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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > General
One of the greatest internal migrations in American history has been the movement of the people of Appalachia to a variety of rural and urban destinations all over the country --- wherever economic opportunity beckoned, from the industrial Midwest to the timber empires of the Pacific Northwest. This movement (about five million in the 1950s alone) has taken place in several waves throughout the twentieth century, and continues to this day. "Appalachian Odyssey" provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the impact of this phenomenon on both the Appalachian region and the country as a whole. Scholars from a variety of social science disciplines bring their perspectives to this volume in an examination of the historical, political, social, economic, and cultural impact of a talented group often derided as hillbillies. "Appalachian Odyssey" provides a much-needed corrective to this bias, and a deeper understanding of a people who have significantly influenced the American story.
How people can be persuaded to take more control of their own lives continues to be a subject of policy and academic debate, and the contribution of active citizens to improving societal well-being is high across different policy agendas. But the promotion of community self-help raises a wide range of questions - for people working in neighbourhoods, for policy makers, for politicians, and for residents themselves - about how we promote engagement, what would motivate people to become active, and more fundamentally about the ongoing relevance and value of community activity. "DIY Community Action" offers thought-provoking answers to these questions, based on detailed real-life evidence from over 100 community groups, each trying to combat neighbourhood problems. It presents a lively challenge to the existing thinking on contested debates, and proposes ways forward for community building. This timely publication is an engaging resource for policy makers, practitioners, academics, students and general readers interested in exploring community engagement and active citizenship. Its insightful analysis will be of interest to students of social policy, sociology, community work, housing and regeneration, local government studies and public policy.
This definitive guide encompasses past, present, and future issues of theory, research, and practice in areas of interest and specialization in aging, and represents current trends of thought on gerontology, the science of and associated practices with the elderly. This volume is a collection of articles dealing with the psychological, social, and cultural domains affecting older people and contains general biomedical understandings and practical/clinical applications. The contributors broadly outline some of the most relevant academic issues, including cross-cultural perspectives on age and aging; past and future trends in life expectancy with underlying explanations; innovations and advances in research design and methodology in the study of the aging process and the effects of age as a variable; and past and current theoretical perspectives on the psychology and sociology of aging. Some pertinent concerns for practitioners and clinicians are addressed, such as successful counseling therapies with older adults and changes in social work and rehabilitation practice with the elderly. The thought-provoking chapters provide a wide-sweeping, multidisciplinary review of a rapidly expanding field of interest and represent a definite desire among the contributors to evolve a theoretical apparatus and a related, applied arena of endeavor. This important work on a significant and timely issue of concern will broaden our understanding and awareness of the rising number of positive efforts within gerontological studies now being derived from diverse disciplinary roots. The reader will find articles on subjects of particular interest, such as the Biology of Aging, the Psychology of Adult Development and Aging, Rehabilitation of the Elderly, and Social Work and Aging. An extraordinarily detailed reference, this work will be a valuable resource for gerontologists, social workers, psychologists, and doctors specializing in geriatrics.
Communities are basic social units that provide contexts in which people live together to their mutual benefit. This book defines exactly what prosocial communities are, identifying their elements and relevant interrelationships, and reviewing the available evidence in support of those conclusions. This work shows why a prosocial community is essential to the accomplishment of the goals of community psychology and related fields, and offers advice on how to create such communities.
Minority languages in Europe, as part of a common cultural
heritage, need protection. The contributions to this book reflect
urgent, stimulating and productive debates among researchers in
sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, politics and sociology,
and among language activists and policy makers. At the heart of the
debate are the effectiveness of the existing political and legal
frameworks aimed at protecting linguistic and cultural diversity,
and prospects for the survival of minority languages in the process
of European integration.
This is a study of relations between landlords and tenants in Ireland between the great famine and the land war. Based on a remarkably wide range of primary sources, most notably collections of estate papers, it is a comprehensive and wide-ranging analysis, in which W. E. Vaughan explores evictions, rents, tenant right, estate management, agrarian outrages, and tenants' resistance to landlords. Dr Vaughan questions many assumptions about landlord-tenant relations that hitherto have been uncritically accepted. In place of the conventional image of predatory and allpowerful landlords, and oppressed, impoverished tenants, Dr Vaughan presents a scholarly and nuanced picture of complex mutual accommodation, thus revising the traditional view of land relations in nineteenth-century Ireland.
As the twenty-first century is ushered in, rebels, revolutionaries and political dissidents remain a major roadblock to the structuring of a new world order. Challenging their national or local institutions of authority--political or economic, social or religious--aggrieved individuals and disgruntled communities continue to wage their eternal struggles against those perceived as perverting the common good. "Rebels with a Cause" seeks to explain the minds, motives, means, and morality of those who espouse individual as well as communal dissent and resistance--violent or otherwise--in the name of some greater good. The ranks of political offenders vary widely: Civil Disobedients; Conscientious Objectors; Dissidents; Fanatics; Freedom Fighters; Fundamentalists; Militants; Political Prisoners; Pseudo-Politicals; Rebels; Resisters; Revolutionaries and Terrorists. The cast of characters is equally diverse and colorful: from Rome's Brutus to South Africa's Nelson Mandela. From America's John Brown and Susan B. Anthony to John Wilkes Booth and Timothy J. McVeigh. From Cuba's Che Guevara to the anonymous heroes of Beijing's Tienaman Square. From the Soviet Union's Aleksander Solzhenistzen to Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. "Rebels" portrays political offenders as products of three unorthodoxies. They constitute neither traditional political actors, nor common criminals or lawful belligerents. As players in the political arena, they refuse to abide by the rules and means of conventional politics--the ballot box and the rule of law. Offending against the prevailing law, they nevertheless disclaim the common criminal's venal goals to assert their own pursuit of altruistic communal and just objectives. Finally, as militant activists they act surreptiously, disclaim uniforms and insignias, proclaim allegiance to no sovereign and in their resort to indiscriminate violence they spurn the rules of lawful belligerency. This triple unorthodoxy has made the development of coherent public responses to political dissidents, resisters and rebels particularly difficult. "Rebels" does not only identify the actors and social forces that have caused nearly half of all countries throughout the globe to become infected with the ethnic, religious, tribal, clannish, and racial strife which now tear them apart. Acknowledging that domestic conflicts are replacing international warfare as the source of political disorder and violence in the emerging decades, "Rebels" also offers both readers and antagonists new insights and constructive approaches for the making of a less hostile and violent world. "Rebels with a Cause" will help readers address some of this era's most troublesome questions. What weight should one give to the demands of his conscience or the urgings of his or her faith? When should one reject the rules of those in power and stand up against evil laws and governments? Is one ever entitled to disobey the commands of an allegedly "democratic" regime? What means may one justly use in the struggle against tyrants, dictators, and other abusers of power? And when does a dissenter cease to be a freedom fighter and become a terrorist? "Rebels with a Cause" responds to these and other pressing contemporary questions with a "Bill of Rights on Just Authority and Just Resistance" as a guide for both the governed and those who govern.
A complex and unpredictable factor in the explosive South African conflict, the Christian churches will almost certainly play a key role in its ultimate resolution. This book, which is based on a four-year research project, explores the possible dimensions of that role through a systematic examination of the connections between religion and the social, political, and economic life of the nation. Focusing on critical issues in the current debate, the authors look at how religion and religious attitudes function in facilitating or restraining social change and what consequences this may hold for South Africa's future. The authors begin by describing the social role fo religion in South Africa, together with the particular issues that have drawn churches into the debate. They provide comprehensive profiles of the patterns of religious affiliation and attitudes that characterize contemporary South Africa. Next they assess the social impact of various denominations and movements, including Afrikaner civil religion, the Black indigenous churches, and pietistic religious groups. Ongoing theological debates on human rights, racial equality, the power structure of society, and the question of violence are considered in detail. The concluding chapter integrates the findings of the study and considers religious values as an instrument for developing social consciousness and a commitment to universal justice. This authoritative analysis of the broader dimensions of religion in South Africa makes a significant contribution to our understanding of religion as a factor in contemporary social and political processes. It will be of interest to students and specialists in African studies and to scholars concerned with the role of religion in the modern world.
"Invaluable...Elizabeth Keckley's memoir of her life as a White House dressmaker for Mary Todd Lincoln...[is a] curious gem"--Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review
Processual archaeologists seek to explain variability in the static archaeological record we observe in the present as a necessary first step toward learning how to learn about the operation of cultural dynamics in the past. The approach is a diverse and productive one that focuses on developing learning strategies. Researchers pursuing processual archaeology have already discovered a great deal about the archaeological record and about past dynamics, and there is a huge potential for building on the foundation laid thus far. The contributors to this volume provide clearly written research articles that are easily accessible to upper-level undergraduates and professional archaeologists. Although the papers do not focus on a single region, time period, or domain of observation (e.g. settlement patterns or lithics or site structure), they are integrated by shared goals for archaeology. This book clearly demonstrates that processual archaeology, far from having been replaced by post-processual archaeology, is becoming more and more powerful as our analytic sophistication and knowledge of the archaeological record grow.
The concept of civil society is recognized as being of central importance in the study of political systems, regeneration, and communities. To what extent across Europe are the ideas and practice of community development similar? Community Development and Civil Society explores this question with special reference to the UK and Hungary and shows how community development connects powerfully with civil society, a concept that today has global significance. Written by experts who have many years of experience in community development research, the book contributes to the updating of how 'community' is defined, and it addresses key questions about democratic values in the context of communities.
"Dynamic Utopia" articulates a significant theoretical alternative to contemporary social movement theory. In opposition to linear conceptualizations of movement (birth, growth and decay), characteristic of classical and most contemporary social movement theory, the author posits an interpretation of subaltern resistance that attempts to capture its eternal qualities. Through the application of chaos theory DEGREESIDynamic Utopia DEGREESR seeks recognition of the persistence of resistance hovering within civil society, modes of resistance not necessarily involving overt expressions of conflict, the amassing of resources, or the establishment of representative organizations. To that end, it is argued that contemporary intentional communities are indicative of a social movement, seeking as they do a progressive redefinition of fundamental aspects of politics, economics, and culture. The author's research proceeds by identifying the multiple ways in which intentional communities signify innovations in living, seeking to redefine the experiences of childcare, sex, love, play, conflict resolution, work, cohabitation, food production and distribution, environmentally conscious living, and spirituality. Intentional communities are, it is argued, laboratories for what is possible in the humane development of political, economic, and cultural relations. Analyses are primarily of American intentional communities, with references to communities in Italy and Mexico.
Wood and Zurcher suggest that the social self--its experience and organization--reflects the great transformation of society from industrial to postindustrial. . . . Wood and Zurcher have contributed to our social psychological understanding of self-development in several ways. They pack information about theories of modern self-hood into a well-researched and accessible book. Readers will find a resource on theories of the postmodern self here. The authors also introduce a creative use of computerized content analysis, which they successfully demonstrate by transforming personal documents into social scientific data. Contemporary Sociology According to various observers, the postmodern self represents changes in contemporary culture--from rationality and unemotional performance to irrationality and mysticism; from institutional standards and duty-to-society to individual standards and duty-to-self; from structure and stability to transience and experimentation. Through an analysis of diaries from nineteenth- and twentieth-century Americans, this study deals with the nature of the postmodern self. It provides a framework for understanding the ideas that collectively comprise postmodern self theory and presents empirical data concerning its historical validity. The book reflects the use of a computer approach in which the statistical incidence of particular words is examined over time.
This is a wide-ranging study of electoral politics in England between 1734 and 1832. It analyses the control of the electoral system by the upper classes, the world of the voters, and the function of an election in the unreformed period. The history of the electoral system has been distorted by later emphasis on the extent of corruption in the constituencies. Dr O'Gorman takes us deep into the political underworld normally left undisturbed by historians; that of the committee men, agents, and canvassers who made the unreformed system work for as long as it did. Above all, this book is about the voters - their motivations, prejudices, beliefs and ideals, as well as their numbers and political behaviour. Frank O'Gorman has combined computer analysis with traditional historical methods to reconstruct the social and ideological world of the voters, and argues that an understanding of the electoral dimension is vital to a broader understanding of the Hanoverian regime and its popular acceptance. The interaction of the parliamentary parties at Westminster with the older political culture of the constituencies is traced in the final part of this book. The nature of Hanoverian politics and society have been the subject of much recent debate, and this far-reaching analysis of the electorate takes us to the very heart of that social and political structure.
How can the existence of elites be compatible with democratic governance? Any democratic society is inevitably confronted by this basic question. This book reviews existing research on elites and their interactions with those around them. How the recruitment to elites changes in the long run according to class and gender is one of the core themes of the present volume. Other topics explored include the relationship between elites and the population, collective action and elite cohesion, and elites and democracy. The approach is multinational, with examples provided from countries around the world. This is a valuable book for social science students and researchers of many disciplines, including sociology, political science and psychology. It offers a review on historical and current research on elites in society and includes an extensive discussion of class and gender. Examples from countries in different parts of the world allow for international insights.
Social development work takes place in the grey area between government and the voluntary and community sectors. This book, written by three well-known educators and researchers in the social policy and development field, explores the ways in which front-line professionals working with communities identify and address the dilemmas inherent in the current policy context. Drawing upon original material, the authors examine how 'community engagement' workers negotiate the ethical and emotional challenges they face; how they work through problems of community representation at interpersonal and team levels; how they manage the conflicting roles of local activist and paid worker and what role colleagues, management and others play when responding to such challenges. The dilemmas of development work reconnects to, and updates, an important tradition in social policy which explores the dilemmas of 'street-level' work. It draws on contemporary political theory and current debates concerning the modernisation of governance and psycho-social perspectives on identity, values and agency. Combining theory and practice, it will appeal to practitioners, policy makers and undergraduates in social and public policy.
The 'European project' is in a state of perpetual crisis in which the root cause is a lack of identification by ordinary citizens with Europe and European institutions. The Evolution of European Identities employs state of the art analysis of in-depth interviews by renowned practitioners to give a unique 'bottoms up' perspective on the development (or its lack) of a sense of 'European mental space'. Linking conceptual findings with case studies, the book provides unique insights into groups that have been especially sensitized by their life experiences to question what it means to be European in the twenty-first century. The groups explored in this book include: adults who experienced European education exchanges when young; transnational workers; civil society organization activists; persons involved in cross-border intimate relationships; farmers who are subject to European markets, regulations and subsidies; and migrants into 'fortress Europe'.
The "cultural turn" in sociology created a new interest in power questions. This has led to a renewed interest in conceptual discussions of power in the field of culture studies, whereas empirical work is still less developed. "Comparative Studies of Culture and Power" sets the focus on the uses of cultural and symbolic means in struggles for hegemony: in politics, music markets, literature and the arts. Gender specific uses of rhetorical techniques is one salient theme, struggles for recognition of rhythm and blues music another. Several articles treat the role of the arts in nation building, as well as the role of public monuments in the acknowledgement of war and terrorism. The analyses relate to cultures all over the Western world.
How are group-based identities related to intergroup conflict? When and how do ethnic, religious, and national identities lead to oppression, violence, rebellion, war, mass-murder, and genocide? How do intergroup conflicts change people's identities? How might social identity be harnessed in the service of reducing conflict between groups? The chapters in this book present a sophisticated and detailed interdisciplinary analysis of the most topical and fundamental issues involved in understanding identity and conflict.
When a word describing an emotion is said to be untranslatable, is that emotion untranslatable also? This unique study focuses on three word-concepts on the periphery of Europe, providing a wide-ranging survey of national identity and cultural essentialism, nostalgia, melancholy and fatalism, the production of memory and the politics of hope.
This collection gives voice to the peoples and groups impacted by globalization as they seek to negotiate their identities, language use, and territorial boundaries within a larger global context. Rather than viewing globalization as one-dimensional (i.e., cultural, economic, or political), the approaches taken by the authors reflect a nuanced and multifaceted discussion of globalization that integrates all three perspectives. They explore identity, boundaries, language use, and other issues in the context of specific temporal and spatial contexts.
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