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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Poverty
In Poverty and Wealth in East Africa Rhiannon Stephens offers a conceptual history of how people living in eastern Uganda have sustained and changed their ways of thinking about wealth and poverty over the past two thousand years. This history serves as a powerful reminder that colonialism and capitalism did not introduce economic thought to this region and demonstrates that even in contexts of relative material equality between households, people invested intellectual energy in creating new ways to talk about the poor and the rich. Stephens uses an interdisciplinary approach to write this history for societies without written records before the nineteenth century. She reconstructs the words people spoke in different eras using the methods of comparative historical linguistics, overlaid with evidence from archaeology, climate science, oral traditions, and ethnography. Demonstrating the dynamism of people's thinking about poverty and wealth in East Africa long before colonial conquest, Stephens challenges much of the received wisdom about the nature and existence of economic and social inequality in the region's deeper past.
Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. Leaving her home, she took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity? exposing the darker side of American prosperity and the true cost of the American dream.
Jane Addams, the co-founder of Hull House, the famous settlement home, writes about her experiences and insights in her autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull House. As a child growing up in Illinois, Addams suffered from Pott's Disease, which was a rare infection in her spine. This disease caused her to contract many other illnesses, then because of these aliments, Addams was self-conscious of her appearance. She explains that she could not play with other children often due to a limp, a side effect to her illnesses. Still, she is able to provide relatable and even amusing childhood anecdotes. Addams was very close to her father. She admired him for his political work, which likely inspired her own interest and attention to the social problems of her society. In a time invested with xenophobia and cruelty towards immigrants, Addams bought land in Chicago and co-founded a settlement house named Hull House. There, Addams sought to improve the lives of immigrants and the poor by providing shelter, essential social services, and access to education. Addams served as an advocate not only for the impoverished and immigrants, but also for women. She was a leader within the women's suffrage movement, determined to expand the work she did for her community to a national scale. Twenty Years at Hull House provides both a conversation about social issues and an example of how to act against them. Though originally published in 1910, Addams autobiography provides social discourse that is not only still relevant, but also considered radical by some. Addams' autobiography was well received when it was first released, impacting many key reform movements. Twenty Years at Hull House still carries that effect today, inspiring its readers to improve their community and advocate for those in need. This edition of Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a readable font, ready to inspire readers to follow the footsteps and musings of activist Jane Addams.
The transition from school to work is recognized by developmental psychologists as a significant phase in maturation of young people. In the 1990s the likelihood that the transition might be delayed by a period of prolonged unemployment was greater than any time since the 1930s. The psychological consequences of such a delay need to be understood because they may be damaging to both the individual and to society, particularly if they are long-lasting. Such an understanding is essential for the development of sound policy in relation to youth unemployment. Originally published in 1993, Growing up with Unemployment describes a major longitudinal study of a large group of South Australian school leavers through the 1980s. It assesses the scale and context of the problem and reviews the methods and theories that have been developed to study the psychological impact of unemployment. It also looks at those factors which may contribute towards helping young people cope with it, such as financial security, social support and being involved in constructive activities with other people. The authors also examine how we might be able to predict future unemployment and understand the relationship between it and alcohol consumption, smoking and drug use. This book describes a major study with important implications for employment policy, as well as future theory and research. This title will be interesting historical reading for students of psychology and social policy, policy makers and all those who deal with young people.
This book addresses itself to the relationship between the ideological and material which has long occupied a primary place in Marxist scholarship and is seen to be of central importance to feminist analysis. This book looks at some aspects of the debate in the context of Asia.;In particular, it examines the role that ideology can play both as a disabling and an enabling factor in the lives of women seeking to earn a livliehood for themselves and their families under conditions of poverty.;The case studies relate to a mixed set of Asian countries, with an associated diversity of cultural and economic conditions.;Haleh Afshar is also editor of "Iran: A Revolution in Turmoil", "Women and Ideology" and "Women, State and Ideology". Bina Agarwal is editor of "Structures of Patriarchy: State, Community and Household in Modernising Asia" and author of "Mechanisation in Indian Agriculture" and "Cold Hearths and Barren Slopes: The Woodfuel Crisis in the Third World".
Social problems are endemic to all societies. The UK is no exception and is grappling with a plethora of issues including poverty, family breakdown, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, youth offending, alcohol and drug misuse, mental health issues, homelessness, and ethnic and religious discrimination. These problems have huge implications for the individual, the family unit and society at large and take their toll on health, wellbeing, and community resources. They place an enormous amount of strain on government finances and the welfare state, and add to the burden on social institutions, such as the National Health Service and the social work and criminal justice systems. Contemporary Social Problems in the UK explores a wide range of social problems in the UK. Each social problem has been explored using a range of psychosocial theories to generate an understanding of various causal factors and to examine the linkages between different social problems. Government policy and legislation, remedial measures, preventive approaches, and strategies of intervention are also considered for each social problem that has been dealt with. Each chapter deals with a particular social problem and has been penned by an expert in that topic. The endeavour has been to provide a multi-dimensional overview of the social problem in a manner that is engaging and easy to read. The end-of-chapter content includes supplementary reading, useful topic related websites besides a quiz and individual / group activities to generate discussion and stimulate learning. This informative yet accessible textbook will be an invaluable resource for instructors and students in the social sciences as well as professionals who work with people who experience some of these problems.
Offers the latest research on poverty in the Graeco-Roman world, and unique insights suitable for social scientists as well as those studying ancient history and classical literature.
Poverty in Contemporary Economic Thought aims to describe and critically examine how economic thought deals with poverty, including its causes, consequences, reduction and abolition. This edited volume traces the ideas of key writers and schools of modern economic thought across a significant period, ranging from Friedrich Hayek and Keynes to latter-day economists like Amartya Sen and Angus Deaton. The chapters relate poverty to income distribution, asserting the point that poverty is not always conceived of in absolute terms but that relative and social deprivation matters also. Furthermore, the contributors deal with both individual poverty and the poverty of nations in the context of the international economy. In providing such a thorough exploration, this book shows that the approach to poverty differs from economist to economist depending on their particular interests and the main issues related to poverty in each epoch, as well as the influence of the intellectual climate that prevailed at the time when the contribution was made. This key text is valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, economic development and the economics of poverty.
This book explores the relationship between youth labour market marginality and political participation, focusing on the example of Portugal and the role played by austerity policies in shaping patterns of activism. Through integrating primary and secondary empirical evidence with key ideas from classical and contemporary Sociology, the authors illustrate some of the key features of youth unemployment and job precariousness, also highlighting trends in formal and informal activist activities. Central to Youth Unemployment and Job Precariousness is the argument that following the onset of the economic crisis, there has been the birth of what we the authors term 'an austerity generation', comprised of young people facing difficulties in the labour market and uncertain futures. The book also highlights the difficulties young people have in making a political response to austerity, as well as their hopes for the future, including the need to raise consciousness about youth labour market marginalization and to return to more accountable forms of democracy.
The aim of this analysis is to cover the most important elements of the political press, and thus to paint a coherent picture of the way in which Danish newspapers has discussed the subject of the unemployed over a period of 150 years.
This book introduces the notion of culinary capital to investigate socialisation and school mealtime experiences in an academy school based in the UK. Drawing on interviews collated from children, teachers and staff within the school, the text sheds light on food insecurity in society and schools as being major issue in educational policy. The book examines schools as a microcosm for society with school food space being the playground for socialisation. It shows how forms of culinary capital can be extended in the school dining hall where social space is negotiated with notions of inclusion and exclusion during mealtime. The book uses gender, class and race to understand the school dining hall as a space where culinary capital can be exchanged and learnt. Thorough research accompanied by ethnographic visuals, field notes and observations, it also explores the sensory impact of school gardens. As such the book will be of interest to students, teachers, school leaders, educators and policy makers in the fields of Education, Sociology, Social Policy and Food Studies.
The politics of austerity has seen governments across Europe cut back on welfare provision. As the State retreats, this edited collection explores secular and faith-based grassroots social action in Germany and the United Kingdom that has evolved in response to changing economic policy and expanding needs, from basic items such as food to more complex means to move out of poverty. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines and practitioners in several areas of social intervention, the book explores how the conceptualization and constitutive practices of citizenship and community are changing because of the retreat of the State and the challenge of meeting social and material needs, creating new opportunities for local activism. The book provides new ways of thinking about social and political belonging and about the relations between individual, collective, and State responsibility.
Nearly 200 interviews with legal services lawyers and administrators, bar association officers, judges, and political officials form the basis for this book on the delivery of civil legal services to the poor. Beginning with a brief history of legal assistance programs, Kessler examines the operation of five local programs funded by the national Legal Services Corporation. The activities of poverty lawyers in urban, rural, and suburban settings are described and analyzed and the author offers an explanation for variables in service based on the constraints imposed by the interorganizational environment. The implications of his findings are examined from the perspective of existing theories of organizational behavior, the system's potential for effecting political and legal reform, and current political debates surrounding the future of the Legal Services Corporation.
Almost four decades since AIDS was first reported in Africa, the epidemic has reached a watershed moment where progress in prevention, care and support programs confronts intransigent socioeconomic and gender rights barriers and emerging funding uncertainties. While there are grounds for cautious optimism that the incidence of HIV infections and AIDS-related mortality can be further reduced, they cannot, by themselves, end the epidemic. This will require overcoming gendered inequalities, HIV stigma and neglect of high-risk youth and socially peripheralized groups.
This book looks at human capital development and provides an explanation for why cognitive development varies among ethnic groups. The book uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine inter-generational ethnic poverty. It puts forth an argument that the ethnic poverty gap can be reduced, and to do so we need a broader view of human capital which considers the match between the nature of the economy and the specific capabilities needed. The book focuses on the interrelationship between developmental psychology and socio-economic status and argues that the most important relationship in a knowledge economy is actually the one between a parent and a child. The book begins by looking at cultures and assimilation and investigates the link between education, culture and socio-economic status. It also attempts to answer the question of what the link between culture, parents and children's ability is and why ethnic groups vary in their nurturing. It delves into how parenting and cognitive development are interrelated. This thought-provoking book concludes with an emphasis on nurture and how it may alleviate ethnic poverty and shape social policies. The book provides a strong thesis to counter explanations based on racial and genetic superiority.
This book explores welfare politics, unemployment, and interventions in relation to the labour market from a critical psychological perspective. Using critical fieldwork and theory, the author explores the administration of the unemployed, and the drive to increase labour market participation through strategies of activation. There is a strong and coherent conceptual and theoretical framing for this work, with a critical perspective (essentially, question everything) taking centre stage. It will give an overall coherence in addressing the topic. The theoretical framing is cogent and, in combination with the critical perspective, works well for integrating the material and delivering a fresh approach to this topic. Psychology, Punitive Activation and Welfare will appeal to students engaging with critical psychology, unemployment or policy, by providing a distinct application of theoretical and methodological tools to think differently about the relationship between labour market non/participation, human misery, psychology, and frontline enactment of policy and research.
integrates gender, class, and race and doesn't treat them separately, which makes it both comprehensive but also theoretically cohesive for those scholars who don't want to see these categories divorced the authors pay increased attention to disability, intersectionality, immigration, religion, and place greater emphasis placed on crime and the criminal justice system as well as health and the environment new chapter on policy alternatives and venues for social change. the chapters are really well calibrated for teaching both in length and progression (they build on each other). Easy to structure the course without switching things around much. covers a wide net of inequalities, thus raising awareness of inequality in all its phases is shows structural factors in social stratification.
The authors discuss the impact of foreign aid and tackle the question of why assessing the impact of aid is so difficult. The authors focus on peer-reviewed, cross-country studies published over the last decade and draw together some global-level assessments, considering the context and conditions under which aid might be said to 'work'. Glennie and Sumner argue that the evidence in four areas shows signs of convergence that may have direct relevance for policy decisions on aid and for aid effectiveness discussions. These are as follows: Aid levels (meaning if aid is too low or too high); Domestic political institutions (including political stability and extent of decentralisation); Aid composition (including sectors, modalities, objectives and time horizons); and Aid volatility and fragmentation. Notably, this study finds that there is no consensus that the effectiveness of aid depends on orthodox economic policies.
Developing a contemporary account of political friendship and synthesizing it with the radical movement of degrowth, this book provides the ethical grounding and the rationale of an alternative economy which serves human flourishing. The Aristotelian political friendship embodies active concern for the others' well-being that contemporary societies lack; the crucial problems of ecological destruction and global poverty illustrate this friendship deficit. Arguing for the need for re-embracing a friendly civic ethos and re-aligning the economy with moral objectives, the author updates the Aristotelian idea and identifies it with democratic-autonomous political-economic praxis that ensures citizens' self-actualization. Degrowth movement questioning economic growth and productivism, and privileging a simpler life with less material goods, favours political friendship precisely because it nourishes its unconscious substratum namely human instinctual sociality. The call for genuine democratic political praxis that political friendship implies could enable the degrowth movement to retain its radical character and accomplish the shift to an economy which serves life. The book is worthwhile studying by students and researchers across social sciences and especially by scholars in the fields of sociology, philosophy, and politics, but also a broader readership sensitive to the issues of social and environmental sustainability will find this work extremely interesting.
The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, London hoped to expose the indignities faced by those left behind by industrialization. In 1902, Jack London traveled to England to live in the slums of London's East End. Hoping to learn about the lives and experiences of the city's working class, he spent three months staying in workhouses, sleeping on the streets, and lodging with a poor family in the area. Drawing on his own experience as a working-class American, and informed by his dedicated understanding of socialism, London recorded what he saw of the lives of London's poor, the hundreds of thousands of humans held back from the nation's progress toward modernization. The People of the Abyss was a popular and critical success upon publication and would inspire the young George Orwell to conduct his own research on poverty and urban life, which he recorded in his groundbreaking work Down and Out in Paris and London. Although he is known more for his contributions to fiction, London was a talented journalist whose experiences as a world traveler and worker allowed him to capture the deprivations of impoverished life while preserving a sense of humanity and advocating for much needed change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Jack London's The People of the Abyss is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.
* Fascinating reading for advanced undergraduate and any postgraduate students of discourse studies as well as those with an interest in the relationship between charity, poverty and social exclusion. The conceptual material will also appeal more widely to researchers who wish to study processes of psychologisation and neoliberal government from a critical perspective * Direct applications of concepts to the real-world example of food banks offer an accessible entry into Foucault's thought and can offer practical guidance for those designing empirical projects in critical psychology * Addresses a clear gap in the market for a book that engages critically with the discourses and power dynamics in charity settings and may even inform the practices of anti-poverty campaigners and encourage critical reflection among food bank volunteers
* Fascinating reading for advanced undergraduate and any postgraduate students of discourse studies as well as those with an interest in the relationship between charity, poverty and social exclusion. The conceptual material will also appeal more widely to researchers who wish to study processes of psychologisation and neoliberal government from a critical perspective * Direct applications of concepts to the real-world example of food banks offer an accessible entry into Foucault's thought and can offer practical guidance for those designing empirical projects in critical psychology * Addresses a clear gap in the market for a book that engages critically with the discourses and power dynamics in charity settings and may even inform the practices of anti-poverty campaigners and encourage critical reflection among food bank volunteers
This book explores welfare politics, unemployment, and interventions in relation to the labour market from a critical psychological perspective. Using critical fieldwork and theory, the author explores the administration of the unemployed, and the drive to increase labour market participation through strategies of activation. There is a strong and coherent conceptual and theoretical framing for this work, with a critical perspective (essentially, question everything) taking centre stage. It will give an overall coherence in addressing the topic. The theoretical framing is cogent and, in combination with the critical perspective, works well for integrating the material and delivering a fresh approach to this topic. Psychology, Punitive Activation and Welfare will appeal to students engaging with critical psychology, unemployment or policy, by providing a distinct application of theoretical and methodological tools to think differently about the relationship between labour market non/participation, human misery, psychology, and frontline enactment of policy and research.
Looking beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary social interactions, The Moral Power of Money investigates the forces of power and morality at play, particularly among the poor. Drawing on fieldwork in a slum of Buenos Aires, Ariel Wilkis argues that money is a critical symbol used to negotiate not only material possessions, but also the political, economic, class, gender, and generational bonds between people. Through vivid accounts of the stark realities of life in Villa Olimpia, Wilkis highlights the interplay of money, morality, and power. Drawing out the theoretical implications of these stories, he proposes a new concept of moral capital based on different kinds, or "pieces," of money. Each chapter covers a different "piece"-money earned from the informal and illegal economies, money lent through family and market relations, money donated with conditional cash transfers, political money that binds politicians and their supporters, sacrificed money offered to the church, and safeguarded money used to support people facing hardships. This book builds an original theory of the moral sociology of money, providing the tools for understanding the role money plays in social life today. |
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