Related papers: Colonial Rule and Religious Change: Evidence from …
This paper investigates the origins of Islamist insurgencies as a form of cultural revival in West Africa. Exploiting variation in access to ancient water sources, which have largely disappeared, as an instrument, we show that the decline…
Can religions shape ecosystems? We explore the role religious beliefs play in human-environment interactions by studying African Traditional Religions (ATR), which place forests within a sacred sphere. We focus on the unique case of Benin,…
How do religious identities change? We study the effects of civic education reforms on religious identification using Colombia's 1991 Constitution, which dismantled the country's confessional regime and mandated constitutional instruction…
Religions are among the most consequential social institutions, shaping collective identities, moral norms, and political organization across societies and historical periods. Nevertheless, despite extensive scholarship describing…
We study how religious competition-defined as the entry of a religious organization with innovative worship practices into a predominantly Catholic municipality-affects domestic violence. Using municipality-level data from Colombia and a…
This chapter examines the geographical meaning of the Sahel, its fluid boundaries, and its spatial dynamics. Unlike other approaches that define the Sahel as a bioclimatic zone or as an ungoverned area, it shows that the Sahel is primarily…
In many dryland environments, vegetation self-organizes into bands that can be clearly identified in remotely-sensed imagery. The status of individual bands can be tracked over time, allowing for a detailed remote analysis of how human…
The orientation of Christian churches is a well-known distinctive feature of their architecture. There is a general tendency to align their apses in the solar range, favoring orientations close to the east (astronomical equinox), although…
In accordance with "Democracy's Effect on Development: More Questions than Answers", we seek to carry out a study in following the description in the 'Questions for Further Study.' To that end, we studied 33 countries in the Sub-Saharan…
The most profound change in the relationship between humans and their environment was the introduction of agriculture and pastoralism. [....] For an understanding of the expansion process, it appears appropriate to apply a diffusive model.…
(shortened version) Religions and languages are social variables, like age, sex, wealth or political opinions, to be studied like any other organizational parameter. In fact, religiosity is one of the most important sociological aspects of…
We propose a simple model to describe the dynamics of religious affiliation. For such purpose, we built a compartmental model with three distinct subpopulations, namely religious committed individuals, religious noncommitted individuals and…
This research examines the impact of digital neo-colonialism on the Global South and encourages the development of legal and economic incentives to protect Indigenous cultures globally. Data governance is discussed in an evolutionary…
In studies of cultural differentiation, the joint mechanisms of homophily and influence have been able to explain how distinct cultural groups can form. While these mechanisms normally lead to cultural convergence, increased levels of…
Religiosity is one of the most important sociological aspects of populations. All religions may evolve in their beliefs and adapt to the society developments. A religion is a social variable, like a language or wealth, to be studied like…
This paper provides an assessment of experiences and understanding of digital technologies from within an African place. It provides philosophical reflections upon the introduction and existence - appropriation - of digital technologies.…
This study leverages mobile phone data to analyze human mobility patterns in developing countries, especially in comparison to more industrialized countries. Developing regions, such as the Ivory Coast, are marked by a number of factors…
Many countries embroiled in non-religious civil conflicts have experienced a dramatic increase in religious competition in recent years. This study examines whether increasing competition between religions affects violence in non-religious…
Sustainable development is an imperative worldwide but metrics and data on poverty and quality of life have remained too coarse and abstract to characterize challenges adequately and guide practical progress. Nowhere is this challenge…
We address the problem of diversification in religions by studying selection on cultural memes that colonize humans hosts. In analogy to studying the evolution of pathogens or symbionts colonizing animal hosts, we use models for…