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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.

This edited collection represents a first-of-its-kind exploration of English-related discourses in the Caribbean. Drawing from Critical Discourse and stylistic analyses, the book's wide-ranging chapters examine language as it is produced within the complex demographic milieu of the region. It addresses a critical lack of linguistic scholarship on discourse types from the Caribbean, since the major academic focus in the post-independence era has been on descriptive and interventionist work in Creole Linguistics. This volume seeks to add new dimensions to language in practice with its focus on the development of discourse types within the region, public policy, discourses surrounding the galvanising figure of the Caribbean Prime Minister, literary discourses, and gender and media representations. As a site of great variation, linguistic and otherwise, the Caribbean provides unique insight into the interplay of the socio-political and language in contemporary societies in the Global South. Based on work presented at the University of Trinidad and Tobago's “Stylistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and Language Use in the Caribbean” 2021 conference, the book draws together papers from established Caribbeanists seeking to bridge the existing theoretical and analytical gap between the more macro, socio-political aspects of studies in the social sciences, and the more micro features of linguistic analysis. With its breadth of coverage and analysis, this volume has implications for work being done at all levels of university scholarship in the social sciences, media discourses, decolonisation practices, and language and society in postcolonial and multi-ethnic contexts worldwide.

“Because the development of the carbon economy has always been closely bound up with the deepening of human inequalities, movements seeking climate justice need to unravel a tangle of social injustices at all scales. Through viewing the climate crisis from a range of historical and contemporary angles, Derman elevates the leadership of the most marginalized communities and nations, and interweaves their particular experiences with the universal values that bound climate justice movements together. His work is an effective introduction for educators and students to the complexities and promises of climate justice studies.” -Zoltán Grossman, Faculty in Geography and Native American & Indigenous Studies, The Evergreen State College'Guided by a five-angle framework that aims to explore the emerging intersectionalities of space, time, difference, rule, and movement in climate justice theory and action, the book brings to light new possibilities and ways of imaging, doing, and transforming climate justice in a time of planetary urgency.'-Peter Little, author of Critical Zones of Technopower and Global Political Ecology This book provides an analytical introduction to the complex challenge of climate change and the equally multi-faceted movement for climate justice. Its approach is empirically and conceptually rich, while remaining both accessible and engaging. Each chapter examines the topic through a different thematic lens, drawing on contemporary and landmark scholarship, advocacy, and activism across relevant disciplines and campaigns. These distinct angles build toward a comprehensive perspective that will equip readers to ably and critically engage in era-defining policy, political, governance, and scholarly debates.

This book investigates whether and how drone technology is changing how we see and experience our visual cultures. Knowing more about these visuals is essential to understand how our visual experience of the world is changing and the creative potential these new technological implementations may afford. To do so, the book analyses drone visuals exploring their aesthetics and meanings, the context where they circulate and how they are perceived. The book will therefore be of interest to students and researchers of digital sociology, digital media, mobile media, visual studies, media and communication and journalism.

This book offers a novel approach to studying war and peace by foregrounding motherhood in times of conflict and peace processes from a sociological perspective. Through qualitative research resting on individual and focus group interviews with 55 mothers who had lived through the Northern Ireland conflict, this book examines the gendered nature of coping with conflict and its aftermath in peace processes. Drawing on the idea of everyday life peacebuilding, it discusses how the family is located in the processes of social transformation in conflict-affected societies, and illuminates that mothers play central yet largely unnoticed roles in maintaining and restoring sociability in a conflict-affected society. The book illustrates that mothers have been hidden and underappreciated ‘everyday peacebuilders', as well as hidden and trivialised victims of the conflict.

This book focuses on the spaces and practices of caring for horses, explored in a series of case studies set across the equine lifespan. For horses, everyday practices of care as well as ever-changing understandings of what is good care directly shape their living conditions and lives with humans. In this book, questions of animal ethics and welfare are approached in a tangible way by exploring the relationships and practices of interspecies care across a range of different spaces, including horse yards, training grounds, farms, rescue centres and the street. The chapters illuminate the ways in which interspecies care ties horses to human society and culture, addressing care practices in different stages of the equine life cycle. Through a unique set of case-studies addressing issues such as training, working, rescue, aging and death, the book offers a clear overview of how humans shape the lifespan of animals living under their care. It simultaneously foregrounds the agency of animals in this process and how such agency is interpreted and responded to by humans. With its theoretically solid analysis of rigorous empirical study, the book answers the need to understand human connection to the nonhuman world within the everyday practices and spaces of contemporary society and culture.

This book offers a unique and much-needed perspective on disability and accessibility in urban context in South Africa. Drawing on lived experiences of disabled people, it documents the multidimensional aspect of poverty in the context of disability and built environment to show how poorly planned cities create physical and social barriers that impact the life of people with disabilities. People Living with Disabilities in South African Cities is structured around three main insights and themes that inform the author's approach to disability and cities. The first is disability research; drawing on studies on planning and the built environment, the author highlights the role of physical environment in promoting inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities. The second theme is social protection, i.e. ways to provide support and resources for people with disabilities to enable them to participate fully in society. Finally, the author explores the policies and legislative context needed to create an inclusive society, challenging the role of governments and policy makers. Offering a comprehensive approach to studying disabilities and cities, the author aims to bridge the gap between disability studies, inclusive planning, and design to support the development of accessible cities in the African context. This invaluable book not only raises awareness on social inclusion, but also offers an invaluable guide to policy makers across the Global South to tackle and address inequalities.

This book explores the histories and presents of gender dysphoria and euphoria as clinical and theoretical concepts as well as lived experience. It outlines how euphoria emerged as a concept, what its relationship to dysphoria is, and how it shows up in the body, in relationships, and as a framework for liberation. Using the concept of the Möbius Strip as an explanatory model of the interconnectedness of gender, the authors explore how gender as a concept encompasses multiplicity, duality, and non-linearity despite its supposed singularity. Rather than viewing euphoria and dysphoria as two poles of a continuum, this volume introduces the notion that they are in fact a blended experience which oscillates between distinctiveness and relationality. Critically engaging with clinical theory, gender studies, crip theory, spirituality, and political movements, this book is ideal for academics from a variety of fields, including psychology, sociology, gender studies, trans studies, cultural studies, as well as practitioners and clinicians, especially those who work with trans people.

This book centres on religious heritage-making where religion as a rich and diverse manifestation of culture and community empowerment lead to the transformation of place. Fusing heritage and religion in the novel multidisciplinary concept ‘heri-ligion', the authors illuminate the dynamics of change inherent in religious-oriented heritage-making. Grounded in empirical evidence, this rich concept integrates religious tourism, heritage tourism, and community-based empowerment for sustainable development. Applying this unique concept to the once abandoned Hakka village of Yim Tin Tsai, the authors analyse the evolving paths of the island from its Hakka origins to a Christian pilgrimage site, and more recently, to a UNESCO cultural heritage site and thriving tourist destination. The authors foreground the important role of the scattered community as a key agent of change in facilitating a sustainable environment of Hong Kong's only salt-producing place today. A dynamic example of community development and empowerment founded upon religious, cultural, industrial and natural heritage, this book uniquely contributes to tourism and heritage studies, human geography, cultural sociology, Hakka studies, Asian studies, and anthropology of religion.

This open access book investigates the gendered violence and vulnerabilities experienced by Rohingya men and women, drawing on qualitative data from refugee camps in Bangladesh. It shows that in Myanmar, men suffered torture and sexual violence, while women experienced physical, mental and sexual violence, legitimized by patriarchal norms. Sexual violence was wielded as a weapon to coerce their exodus from Myanmar and to disrupt the essential facets of Rohingya femininity, motherhood, and reproductive capabilities. Structural, cultural and symbolic violence affected the Rohingya differently across gender lines. A gendered threat narrative and othering cast women as ‘ugly'and reproductive threats while men are framed as potential threats to national security and Buddhist nationalism. In Bangladesh, gendered othering continued, with Rohingya men seen as security threats and women as vulnerable victims. This book contributes to peace and conflict studies, gender studies, and migration and refugee studies, by analysing gendered violence.

This book addresses a notable gap in African sociological knowledge by leveraging extensive empirical data covering all 54 African countries and drawing on historical insights from across the continent. Offering a nuanced understanding of African society, it signifies an unprecedented endeavour committed to unravelling the intricate tapestry of African society. The analysis presented in the book goes into the dynamic evolution of sociological topics, their interconnections with African knowledge, the identification of contemporary themes, methodological diversity, and contemporary challenges and issues of indigenisation, decolonisation, and promoting an Africa-centered sociology.

This book analyzes the process of leaving school, commonly referred to as'transition'for young adults with severe, complex, and multiple disabilities. It seeks to challenge prevailing assumptions and offer practical steps towards reversing customary accepted theories, methods, practices, and outcomes. Despite extensive research, policies, and procedures of transition, the reality is that post-school outcomes are worrying for those with significant special needs. Community inclusion depends as much upon in-school procedures and support systems as it does the inclusivity of society itself. This book directly addresses these concerns by examining the experiences of young adults living through their transitions in two countries, Aotearoa New Zealand and the USA. Engaging and highly readable case narratives bring fresh insights on the diversity of disability experiences, portraying the under-explored opportunities involved in a transition with dignity. Disability is an often overlooked aspect of one's intersectional identity. Post-school transition is therefore positioned less as a procedural function of leaving school and more so an urgent matter of social justice. Readers will benefit from the transformative framing of post-school transition based on the capability approach. Genuine opportunities within the transition of young adults with significant disabilities and those who support them may promote a thriving life for all.

This volume explores the family formation and life course of Polish people in Ireland, who make up the largest immigrant group in Ireland. Chapters address key dimensions of the life course in three parts focusing on childhood and youth, adulthood and parenting, and mid-life and futures. Contributions investigate the experiences of children and youth attending school and understanding their identities, the changing nature of families and family support, how families might engage with welfare institutions, and more. Through the life course approach, the book moves beyond the paradigm of studying the Polish population as economic migrants and instead analyzes and illustrates the lives of Polish families living in Ireland since EU enlargement.

This open access book engages with the difficulties of delivering community energy in practice, building on practical experiences in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. In these countries, where many people lack access to electricity, community energy is an alternative to advance universal energy access. This book argues that, besides providing access, community energy is essential for achieving justice and resilience in sustainable energy transitions. Community energy combines off-grid infrastructures with innovative forms of governance to incorporate the perspectives of beneficiaries in the generation and distribution of electricity. Community energy has multiple benefits for communities, such as facilitating the adoption of renewable technologies, providing energy access where it is lacking, and building resilience. They also offer societal benefits beyond beneficiary communities, such as providing additional capacity to existing grids, delivering off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridging on-grid and off-grid systems. Despite its promises, however, the adoption of community energy has been slow. This book presents a feminist-informed perspective on community energy to advance energy justice that puts disadvantaged communities at the centre of sustainable energy transitions. It also explores the room for manoeuvre within existing regulatory systems, supply chains, and delivery systems to facilitate its development. By engaging with existing experiences in community energy, the book demonstrates the potential of communities to gain control over their energy needs and resources and argues for the need to develop a wide range of transdisciplinary skills among policymakers, technicians and communities to deliver a just energy transition.

This book contends that the development of modern Chinese international thought has been profoundly shaped by the distinctive nature of the Chinese state as a contender state and its global positioning since 1912. The argument posited demonstrates that, notwithstanding the varied perspectives on the'international'held by Chinese intellectuals throughout the 20th century, there exist commonalities across the periods analyzed in this book. In essence, the book emphasizes that the shared elements influencing the production of modern Chinese international thought do not derive from a unified cultural Chinese identity but rather stem from China's evolving geopolitical position in the modern world.

This book examines the timely issue of police stops as a public and political issue, focussing on the European states. Contrary to much other work it focuses on wider Europe and the social and political context in which the police practice of stopping citizens emerges, develops and can be curtailed. More specifically, the volume analyses public controversies about police stops, i.e. events in which conflicts emerge about how the performance of police stops is explained and justified. This book stems from an EU COST Action research network on Police Stops which engages academics and practitioners from 29 countries. It appeals to those in law, criminology and policing studies with some potential for wider interest in cultural studies/history and public policy/politics, as well as to practitioners in police scrutiny, oversight and other professional bodies and in training organisations.

This book discusses Human Security from a theoretical perspective. It builds theories in order to understand a phenomenon in a structured and well-ordered way. It sheds light on the conditions of the economy, food, health, community, environmental and political security in Asian states. It explores the idea of human security to understand the issues jeopardizing an individual's security in the Asian continent and suggests policies to overcome these problems. This book argues that the nature of the government and the constitution are equally essential in ensuring the human security of a country. Some countries in Asia are not only economically vulnerable but also politically disrupted. The issues of hunger, poverty, illiteracy, militancy, terrorism, and ethnoreligious conflicts have posed threats to human security. The pandemic COVID-19 has brought a great humanitarian crisis. The role of the Asian states in combatting COVID-19 and protecting public health is highlightedin this book. With a multidimensional outlook this edited volume attempts to delineate an interdisciplinary discourse of human security in an Asian context.

This book explores the connection between family structure and circumstances, parental engagement, and adolescent sexual behavior. Given that South Africa contains the highest portion of the global HIV epidemic within a single country, a comprehensive, book-length investigation into—sometimes risky—adolescent sexual behaviour is necessary. Drawing from the longitudinal Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) of more than 4,000 adolescents between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two, as well as qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with parents and adolescents, this study pioneers empirical investigation of adolescent sexual behavior within the intricate framework of family dynamics in South Africa.

​This open access book explores how legal proceedings in and out-of-court can be matched to the complex problems underlying disputes concerning child custody, residence and contact between parents. It focusses in particular on Nordic experiences of in and out-of-court mechanisms as means of resolving custody disputes. The contributors are internationally renowned and experienced researchers from the legal, psychological, and sociological fields who provide empirical as well as legal perspectives. They examine central legal, ethical and knowledge-based dilemmas in custody dispute proceedings. The findings speak to an international audience and suggest ways how to best realize the interests of the child. It transcends disciplinary, institutional, and jurisdictional boundaries in search of new knowledge.

This book offers an incisive account of correctional officers'daily practices, their role and how they represent themselves in relation to the prison, and by extension, the state. Drawing on ethnographic research undertaken in an Italian prison, Doing Shifts explores how correctional officers'perspectives and shared views reproduce and reinforce working behaviors with specific administrative and bureaucratic features. It explores how global penal trends are enacted in a local context and how the prison systems plays into our understanding of institutional and administrative power. It advances the discussion on organizational and institutional power through the lens of social control and street-level bureaucracy literature. It also explores gender variations in the discretional use of correctional officers'power. This book has a cross-disciplinary appeal for criminologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists and to policy-makers.

Grandchildhood in Multigenerational Living: Practices, Meanings, Relations is the first book to sociologically analyse grandchild-grandparent relationships from the perspective of grandchildren. Expanding the knowledge about hitherto under-researched grandchildren, this book puts grandchildren's perspectives in the centre of qualitative analysis focuses. Presenting grandchildhood in its complexity, the author addresses its multiple dimensions from 54 in-depth interviews with grandchildren living in three-generation households with their parents and grandparents. Drawing upon'family practices', this book conceptionally develops ‘grandchild practices'as a new approach to see the diversities and similarities, harmonies and tensions, joys and obligations, or, simply put, the daily ambivalences of family relationships. This unique book is an indispensable resource for researchers and students of family studies and sociology of generations who wish to investigate how grandchildren understand, negotiate and make sense of their relationships with grandparents.

This book draws on an in-depth ethnographic study to explore the meanings and consequences of race and ethnicity in daily life within two Finnish male prisons. Set within the context of Finnish immigration, it provides an excellent backdrop for studying social processes in the prison environment launched by a rapid growth in the number of foreign national prisoners. It builds on the sociological attempts to comprehend the nature of the prisoner community from the perspective of ethnicity and race which has gained attention since the 2000s. It explores how ethnic categories are formed in the prison space, prisoner hierarchy and its logics, conflicts and conflict-solving, discrimination and prison officers and development of distinctive prisoner cultures. The study captures the consequences that signifying ethnicity and race have on daily practices, equality, and safety in prison. This book shows how ethnic and racial categories are formed in social action and further, how their meanings are in a constant process of change.

This volume, the second of a two volume set, offers a rich and unique collection of global perspectives on data-driven predictive technologies and the expansion and use of surveillance apparatuses in policing and intelligence, both public and private. Volume II delves into the epistemologies of data, into the imaginaries of accuracy, and fantasies of technosolutionism, utilizing empirical case studies to interrogate the use of data in policing, while raising questions pertaining to governance, ethics and knowledge construction. The chapters span from exploring the construction of clean and dirty data in private and public policing in South Africa, discussions about facial recognition and technopolitics in Brazil, the construction of intelligence and organizational learning in Norwegian police ethics and broader questions of transparency, data quality, and trust in data-driven policing, to the very topical issues of policing of generative AI and the ways in which both authoritarian and liberal democracies, such as China and India, use biopolitics to turn social welfare into surveillance. Academics and students of criminology, social anthropology, critical algorithm studies, critical sociology, and regional studies, will find this timely volume of interest.

This book draws together interdisciplinary perspectives to examine the legal, moral, and socio-spatial regulation of sex work in the contemporary context. With a thematic focus on the gendered landscape of sex work, formal and informal methods of socio-spatial control, and (in)access to justice, this book explores the role of space in the regulation of sex work in diverse contexts, from the local to the global. The chapters collectively bring together complex, inter-related issues that impact the lives of sex workers throughout the world, providing evidence of the impacts of regulation on sex workers and subsequent barriers to accessing justice and rights. This collection centres the regulated lives of sex workers, using an intersectional lens that highlights the gendered and racialised impacts of stigma. Incorporating knowledge derived from both academic research and lived experience, this book provides a unique contribution that will be of interest to academics and policy-makers globally.

This book examines public, political and media discourse in the context of failed states using Lebanon, a country torn by wars and political-financial corruption, as a contemporary case study. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), the author brings political and economic theories into dialogue with socio-linguistics to argue that public discourse in a failed state not only plays a role in that collapse but is a key presenting symptom of social disintegration. Through CDA, the book makes this phenomenon visible, and contributes to existing definitions of the concept “failed” or “fragile” state. In addition, the qualitative data and analysis provided offer a tool to assess a state's vulnerability to collapse. The book also expands the sociolinguistic model to eavesdrop on the zeitgeist of the nation in order to examine the degrees of social cohesion, sectarianism and bonding. This book will be of interest to discourse analysts, journalists, politicians, policy-makers, and economists.

This book honors the diverse and path-breaking work of Michael Adler, a pioneer of socio-legal scholarship in the UK. The book brings together an international group of scholars—established and emerging researchers from across the globe—to develop key ideas generated by Adler's scholarship. Building on his rich portfolio of creative work at the interface of law and social science, the book explores themes that continue to resonate in contemporary debates about how best to understand the relationship between justice, fairness, and the modern administrative state. Specifically, the book re-examines core issues which Adler, as a key figure of the first generation of UK socio-legal scholars, explored, including: the relationship between official discretion and the rule of law; the justice of internal administrative processes; the importance of a ‘bottom up'perspective on justice; power and accountability in the prison sector; access to justice for social welfare claimants; and the promise of viewing law through the lens of social science.

This book is an original study of Cold Rush, an accelerated race for the extraction and protection of Arctic natural resources. The Northernmost reach of the planet is caught up in the double developments of two unfinished forces – rapidly progressing climate change and global economic investment - working simultaneously in tension and synergy. Neither process is linear or complete, but both are contradictory and open-ended. This book traces the multiplicity of Cold Rush in the Finnish Arctic, a high-stakes ecological, economic, and political hotspot. It is a heterogeneous space, understood as indigenous land within local indigenous Sámi people politics, the last frontier from a colonial perspective, and a periphery under the modernist nation-state regime. It is now transforming into an economic hub under global capitalism, intensifying climate change and unforeseen geo-political changes. Based on six years of ethnography, the book shows how people struggle, strategize, and profit from this ongoing, complex, and multidirectional change. The author offers a new theoretical approach called critical assemblage analysis, which provides an alternative way of exploring the dynamics between language and society by examining the interaction between material, discursive, and affective dimensions of Cold Rush. The approach builds on previous work at the intersection of critical discourse analysis, critical sociolinguistics, nexus analysis and ethnography, but expands toward works by philosophers Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. This book will be of interest to researchers on language, discourse, and sociolinguistics interested in engaging with social critique embedded in global capitalism and accelerating climate change; as well as researchers in the social and human sciences and natural sciences, who are increasingly aware of the fact that the theoretical and analytical move beyond the traditional dichotomies like language/society, nature/human and micro/macro is central to understanding today´s complex, intertwined social, political, economic and ecological processes.

This book examines how identities are constructed in digital, multimodal discourse, and how these identities (gender, age, race, ethnicity, professional, etc.) are generally evaluated as they are claimed, attributed, verified, and non-verified intersubjectively in a polymedia space. Although the construction of online identity has been addressed in the literature, the online construction of identity in the Spanish speaking world has received less focused attention. This volume contains chapters by renowned specialists in pragmatics and digital communication, and is the most recent output of an ongoing externally funded project (UPO-1380703). The book includes a state-of-the-art introduction by the editors followed by three main sections: the first is devoted to examining digital identifies in conflict; the second addresses self-presentation on Twitter and Instagram, with a special focus on politics and gender; and finally, the third addresses identity construction in the genre of online reviews. All of the chapters address self and other identity construction in contexts of both convergence and controversy, in a variety of digital social platforms and practices related to gender, age, political stance, race, ethnicity, and lifestyle. Further, many of these chapters approach identity construction from a contrastive perspective, and thus address variation. This book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, graduate, and advanced undergraduate students in sociolinguistics, (contrastive) pragmatics, discourse analysis, media studies, linguistic anthropology, and communication studies, among others.

This book provides a critical, ethnographically grounded examination of the hype surrounding the idea of impact by investigating the work of those attempting to create innovative social ventures. Through in-depth immersion in the day-to-day running of a social impact accelerator, Guillaume Dumont reveals the intricate, behind-the-scenes socialization through which entrepreneurs learn the ropes of impact entrepreneurship and sheds light on the roles of some of the key players of this unique social world. The book challenges the view that impact is a given property of a venture resulting from an intrinsic desire to change the world embodied by gifted and compassionate entrepreneurs. Instead, Dumont argues that impact emerges iteratively from a process of social engagement and negotiation among entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives, and mentors as they collaborate in the mundane processes of its production, what he calls “Impact work.” This book, therefore, is about impact in the making. It is a story of hope and collaboration unveiling the social and cultural challenges and contradictions faced by those attempting to create alternative organizations addressing social and commercial goals.

This handbook examines the development of antiracism, the antithesis of racism, in the field of Human Resource Development (HRD) and discusses its relevance to the workplace and higher education. Contributing authors from HRD and HRD-related fields present their perspectives on anti-racism and explain how their framing of anti-racism makes a contribution to HRD research, theory, and practice. Though antiracism is a critical, emerging topic, it has received limited attention in the literature. Its focus is the eradication of racism while delivering justice and emancipation. This collection advances the concept by highlighting ways that research, theory, and practice are shifting the conversation to dismantling and eliminating racism. It shows how racism has traumatized marginalized individuals, limited their participation in the workforce and society, and hindered their psychological well-being. This Handbook is divided into 4 sections: the historical foundations of racism; knowledge derived from research, theory, and lived experiences; practical application of antiracism in educational and workplace settings; and the future of antiracism research. Coming at a time of racial unrest and much discourse on race, this work provides scholars, professionals, and students with a body of research and practical examples that introduces and informs them on the concept of antiracism in HRD. Though the focus is on the US, the arguments put forth in this handbook are not localized, they are universal and can be applied in multiple contexts.

This book explores an increasingly important issue for legal systems across the world. It asks what do we lose and gain when legal proceedings go online? Adopting a multi-disciplinary socio-legal perspective, it draws on an emerging body of empirical evidence from the UK, Australia, Canada and the US about the ways in which digital justice is being conceived of and experienced. Insights are drawn from across the social sciences to discuss the interface of digitalisation with a range of issues such as due process, procedural justice, digital disadvantage, ceremony and ritual, science and technology studies and the dematerialisation of the civic sphere. Written accessibly and provocatively, it poses questions from a variety of different perspective with a particular focus on marginalised groups.

This book emphasises the importance of difficulties identifying victims of human trafficking. It is often challenging for trafficked victims to be identified, for victims to self-identify, and for victims to be distinguishable from other groups of vulnerable people such as economic migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and smuggled persons. This book examines the environments where difficulties of identifying foreign victims exist or identification is overlooked entirely. It argues that a victim-centred approach is required to recognize them for who they are, a trafficked victim. This lies in opposition to the justice system which often takes the oath of prosecuting victims rather than identifying them as victims, criminalising them for offences as part of their exploitation, forced upon them under duress from their exploiters. Drawing on a range of subjects, this book contributes to existing academic work and speaks to anti-trafficking organisations, charities, public authorities and staff within the UK's National Referral Mechanism to play a pivotal role in spotting, referring and identifying more foreign trafficked victims, despite the current negativity surrounding immigration.

This volume focusses on the interplay of civic engagement and institutionalised politics and its role in both the erosion and retrieval of intermediate capabilities and procedures. Rather than discussing democracy as a relationship between citizens as individual voters and state power, the book studies the relationship between citizens engaged in or through organisations, movements and networks in civil society, and their impact in the context of institutionalised politics, be that through representative institutions and political parties or participation in administrative governance. The aim of this volume is to renew the scholarly discussion on the prospects of liberal democracy by looking for opportunities to curb antagonisms and instead strengthen intermediary capabilities. The book will therefore be of interest to students in relevant disciplines as political science, civil society research, sociology, and research on social movements. Chapter 1 and Chapter 10 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the empirical and theoretical problems posed by the encounter between law and biology in the twenty-first century. How does biotechnology and new bioscientific knowledge affect our legal institutions, our sense of justice, and our ways of relating to one another? To answer these questions, authors Marc de Leeuw and Sonja van Wichelen examine the complex and often contested ways in which biotechnology and biological knowledge are reworked by, with, and against legal knowledge. As this book shows, recent developments in the life sciences—including molecular biology, immunology, and the neurosciences—and their applications in forensics, medicine, and agriculture test longstanding legal forms, such as property, personhood, parenthood, and (collective) identity, ultimately constituting the current field of “biolegality.” The authors argue that these biolegal contestations represent philosophical and anthropological challenges to existing understandings of exchange, self, kinship, and community. By addressing how biology and law inform new ways of relating and knowing, the book proposes a programmatic intervention, asserting the pivotal role the study of biolegality plays in advancing social and political theory.

This book takes urban Wolof beyond Senegal to consider the effects of mobility on language and examine how the diasporans engage in their daily language practices as transmigrants. The parallel between languaging and migrating underpins the author's argument, as he examines the dynamicity of languaging at both micro and macro levels, as speakers navigate across spaces and languages. Moving away from a code-based approach, the author makes a compelling case that the urbanite, rather than shuttling between codes, deploys instead idiolectal features from a unique linguistic repertoire which comprises at once semiotic, cognitive, and language features. His indigenous approach affords novel perspectives in linguistic ethnography and complements the Euro-Western methodologies.

Drawing on theories in politics, sociology, gender and feminist studies, and social movement studies, this book compares and contrasts NGOized feminist organizations and informal street feminist groups in Belgium and Romania in order to understand the transformation of modern and contemporary feminist movements. Chapters trace the development of this NGOization process and its entanglements with neoliberal modes of governance and techniques and proposes an historically and empirically grounded analytical model to studying the NGOization of feminist movements as a multidimensional process. By analyzing the NGOization process through a cross-national comparison based on very different cases, the book disentangles the links between institutionalization, professionalization, bureaucratization and precarization and brings clarifications concerning the outcomes associated with them, such as demobilization, depoliticization, co-optation and burn-out. This book places the NGOization offeminist movement organizations within the specific context of relations between the state and the market in neoliberalism. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers across Gender & Feminist Studies, Social Movements, Sociology, and Politics.

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.

This book analyzes two types of nationalisms that are represented by the Portuguese groupuscular right, that is, the extra-party right. One faction is guided by ethnonationalism and nativism, looking at Portugal through an ethnically European prism. Small groups fight for a white Portugal linked to an imagined white world, rooted in ideas such as race and biology, following models from the US. The other faction looks for a future in a non-European confederation and wants Portuguese citizenship for non-European groups originating from the former colonies, while maintaining ties with the Portuguese extreme right, notably, the one that comes from the Salazar right-wing dictatorship (Estado Novo, 1926–1974). This faction suggests addressing questions of immigration by accepting immigration of non-European people from former imperial space and by initiating a confederation of countries, in which Portugal is the only state with a white majority. Guimarães analyzes the means of communication of these two factions, the language they use to articulate their viewpoints, and the worldviews of various groups in Portugal. He argues that the far right in Portugal is a space filled with radical styles of nationalism.

This book identifies the turning points in Habermas's work and his transition from one stage to another in the development of his theoretical oeuvre. Habermas began his academic career as part of the Frankfurt School, but the two key points at which his career changes trajectory are moving from historical materialism to normative idealism and playing with some of the ideas of liberalism. Normative idealism is an ahistorical theory that insists on the independence of the normative from material reality, severing the connection between base and superstructure that Marx wrote about. The break with the basic concepts of Marxism enabled Habermas to build his own discursive (critical) theory, which, especially since the end of the 1980s, takes the ideas of liberalism seriously. This book makes a systematic, multidimensional and detailed analysis of Habermas's theoretical oeuvre in two dimensions, chronological (in the order in which Habermas worked on certain topics) and thematic (enclosingcertain thematic units).

This ethnographic study explores the lived experiences and challenges felt by Muslim female students in higher education in the greater District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area. It offers narrative case studies as a form of narrative inquiry based on stories of lived experience as a means of capturing dynamic, didactic, and dialectic understandings to promote and enable needed change in higher education. In centering the voices of Muslim female students, this research goes beyond the narrow statistical representation of predefined categories to examine and present the systematic nature and roots of social prejudice.

This open access book introduces a groundbreaking concept - civil society elites - and serves as an essential resource for scholars, researchers and students interested in the complexities of power and influence within contemporary civil societies. Through a series of unique empirical studies, the authors offer a comprehensive examination of the individuals occupying the upper echelons of influential civil society organisations and movements. By delving into the factors that propel individuals into key positions and examining the connections between civil society leaders within and across sectors, the book offers insight into the mechanisms that shape access to powerful positions in civil societies. As a reflection of current debates on elites and populism, the book furthermore explores the expression and conceptualisation of counter-elite positions and criticism of civil society elites. With its original approach, the book serves as a catalyst for further research into inequalities, power structures and elites within civil societies.

This open access book presents a condensed history of Sociology in Mexico from its origins, through to the middle of the 19th century and up to the present day. The book analyses the interaction between sociology and the main economic, political and social change in the country, including the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the main social movements, the role of the intellectual exiles from Spain and Latin America, and the participation of women, who have often remained invisible in the history of sociology. The book explores how sociological discourse played a fundamental role in the separation of secular and public education and the search for a ‘national project'from 1868 onwards, despite the lack of an institute of social research until 1930; how sociology became an autonomous social science, led by a few intellectuals and public figures, as it became institutionalized in universities, and the effect this had on the development of the discipline; the influence of Marxism during the 1970s; and the progression from a process of specialization after the fall of the Berlin Wall to a new trend of working in collective projects with an increasing interdisciplinary perspective in the first decades of the 21st century.

This open access book focuses on the energy sector and will make a significant contribution to its continued evolution. For many years, the energy sector has been missing a raison d'etre and now finally there are increased calls for that to be justice. Hence, this book will develop the concept of energy justice and how it needs to be formalised in a new ‘social contract'with all stakeholders in society. The focus will be on improving legal systems at local, national and international levels while ensuring that justice is a core issue within energy law, the legal system and more broadly in society.

This open access book examines the implications of The Bell Curve for the social, economic, and political developments of the early 21st century. Following a review of the reception of The Bell Curve and its place in the campaign to end affirmative action, Professor Tucker analyses Herrnstein's concept of the “meritocracy” in relation to earlier 20th century eugenics and the dramatic increase in economic inequality over the past 30 years. Tucker demonstrates how, contrary to The Bell Curve's predictions, the reallocation of these huge sums was neither rational nor beneficial for society. The book moves on to situate The Bell Curve within contemporary politics and shows how it can be seen to have played a role in the 2016 US election. This compelling analysis will appeal to scholars and those with an interest in the history of scientific racism, the history of psychology and the sociology of knowledge and science.This is an open access book.

The book provides a comprehensive and updated introduction to concept of territory in the study of democratic politics. Territory plays a rather marginal role in the traditional conceptions of democracy that in many ways still prevail today. Democratic politics is often analysed from the point of view of its institutions, citizens and voters, while little is said about the territory through which it is expressed – at most it provides a broader perimeter or context of political and institutional action. The book offers, instead, an introductory theoretically-oriented discussion of crucial issues such as the genesis of state-nation, the transformation of democratic citizenship, the current borders'policies, the rising of territorial populism and the experience of 19-covid pandemic.This is an open access book.

This open access book explores what makes women decide to pursue a career in male-dominated fields such as information technology (IT). It reveals how women experience gendered stereotypes but also how they bypass, negotiate, and challenge such stereotypes, reconstructing gender-technology relations in the process. Using the example of Norway to illuminate this challenge in Western countries, the book includes a discussion of the “gender equality paradox”, where gender equality exists in parallel with gender segregation in fields such as IT. The discussion illustrates how the norm of gender equality in some cases hinders rather than promotes efforts to increase women's participation in technology-related roles.

This open access book examines the ways that consent operates in contemporary culture, suggesting it is a useful starting point to respectful relationships. This work, however, seeks to delve deeper, into the more complicated aspects of sexual consent. It examines the ways meaningful consent is difficult, if not impossible, in relationships that involve intimate partner violence or family violence. It considers the way vulnerable communities need access to information on consent. It highlights the difficulties of consent and reproductive rights, including the use (and abuse) of contraception and abortion. Finally, it considers the ways that young women are reshaping narratives of sexual assault and consent, as active agents both online and offline. Though this work considers victimisation, it also pays careful attention to the ways vulnerable groups take up their rights and understand and practice consent in meaningful ways.

This open access book explores the disciplinary, disciplined, and recent interdisciplinary sites and productions of ethnomusicology and queerness, arguing that both academic realms are founded upon a destructive masculinity—indissolubly linked to coloniality and epistemic hegemony—and marked by a monologic, ethnocentric silencing of embodied, same-sex desire. Ethnomusicology's fetishization of masculinizing fieldwork; queerness's functioning as Anglophone master category; and both domains'devaluation of sensuality and experience, concomitant with an adherence to provincial, Western conceptions of knowledge production, are revealed as precluding the possibilities for equitable, dialogic pluriversality. Enlisting the sonic as theoretical intervention, the disciplined/disciplining ethno and queer are reimagined in relation to negative emotions and intractable affect, ultimately vanquished, and replaced by explorations of sound, sex/uality, and experiential somaticity within a protean, postdisciplinary space of material/epistemic equity. This uncompromising, long-overdue critique will be of interest to researchers and students from numerous theoretical backgrounds, including music, sound, gender, queer, and postcolonial/decolonial studies.

Housing has always had a close association with the lives refugees lead in exile and the settlement of refugees is, at its core, a housing issue. Refugees move from their home, perhaps through various other places, to finally arrive in a nation-state which provides them with security of status and the promise of assistance to continue their lives. At the foundation of this promise of refuge is the provision of a safe and secure home. Despite this, the knowledge base about housing and its significance in the lives of refugees is not fully understood and this risks understating the enormous impact housing has on the settlement of refugees more broadly. This book makes an important contribution to the literature on the relationship between sanctuary and housing. It draws on new empirical research to examine how refugees have transitioned through the housing system over the last three decades and how changes in policy and the routes into refugee status has mediated these experiences.

This monograph identifies and investigates the ‘other-conscious'ethics in black avant-garde poetry since the 1980s. Drawing on a long tradition in the African Diaspora of ethical writings that put the Other first, this work shows how black poets writing in an avant garde or experimental vein in the United States push language to its limits to reveal how poetry can address and exemplify ethical postures towards other people. This other-centered vantage allows the poets to incisively comment on some of this period's most pressing ethical issues, including postcolonial and racialized violence, the history of slavery and segregation in America, and the expansion of human consciousness. The writers involved in this study include Nathaniel Mackey, Erica Hunt, Will Alexander, Harryette Mullen, and Mark McMorris.