Social Sciences (R0)

This edited collection focuses on tourism development, sustainability and local change in southern Africa. The book offers a range of both conceptual and applied perspectives that address various changes in southern African tourism and community development relations. The key drivers of change that include climate change and globalization form the context for the diverse and interesting set of case studies from the region. The main conceptual grounds of the book cover sustainability, sustainable development goals (SDGs), responsibility, vulnerability, adaptation, resilience, governance, local development and inclusive growth. In this book sustainability is seen as one of the most important issues currently facing the tourism sector, affecting all types and scales of tourism operations and environments in the region. Tourism is an increasingly important economy in the southern African region and the industry is creating changes for communities and environment while also facing majorchallenges caused by global trends and changes. The book offers a case study driven approach to sustainability needs of tourism development in local community contexts. The case study chapters are linked through the book’s focus on sustainable tourism and local community development. Through emphasizing the need to understand both global change and local contexts in sustainable tourism development, this book is a valuable resource for all those working in the field.

This textbook familiarizes students with grammatical concepts of the English language and develops skills to apply grammar to creative writing and the study of literature. Students take an interactive 'learn-by-doing' approach to the mechanics of language and explore the creative uses of grammar. Experimenting with their own linguistic and creative skills, they come to appreciate the importance of language not only as a means of communication but also as an essential part of creative practice and literary composition. This applied approach to learning about grammar will be a valuable resource for students of English Literature and Creative Writing who may already be good users of grammar but not fully aware of its significance for communication and creativity.

This book addresses the manifold crisis of current societies and understands it as a failure of normative social structuration. As an exemplar for this development, it analyses the decline of welfare state models and the corresponding societal compromise. Yet, it evaluates them as a symptom of a wider malaise of normative orders in complex societies. The question thus arises as to how social science can study the ongoing societal transformation. The book frames the phenomenon as ‘normative intermittency’ to capture its fluid alternation of social structuration and destructuration and develops its analysis in three steps: first, it draws a theoretically reflected symptomatic of its occurrences; it then establishes the sociological diagnosis necessary to understand its unfolding and finally evaluates its political outcomes. Methodologically, the book advocates a complete overhaul of the analytical frames of sociology to gauge the intermittent rhythm of the ongoing societal transformation. Thus, it develops an innovative reading of classical sociological theory beyond a number of unreflected axiomatic assumptions of the current sociological mainstream. Thanks to the assessment of the political outcomes of failing social structuration the book turns to a discussion of the development of possible emancipation paths in the form of ‘transformative social action’; reflexively, this accounts for the results of the sociological diagnosis of the crisis of normative social orders. The main analyses within the book scrutinise a number of empirical phenomena that establish normative intermittency in current societies and refer to the major debates that are taking place on the related topics in the state of art of sociological and political theory.

This book uses survey data in "hot spots" around the globe, to analyse various models of social justice, particularly the principle of equality, from a pragmatic perspective. Starting with ordinary actors, social movements, and concrete contexts, the authors question foundations of social and political democracy in our times. They focus on how social actors deal with the principles of justice and judgments of justice at work and in their social lives. The book suggests that the increase in social inequalities in recent decades contrasts with the blurring of the aims of social justice. At a time when the reconsideration of politics largely depends on its relevance to and aspirations for social justice, the authors of this book question contemporary developments by illustrating its variety,  according to specific historical, institutional, social and organizational contexts.The book will be useful to  students and scholars in the social sciences, especially those interested in moral questions regarding social justice, from an empirical and practical point of view.

This volume explores generational differences in alcohol consumption practices and examines the changing role of alcohol across the life course. It considers generational patterns in where, how and why people buy and consume alcohol and how these may interact with identity and belonging and considers how drinking alcohol in adolescence, adulthood, middle-age or later life takes on different functions, meanings and tensions.

Alcohol is shown to play an important role in biographical transitions, such as in the coming of age rituals that mark the passage from adolescences to adulthood, whilst drinking alcohol in adulthood and in later life takes on new meanings, pleasures and risks in light of shifting roles and responsibilities relating to work, leisure and the family. The empirically-informed contributions draw on a range of diverse disciplinary backgrounds and a range of cultural contexts provides a nuanced examination of the role of alcohol at different life course stages and explores both continuity and change between generations.

This book is an unprecedented effort to compare representations and practices of social distinction worldwide and over the centuries. It is based on years of observation in many countries and on the consultation of more than 2 500 multi-disciplinary publications dealing directly or indirectly with this theme. In two previous theoretical volumes on the topic (The Sociology of Elite Distinction and Rethinking Social Distinction) welcomed as major breakthroughs, Jean-Pascal Daloz has established himself as the foremost scholar of symbolic social superiority from a comparative perspective. After having rigorously shown the limits of the main analytical frameworks available and outlined a much more inductive approach, his new empirical book continues this intellectual journey. 

Taking into consideration all sorts of cases and patterns of meaning, it offers an impressive synthesis demonstrating how diverse the expressions of high status can be. This comparative work is intended to be a crucial reference point and an important source of inspiration for researchers and students across many fields.

This book provides a comprehensive study of the notion of responsibility in environmental governance. It starts with the observation that, although the rhetoric of responsibility is indeed all-pervasive in environmental and sustainability-related fields, decisive political action is still lacking. Governance architectures increasingly strive to hold different stakeholders responsible by installing accountability and transparency mechanisms to manage environmental problems, yet the structural background conditions affecting these issues continue to generate unevenly distributed, socially unjust, and ecologically devastating consequences. Responsibility in Environmental Governance develops the concept of responsibility as an analytical approach to map and understand these dynamics and to situate diverse meanings of responsibility within larger socio-political contexts. It applies this approach to the study of food waste governance, uncovering a narrow governance focus on accountability, optimization, and consumer behavior change strategies, opening up spaces for organizing more democratic solutions to a truly global problem.

Marx, Spinoza and Darwin presents a common thread in its argument: it shows how these authors—certainly with differences among themselves—consolidated a field of investigation that does not resort to transcendent or religious premises in approaching the phenomena they analyze. Thus, when Spinoza declared that the “will of God” is the “sanctuary of ignorance,” when Marx provocatively maintained that “criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism,” or when Darwin polemicized against a millennial creationist approach, all were taking a stand that invited us to view our world through a secular and immanent lens. In addition to this common thread, Martins discusses other issues present in the works of these thinkers, for instance the space that exists for human subjectivity from a Marxist perspective (which is not to be confused with philosophical “objectivism”): men and women are encouraged to act in the world. With this conceptual background, the concluding chapters of the book address the proliferation of some less examined Christian fundamentalisms in contemporary world, presenting an explanatory hypothesis for the phenomenon.

This book provides a new interpretation of international law specifically dedicated to Indigenous peoples in the context of a climate justice approach. The book presents a critical analysis of past and current developments at the intersection of human rights and international environmental law and governance. The book suggests new ways forward and demonstrates the need for a paradigmatic shift that would enhance the meaningful participation of Indigenous peoples as fundamental actors in the conservation of biodiversity and in the fight against climate change. The book offers guidance on a number of critical intersecting and interdependent issues at the forefront of climate change law and policy – inside and outside of the UN climate change regime. The author suggests that the adoption of a critical perspective on international law is needed in order to highlight inherent structural and systemic issues of the international law regime which are all issues that ultimately impede the pursue of climate justice for Indigenous peoples.

This book explores global drug trafficking networks’ impact on international security and provides an in-depth analysis of drug trafficking networks globally by integrating international relations and security studies theories. The book acts as a primer, simplifying the complicated world of narcotics and insecurity, while also providing policy recommendations for policy-makers hoping to reduce the power of organized criminal and terrorist networks globally. It will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduates taking courses in International Relations, Global Politics, Defense Studies, Security Studies, and International Political Economy, as well as Criminal Justice, Sociology, and other social science disciplines that cover issues related to drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence.

This book makes an important contribution to the conflict literature and to new ways of thinking about agency and social life in fragile contexts. It does this by engaging with often ignored peace infrastructures. In this book, the contributors highlight different ways in which non-violence is deployed by Africa’s youth to navigate difficult violent contexts. Drawing on empirically grounded case studies from the Central African Republic to Zimbabwe, this book explores how similar (or indeed the same) social infrastructures can be deployed for both violence and non-violence and the important factors that drive many youth to take the non[1]violence option even when order appears to collapse around them. The authors also explore how, for instance, systems of organizing survive violent disruptions to the so-called rhythms of everyday life, and, when they do, how they are then repurposed by youth to help them survive violence.

This book explores water service provisions of the urban poor in the cities of Africa with particular emphasis on Kenya and its capital city of Nairobi. In particular the book addresses the insecurity of tenure, and how the colonial segregation of land continues to shape water access and service provision even today in Nairobi. The book seeks to understand how urban water management entails the “production of thirst” among the urban poor and documents how cultural norms, political commitments and seemingly mundane practices of water managers combine to exclude the poor from accessing water. Supporters of privatization argue that private companies may succeed where governments have failed in supplying water to the urban poor. The author takes a closer look at this argument, demonstrating the limitations of some of the current reforms whilst also exploring alternatives and solutions. This book will be an invaluable reference for students, researchers and practitioners working in this field.

This book examines the governance and democratization process in Africa, its history, trends, and prospects. Written by a diverse panel of experts, the book provides an intersectional and interdisciplinary analysis of Africa’s democratic environment. Chapters cover topics such as the evolution of democracy in Africa, electoral politics, gender, activism, human rights, and cultural diversity. Critically assessing the fit of democracy for African countries and offering strategies for the Africanization of democracy, this volume will be important for researchers and students interested in African politics, postcolonial theory, democracy, and governance.  

This book considers the impact of digital media and technology on lived experience for young people in foster care. While the extent and intricacies of foster care—known as out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia, where this study takes place—are not widely understood by the general public, youth in care might struggle to construct a personal identity that goes beyond reflecting the stereotypes and stigma by which they are often recognised. In today’s digital environment, media can play a significant role in any individual’s developing sense of self, identity, and belonging. Deitz and Sheridan Burns examine OOHC through the lens of networked media environments and investigate the conditions that encourage belonging and resilience in order to establish the role that digital technology can play in supporting those conditions for individuals, family networks, and the care sector.

The Second Edition of this book is completely revised and updated throughout providing an overview of current challenges faced within the area of Agri-food in relation to policymaking, ecological conservation and socio-environmental justice. Including a range of new chapters, the book explores some of the conceptual and analytical gaps that are presented by current approaches to this topic. The series of interconnected chapters offers a critical reinterpretation of the tensions associated with the failures of mainstream regulatory regimes, land and resource grabbing, and the impacts of global agri-food chains at local, regional and inter-sectoral scales. The book also examines past legacies and emerging challenges associated with agriculture modernisation, politico-spatial disputes, climate change, social movements, gender, ethnicity and education. It likewise addresses the transformative potential of different combinations of biophysical, socio-technical and socio-spatial practices of food sovereignty.

During the early days of the COVID-19 health crisis, Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary provided an important portal for people around the world to understand the outbreak, local response, and how the novel coronavirus was impacting everyday people. But when news of the international publication of Wuhan Diary appeared online in early April of 2020, Fang Fang’s writings became the target of a series of online attacks by “Chinese ultra-nationalists.” Over time, these attacks morphed into one of the most sophisticated and protracted hate Campaigns against a Chinese writer in decades. Meanwhile, as controversy around Wuhan Diary swelled in China, the author was transformed into a global icon, honored by the BBC as one of the most influential women of 2020 and featured in stories by dozens of international news outlets.

This book, by the translator of Wuhan Diary into English, alternates between a first-hand account of the translation process and more critical observations on how a diary became a lightning rod for fierce political debate and the target of a sweeping online campaign that many described as a “cyber Cultural Revolution.” Eventually, even Berry would be pulled into the attacks and targeted by thousands of online trolls.

This book answers the questions: why would an online lockdown diary elicit such a strong reaction among Chinese netizens? How did the controversy unfold and evolve? Who was behind it? And what can we learn from the “Fang Fang Incident” about contemporary Chinese politics and society? The book will be of interest to students and scholars of translation, as well as anyone with special interest in translation, US-Chinese relations, or internet culture more broadly.

This volume analyses democratic governance, the rule of law and development in Africa. It is unique and timely. First, the theme and sub-themes were carefully selected to solicit quality chapters from academics, practitioners and graduate students on topical and contemporary issues in constitutional law, human rights, and democratic governance in Africa. The chapters were subjected to a single-blind peer review by experts and scholars in the relevant fields to ensure that high quality submissions are included. Due to the dearth of knowledge and studies on the chosen thematic areas, the publication will remain relevant after several years due to the timeless themes it covers. In this regard, this edited volume audits the progress of democratic consolidation, rule of law and development in Ghana with selected case studies from other African countries. This book is intended for higher education institutions (universities, institutes and centres), public libraries, general academics, practitioners and students of law, democracy, human rights and political science, especially those interested in African affairs. 

Going beyond the national scales and focussing on several socio-ecological zones, this book captures stories written by engaged scholars on recent attempts to develop cross-sectoral and cross-scaler solutions to assess and mitigate risks to water security across Asia and the Pacific. Identifying lessons from successes and failures, it highlights management and strategic lessons that water and climate leaders of Asia and the Pacific need to consider. This book showcases reflective and analytical thought pieces written by key actors in the climate and water spaces. Several critical socio-ecological zones are covered  – from Pakistan in the west to pacific islands in the east. The chapters clearly identify strategies for improvement based on the analysis of emerging responses to climate risks to water security and gaps in current practices. The book will include an editorial introduction and a final synthesis chapter to ensure clear articulation of common themes and to highlight the overall messages of the book. 

This is an open access book.

This book examines the lives of children and young adults living in residential care systems in Zimbabwe and their unique conceptualization of family. While the importance of family for the development and wellbeing of children can't be overemphasized, the questions of what and who counts as family to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) are under-researched. Gwenzi brings a social constructionist approach to study OVCs in institutional care as well as living with their families in Zimbabwe, finding that they do not have a single definition of family and that they use diverse characteristics to describe what family means to them. With the data suggesting a need for belonging, continuity of relationships, protection, and trust, this study makes recommendations for policy and practice with youth in alternative care in sub-Saharan Africa.

This volume develops a theoretical framework for the modelling of meaning-making and cultural processes as crucial to the scientific study of contemporary complex societies. It focuses on the methodological and empirical aspects of the analysis of culture and its dynamics that could be applied to policymaking and to the understanding of social phenomena. It covers culture-based segmentation, ad hoc survey instruments like the VOC and PROSERV questionnaires, discourse flow analysis, the Homogenization of Classification Functions Measurement, and others. It also presents a detailed discussion of the methodology of cultural analysis in contexts of health and education. The volume showcases a top-down approach by including quantitative methods and/or automatized or semi-automatized procedures, and at the same time supports a hermeneutic, bottom-up, abductive approach, focused on the situated dynamics of meaning-making. It provides insights from cultural studies, socialstatistics, social policy, and research methodology in the social sciences. This is a useful resource for academics involved in studying cultural dynamics and for policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers who are interested in cultural dimensions of the design, implementation and reception of public policies. 

This book explores the possibilities of understanding the concept of climate refugees in order to ascribe to a consensual agreement that climate refugees are evident and this situation is a reality.

A framework to study both empirically and theoretically is presented in a detailed manner so that it may become a resource for understanding the challenges of climate refugees.

Through discussion and analysis the book presents potential answers to such questions as:

●        Why has the international system been so short-sighted and has not given importance to the problems of climate migrants and refugees?

●        How to identify a climate refugee?

●        How do you justify a climate refugee or a migrant?

●        What are internally displaced people? Should we call them just refugees?

The book covers the interdisciplinary nature of climate refugees and the perspectives of social science. The empirical findings provides an edge to holistically understanding climate refugees.

This book discusses the concept of, what really is a climate refugee, and the necessary factors to make it an important part of the climate discourse. The legality of the term is missing in international parlance, and the academic discourse should provide the necessary critique required for the evolution of the subject under study. Therefore, the major objective of the book is to make the subject of climate migration known to all.

This open access IMISCOE Regional Reader explores the issues faced by migrant groups in Southeast Asia and the challenges of getting of their human rights recognized. It analyses the different responses, or lack thereof, of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to these highly complex situations which are shaped by contemporary debates around borders and concepts of states, migrants’ rights as well as access to citizenship and how these concepts and paradigms are intertwined with issues such as agency and resilience of migrants. Crucial attention is given to the region’s lesser known populations and issues such as the Vietnamese in Thailand, people of Indonesian descent (PIDs) in Southern Philippines, independent child migrants across the region, and the vulnerabilities of migrant workers facing the COVID-19 pandemic. With its unique regional focus, this book provides a valuable resource to those studying human rights and migration issues, policy makers and researchers and students.

This book proposes a comprehensive discussion of the issue of linguistic feeling, the subject’s metalinguistic capacity to intuitively apprehend the normative – lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonological… – dimensions of a definite language he or she is acquainted with. The volume’s twelve contributions aim to revisit a concept that, through a fluctuating terminology (“Sprachgefühl,” “sentiment de la langue,” “linguistic intuitions,” etc.), had developed, since the late 18^th century, within a variety of cultural contexts and research traditions, and whose theoretical, epistemological, and historical ins and outs had not been systematically explored so far. Beginning with a long opening chapter, the book consists of two parts, one tracing the multifaceted approaches to linguistic feeling from Herder to Wittgenstein, and one offering a representative overview of the debates about the issue at stake in current linguistics and philosophy, while addressing the question of the place of metacognition, normativity, and affectivity in language processes.

Bringing together a range of scholarship, this edited volume investigates the limits and boundaries of women’s empowerment toward shaping sustainability by unpacking power relationships that affect women’s inclusive citizenship; analyzing concrete examples of limits across different regions; and exploring the rise of new technological innovations that may (or may not) contribute to dissolve those limits. Chapters focus on different dimensions related disempowerment (such as historical, cultural, socio-economic, and normative) to frame a new understanding of how achieving equality around the world. Integrating transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives at domestic and international levels, this book looks at ways to provide new opportunities for removing invisible and visible barriers to ensure gender parity and to make sustainable change irreversible.

This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and policymakers across Law, Sociology, Gender Studies, Politics,and Economics.

This book helps readers interested in Eastern Europe to ‘take the temperature’ of the region today, but it is also of interest to readers in the policy and analysis community, because it offers a template, an analytical ‘how-to’ guide which aims to follow in the footsteps of CIA author Richards Heuer’s ‘Psychology of Intelligence Analysis’, to show how state-of-the-art computational analysis techniques could be applied to similar problems in other topic areas, with the human analyst and computational techniques each working together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

This book focuses on the football stadium as a political space and examines how stadiums can be viewed as the objects and catalysts of political change. Rather than acting as functional constructions designed merely to host football games, stadiums stand out in the urban landscape as landmarks that serve as gathering points for large communities.

The manifestation of the political in football stadiums can be heard in the discontent voiced by supporter activism; in the use of stadiums for national and local identity politics; in attempts to instrumentalize emotions by both totalitarian and democratic regimes; among fan groups in political uprisings, and in the surveillance of fans through e-tickets and seat allocation.

This edited collection brings together a variety of case studies from a wide range of different contexts. Contributors stem from political science, sociology, history, anthropology, human geography and urbanism. As such, the book redefines andbroadens what we understand as the political dimension of the football stadium.

This book is focused exclusively on water problems in the 48 U.S. states. The authors provide an accessible overview of the work of many federal, state and academic researchers and water system administrators whose investigations have focused on the state of water and the water crisis now accelerating in the United States. David McNabb and Carl Swenson seek to bring to a wider audience some of the current research findings and data on the perilous state of the United States’ surface and groundwater resources during this time of climate change and the extreme drought taking place in many sections of the nation. Descriptions of the water resource systems are based on research and the subsequent findings published by water scientists in the United States Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Corps of Engineers and water related agencies of the Departments of Agriculture and of the Interior and state and local water management agencies.

This book presents a comparative analysis of the struggles of Latin American indigenous peoples for effective representation in national political systems in the region. Through a detailed exploration of the political dynamics of indigenous groups and examples of mechanisms of political representation, the studies in this book reveal how power relations, cleavages and indigenous civil society organizations are essential to our understanding of indigenous political participation. These studies closely inspect how collective action builds up at local level in grassroots organizations, and how it then articulates or not with larger mechanisms of regional and national political representation, providing a more comprehensive and comparative assessment of why and when representation works and fails for indigenous people.

This contributed volume is organized around one general and comparative chapter on indigenous political representation in Latin America followed by eight case studies, divided into three main groups. The first group includes cases with a more inclusive political environment, such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala. The second group brings together cases with certain representation and/or active indigenous elites: Colombia, Mexico, and Paraguay. Tthe third group presents outlier cases with potential indigenous issues: Peru and Chile. Finally, the last chapter brings together reflections on how mechanisms for effective political representation can be improved and how indigenous organizations can be fostered to ensure effective political representation.

Indigenous Political Representation in Latin America will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists studying both indigenous collective action and political representation by presenting a discussion on how to structure representation mechanisms capable of politically integrate the ethnic diversity of Latin American countries in order to build a multicultural citizenship. It will also help policy makers and activists by discussing the successes and failures of effective indigenous political representation in Latin America.

This book speaks to those interested in topics related to punitiveness and public attitudes to crime and punishment. Punitiveness has been the focus of increasing criminological attention in recent decades. This book extends this focus by taking a multi-disciplinary approach to examining punitiveness in the criminal justice system, the welfare system, and the education system in British society today. In doing so, this study uses new survey data (n=5,781) applying ordinal and linear regression and structural equation modelling to examine the relationship between public punitiveness towards ‘rulebreakers’ and political values. This is explored through assessing punitive attitudes towards the treatment of i) school pupils who break school rules, ii) towards the treatment of benefit recipients who fail to comply with the rules, and iii) towards people who break the law. It examines the relationship between political attitudes (neo-conservative values, neo-liberal values), nostalgic values (social, economic, and political), and public punitive attitudes towards the three rule-breaking groups. This book’s appeal may extend to an interdisciplinary audience including welfare, education, and social policy disciplines.

This book explores the discourses in learning and teaching policy in UK higher education, traces how these ideas are recontextualised at institutional level and reveals the differences between policy discourses and lecturers’ and students’ experiences. The author argues that policy ideas around learning and teaching are not simply value-free ‘best practice’ but reflect the socio-political context of higher education. The study uses an innovative conceptual framework of critical discourse studies (CDS) and Bernstein’s sociology of pedagogy to provide critical lenses to uncover the underlying messages of policy. The book will interest a wide academic audience including anyone involved in higher education globally.

This edited collection situates the migration of children and young people into Europe within a global framework of analysis and provides a holistic perspective that encompasses cultural media, ethnographic research and policy analysis. Drawing on a unique study of young unaccompanied migrants who subsequently became ‘adult’ within the UK and Italy, it examines their different trajectories and how they were impacted by their ability to secure legal status. Divided into three interlinked sections, it begins by examining the cultural repertoires about migration and adulthood to which migrants are sensitized in their countries of origin from a young age. This forms the contexts within which their direct experiences of turning 18 in a different country are explored. These combined insights are framed by an analysis of related policies which bureaucratically and institutionally shape these migratory experiences. This interdisciplinary volume will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of migration studies, international development, geography, sociology, anthropology, youth studies, law, education, health and wellbeing, social care and cultural studies.

This book offers a systematic and multifaceted analysis of the Greens on the levels of political philosophy, political concepts, social movement, political parties, and political ideology. The originality of the book lies in the determination of the political philosophy of the Greens as left libertarianism. Such a determination of the Greens can already be found in the writings of Herbert Kitschelt, but while he only makes a cursory mention of it, this book offers a detailed elaboration of the points of contact between left-libertarianism and the Greens. The book also attempts to explain the acceptance of left-libertarianism by the Greens with social processes in Western Europe, the emergence of a new middle class and post-materialist values. At the same time, the book examines the relationship between the left-libertarian political philosophy of the Greens and the organizational structure of the Green parties, their relationship to the state, and to democracy.

This book focuses on the socio-political problems that emanate from Western states' harsh deterrence policies in their responses to refugee crises. Using Australia’s own policy as a lens, it examines the ways in which isolated and separatist reactions not only deny protection and basic human rights for asylum seekers but also do nothing to address structurally enduring push factors. 

Reflecting on a range of interconnected issues in migration research and asylum policy, this book draws on multidisciplinary insights and a mixed methodology to critically examine current assumptions underlying refugee policies both in Australia and internationally.

This book focuses on private tutoring (sometimes also known as “shadow education”), an important but neglected topic in applied linguistics and language education research. Private tutoring has become a popular out-of-school learning activity worldwide. While its scope and definition are expanding, private tutoring commonly refers to the “paid service students used to supplement their learning of academic subjects at school outside school hours” (Yung, 2019). Around the world, English language is one of the most popularly enrolled subjects in private tutoring, including both English as a first language and English as an additional language (EAL). Despite its popularity and implications for theories, practices, and policies, research on English private tutoring is still in its infancy. This book aims to provide an international perspective on the interface between applied linguistics and comparative education and open up an agenda for discussion in theories, practices,and policies in English language teaching (ELT). It will be of interest to students, scholars, and policy-makers in these and related areas. 

This book deploys a long-term account of political corruption in Britain to explain the phenomenon of corruption as it resides within the state and the contemporary problem of corruption denial among members of the political class. It aims to satisfy the concern about corruption and identify potential causes and significance. The book provides and account of definitions of corruption and how those definitions have changed over time. Throughout the succeeding chapters it discusses public life and how ethical considerations for public office holders have evolved over time. This book argues that corruption is not just a concern about politics and understanding corruption requires a multi-disciplinary approach: history; political science; sociology; anthropology and urban ethnography.

Developing a processual understanding of world statehood, this book combines history, political philosophy, explanatory social science, and critical-reflexive futures studies. While doing so, it poses essential questions about world political integration, especially (i) whether and to what degree elements of world statehood exist today, (ii) whether the development of further elements of world statehood in some stronger sense can be seen as a tendential direction of history, and (iii) whether, and under what conditions, a world state could be viable?

The book is organised into three parts. The first part, “Cosmopolitical processes”, explores whether world history as a whole is directed towards planetary integration, focusing on the emergence of cosmopolitanism, the world economy, and the peace problematic. The second part of the book, “Reflexive futures and agency”, focuses on the contemporary 21st-century processes of world history in terms of how non-fixed pasts, changingcontexts, and anticipations of the future interact. The author explains how certain rational directionality is compatible with the possibility of deglobalisation, disintegrative tendencies, and “gridlock” in global governance in the key areas of the economy, security, and environment. In the final part of the book, “World statehood and beyond”, the author develops further the processual and open-ended account of the formation of interconnected elements of world statehood by discussing the cases of a global greenhouse gas tax and world parliament. He also analyses the feasibility of different paths towards global-scale integration and the potential for conflicts, divisions, and disintegration.

This book is a must-read for students and scholars of political science, international relations, history, sociology, political philosophy, and futures studies interested in a better understanding of world statehood, world political integration, as well as the future of world politics.

This book is the first to focus on state-led ‘extractive bargains,’ designed to reach a social consensus on the extent of extractive activities, how they should be governed and their negative consequences mitigated. These state-led ‘bargains’ have taken a number of different forms and offer varying degrees of promise in meeting environmental and social concerns. The book critically examines ‘bargains’ in states across the Global North and the Global South, incorporates Indigenous issues, and judiciously assesses their prospects for promoting long-term sustainability. It focusses on mineral and fossil fuel extraction in particular including bargains designed to govern the former as the demand for minerals used in “green energy” increases and to limit the use of the latter.

This edited volume brings together a range of scholars to reflect on the varied ways in which caste is manifested and experienced in social life. Each chapter draws on different methods and approaches but all consider lived experiences and experiential narrations. Considering Guru and Sarukkai’s path-breaking work on ‘Experience, Caste and the Everyday Social’ (2019), this volume applies the insights of the theories to multiple settings, issues and communities. Unique to this volume, Brahmin and other dominant castes' experiences are considered, rather than simply focusing on the lives of oppressed castes (Dalits). Analysis of cross-caste friendships or romances and marriages, furthermore, brings out the intimate and ingrained aspects of caste. Taken together, therefore, the contributions in this volume offer rich insights into caste and its consciousness within the framework of everyday experiences. 

This book tackles poverty and policy issues in the UK by discussing successful projects and practices, across lots of short chapters. The first section provides a brief history overview of poverty in the UK over the past two hundred years and discusses the question of why the UK, as a wealthy western nation, still has a poverty issue. It discusses various vulnerable groups and contextual factors which lead to these inequalities. The second section articulates what anti-poverty work is and shares project examples from across the country where anti-poverty workers are supporting people to survive and then to thrive. Lived experiences voices are articulated to present examples of poverty being experienced. This book draws on academic and practitioner work and aims to equip the activist and inform the student, academic and policy maker.

This edited volume advances the conceptual framework of the 'everyday urban' to unpack the ways in which processes of modernity in India shape young subjects and, in so doing, centers the analytical categories of childhood and youth. In rejecting simplistic binaries of agency, and teleological logics of development and modernity, the authors focus on the complex pathways of negotiation and conflict that mark the lives of young people across various historical and contemporary contexts in urban India. Chapters are organized across two key themes: Shaping Modern Subjects and Being Modern Subjects, while spanning multiple disciplines including anthropology, history, sociology, disability studies, and psychology. Together, the contributions aim to advance the field of childhood and youth studies in South Asia and beyond.

This book addresses a gap in and outside academia: how to help Sociology undergraduates develop skills for career success while maintaining a sociologically rigorous approach. Matching sociological theories, methods, and knowledge with contemporary capitalistic managerial and work practices, it shows how sociology undergraduates are not only employable but have marketable advantages over graduates of other disciplines. A student following the program embodied in this book will actively nurture a strong sociological identity; create a job search plan integrating personal and disciplinary interests, values, and skills; design job application materials that provide the best fit for specific jobs and organizations; and launch a satisfying career path. Beyond an employment guide, it will facilitate the teaching of career development by Sociology faculty; increase students’ ongoing confidence in their potential; and provide a solid foundation for communicating the transformative power ofSociology to employers and managers in the government, business, and non-profit sectors.

This Open access book provides a survey of the economic, health, and somatic progress of Baltic countries during the period 1918–2018, framed by the outline of the historical-sociological theory of modern social restorations, as originally conceived by the Austrian-American comparative historian Robert A. Kann. The author reworks Kann's theory to analyse post-communist transformations in the Baltic region. The book argues that the purpose of modern social restorations is to make restoration societies safe against a recurrence of revolution. There were two waves of modern social restorations: post-Napoleonic and post-communist. Most post-Napoleonic restorations were brief, because they failed to economically and socially outperform the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary systems. It considers Baltic restorations as laboratory cases of second-wave modern social restorations, because they encompass a triple restoration of the nation-state, capitalism, and democracy. The bookassesses the performance success of Baltic restorations by comparing economic and social progress of Baltic countries during the periods of original independence (1918–1940), foreign-imposed state socialism (1940–1990), and restored independence (since 1990). It then elaborates the criteria to assess the ultimate performance success of these restorations by 2040, when restored Baltic states may endure longer than their ancestors in 1918–1940 and the complete foreign occupations era (1940–1990). The author, an expert in historical sociology, uses extensive historical-statistical data in cross-time comparisons to develop his analysis and create future projections. This book is of wide interest to sociologists, social demographers, political scientists, and economists studying the Baltic region. 

This is an open access book.

This open access book draws together key research from the UK Climate Resilience programme. It focuses on topics central to the programme’s research agenda, including improved characterisation and quantification of climate risks, enhanced understanding of the management of climate risks, and the development and delivery of climate services. Key chapters address the challenges inherent to undertaking resilience research, including how to make the term ‘climate resilience’ usable and useful, co-producing research between academics, policy makers and practitioners, and engaging and communicating outside of academia. This book is unique in providing a concise and accessible overview of the programme’s key lessons, placing the findings into a wider context and it will inform future research, policy and practice agendas.

This collection revisits Steven Box’s book, Power, Crime and Mystification, published in 1983, and considers its relevance forty years on. It introduces the critical analysis developed by Box which examined corporate crime, police crime, rape and sexual assault and female crime and analyses the continuities and discontinuities since 1983 in relation to crime, the state and the exercise/mystification of power. The book explores the ways in which we can see his influence nationally and internationally on critical criminological, zemiological and abolitionist writings today. It asks how can these perspectives be applied to a critical analysis of contemporary, state authoritarianism and the criminal injustice that this authoritarianism generates? Additionally, how can Box’s concepts shine a critical light on contemporary social harms that were not covered in the original book? The collection provides a toolkit for students and academics to criticallyanalyse the issues around crime/social harm, power/powerlessness, truth/mystification, criminal injustice/social justice as well as historical and contemporary sites of resistance confronting the exercise of state power. 

This edited volume focuses on the (un)equal access to the public space granted to the various groups that make up hybrid and multicultural societies: i.e. majority vs minority groups, immigrants vs non-immigrants, and so forth. With ‘access to public space’ the authors refer not only to participation through discursive practices in the public arena (e.g. political, social and institutional debates) but also to a full operationalization of the knowledge, habits and opportunities attached to true citizenship. Furthermore, in contexts of inequality and sociocultural conflict, the role of mediators has always been underscored as third-party figures (in)formally acknowledged and authorized–by participants in the interaction and/or external bodies–to set the ground for mutual understanding and foster balanced communication. Such mediation can range from interpreting in legal and medical encounters to dispute-resolution practices in situations of sociocultural clash among groups or individuals. Therefore, as is shown by the contributions in this volume, (intercultural) mediators are key agents in facilitating integration and providing disadvantaged groups with effective tools to gain access to the public sphere.

 This book explores the possibility of alienation amongst the British working-class and argues that the class is, in fact, alienated. Its point of departure is the right-communitarians, who outline how the working class has become alienated as a result of a loss of its political agency, the breakdown of its communities, and the undermining of its dignity. However, where these scholars tend to propose solutions from a right-communitarian perspective, this book adopts a more inclusive, left-wing, position to address working-class concerns.

Through a case study of Guyana, a society in which structural pluralism and ethnic/racial divisions coincide to a large extent, this book explores the specific way in which social structures interact with and affect social institutions, ethnic stratification, social actions, and both group-based and purportedly universalist ideologies. The book examines how a system of differentiation and stratification, inherited from colonial times, persists in its essential form in the current time despite attempts to dislodge it. While not falling prey to a structural determinism, the book argues, based on the evidence provided through both a historical sociological review of historical evidence and a presentist analysis of cross-sectional data on business ownership, that actions which coincide with the logic of social structures tend to prevail over actions which take that logic for granted. It is for this reason that political and social players with grand ideals have been less successful in their attempts to bridge the social and economic divides in the country, than those players whose interests coincided with the structural divides.

This book surveys the testimony of international organizations of the impact of American foreign policy on Iraq. Each reveals a fragment of Iraq’s mosaic of misery and desolation, but lacks the context to permit our understanding why this has happened. A parallel lack of context characterizes most of the political commentary, overlooking the recurring pattern of victimization of Iraqis, regardless of which political party controls the White House. This book takes a broader perspective, to reveal the enduring pattern linking specific events.

The book analyses the development of Israel's national identity through the world of local Jewish Zionist historiography. Inspired by Norbert Elias’ historical and figurational sociology, the book examines the different phases and generations in Israel in light of the collective habitus and the nation-state survival unit, set by Zionism. It does so by putting in relation the intellectual profession of history-writing and the processes of state and identity building. It processually pursues the autonomization of the historiographical field in Israel from its socio-genesis in pre-state Israel to recent decades. By combining together well-established literature on the relations between nationalism and statehood and on the particularity of the Israeli case, the book updates the state of the art and opens new debates on Jewish\Israeli exceptionalism, while shedding light on continuity and change in Israeli statehood vis-à-vis the supposed uniqueness of Jewish history, as reinterpreted and codified by Zionism. As it examines the interconnections between local intelligentsia and politics, the enquiry avails of the sociological concepts of “generation,” “habitus,” “survival unit,” “field,” according to the long-period tradition of research in Pierre Bourdieu, Norbert Elias, Max Weber, and more. This rich sociological conceptualization permits to mirror and contextualize Israel’s national identity with both intellectual and sociopolitical emphases. By situating Israeli historians and their profession on the dynamic crossroads and intersections of academia, politics, and greater society, the study delineates the deep meaning of “Israeliness.”

This book investigates a range of major sociological debates and policy studies related to gender, family, marriage, health, intersectionality, and social exclusion of single mothers in Thailand. It does so by analyzing ethnographic data gained from participant observation at NGOs and a psychiatric hospital, in-depth interviews with single mothers and social workers, and a review of government policy documents and reports from 2020 and 2021. The conceptual framework of the study draws on gender as a social construct and intersectionality as critical social theory. Using this framework, the book aims to offer new scholarly insights by looking at single mothers as a category of multiple and overlapping oppressions, marginalization, and exclusion, which intersect not only with gender, class, and ethnicity but also with other significant categories, such as hometown neighborhood, religion, and health conditions, all significant but under-researched subjects in the Thai context. Moreover, the book also provides policy recommendations to the Thai government to improve its social policies for single mothers and achieve gender equality in Thailand.

This compact book relies on the story of two intertwined Jewish immigrant families to tell a multigenerational Jewish story about the interplay between public/social policy, cultural categories, and the lived experience of working class immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe, including trans-/intergenerational trauma. Importantly, it focuses on the impacts of pre-Holocaust public policy, a significant departure from the Holocaust and post-Holocaust focus of much of the published literature relating to Jewish intergenerational trauma. As such, it offers the possibility of better understanding the far-reaching and perhaps unforeseen impacts of public policy. 

This book addresses events on both the micro and macro levels and is biographical, autobiographical, and historical in its scope. Sources for this work include archival materials, census records, maps, military records, birth and death certificates, congressional materials, newspaper articles, films, images, interviews with living family members, and secondary sources. Among the topics covered are:

• Russian, Soviet, and U.S. Eugenics: Family Internalization of Policy and Rhetoric
• The Intertwined Impact of Economics, Eugenic Policy, and Immigration Restrictions
• The Present Past: Policy, Identity, and Progeny

From Public Policy to Family Dynamics: A Case Study of the Impact of Public Policy on Two 20th Century Jewish Immigrant Families adds a human face to writings related to public/social policy. As the book integrates understandings from diverse fields of study, students of public policy, social work, psychology, history, Jewish studies, immigration studies, bioethics, and public health, as well as social workers, bioethicists, and historians, would be most interested in reading this unique work.

This book is about the role that social media plays in the lives of individuals, societies, economies and polities. It therefore takes in a wide view of the emergent and changing impacts of social media platforms, and social media practices. As a consequence, it examines social media use through various intellectual and scholarly traditions --psychology, sociology, cultural studies, economics, and (national and global) politics – but it is primarily situated in the field of media and communications studies. As such, it frames its analysis of social media impacts using media studies concepts and terminology, and places media texts, forms, industries and agents (producers, audiences and other users) at the centre of each thematic chapter.

The book presents the importance of restorative justice in today’s energy transition across the world. It emphasizes the importance of a fair, equitable and inclusive shift towards a low-carbon economy. It recognizes climate change as the primary global challenge and advocates for an urgent and comprehensive energy transition where restorative justice is centrally utilised. Restorative justice focuses on identifying harm, assigning responsibility, protecting those affected, repairing damage, preventing future occurrences and providing a crucial foundation for seeking justice. It encompasses various forms of harm (economic, environmental, and social) and includes all stakeholders, including individuals, communities, and the environment. By providing a secure and structured platform for dialogue, restorative justice allows for diverse perspectives, challenging conversations and action for a just and sustainable world.

This book explores current research on online instructed L2 acquisition, with a specific focus on the nature and impact of learner engagement in online L2 classroom interaction. It examines the topic of online learner engagement from various theoretical perspectives, discusses conceptual and methodological issues, synthesizes research on the role of learner engagement in online L2 classroom interaction, and critically assesses its connection to teaching practices across different L2 settings. The book is intended for a wide audience, including undergraduate and postgraduate Applied Linguistics, TESOL and Second Language Education students seeking to understand the significance of learner engagement in online L2 learning. It will also be useful for researchers interested in staying updated on recent findings regarding the benefits of learner engagement in online classroom interaction for L2 learning. Additionally, teachers, teacher trainers and educators in Teacher Education (TE) and/or continuous professional development (CPD) programs can benefit from the pedagogical insights offered in this book regarding online L2 instruction in various contexts.

This book investigates the ways in which new developments in areas of language teaching practice, such as policy-making, planning, methodology and the use of educational technology are locally adopted, adapted, and initiated and implemented in the four nations of the United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By looking at the drivers, stakeholders, obstacles, and affordances in particular regional contexts, it is possible to gain a deeper insight into the ways in which change processes occur. This will help anyone involved in language development, from curriculum reform to materials development, and from programme evaluation to the setting of assessment standards. The chapters in this book cover all aspects of language education in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, from the primary to tertiary levels in both private and public settings, as well as innovations at local, regional and national levels. The book will be of particular interest to those involved in managing change in language education that attempts to mediate between global trends and local needs.

The volume offers a unique and comprehensive reflection on the role of sociology and sociologists in the transformation of post-socialist Eastern European societies. It provides detailed insight on the status of sociology in Eastern Europe, its institutional development, specifics of national sociological traditions, the controversial and ambiguous relationship with the political system and, importantly, state-of-the-art knowledge about the role of sociology as a discipline and sociologists as academics, educators, public intellectuals, experts, politicians, or civil society activists in three decades of transformation. The volume follows a cultural political economy approach and provides a series of national case studies that analyse the role of sociology in re-imagining Eastern European societies. This topical volume is of interest to a wide, interdisciplinary readership in the social sciences, especially students and researchers working on Eastern Europe and on post-socialist societies.   

This book analyses political leadership, addressing key questions central to the ongoing debate on the transformation of contemporary democracies. What exactly is political leadership? How does the relationship between leadership and power shape democratic transformations? What role do individuals play in broader historical processes? How does the personalisation of politics manifest, and how does it differ between leader democracy and populism? Is there still room for charismatic leadership in modern democracies and societies?

These are some of the critical questions explored in this volume. The book traces the sociological relationship between leadership and power from foundational theories in the social sciences, through the personalisation of politics, to the rise of leader democracy and populist leadership. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in the fields of political sociology, political science, and leadership studies, as well as anyone engaged in understanding the evolving dynamics of leadership in contemporary democracies.

This edited volume brings together for the first time international research approaches from the field of figurational and processual sociology at the intersection of gender studies. It assembles current research on the change of gender relations in formal and informal structures. By using Norbert Elias’s process-sociological oeuvre selected gender figurations in the western and non-western world are discussed. This book is anchored, on the one hand, in a socio-historical understanding of the trajectory of gendered societies over a wide area and range of centuries in the Process of Civilization. On the other hand, the immediate impulse for this volume is the critical discussion of Eliasian thinking concerning dynamic gender relations in different empirical case studies and process-theory. It will be crucial reading for sociologists interested in the Elias school, as well as sociologists of gender more broadly.

This book analyzes social research and genres of comics from cross-cultural perspectives. It disentangles the impact of comics in understanding social, cultural and political issues and considers the challenges they may raise from an ethical point of view. In nine case studies focused on topics such as migration, science and technology innovation, urban sociology and criminology, the book aims to answer the following questions: How can the comic medium help understand research’s narratives? To what extent can comics can be incorporated within traditional social research steps? What body of knowledge is being created by research-based comics? How can they represent social class without eliminating it or reproducing its stereotypes and how they deconstruct, without removing the “color line” the cultural difference or the naturalization of gender corporality? What are the barriers (theoretical and methodological) that researchers might encounter using comics to communicate sensitive topics? What are the main ethical considerations researchers must consider? While, at first glance, comics-based research seems to be tied mostly to Sociology, Anthropology and Geography, it also is relevant to a host of other disciplines including cultural studies, feminist studies, environmental studies, disability studies, science and technology studies, critical race studies, queer studies and animal studies. This book will also facilitate international and interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers with an interest in exploring the utility and limitations of the graphic medium.

This open access book paves the way for transformative strategies that increase the role of railway stations and other related transit environments in contributing to the global goals for sustainable development (the UN’s sustainability goals in Agenda 2030). Drawing on insights from a Swedish case, this book adopts a systems thinking approach to investigate how environments impact transit safety and provide strategies to address the diverse safety needs of users. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, including field inspections, analysis of official data, questionnaire surveys, and interviews. These data sources are analysed using statistical techniques, GIS mapping, and regression modelling. Building on these findings, the book also critically examines how future railway station designs are currently being planned to enhance accessibility and safety. This book answers the following questions: Why are certain station environments perceived as more unsafe than others, even though fewer crimes are committed there? Why do different groups of travelers differ about victimization and safety? From a governance perspective, what would make these places safer? What are the patterns of victimization of vulnerable groups, such as women and individuals with disabilities? The findings have international resonance as this book demonstrates the connection between safety and sustainability, offering useful insights and recommendations for researchers, practitioners and policymakers committed to shaping safer, more inclusive transit environments.

This book examines the feasibility of realising the plurilingual vision of the Barcelona Summit Agreement (mother tongue plus two additional languages) through the  second-level education system by employing three strategies: 1) harmonising postprimary modern foreign language (MFL) classes in line with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) through cross-age teaching; 2) replacing the current state second-level MFL exams with CEFR international exams; and 3) implementing Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Taking Ireland as a microcosm of broader international practice, it analyses the impediments that hinder students from reaching their plurilingual potential within the education system and makes the case for a well-defined framework of topdown and bottom-up language policy and planning. It also investigates how the European Schools system has successfully achieved ‘Mother Tongue + 2’. In addition, it explores how the strategies and recommendations put forward can play a key role in the revitalisation of minority languages, with a particular focus on the Irish language. This book will be of interest to a broad readership open to reenvisioning how education systems can foster truly plurilingual students.

Anticipatory Biographies is a collection of future scenarios written in the form of individual biographies that span the breadth of human experience: from the privileged to the marginalized and across diverse cultures. Grounded in design fiction, futures research, anticipation science, and scenario writing, the essays in this book envision how the world will be reshaped by artificial intelligence, technological automation, climate change, political disintegration, and the decline of higher education. Each chapter brings readers into the perspective of a fictional person living in this anticipated world, capturing how future technologies and societal shifts will impact daily lives. and personal choices. In exploring the the inner lives of these individuals, Anticipatory Biographies innovates beyond conventional scenario writing ,inviting readers to contemplate not only the technological and political dimensions of the future but also the emotional, ethical, and existential aspects. This work of creative non-fiction bridges literary and scholarly forms, blending biography and design fiction with research-based insights. to offer an immersive, narrative-based method for exploring futures. This work pushes beyond speculative visions toward an experiential understanding of the future.

This Handbook offers an array of internationally recognized experts’ essays that provide a current and comprehensive examination of all dimensions of international population policies. The book examines the theoretical foundations, the historical and empirical evidence for policy formation, the policy levers and modelling, as well as the new policy challenges. The section Theoretical Foundations reviews population issues today, population theories, the population policies’ framework as well as the linkages between population, development, health, food systems, and the environment. The next section Empirical Evidence discusses international approaches to design and implement population policies on a regional level. The section Policy Levers and Modelling reviews the tools and the policy levers that are available to design, implement, monitor, and measure the impact of population policies. Finally, the section New Policy Challenges examines the recurrent and emerging issues in population policies. This section also discusses prospects for demographic sustainability as well as future considerations for population policies. As such this Handbook provides an important and structured examination of contemporary population policies, their evolution, and their prospects.