Joyee Shairee Chatterjee

Disaster memory shapes caring masculinities through heightened vigilance and silent emotional endurance.Men’s hidden fears during the first post-flood monsoon reveal overlooked psychosocial risks i...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed older adults' vulnerability, underscoring the urgent need for comprehensive urban health strategies and resilient cities. Existing frameworks often lack specific tools for assessing pandemic policy effectiveness for aging populations.Methods: This study introduces the Pandemic Policy Assessment Scorecard, a tool with 16 subjects and 40 evaluative statements across five dimensions: governance & finance, healthcare capacity, social support, urban environment, and information/communication technology. Developed drawing on World Health Organization and United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction frameworks, these subjects were selected through literature review, expert consultation, and pilot studies, capturing both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of policy performance.Results: The scorecard provides a systematic framework to assess pandemic-related policy effectiveness. Comparative analyses of pandemic responses in aging societies, such as Switzerland and Thailand, revealed variations in age-friendly policy initiatives, highlighting the necessity of targeted, evidence-based approaches to protect elderly populations during crises.Conclusions: The scorecard offers a integrated framework that complements existing resilience tools by explicitly addressing elder- specific vulnerabilities. It equips policymakers with data-driven insights to strengthen interventions, ultimately advancing the development of age-friendly, resilient urban environments prepared for future health emergencies.

The role played by activists' sexual orientation and gender identity in their involvement and commitment to LGBT movements is an understudied area in the Chinese context. Using identity and dramaturgical theory, this qualitative study explored how activists' work and commitment toward promoting LGBT rights and services is shaped and influenced by their identities. The study draws on data from life history interviews conducted with 20 long-time LGBT activists in Yunnan, China. The findings indicate that their sexual orientation and gender identities were, in the long run, seen as assets by the activists that shaped their work and commitment in the LGBT movement. Despite initial challenges in establishing identity-based connections with co-workers/clients, the emergence of sense of inclusiveness through recognition of activists' efforts, particularly when working with diverse gender and sexual minorities, stands out as a prominent theme in this context. This dynamic is important in bolstering the longevity of activists' commitment and building the continued momentum of LGBT movements in the region and internationally.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) performance has remained of interest, and over the past ten years, the evaluation technique has evolved. Thailand implemented an EIA with a health impact assessment (HIA) as an environmental health impact assessment (EHIA), which necessitated investigating and developing these instruments; however, its implementation performance has been questioned. The main goal of this study is to comparatively assess how well EIAs and EHIAs are performed in projects in an area in Thailand. Six projects in various sectors that were implemented in Eastern Thailand were studied. The 162 residents (nine local authorities and 153 villagers) closest to the project completed a survey and evaluated the performance according to three aspects (i.e., substantive, procedural, and transactive), using a rating scale and evaluation checklists. The results were presented as a percentage of the total scores and interpreted according to the five scales. The overall performance reached a satisfactory level, albeit not significantly different between cases; however, it was pointed out that the shortcomings of EHIAs and EIAs, particularly their dependability, lack of public involvement, and the need for more transparency, could be addressed through the establishment of an open access database, which would help to simplify the assessment of all stages of EIAs and EHIAs.

The term tongqi refers to cisgender, heterosexual women who unwittingly marry non-straight men. In mainland China, their adverse social position and health have been the subject of concern. This study aims to broaden and diversify perceptions of the lived experiences of tongqi by focusing on sex and sexualities in mixed-orientation marriages. Four themes (lack of sexuality-related exploration before marriage, the unsatisfactory nature of marital sex life, the exercise of sexual agency, and increased self-awakening) were developed from observations of a tongqi online support group and 12 semi-structured interviews with members. Using inductive thematic analysis, findings reveal how heteronormativity oppresses and punishes both tongqi and their non-straight husbands. In most cases, husbands not ‘doing heterosexuality’ as expected were still found to be ‘doing gender’ in patriarchal ways, with wives’ subordinate status thereby being reinforced, making them more vulnerable. However, despite women’s sexual autonomy and agency being constrained by normative forces, some were able to navigate their conjugal relationships by practising sexual autonomy and agency within and outside their marriage.

This qualitative study based on 34 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with cis-gendered tongzhi (men who are attracted to men) critically explores the factors influencing their decisions to enter mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs) in China. Theoretically, the study weaves together insights from queer and feminist theorizing and analyzes the role of heteronormativity and patriarchy, especially in relation to hegemonic masculine ideals, in the context of marriage norms in contemporary China. Our examination showcases the contradictory role heteronormativity and patriarchy play in simultaneously marginalizing and privileging these groups of men along the axes of sexual, gender, and lineage (inter-generational) hierarchies. It also underscores the continued role of filial piety norms. Overall, the study contributes to deepening our understanding of the complex nature of MOMs and discussions of MOMs as marriage fraud. We argue that examining these non-normative marriages furthers explication of the social structures underpinning gender and sexuality in a context of patriarchal marriage-normative societies.