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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > General
Immigration to the UK has been growing in recent years, reaching its highest level on record in 2016. As the figures have increased, so have popular concerns about pressure on public services and the impact on British identity and social cohesion. The Brexit vote highlighted more than ever before the urgency of addressing these concerns if the UK is to remain a tolerant and open society. Across Europe in the context of the recent refugee crisis and terrorist attacks, resentment towards immigration has also been growing. Populist parties have seized on immigration and integration to magnify their voices and increasingly challenge mainstream parties. This publication is the culmination of a 12-month comparative research project exploring the similarities and differences in narratives on immigration in the UK and three north-western European countries - France, Germany and Sweden. It explores what the UK can learn from its European neighbours, and how we can come up with new inclusive narratives and policy actions, which at the same time take account of people's concerns about immigration and integration in a changing world.
Commodifying Communism is an ethnographically grounded account of the institutional organization and political consequences of China's historically unprecedented market growth. Drawing upon almost two years of ethnographic fieldwork, this book challenges conventional views of post-communist emerging markets being tied to the retreat of the state. David Wank shows how entrepreneurs running private trading companies in Xiamen City, Fujian Province (one of China's five special economic zones) maximize profit and security through patron-client networks with local state agents. The book examines how processes of opportunity, exchange, expectations, and advantage are constrained by both statist and popular institutions in market clientelism. It also considers the implications of market clientelism for the dynamism of China's emerging market economy relative to Eastern European post-communist economies and its political consequences for state-society and center-local relations.
This book explores the symbolic connections between Christianity and Heavy Metal music in the context of the secular West. Heavy Metal uses symbols and imagery taken from Christianity, even if the purpose is to critique religion. This usage creates a positive connection with an interpretation of Christianity as a form of cultural critique. Given that Metal and Christianity are associated with Western culture, this book explores how Christianity and Heavy Metal function within the context of secularity as a form of ideological critique. Using the ideas of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Charles Taylor as a starting point, this book explores the religious nature of secularism in the West interpreted in the immanent processes of politics and economics. In this connect, both Christianity and Heavy Metal provide a cultural critique through images of death, the grotesque, and sacrifice. By bringing this religious interpretation of secularism into conversation with the ideas of Georges Batailles, Slavoj Zizek, and Jurgen Moltmann, this book will demonstrate the positive relationship between Christianity and Heavy Metal.
The problem of historical change has come to assume central importance among English-speaking social scientists in the past ten to fifteen years. Much attention has been focused on how we relate institutions and institutional change to actions, and how we think of history as the outcome of this process. This book looks at both Marxist and non-Marxist positions in this debate, examining in detail the work of Hobsbawm, Thompson, Cohen, Althusser, Giddens and Habermas amongst others. Callinicos argues that both functionalism and methodological individualism, and the various attempts to reconcile these extremes, are untenable. Drawing on classical Marxism, analytical philosophy and recent historical work, Callinicos has produced a useful contribution to the debate, developing an argument which should affect its terms in the future.
'Community' is one of those words that feels good: it is good 'to have a community', 'to be in a community'. And 'community' feels good because of the meanings which the word conveys, all of them promising pleasures, and more often than not the kind of pleasures which we would like to experience but seem to miss.
"Measures of Success" is a practical, hands-on guide to designing, managing, and measuring the impacts of community-oriented conservation and development projects. It presents a simple, clear, logical, and yet comprehensive approach to developing and implementing effective programs, and can help conservation and development practitioners use principles of adaptive management to test assumptions about their projects and learn from the results.The book presents a systematic approach to improving the focus, effectiveness, and efficiency of projects, with specific guidelines and advice on: designing a realistic conceptual framework based on local site conditions developing clearly defined goals, objectives, and activities creating a monitoring plan that can be used to assess whether goals and objectives are being met integrating social and biological science techniques to collect the most relevant and useful data in the most cost-effective way using the information obtained through the monitoring plan to modify the project and learn from the resultThe text is developed in eight chapters that follow the structure of a planning process from conception to completion, with the chapters linked by four scenarios that serve as teaching case studies throughout the book. Examples from these scenarios illustrate the processes and tools discussed, and each scenario case study is presented in its entirety in an appendix to the volume. The approach has been developed and field tested by practitioners working in many different projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and their experience and input ensure that the guide is both practical and useful."Measures of Success" is the only work of its kindcurrently available, and represents an invaluable resource for field-based practitioners, project managers, and local community leaders, as well as for international NGO staff, college and university teachers and students, researchers, and government officials.
"This book studies the historical emergence of a certain kind of politicized crowd with an originality and a brilliance that will make it the definitive work on the crowd in nineteenth-century literature."--John Kucich, author of "Repression in Victorian Fiction: Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and Charles Dickens and "The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction. "This book will spark a great deal of debate, and debate of a far-reaching and desirable kind--perhaps even the sort of debate that has followed the similarly ambitious, paradigm-shifting work of people like D.A. Miller and Mary Poovey." --Bruce Robbins, author of "The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below and "Secular Vocation: Intellectuals, Professionalism, Culture. "What a pleasure to read a skilled literary critic who has not only studied classic literary representations of crowds with sensitivity but also grounded them firmly in the actual political history that nurtured and received those representations! John Plotz has built a bridge where only slippery stepping stones existed."--Charles Tilly, author of "Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758-1834 "John Plotz's important new book finds a fascinating point of entry into recent cultural histories of Britain. Plotz brings a keen literary eye to the aesthetics of the early nineteenth-century new mass presence, tracking the crowd through a variety of salient texts as it imprinted itself on the discursive environment of the metropolis. His adept exploration of the new field of collective meanings linking street, citizenry, and nation adds valuably to the growing literature on the public sphere."--Geoff Eley, author of "Remembering the Future "John Plotz has revived one of the most important topics in nineteenth-century studies and radically reconceived it. He demonstrates that Victorian perceptions of the crowd broke decisively with earlier notions, inaugurating a tradition of interpreting popular demonstrations as symptomatic of much deeper meanings than they ostensibly expressed. He shows how important the deployment and interpretation of bodies became in the era's political imagination." --Catherine Gallagher, author of
When The Vertical Mosaic first appeared in 1965, it became an instant classic. Its key message was that Canada was not the classless democracy it fancied itself to be. In fact, Canada was a highly inegalitarian society comprising a 'vertical mosaic' of distinct classes and ethnic groups. This collection of papers by five of Canada's top sociologists subjects John Porter's landmark study to renewed scrutiny and traces the dramatic changes since Porter's time - both in Canadian society and in the agenda of Canadian sociology. Based on papers written for a conference held in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of The Vertical Mosaic's publication, the five essays revisit the central themes of the original work, including gender and race inequality; citizenship and social justice; and class, power, and ethnicity from the viewpoint of political economy. An introduction by the editors provides a historical biography of Porter and discusses his influence on Canadian sociology.
Millennials are the largest living generation in the USA, weighing in at an astonishing 92 million people. By 2025, Millennials will make up 40% of eligible voters and 75% of the global workforce. Their sheer size and unprecedented influence have disrupted every status quo impacting the world around us. Award-winning author Jeremy K. Balkin refers to this phenomenon as the “Millennialization of Everything.” Socio-economic and historical events have fundamentally shaped the Millennial Mentality and their preferences and behaviors. Debunking commonly held stereotypes and understanding the Millennial Mentality are critical to harnessing the power of their best traits and unlocking future trends. Only then can we effectively engage, motivate and empower the most important generation in history.
We all want to belong to strong and supportive communities. But can communities be built, or must they arise spontaneously? Won't intervening in the process destroy it? No, says Charles Vogl. Both in his career and as a personal quest, Vogl has been deeply invested in understanding what it takes to bring and keep people together. He's discovered that while community can't be forced, it can be actively encouraged and nurtured. Drawing on 3,000 years of spiritual tradition, Vogl lays out seven time-tested principles that every leader can apply to grow enduring, effective, and supportive communities. The principles are distilled from spiritual traditions, since major religions have built highly diverse communities that have lasted for centuries. Vogl has secularized and universalized these principles so they can enrich a wide array of communities - formal or informal, physical or virtual, and centered on any shared interest. Vogl describes each principle's purpose and provides extensive hands-on tools for creatively adapting them to the style, needs, and inclinations of your particular group. He also helps leaders ensure that their communities remain healthy and life affirming and do not degenerate into rigid cults. This is a guide to bringing friendship, connection, and support to where there had been loneliness, separation, and isolation.
Radical Islam is a major affliction of the contemporary world. Each year, radical Islamists carry out terrorist attacks that result in a massive death toll, almost all involving noncombatants and innocents. Estimates of how many Muslims could be considered followers of radical Islam vary widely, and there are few guides to help determine moderates versus radicals. Observers often sit at the extremes, either seeing all Muslims as open or closeted jihadis or recoiling from any attempt to link Islam with international terror. Both positions are overly simplistic, and the lack of rational principles to absolve the innocent and identify the accomplices of terror has led to governments and individuals mistakenly accepting jihadis as moderate. What is Moderate Islam? brings together an array of scholars-Muslims and non-Muslims-to provide this missing insight. This wide-ranging collection examines the relationship among Islam, civil society, and the state. The contributors-including both Muslims and non-Muslims-investigate how radical Islamists can be distinguished from moderate Muslims, analyze the potential for moderate Islamic governance, and challenge monolithic conceptions of Islam.
This book provides a political narrative of the rise and fall of
the Tudor monarchy - key to understanding the history of the years
1450 to 1660. The theme is the relationship between the Crown and the
aristocracy and how a partnership was created partly by the actions
of the Crown and partly by the changing composition and attitudes
of the political nation. It begins with the chaos of factional
quarrels which was the political life of England under Henry VI in
the 1450s and then examines the rebuilding of the strength of royal
government under Edward IV, Henry VII and Henry VIII. That
government was tested in various ways under Edward VI and Mary,
reached its peak under Elizabeth, and declined under James I. The
partnership finally broke down in the civil war of the 1640s and
the Tudor monarchy collapsed. This is the life cycle of a political system created out of necessity and fashioned by a mixture of vision and circumstance. After its collapse the Republic failed to create a viable alternative, but the resurrection of the old system after 1660 was more apparent than real.
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