This study weaves the story of Freemasonry into the narrative of American religious history. Freighted with the mythical legacies of stonemasons' guilds and the Newtonian revolution, English Freemasonry came to colonial America with a vast array of cultural baggage, which was drawn on, added to, and transformed in different ways in its sojourn through American culture. David Hackett argues that from the 1730s through the early twentieth century the religious worlds of an evolving American social order broadly appropriated the changing beliefs and initiatory practices of this all-male society. For much of American history, Freemasonry was a counter and complement to Protestant churches and a forum for collective action among racial and ethnic groups outside the European American Protestant mainstream. Moreover, to differing degrees and at different times, the cultural template of Freemasonry gave shape and content to the American "public sphere." By expanding and complicating the terrain of American religious history to include a group not usually seen to be a carrier of religious beliefs and rituals, That Religion in Which All Men Agree shows how Freemasonry's American history contributes to a broader understanding of the multiple influences that have shaped religion in American culture.

This thoughtful and wide-ranging open access volume explores the forces and issues shaping and defining contemporary identities and everyday life in Brunei Darussalam. It is a subject that until now has received comparatively limited attention from mainstream social scientists working on Southeast Asian societies. The volume helps remedy that deficit by detailing the ways in which religion, gender, place, ethnicity, nation-state formation, migration and economic activity work their way into and reflect in the lives of ordinary Bruneians. In a first of its kind, all the lead authors of the chapter contributions are local Bruneian scholars, and the editors skilfully bring the study of Brunei into the fold of the sociology of everyday life from multiple disciplinary directions. By engaging local scholars to document everyday concerns that matter to them, the volume presents a collage of distinct but interrelated case studies that have been previously undocumented or relatively underappreciated. These interior portrayals render new angles of vision, scale and nuance to our understandings of Brunei often overlooked by mainstream inquiry. Each in its own way speaks to how structures and institutions express themselves through complex processes to influence the lives of inhabitants. Academic scholars, university students and others interested in the study of contemporary Brunei Darussalam will find this volume an invaluable resource for unravelling its diversity and textures. At the same time, it hopefully stimulates critical reflection on positionality, hierarchies of knowledge production, cultural diversity and the ways in which we approach the social science study of Brunei. 'I wish to commend the editors for bringing this volume to fruition. It is an important book in the context of Southeast Asian sociology and even more important for the development of our social, geographical, cultural and historical knowledge of Brunei.' -Victor T. King, University of Leeds

Christianity Today 2019 Book of the Year Award, Missions/Global Church Building from a behind-the-scenes case study of Kenya's Nairobi Chapel and its "daughter" Mavuno Church, Wanjiru M. Gitau expands their story into a narrative that offers analysis of the rise, growth, and place of megachurches worldwide in the new millennium. In contexts experienced as deeply volatile, and on a continent reeling from the structural incoherence imposed in colonial times, megachurches provide a map of reality to navigate by, with the gospel as their primary compass. Gitau shows that recognizing the psychological, spiritual, and social destabilization of modernizing societies is the first step to valuing the place of megachurches in contemporary Christianity. Through analysis of social demography, theology, philosophy of ministry, leadership development, and strategy, Megachurch Christianity Reconsidered makes integral sense of the historical and social forces that give megachurches their growth opportunity, and reclaims them as a subject of serious theological conversation. This engaging account centers on the role of millennials in responding to the need for "a home for new generations" amid the dislocating transitions of globalization and postmodernity in postcolonial Africa and around the world. Gitau gleans practical wisdom for postdenominational churches everywhere (mega- and otherwise) from the lessons learned in Kenya's remarkable urban, evangelical renewal movement. Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.

This book investigates how cooking, eating, and identity are connected to the local micro-climates in each of Ghana's major eco-culinary zones. The work is based on several years of researching Ghanaian culinary history and cuisine, including field work, archival research, and interdisciplinary investigation. The political economy of Ghana is used as an analytical framework with which to investigate the following questions: How are traditional food production structures in Ghana coping with global capitalist production, distribution, and consumption? How do land, climate, and weather structure or provide the foundation for food consumption and how does that affect the separate traditional and capitalist production sectors? Despite the post WWII food fight that launched Ghana's bid for independence from the British empire, Ghana's story demonstrates the centrality of local foods and cooking to its national character. The cultural weight of regional traditional foods, their power to satisfy, and the overall collective social emphasis on the 'proper' meal, have persisted in Ghana, irrespective of centuries of trade with Europeans. This book will be of interest to scholars in food studies, comparative studies, and African studies, and is sure to capture the interest of students in new ways.

What images come to mind when you read the word 'intoxication'? What behaviour do you associate with the word 'drunk'? When you hear the word 'drug', what images do you recall? This textbook provides an essential and thorough grounding in debates about the role of intoxication in contemporary society, from social and cultural perspectives. It examines intoxication in the broadest sense as including both legal and illegal substances and both culturally accepted and socially stigmatised practices. Given the pace of recent changes in policy and practice - from the increasingly common legalisation of cannabis, to the recent trend of sobriety amongst adolescents and young adults - this book stands out by offering both a through historical and theoretical overview and a topical and forward looking exploration of current debates. It adopts a multi-scale approach to examine wider patterns of change so it considers the subjective experiences of the role intoxication plays in the lives of individuals and groups, in the construction of diverse identities and how this differs by age, gender and ethnicity. The authors play particular attention to the way in which the state justifies interventions based on moral, health and criminal justice discourses and also consider the role played by other individuals and institutions, not least the mass media and the alcohol industry, in propagating and challenging common sense explanations of intoxication. It speaks to undergraduates, master's students and above, with a range of pedagogic features, and offers insights into policy and practice.

This open access book adopts a cultural sociology of materiality to explore the hallmark of the female athlete: the ponytail. Studying a wealth of news articles about ponytails in sports and society, Broch uncovers this hairstyle's polyvocality and argues that it is a total social phenomenon. By separating his approach from the cultural studies tradition, Broch highlights how hair is imbued with codes, narratives, and myth that allow its wearers to understand, maneuver, and criticize social gender relations in deeply personal ways. Using multiple theories about hair, bodies, myths, and icons, he creates a multidimensional method to show how icons are imitated and used. As women navigate their practical lives, health issues, and gendered expectations, the ponytail materializes their dynamic maneuvering of cultural and social environments. Sporting a ponytail-itself an embodiment of movement-is filled with a performativity of social movements: a cultural kinetics that is never apolitical.

This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations.

This book challenges the narrative of Northern England as a failed space of multiculturalism, drawing on a historically-contextualised discussion of ethnic relations to argue that multiculturalism has been more successful and locally situated than these assumptions allow. The authors examine the interplay between 'race', space and place to analyse how profound economic change, the evolving nature of the state, individual racism, and the local creation and enactment of multiculturalist policies have all contributed to shaping the trajectory of ethnic/faith identities and inter-community relations at a local level. In doing so, the book analyses both change and continuity in discussion of, and national/local state policy towards, ethnic relations, particularly around the supposed segregation/integration dichotomy, and the ways in which racialised 'events' are perceived and 'identities' are created and reflected in state policy operations. Drawing on the authors' long involvement in empirical research, policy and practice around ethnicity, 'race' and racism in the Northern England, they effectively support critical and situated analysis of controversial, racialised issues, and set these geographically specific findings in the context of wider international experiences of and tensions around growing ethnic diversity in the context of profound economic and social changes.

This book analyses issues related to the political use and economical misappropriation of urban cultural events, cultural infrastructures, public resources, and cultural traditions in the city of Valencia, Spain. It deals critically with a variety of sociological questions related to cultural production in the city, including geographical segregation as culturally defined in the city; misogyny and the peripheral role of women in traditional cultural events, xenophobia; and nationalism/regionalism. As such, the book will be useful to students and scholars of sociology of the arts, cultural policy, and museum management, and urban sociology.

How does culture affect action? This question has long been framed in terms of a means vs ends debate-in other words, do cultural ends or cultural means play a primary causal role in human behavior? However, the role of socialization has been largely overlooked in this debate. In this book, Vila-Henninger develops a model of how culture affects action called "The Sociological Dual-Process Model of Outcomes" that incorporates socialization. This book contributes to the debate by first providing a critical overview of the literature that explains the limitations of the sociological dual-process model and subsequent scholarship-and especially work in sociology on "schemas". It then develops a sociological dual-process model of moral judgment that formally explains Type I processes, Type II processes, and the interaction between Type I and Type II processes. The book also expands sociological dual-process models to include a temporal dimension-the "Sociological Dual-Process Model of Outcomes". Finally, the book integrates a theory of socialization into the sociological dual-process model and creates empirical indicators that confirm Vila-Henninger's theorization and contribute to the literature on measures of dual-process models.

This book explores how to compose sounds and visualisations that represent psychedelic hallucinations and experiences of synaesthesia. Through a detailed discussion regarding compositional methodologies and technical approaches, the book aims to educate students, practitioners, and researchers working in related areas. It weaves together sound, visual design, and code across a range of media, providing conceptual approaches, theoretical insights, and practical strategies, which unlock new design frameworks for composing psychedelic sounds and visualisations.

This book provides extensive information on craftsmen-built houses in China. Though some inroads have been made in studying this folk custom, this work represents the first comprehensive and systematic monograph. The book examines the topic at the two main levels of "history" and "theory". Combining historical textual research, contemporary textual research, and field study, the book presents systematic information on the folk custom of craftsmen-built houses in China. At the level of theoretical research, it puts forward some original opinions on the major theoretical issues, such as the folk custom of religious belief, the boundary between superstition and religion, and the relationship between oral literature and ritual. The book provides a guide to help readers systematically understand the folk custom of craftsmen-built houses in China. Sharing valuable insights into Chinese architectural history, as well as religious studies, cultural anthropology, and folklore, it will appeal to researchers in the fields of folklore, cultural anthropology, and architecture and can also serve as a popular science book for understanding Chinese architectural culture.

This book explores the relationship between the food culture of Israel and the creation of its national identity. It is an effort to research what the mundane, everyday behaviours such as cooking and feeding ourselves and others, can tell us about the places we were born and the cultural practices of a nation. With the aim of developing a better understanding of the many facets of Israeli nationalism, this ethnographic work interrogates how ordinary Israelis, in particular women, use food in their everyday life to construct, perform and resist national narratives. It explores how Israeli national identity is experienced through its food culture, and how social and political transformations are reflected in the consumption patterns of Israeli society. The book highlights understudied themes in anthropology, food studies and gender studies, and focuses on three key themes: food and national identity construction, the role of women as feeders of the nation, and everyday nationhood. It is a relevant work for researchers and students interested in the study of food, gender, nationalism and the Middle East; as well as for food writers and bloggers alike.

This collection of high quality, largely previously published essays, analyses a range of controversies in the field of the sociology of culture and consumption. Campbell made a major contribution to the development of this field and he has a clear and coherent theoretical position which he employs to comment on interesting disputes among scholars seeking to understand consumer culture. Containing a brand new expansive essay reflecting on consumption in the age of a pandemic and drawing out some of the conceptual and practical implications of the relationship between wants and needs, science and norms, this synthesis will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of consumption, consumer and cultural sociology.

Semiotic Sociology provides solid ground for cultural analysis in the social sciences by building up a mediation between structuralist semiology (Saussure), pragmatist semiotics (Peirce), and phenomenological sociology (Schutz, Garfinkel, Berger and Luckmann). This is a deviation from the common view that these traditions are seen as mutually exclusive alternatives and thus competitors of each other. The net result of the synthesis is that a new social theory emerges wherein action theories (Weber and rational choice) are based on phenomenological sociology and phenomenological sociology is based on neostructuralist semiotics, which is a synthesis of the Saussurean and the Peircean traditions of understanding habits of interpretation and interaction. The core issues of social research are then addressed on these grounds. The topics covered include the economy/society relationship, power, gender, modernity, institutionalization, the canon of current social theory including micro/macro and agency/structure relations, and the grounds of social criticism.

This book is the second volume in a series presenting new English translations of L.S. Vygotsky's writings on the holistic science of the child he called "pedology". It presents unique materials which reflect the development of Vygotsky's theoretical position at the last stage of his creative evolution in 1932-1934 and contributes to the number of original Vygotsky texts available in English. It includes the problem of age and age periodization; the structure and dynamics of age, psychological characteristics of age crises and diagnostics of development in relation to age, and the zone of proximal development, which became his most widely known but least understood theoretical innovation. This book places that concept in its context and makes it fully understandable for the first time. In addition, there are lectures and notes that Vygotsky made in preparation for lectures on six critical periods: birth, one year old, three, seven, and thirteen. Vygotsky also devotes chapters to the stable periods of infancy and early childhood and two whole chapters to school age. Future volumes in this series will explore Vygotsky's pedology of the adolescent.

The book provides insights into the prevailing patriarchal system in rural Pakistan. It elaborates on the kinship system in rural Sindh and explores how young married women strategize and negotiate with patriarchy. Drawing on qualitative methodologies, the book reveals the strong relationship between poverty and the perpetuation of patriarchy. Women's strategies help elevate their position in their families, such as attention to household tasks, producing children, and doing handicraft work for their well-being. These conditions are usually seen as evidence of women's subordination, but these are also strategies for survival where accommodation to patriarchy wins them approval. The book concludes that women's life-long struggle is, in fact, a technique of negotiating with patriarchy. In so doing, they internalize the culture that rests on their subordination and reproduce it in older age in exercising power by oppressing other junior women.

The Price of Freedom Denied shows that, contrary to popular opinion, ensuring religious freedom for all reduces violent religious persecution and conflict. Others have suggested that restrictions on religion are necessary to maintain order or preserve a peaceful religious homogeneity. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke show that restricting religious freedoms is associated with higher levels of violent persecution. Relying on a new source of coded data for nearly 200 countries and case studies of six countries, the book offers a global profile of religious freedom and religious persecution. Grim and Finke report that persecution is evident in all regions and is standard fare for many. They also find that religious freedoms are routinely denied and that government and the society at large serve to restrict these freedoms. They conclude that the price of freedom denied is high indeed.

This book addresses how whiteness is represented in heavy metal scenes and practices, both as a site of academic inquiry and force of cultural significance. The author argues that whiteness, and more specifically white masculinity, has been given normative value which obscures the contributions of women and people of colour, and affirms the exclusory understandings of 'belonging' which have featured in the metal scenes of Norway, South Africa, and Australia. Utilizing critical discourse analysis and critical textual analysis of musical texts, promotional material, and participant-based observation ethnographies, it explores how the texts, discourses, and practices produced and articulated by metal scene members and scholars alike have presented heavy metal as a white, masculine pastime, yet also considers the vital work done by scene members to confront expressions of exclusory misogyny and racism when they emerge in metal scenes. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in the fields of metal music studies, leisure studies, sociology of culture and sociology of racism.

This book examines postsocialist transformations reflected in urban middle-class domestic spaces and in museums dedicated to socialism in Romania. It focuses on the significance and circulation of porcelain and crystal sets and ornaments during late socialism and after 1989, following the experiences of consumers, workers in the glassware and porcelain industry, and artists. By tracing the values and temporalities embedded in materiality, the book sheds light on how objects shape daily life in a time of cultural, economic, and social change. Drawing on ethnographic research, the book offers an in-depth analysis of the ambiguous relation between the middle-class and the socialist state, using materiality and consumption to shed light on contradictions between aspirations and resources and between official discourses and everyday practices. The book reveals changes in practices of display, gift exchange, and barter, in the perception and use of time, as well as in gender and inter-generational relations. This work will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists and cultural historians, especially researchers interested in consumption, material culture, postsocialism, the anthropology of value and gift, the study of social time, practices of the middle-class, and the history of consumption in Eastern Europe.

This book shows how many previously contingent social processes have gradually been re-organised and transformed into entangled processes of 'discontinuance' and 'continuance' through the implementation of digital logic. Together with the necessary co-evolution of our collective digital literacy, this persistent process of transformation throughout modernity is theorised here as one of 'social digitalisation.' Social digitalisation highlights the ways in which material digital technology, like preceding material technologies, has been fitted into the longer term trajectory of digital transformation. This new social theory thus reverses prevailing accounts of the 'digital revolution' that focus exclusively on changes allegedly caused by material digital technology in recent decades. The book also demonstrates the fruitfulness of applying the theory of social digitalisation as a holistic approach in researching the wide-ranging consequences of contemporary digitalisation, including its contrasting effects on different social groups. It will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, communications, media and history, but also for general readers interested in understanding the overall complexity of digitalisation and how digital transformation has come to dominate the ways we live today.

In a critical, comparative study of the sociological literature, this book explores the term "time," and the various interconnections between time and a broad cluster of topics that create a conceptual labyrinth. Various understandings of time manifest themselves in the context of many individual social problems-there is no single vision in sociology of how to grasp time and address within social theory. This book, therefore, attempts to define an approach to the concept of time and its associated terms (duration, temporality, acceleration, compression, temporal structures, change, historical consciousness, and others). The volume is guided by a critical engagement with three main questions: a) the formation of human understanding of time; b) the functioning of temporal structures at different levels of social reality; c) the role and place of time in general sociological theory.

Combining global, media, and cultural studies, this book analyzes the success of Hallyu, or the "Korean Wave" in the West, both at a macro and micro level, as an alternative pop culture globalization. This research investigates the capitalist ecosystem (formed by producers, institutions and the state), the soft power of Hallyu, and the reception among young people, using France as a case study, and placing it within the broader framework of the 'consumption of difference.' Seen by French fans as a challenge to Western pop culture, Hallyu constitutes a material of choice for understanding the cosmopolitan apprenticeships linked to the consumption of cultural goods, and the use of these resources to build youth's biographical trajectories. The book will be relevant to researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, global studies, consumption and youth studies.