” as a case study to explore the cultural and social phenomena it reveals about exchanges, communication and integration among ethnic groups. It reveals how this process has facilitated mutual understanding and integration among diverse ethnic communities from a grassroots level. Focusing on inter-ethnic religious syncretism, economic interactions, warfare exchanges, trade practices, and intermarriages depicted in “Lin-ge,” the research showcases the complexity and dynamism of ethnic integration. It emphasizes the pivotal role of regional community identity in bridging different ethnic groups and forming the foundational cultural logic behind the identity of the Chinese national community. Through textual analysis, this study finds that “Lin-ge” transcends the boundaries between official and folk, sacred and secular, and historical and contemporary narratives, presenting a more inclusive and diversified perspective of the Chinese national community. The research highlights that the syncretism of religious beliefs, cultural exchanges, and social practices are key mechanisms in shaping the identity of regional social communities and promoting harmonious coexistence among various ethnic groups. Moreover, by reviewing extensive literature and conducting case analyses, this study provides a thorough understanding of China’s ethnic policies, ethnic relations, and the formation and development of multi-ethnic communities. The findings are not only of significant academic relevance to the fields of ethnology and anthropology but also offer practical guidance for addressing ethnic issues and promoting ethnic unity and national integration in modern society.
Migratory movements have thoroughly transformed the 'religious landscapes' of many European countries. This textbook provides systematic and applied knowledge on the interplay between religion and migration from a religious studies perspective. It offers conceptual frameworks of religious change in the diaspora and integration in the light of religious pluralisation. Specific thematic perspectives cover mosque building conflicts, interreligious dialogues, digitalisation and matters of religious literacy. The book targets students of religious studies and related subjects (e.g. ethnology, sociology, cultural anthropology) as well as interested practitioners, for example in the field of social work.
Presentación del dossier “Agentes, redes y prácticas en la distancia: el ejercicio de la jurisdicción en América colonial (siglos XVI-XVII)” a cargo de sus organizadores, Sergio Angeli y María Cecilia Oyarzábal. El presente Dossier pone de relieve el accionar que tuvieron diversos agentes de la monarquía de los Austrias en la intrincada geografía jurisdiccional de las posesiones coloniales americanas. Muestra la diversidad de funciones, la versatilidad de las relaciones que se establecieron y las complejas formas de analizar los procesos que se llevaron adelante en ámbitos bien diferenciados. Desde los escritos provenientes de las altas esferas de la autoridad real y eclesiástica hasta los rumores que circulaban en las ciudades del Nuevo Mundo, la documentación analizada presenta lógicas diferentes al mundo contemporáneo, en donde lo corporativo y lo personal se entrecruzan en un juego de políticas, necesidades e intereses que continúan generando interrogantes y posibilidades analíticas a fin de comprender el ejercicio de la jurisdicción durante la época colonial americana.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, Latin America. Spanish America
Ghazal Kalhor, Hannah Gardner, Ingmar Weber
et al.
Online professional social networking platforms provide opportunities to expand networks strategically for job opportunities and career advancement. A large body of research shows that women's offline networks are less advantageous than men's. How online platforms such as LinkedIn may reflect or reproduce gendered networking behaviours, or how online social connectivity may affect outcomes differentially by gender is not well understood. This paper analyses aggregate, anonymised data from almost 10 million LinkedIn users in the UK and US information technology (IT) sector collected from the site's advertising platform to explore how being connected to Big Tech companies ('social connectivity') varies by gender, and how gender, age, seniority and social connectivity shape the propensity to report job promotions or relocations. Consistent with previous studies, we find there are fewer women compared to men on LinkedIn in IT. Furthermore, female users are less likely to be connected to Big Tech companies than men. However, when we further analyse recent promotion or relocation reports, we find women are more likely than men to have reported a recent promotion at work, suggesting high-achieving women may be self-selecting onto LinkedIn. Even among this positively selected group, though, we find men are more likely to report a recent relocation. Social connectivity emerges as a significant predictor of promotion and relocation reports, with an interaction effect between gender and social connectivity indicating the payoffs to social connectivity for promotion and relocation reports are larger for women. This suggests that online networking has the potential for larger impacts for women, who experience greater disadvantage in traditional networking contexts, and calls for further research to understand differential impacts of online networking for socially disadvantaged groups.
António Leitão, Maxime Lucas, Simone Poetto
et al.
We provide quantitative evidence suggesting social learning in sperm whales across socio-cultural boundaries, using acoustic data from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Traditionally, sperm whale populations are categorized into clans based on their vocal repertoire: the rhythmically patterned click sequences (codas) that they use. Among these codas, identity codas function as symbolic markers for each clan, accounting for 35-60% of codas they produce. We introduce a computational method to model whale speech, which encodes rhythmic micro-variations within codas, capturing their vocal style. We find that vocal style-clans closely align with repertoire-clans. However, contrary to vocal repertoire, we show that sympatry increases vocal style similarity between clans for non-identity codas, i.e. most codas, suggesting social learning across cultural boundaries. More broadly, this subcoda structure model offers a framework for comparing communication systems in other species, with potential implications for deeper understanding of vocal and cultural transmission within animal societies.
Martin Saveski, Farshad Kooti, Sylvia Morelli Vitousek
et al.
People assume different and important roles within social networks. Some roles have received extensive study: that of influencers who are well-connected, and that of brokers who bridge unconnected parts of the network. However, very little work has explored another potentially important role, that of creating opportunities for people to interact and facilitating conversation between them. These individuals bring people together and act as social catalysts. In this paper, we test for the presence of social catalysts on the online social network Facebook. We first identify posts that have spurred conversations between the poster's friends and summarize the characteristics of such posts. We then aggregate the number of catalyzed comments at the poster level, as a measure of the individual's "catalystness." The top 1% of such individuals account for 31% of catalyzed interactions, although their network characteristics do not differ markedly from others who post as frequently and have a similar number of friends. By collecting survey data, we also validate the behavioral measure of catalystness: a person is more likely to be nominated as a social catalyst by their friends if their posts prompt discussions between other people more frequently. The measure, along with other conversation-related features, is one of the most predictive of a person being nominated as a catalyst. Although influencers and brokers may have gotten more attention for their network positions, our findings provide converging evidence that another important role exists and is recognized in online social networks.