![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Population & demography
This book contains a systematic study of ecological communities of two or three interacting populations. Starting from the Lotka-Volterra system, various regulating factors are considered, such as rates of birth and death, predation and competition. The different factors can have a stabilizing or a destabilizing effect on the community, and their interplay leads to increasingly complicated behavior. Studying and understanding this path to greater dynamical complexity of ecological systems constitutes the backbone of this book. On the mathematical side, the tool of choice is the qualitative theory of dynamical systems - most importantly bifurcation theory, which describes the dependence of a system on the parameters. This approach allows one to find general patterns of behavior that are expected to be observed in ecological models. Of special interest is the reaction of a given model to disturbances of its present state, as well as to changes in the external conditions. This leads to the general idea of "dangerous boundaries" in the state and parameter space of an ecological system. The study of these boundaries allows one to analyze and predict qualitative and often sudden changes of the dynamics - a much-needed tool, given the increasing antropogenic load on the biosphere.As a spin-off from this approach, the book can be used as a guided tour of bifurcation theory from the viewpoint of application. The interested reader will find a wealth of intriguing examples of how known bifurcations occur in applications. The book can in fact be seen as bridging the gap between mathematical biology and bifurcation theory.
Migration - both within and between countries - is increasingly one of the world's most important policy issues. The faster the Indian economy grows, the larger will be the geographical redistribution of the workforce from localities of low to those of high employment growth. Thus, territorial mobility is fundamental both to realizing the full economic potential of India's people and to allowing the population to escape from rural poverty. The book analyses the decisive factors in labour migration. Based upon a thorough and robust examination of migrants to three slum localities of Delhi stretching over four decades, the author examines why people migrate, the circumstances of their decision and their experience at their destination. He investigates the myths of urban policy - that "rural development" will reduce migration to the cities, that "growth poles" can be created to divert migrant flows, and that government has the power to influence significantly migration scales and directions while pursuing essentially unpredictable market-driven economic growth. Testing the essential theoretical basis for urban policy in India, the book is of interest to academics studying migration of labour and urbanization, and those interested in South Asian Studies.
Football is an incredibly powerful case study of globalization and an extremely useful lens through which to study and understand contemporary processes of international migration. This is the first book to focus on the increasingly complex series of migratory processes that contour the contemporary game, drawing on multi-disciplinary approaches from sociology, history, geography and anthropology to explore migration in football in established, emerging and transitional contexts. The book examines shifting migration patterns over time and across space, and analyses the sociological dynamics that drive and influence those patterns. It presents in-depth case studies of migration in elite men's football, exploring the role of established leagues in Europe and South America as well as important emerging leagues on football's frontier in North America and Asia. The final section of the book analyses the movement of groups who have rarely been the focus of migration research before, including female professional players, elite youth players, amateur players and players' families, drawing on important new research in Ghana, England, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Few other sports have such a global reach and therefore few other sports are such an important location for cross-cultural research and insight across the social sciences. This book is engaging reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, sociology, human geography, migration, international labour flows, globalization, development or post-colonial studies.
This book examines the close relationship between the portrayal of foreigners and the delineation of culture and identity in antebellum American writing. Both literary and historical in its approach, this study shows how, in a period marked by extensive immigration, heated debates on national and racial traits, during a flowering in American letters, encouraged responses from American authors to outsiders that not only contain precious insights into nineteenth-century America's self-construction but also serve to illuminate our own time's multicultural societies. The authors under consideration are alternately canonical (Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville), recently rediscovered (Kirkland), or simply neglected (Arthur). The texts analyzed cover such different genres as diaries, letters, newspapers, manuals, novels, stories, and poems.
This book examines a cycle of films about migration made in the late 1990s and 2000s. It argues that these films present a novel (and radical) aesthetic of planetary urbanization based upon the mobility of the migrant and the dissolution of the city. A stimulating cinematic analysis of our expanding urban fabric, it offers an alternative to the 'cultural cityism' of many other films about migration. The author demonstrates that this particular film cycle offers a rare, sustained consideration of the travails and struggles for urban life by migrants beyond and without the city. Yet the city haunts these films like a spectre: the city that has been lost, the 'present' city that excludes and the possible 'cities of refuge' of the future. Offering new insights into the cinematic portrayal of the figure of the migrant and how this is constructed in relation to urbanization processes, this book will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, film and media studies, human geography, and urban studies.
This open access book offers new insights into the ageing-migration nexus and the nature of home. Documenting the hidden world of France's migrant worker hostels, it explores why older North and West African men continue to live past retirement age in this sub-standard housing. Conventional wisdom holds that at retirement labour migrants ought to instead return to their families in home countries, where their French pensions would have far greater purchasing power. This paradox is the point of departure for a book which transports readers from the banlieues of Paris to the banks of the Senegal River and the villages of the Anti-Atlas. In intimate ethnographic detail, the author brings to life the experiences of these older labour migrants by sharing in the life of the hostels as a resident, by observing at close quarters the men's family life on the other side of the Mediterranean as a guest in their homes, and even by accompanying them in their travels by bus, sea, and air. The monograph evaluates several theories of migration against rich qualitative data gathered from multiple methods: biographical narrative and semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and archival research. In the process, it offers a thoughtful contribution to broader debates on what it means for migrants to belong and achieve inclusion in society. This book has been awarded an 'honourable mention' in the Khayrallah Prize in Migration Studies, courtesy of the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University. For more information please see: https://lebanesestudies.ncsu.edu/awards/scholarly/2018.php. This book has been nominated for the 2019 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize
This is the first book that probes the lived experiences of Chinese immigrant faculty in North American higher education institutions: their struggles, challenges, successes, etc. It explores how their past experiences in China have shaped who they are now, what they do and how they pursue their teaching, research, and service, as well as the reality of their everyday life that inevitably intertwines with their present and past diverse cultural backgrounds and unique experiences. Different from previous books that explore immigrant/minority faculty defined ambiguously and broadly and from the theoretical framework of ethnic relations, this book has a particular focus on mainland Chinese immigrant faculty, which offers a richer and deeper understanding of their cross-culture experiences through autoethnographic research and by multiple lenses. Through authors' vivid portray of the ebbs and flows of their life in the academe, readers will gain an enjoyable and holistic knowledge of the cultural, political, linguistic, scholarly, and personal issues contemporary Chinese immigrant faculty encounter as they cross the border of multiple worlds. All contributors to this book had the experience of being the first-generation Chinese immigrants, and they either are currently teaching or used to teach in North American higher education institutions, who were born, brought up, educated in Mainland China and came to North America for graduate degrees from early 1980s to 2000.
This open access book presents a comparative analysis of intergroup relations and migrant integration at the neighbourhood level in Europe. Featuring a unique collection of portraits of urban relations between the majority population and immigrant minorities, it examines how relations are structured and evolve in different and increasingly diverse local societies. Inside, readers will find a coordinated set of ethnographic studies conducted in eleven neighbourhoods of five European cities: London, Barcelona, Budapest, Nuremberg, and Turin. The wide-ranging coverage encompasses post-industrial districts struggling to counter decline, vibrant super-diverse areas, and everything in between. Featuring highly contextualised, cross-disciplinary explorations presented within a solid comparative framework, this book considers such questions as: Why does the native-immigrant split become a tense boundary in some neighbourhoods of some European cities but not in others? To what extent are ethnically framed conflicts driven by site-specific factors or instead by broader, exogenous ones? How much does the structure of urban spaces count in fuelling inter-ethnic tensions and what can local policy communities do to prevent this? The answers it provides are based on a multi-layer approach which combines in-depth analysis of intergroup relations with a strong attention towards everyday categorization processes, media representations, and narratives on which local policies are based. Even though the relations between the majority and migrant minorities are a central topic, the volume also offers readers a broader perspective of social and urban transformation in contemporary urban settings. It provides insightful research on migration and urban studies as well as social dynamics that scholars and students around the world will find relevant. In addition, policy makers will find evidence-based and practically relevant lessons for the governance of increasingly diverse and mobile societies.
This book investigates the success story of the fast fashion industry-mainly owned by Chinese migrants-in Prato, Italy. It outlines how Prato has become the center of a value chain stretching from suppliers in China and Turkey all the way to buyers in Europe. Despite this, a policy attacking Chinese entrepreneurship has been devised and implemented in Prato. This volume analyzes said policy against the crisis of Prato's textile industry. Based on the author's 15 years of fieldwork in Prato, the book sheds light on the entangled processes of city making and the restructuring processes linked to capital accumulation by tackling issues of governance, territory, migration, division of labor, labor mobility, housing, and human rights.
This book traces Latin American migration to Europe since the 1970s. Focusing on Amsterdam, London, and Madrid, it examines the policies of integration in a comparative perspective that takes into account transnational, national, regional and local levels. It examines the entire mechanism that Latin American migrants confront in the European cities they settle, and provides readers with a theoretical framework on integration that addresses the concepts of multiculturalism, interculturality, transculturality and transnationalism. This work is based on rich qualitative data from in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation complemented by a substantial documentary and legislative analysis. It reveals that current policies are limited and migrants are excluded in most of the formal venues for integration. In addition, the book shows the many ways that migrants negotiate the constraints and imperatives of integration. In Western Europe today, immigrants are largely assuming the entire responsibility of their integration. This book provides readers with much needed insight into why European integration policies are not responding to the needs of immigrants nor to society as a whole.
This book explores how resurgent nationalism across the globe demands re-examination of many of the theories and practices in applied linguistics and language teaching as political forces seek to limit the movement of people, goods, and services across national borders and, in some cases, enact violence upon those with linguistic and/or ethnic backgrounds that differ from that of the dominant culture. The authors who have contributed to this volume provide careful analysis of nationalist discourses and actions in Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, China, Colombia, Germany, Poland, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Vietnam. They offer their unique historical and cultural perspectives on the complex relationship between language, identity, and nationhood in each of these countries, as well as practical responses to the fraught political situations that many language educators and policy makers now face.This book will appeal to researchers in applied linguistics and language teaching, as well as second and foreign language teaching professionals working and living in countries where nationalist sentiments are on the rise.
Addressing several issues of significance in the fields of Anthropology of Migration, Politics of Healthcare, Religious and Francophone Studies, this book pursues an unprecedented line of research by bringing to the fore the geopolitical dimension of francophonie, understood as a political construct, as much as a cultural, artistic and a linguistic space, with French as common language. The book is based on participant observation carried out in Paris in a foyer among Soninke migrants, the principal ethnographic focus, and at the secondary field-site based at the Mouride Islamic Centre of Taverny, which serves to show an important facet of the so-called Francophone Islam.
"The Ambivalent Welcome" describes how leading magazines and the New York Times covered and interpreted U.S. immigration policy, and public attitudes about the impact of immigrants on the American economy and social fabric. Rita J. Simon and Susan H. Alexander examine print media coverage of immigration issues from 1880, the onset of the new immigration, to the present, and find that most magazines, like most Americans, have vehemently opposed new immigrants. Part One begins with a chapter providing statistics on the number of immigrants and refugees by country of origin from 1810 to 1990, and estimates of the number of illegals who have entered the United States. Chapter 2 discusses U.S. immigration acts and summarizes the major political party platforms on immigration from the mid-nineteenth century through the present. Results of all national poll data regarding immigrants and refugees since the availability of such data (1930s) are reported in Chapter 3. Part Two discusses in detail particular magazines, including "North American RevieW," "Saturday Evening Post," "Literary Digest, Harper'S," "Scribner's, Atlantic Monthly," "The Nation," "Christian Century," "Commentary," "Commonweal," "Reader's Digest," "Time," "Life," "Newsweek," "U.S. News and World Report," and the editorials of the "New York TimeS." Following a summary chapter, Appendix A provides a profile of each of the magazines, including the date of its founding, its editors and publishers, circulation, characteristics of its readers, and an assessment of its influence on immigration. Appendix B describes the major American anti-immigration movements.
This book explores the transformation of the Tunisian space of mobility after the Arab Uprisings, looking at the country's emerging profile as a migratory "destination" and focusing on refugees from Syria, Libya, and Sub-Saharan countries; Tunisian migrants in Europe who return home; and young undocumented European migrants living in Tunis. This work engages with and contributes to the broader conversation on the migrations-crisis nexus, by retracing the geographies of mobility which are reshaping the Mediterranean region.
In 2008 for the first time the majority of the planet's inhabitants
lived in cities and towns. Becoming globally urban has been one of
mankind's greatest collective achievements over time and raises
many questions. How did global city systems evolve and interact in
the past? How have historic urban patterns impacted on those of the
contemporary world? And what were the key drivers in the
roller-coaster of urban change over the millennia - market forces
such as trade and industry? rulers and governments? competition and
collaboration between cities? or the urban environment and
demographic forces? This pioneering comparative work by fifty
leading scholars drawn from a range of disciplines offers the first
detailed comparative study of urban development from ancient times
to the present day.
This book focuses on the Mediterranean/MENA migration crisis and explores the human security implications for migrants and refugees in this troubled region. Since the Arab uprisings of 2010/2011, the Middle East and North Africa region has experienced major political transformations and called into question the legitimacy of states in the region. Displaced populations continue to suffer due to the major conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, causing fragmentation and dis-integration of communities. Contributors to this volume analyze how and why this crisis differs significantly from previous migration/refugee flows in the region, explain the historical and political antecedents of this crisis which have played a part in its shaping, and explore the relationship between human security and the protection of vulnerable individuals and groups.
This book offers a critical reflection on the ways in which migration has shaped Australia's cities, especially over the past twenty years. Australian cities are among the world's most culturally diverse and are home to most of the nation's population. This edited collection brings together contemporary research carried out by scholars across a range of diverse disciplines, all of whom are concerned with the intersections between migration and urban change. The chapters are organised under three sections: demographic, settlement and environmental transitions; urban form and housing transitions; and socio-cultural transitions. Drawing on diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, the chapters engage with a range of factors and influences affecting migration and urban development. This book will be of special interest to scholars and practitioners in the disciplines of sociology, urban planning, geography, public policy and environmental sustainability.
This book comprises the historical overview of migration processes in Kyrgyzstan, contemporary migration trends in international migration and various social, economic and political impacts of migration. It presents the findings of longstanding, in-depth, comprehensive and empirical research. Insights are maximized by applying the multi-sited strategy of analyzing both the migrant's place of origin and that of destination. The primary goal of the book is to contribute to a better understanding of the meanings and the impacts of contemporary international migration processes in Kyrgyzstan and their relevance for local livelihoods.
This book demonstrates different statistical techniques for analyzing health-related data as well as providing new techniques for forecasting and/or projecting the incidence of diseases/disorders. It presents information on a variety of health related issues from the developed and developing world. Featuring cutting edge research from distinguished applied demographers and public health specialists, the book bridges the gap between theory and research. Each chapter provides methods and materials that can be used to conduct further research aimed at promoting public health issues. This book is intended for public health professionals, health policy makers, social epidemiologists, administrators, researchers, and students in the fields of applied demography and public health who are interested in exploring the potential of ground-breaking research or who want to further develop their existing research techniques. It complements another volume in the Applied Demography Series, Applied Demography and Public Health (Springer, 2013), which describes how applied demographic techniques can be used to help address public health issues.
Written lucidly and simply to serve as an introduction to the study of the African continent from a human population perspective, this book demonstrates important factors in the ebb and flow of group size and structure using the example of the fastest growing region in the world. From a total original population of less than a quarter million in prehistoric times to the present count of 642 million people in 1990, Africa is now demonstrating an annual growth rate of 3.0%, the highest on the planet. While the rest of the world's population is expected to increase by 60%, Africa's is expected to increase by 100%, doubling by the year 2025 to a projected total of 1.6 billion people. The major factor creating the high growth rate is the drop in death rates while the fertility rates remain high. Stress on the population has been related to urbanization which has increased since African countries attained independence in the 1960s. Employment opportunities in cities are inadequate and slum conditions have appeared around most major cities. Since agriculture remains the major industry and occupation, rural development policies are seen to hold the most promise for stemming urban migration and reducing famine and poverty.
This book examines how and why liberalism and human rights have proven insufficient to protect immigrants. Contemporary immigration systems are characterized by increasing complexity and expanding enforcement, and frequently criticized for violating human rights and for causing death, exclusion and exploitation. The 'migrant crisis' can also be understood as a crisis of hospitality for liberal democracies. Through analysis of the immigration histories and political dynamics of Britain and the US, the book explains how these two archetypal liberal states have both sought to create a hostile environment for unwanted immigrants. The book provides a fresh and original perspective on the development of immigration systems, showing how they have become subject to the politics of fear and greed, and revealing how different traditions of hospitality have evolved, survived, and renewed.
Everyday conversations including gossip, boasting, flirting, teasing, and informative discussions are highly creative, improvised interactions. Children's play is also an important, often improvisational activity. One of the most improvisational games among 3- to 5-year-old children is social pretend play--also called fantasy play, sociodramatic play, or role play. Children's imaginations have free reign during pretend play. Conversations in these play episodes are far more improvisational than the average adult conversation. Because pretend play occurs in a dramatized, fantasy world, it is less constrained by social and physical reality. This book adds to our understanding of preschoolers' pretend play by examining it in the context of a theory of improvisational performance genres. This theory, derived from in-depth analyses of the implicit and explicit rules of theatrical improvisation, proves to generalize to pretend play as well. The two genres share several characteristics: * There is no script; they are created in the moment. * There are loose outlines of structure which guide the performance. * They are collective; no one person decides what will happen. Because group improvisational genres are collective and unscripted, improvisational creativity is a collective social process. The pretend play literature states that this improvisational behavior is most prevalent during the same years that many other social and cognitive skills are developing. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 begin to develop representations of their own and others' mental states as well as learn to represent and construct narratives. Freudian psychologists and other personality theorists have identified these years as critical in the development of the personality. The author believes that if we can demonstrate that children's improvisational abilities develop during these years--and that their fantasy improvisations become more complex and creative--it might suggest that these social skills are linked to the child's developing ability to improvise with other creative performers. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
Gender and Human Rights - Expanding…
Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko
Hardcover
R2,504
Discovery Miles 25 040
Kirstenbosch - A Visitor's Guide
Colin Paterson-Jones, John Winter
Paperback
Washington's Farewell Address, to the…
United States President 1789-1797, Washington Benevolent Society of the
Hardcover
R718
Discovery Miles 7 180
|