Social Sciences (R0)

Despite China’s rise to the status of global power, many Chinese youths are anxious about their personal future, in large measure because the rapid changes have left them feeling adrift.  This book, available in open access, provides a manifesto of intellectual activism that counsels China’s young people to think by themselves and for themselves. Consisting of three conversations between Xiang Biao, a social anthropologist, and Wu Qi, a rising journalist, the book probes how China has reached its current stage and how young people can make changes. The conversations touch on issues of mobility, education, family, relations between the self and the authority, centers and margins, China, and the world. The Chinese version was named the “most impactful book of 2021” by Douban, China’s premier website for rating books, films, and music.  The English version is translated by David Ownby, who also penned an introduction. 

In one of the only works drawing on interviews with both Uyghurs and Han in Xinjiang, China, and postcolonial perspectives on ethnicity, nation, and race, this book explores how forms of banal racism underpin ideas of self and other, assimilation and modernisation, in this restive region.

Significant international attention has condemned the CCP’s use of forced internment in ‘re-education’ camps, as well as its campaign of cultural assimilation. In this wider context, this book focuses upon the ways in which ethnic difference is writ through the banalities of everyday life: who one trusts, what one eats, where one shops, even what time one’s clocks are set to (Xinjiang being perhaps one of the only places where different ethnic groups live by different time-zones).

Alongside chapters focusing upon the coercive ‘re-education’ campaign, and the devastating Ürümchi Riots in 2009, this book also unpacks how discourses of Chinese nationalism romanticise empire and promote racialised ways of thinking about Chineseness, how cultural assimilation (‘Sinicisation’) is being justified through the rhetoric of ‘modernisation’, how Islamic sites and Uyghur culture are being secularised and commodified for tourist consumption. We also explore Uyghur and Han perspectives, including of each other, giving insight into the diversity of opinions within both groups.

Based on many years of living and working in China, and fieldwork and interviews specifically in Xinjiang, this book will be valuable to a variety of readers interested in the region and Uyghur and Han identity, ethnic/national identities in contemporary China, and racisms in non-western contexts. 

This book examines the origins and basic concepts of sociology in China and traces the discipline’s evolutionary trajectory. Building on the premise that qunxue, which goes back to Xunzi, is essentially the Chinese antecedent of modern/Western sociology, contributors try to show the distinctive ways qunxue addresses a wide range of both foundational and practical issues related to society using its own set of conceptual, analytical and methodological apparatus. The book argues that the rise of Chinese sociology will depend crucially on whether the rich heritage of traditional Chinese sociology can be fully appreciated and integrated with the Western tradition of learning. Following two preliminary chapters laying out qunxue’s basic paramters, the four remaining chapters focus on its four primary concerns: cultivation of the self (xiushen), regulation of the family (qijia), governance of the state (zhiguo), and realization of universal peace (pingtianxia).

This book provides an alternative agenda to deepen understanding of grassroots governance and interaction in Taiwan. Through to the Taiwan Local Council origin, the judicature, the finance, the political party, the election behavior, the political participation, the government and the local government relations, and so on have carried on the more thorough research. It not only attracts students' interest, but also deserves a broader readership, especially for any course on Taiwan politics, Chinese politics, and East Asian politics.

This book identifies and analyzes the significant regional differences in suicide rates of various age groups and different sexes among Chinese rural residents. It goes beyond the analytic dichotomy in traditional Western suicide studies and argues that the phenomena of suicide among Chinese farmers are the result of a combination of social structure and social action, rather than being determined by either of these two factors alone. This study analyses suicide rates among young married women in rural areas as well as those of elderly people in rural areas. The responsive trend for the near future is also projected. The underlying dynamics and causal mechanisms of these phenomena are carefully analyzed using an innovative “structure – action theory” framework.

This book describes how modern industry affected people in Japan and their communities by polluting their living environment with toxic emissions. It also shows how the populace endeavored not only to restore their once-clean environment but also to rebuild communities that had been damaged by pollution and its accompanying effects. 

Environmental pollution is usually referred to in Japan as kogai, public damage, meaning that such pollution not only harms the physical environment—air, water, soil, and the human body—but also destroys the social and personal relationships in the polluted area. Those people who took action recognized that industrial and economic development had been given the highest national priority even at the cost of their health and welfare. In this sense, anti-kogai movements led them to alternative community development and to rethinking what kind of environment and community they wanted. 

This book also explores the efforts driven byresidents in several parts of Japan after the middle of the twentieth century and the endeavors of museums and archives as a memorial to those who suffered from the pollution and for the prospect of a better society with a good environment.

The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation shows that we have unwittingly fallen into an existential crisis of our own making. We have allowed large corporations, the military and other vested interests to capture governments and influence public opinion excessively. We have created a god called ‘the market’ and allowed our most important decisions to be made by this imaginary entity, which is in fact a human system controlled by vested interests. The result has been the exploitation of our life support system, our planet, and most of its inhabitants, to the point of collapse.

This book aims to explore how sustainability transitions can be explored in current and future cities and how research and policy approaches can be applied to change urban life as we know it, hence aligning the two thematic of urban science and future science, for achieving deep decarbonization. On this, the discourse on philosophy, ethics, and morality appertaining to sustainable cities and urban transitions, across disciplines, are also welcomed as it provides a deeper understanding of humanity in future scenarios.

Chapter 08 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book focuses on the discourse of de-globalisation in Malaysia by looking at the implications of this process politically, economically, socially, and environmentally.

Since the emergence of this pandemic, Malaysia has been facing not only a change of government but also a rapid decline in its economy, a rise in unemployment and living costs, with the human rights situation deteriorating as the State of Emergency was imposed. All of these add up to a shift toward de-globalisation. Chapters in this book, therefore, engage with this issue from different perspectives, such as conventional warfare, bio-constitutional implications to the right to health, labour, migrants and refugees, digital education, indigenous people and so forth.

This book opens new pathways for decolonial autoethnography, presented as a series of reflective stories that showcase how Māori have negotiated and navigated their personal and professional identities within contemporary society. Framed within the academic methodology of Indigenous Autoethnography, authors recount their personal and professional experiences to address their encounters with cultural trauma and personal enlightenment. As a culturally responsive methodology, Indigenous Autoethnography embraces reflective practice and critical awakening to validate Indigenous knowledge, ensuring that it remains meaningful and responsive to the needs of Māori. Utilising metaphorical storytelling as a primary means of sensemaking, this work reinforces the importance of Māori and other Indigenous People to seek wisdom from the past to guide them into the future. With Indigenous knowledge historically ignored and misrepresented in higher education, this seminal text provides invaluable guidance for global Indigenous researchers seeking to produce story work that genuinely encompasses physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.

With multidisciplinary examination, this book explores Waiting for Visa, Ambedkar's autobiographical writing. This investigation ranges from Dalit Studies to Discourse analysis. It aims to provide the reader with in-depth knowledge of Ambedkar's unexplored autobiographical memoir and supplement a range of generalized works. The issues addressed in this book are essential to Ethnic and Race studies in general, to which Dalit Studies is but one contributing discipline. The Dalit Studies already have many texts. These texts are primarily concerned with Dalit identity politics, socio-mythological explorations, and Ambedkarian thoughts on economics, politics, and racial-religious discriminations. These are not discussed with Ambedkar's life stories narrated by himself. This book bridges the gap between Dalit Studies and Ambedkar Studies to project how Ambedkar attempted to forge into an impregnable South Asian social, educational, and political fabric. This reference book aims to attractacademics and students of Asian, South Asian, and Dalit Studies. The book appeals to educators, policymakers, and comparative literary scholars.

This book takes the contemporary moment of digital health infrastructuring in Ghana as a starting point to examine the genealogies of oral, paper-based and digital forms of knowledge production about health. In view of this multiplicity of forms, the chapters adopt a broad definition of health data that encompasses databases, statistics as well as oral and written records and reports about health. In addition to close historiographic insights into the interactions of indigenous and colonial ways of organising knowledge around health, the chapters explore contemporary ways in which medical professionals are mobilized or potentially demobilized by the standards, methods and calculative devices that accompany the increasing production of health data.

The authors show that the contemporary hype around the datafication of health is neither new nor exceptional, but instead needs to be read in broader historical perspective. Through its unique combination of historical, sociological and ethnographic methods, the book shows that the regulation and standardization of health produces both mobilizations and demobilizations, as well as appropriations and resistances.

The book is a collection of essays written by scholars/activists who are continuously concerned about the Fukushima catastrophe. The authors engagingly address the devastating environmental, economic, and social consequences of nuclear disasters, as well as recognize resistance of local communities through searching for alternative life and thought. The book offers a critique of nuclear energy and calls for collective action for social justice and ecological justice.

This book provides an accessible overview of one particular type of social panic: that of the phantom attacker. Such panics are characterised by outbreaks of sensational claims of attacks by mysterious figures that seem to emerge from nowhere, attack their innocent human and animal victims, only to vanish without a trace. Taking the recent wave of needle-spiking reports in Europe as a starting point, this book does more than just catalogue such outbreaks historically and geographically. It also ties the phenomenon of phantom assailants to the moral panics literature.

Meticulously investigating archival sources, the authors examine the social construction of social panics and unearth the parallels between contemporary episodes and historical antecedents in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. Focusing on the sociohistorical and -cultural context, they uncover the role of mass media in creating and perpetuating these panics, which respond to anxieties pervading societies at particular points in history.

Written in a lively style, this book is not only of interest for scholars and students of sociology, criminology, social psychology, media studies and history but also appeals to a lay audience interested in urban legends and true crime.

This book provides a timely study of community-based activism in contemporary South Africa. Grounded in oral history, the book examines the acquired expertise and life experiences of an impactful South African activist, Mandla Majola, within the context of the people, circumstances, and affiliations that have shaped his strategic thinking and practice. The authors situate Mandla Majola’s activist and everyday experiences within histories of the complex connections between post-apartheid political and social movements and human rights discourse as they emerged after 1994. The book illuminates the relationship of state power to public health activism for HIV, tuberculosis and COVID-19 and for a life of basic human dignity, including access to sanitation and housing. Mandla Majola’s life spotlights the inspiring, sometimes grueling, and tireless quotidian work of thousands of “invisible” community-based activists whose collective actions have impacted the entire spectrum of social and economic rights of untold numbers of people in South Africa and beyond. 

This open access book aims to review the history, achievements, and challenges of trilateral cooperation among China, Japan, and South Korea in a systematic way. It offers numerous perspectives to explain the emergence of trilateral institution-building processes and the fluctuations of trilateral cooperation, and underscores three countries’ respective policy stances towards the building of the triangle. The evolvement of political and economic ties among China, Japan, and South Korea has vital importance to the peace and prosperity of East Asia. Recent years have witnessed the ups and downs of the trilateral cooperation among the three countries. The development of trilateral institution building emerged as a joint gesture in response to the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s. The three countries jointly established multilayered cooperative mechanisms in a wide range of fields. Nonetheless, trilateral cooperation among the three major powers has been proceeding in hardship in the shadow of longstanding geopolitical complexity and the deepening Sino-US confrontations. This book argues that, despite growing economic and social linkages, political animosities have constantly impeded the trilateral cooperation. Relevant to scholars and advanced students in international relations and political economy, this is a vital read in East Asian studies.

This book delves into the background of fragmentation and solidity of Indonesia’s Islamic parties. By examining the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) as a research subject, this book exhibits the critical nature of a party’s internal institutionalization, both in fragmentation and solidity. In addition, this book challenges popular perceptions that individuals or actors are the primaries, if not the only, factors that impede or promote a party’s unity. In short, this book explores and scrutinizes the many aspects and reasons for the division and cohesion of Islamic political parties concerning the presence of a party institutionalization throughout the first decade of the Reform Era (1998–2008).

This book introduces the ecological, low-carbon, and sustainable concept of ideal cities from different views. With beliefs and practices of scholars in the past in pursuit of ideal cities, it is written with historical events in the development of low-carbon cities. In this way, activities about carbon peaking and carbon neutrality happening worldwide at present can be shown, and efforts variety countries have paid off can be exhibited. Besides, as for the centralized and the distributed space structure in urban evolution, the book discusses their trends and comes up with an ideal model, the distributed city, to realize carbon neutrality based on the distributed structure. Therefore, with a practical example in planning, the feasibility of the distributed city is analyzed in several fields, including space, energy, traffic, water, waste disposal, etc. The book can be used as materials for professionals in city planning and construction, low-carbon development and other fields, as well as a way for ordinary people to learn about the complex city.

This book approaches the field of mindfulness research from the perspective of self-determination theory (SDT). It is a timely presentation of work promoting better understanding of the mental and socioemotional well-being of individuals; of need-based satisfaction for one’s own work and learning; of mindfulness of self and others; of awareness and conflict resolution, with strategies for dealing with critical situations. As the first book employing SDT to examine mindfulness research in schools, institutions, workplaces, the authors show in what ways mindfulness involves self- and social awareness, self-regulation, and cognitive, and socioemotional skills. These, in turn, lead to well-being competencies in combinations of behaviours, cognitions, and emotions that are essential for all individuals’ success across various settings, including educational and working contexts. It draws on SDT which emphasises on motivation processes and relations among people engaged in activities to promote or nurture mindfulness, ranging from schools and tertiary institutions to various workplaces. It is an essential resource for practitioners and educators, as well as researchers and graduate students in special and general education, educational psychology, well-being, organisational culture, and family-related fields.

This open access book, comprising thirty-nine chapters divided into social, cultural, economic, and political spheres, offers a unique opportunity to dive into the complex, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory transformation of Gulf societies in the last few decades. Whilst the Gulf region has at times been seen as impervious to this natural phenomenon of transformation—timeless, never changing, deeply rooted in its ancient tribal customs and traditions and able to blend past and present seamlessly without suffering the wrenching trauma of change—this is clearly not the case, and the region is not immune to the inevitable forces of social change. There is no doubt today that the social change sweeping the Gulf has been profound, affecting almost every aspect of life in the Gulf societies. This volume has an encyclopedic value as the chapters collectively offer multifaceted and multidisciplinary perspectives to understand social change inthe Gulf region. Through these chapters, the role of economic and educational transformation, and the impact of social media, migration, and urbanization have in driving social change in the Gulf societies is examined in detail with a focus on their directions, magnitudes, and relevant policy options. It also considers how COVID-19 is affecting the lives of the people in the Gulf. This book bridges gaps in the understanding of the rapid pace of social change in the Gulf, offering practical solutions for policy interventions. It is of interest to scholars and students in Middle Eastern studies, specifically, as well as sociology, media studies, migration studies, and educational policy.

This book examines the recent migration phenomenon in the Arab Gulf states for work and residence. It sheds light on the transnationality of diverse groups of migrants from different generations, and unpacks how migrants’ multiple senses of belonging, orientations and adaptive strategies have shaped contemporary migration in the Gulf region. In turn, the analysis presented here shows how the Arab Gulf states’ citizenship and educational policies affect second-generation migrants in particular. Through a series of fine-grained ethnographic case studies, the authors demonstrate the ways in which these second-generation migrants construct their identities in relation to their putative ‘home’ country in the Gulf as well as their complex relationship to their parents’ countries of origin. This is what underpins the deeply transnational character of their lives, choices and notions of belonging. While migration scholars often situate these groups as ‘temporary’, this does not in fact capture the reality of temporariness for the migrants themselves, their children or their dependants. The result is a complex and ongoing construction of identity that shapes the way of life for millions of migrants. Relevant to scholars of migration and international studies, particularly focused on the Middle East, Transnational Generations in the Arab Gulf States and Beyond is also of interest to social scientists researching student mobility in higher education, intergenerational families, identity politics and globalisation.

This book attempts to develop a novel way of conceptualizing regionalism under hyper-globalization. Until recently, regionalism has been often framed in terms of economic interdependence and security connectivity in which sovereign states are the key navigators within the liberal world order. Under hyper-globalization in the third millennium, hyper-globalization forces us to capture global politics at two more levels of measurement at the state level and both there below and there above. First, how 29 Asian sovereign states join multilateral treaty participation to develop their global quasi-legislative types and how citizens' satisfaction with quality of life in 29 civil societies shapes their societal types. Second, relating these two features above and below sovereign states, the book attempts to measure the features and speculate on the futures of four Asian regionalisms (Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia) and their prospect of the demographically largest continent called Asia in the twenty-first century. Regionalism is measured by the proclivity of 600 multilateral treaty participation in terms of speed (cautious versus agile), angle (global commons versus individual interests) and strategy (aspirational bonding versus mutual binding), whereas quality of life is measured by citizens' satisfaction with 16 domains, aspects and styles of individual daily life in terms of survival (or materialism), social relations (post-materialism) and public policy preponderance. The book opens an innovative vista to better understand tumultuous global politics.

This ambitious volume leverages original survey data on citizen satisfaction and country-level data on treaty accessions to characterize the trajectories of countries in four regions of Asia as they adapt -- or fail to adapt -- to the challenges of globalization in the 21st century and beyond. Readers will learn much about politics from the basic level of the individual citizen to the most comprehensive level of the global system - and about the interactions of politics at all levels.

-- Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University 

A wonderful attempt to link a country’s domestic development and its adaptation to the global politics. It is truly eye-opening and the findings are likely to significantly shape our understanding of life and global politics.

-- Zhengxu Wang, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Department of Political Science, Fudan University