This book showcases recent work about reading and books in sociology and the humanities across the globe. From different standpoints and within the broad perspectives within the cultural sociology of reading, the eighteen chapters examine a range of reading practices, genres, types of texts, and reading spaces. They cover the Anglophone area of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia; the transnational, multilingual space constituted by the readership of the Colombian novel One Hundred Years of Solitude; nineteenth-century Chile; twentieth-century Czech Republic; twentieth century Swahili readings in East Africa; contemporary Iran; and China during the cultural revolution and the post-Mao period. The chapters contribute to current debates about the valuation of literature and the role of cultural intermediaries; the iconic properties of textual objects and of the practice of reading itself; how reading supports personal, social and political reflection; bookstores as spaces for sociability and the interplay of high and commercial cultures; the political uses of reading for nation-building and propaganda, and the dangers and gratifications of reading under repression. In line with the cultural sociology of reading's focus on meaning, materiality and emotion, this book explores the existential, ethical and political consequences of reading in specific locations and historical moments.

In most countries around the world, women continue to lag behind men in an array of political orientations and activities. Understanding why this is the case and why some countries have been more successful than others at moderating gender gaps in political involvement is imperative for producing stronger and more representative democracies. Cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors explain some of the gender gaps in political involvement, but not all of them. In this book, the authors argue that electoral institutions attenuate gender gaps in mass political engagement and participation by drawing women, an 'undertapped' constituency, into the democratic process. Using cross-national and country-specific analyses, the authors show that electoral institutions play a complementary and significant role in reducing gender gaps in political involvement. The cross-national analyses draw on comparative survey data from a wide range and large number of countries. The case studies draw out the processes underlying changes in political attitudes and behaviors with evidence from four country studies: New Zealand, Russia, France, and Uruguay. All four countries have altered their electoral institutions, either through large-scale reform of the electoral system itself or adopting gender quotas, allowing the authors to examine patterns of political involvement pre- and post-reform. The book finds that inclusive electoral systems that produce more proportional electoral outcomes have larger effects on women's political engagement and participation than on men's. Gender quotas also mediate women's engagement and participation, but to a lesser degree. On the whole, the book concludes that electoral rules designed to promote social inclusion in parliament are critical for promoting social group inclusion among the electorate. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics Series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

This Open Access book examines the implications of welfare policy for energy poverty and engages with key conceptual debates at the forefront of energy demand research. Academic work on energy poverty has rarely been brought into conversation with practice-theory-based approaches to energy use and sustainability. This book reveals how novel insights can be made visible through combining these different ways of thinking about energy demand issues. It presents a distinctive approach to energy poverty that places inequalities at the heart of debates about the advancing energy intensity of contemporary societies.

This book examines the nature and internal dynamics of China's urban construction land (UCL) development, drawing insights from the recently developed theory of regional political ecology. Based on the author's original research, it identifies two different types of UCL development in China, namely top-down, formal development in the legal and regulated domain, and spontaneous and informal, bottom-up development in the semi-legal, poorly regulated gray domain. Presenting a systematic analysis and comparison, it reveals a scale and speed of informal land development no less significant than that of formal land development, although informal land development tends to be scattered, pervasive, difficult to track, and largely overlooked in research and policy formation. Contrary to the popular perception of the peasantry as passive victims of land development, this book uncovers an intriguing dynamic in which the peasantry has played an increasingly (pro)active role in developing their rural land for urban uses in informal markets. Further, based on an investigation of UCL development in Beijing and Shenzhen, it shows an interesting trajectory in which the uneven growth and utilization of UCL are contingent upon the various developmental milieus in different places. China's land institutions, based on an urban-rural dual land system, are not conducive to the ultimate goal of saving and efficiently utilizing land. Accordingly, an urban-rural integrated land market and management system is highly advisable. The theoretical and empirical enquiry presented challenges the perceived notion of China's UCL development as the outcome of market demand and state supply. Further, it argues for an inclusive treatment of the informality that has characterized urbanization in many developing countries, and for a reassessment of the role played by the peasantry in land-based urbanization.

Our world is becoming ever more data-driven, transforming how business is conducted, governance enacted, and knowledge produced. Yet, the nature of data and the scope and implications of the changes taking place are not always clear. The Data Revolution is a must read for anyone interested in why data have become so important in the contemporary era. Thoroughly updated, including ten new chapters, the book provides an accessible and comprehensive: introduction to thinking conceptually about the nature of data and the field of critical data studies overview of big data, open data and data infrastructures analysis of the utility and value of big and open data for research, business, government and civil society assessment of the concerns and risks in a data-driven world and how to prevent and mitigate them.

The book analyzes the impact of urban movements on government and public policies in a context of rapid urban transformations, public policy crises and increasing social inequalities. The essays show how the impact of the movements is increasing and has effects both in the orientation of the policies, as in their form of management and its effects. The authors are leading scholars from universities and research centers in Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The concept of "chaos", and chaos theory, though it is a field of study specifically in the field of mathematics with applications in physics, engineering, economics, management, and education, has also recently taken root in the social sciences. As a method of analyzing the way in which the digital age has connected society more than ever, chaos and complexity theory serves as a tactic to tie world events and cope with the information overload that is associated with heightened social connectivity. The Handbook of Research on Chaos and Complexity Theory in the Social Sciences explores the theories of chaos and complexity as applied to a variety of disciplines including political science, organizational and management science, economics, and education. Presenting diverse research-based perspectives on mathematical patterns in the world system, this publication is an essential reference source for scholars, researchers, mathematicians, social theorists, and graduate-level students in a variety of disciplines.

This volume made an important contribution to the growing literature on the transition from school to work. It provides a different perspective on the global changes that have transformed school-to-work transitions since the 1970s; offers an integrative conceptual framework for analysis; and promotes a comparative, cross-national understanding of school-to-work transitions in a changing social context. The articles assembled in this volume compare and assess variations in school-to-work transitions across Europe and North America, providing empirical evidence on how young people negotiate the different options and opportunities available and assessing the costs and returns associated with different transition strategies. Unlike many other volumes on this subject - which are pitched at either the macro or micro level - this volume attempts to integrate both perspectives, capturing the complexity of this critical life course transition. Furthermore, the authors address policies aimed at improving the capacity of individuals to make effective transitions and at enabling societies to better coordinate educational and occupational institutions.

Making of the Future is the first English?language coverage of the new methodological perspective in cultural psychology-TEA (Trajectory Equifinality Approach) that was established in 2004 as a collaboration of Japanese and American cultural psychologists. In the decade that follows it has become a guiding approach for cultural psychology all over the World. Its central feature is the reliance on irreversible time as the basis for understanding of cultural phenomena and the consideration of real and imaginary options in human life course as relevant for the construction of personal futures. The book is expected to be of interest in researchers and practitioners in education, developmental and social psychology, developmental sociology and history. It has extensions for research methodology in the focus on different sampling strategies.

Domestic Violence "You Are Not Alone" was written to inform individuals on what Domestic Violence is, the warning signs, risk factors and how it affects the whole family. The book also discuss prevention methods and developing an escape plan. Through experience and education this is a practical book on the dynamics of Domestic Violence

The matsutake mushroom continues to be a highly sought delicacy, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. Matsutake Worlds explores this mushroom through the lens of multi-species encounters centered around the matsutake's notorious elusiveness. The mushroom's success, the contributors of this volume argue, cannot be accounted for by any one cultural, social, political, or economic process. Rather, the matsutake mushroom has flourished as the result of a number of different processes and dynamics, culminating in the culinary institution we know today.

Do computers foster cultural diversity? Ecological sustainability? In our age of high-tech euphoria we seem content to leave tough questions like these to the experts. That dangerous inclination is at the heart of this important examination of the commercial and educational trends that have left us so uncritically optimistic about global computing. Contrary to the attitudes that have been marketed and taught to us, says C. A. Bowers, the fact is that computers operate on a set of Western cultural assumptions and a market economy that drives consumption. Our indoctrination includes the view of global computing innovations as inevitable and on a par with social progress--a perspective dismayingly suggestive of the mindset that engendered the vast cultural and ecological disruptions of the industrial revolution and world colonialism. In Let Them Eat Data Bowers discusses important issues that have fallen into the gap between our perceptions and the realities of global computing, including the misuse of the theory of evolution to justify and legitimate the global spread of computers, and the ecological and cultural implications of unmooring knowledge from its local contexts as it is digitized, commodified, and packaged for global consumption. He also suggests ways that educators can help us think more critically about technology. Let Them Eat Data is essential reading if we are to begin democratizing technological decisions, conserving true cultural diversity and intergenerational forms of knowledge, and living within the limits and possibilities of the earth's natural systems.

The goal of sustainable development is to meet the socio-economic and environmental objectives without comprising the needs of future generations. Since the Rio Summit of 1992, the concept of sustainability has captured our imaginations and aspirations and efforts to develop its indicators have increased. A range of sustainability indicators have been developed within various socio-economic, environmental and cultural contexts- including biodiversity, economy, energy, water, land use and transport. Sustainability indicators are widespread in international development arena. They have become popularized among governments, non-governmental organizations, private sector and the wider public. Based on multiple cases across the world, this book explores opportunities and challenges associated with the practical application of sustainability indicators. The book reflects diversity of professionals of inter-disciplinary backgrounds covering contemporary issues within different socio-economic and environmental contexts. Each chapter presents practical examples of the merits and challenges of using sustainability indicators and draws conclusions and lessons learned. The book targets a range of audience from students, academics to development practitioners and policy-makers. The two editors of this book: Dr. Agnieszka Ewa Latawiec and Dr. Dorice Agol are inter-disciplinary scientists who both have experience in research at the environmental conservation and development nexus.

How does a society absorbed in short-term self-interest, group think, moral confusion, and the cowboy problem change itself?
In a coffee shop, my friend Dave asked about title of the book I was editing.
When I told him, his eyes opened wide and he smiled.
"What does that mean to you?" I asked.
"Lenin was a revolutionary, a visionary " he answered, "but you're proposing a different way to do that."
"That's it," I exclaimed. "You're the person I'm writing this for. You get it "
He thought a moment and summed up the book: "You take us on a psychological walking tour through the processes that will bring global change."
The processes are ways people connect, think together, work in groups, and apply their effort to the needs of humans and other living things.

This book analyses Muslim integration into English society from the 1960s to the 1990s. The author argues that, contrary to common narratives built around a sudden transformation during the Rushdie affair, religious identity was of great importance to English Muslims throughout this period. The study also considers what the experiences of Muslim communities tell us about British multiculturalism. With chapters which consider English Muslim experiences in education, employment, and social services, British multiculturalism is shown to be a capacious artifice, variegated across and within localities and resistant to periodization. It is understood as positing separate ethnic communities, and serving these communities with special provisions aimed ultimately at integration. It is argued moreover to have developed its own momentum, limiting the efficacy of 21st century "backlashes" against it. Muslim Communities in England 1962-90 will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, history and politics.

This book examines a performative environmental educational inquiry through a place-based eco-art project collaboratively undertaken with a class of grade 4-6 students around the lost streams of Vancouver. The resulting work explores the contradictions gathered in relation to the Western educational system and the encounter with "Other" (real and imaginary others), including the shifting and growing "self," and an attempt to find and foster nourishing alliances for transforming environmental education. Drawing on the work of new materialist theorists Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, and Karen Barad, Adsit-Morris considers the co-constitutive materiality of human corporeality and nonhuman natures and provides useful tools for finding creative theoretical alternatives to the reductionist, representationalist, and dualistic practices of the Western metaphysics.

Harold Innis (1894 - 1952) was a brilliant original thinker and professor of political economy at the University of Toronto. He is known for his seminal works on media, communication theory and Canadian economic history. Innis's great mind exposed the role of media in shaping the culture and the development of civilizations. For instance, he argued that a balance between oral and written forms of communication enabled the flourishing of the Greek civilization in the 5th century BC. He was extremely concerned about the destructive effect of powerful, advertising-driven media, preoccupied with "present-mindedness" and the "continuous, systematic, ruthless destruction of elements of permanence essential to cultural activity." This book features three of his essays: "The Strategy of Culture," "The Military Implications of the American Constitution" and "Roman Law and the British Empire."

This book focuses on Shine, a musical performance about how energy, humanity, and climate are interrelated. Weaving together climate science and artistic expression, it results in a funny and powerful story spanning 300 million years. The first half is professionally scripted, composed, and choreographed to convey how our use of fossil fuels is impacting our climate. The second half - our future story - is authored by local youth to generate solutions for their city's resilience. In rehearsing the musical, participants themselves embody aspects of climate science and human development. Ultimately, it demonstrates that performance can be a dynamic tool for youth to contribute to their community's resilience. Educators can use this book to guide youth in creative expression based on (or inspired by) Shine. Included are the script, links to the music and video of the performance, materials for building curricula, interviews with collaborators, and lessons learned along Shine's year-long international tour.

This book seeks to unravel the changes in rural governance sparked by state-led programs, evaluate the programs' implementation, and refine the interpretation of governance theory with new empirical material from rural China. When it comes to rural issues in contemporary China, there is no shortage of national strategies: from "Coordinating Urban-Rural Development" in 2003 to "Rural Revitalization" in 2017, the rejuvenation of the countryside has attracted unprecedented policy interest. At the same time, rural governance has been subject to significant political, social and economic changes. However, comparatively little research has been conducted on the phenomenal reconnection between the state and rural society, and our previous understanding of rural governance is no longer adequate. As a result of the programs, a new model of governance is now emerging in rural China. The programs have accelerated the formation of state-private-farmer partnerships, while also promoting the participation of grassroots society in rural reconstruction. In the initial stage, the state's role is important to securing non-governmental sectors' engagement. However, this does not mean that the model guarantees sustainable governance: in terms of land tenure reform, infrastructure investment, and subsidies, the programs merely empower farmers and other stakeholders to engage in rural reconstruction. The success of these reconstruction efforts ultimately depends on a suitable pricing mechanism for public goods provision, as well as the self-organization of grassroots society.

How can we engage in a market relationship when the quality of the goods we want to acquire is unknown, invisible, or uncertain? For market exchange to be possible, purchasers and suppliers of goods must be able to assess the quality of a product in relation to other products. Only by recognizing qualities and perceiving quality differences can purchasers make non-random choices, and price differences between goods be justified. "Quality" is not a natural given, but the outcome of a social process in which products become seen as possessing certain traits, and occupying a specific position in relation to other products in the product space. While we normally take the quality of goods for granted, quality at a closer look is the outcome of a highly complex process of construction involving producers, consumers, and market intermediaries engaged in judgment, evaluation, categorization, and measurement. The authors in this volume investigate the processes through which the quality of goods is established. They also investigate how product qualities are contested and how they change over time. The empirical cases discussed cover a broad range of markets in which quality is especially difficult to assess. The cases include: halal food, funeral markets, wine, labor, school choice, financial products, antiques, and counterfeit goods. The book contributes to the sociology of markets. At the same time it connects to the larger issue of the constitution of social order through cognitive processes of classification.

Bring the spark back into your bedroom and your relationship with gutsy and effective advice from bestselling author Michele Weiner Davis.

It is estimated that one of every three married couples struggles with problems associated with mismatched sexual desire. Do you? If you want to stop fighting about sex and revitalize your intimate connection with your spouse, then you need this book. In "The Sex-Starved Marriage," bestselling author Michele Weiner Davis will help you understand why being complacent or bitter about ho-hum sex might cost you your relationship.

Full of moving firsthand accounts from couples who have struggled with the erosion of sexual desire and rebuilt their passionate connection, "The Sex-Starved Marriage" addresses every aspect of the sexual libido problem:

• If you're the more highly sexed partner, you'll breathe a sigh of relief. At last someone understands your feelings about the void in your marriage. Discover why your pleas for touch have fallen upon deaf ears and why your approach to the lull in your sexual relationship could be a sexual turnoff. Most important, learn new ways to motivate your spouse to take your needs for more physical closeness to heart.
• If you're the spouse with a lagging libido, you're far from alone. You'll learn about the physiological and psychological factors, including unresolved relationship issues, that may contribute to the chill in your bedroom and what you can do to melt the ice. And if you're a man, you'll be surprised to learn that staggering numbers of men, even men whose sexual machinery works just fine, "get headaches" too!

"The Sex-Starved Marriage" will give you and your spouse the inspiration, encouragement, and answers you need.

This book analyzes New York City's stop-and-frisk data both pre- and post-constitutionality ruling, examining the existence of both profiling and unequal treatment among the three largest groups identified in the database: Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics. The purpose for using these two time periods is to determine which group(s) benefited the most from the ruling. This research goes beyond standard statistics to identify the place that race holds in contributing to the stop disparities. Specifically, this research will adds a spatial element to the numbers by analyzing the determinants of stop location by race, applying a principal component analysis to a mixture of census and stop-and-frisk data to determine the influence of location on stops by race. The results present a way of determining the plausibility of stops being the product of racial profiling-or just a matter of happenstance.

This book examines issues of race and policing through the lens of representative bureaucracy theory. According to representative bureaucracy theory, demographic correspondence between government employees and the local population can lead to more favorable outcomes for minority groups. It argues that police forces with higher minority composition will have more positive outcomes across measures such as fewer excessive force complaints and fewer fatal encounters with officers. Additionally, the book asserts that more representative forces will demonstrate responsiveness and accountability by implementing policies such as citizen review boards for excessive force complaints. It does this by first providing a brief overview of issues surrounding race and policing in America, documenting racial representation occurring in local police forces nationwide, and exploring the potential causes and consequences of underrepresentation. It concludes by discussing the implications of our findings and offer potential policy remedies and solutions that local law enforcements can pursue in order to reduce minority underrepresentation and improve policing outcomes.