Adoption is currently subject to a great deal of media scrutiny. High-profile cases of international adoption via the internet and other unofficial routes, have drawn attention to the relative ease with which children can be obtained on the global circuit, and have brought about legislation which regulates the exchange of children within and between countries. However a scarcity of research into cross-cultural attitudes to child-rearing, and a wider lack of awareness of cultural difference in adoptive contexts, has meant that the assumptions underlying Western childcare policy are seldom examined or made explicit.

These articles look at adoption practices from Africa, Oceania, Asia and Central America, including examples of societies in which children are routinely separated from their biological parents or passed through several foster families. Showing the range and flexibility of the child-rearing practices that approximate to the Western term 'adoption', they demonstrate the benefits of a cross-cultural appreciation of family life, and allow a broader understanding of the varied relationships that exist between children and adoptive parents.

"When everybody thinks alike, everyone is likely to be wrong." The ten words quoted above are, according to Humphrey B. Neill, a potent factor behind the economic booms and busts that blight our civilization. The "Mississippi Bubble," Holland's incredible "Tulipmania" and the New York stock market crash of 1929 are historic examples of disasters magnified and hastened by the pressure of mass opinion. Neill describes these occurrences in detail and tells the reader how to avoid and recognize the dangers that "following the pack" can pose to the discerning investor.

Culture is a concept that has remained on the top of the agenda within the social sciences for two decades. It incites controversy and debate and always appears fresh. This book, updated throughout and with new sections on visual culture, urban culture and subcultures, argues that to understand the concept we need to locate it within traditions of thought and appreciate its political and ideological bases. The book looks at the concept of culture in the context of idealism and materialism, examining its relation to the notion of social structure and assessing its once assumed monopoly within literary study.
Culture remains stimulating throughout. A standard reference text for students on sociology and cultural studies courses, this second concise and student-friendly edition offers an overview over the sociology of culture in an accessible format.

Since 1986, the British government, faced with dwindling budgets and growing calls for public accountability, has sought to assess the value of scholarly work in the nation's universities. Administrators have periodically evaluated the research of most full-time academics employed in British universities, seeking to distribute increasingly scarce funding to those who use it best. How do such attempts to quantify the worth of knowledge change the nature of scholarship? Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra examines the effects of quantitative research evaluations on British social scientists, arguing that the mission to measure academic excellence resulted in less diversity and more disciplinary conformity. Combining interviews and original computational analyses, The Quantified Scholar provides a compelling account of how scores, metrics, and standardized research evaluations altered the incentives of scientists and administrators by rewarding forms of scholarship that were closer to established disciplinary canons. In doing so, research evaluations amplified publication hierarchies and long-standing forms of academic prestige to the detriment of diversity. Slowly but surely, they reshaped academic departments, the interests of scholars, the organization of disciplines, and the employment conditions of researchers. Critiquing the effects of quantification on the workplace, this book also presents alternatives to existing forms of evaluation, calling for new forms of vocational solidarity that can challenge entrenched inequality in academia.

The soil is a fundamental constituent of the Earth's system, maintaining a careful state of equilibrium within the biosphere. However, this natural balance is being increasingly disturbed by a variety of anthropogenic and natural processes, leading to the degradation of many soil environments. Soil Management provides a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the many problems, challenges and potential solutions facing soil management in the twenty-first century. Covering a range of topics, including erosion, desertification, salinization, soil structure, carbon sequestration, acidification and chemical pollution, the book also develops a prognosis for the future of soil management in the face of growing populations and global warming. Written with the needs of students in mind, each chapter provides a broad overview of a problem, analyses approaches to its solution and concludes with references and suggestions for further reading. Soil Management will be of great value to environmental science and geography undergraduates taking soil management courses in their second or third year.

In this innovative book, theorists and researchers from various social science disciplines explore the potential of realist social theory for empirical research. The examples are drawn from a wide range of fields health and medicine, crime, housing, sociolinguistics, development theory and deal with issues such as causality, probability, and reflexivity in social science. Varied and lively contributions relate central methodological issues to detailed accounts of research projects which adopt a realist framework. Making Realism Work provides an accessible discussion of a significant current in contemporary social science and will be of interest to social theorists and social researchers alike.

With a fascinating new introduction on the proliferation and development of the field of whiteness studies and updated essays throughout, this much-anticipated second ddition continues to redefine our understanding of race and society. Also inlcludes three maps.

Emile Durkheim is regarded as a founding father of sociology, and is studied in all basic sociology courses. There is, however, a distinct lack of a handy textbook to provide a satisfactory collection of the key passages from Durkheim's work. Kenneth Thompson makes good that gap in the literature, providing a collection of modern and reliable translations from the sociologist's major works, De la division du travail social (1893), Les regales de la methode sociologique (1895), Le suicide (1897) and Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse (1912). The text, a useful reference with in-depth coverage, will have a wide appeal to students of sociology at all levels.

With a fascinating new introduction on the proliferation and development of the field of whiteness studies and updated essays throughout, this much-anticipated second ddition continues to redefine our understanding of race and society. Also inlcludes three maps.

Emile Durkheim is regarded as a founding father of sociology, and is studied in all basic sociology courses. There is, however, a distinct lack of a handy textbook to provide a satisfactory collection of the key passages from Durkheim's work. Kenneth Thompson makes good that gap in the literature, providing a collection of modern and reliable translations from the sociologist's major works, De la division du travail social (1893), Les regales de la methode sociologique (1895), Le suicide (1897) and Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse (1912). The text, a useful reference with in-depth coverage, will have a wide appeal to students of sociology at all levels."

During an election speech in 1957 the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, famously remarked that 'most of our people have never had it so good'. Although taken out of context, this phrase soon came to epitomize the sense of increased affluence and social progress that was prevalent in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, despite the recognition that Britain had moved away from an era of rationing and scarcity, to a new age of choice and plenty, there was simultaneously a parallel feeling that the nation was in decline and being economically outstripped by its international competitors. Whilst the study of Britain's postwar history is a well-trodden path, and the paradox of absolute growth versus relative decline much debated, it is here approached in a fresh and rewarding way. Rather than highlighting economic and industrial 'decline', this volume emphasizes the tremendous impact of rising affluence and consumerism on British society. It explores various expressions of affluence: new consumer goods; shifting social and cultural values; changes in popular expectations of policy; shifting popular political behaviour; changing attitudes of politicians towards the electorate; and the representation of affluence in popular culture and advertising. By focusing on the widespread cultural consequences of increasing levels of consumerism, emphasizing growth over decline and recognizing the rising standards of living enjoyed by most Britons, a new and intriguing window is opened on the complexities of this 'golden age'. Contrasting growing consumer expectations and demands against the anxieties of politicians and economists, this book offers all students of the period a new perspective from which to view post-imperial Britain and to question many conventional historical assumptions.

In the rural immigrant community of Istanbul, poor women spend up to fifty hours a week producing goods for export, yet deny that they actually 'work'. Money Makes Us Relatives asks why Turkish society devalues women's work, concealing its existence while creating a vast pool of cheap labor for the world market. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among family producers and pieceworkers, and using fascinating case studies throughout, Jenny B. White shows how women's paid work is viewed in terms of kinship relations of reciprocity and obligation - an extension of domestic work for the family, which is culturally valued but poorly compensated. Whilst offering the benefits of social identity and long-term security, women's work also reflects global capitalism's ability to capture local cultural norms, and to use these to lower production costs and create exploitative conditions.
This fully revised second edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated references, comparative material on women's labor elsewhere in the world, and brand new material on Islam, globalization, gender and Turkish family life. It is an important contribution to debates about women's participation in late global capitalism.

In the rural immigrant community of Istanbul, poor women spend up to fifty hours a week producing goods for export, yet deny that they actually 'work'. Money Makes Us Relatives asks why Turkish society devalues women's work, concealing its existence while creating a vast pool of cheap labor for the world market. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among family producers and pieceworkers, and using fascinating case studies throughout, Jenny B. White shows how women's paid work is viewed in terms of kinship relations of reciprocity and obligation - an extension of domestic work for the family, which is culturally valued but poorly compensated. Whilst offering the benefits of social identity and long-term security, women's work also reflects global capitalism's ability to capture local cultural norms, and to use these to lower production costs and create exploitative conditions.
This fully revised second edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated references, comparative material on women's labor elsewhere in the world, and brand new material on Islam, globalization, gender and Turkish family life. It is an important contribution to debates about women's participation in late global capitalism.

For nearly half a century, social scientists have made claims that there is a "therapeutic ethos" with extensive influence upon numerous aspects of American society. In Therapeutic Culture, twelve authors address the implications of this ethos and its effects on a wide range of social institutions, extending from the family to schools, and operating in religious behavior and within the legal system. Has there been, as the sociological theorist Philip Rieff argued in 1966, a "triumph of the therapeutic?" If so, in what kinds of institutions has it been most pervasive? At the same time, what aspects of modern culture has it replaced or defeated? Therapeutic Culture addresses these questions, and raises others. Part 1 of this volume examines the emergence of the idea of "authenticity" as it defines the manipulation of emotions and behavior both in the United States and Great Britain. Contributors include Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Frank Furedi, Jonathan B. Imber, and Alan Woolfolk. Part 2 illustrates specific cases of the effects of therapeutic culture within institutions, including courts, schools, religious communities, and the "virtual community" of the Internet. Contributors include James L. Nolan, Jr., John Steadman Rice, Felicia Wu Song, and James Tucker. Part 3 extends the analyses of specific social institutions to the broader consequences that have resulted as a therapeutic ethos has taken root in contemporary life. Contributors include Digby Anderson, Ellen Herman, and James Davison Hunter. Part 4 is devoted to a previously unpublished essay by Philip Rieff whose significant influence can be seen in many of the contributions. Rieff revisits the highly controversial confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 and offers ample evidence of the therapeutic uses of politics as well as the political manipulations available within a therapeutic culture to provide a fitting conclusion. This volume establishes a benchmark for further theoretical reflection and empirical research on the nature of therapeutic culture. It will be of interest to sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and cultural studies specialists. Jonathan B. Imber is editor-in-chief of Society and Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics and professor of sociology at Wellesley College.

Documentary sources have become increasingly neglected in education and the social sciences. This book seeks to emphasise their potential value and importance for an understanding of modern societies, while also recognising their limitations, and explores their relationship with other research strategies.
This up-to-date examination of how to research and use documents analyzes texts from the past and present, considering sources ranging from personal archives to online documents and including books, reports, official documents, works of fiction and printed media.
This comprehensive analysis of the use of documents in research includes sections covering:
* analysing documents
* legal frameworks and ethical issues
* records and archives
* printed media and literature
* diaries, letters and autobiographies.

Visual methods such as drawing, painting, video, photography and hypermedia offer increasingly accessible and popular resources for ethnographic research. In Working Images, prominent visual anthropologists and artists explore how old and new visual media can be integrated into contemporary forms of research and representation. Drawing upon projects undertaken both 'at home' in their native countries and abroad in locations such as Ethopia and Venezuela, the book's contributors demonstrate how visual methods are used in the field, and how these methods can produce and communicate knowledge about our own and other cultures. As well as focusing on key issues such as ethics and the relationship between word and image, they emphasize the huge range of visual methods currently opening up new possibilities for field research, from cartoons and graphic art to new media such as digital video and online technologies.

Visual methods such as drawing, painting, video, photography and hypermedia offer increasingly accessible and popular resources for ethnographic research. In Working Images, prominent visual anthropologists and artists explore how old and new visual media can be integrated into contemporary forms of research and representation. Drawing upon projects undertaken both 'at home' in their native countries and abroad in locations such as Ethopia and Venezuela, the book's contributors demonstrate how visual methods are used in the field, and how these methods can produce and communicate knowledge about our own and other cultures. As well as focusing on key issues such as ethics and the relationship between word and image, they emphasize the huge range of visual methods currently opening up new possibilities for field research, from cartoons and graphic art to new media such as digital video and online technologies.

In his 1989 book, Fast Capitalism, Ben Agger presented a framework for understanding late-20th century social problems. Speeding Up Fast Capitalism, a sequel to his earlier book, assesses social changes since the end of the 1980s brought about by information technologies such as the Internet, which have quickened the pace of everyday life. In Speeding Up Fast Capitalism, Agger assesses the impact of the Internet on consciousness, communication, culture and community, and evaluates the prospects of democratic social change. Where the earlier book was largely theoretical, Speeding Up applies critical theory to specific topics such as Internet culture, work, families, childhood, schooling, food, the body, and fitness. Although indebted to Fast Capitalism, the sequel appeals to an audience wider than theorists, including empirical sociologists, social scientists, and scholars in cultural disciplines.

In his 1989 book, Fast Capitalism, Ben Agger presented a framework for understanding late-20th century social problems. Speeding Up Fast Capitalism, a sequel to his earlier book, assesses social changes since the end of the 1980s brought about by information technologies such as the Internet, which have quickened the pace of everyday life. In Speeding Up Fast Capitalism, Agger assesses the impact of the Internet on consciousness, communication, culture and community, and evaluates the prospects of democratic social change. Where the earlier book was largely theoretical, Speeding Up applies critical theory to specific topics such as Internet culture, work, families, childhood, schooling, food, the body, and fitness. Although indebted to Fast Capitalism, the sequel appeals to an audience wider than theorists, including empirical sociologists, social scientists, and scholars in cultural disciplines.

For more than a decade, Algeria has been experiencing one of the most difficult periods in its post-independence history. Throughout, attempts have been made at political and economic reforms. And until recently, the conduct of these structural reforms proved very slow and of limited scale. The end result has is a multidimensional crisis represented by a paralysed political system, a stagnant economy and deteriorating social conditions. Aware of the implications of being left behind, in a world characterised by increasing globalisation, the new leadership (from 1999) has voiced its strong commitment to continue and deepen the process of restructuring and pledged its determination to speed up its implementation as well. This marks a significant departure from former policies. Algeria in Transition surveys what has been achieved since; what remains to be done; and the challenges lying ahead. It addresses key issues - ranging from political reforms and stability, external relations, social conditions to integration in the world economy - facing Algeria during this phase of transition to democratic rule and market economy. This book, by providing an up-to-date, systematic analytical ac

The beauty industry is now a multinational, multi-million dollar business. In recent years its place in contemporary culture has altered hugely as salons have become not simply places to have your hair cut or your nails done, but increasingly sites of physical and even spiritual therapy.

In this fascinating and nuanced study, Paula Black strips away many popular assumptions about the beauty industry, including the one that says it exploits people's insecurity by projecting an illusory beauty myth. The interviews in this book - both with the beauty industry's workers and its clients - reveal a far more complex and interesting picture, and, in their presentation, Black re-formulates many feminist debates around choice and constraint.

The debates addressed include issues around the body; the construction and maintenance of gender identity; changing definitions of health and well-being; and labour processes.

As global society becomes more and more dependent, politically and economically, on the flow of information, the power of those who can disrupt and manipulate that flow also increases. In Hacktivism and Cyberwars Tim Jordan and Paul Taylor provide a detailed history of hacktivism's evolution from early hacking culture to its present day status as the radical face of online politics. They describe the ways in which hacktivism has re-appropriated hacking techniques to create an innovative new form of political protest. A full explanation is given of the different strands of hacktivism and the 'cyberwars' it has created, ranging from such avant garde groups as the Electronic Disturbance Theatre to more virtually focused groups labelled 'The Digitally Correct'. The full social and historical context of hacktivism is portrayed to take into account its position in terms of new social movements, direct action and its contribution to the globalization debate. This book provides an important corrective flip-side to mainstream accounts of E-commerce and broadens the conceptualization of the internet to take into full account the other side of the digital divide.

A Guide to Imagework is a pioneering guide to a new trend in ethnographic research: the use of imaginative, experiential methods such as dreamwork, artwork, Gestalt theory and psychodrama. Originating in group counselling and psychiatric therapy, imagework techniques explore subjects' imaginative resources to reveal unconscious knowledge about identity, belief and society. They are ideal for accessing rich qualitative data about how individuals and cultures function. Iain Edgar, a leading specialist on ethnographic method, has condensed top-level research theory on imagework into this handy practical manual. Complete with case studies and examples, hands-on tips and guidance on methods and ethics, it is an ideal starting point for any imagework project.

This book explores the possible consequences of the events of 11 September 2001, and of the 'fight against terrorism', the way peace operations are perceived and conducted, and the way that states, international organizations such as NATO or the EU and non-state actors, consider these operations.
The 11 September attacks illustrate the widening of the security agenda, the persistence of instability and the need to deal with it in both a preventive and a curative way. The events have had a major impact on US foreign and defence policies, on security policies, on the hierarchy of priorities, and US views of peace operations around the world.
This book shows that these different elements mean that the 'international' environment of peace operations is likely to be modified, while the 'local' environment has remained largely unchanged.

Many studies of the origins of National Socialism claim that the "volkisch" and proto-Nazi movement arose largely as a reaction to the materialistic ideas of nineteenth-century science and especially to the naturalistic philosophy of Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. Using hitherto unexplored material, Daniel Gasman calls this generalization into question. Arguing that the importance of science has been relatively neglected in accounts of the intellectual origins of Nazism, he attempts to show that Haeckel's "scientific" Darwinism, and his movement, the German Monist League, were proto-Nazi in character. Contrary to popular belief, Haeckel's type of social Darwinism actually played a critical role in the formation of National Socialist ideology. In his new introduction, Gasman notes that recent research goes far to confirm Haeckel's role as an ideological progenitor of fascist ideology. This is true not only for Germany, but also for the birth of fascist thought in Italy and France. In general, Gasman claims, the history of science plainly reveals how Haeckel's social Darwinism nourished the roots of fascism no less than avant-garde modernism. When "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism" initially appeared, the "Times Literary Supplement" called it a "very well-argued thesis... that is completely successful... and leaves the reader to extract his own moral lessons." "Medical History," in its review of "The Scientific Origins of National Socialism," said, "His book is essential for understanding modern Germany. It has a general message derived from the events in Germany, where scientific data were permitted to take on a mystical signficiance... with ghastly consequences." Bruce Chatwin, in the "New York Review of Books," called the book "brilliant." Now available in paperback, with a new introduction by the author, this seminal work will be of interest to intellectual historians, as well as those interested in twentieth-century Europe.