Search

This book explores the multiform and shifting location of borders and boundaries in social life, related to difference and belonging. It contributes to understanding categories of difference as a building block for forms of belonging and inequality in the world today and as underpinning modern capitalist societies and their forms of governance. Reflecting on the ways in which we might theorise the connections between different social divisions and identities, a translocational lens for addressing modalities of power is developed, stressing relationality, the spatio-temporal and the processual in social relations. The book is organised around contemporary dilemmas of difference and inequality, relating to fixities and fluidities in social life and to current developments in the areas of racialisation, migration, gender, sexuality and class relations, and in theorising the articulations of gender, class and ethnic hierarchies. Rejecting the view that gender, ethnicity, race, class or the more specific categories of migrants or refugees pertain to social groups with certain fixed characteristics, they are treated as interconnected and interdependent places within a landscape of inequality making. This innovative and groundbreaking book constitutes a significant contribution to scholarship on intersectionality.

Increasing concern has been expressed by Third World leaders and international organizations alike over the growing gap between rich and poor nations. Between 1950 and 1980 alone, the per capita income gap between low-income and industrialized countries grew from $3,677 to $9,648. In addition, within the developing nations themselves, an ever-widening gap separates the rich from the poor.Other evidence suggests that middle-income countries may be gaining on the rich countries. Some research shows that the gap in education and health is narrowing rather rapidly, and studies of domestic inequality have revealed that growth with equity has occurred in a number of developing nations that have committed themselves to such a policy.This volume presents the evidence for both sides of the debate. It begins by stating the conventional wisdom–that international and internal gaps are widening–and goes on to examine the major explanations offered, which focus on culture, urban bias, dependency, and world-system analysis. The book then presents empirical studies on the existence and causes of the gap, as well as key case studies that challenge the conventional wisdom.Unique in its objectivity, this text does not seek to serve either side of the debate, but instead draws upon the best research in the field to highlight major issues and to present studies that have subjected the differing perspectives to rigorous empirical analysis. It will prove especially useful in courses on Third World development, political economy, comparative politics, development economics, the sociology of development, and related topics.

Universal basic income is a controversial policy which is causing a stir amongst academics, politicians, journalists and policy-makers all over the world. The idea of receiving ‘money for nothing', with no strings attached, has for a long time appeared a crazy or radical proposal. But today, this policy is being put into practice. With more and more trials and experiments taking place in different countries, this book provides both the theory and context for making sense of different basic income approaches, examining how the policy can be best implemented. Unlike many other texts written on this topic, the book provides a balanced account of basic income, weighing up the pros and cons from a number of different positions. The book provides a theory chapter, enabling readers to grasp some of the complex philosophical ideas and concepts which underpin universal basic income, such as social justice, equality and freedom. It also provides an examples chapter, which examines both historical and contemporary basic income studies to have taken place from around the globe. The book also features chapters on the environment and the work of women, as well as an ‘against'universal basic income chapter, which specifically draws on the criticisms of the policy. This volume is an essential resource for anyone who wishes to get to grips with universal basic income.

Current understandings of ageing and diversity are impoverished in three main ways. Firstly, with regards to thinking about what inequalities operate in later life there has been an excessive preoccupation with economic resources. On the other hand, less attention has been paid to cultural norms and values, other resources, wider social processes, political participation and community engagement. Secondly, in terms of thinking about the ‘who'of inequality, this has so far been limited to a very narrow range of minority populations. Finally, when considering the ‘how'of inequality, social gerontology's theoretical analyses remain under-developed. The overall effect of these issues is that social gerontology remains deeply embedded in normative assumptions which serve to exclude a wide range of older people. Ageing, Diversity and Equality aims to challenge and provoke the above described normativity and offer an alternative approach which highlights the heterogeneity and diversity of ageing, associated inequalities and their intersections.The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351851329, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licence.

The impetus to write this book grew out of curiosity and frustration. For a research project in which I was involved, I wanted to select an appropriate index to measure inequality, so I searched for a book that comprehensively reviewed the available indexes, identified their operational similarities and differences, and clarified their theoretical undetpinnings. Discovering that no such book existed, I became increasingly frustrated and curious. It became evident that I would have to undertake my own systematic review of the literature, presumably in my own discipline, in order to identify the alternative measures and choose an appropriate one on the basis of proper theoretical and methodological criteria. This effort led to additional frustrating discoveries. First, I encountered a bewildering abundance of inequality indexeswell over ftfty distinguishable measures. Second, my review of the methodological literature on inequality measurement took me through the issues of literally scores of professional journals in five academic disciplines-economics, geography, political science, sociology, and statistics. Third, although I found some cross-disciplinary referencing of inequality measures, by and large each discipline's inequality measurement remained insulated from that of other disciplines.

The essays included in this volume honor a truly gifted teacher and sociologist, John C. Pock. After a brief stint at the University of Illinois, Pock moved in 1955 to Reed College, a highly regarded but very small liberal arts institution (roughly 1,000 students) located in Portland, Oregon. Pock has spent the rest of his career (to date) there. During his forty-year tenure at Reed College, the sociology department usually had only two faculty members. Even so, during this period as many as 104 students graduated with majors in sociology and 69 established professional careers as sociologists. (A listing, which is assuredly incomplete, of Reed students during Pock's tenure who went on to professional careers in sociology is presented in an appendix to this volume.) Many of these sociologists have been extremely successful and influential within the discipline. Reed sociologists have taught or are teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA, Wisconsin, and other leading U.S. academic departments. Others have been employed as researchers in such prominent institutions within and outside the United States as RAND, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Opinion Research Center, the East-West Center, the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Sloan Foundation, and the Australian National University.

Redistribution of the world's wealth, not only among nation. states but among cultural, class, and sexual groups, has become increasingly a major issue of concern. This book examines existing inequality in both the domestic and international arenas. Its multidisciplinary approach facilitates an understanding of the complex structure of global distr

Conceptual analysis has fallen out of favor in political philosophy. The influence of figures like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin has led political philosophy to focus on questions about what should be done, and to ignore questions about the usage of words. In this book, Kyle Johannsen calls for renewed attention to the manner in which the word ‘justice'is and should be used. Focusing on the late work of G.A. Cohen, Johannsen argues that debates over both the content and scope of egalitarian justice are, to a large extent, really just conceptual. Whereas some philosophers have been using the term ‘justice'to refer to one among a plurality of values, others have been using it to refer to institutional rightness. Though the latter use of ‘justice'is presently more dominant, he argues that much is to be gained from thinking of justice as one value among many. Doing so sheds light on the nature of both democracy and legitimacy, and, paradoxically, makes better sense of the idea that justice is ‘the first virtue of institutions'.

The book covers the research on economic inequality, including the social construction of racial categories, the uneven and stalled gender revolution, and the role of new educational forms and institutions in generating both equality and inequality.

This book provides selections from the seminal works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman that reveal some of the reasons why class, race, and gender inequalities have proven very adaptive and can flourish even today in the 21st century.

Oriented toward the introductory student, The Inequality Reader is the essential textbook for today's undergraduate courses. The editors, David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi, have assembled the most important classic and contemporary readings about how poverty and inequality are generated and how they might be reduced. With thirty new readings, the second edition provides new materials on anti-poverty policies as well as new qualitative readings that make the scholarship more alive, more accessible, and more relevant. Now more than ever, The Inequality Reader is the one-stop compendium of all the must-read pieces, simply the best available introduction to the stratifi cation canon.

Inequality is one of the most burning issues of our time, affecting young people in particular. What causes inequality? And how can actors at the local level combat the causes, not only the symptoms? By seeking to answer these questions, the book will contribute to this growing and transdisciplinary subject area by using mainly qualitative research and a perspective that integrates theory in every phase of the analysis. Drawing on cultural political economy, based on critical realism, the author claims that the most important causes of inequality are the ones inherent as potentials in capitalism and the capitalist type of state. Compared with the first post-war decades, these potential causes have been actualised differently since around 1980. They are also actualised differently across Europe. The book explores these differences concerning growth models and welfare regimes. In general, societies have developed into a new condition of social inclusion, which explains why many young people have become excluded. Societal borders have arisen in the cities, separating the winners and losers of inequality. Positioning itself outside the box of what tends to be the majority of the publications in the field, the book proposes knowledge alliances between young people, policy-makers, civil society and researchers to combat the causes of inequality.

This book redirects the focus of public debate to issues of gender and racial segregation and suggests that they should be fundamental to thinking about the status of black Americans and the origins of the urban underclass. It is a starting point for students and advanced scholars of inequality.

Raising to the challenge of how to grasp such forms of inequalities that are mediated affectively, Affective Inequalities in Intimate Relationships focuses on subtle inequalities that are shaped in everyday affective encounters. It also seeks to bridge a gap between affect theory and empirical social research by providing ideas and inspiration of how to work with affect in research practice. Presenting cutting-edge empirical studies on affect and intimate relationships, the collection- introduces alternative and novel ways of conceptualizing the workings of affect in intimate relationships- provides tools for tackling the subtle ways in which affectivity connects with power relations in intimate relations- develops innovative methodologies that provide better access to affect as an embodied experienceA fascinating contribution to the interdisciplinary field of affect studies, Affective Inequalities in Intimate Relationships will appeal to advanced undergraduates and postgraduates interested in fields such as gender studies, queer studies and cultural studies.

This title was first published in 2000: John Braithwaite is a distinguished criminologist with an international reputation in the study of regulation and globalization. This collection contains his most important and influential essays in criminal justice and business regulation. It has a substantial introduction explaining the thematization of his work around the design of regulatory systems to maximize freedoms as non-domination.

Democracy promises rule by all, not by the few. Yet, electoral democracies limit decision-making to representatives and have always had a weakness for inequality. How might democracy serve all rather than the few? Democracy Beyond the Nation State: Practicing Equality examines communities that govern their own lives without elites or centralized structures through assemblies and consensus. Rather than claiming equality by abstract rights or citizenship, these groups put equality into practice by reducing wealth and health divides, or landlessness or homelessness, and equalizing workloads. These practices are found in rural India and Brazil, in Buenos Aires, London, and New York, and among the Iroquois, the Zapatistas, and the global networks of La Via Campesina farmers and the World Social Forum. Readable accounts of these horizontal democracies document multiple political frames that prevent democracy from being frozen into entrenched electoral systems producing modern inequalities. Using practice to rewrite political theory, Parker draws on collective politics in Spivak and Derrida and embodied relations from Povinelli and Foucault to show that equal relations are not a utopian dream, not nostalgia, and not impossible.This book provides many practical solutions to inequality. It will be useful to students and scholars of political theory and social movements and to those who are willing to work together for equality.

The economic crisis has brought social differences to the fore, reinventing the old question of inequality as democracy's missed opportunity. Many have attempted to find a rational explanation of the problem, tracing it back to poor economic policy and reckless liberalisation of finance, or the crisis of banks and governments, as well as the collapse of family relationships. At the same time, globalisation has reduced the differences between some nations, bringing emerging countries to the level of the more advanced, but has dangerously increased internal inequalities. In this book, the author examines the question of inequality and the social problems it is creating in societies across the world, arguing that with the crisis of modernity, the ideal of equality appears to be over. As more and more of the world's resources are concentrated in ever fewer hands, the promise of mass society as a means to grant equality and cancel the differences of classes appears to be giving way to a rising individualism. This book asks whether the apparent end of mass society will coincide with the end of equality and a re-evaluation of the worth of the individual. Are we heading towards a liquid world in which being equal is now considered less a virtue than a weakness?

This book draws on a wealth of evidence including young people's own stories, to document how they are now faring in increasingly unequal societies like America, Britain, Australia, France and Spain. It points to systematic generational inequality as those born since 1980 become the first generation to have a lower standard of living than previous generations. While governments and experts typically explain this by referring to globalization, new technologies, or young people's deficits, the authors of this book offer a new political economy of generations, which identifies the central role played by governments promoting neoliberal policies that exacerbate existing social inequalities based on age, ethnicity, gender and class. The book is a must read for social science students, human service workers and policy-makers and indeed for anyone interested in understanding the impact of government policy over the last 40 years on young people.

Ageing, Gender and Sexuality focuses on the experiences of older lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals, in order to analyse how ageing, gender and sexuality intersect to produce particular inequalities relating to resources, recognition and representation in later life. The book adopts a feminist socio-legal perspective to propose that these inequalities are informed by and play out in relation to temporal, spatial and regulatory contexts. Discussing topics such as ageing sexual subjectivities, ageing kinship formations, classed trajectories and anticipated care futures, this book provides a new perspective on older individuals in same-sex relationships, including those who choose not to label their sexualities.Drawing upon recent empirical data, the book offers new theoretical approaches for understanding the intersectionality of ageing, gender and sexuality, as well as analysing the social policy implications of these findings. With an emphasis on the accounts of individuals who have experienced the dramatically changing socio-legal landscape for LGB people first-hand, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and policymakers working in the areas of: gender and sexuality studies; ageing studies and gerontology; gender, sexuality and law; equality and human rights; sociology; socio-legal studies; and social policy.Ageing, Gender and Sexuality won the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) Hart Prize for Early Career Academics for 2017.

Since the beginning of social life human societies have faced the problem how to distribute the results of collaborative activities among the participants. The solutions they found ranged from egalitarian to unequal but caused more dissension and conflict than just about any other social structure in human history. Social inequality also dominated the agenda of the new field of sociology in the 19th century. The theories developed during that time still inform academic and public debates, and inequality continues to be the subject of much current controversy.Origins of Inequality begins with a critical assessment of classical explanations of inequality in the social sciences and the political and economic environment in which they arose. The book then offers a new theory of the evolution of distributive structures in human societies. It examines the interaction of chance, intent and unforeseen consequences in the emergence of social inequality, traces its irregular historical path in different societies, and analyses processes of social control which consolidated inequality even when it was costly or harmful for most participants. Because the evolution of distributive structures is an open process, the book also explores issues of distributive justice and options for greater equality in modern societies. Along with its focus on social inequality the book covers topics in cultural evolution, social and economic history and social theory.This book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of sociology, economics and anthropology – in particular sociological theory and social inequality.

Within and among nations, rising levels of social inequality threaten our collective future. Currently, upwards of 80% of people's life chances are determined by factors over which they have absolutely no control. Social inequality threatens the democratic project because it destroys the trust on which governments depend, and it gives rise to corrupt political and economic institutions. How can we get out of the traps we have created for ourselves? We need to reboot capitalism. Drawing on diverse examples from a range of countries, McNall explains the social, economic, and ecological traps we have set for ourselves and develops a set of rules of resilience that are necessary conditions for the creation and maintenance of democratic societies, and a set of rules essential for creating a sustainable future.

Nancy Fraser's work provides a theory of justice from multiple perspectives which has created a powerful frame for the analysis of political, moral and pragmatic dilemmas in an era of global capitalism and cultural pluralism. It has been developed through dialogue with key contemporary thinkers, including an extended critical exchange with Axel Honneth that touches importantly upon the work of the late Pierre Bourdieu on social suffering. All the essays collected here engage with the work of one or both of these thinkers'. They consider some of the conceptual and philosophical contentions that Fraser's and Bourdieu's models have provoked, and offer some compelling examples of their analytical power.