This book gathers the voices of four local Hong Kong theologians to reflect on the 2014 democracy protests in the city from the perspectives of Catholic social teaching, feminist and queer intersectionality, Protestant liberation, and textual exegesis. The volume also includes an extended primer on Hong Kong politics to aid readers as they reflect on the theology underlying the democracy protests. September 28, 2014 is known as the day that political consciousness in Hong Kong began to shift. As police fired eighty-seven volleys of tear gas at protesters demanding "genuine universal suffrage" in Hong Kong, the movement (termed the "Umbrella Movement") ignited a polarizing set of debates over civil disobedience, government collusion with private interests, and democracy. The Umbrella Movement was also a theological watershed moment, a time for religious reflection. This book analyzes the role that religion played in shaping the course of this historic movement.

This book gathers scholars from the three major monotheistic religions to discuss the issue of poverty and wealth from the varied perspectives of each tradition. It provides a cadre of values inherent to the sacred texts of Jews, Christians, and Muslims and illustrates how these values may be used to deal with current economic inequalities. Contributors use the methodologies of religious studies to provide descriptions and comparisons of perspectives from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on poverty and wealth. The book presents citations from the sacred texts of all three religions. The contributors discuss the interpretations of these texts and the necessary contexts, both past and present, for deciphering the stances found there. Poverty and Wealth in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam identifies and details a foundation of common values upon which individual and institutional decisions may be made.

This original book studies a wide variety of mediating institutions, both organizational and non-organizational, in workplaces, residential areas, and in wider society. Focusing upon institutions in the Thames Gateway and with case studies across south-east London, Europe and the USA, Meditating Institutions highlights the importance of understanding, creating and maintaining these organizations that facilitate relationships between religious institutions and others within society. Discussing their structures and activities, the author asserts that good relationships between religious institutions and other groups in our society are essential for a cohesive and peaceful society.

This pivot examines how the Theatre Olympics, born in 1995, have served to enrich each host country's culture, community, and foreign relations. Looking at the host country's political, social, and cultural circumstances, it considers how the festival expands the notion of Olympism beyond its application to the Olympic Games, expressing the spirit of Olympism and interculturalism in each country's distinct cultural language. It also emphasizes the festival's development over the twenty years of its existence and how each festival's staging has reflected the national identity, theatre tradition, and cultural interest of the hosting country at that time, as well as how each festival director's artistic principle has attempted to accomplish cultural exchange through their productions.

This book explores the concept of cyberplace as a mode of inhabiting the contemporary world. As a result, it suggests that, for many communities, unlocking cyberspace and inhabiting cyberplaces is now an integral part of their coming-to-the-globalised-world. Boos reviews in the detail the existing academic literature from cultural anthropology, human geography, and sociology on "cyberspace", concluding that a phenomenological perspective on cyberspace provides the possibility of gaining a deep understanding of our contemporary lifeworlds, in which on- and offline practices constantly intermingle. In four chapters, he applies the developed theoretical and methodological approaches to the case of Siena's neighbourhoods, the contrade, analysing their websites and discussing the implications of his findings for understanding contemporary processes of community building and for future research on cyberspace. This concise and accessible book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in cultural anthropology, human geography, media studies and sociology.

This book reinvigorates the debate about the origins and development of police culture within our changing social, economic and political landscape. An in-depth analysis and appreciation of the police socialisation, identity and culture literature is combined with a comprehensive four-year longitudinal study of new recruits to a police force in England. The result offers new insights into the development of, and influences upon, new police recruits who refer to themselves as a "new breed" of police officer. Adding significantly to the police culture literature, this original and empirically based research also provides valuable insights into the challenges of modern policing in an age of austerity. Scholars of policing and criminal justice, as well as police officers themselves will find this compelling reading.

This book explores the ways through which Korean American men demonstrate and navigate their manhood within a US context that has historically sorted them into several limiting, often emasculating, stereotypes. In the US, Korean men tend to be viewed as passive, non-athletic, and asexual (or hypersexual). They are often burdened with very specific expectations that run counter to traditional tropes of US masculinity. According to the normative script of masculinity, a "man" is rugged, individualistic, and powerful-the antithesis of the US social construction of Asian American men. In an interdisciplinary fashion, this book probes the lives of Korean American men through the lenses of religion and sports. Though these and other outlets can serve to empower Korean American men to resist historical scripts that limit their performance of masculinity, they can also become harmful. Mark Chung Hearn utilizes ethnography, participant observation, and interviews conducted with second-generation Korean American men to explore what it means to be an Asian American man today.

Opposing a binary perspective that consolidates ethnicity, religion, and nationalism into separate spheres, this book demonstrates that neither nationalism nor religion can be studied in isolation in the Middle East. Religious interpretation, like other systems of meaning-production, is affected by its historical and political contexts, and the processes of interpretation and religious translation bleed into the institutional discourses and processes of nation-building. This book calls into question the foundational epistemologies of the nation-state by centering on the pivotal and intimate role Islam played in the emergence of the nation-state, showing the entanglements and reciprocities of nationalism and religious thought as they played out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Middle East.

Didier Maleuvre argues that works of art in Western societies from Ancient Greece to the interconnected worlds of the Digital Age have served to rationalize and normalize an engagement with bourgeois civilization and the city. Maleuvre details that the history of art itself is the history civilization, giving rise to the particular aesthetics and critical attitudes of respective moments and movements in changing civilizations in a dialogical mode. Building a visual cultural account of shifting forms of culture, power, and subjectivity, Maleuvre illustrates how art gave a pattern and a language to the model of social authority rather than simply functioning as a reflective one. Through a broad cultural study of the relationship between humanity, art, and the culture of civilization, Maleuvre introduces a new set of paradigms that critique and affirm the relationship between humanity and art, arguing for it as an engine of social reproduction that transforms how culture is inhabited.

Through a unique range of theoretical and practical case studies, this collection considers the relationship between the arts (understood as the visual arts, crafts, theatre, dance, and literature) and development, creating both a bridge between them that is rarely explored and filling in concrete ways the content of the "culture" part of the equation "culture and development". It includes manifestations of culture and the ways in which they relate to development, and in turn contribute to such pressing issues as poverty alleviation, concern for the environment, health, empowerment, and identity formation. It shows how the arts are an essential part of the concrete understanding of culture, and as such a significant part of development thinking - including the development of culture, and not only of culture as an instrumental means to promote other development goals.

This book presents an historical and sociological account of the Italian mafia-type organisation known as the 'ndrangheta. It draws together diverse perspectives on the various 'ndrangheta clans and their behavioural models, focusing specifically on their organisational skills, their bonds with Calabrian society and Calabrian communities around the world, their mobility, and their characterisation as poly-crime organisations. The authors demonstrate that 'ndrangheta clans have an innovative way of being and doing mafia work through a dense network of relationships both in the 'upperworld' and in the 'underworld', a particularly acute sense of business, a reputation built on the protection of blood and family ties, and, last but not least, a symbiotic relationship and camouflage within Calabrian society. By focusing on both the structures and the activities of the clans and with findings based on judicial documents, this book explores why the 'ndrangheta is today labeled as "the most powerful Italian mafia". It will be of great interest to upper-level students and scholars of organised crime and sociology.

This book examines both the evolution of the Catholic vote in the US and the role of Catholic voters in the historic 2016 elections. There is a paucity of academic works on Catholics and US politics-scholars of religion and US politics tend to focus on evangelical Protestant voters-even though Catholics are widely considered the swing vote in national elections. The 2016 presidential election proves that the swing vote component of that group matters in close elections. What Trump gained from his impressive showing among Catholics, he could certainly lose in 2020 (should he seek re-election), just as Hillary Clinton lost the clear advantage among Catholics achieved by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. The book begins by analyzing the ideological patterns in the politics of U.S. Catholics as well as key alliances, and concludes by studying the political influences of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Holy See.

Are human tendencies toward religious and spiritual thoughts, feelings, and actions outcomes of "natural" cognition? This volume revisits the "naturalness theory of religious cognition" through discussion of new qualitative and quantitative studies examining the psychological foundations of religious and spiritual expression in historical and contemporary China. Naturalness theory has been challenged on the grounds that little of its supporting developmental and experimental research has drawn on participants from predominantly secular cultural environments. Given China's official secularity, its large proportion of atheists, and its alleged long history of dominant, nonreligious philosophies, can any broad claim for religion's psychological "naturalness" be plausible? Addressing this empirical gap, the studies discussed in this volume support core naturalness theory predictions for human reasoning about supernatural agency, intelligent design, the efficacy of rituals, and vitalistic causality. And yet each study elucidates, expands upon, or even challenges outright the logical assumptions of the naturalness theory. Written for a non-specialist audience, this volume introduces the naturalness theory and frames the significance of these new findings for students and scholars of cultural psychology, the psychology of religion, the anthropology of religion, and Chinese Studies.

This book examines the relationship between race, religion, and economics within the black church. The book features unheard voices of individuals experiencing economic deprivation and the faith communities who serve as their refuge. Thus, this project examines the economic ethics of black churches in the rural South whose congregants and broader communities have long struggled amidst persistent poverty. Through a case study of communities in Alabama's Black Belt, this book argues that if the economic ethic of the Black Church remains accommodationist, it will continue to become increasingly irrelevant to communities that experience persistent poverty. Despite its historic role in combatting racial oppression and social injustice, the Church has also perpetuated ideologies that uncritically justify unjust social structures. Wilson shows how the Church can shift the conversation and reality of poverty by moving from a legacy of accommodationism and toward a legacy of empowering liberating economic ethics.

The book reveals how the 'social value of art' may have one meaning for a policy maker, another for a museum and still yet another for an artist - and it is therefore in the interaction between these agents that we learn the most about the importance of rhetoric and interpretation. As a trajectory in art history, socially engaged art has a long and established history. However, in recent years-or since 'the social turn' that occurred in the 1990s-the rhetoric surrounding the social value of art has been assimilated by cultural policy makers and museums. Interdisciplinary in its approach, and bringing together contributions from artists, curators and academics, the volume explores rhetoric, social value and the arts within different social, political and cultural contexts.

This book explores religious epiphanies in which there is the appearance of God, a god or a goddess, or a manifestation of the divine or religious reality as received in human experience. Drawing upon the scriptures of various traditions, ancillary religious writings, psychological and anthropological studies, as well as reports of epiphanic experiences, the book presents and examines epiphanies as they have occurred across global religious traditions and cultures, historically and up to the present day. Primarily providing a study of the great range of epiphanies in their phenomenal presentation, Kellenberger also explores issues that arise for epiphanies, such as the matter of their veridicality (whether they are truly of or from the divine) and the question of whether all epiphanies are of the same religious reality.

This book provides comparative, multi-disciplinary research on the surplus food distribution in Europe and its relation to food poverty, with a focus on the interaction of for-profit and non-profit organisations. It offers an informed and rich discussion in understanding the collaboration between profit and non-profit organisations involved in food recovery dynamics, and provides understanding as to how the two types of players create effective, innovative and sustainable processes. Building on sociology, food justice, and sustainable management fields, the book will be of interest to a diverse range of scholars, policy makers and practitioners inspiring innovation in how to address food poverty through surplus food recovery.

This book addresses an issue currently making political headlines in the United States-immigration. Immigrants have long engendered debates about the boundaries of belonging, with some singing their praises and others warning of their dangers. In particular, the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country provoke heated disagreements with issues of legality and morality at the forefront. Increasingly, such debates take place online, by organizations in the immigrant rights and the immigration control movements, who engage in symbolic work that includes blurring, crossing, maintaining, solidifying, and shifting the boundaries of belonging. Based on data collected from 29 national-level groups, this book features a cultural sociological analysis of the online materials deployed by social movement organizations debating immigration in the United States.

This highly original book suggests that the practices of Taliban and the American far right, two very significant and poorly understood groups, share common features. This commonality can be found in the philosophical basis of their ideological beliefs, in their comparative worldviews, and in their political practices. As Raja argues, the Taliban are much less the product of an irrational fundamentalism, and the radical right in America is much more the result of such a mindset, than Americans recognize. After providing a detailed explanation of his theoretical concepts and specialized vocabulary, the author develops a discussion of the subject in this brief but penetrating book. This is a book that should attract a wide readership among both academics and the general public.

In the last two decades, Turkey has witnessed a variety of bordering interventions rooted in its problematisation as variously "transit," "destination," "European," "Muslim" and "safe." This book brings into focus seemingly disparate actors involved in such interventions, from the EU and international organisations to missionaries, security professionals and migrants themselves. It exposes how these actors depend upon the intersecting rationalities of managerialism, securitisation, humanitarianism and orientalism to control, contain, process, save and soul-lift mobile populations.

This volume examines emotions and emotional well-being from a rich variety of theological, philosophical and scientific and therapeutic perspectives. To experience emotion is a part of being human; but what are emotions? How can theology, philosophy and the natural sciences unpack the nature and content of emotions? This volume is based on contributions to the 15th European Conference on Science and Theology held in Assisi, Italy. It brings together contributions from scholars of various academic backgrounds from around the world, whose individual insights are made all the richer by their juxtaposition with those from experts in other fields, leading to a unique exchange of ideas.

This book is an investigation of the cultural work involved in the social process of achieving and maintaining legitimacy as a not-for-profit arts or media organization in the twenty-first century. Within this work, Larsen advances an approach to studying organizational legitimacy, emanating from within cultural sociology. More specifically, he analyzes the legitimation work done in public service broadcasters in the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

An in-depth study of selected refugees from Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, this book examines the relationship between the refugees' religious and spiritual beliefs and the refugee experience. Susan P. Ennis takes a close look at the circumstances of refugees' flight, their asylum, and their initial period of settlement in Melbourne, Australia during the period between the 1990s and the early twenty-first century. Ennis finds that a sense of religiosity seemed to aid the refugees, in some way, during all stages of their journey. Furthermore, nearly half of the refugees she studied reported a shift in their religiosity over the course of their emigration. Based on her research, Ennis puts forward a framework of religiosity and the refugee experience based on shifting typologies at each stage of the refugee journey.

This book focuses on cultural tourism as it develops into the second decade of the new millennium. It presents recent hospitality and tourism research findings from various sources, including academic researchers and scholars, industry professionals, government and quasi-government officials, and other key industry practitioners. It discusses the latest tourism industry trends and identifies gaps in the research from a pragmatic and applied perspective. It includes specific chapters on innovation in tourism, the virtual visitor, cross-cultural visions of digital collections, heritage and museum management in the digital era, cultural and digital tourism policy, marketing and governance, social media, emerging technologies and e-tourism and many other topics of contemporary significance in global hospitality and tourism. The book is edited in collaboration with the International Association of Cultural and Digital Tourism (IACuDiT) and includes the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Cultural and Digital Tourism.

During the early 1980s, large parts of Europe were swept with riots and youth revolts. Radicalised young people occupied buildings and clashed with the police in cities such as Zurich, Berlin and Amsterdam, while in Great Britain and France, 'migrant' youths protested fiercely against their underprivileged position and police brutality. Was there a link between the youth revolts in different European cities, and if so, how were they connected and how did they influence each other? These questions are central in this volume. This book covers case studies from countries in both Eastern and Western Europe and focuses not only on political movements such as squatting, but also on political subcultures such as punk, as well as the interaction between them. In doing so, it is the first historical collection with a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective on youth, youth revolts and social movements in the 1980s.