Sociological Theory and the Capability Approach connects normative strands of sociological theory to the fusion of ethics and economics proposed by Amartya Sen's and Martha Nussbaum's capability approach. Spanning classical (Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Scheler, Weber) and contemporary debates (Parsons, Giddens, Luhmann) it identifies areas that bridge the current gap between sociology and capability approach. It thus builds on explanatory and normative concerns shared by both traditions. Engaging readers from sociology and capability approach, Spiros Gangas suggests that the proposed dialogue should be layered along the main areas of value theory, economy and society, extending this inquiry into the normative meaning attached to being human. To this end, the book reconstructs the notion of agency along the tracks of Nussbaum's central human capabilities, considering also alienation and the sociology of emotions. It concludes by addressing the capability approach through the lens of social institutions before it takes up the challenge of ideological fundamentalism and how it can be effectively confronted by capability approach. This original book provides a fresh perspective on capability approach as it embeds it in the rich pool of sociological theory's accomplishments. As an exercise in theoretical and normative convergence, it will be required reading for academics and students in social theory, cultural theory, philosophy and human development studies.

There is relatively little research into wealth and the wealthy despite increasing academic, policy and public interest in the growing gap between rich and poor and the personal assets of the wealthy. This book draws on new data to answer the following key questions: What is wealth? Who has got it? Where might we draw a 'wealth line'? Who lies above it? And what might policy do about wealth and the wealthy? The book draws on debates from a range of disciplines including sociology, economics, politics and philosophy and it discusses policy issues in relation to taxation, housing, pensions and education, using a variety of sources ranging from HMRC data to the "Sunday Times Rich List". It is therefore an ambitious book aimed at a wide audience, including students, academics, policy makers, journalists and members of the general public and one that makes an important contribution to the debate on personal wealth and the wealthy.

Millennials have captured our imaginaries in recent years. The conventional wisdom is that this generation of young adults lives in downtown neighbourhoods near cafes, public transit and other amenities. Yet, this depiction is rarely unpacked nor problematized. Despite some commonalities, the Millennial generation is highly diverse and many face housing affordability and labour market constraints. Regardless, as the largest generation following the post-World War II baby boom, Millennials will surely leave their mark on cities. This book assesses the impact of Millennials on cities. It asks how the Millennial generation differs from previous generations in terms of their labour market experiences, housing outcomes, transportation decisions, the opportunities available to them, and the constraints they face. It also explores the urban planning and public policy implications that arise from these generational shifts. This book offers a generational lens that faculty, students and other readers with interest in the fields of urban studies, planning, geography, economic development, demography, or sociology will find useful in interpreting contemporary U.S. and Canadian cities. It also provides guidance to planners and policymakers on how to think about Millennials in their work and make decisions that will allow all generations to thrive.

Wealth and the wealthy have received relatively little attention from social scientists despite a growing wealth gap. Aimed at a broad social science and public readership, this book draws on new data on wealth to answer the following key questions: What is wealth? Who has got it? Where might we draw a 'wealth line'? Who lies above it? And what might policy do about wealth and the wealthy? Using data sources from the HMRC to the Sunday Times Rich list, this book provides a comprehensive and critical discussion of these issues, and looks at potential policy responses, including 'asset-based' welfare and taxation.

Via a wide range of case studies, this book examines new forms of resistance to social injustices in contemporary Western societies. Resistance requires agency, and agency is grounded in notions of the subject and subjectivity. How do people make sense of their subjectivity as they are constructed and reconstructed within relations of power? What kinds of subjectivities are needed to struggle against forms of dominance and claim recognition? The participants in the case studies are challenging forms of dominance and subordination grounded in class, race, culture, nationality, sexuality, religion, age, disability and other forms of social division. It is a premise of this book that new and/or reconstructed forms of subjectivity are required to challenge social relations of subordination and domination. Thus, the transformation of subjectivity as well as the restructuring of oppressive power relations is necessary to achieve social justice. By examining the construction of subjectivity of particular groups through an intersectional lens, the book aims to contribute to theoretical accounts of how subjects are constituted and how they can develop a critical distance from their positioning.

Anthropocene Ecologies brings political ecology and tourism studies to bear on the Anthropocene. Through a collective examination of political ecologies of the Anthropocene by leading scholars in anthropology, geography and tourism studies, the book addresses critical themes of gender, health, conservation, agriculture, climate change, disaster, coastal marine management and sustainability. Each chapter theoretically and empirically unravels entanglements of tourism, nature and imagination to expose the political-ecological drivers of the Anthropocene as a material and symbolic force and its deepening integration with tourism. Grounded in ethnographic and qualitative research, the volume is interdisciplinary in scope, yet linked in its shared focus on the political threat as well as the social potential of the Anthropocene and its imaginaries. This collection contributes to emerging scholarship on tourism, sustainability and global environmental change in the current geological epoch. Anthropocene Ecologies will be of great interest to political ecology focused scholars of tourism, socio-environmental change and the Anthropocene. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

South Asians comprise over 15 per cent of all international migrating population, among the highest in the world. The countries of the Persian Gulf are perhaps still the largest recipients of migrant workers. A unique economy has developed between these two regions, with all South Asian nations being major beneficiaries and featuring among the top twenty countries receiving maximum remittances globally. The South Asia Migration Report 2017 is the first of its kind, documenting migration profiles, diaspora, recruitment and remittances, both in individual countries as well as the South Asian region as a whole. It also discusses skilled, unskilled and internal migrations. The volume: includes on-the-ground studies from six nations: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan; discusses public policy, effects of global recession on the region and its impact on migration; and examines the process of reintegration of returning migrants. This book will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of economics, development studies, migration and diaspora studies, labour studies and sociology. It will also be useful to policymakers and government institutions working in the area.

This book discusses the status of urban design as a disciplinary field and as a practice under the current and pervasive neoliberal regime. The main argument is that urban design has been wholly reshaped by neoliberalism. In this transformation, it has become a discipline that has neglected its original ethos - designing good cities - aligning its theory and practice with the sole profit-oriented objectives typical of advanced capitalist societies. The book draws on Marxism-inspired scholars for a conceptual analysis of how neoliberalism influenced the emergence of urbanism and urban design. It looks specifically at how, in urbanism's everyday dimensions, it is possible to find examples of resistance and emancipation. Based on empirical evidence, archival resources, and immersion in the socio-spatial reality of Santiago de Chile, the book illustrates the way neoliberalism compromises urban designers' ethics and practices, and therefore how its theories become instrumental to the neoliberal transformation of urban society represented in contemporary urbanisms. It will be a valuable resource for academics and students in the fields of architecture, urban studies, sociology and geography.

This book offers a research-based contribution to the debate around community cohesion and counter-terrorism policies in Britain. It is based upon privileged access to staff and elected members at five major local authorities, and upon qualitative interviews with a diverse range of individuals from differing ethnic communities who live and work in these areas. Social Cohesion and Counter-Terrorism provides an empirically led critical contribution to the understanding of current policies that have a direct impact upon the experiences of citizens in multi-ethnic urban contexts. It addresses the culpability of the central government in its construction of two policy agendas which have had serious negative consequences for British ethnic relations. The book explores the misfit between central government policy construction and the reality of the local authority's implementation of the policy.

International migration and workers remittances have, of late, become a significant economic and social phenomena affecting the fortunes of millions of families in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Yet, the measurements and methods of analysis of their impact on the individuals, families, economy, and society have not rec

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This important book explores the values of equality and diversity as promoted across liberal societies, drawing on various traditions of political and social philosophy, including liberal egalitarianism, existentialism, and elements of post-modernism and post-structuralism. These philosophies are applied to policy and practice debates, especially concerning disability issues, but also relating to gender and multiculturalism. It will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students across a range of social studies disciplines.

The recent manifestation of exclusionism in Japan has emerged at a time of intensified neoliberal economic policies, increased cross-border migration brought on by globalization, the elevated threat of global terrorism, heightened tensions between East Asian states over historical and territorial conflicts, and a backlash by Japanese conservatives over perceived historical apologism. The social and political environment for minorities in Japan has shifted drastically since the 1990s, yet many studies of Japan still tend to view Japan through the dominant discourses of "ethnic homogeneity (tanitsu minzoku shakai)" and "middle-class society (so-churyu--shakai)" which positions the exclusion of minorities as an exceptional phenomenon. While exclusionism has been recognized as a serious threat to minority groups, it has not often been considered a representative issue for the whole of Japanese society. This tendency will persist until the discourses of tanitsu minzoku shakai and so-churyu--shakai are systematically debunked and Japan is widely recognized as both multiethnic and socio-economically stratified. Today, as with most advanced capitalist countries, serious social divides occasioned by the impacts of globalization and neoliberalism have destabilized Japanese society. This book explores not only how Japanese society is diversified and unequal, but also how diversity and inequality have caused people to divide into separate realities from which conflict and violence have emerged. It empirically examines the current situation while considering the historical development of exclusionism from the interdisciplinary viewpoints of history, policy studies, cultural studies, sociology and cultural anthropology. In addition to analyzing the realities of division and exclusionism, the authors propose theoretical alternatives to overcome such cultural and social divides.

Aimed at assisting doctoral candidates and early-career researchers and their supervisors globally, this book is the first of its type to address the challenges faced by students when proposing new programs of research in the disciplines of gender, race, identity, indigeneity, and diversity within management and business. The problems researchers face derive from a lack of familiarity with the needed alignment of the methodology, conceptual framework, and the nature of epistemologies used in creating a coherent proposal. This results in project delays and unnecessary time in review as doctoral students and committees attempt to provide the required alignment. Essential reading for students and faculty engaged in these fields of study, the book provides a practical guide on how to navigate through these challenges and to arrive at a workable proposal that meets the requirements of the academy. To assist doctoral students in conducting their research, the book provides narratives that illustrate the complexities of researching gender, race, identity, indigeneity, and diversity in broad terms. It explains the importance of such research in creating positive social change and helping students identify the appropriate conceptual framework, align the problem statement with a purpose, construct the research question and the nature of the study, and identify the correct method to conduct the research. An essential guide for students and doctoral researchers, this book explains the dominant and marginalized epistemological orientations to acquaint doctoral researchers with the effects of their selections on the outcomes of their research. It provides guidance as to the appropriateness of quantitative or qualitative methods based on the selected epistemology and the problem statement.

Democracy promises rule by all, not by the few. Yet, electoral democracies limit decision-making to representatives and have always had a weakness for inequality. How might democracy serve all rather than the few? Democracy Beyond the Nation State: Practicing Equality examines communities that govern their own lives without elites or centralized structures through assemblies and consensus. Rather than claiming equality by abstract rights or citizenship, these groups put equality into practice by reducing wealth and health divides, or landlessness or homelessness, and equalizing workloads. These practices are found in rural India and Brazil, in Buenos Aires, London, and New York, and among the Iroquois, the Zapatistas, and the global networks of La Via Campesina farmers and the World Social Forum. Readable accounts of these horizontal democracies document multiple political frames that prevent democracy from being frozen into entrenched electoral systems producing modern inequalities. Using practice to rewrite political theory, Parker draws on collective politics in Spivak and Derrida and embodied relations from Povinelli and Foucault to show that equal relations are not a utopian dream, not nostalgia, and not impossible. This book provides many practical solutions to inequality. It will be useful to students and scholars of political theory and social movements and to those who are willing to work together for equality.

This edited collection provides an in-depth ethnographic study of faith-based development organizations in the United States, shining a much needed critical light onto these organizations and their role in the United States by exploring the varied ways that faith-based organizations attempt to mend the fissures and mitigate the effects of neoliberal capitalism, poverty, and the social service sector on the poor and powerless. In doing so, Not by Faith Alone generates provocative and sophisticated analyses-grounded in empirical case studies-of such topics as the meaning of "faith-based" development, evaluations of faith-based versus secular approaches, the influence of faith-orientation on program formulation and delivery, and examinations of faith-based organizations' impacts on structural inequality and poverty alleviation. Taken together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the vital importance of ethnography for understanding the particular role of faith-based agencies in development. The contributors argue for an understanding of faith-based development that moves beyond either dismissing or uncritically supporting faith-based initiatives. Instead, contributors demonstrate the importance of grounded analysis of the specific discourses, practices, and beliefs that imbue faith-based development with such power and reveal both the promise and the limitations of this particular vehicle of service delivery.

This book rethinks Northeast India as a lived space, a centre of interconnections and unfolding histories, instead of an isolated periphery. Questioning dominant tropes and assumptions around the Northeast, it examines socio-political and historical processes, border issues, the role of the state, displacement and development, debates over natural resources, violence, notions of body and belonging, movements, tensions and relations, and strategies, struggles and narratives that frame discussions on the region. Drawing on current and emerging research in Northeast India studies, this work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, human geography, sociology and social anthropology, history, cultural studies, media studies and South Asian studies.

This book makes a forthright case for a shift in policy focus from 'community cohesion' to the broader notion of social cohesion, and is distinctive and innovative in its focus on evaluation. It constitutes an extremely valuable source both for practitioners involved in social cohesion interventions and for researchers and students studying theory-based evaluation and the policy areas highlighted (housing, intergenerational issues, the recession, education, communications, community development).

This book introduces students to new ways of thinking about culture and development. The book integrates the recent scholarship in the area of cultural studies within the existing frameworks of development studies, which have primarily focused on issues of political economy and structural transformation. Rather than viewing culture as simply an attribute of the societies undergoing development, this text critically examines how "development" itself operates as a cultural process. The authors draw on theories of modernity, poststructuralism and post-colonial studies to show how development institutions, processes and practices are inevitably caught up in a web of cultural presuppositions, values and meanings.

The authors use the themes of gender, tradition and identity, human rights and new communication technologies to explore the challenges that processes of cultural change pose to conventional understandings of development. The book concludes by considering the move beyond "development" to a "post-development" paradigm.

The book is made up of thematic chapters which include outlines and overviews of the specific topics, as well as case studies to illustrate the issues. The authors have designed the book specifically for students and teachers and the material included has been class-tested during their own teaching.

This book examines how identities are formed and expressed in political, social and cultural contexts across South Asia. It is a comprehensive intervention on how, why and what identities have come to be, and takes a closer look at the complexities of their interactions. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, combining methodologies from history, literary studies, politics, and sociology, this book: * Explores the multiple ways in which personal and collective identities manifest and engage, are challenged and resisted across time and space.; * Highlights how the shared history of colonialism and partition, communal violence, bloodshed and pogrom are instrumental in understanding present-day developments in identity politics.; * Sheds light on a number of current themes such as borders and nations, race and ethnicity, identity politics and fundamentalism, language and regionalism, memory and community, and resistance and assertion. A key volume in South Asian Studies, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asian history, politics, sociology, literary studies and social exclusion.

The countries of East and Southeast Asia, taken as a whole, display a laboratory of social and political conditions, with individual countries presenting a variety of political, cultural and social characteristics. Some with one-party state systems, others with stable liberal democracies and yet others with more fragile democratic systems. As such the region presents a unique opportunity to examine the relationship between diverse national environments and social work education regimes. In this book, social work educators and theorists from around East and Southeast Asia provide accounts of the social work programs within the higher education systems of their respective countries and compare them to those of their neighbours. This is the first book to offer a structured account of how social work and social work education have emerged and finds their present place in the historical, economic, political, urban/rural and higher education contexts of Southeast Asia and East Asia. Experts from the region assess the extent to which these countries' systems possess a collective coherence, while examining the diversity among them.

The fight against corruption is now a core part of development policy and practice. Some call these efforts a 'war on corruption'. What does this so-called 'war' mean for developing countries? And how do international perspectives on corruption relate to local and national concerns? This book examines the relevance of anti-corruption discourse in Papua New Guinea (PNG), one of the most culturally rich and 'corrupt' countries on earth. Despite increased international, national and local efforts to address corruption over the past two decades, many fear that levels of corruption continue to rise largely unabated. Some believe that the mismatch between international, national and local assumptions regarding the nature of corruption and how it should be addressed is at the heart of the issue. International anti-corruption initiatives stress 'zero-tolerance' and try to strengthen formal state-based institutions. However, many people in PNG are more concerned about maintaining social relationships than following state laws and rules. This book critically examines the implications of the anti-corruption agenda and the collision of international, national and local perspectives. In doing so it provides a diagnostic on international assumptions about corruption and how it should be fought in developing countries, offering surprising and important lessons. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Development Studies, Geography, Political Studies and Economics, as well as practitioners and policy makers working in development.

Dieser Band dokumentiert eine Reihe von ausgewahlten Beitragen der XXII. Internationalen wissenschaftlichen Konferenz Bildungsreform und Lehrerausbildung zum Thema "Transkulturelle Perspektiven in der Bildung", die vom Ministerium fur Bildung und Wissenschaft der Republik Litauen und der Vilnenser Akademie fur Bildungswissenschaften der Vytautas Magnus Universitat in Kaunas (VDU) gemeinsam konzipiert und veranstaltet wurden. Im Fokus standen der Diskurs kulturwissenschaftlicher Bildungsforschung und der Austausch von Beispielen transkultureller padagogischer Praxis in der Hochschul- und Schulbildung. Der Erwerb dieser interaktiven Kompetenzen in der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung ist Voraussetzung fur die Bildung einer Identitat, die den Herausforderungen unserer Gesellschaft im kommenden Jahrzehnt gerecht wird. This volume presents a series of selected contributions from the XXIInd International Scientific Conference on The Reform of Education and Teacher's Training dealing with the topic "Transcultural Perspectives in Education", which was conceived and organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania together with the Vilnius Academy of Educational Science at Vytautas-Magnus-University in Kaunas (VDU). The focus of attention was the discourse on research in cultural studies and the exchange of examples of transcultural pedagogical practice in Higher and Secondary Education. The acquisition of interactive competencies in cultural research is a prerequisite for the formation of identity in order to meet the challenges our society will be facing in the coming decade.

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.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.