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This book explores the environmental and ecological wisdom inherent in some of the indigenous traditions of traditional communities from developing societies like, Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. It throws light on how these discrete and unrecognized traditions have enabled communities to live in harmony with nature for ages. Despite the best efforts of the modern states through policy-making, intensive R&D for eco-friendly technologies and products, social and environmental impact assessment studies (SEIAS), and cost benefit analysis (CBA) of projects, environmental and ecological degradation continues, mostly in developing societies, which house large number of traditional communities. This book explores their traditions consisting of world views or cosmologies, eco-savvy-customs, indigenous knowledge systems involving community-based occupations and practices, skills and crafts, and so on. This book shows that when interpreted in consonance with scientific environmentalism, these traditions reveal their inbuilt environmental wisdom, mirroring sacredness of nature that have instilled built-in conservation practices, are key to sustainability.The conception of indigenous traditions that subsume environmental and ecological sustainability as well as cultural identity is studied in the book, from the vantage of multi-disciplinary perspectives. This book reflects two streams of thought : (i) stream of social anthropology, arguing for the inbuilt strength of indigenous traditions, that necessitate empathetic understanding with their own rights for recognition and survival, and (ii) stream of indigenous knowledge systems being technically effective only necessitate validation and certification by modern scientific knowledge system for wider use. The book is of great use to policy-makers and non-government players, in addition to researchers and academicians working in the area of sustainable development and indigenous / traditional communities.

This book critically examines the larger world of astrology in India, its ubiquity and relationship with religion, caste, gender, class and aspirations.It looks at astrology through an empirical and phenomenological lens, analyzing different meanings and questions associated with it. How do people see astrology—as magic, science, religion, or a knowledge system? The volume analyses the role of astrology in religious and social ceremonies; the interplay of faith and fear; beliefs, practices, mysticism, and skepticism in middle-class households; and gendered negotiations in everyday life. It also delves into how astrology has emerged as a livelihood and an industry, the continued fascination with it even in an era of technological advancement, and its domination of the vernacular media. Insightful and highly comprehensive, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of sociology, political sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies and urban Sociology.

This book proposes a New Enlightenment – a new way of looking at the non-Western world. Breaking new ground, the essays chart a course beyond Eurocentric discourses (which completely ignore the contributions of Asia, Africa and Latin-America) and forms of nativism (which are usually ethnocentric discourses). The volume: Focuses on the historical aspects of knowledge-production and its colonization; Examines the genre of multilinear histories that displaces hegemonic Eurocentric discourses; Enlarges the scope of multilinear historicism whereby Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas are drawn in a new humanistic knowledge system; Studies how colonization is resisted in both the non-Western and Western world. Lucid and engaging, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social theory, education, politics and public policy.

This book focuses on the status quo and current trends concerning ethnic issues in China, and seeks to promote the equitable and harmonious development of Chinese and other nationalities around the world. Drawing on representative empirical studies and case studies, it describes the spatial structure and evolution of China's populace, and analyzes the distribution of and legislation on its spatial development, which has been conducive to the scientific formulation of national population policies. After assessing the development of China's populace, the book analyzes the future prospects with regard to achieving the goal of a prosperous society and balancing the population in a comprehensive way; puts forward some constructive suggestions on the modernization of the populace; and constructs a new knowledge system for national development with Chinese characteristics. The book combines qualitative and quantitative analysis and employs empirical, speculative, comparative, and comprehensive methods to make full use of modern science and technology, so as to promote ethnological research into a broader development path. Its goal is to objectively evaluate the development of the Chinese populace and provide objective facts and data to support those readers who are interested in its nature and evolution.

This volume showcases emerging interdisciplinary scholarship that captures the complex ways in which biological knowledge is testing the nature and structure of legal personhood. Key questions include: What do the new biosciences do to our social, cultural, and legal conceptions of personhood? How does our legal apparatus incorporate new legitimations from the emerging biosciences into its knowledge system? And what kind of ethical, socio-political, and scientific consequences are attached to the establishment of such new legalities? The book examines these problems by looking at materialities, the posthuman, and the relational in the (un)making of legalities. Themes and topics include postgenomic research, gene editing, neuroscience, epigenetics, precision medicine, regenerative medicine, reproductive technologies, border technologies, and theoretical debates in legal theory on the relationship between persons, property, and rights.

This book breaks new ground in understanding how modern society has shaped women's knowledge system in Africa and deconstructs long-held myths about the position of ordinary women in the construction of knowledge.

This open access book documents the critical thinking and political actions that generated one of the world's most progressive national constitutions, presented to the Chilean public in 2022. Although that text was ultimately rejected in a national referendum, it drew on decades of diverse environmental, political, Indigenous, and community organizing and contained concepts and goals at the forefront of global efforts to create more just and equitable political systems, healthier living environments, and more resilient ecosystems. Drawing on research by faculty and students from the USA and Chile, chapters within this book address political memory, Indigenous representation, public participation, the Rights of Nature, environmental law, mining conflicts, natural commons, knowledge systems, and rural education. This book highlights important contributions from Chile's 2022 reform efforts for diverse global responses to the erosion of democracy, environmental degradation, and climate change.

This interdisciplinary volume attempts to gauge the individual and social issues related to memory, with an understanding of memory studies as an independent body of scholarship. It draws on multiple fields of knowledge, like popular culture, history, literature, oral cultures, and storytelling, which facilitates a panoramic view of memory studies.This book investigates the intersection between memory studies, partition, oral literature, and digital technology. It is also informed by the consciousness of memory in the digital age, which plays an integral role in what is remembered/forgotten, the form in which such memories are stored, and how they might be retrieved in future.This book will be an invaluable resource for those involved in research from undergraduate to post-doctoral level. This includes sociologists, psychologists, historians, artists, academicians, as well as research scholars from other disciplines.

It is written in a lucid style with the most recent advances and with theoretical discussions being supplemented with illustrations, and tables for easy understanding of the subject. This book deals with some of the emerging topics on the challenge of cultural assets conservation and the application of different scientific approaches to the common goal of the conservation of cultural heritage. This book would be an invaluable asset for the students and teachers working in the field of conservation science and museum laboratories.

This book is based on China's poverty alleviation work and combines social work expertise with anti-poverty research to provide a blueprint as a reference for preventing poverty return in the post-2020 era, promoting rural governance, and effectively linking poverty eradication and rural revitalization. Through a two-year participatory cooperation, the book, taking the targeted poverty alleviation pilot project named “Warmhearted Home Delivery” in T District(Xiamen City, Fujian Province) as a case study, finds that social work against poverty among the deeply impoverished needs to base on a'fact-ethic'two-dimensional perspective integrating risk with ability to achieve the trinary combination of the population classification to prevent the risk of returning to poverty, the exploiting the potential of families to solve the living difficulties, and the environmental-supported community multi-participation assets. This book is the first professional book in China that systematically describes how to do a good job in poverty eradication and poverty return prevention for people with deep poverty. This book records the time, demonstrates the academic achievements, and focuses on people's livelihood.

This book explores the unpredictable processes by which institutions emerge, evolve, and transform in response to complex interactions. Challenging traditional institutional theories, it introduces path emergence theory, which views institutions not as static constructs but as dynamic, adaptive systems shaped by the continuous interplay of individual actions, social interactions, and structural conditions. By combining insights from complexity science, cognitive neuroscience, and evolutionary theory, the author develops a framework that emphasizes the fluidity and unpredictability of institutional dynamics. The book presents both a theoretical foundation and real-world case studies, including the Helsinki Process and the evolving dynamics of the Korean Peninsula. It illustrates how small, decentralized actions can ripple through societies, fostering regional and global change. The book offers a fresh perspective on institutional change, highlighting the role of agency, co-evolutionary dynamics, and symbolic communication, and provides valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and those engaged in institutional transformation.

This book is to reflect on the achievements and challenges of current poverty-alleviation practices for children in China, in order to understand and clarify the function, intervention strategies and development direction of social work in child poverty-alleviation. It systematically presents the theoretical framework and practical path of social work in child poverty-alleviation. The book has three main focuses: firstly, it reviews the theoretical analysis framework of social work in child poverty-alleviation, such as social development perspective, social integration perspective and ecological systems theory at a macro-level, as well as life course theory and resilience theory at a micro-level; secondly, it presents the general practice path of social work in child poverty-alleviation from the perspective of practice framework, intervention path, work procedures and specific methods, exploring the key points, difficulties, methods and techniques of social work intervention in child poverty-alleviation practices through local cases in China; thirdly, based on the international social work experience in child poverty-alleviation and combined with local practices in China, it clarifies the future direction and advantages of social work in child poverty-alleviation in China.

Science Communication: The Basics is an accessible yet critical introduction to science communication, which is viewed as the social conversation around science. It addresses why science communication matters, examines the evolution of theories and practices and explains concepts, myths, misunderstandings and challenges.Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench navigate the foundations and key themes of science communication through numerous vignettes, examples, cases and arguments. They provide annotated recommended reading and a Lexicon summarising the understandings and uses of key terms in the field. Revealing science communication as a collective process and part of daily life, topics covered include science communication as part of culture and our understanding of ourselves and the world; the history of science communication and the development of ‘modern science'; policy and theoretical approaches; the growth of professional practice, formal education and research in the field; evolving platforms for science communication; and quality, trust and ethical awareness in science communication.Science Communication: The Basics is designed to be a concise primer and essential reading for newcomers to the field, including staff in research and policy institutions, students of the natural, human and social sciences, and general readers curious about the ways science is presented and perceived in society.Science Communication: The Basics is the third in a triptych of works on science communication from the two authors. The other two works are the Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology, first published in 2008 and now in its third edition (2021), and a four-volume anthology of readings, The Public Communication of Science (2016), also published by Routledge.

Knowing Life examines the limits of dominant knowledge forms that contribute to current practices negatively affecting more-than-human beings, while also exploring alternative approaches to knowing that are capable of reducing harm and maximizing planetary thriving.Specifically, this volume seeks multispecies answers to long-standing questions in Western philosophy: Who or what counts as a knower? What kinds of knowing are valid? Is knowledge a product of mind, body, or something else? Historically, these epistemic questions have been answered in ways that neutralize the knowing and knowledge contribution of and for more-than-human beings, as well as those on the margins of society considered less than “human.” Consequently, these epistemic assumptions often support the destruction of ecological habitats, industrialization of food animals, widespread use of insect and plant toxins, water and air pollution, climate extinctions, ecological militarism, and the perpetual flow of living beings used for entertainment, research, clothing, companionship, and economic resources.In this book, crosscultural and multidisciplinary contributors—including lesser-known global religious-philosophical accounts, philosophies of plant and insect life, race and disability studies, laboratory epistemology, embodied semiotics, and scholar-artists—challenge and expand these classical concepts through diverse modes of embodied engagement on multispecies knowing toward open futures of planetary co-flourishing.

What is the role of professional scholars in civic life? How and why should academics seek to reach audiences beyond their disciplines and institutions? Must there be tension between advancing along an academic career path and taking part in public conversations, or can these goals reinforce each other?This book is a practitioner's guide to civic engagement today, showing current and aspiring social scientists how to build a career in the public sphere. Drawing from personal experience and in-depth research, Philip N. Cohen gives straightforward advice that acknowledges professional risks as well as rewards. He calls on readers to embrace the reciprocal relationship between professional scholarship and active citizenship, arguing that aligning personal and vocational identities can enhance both public and academic contributions. Citizen Scholar explores intellectual work on social media, communication on topical issues, the role of political activism, and how to build trust while developing a public intellectual identity. It features lively examples from Cohen's own work, from data-visualization principles to his experience suing President Trump for blocking him on Twitter—and winning.For social scientists seeking to reach a wider public, Citizen Scholar provides tools and strategies for intellectual engagement and imparts invaluable perspective on how to lead a fulfilling professional and civic life.

This encyclopedia is the most comprehensive and updated source of reference in tourism research and practice. It covers both traditional and emerging concepts and terms and is fully international in its scope. Some 769 entries by 871 internationally renowned experts from 124 countries provide a definitive access to the knowledge of tourism and its related fields. Users will find reliable and up-to-date definitions and explanations of the key terms of tourism in this reference book. Tourism is the largest industry in the world and is the main source of income for many countries. With the practical impact of worldwide tourism and the growing number of academic programs and institutions devoted to its education and research, this encyclopedia is the epicenter of this emerging and developing discipline. Editorial BoardManaging Editor: Amy Osmond Associate Editors: David Airey, Nevenka Cavlek, Peter U. C. Dieke, Juergen Gnoth, Maria Gravari-Barbas, Tazim Jamal, Kumi Kato, Francisco Madrid Flores, Yoel Mansfeld, Scott M. Meis, Regina Schlüter, Noel Scott, Honggang XuResource Editor: Beka JakeliAssistant Editors: S. Vida Muse, Peter Reim, Shun YeCartographers: Kisandul Kumarasinghe, Ashan Manamperi, Himanshi Withanage

This open access book examines from the perspective of secularization. Since the publication of Max Weber's Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, how to realize modernization in developing countries has become an urgent problem to be demonstrated. Secularization has becoming endogenous power for Chinese modernization procedure, especially since 1978. However, to understand the foundation of secularization, it is inevitable to tracing back to Chinese history. This approach contains critical analysis and profound insight to illuminate the essence of secularization in contemporary Chinese context. The author also applies the comparative approach: by comparing with Protestant ethics in many Western European countries, the significance of secularization has been emphasized. The widespread and intense secularization boosts China into the trend modernization that covers nearly all aspects of society. This book is in need for those who intended to discern the truth of Chinese modernization. It is also a key tool of reflecting modernization and development in a broader sense.

This volume provides a multi-nuanced analysis of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on various aspects of human existence, encompassing societal, economic, and inter-relational dimensions. It highlights a broad range of artistic and literary experiences that unfolded as a consequence of the pandemic or speak to that time.The book revisits pandemic-induced shifts, phenomenologically, including the digitization of art and representations of creativity, “performance” anxiety, socio-political climate determined by “racial algorithms,” gaming surges, employment insecurities, mental health issues from a pedagogical materiality, and the nature of apocalypse through literary reimaginations. It also delves into the global food crisis, reframing of family structures, and local subjectivities as lived experiences.A unique contribution, the book will be useful for students and researchers of cultural studies, digital humanities, mass media, sociology, mental health, psychology, medical anthropology, public health, literature, history of pandemics and epidemics, and South Asian studies.

This handbook presents a broad and comprehensive overview of research and practices in geography education at primary and secondary levels (from birth to about age 18). It summarizes the current state of knowledge in this sub-discipline of geography. Including authors representative of many geography education traditions, the book pays equal attention to learning and teaching and to respect student voices, and includes rich in case studies, evidence-based research, and specific examples. It also emphasizes ways that geography education can contribute to global concerns about social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as ways it can help to prepare the next generation of informed, critical, and reflective members of societies. The book is divided into five sections: · Purposes of geography education—Why is it taught? · Perspectives on geography education—Whatis taught? · Practices of geography education—How is it organized and taught? · Preparation of geography educators—How are geography educators prepared? · Possibilities for geography education—What is/are the future(s) of geography education By providing broad perspectives and lively and accessible writing, this handbook is a useful tool for novice geography educators, teacher educators, educational policy makers, support staff such as librarians and media resource specialists, curriculum developers, and assessment experts in many world regions.

This Sage Handbook presents an interdisciplinary collection of chapters exploring how to assess the quality of collecting and analysing qualitative data, while maintaining a focus on diversity, digital and critical approaches. The Handbook considers essential questions such as what is good qualitative research? What makes qualitative research good research? And, how can we make qualitative research better research? Contributions come from a wide array of experts, and highlight answers to questions from various disciplinary and geographical areas; from mixed methods to multimodal and online research, from specific types of data and methods to specific target groups, and from theoretical and epistemological contexts to those where funding has an impact on how research is done and assessed. Qualitative research has evolved in many respects in recent decades and has grown increasingly multidisciplinary. Research in general is facing new challenges around how to take diversity and decolonisation into account in what researchers do, as well as how to produce and communicate qualitative research quality. This Handbook offers a timely overview of such developments, and will support researchers involved in planning, designing, doing and evaluating qualitative research in developing an increased sensitivity for contemporary debates and challenges in the field. Part I Philosophies and Epistemologies of Qualitative Research Quality Part II Disciplinary Discourses of Qualitative Research Quality Part III Qualitative Research Quality for Specific Approaches Part IV Rethinking Qualitative Research Quality for Specific Methods and Data Part V Rethinking Strategies for Quality in Qualitative Research Part VI Rethinking Criteria for Quality in Qualitative Research Part VII Extending Contexts and Challenges for Qualitative Research Quality

The edited volume Critical ICT4D highlights the need for a paradigm change in theorising, designing, and researching Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). Engaging authors from the Majority World and entering a process of restoring epistemic justice in knowledge production and ownership, the text: Reflects on the histories and narratives around development programmes, their deep-rooted socio-political background, and the power relations integrated into or induced by such measures Problematises the current scholarship and practices through decolonial and pluralistic approaches built with an explicit perspective of resisting epistemic violence Constructs justice-enacting engagements of technologies with society. Offering thematic discussions in many development sectors with up-to-date case studies informed by recent research in the field, it sheds light on constructive contributions of critical ICT4D research. Written in accessible language, the book will appeal to postgraduate students, fellow researchers, policymakers in the fields of sociology, development studies, STS, critical data studies, surveillance studies, international relations, public administration, and information systems.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

The Western Crisis of Truth in the Early 21st Century explores the symbolic, experiential, and associative side of contemporary political culture, arguing that phenomena such as ‘post-truth', digitalization, mediatization, propaganda, illiberalism, or populism, far from being curiosities, have in fact come to represent a uniform aspect of political culture – a challenge to the ‘enlightened', ‘developed', and ‘progressive'world that we believed ourselves to be inhabiting.Through analyses of visual and textual material such as internet memes, academic discourse, news articles, videos, and other media, it considers truth-making in the epoch of Russia's war in Ukraine, Donald Trump, the hyper-rationalist ritualism of managing the COVID-19 pandemic and the shifting realities on the Eastern border of the West, in order to shed light on the transfiguration of the western intellectual tradition by the global political, technological, and intellectual dynamics of a world that is far from approaching the end of history. Asking what is to be done in the face of this new reality, The Western Crisis of Truth in the Early 21st Century considers whether the dissident literature of Central and Eastern Europe, which has already lived through a period of disenlightenment under the Soviet Union, as well as other Eastern European movements of dignity and independence might offer answers.A study of the dimming of the Enlightenment, this volume will appeal to scholars of social and political theory and political anthropology.

Using ethnographic materials and documents from East Tibetan villages, this book addresses the impact of modernization on everyday life and the ways in which it melds with traditional forms of knowledge to create a new Tibetan identity and scientific rationality.Including cases centred on meteorology, geography, and seismology, the book assesses a wide range of traditional local activities, including foraging, farming, and domestic practices, and argues that and demonstrates how science, technology, and ideas about modernity have all influenced these activities. It highlights that when inconsistencies among different knowledges emerge, modernization can create inconsistent assemblages of modern and traditional practices and reveal the multiplicity of everyday life.Using these examples of everyday life to portray the complexity of day-to-day existence in Tibet, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Tibet, China, human geography, anthropology, and the sociology of science and technology.

A bold exposé of how the very foundation of toxicology has been contaminated by sexist and racist ideologiesThe first critical understanding of the field of toxicology from a feminist and antiracist perspective, Toxic Sexual Politics asserts that the science of toxicants must be held accountable for the uneven distribution of toxic pollution along racial and sexual lines. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and extensive ethnographic and archival research, including participant observations in toxicology classrooms, conferences, and laboratories, Melina Packer urges environmental health advocates to place toxicant science within its masculinist, militarist, and eugenicist history.Toxic Sexual Politics shows how the founding fathers of U.S. toxicology were ideologically aligned with the chemical industry, inventing a science that could “make chemicals safe,” as opposed to one that could adequately protect planetary health from toxicants'hazards. While many toxicologists today are critical of the chemical industry, they continue to rely on the highly limited tools of toxicology as accurate measures of toxicity, as do government regulators, the courts, and environmental advocates.Unlike most critiques of the chemical industry and narratives of environmental health movements, Toxic Sexual Politics refuses to take the science at face value. By focusing on the sexist, racist, and ableist biases reinforced by toxicology, Packer powerfully argues that this scientific discipline reproduces the very same white supremacist and heterosexist logics that generated environmental injustices in the first place. The field of toxicology can explicitly confront chemical corporate power by building from queer, feminist, anti-ableist, and antiracist movements for environmental and reproductive justice.

This is an open access book. The conference will focus on educational management and social studies, discussing key challenges and research directions for the development of the field, promoting the development and application of theories and methods in the field in universities and enterprises, and providing a favorable platform for innovative scholars and experts focusing on the field of research to exchange new ideas and present their research results.

In this updated version of a contemporary classic of discourse research, Reiner Keller develops the theoretical and methodological foundations of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD). Translated from the original German into English for the first time, this book brings together two previously unconnected domains of knowledge analysis in social science: the rich traditions of sociology of knowledge and symbolic interactionism on one hand and the works of discourse studies, especially in relation to Michel Foucault, on the other. It presents a critical discussion of key developments in sociology of knowledge, symbolic interactionist, and related interpretive approaches, explains the communicational turn of recent work in the field, and examines how traditions within sociology of knowledge shifted focus or converged over time. Following this, the book discusses the development of discourse theory and discourse analysis since the 1960s, including critical discourse analysis, hegemony analysis, or cultural studies approaches. Embarking from a profound reconstruction of Michel Foucault's work, the book then sets its own distinctive course by integrating major elements of Foucault's perspective with the sociology of knowledge. Along this path, Reiner Keller establishes the heuristics and methodology for a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse, providing a comprehensive research programme for the study of social relations of knowledge and politics of knowledge. Since its first publication in 2005, SKAD has informed a multitude of studies worldwide and across several academic disciplines. Today it can be considered as one of the major perspectives in discourse research in social science and beyond.

The National Mind argues that understanding the power of nationalism requires probing into its cognitive and emotional influence on our everyday perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. Focusing particularly on the impact of canonical national narratives on thinking and feeling norms in society, it develops an interdisciplinary cognitive approach to the question of how nationalism shapes our minds, and eventually, our world. It derives insights from longstanding philosophical and scholarly debates on the social nature of knowledge and feeling as well as recent cognitive research on emotions and the perception of reality. Grounding its theoretical investigation in empirical observations about a prominent non-Western case, namely, contemporary Turkey, The National Mind demonstrates how nationalist narratives and conceptions dominate our social and political common sense, at both societal and global levels. It offers a comprehensive and original interpretation of how the ‘national mind'operates in everyday experiences. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of psychology, philosophy, politics, history, sociology, and nationalism studies.

The rapid pace of economic development and urbanization in Asia have led to several major problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, mass consumption, and depletion of natural resources. These problems pose a major threat to a sustainable future for Asia and are hindering many Asian countries'goal of becoming carbon-neutral by the middle of this century. Solving these problems requires a comprehensive understanding of the nature of energy consumption, exploitation of natural resources, and deterioration of the environment.To accelerate the green energy transition and promote efficient resource use in Asia, a range of policy options and joint efforts among Asian countries will be required, including carbon pricing, resource tax reform, the expansion of transition finance, support for the development of low-carbon, and resource-efficient social infrastructure. However, Asia is home to many countries, each in a different stage of economic development and with its own culture and customs. Practical implementation of these policies will require bringing together researchers, policymakers, and citizens to share their knowledge and engage in discussions to generate policy ideas that are appropriate for each country. The purpose of this book is to share theoretical and empirical knowledge and convey policy implications that can be expected to accelerate energy transition and resource use effectiveness toward a sustainable future in Asia.

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 revisits social theory with a view to highlighting certain essential features of ‘good'social theory: its ability to raise certain questions, its explanatory power, its critical and reflexive interrogation of concepts, its search for objectivity, its concern to make sense of empirical data and its aim of projecting some degree of generality and abstraction. With particular attention to issues of nationalism, democracy, civil society, state, feminism, neoliberalism, minority rights, environment and North-East Indian society, it considers whether new and more relevant theoretical questions need to be asked.It will therefore appeal to scholars of social theory and political sociology with interests in new approaches to social theory and the development of local or ‘indigenous'social thought.

This edited volume aims to fill the gap in the research, juxtaposition, and focused discussions in the existing literature on art archives in Asia. Most of the archives included in the book are independent and initiated by individuals, folk groups, or non-profit organizations. In this book, one can trace the dynamics and self-generative capacity in this particular historical and cultural milieu through these “alternative” archives and through the practices of artists and curators who apply their specific understanding of archive to their works. Many chapters resonate with each other in that they capture the experiences shared by many places in Asia. Those experiences could have resulted from the encounter with the Western idea of archive, the influence of the colonial experience, or a memory crisis triggered by the rapid transformation of media, and may serve as a basis for producing archive theories in/from Asia. The book provides an opportunity for the archives in Asia and those who work around them to recognize one another, understand what their colleagues in archival work do, how they do it and what else there is for them to do.

This cutting-edge and authoritative Handbook covers a broad spectrum of social movement research methodologies, offering expert analysis and detailed accounts of the ways in which research can effectively be carried out on social movements and popular protests. Addressing practice-oriented questions, this Handbook engages with both theoretical and political dimensions, unpacking the multidimensional nature of social movement research for new and established scholars alike and for movement-based as well as academic researchers across many disciplines.Divided into three thematic sections, this stimulating Handbook dives deep into discussions relating to the methodological challenges raised by researching social movements, the technical questions of how such research is conducted, and then to more practical considerations about the uses and applications of movement research. Expert contributors and established researchers utilise real-world examples to explore the methodological challenges from a range of perspectives including classical, engaged, feminist, Black, Indigenous and global Southern viewpoints. The Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements will not only appeal to experienced researchers, but also to activists who have started to think about researching their own movements and to politically engaged students. It speaks to new and established scholars in relevant disciplines such as sociology, political science, anthropology, geography, development studies, gender studies, and race and ethnic studies, and particularly those looking to better appreciate the different research methods for understanding social movements.

The book is aimed at providing an assertion of Gender Studies as a vital community in our time, united in a commitment to inquiry. It brings forward an interdisciplinary set of early career researchers'accounts of their motives for engaging in Gender Studies and, of the encounters with limitations as well as possibilities they experience on the paths they have chosen.Each chapter is accompanied by a brief response paper where a more senior researcher involves in conversation with respective chapter's content and shares reflections regarding Gender Studies, its integration, and developments. The first level corresponds with the significance of research in the field and its transformative power in and, crucially, outside the academia. The second relates to the value of networking and community building for doing research.The book presents Gender Studies in a communicative, open manner that invites the reader to engage in and continue the displayed discussions. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender studies, sociology, queer studies, women's studies, trans studies, anthropology, and literary studies.

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

This is a book about the dai, or traditional birth practitioner, and her place in the emerging therapeutic domain in colonial and contemporary India. The book employs a caste-informed feminist reading of the colonial archive against the grain and explores papers by Englishwomen physicians, texts of indigenous medicine and practitioner accounts, administrative documents, public commentaries, and legislative assembly debates from the 19th and early 20th centuries. It also examines contemporary healthcare policy discourse. Using these methodologies, the author traces the production of the dai as an unsanitary, unskilled indigenous figure in colonial and nationalist accounts. The book goes on to examine the workings of gender and caste in the setting up of this figure, at first for containment and then for removal from institutionalized healthcare – an exercise that is more or less completed in the present. The author argues that this exercise is part of the refashioning of the indigenous, and of indigenous medicine, throughout this period, into a highly codified domain that centres caste privilege and is supported by global capital networks. In such a refashioning, the dai figure is rendered remote not only from the centre of the healthcare apparatus but also from the centre of the contemporary nation. This genealogical tracing of indigenous medicine in Indian contexts, rather than separate histories, is also useful to understand better what is termed the healthcare assemblage today, and this book provides a ground on which this can be done.

This incisive brief guide critically examines the role of medical diagnoses in social life, shining light on both health and disease. Annemarie Goldstein Jutel shows that diagnosis is not simply the labelling of natural disease, but rather is an agreement about what counts as sickness, with far-reaching social consequences.Using a revised social model of diagnosis, Jutel explores diagnosis as both a category and a process. She illustrates that although illness is a fact of nature, medical classification systems are human creations which are shaped by consensus, power, inequity and prejudice. She examines the pervasive effects of diagnosis in non-medical environments, analysing in particular its role in popular culture. Through a detailed case study of the history and social consequences of Alzheimer's disease as a diagnosis, Jutel ultimately argues that a critical sociological perspective is essential to finding new and more effective ways for medicine to function.Providing an advanced understanding of the social aspects of diagnosis in a concise format, this book is an essential guide for students and scholars of health and sociological theory. It is also an important resource for health professionals seeking a deeper understanding of the social phenomena surrounding diagnosis.

This proposed book aims to present an analysis of several crisis issues induced by global climate changes and implications at the micro-level, particularly from the perspective of ground-based study. Climate crisis leads to several socio-ecological issues which need to discuss with some empirical case studies from the contextual global evidences. Climatic crisis generates several social responses which are associated with mitigating issues in addition to sustainable development goals. Under these circumstances, several loopholes interlinked with climatic crisis need to expose in the present-day context. This book argues that it is important to understand the issues from multiple dimensions. It identifies some important dimensions to discuss in the process. Themes we purpose to cover are: several field-based studies are included for which micro-level field-based data would incorporate to understand current crisis induced by climate change, thus exposing the vulnerabilities of the communities which would be incorporated in different chapters with adequate representation of qualitative methods, modelling-based geospatial approach. Therefore, some secondary data-based studies have also been included to provide a broader picture. Additionally, this book aims to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the issues mainly from the lenses of Geography, Economics, and Sociology as well as Environmental Studies too. Given the focus of this study, it is believed that an approach that harmonizes the cognitive domain from different discipline is appropriated. A combination of chapters using qualitative as well as quantitative methods also made this book exclusive from others. We believe that this edited book surely contributes the knowledge domain with some relevant chapters'discussion in the contemporary time and leads to reduce the gap of knowledge.

This book introduces the readers to the dynamics of various kinds of social movements. It examines how social movements have become an instrument of social change including assertion of identity and protest against marginalisation. This book describes three major domains – conceptual, experiential, and the impact of globalisation on social movements. The volume begins by locating social movements within broad and contemporary social processes and explores the intrinsic and complex patterns of dynamics among state, market, and social movements from a critical sociological perspective. It explains the meaning, basic features, origins and types, leadership and ideology, and perspectives of social movements and probes into major experiences of eight social movements in India, namely, peasant and farmers, tribal, Naxalite and Maoist, Dalit, working class, women, ethnic, and environmental movements. This book also analyses the role of information technology, media, and civil society in the spread and continuation of such movements. The experiences of queer, new religious, anti-systemic, and anti-displacement movements would also help readers understand how globalisation has offered new avenues of protest to diverse sections of the population. Lessons of anti-globalisation movements across the world provide a futuristic perspective in assessing the strength of social movements in a global society.This book will be useful to the students, researchers, and faculty working in the field of political science, sociology, gender studies, and post-colonial contemporary Indian politics in particular. It will also be an invaluable and interesting reading for those interested in South Asian studies.

This book traces the unitary source of all of the world's major religions. The book underscores the fact that there are many ways in which humanity has sought revelation of God, yet there is a common inspiration behind humanity's God concept.The author's analysis of world religions or faiths adopts a multi-interdisciplinary approach taking the reader through historical, anthropological, archaeological, and theological viewpoints to make juxtapositions.God in us is a rich resource that helps the readers understand the origins of human civilisation and how humans began to worship God, domesticate animals like sheep, invent astrology and create languages. Biko's research also delves deeper into unveiling African indigenous knowledge systems and science that predate the arrival of the colonisers on the African soil.Print edition not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa.

The Fear of Erring, a combination of thick ethnography and an ethnopoetic storyline, illustrates how mistrust, ignorance, and imagination govern the everyday work of personnel in Argentina's criminal justice system. The book shows that Argentina's justice system faces public suspicion and a tense atmosphere of competition and mutual mistrust among employees. It provides evidence of widespread fear among legal professionals of being deceived and making erroneous decisions based on manipulated information. Rational methods of generating knowledge often hit their limits, confronting employees with impenetrable ignorance. The detailed description of bureaucratic life demonstrates that legal professionals resort to imagination and speculation, yielding insights into their moral positioning. By focusing on these imaginaries, the book reveals unnoticed routines and functions of the justice system that shape legal processes, decision-making, and the institution's image. The book's discussion on mistrust, ignorance, and imagination extends beyond Argentina, addressing key questions about social cohesion, knowledge bases, and perspectives on the past and future in current social and global debates.

This book emerges at a time when critical race studies, postcolonial thought, and decolonial theory are under enormous pressure as part of a global conservative backlash. However, this is also an exciting moment, where new horizons of knowledge appear and new epistemic practices (e.g. symmetry, collaboration, undisciplining) gain traction. Through our critical engagements with structural, relational, and personal aspects of knowing and unknowing we work towards a greater multiplicity of knowledges and practices. Calling into question the asymmetrical global economy of knowledge and its uneven division of intellectual labour, our interdisciplinary volume explores what a decolonial horizon could entail for African Studies at the crossroads. Contributors are Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Eric A. Anchimbe, Edwin Asa Adjei, Susan Arndt, Muyiwa Falaiye, Katharina Greven, Christine Hanke, Amanda Hlengwa, Catherine Kiprop, Elísio Macamo, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Lena Naumann, Thando Njovane, Samuel Ntewusu, Anthony Okeregbe, Zandisiwe Radebe, Elelwani Ramugondo, Eleanor Schaumann

The International Symposium on Humanities and Social Sciences: Addressing Global Challenges-Exploring Socio-Cultural Dynamics and Sustainable Solutions in a Changing World (ISHSS 2023) unfolds as a crucial academic undertaking, centred around the overarching theme of intellectual synergy and inquiry. This conference serves as a vibrant forum, facilitating discussions on a wide array of subjects within the realms of humanities and social sciences.The curated collection of proceedings encapsulates an expansive spectrum of subject areas, transcending disciplinary boundaries to encapsulate sociology, anthropology, history, and beyond. The significance of this compilation lies not only in the wealth of knowledge it imparts but also in its potential to resonate with a diverse audience. From academicians to practitioners, the discourse transcends traditional boundaries, offering insights that cater to the intellectual curiosity of a broad audience.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The book offers a transdisciplinary eco-systemic framework for analysis of ecosystems. It uses eight dimensions (economic-social-political-environmen-tal) and 40 factors to diagnose degenerating ecosystems and to synthesize regenerative ecosystems amid growing uncertainty, and inequality in the Anthropocene. Chapter 1 broadly defines the `all interacting evolving systems science'(AIESS) approach in terms of its eco-systemic and transdisciplinary action research methodology. Chapter 2 provides a detailed explanation of the AIESS approach through the four concepts of interconnectedness, interdependence, interactions, and intent to diagnose degeneration and synthesize regenerative systems. Part 1 of the book discusses the issues and approaches to Regenerativeness. Part 2, 3, 4, and 5 illustrate cases of regenerative systems in different ecosystems viz. natural, rural-indigenous, urban, and industrial ecosystems.Not only the researchers and scholarsin systems science, systems dynamics, systems design, and sustainable transition strategies but also the policy makers, corporate leaders, and development experts will greatly benefit from this book.1.Presents a ground breaking explanation of the science of change in the Anthropocene and in epochs prior to it through its all interacting evolving systems science framework. 2. Provides a unique transdisciplinary eco-systemic framework as a methodology to diagnose the complex degenerating ecosystems and to synthesize regenerative ecosystems in different geographies of the world. 3. Through various cases from different ecosystems viz., natural ecosystems, rural-indigenous ecosystems, urban ecosystems, and industrial ecosystems, the book presents the challenges as well as the steps and processes to synthesize regenerative ecosystems.

This book provides a transdisciplinary assessment of multiple countries'legal and policy frameworks vis-à-vis the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, adopted in 2014 by the Committee on Fisheries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Based on an appraisal framework used to facilitate the unpacking of those frameworks, this book collects country experiences and regional perspectives on a range of cross-cutting issues underpinning the protection of the rights and the promotion of justice for small-scale fishers and their communities. This book aims to be the first collection to present a systematic and in-depth assessment of existing national legal and policy frameworks vis-à-vis the SSF Guidelines. This assessment is done through the transdisciplinary and collaborative work of researchers, governments, and civil society organizations for the analysis of the cross-thematic questions, which the contributors of this book aim to address. Firstly, what are the relevant laws and policies that matter for securing rights of small-scale fishers and their communities? How are small-scale fisheries defined by national laws and policies? How are small-scale fisheries treated (i.e., specifically or generally) in these instruments? Are there specific provisions and references to small-scale fisheries or any of its associated terminologies (e.g., artisanal, subsistence, traditional, indigenous)? Secondly, how the relevant instruments address the 8 small-scale fisheries key issues outlined in that rapid appraisal study? What are the strengths and gaps in these instruments? Do they address issues that are not covered by the SSF Guidelines? Do they contribute to clarifying other legal issues that are relevant for sustainable small-scale fisheries? Finally, since the book also aims to explore the accessibility of these legal and policy instruments for those to which they matter the most (the small-scale fishers), the following questions were also considered: What challenges do they face in knowing and understanding the relevant laws and policies in place? Which tools, measures and processes are available in the countries to ensure small-scale fishers can claim for their rights? To what extent judicial courts have recognized and/or granted rights to small-scale fishers? Chapters 11, 19 and 20 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book focuses on the historical and sociological dimensions of scientists working in laboratories in India, offering insights into the historical, sociological and policy factors that shape scientific pursuits. It illuminates the challenges, accomplishments and the evolving role of science in societal development.The author initiates a broader discourse on the interplay between scientific advancements, societal contexts and policy frameworks. The book fosters a deeper understanding of science's role in shaping India's social fabric and contributing to the global scientific dialogue. It also explores issues such as brain drain, science activism and the conflict between university- and government-run models of science.Lucid and topical, the book will be of considerable interest to both social and natural scientists, as well as the general academic community, including research students in science, technology, history, social history of science, science and technology studies and innovation policies.

This book focuses on the traditional ecological knowledge in addressing the current climate crisis in the Indian Himalayas. Local or indigenous people in the Himalayas, through their low-carbon producing lifestyles, contribute very little to the climate crisis. However, at the same time, they bear the brunt of this crisis way more than many others. It is important to learn about their traditional ways of life and the knowledge that they hold regarding ecology and environment. Traditional ecological knowledge and associated belief systems are given increasing attention across the globe in recent times toward addressing some of the grave environmental concerns. Climate change is one such concern. The rising consideration of concepts such as ethnoecology and ethnobotany signifies the scientific, socio-cultural and economic potential of the traditional ecological knowledge systems. It is indisputable that these knowledge systems have the ability to provide important insights towards tackling many present-day environmental distresses including several climate change challenges. In this book, the authors concentrate on such traditional ecological knowledge systems in the Indian Himalayan region and try to figure out their significance in relation to the modern science. Overall, the authors attempt to write a book where the relevance of traditional ecological knowledge systems could be addressed and communicated to a larger audience—both academic scientific and non-academic.

This open access edited book investigates European social rights in practice from socio-legal perspectives. It brings together fourteen socio-legal scholars, representing Nordic and Western European countries, who analyse different aspects pertaining to European social rights, namely the regulation of social rights, encounters between welfare professionals and citizens, and citizens'mobilisation of social rights. These three different aspects form the structure for the sections in the anthology, each analysing transformations related to regulation, encounters and rights mobilisation. The book contributes to the existing literature as it focuses on interdependent transformations on macro, meso and micro levels which are key for understanding processes and contexts related to European social rights in practice. It speaks particularly to academics in sociology of law and/or regulation.

This book examines the epistemological, social and political dimensions of practising interdisciplinary approaches to enhance knowledge, pedagogy, and methodological aspects of research in the South Asian context. The volume sets the context by bringing together a range of ideas, questions and reflections on the concept of interdisciplinarity, the numerous waves of interdisciplinarity in contemporary history of knowledge, which were radically different from each other in their epistemological and political orientations. The book revisits the concept of interdisciplinarity and takes into cognizance the importance of the mutual shaping of knowledge and politics in our search for inclusive and sustainable future(s).The book offers a blend of both conceptual and institutional discourses on interdisciplinarity and the personal experiences of leading practitioners, bringing together critical engagements from different vantage points on practising it. It will be of interest to researchers, scholars and practitioners of social sciences and humanities disciplines as well as interdisciplinary fields such as educational studies, development studies, women's studies, media studies, cultural studies, urban studies, labour studies, legal studies, public health, disability studies, global/international studies and performing arts. It will also be useful for policy planners, development practitioners, activists and social organizers working in related fields.

The frontiers of extraction are expanding rapidly, driven by a growing demand for minerals and metals that is often motivated by sustainability considerations. Two volumes of International Development Policy are dedicated to the paradoxes and futures of green extractivism, with analyses of experiences from five continents. In this, the second of the two volumes, the 22 authors, using different conceptual approaches and in different empirical contexts, demonstrate the alarming obduracy of the logic of extractivism, even - and perhaps especially - in the growing support for the so-called green transition. The authors highlight the complex and enduring legacies of resource extraction and the urgent need to move beyond extractive models of development towards alternative pathways that prioritise social justice, environmental sustainability, democratic governance and the well-being of both humans and non-humans. They also caution us against the assumption that anti-extraction is anti-extractivist, that post-extraction is post-extractivism, and they critically attune us to the systemic nature of extractivism in ways that both connect and transcend any particular site or scale. This volume accompanies IDP 15, The Lives of Extraction: Identities, Communities, and the Politics of Place.