This book explores how cities are shaped by the lived experiences of inhabitants and examines the ways they develop strategies to cope with daily and unexpected challenges. It argues that migration, livelihood, and public health challenges result from inadequacies in the hard city-urban assets, such as land, infrastructure and housing, and asserts that these challenges and escalating vulnerabilities are best negotiated using the soft city-social capital and community networks. In so doing, the authors criticise a singular knowledge system and argue for a granular, nuanced understanding of cities-of the interrelations between people in places, everyday urbanisms, social relationships, cultural practices and histories. The volume presents perspectives from the Global South and the Global North, and engages with city-specific cases from Africa, India and Europe for a deeper understanding of resilience. Part of the Urban Futures series, it will be of great interest to students and researchers of urban studies, urban planning, urban management, architecture, urban sociology, urban design, ecology, conservation, and urban sustainability. It will also be useful for urbanists, architects, urban sociologists, city and town planners and those interested in a deeper understanding of the contemporary and future city.

Mobile technology offers an innovative and cost-effective channel for delivering a range of financial services, including mobile payments. In some jurisdictions, mobile payments simply provide a convenient option for facilitating payment transactions. In other jurisdictions, mobile payments are viewed as potentially transformative because they present an opportunity to expand access to financial services. However, as with other innovations, mobile payments raise consumer protection concerns and require robust regulatory mechanisms to address such concerns. Against this backdrop, the book adopts a typology of consumer policy tools which can be used to address the identified consumer concerns. This typology guides the enquiry into the existing consumer protection frameworks applying to mobile payments in selected jurisdictions (Canada, Kenya, and the United Kingdom). The main objective of this endeavour is to identify best practices that national authorities seeking to leverage mobile payments and similar innovations can emulate. This book will be of interest to policymakers, regulators, industry stakeholders, students and scholars interested in the regulation of innovative financial services, particularly from a consumer protection perspective.

Ishikawa provides a practical and extensive guide for the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English (ICNALE), a unique dataset including more than 15,000 samples of Asian learners' L2 English speeches and essays. It offers approachable introductions to a variety of corpus studies on the aspects of Asian learners' L2 English. Key topics discussed in the book include: * background, aims, and methods of learner corpus research, * principles, designs, and applications of the ICNALE, * vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics in Asian learners' L2 English, and * individual differences of Asian learners and assessments of their speeches and essays. With many case studies and hands-on guides to utilise ICNALE data to the fullest extent, The ICNALE Handbook is a unique resource for students, teachers, and researchers who are interested in a corpus-based analysis of L2 acquisition.

This groundbreaking book examines the diverse manifestations of homosexuality in various historical periods and non-Western cultures. The distinguished authors examine Kimam male ritualized homosexual behavior, Mexican homosexual interaction in public contexts, male homosexuality and spirit possession in Brazil, and much more.

This book explores the epiclesis or invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic Prayer, using the Anglican tradition as an historical model of a communion of churches in conscious theological and liturgical dialogue with Christian antiquity. Incorporating major studies of England, North America and the Indian sub-Continent, the author includes an exposition of Inter-Church ecumenical dialogue and the historic divisions between western and eastern Eucharistic traditions and twentieth-century ecumenical endeavour. This unique study of the relationship between theology and liturgical text, commends a theology and spirituality which celebrates the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist as present and eschatological gift. It thus sets historic, contemporary and ecumenical divisions in a new theological context.

Bringing together an international team of scholars, this book offers new perspectives on the impact that the Bauhaus and its teaching had on a wide range of artistic practices. Three of the fields in which the Bauhaus generated immediately transformative effects were housing, typography, and photography. Contributors go further to chart the surprising relation of the school to contemporary developments in hairstyling and shop window display in unprecedented detail. New scholarship has detailed the degree to which Bauhaus faculty and students set off around the world, but it has seldom paid attention to its impact in communist East Germany or in countries like Ireland where no Bauhausler settled. This wide-ranging collection makes clear that a century after its founding, many new stories remain to be told about the influence of the twentieth century's most innovative arts institution. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, design history, photography, and architectural history.

The essays and artworks gathered in this volume examine the visual manifestations of postcolonial struggles in art in East and Southeast Asia, as the world transitioned from the communist/capitalist ideological divide into the new global power structure under neoliberalism that started taking shape during the Cold War. The contributors to this volume investigate the visual art that emerged in Australia, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Korea, Okinawa, and the Philippines. With their critical views and new approaches, the scholars and curators examine how visual art from postcolonial countries deviated from the communist/capitalist dichotomy to explore issues of identity, environment, rapid commercialization of art, and independence. These foci offer windows into some lesser-known aspects of the Cold War, including humanistic responses to the neo-imperial exploitations of people and resources as capitalism transformed into its most aggressive form. Given its unique approach, this seminal study will be of great value to scholars of 20th-century East Asian and Southeast Asian art history and visual and cultural studies.

This book narrates the battles, conquests and diplomatic activities of the early Muslim fighters in Syria and Iraq vis-a-vis their Byzantine and Sasansian counterparts. It is the first English translation of one of the earliest Arabic sources on the early Muslim expansion entitled Futuh al-Sham (The Conquests of Syria). The translation is based on the Arabic original composed by a Muslim author, Muhammad al-Azdi, who died in the late 8th or early 9th century C.E. A scientific introduction to al-Azdi's work is also included, covering the life of the author, the textual tradition of the work as well as a short summary of the text's train of thought. The source narrates the major historical events during the early Muslim conquests in a region that covers today's Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iraq in the 7th century C.E. Among these events are the major battles against the Byzantines, such as the Battles of Ajnadayn and al-Yarmuk, the conquests of important cities, including Damascus, Jerusalem and Caesarea, and the diplomatic initiatives between the Byzantines and the early Muslims. The narrative abounds with history and Islamic theological content. As the first translation into a European language, this volume will be of interest to a wide range of readership, including (Muslim and Christian) theologians, historians, Islamicists, Byzantinists, Syrologists and (Arabic) linguists.

"Magnificent [and] wondrous." The Spectator "Rich and illuminating." Literary Review "Phenomenally accurate." History Today "Stunning." The Morning Star "Sweeping." The New European "A wonderful book." Current World Archaeology "In a class of its own." The Caspian Post A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day. This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region - the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

A novel contribution to the growing field of regional innovation policies, this timely book combines recent theoretical developments and empirical contributions. With a keen focus on non-core regions, some of the top scholars in the field discuss the topics of regional path transformation, place-based strategy and policy learning. Analysing the role of EU institutions, the book includes a thematic section on EU regional and innovation policies as well as four key case studies of peripheral European regions, Galicia, Apulia, Malopolska and Agder. By analysing these case studies, the authors offer advice on how to improve regional innovation policies and systems within a modern context, where smart specialisation dominates and competitiveness is increasingly relevant. EU studies, innovation and regional studies scholars will appreciate the blend of empirical evidence and theory. It will also be useful to policy-makers in charge of innovation policies at regional as well as EU level. Contributors include: C. Ares, A. Arrona, B.T. Asheim, E. Baier, C.A.M. del Carmen Sanchez-Carreira, I. Dileo, J. Gancarczyk, M. Gancarczyk, M. Gonzalez-Lopez, R. Hassink, A. Isaksen, J. Karlsen, R.N.S.S. J.P. Knudsen, M. Larrea, F. Losurdo, M. Najda-Janoszka, O. Rodil-Marzabal, S. Strickert, M. Trippl, P. Varela-Vazquez, X. Vence-Deza, A. Zenker

Focusing on English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) in the Arab Gulf states, the authors consider both sociolinguistic and pedagogical perspectives, and explore practical implications. This edited volume features chapters covering how teachers are negotiating the linguistic challenges posed by EMI; issues of ownership, choice and agency; the scaffolding of academic literacies; how to support the development of content teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in EMI settings as well as the benefits of a bilingual education. Chapter authors all have extensive local experience that they draw upon reflectively in their writing. Policy-makers, teachers and teacher educators wondering how they can best balance the need to develop competence in English in students of all ages on the Arabian Peninsula in a globalizing world, together with the concern to nurture Arabic language, culture and identity, will gain rich insights from this book. Postgraduates and researchers exploring issues surrounding EMI, both locally and internationally, will benefit from the arguments presented in this volume.

This book is a socio-legal study of counter-piracy. It takes as its case the law enforcement efforts after 2008 to suppress piracy off the coast of Somalia. Through ethnographic fieldwork, the book invites the reader onto a Danish warship patrolling the western Indian Ocean for piracy incidents and into the courtroom in Seychelles, where more than 150 suspects were prosecuted. The aim is to understand how counter-piracy worked in practice. The book uses assemblage theory to approach law as a social process and places emphasis on studying empirical enforcement practices over analysing legal provisions. This supplements existing scholarship on the legal aspects of counter-piracy. Scholarship has mainly examined applicable law governing counter-piracy. This book steps into the field to examine applied law. Its methodology renders visible areas of legal ambiguity and identifies practices which suggests impunity and questions legal certainty. It thus contributes with new policy-relevant knowledge for international security governance. The relevance is one of urgency. Counter-piracy off Somalia has served as a governance paradigm, which is replicated in other maritime domains. Consideration of the implications for policy is therefore needed. The book will be of interest to policy-makers, security practitioners and scholars, who share a methodological commitment to practice.

1. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Falkland/Malvinas War. 2. It is written by both Argentinian and Australian (one British born Australian) Scholars and rich in archival resources. 3. With the 40th Anniversary of the Falkland/Malvinas War in 2022 this book will be of interest to departments of Military history and British and Latin American History across UK.

This book examines the theme of human-animal interactions contextualized against the idea of the Anthropocene. Focused on China and its immediate Asian borderlands, this interdisciplinary collection provides a powerful and insightful analysis of the ecological challenges that mankind's traditional activities have created. Through in-depth case studies, each focusing on a particular human-animal dynamic, the book contextualises and advances the understanding of existing environmental and ecological problems faced by local communities in Asia. In particular, the book hopes to transcend the duality of the nature versus culture debate by locating animal-ecological problems in the behavior of human institutions, beliefs and practices, which are often affected by prevailing cultural proclivities, political ideologies, economic interests and scientific agendas. Through interrogation of theoretical concepts of Anthropocene and human-animal binary, the volume highlights the controversial debates that follows their usage as well as their empirical utility understanding human-animal interactions historically, thereby engaging a broader interdisciplinary conversation is increasingly links these two fields together. Providing a platform for discussion and dialogue for a wide audience, this book will appeal to students and scholars of environmental history and politics, anthropology, political science and policy studies, China studies and Asian studies more generally.

This book examines Gandhi's idea of Swaraj as an alternative to the modern concept of political authority. It also introduces the readers with Gandhi's ideas of moral interconnectedness and empathetic pluralism. It explores the Gandhian belief that 'nonviolence' as a moral and political concept is essentially the empowerment of the Other through spiritual and political realization of the self as a non-egocentric subject. Further, it highlights Swaraj as an act of conscience and therefore a transformative force, essential to the harmony between spirituality and politics. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics and South Asian Studies.

Zhou applies network governance theories to Chinese education and focuses on Chinese education policy implementation in particular with the Chinese Communist Party Schools (CCPS). The CCPS is the institution which follows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s ideas and decisions to educate key education leaders at all levels with different political purposes. In the Chinese education policy-making process, the CCP is the leading power which provides policy directions, but the education department is the main vehicle for delivery of education policy. Using document analysis and interviews, Zhou argues that an education policy implementation process can be successful from top to bottom level in cooperation with the education department. He further posits that the processes of formulating and implementing Chinese education policy can be characterised as a form of network governance, which coordinates actors and stakeholders' motivation to comply with collective decisions in Chinese education implementation. The book offers fresh data for the study of policy networks in Chinese education, the study of CCPS and Chinese network governance. This book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students studying Chinese education, comparative educational policy and comparative education research.

This book delves into the conceptual changes produced by the Spanish constitutional debate held between 27 August and 9 December 1931. Taking place at the beginning of Spain's Second Republic, those parliamentary deliberations brought about significant novelties in the political vocabulary. Concepts such as democracy, sovereignty, reform, revolution, and freedom, among others, were re-signified. This study investigates the conceptual contributions made by Spanish MPs in the course of the constitutional debate of 1931 by assuming, as a research approach, an interdisciplinary stance combining conceptual history, political theory, and parliamentary constitutional history. By doing so, it selects five determining issues: the pervasive discussion about two competing meanings of a democratic state; the rhetorical uses of reform and revolution; conceptual controversies about religious freedom; the disputed idea of property rights; and the functions of parliament and the president of the republic in a semi-presidential regime. The constitutional debate was largely inspired by interwar European constitutionalism which constituent representatives used to update the Spanish constitutional tradition. With that goal in mind, this book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students and scholars working in the fields of conceptual history, political philosophy, parliamentary history, European political history, and European constitutionalism.

This book investigates how extractive capitalism has developed over the past three decades, what dynamics of resistance have been deployed to combat it, and whether extractivism can ever be transformed into being a part of a progressive development path. It was not until the 21st century that the extraction of natural resources and raw materials took on a decidedly capitalist form, with the global north extracting primary commodities from the global south as a means of capital accumulation. This book investigates whether extractivism, despite its well-documented negative and destructive socioenvironmental impacts and the powerful forces of resistance that it has generated, could ever be transformed into a sustainable post-development strategy. Drawing on diverse sectoral forms of extractivism (mining, fossil fuels, agriculture), this book analyses the dynamics of both the forces of resistance generated by the advance of extractive capital and alternate scenarios for a more sustainable and liveable future. The book draws particularly on the Latin American experience, where both the propensity of capitalism towards crisis and the development of resistance dynamics to 'extractive' capital have had their greatest impact in the neoliberal era. This book will be of interest to researchers and students across development studies, economics, political economy, environmental studies, indigenous studies, and Latin American affairs.

This book examines the perplexing twists and turns in Syria-Iraq relations which since the establishment of modern Syria and Iraq after the First World War have zigzagged between cooperation and hostility countless times. It questions why both countries switched regional and international alliances, but never formed one of their own, and assesses the role played by structural forces such as geopolitics, ideology, and regime survival. It also argues that a key factor was the individual personalities - the agency role - of Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussain, both of whom had a monopoly of power, similar ambitions and leadership styles, and great mistrust of each other, with the result that they clashed. It goes on to show how both were caught between commitment to pan-Arabism and the imperative for regime survival, and how this led them both to weaken pan-Arabism instead and construct sectarian polarisation to ensure regime survival. The book concludes that their ruthless fight left a heavy legacy where in both countries regime survival overshadowed state consolidation and nation-building, with both countries divided into smaller communities of faiths and ethnicities at war with each other.

This book explores the relationships between artificial intelligence (AI) and education in China. It examines educational activity in the context of profound technological interventions, far-reaching national policy, and multifaceted cultural settings. By standing at the intersection of three foundational topics: AI and the recent proliferation of data-driven technologies; education, the most foundational of our social institutions in terms of actively shaping societies and individuals; and finally, China, which is a frequent subject for dramatic media reports about both technology and education, this book offers an insightful view of the contexts that underpin the use of AI in education, and promotes a more in-depth understanding of China. Scholars of educational technology and digital education will find this book an indispensable guide to the ways new technologies are imagined to transform the future, while being firmly grounded in the past.

This book scrutinizes the role of Hong Kong in the expansive, and contested, vision of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In two main sections, it first discusses the defining features of the BRI and the evolving expectations of the role of Hong Kong in the BRI from the perspectives of policy makers and the professional sectors of accountancy-finance and the law. The second section contemplates the potential opportunities for Hong Kong from the perspectives of recipient countries of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. Utilizing an action research approach and engaging the views of a broad spectrum of actors, the authors observe the critical role of agency and innovations in a context of institutional contradictions, the impact of BRI governance structure for the deficits in international participation, gaps between grand state visions and commercial interests, and the salience of effective communication in navigating complex policy initiatives. Taking these together unpacks the complex processes shaping Hong Kong's participation and role in the BRI. This book will appeal to students and researchers interested in the BRI and Hong Kong, in the contexts of institutional contradictions, agency innovations and political dynamics as well as sustainable development.

This Handbook provides the first in-depth analysis of non-violent extremism across different ideologies and geographic centres, a topic overshadowed until now by the political and academic focus on violent and jihadi extremism in the Global North. Whilst acknowledging the potentiality of non-violent extremism as a precursor to terrorism, this Handbook argues that non-violent extremism ought to be considered a stand-alone area of study. Focusing on Islamist, Buddhist, Hindu, far-right, far-left, environmentalist and feminist manifestations, the Handbook discusses the ideological foundation of their 'war on ideas' against the prevailing socio-political and cultural systems in which they operate, and provides an empirical examination of their main claims and perspectives. This is supplemented by a truly global overview of non-violent extremist groups not only in Europe and the United States, but also in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Middle East. The Handbook thus answers a call to decolonise knowledge that is especially prescient given both the complicity of non-violent extremists with authoritarian states and the dynamic of oppression towards more progressive groups in the Global South. The Handbook will appeal to those studying extremism, radicalisation and terrorism and intersects several relevant disciplines, including social movement studies, political science, criminology, Islamic studies and anthropology.

The devastating effect of Covid19 on the Indian economy is by now well-known. The growth rate of the economy slumped to a negative figure in the year 2020-21. What is less talked about, however, is the fact that growth slowdown in India had started several years before the pandemic struck. The two questions that naturally arise are: what explains the long economic slowdown and what can be done about it. This book is an in-depth analysis of the economic slowdown in India in recent years and the reasons behind the persistent slowdown in the growth rate of the Indian economy in the 2010s, especially in the latter half of the decade. While discussing both macro- and microeconomic policies, the volume examines how the perspective on economic policy has evolved over time in consonance with experience by investigating major instances of such slowdowns in the past. Three global slowdowns (viz. the Great Depression of 1929, the stagflation induced by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007) and the industrial deceleration in India in the late 1960s and early 1970s are discussed. The author also probes into the problems of inequality, poverty, inflation in the Indian economy pre- and post- pandemic and policies targeted towards development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines. The book further discusses possible economic impacts of the Ukraine War and the long-term problem of global warming. Concise and thoroughly researched, this book will be of interest to beginners, scholars, research students and teachers interested in economics, policy making and development studies.

This book explores how cities are shaped by the lived experiences of inhabitants and examines the ways they develop strategies to cope with daily and unexpected challenges. It argues that migration, livelihood, and public health challenges result from inadequacies in the hard city-urban assets, such as land, infrastructure and housing, and asserts that these challenges and escalating vulnerabilities are best negotiated using the soft city-social capital and community networks. In so doing, the authors criticise a singular knowledge system and argue for a granular, nuanced understanding of cities-of the interrelations between people in places, everyday urbanisms, social relationships, cultural practices and histories. The volume presents perspectives from the Global South and the Global North, and engages with city-specific cases from Africa, India and Europe for a deeper understanding of resilience. Part of the Urban Futures series, it will be of great interest to students and researchers of urban studies, urban planning, urban management, architecture, urban sociology, urban design, ecology, conservation, and urban sustainability. It will also be useful for urbanists, architects, urban sociologists, city and town planners and those interested in a deeper understanding of the contemporary and future city.

Politics and Government in South Africa introduces readers to all aspects of government and politics in South Africa, from local, to provincial, national, and on to international considerations. The perfect guide for students and general readers, this textbook explains how South Africa's key institutions are governed and interact with each other, and how important issues such as economics, gender, race, and class shape relations between citizens and government. Grounded in history and leading theories and debates, the book also brings in alternative perspectives from artists, writers, and popular culture, to demonstrate the diverse ways in which issues of politics and social justice are engaged with within South Africa. Written with the needs of students at the forefront, each chapter includes: Review and discussion questions Key terms and further resources Fun facts in a Did you know? section Supplementary sources and quotations in a The Past as Present section Interactive and engaging, Politics and Government in South Africa invites readers to consider what they would do in tackling issues such as land distribution, peacekeeping, South Africa's role in the African Union, and military engagement abroad. It is an essential read for undergraduate students studying Political Science, International Relations, and African Studies, and for anyone looking to develop a deeper understanding of South Africa.