Recent work in Protestant soteriology and eschatology has sought to recover and exposit the strands (or doctrines) of theosis present in figures such as Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin and John Wesley, among others. Yet, such ventures can risk unmooring doctrinal convictions from their embeddedness within a larger nexus of theological judgments and concerns. This essay provides a modest contribution to Protestant engagement with the doctrine of theosis, with the help of seventeenth-century Reformed theologian Petrus van Mastricht. In it, I argue that van Mastricht’s ‘upstream’ commitments to Christology and the incommunicability of divine perfections inform his rejection of deification. The essay concludes by highlighting the promise and perils of van Mastricht’s account of the real nature of the unio mystica.

In a world grappling with escalating agrochemical pollution, this article explores the potential for shifting from a security-centric approach to a human rights-based approach to safeguard health, the environment, and biodiversity. By engaging with European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence related to environmental protection and climate change, the article critically assesses how to address state (in)action regarding pollutants such as pesticides through human rights litigation. In its analysis, the article highlights climate change litigation as a catalyst for change to assert states’ threefold obligations to respect, protect, and realize human rights. It concludes that the legal approaches developed in climate litigation – with regard to both procedural and substantive aspects – provide a strong basis for addressing the human rights impacts of agrochemical harm.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his support for a plan to recruit fighters from abroad to join the Russian army in early 2022, foreigners have fought in Ukraine as part of Russian forces. Many of these fighters are mercenaries in the commonly understood sense of that term. That is, they are fighters who have gone, intentionally, to fight for Russia in return for significant payment. Although these fighters have often found themselves in Ukraine with little to no training and without their promised salaries, this article is not primarily concerned with them. Instead, it is interested in those fighters who arrived in Russia without knowing that they would be sent to the conflict, or who did not know that they were going to Russia at all. The article argues that such ‘forced fighters’ who are misled or tricked into taking part in an armed conflict should be given protection beyond that given to other combatants, specifically that they should be offered repatriation to their countries of origin. It argues that international humanitarian law is unable to effectively capture the position of these fighters or provide adequate protection to them. It suggests, rather, that the law on modern slavery can provide a way to understand and reconceptualise the position of these fighters—as victims of servitude and human trafficking—and that this body of law can deliver the remedy of repatriation to them.

This article examines the paradoxical relationship between discourses of sincerity and an aesthetics of imperfection in twenty-first-century pop culture, with special attention to the Russian music scene. We focus on the career of cult musician Sergei Shnurov to address this broader question: What do present-day anxieties around sincerity tell us about pop-cultural production and consumption processes? First, we offer a genealogy of post-Soviet sincerity rhetoric. We then use this genealogy to unpack the approach to sincere expression that Shnurov and his critics and fans adopt. Two recurring artistic strategies stand out. First, Shnurov creates a sincere effect by insisting on insincerity. Second, he amplifies this ‘insincerely sincere’ rhetoric by foregrounding a visual aesthetics of imperfection. We argue that these strategies play an important role not only in Shnurov’s biography but also in a broader story: that of sincere expression as a prime concern of twenty-first-century media and popular culture.

Changes in waxed dry cheese during the ripening process, over periods of 7 and 30 days, were analysed using near-infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR) and mid-infrared spectroscopy (FT-MIR) by attenuated total reflection (ATR). FT-NIR was employed to determine the proximate composition of the cheese (protein, fat, moisture, total solids, and salt content), identifying changes directly associated with the ripening process. FT-MIR data were used to identify spectral bands associated with chemical changes occurring during the cheese maturation. Additionally, chemometric techniques were applied to demonstrate the potential of FT-MIR infrared spectroscopy for cheese differentiation and fingerprint profiling. Subsequently, partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) of the FT-MIR spectra was performed, revealing two distinct clusters representing the cheese ripening times. Functional groups related to lipids (–CH2 – and – CH3), proteins (amide bands I and II), and carbohydrates (C–O) were identified, correlating to lipolysis, proteolysis, and lactose catabolism. Infrared spectroscopy in combination with chemometric methods proved to be a robust and reliable tool for monitoring changes during the ripening of waxed dry cheese. The results obtained highlight its usefulness as an alternative approach for the analysis and fingerprinting of traditional Mexican foods, aiming to add value to local products.

The politics of sexual minorities has been an understudied topic in the political science discipline. Recent years have seen a growing body of scholarly research that examines these often marginalized people and their challenges when building communities. Sexual minorities whose sexualities differ from dominant sexual norms are conventionally conceived as stigmatized outsiders, which contributes to their social movements and identities. However, differences among sexual minorities concerning ideology, race, and lifestyle may (1) undermine group cohesiveness and (2) show how debates among sexual minorities reflect divisive society-wide debates on inclusiveness and belonging. The four works in this essay, which focus on American and European cases, make significant contributions to these debates.

Indigenous values are increasingly recognised in helping organisations contribute to wellbeing within and beyond the workplace. Adopting the theoretical lens of Māori economies of wellbeing, this case study examines how The Southern Initiative (TSI), a unit within Auckland Council, incorporates Māori values to co-create place-based solutions and foster whānau (family) wellbeing. Through kōrero (conversations) with three people, a wānanga (collaborative discussion) with TSI members, and analysis of organisational literature, we identified how TSI’s organising approach synthesises social innovation and bureaucracy. We found that indigeneity-embedded intrapreneurship, distributed leadership, and whānau-centred design support TSI’s innovations. Mana (prestige) emerged as a primary organising principle, sustaining TSI’s approach to achieving systemic change. By bridging Indigenous paradigms and conventional managerial practice, this case study demonstrates how Māori values can transform public sector management, elevate social justice, and encourage community resilience. These findings highlight culturally grounded frameworks for delivering social impact and shaping equitable outcomes.

Online platforms have adopted business models enabling the proliferation of hate speech. In some extreme cases, platforms are being investigated for employing algorithms that amplify criminal hate speech such as incitement to genocide. Legislators have developed binding legal frameworks clarifying the human rights due diligence and liability regimes of these platforms to identify and prevent hate speech. Some of the key legal instruments at the European Union level include the Digital Services Act, the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Artificial Intelligence Act. However, these legal frameworks fail to clarify the remedial responsibilities of online platforms to redress people harmed by criminal hate speech caused or contributed to by the platforms. This article addresses this legal vacuum by proposing a comprehensive remedial responsibilities framework for online platforms which caused or contributed to criminal hate speech based on the general corporate human rights responsibilities framework.

The death of Mahsa Jina Amini at the hands of the Iranian police in September 2022 triggered protests both within Iran and across the global Iranian diaspora. This article explores how representations of collective memory and identity were articulated by the Iranian diaspora in Sweden at that time, exploring the concepts of memory, nostalgia, and identity, among others, through a constructionist framework. Key findings show hope as a central theme in diasporic engagement with the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, expressed as a desire for revolution and potential return to a liberated and democratic Iran. This study underscores the complex, multifaceted nature of diasporic activism, shaped by contested memories, subject-positions derived from lived experience and political interests, and historic and ongoing ideological tensions.