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    Publication
    Cultural models of nature and society reconsidering environmental attitudes and concern
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2006) N/A; Department of Sociology; Ignatow, Gabriel; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    Social scientists have long debated the factors influencing public concern for the natural environment. This study attempts to contribute to this debate by arguing that environmental concern is shaped by both "spiritual" and "ecological" cultural models of nature-society relations and that by distinguishing between these two, we can better recognize the social sources of variation in concern for the environment. An analysis of questionnaire data from 21 nations from the 1993 International Social Survey Program using ordinary least squares regression models shows that spiritual and ecological environmental worldviews have different social bases. Education generally positively predicts the latter but not the former. Patterns of national differences are noteworthy as well. Thus, conceptualizing public concern for the environment in terms of distinct cultural models may be more revealing than focusing on environmental concern as such.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    How COVID-19 financially hit urban refugees: evidence from mixed-method research with citizens and Syrian refugees in Turkey
    (Wiley, 2021) Kirişçioğlu, Eda; Department of International Relations; Elçi, Ezgi; Faculty Member; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; 238439; N/A
    Peering through a lens of disasters and inequalities, this article measures the financial impacts of Covid-19 on citizens and refugee communities in Turkey during a relatively early phase of the global pandemic. Our data comes from an online survey (N = 1749) conducted simultaneously with Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees living in Turkey, followed by in-depth online interviews with Syrian refugees. Our findings indicate that the initial Covid-19 measures had a higher financial impact on Syrians than on citizens when controlled for employment, wealth, and education, among other variables. In line with the literature, our research confirms that disasters' socio-economic effects disproportionally burden minority communities. We additionally discuss how Covid-19 measures have significantly accelerated effects on refugees compared to the local population, mainly due to the structural and policy context within which forcibly displaced Syrians have been received in Turkey.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Moral intuitions predict pro-social behaviour in a climate commons game
    (Elsevier, 2021) Akyazı, Pınar Ertör; Department of Psychology; Akçay, Çağlar; Faculty Member; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 272053
    The climate crisis and appeals to tackle it are often framed in moral terms, but few studies tested whether individual variation in moral intuitions correlate with pro-environmental behaviours that may affect the climate commons. In the present study we ask whether moral intuitions regarding harm (care and compassion), fairness, in-group loyalty, stance towards authority, and purity, as quantified by the Moral Foundations Theory, correlate with pro-environmental behaviours. Participants played 10 rounds of a public goods game framed as extraction of a mineral that affects climate commons negatively. We found that participants' extraction in the first round of the game was positively related to loyalty and authority moral foundations. Average extraction over all ten rounds of the game was negatively related to harm and positively related to loyalty moral foundations with small to moderate effect sizes. The fairness dimension was only weakly related to extraction in the first round and not related to average extraction over the entire game. Purity dimension did not relate to extraction neither in the first round nor on average. These results suggest that intrinsic factors such as moral intuitions are likely to play an important role in fostering pro-environmental behaviours to address the climate crisis.
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    On environmental concern, willingness to pay, and postmaterialist values - evidence from İstanbul
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2002) Adaman, F; Zenginobuz, EU; Department of Sociology; Gökşen, Fatoş; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 51292
    The authors explore the impact of geographical proximity of environmental problems on environmental concern and willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental improvement, with emphasis on the relevance of Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis on this inquiry. A questionnaire was administered to 1,565 respondents in İstanbul. The Contingent Valuation Method was used to measure WTP. Sea pollution in İstanbul (local issue), soil erosion in Turkey (national issue), and ozone depletion (global issue) were issues chosen for valuation. The sample was separated into three subsamples, with each being presented with only one issue. Individuals distinguish between local and global environmental concern. People with materialist values rather than postmaterialist values exhibit more concern for local environmental problems. However, postmaterialist values determine WTP for improvement in both the local and the global environmental problems. Distinguishing among concern for environmental issues, which are differentiated on the basis of geographical proximity, has relevance for the ongoing postmaterialist values debate.
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    Ottoman lakes and fluid landscapes: environing, wetlands and conservation in the Marmara Lake Basin, circa 1550–1900
    (White Horse Press, 2024) Çelik, Semih; Department of Archeology and History of Art; Roosevelt, Christina Marie Luke; Roosevelt, Christopher Havemeyer; Department of Archeology and History of Art; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
    The study of Ottoman lakes and wetlands from the perspective of management and conservation is an emerging field. Scholars have explored Ottoman strategies for managing agricultural and extractive landscapes, yet detailed investigation of socio-political responses to dynamic wetlands, particularly during periods of drastic climate shifts, requires deeper investigation. Our research on wetlands and lakes moves from the purview of waqfs (pious foundations) to the emergence of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA). By examining the shifting perspectives of institutional authority and community responses to it from the early modern period to the nineteenth century, we discuss the complexities of wetland management in the Marmara Lake Basin within the sancak of Saruhan (contemporary Manisa) in western Anatolia. We argue that intimate knowledge of this specific ecosystem played a critical role in mitigating attempts at reclamation and land grabbing and ultimately in developing legal structures of and policies for Ottoman conservation strategies. We situate our discussion within the paradigm of environing made possible by detailed longue-durée archival narratives; these micro-histories afford a dynamic perspective into non-linear responses to ecological and political changes and provide a local lens into the scalar impacts of human agency. © 2024 White Horse Press. All rights reserved.