This cross-disciplinary volume brings together diverse perspectives on children's food occasions inside and outside of the home across different geographical locations. By unpacking mundane food occasions - from school dinners to domestic meals and from breakfast to snacks - Feeding Children Inside and Outside the Home shows the role of food in the everyday lives of children and adults around them. Investigating food occasions at home, schools and in nurseries during weekdays and holidays, this book reveals how children, mothers, fathers, teachers and other adults involved in feeding children, understand, make sense of and navigate ideological discourses of parenting, health imperatives and policy interventions. Revealing the material and symbolic complexity of feeding children, and the role that parenting and healthy discourses play in shaping, perpetuating and transforming both feeding and eating, this volume shows how micro and macro aspects are at play in mundane and everyday practices of family life and education. This volume will be of great interested to a wide range of students and researchers interested in the sociology of family life, education, food studies and everyday consumption.

In The Unity of the Capitalist Economy and State, Geert Reuten offers a systematic exposition of the capitalist system, showing that the capitalist economy and the capitalist state constitute a unity. In its critique of contemporary economics, the book argues that in order to comprehend the capitalist system, one requires a full synthetic exposition of the economic and state institutions and processes necessary for its continued existence. A synthetic approach also reveals a range of components that are often obscured by partial analyses. In its systematic character, Reuten's work takes inspiration from Marx's provisional outline of the capitalist system in Capital, while also addressing fields that Marx left unfinished-such as the capitalist state.

This handbook critically examines the three concepts of exclusion, inequality and stigma and their interrelationship in the Indian context. Divided into five parts, the volume deals with the issues of exclusion, inequality, gender discrimination, health and disability, and assault and violence. It discusses important topical themes such as caste and social exclusion in rural labour markets, impact of poverty and unemployment, discrimination in education and literacy, income inequality and financial inclusion, social security of street vendors, women social entrepreneurs, rural-urban digital divide, workplace inequality, women trafficking, acid attacks, inter-caste marriages, honour killings, health care and sanitation, discrimination faced by those with disabilities, and regional disparities in India. The book traces rising socio-economic inequality and discrimination along with the severe lack of access to resources and opportunities, redressal instruments, legal provisions and implementation challenges, while also looking at deep-rooted causes responsible for their persistence in society. With emphasis on affirmative action, systemic mechanisms, and the role of state and citizens in bridging gaps, the volume presents several policies and strategies for development. It combines wide-ranging empirical case studies backed by relevant theoretical frameworks to map out a new agenda for research on socio-economic inequality in India with important implications for public policy. Comprehensive and first of its kind, this handbook will serve as a key reference to scholars, researchers and teachers of exclusion and discrimination studies, social justice, political economy, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science, development studies, education and public administration. It will also be useful to policymakers, bureaucrats, civil society activists, non-governmental organisations and social entrepreneurs in the development sector, in addition to those interested in third world studies, developing economies and the global south.

This interdisciplinary study examines painted portraiture as a defining metaphor of elite self-representation in early modern culture. Beginning with Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528), the most influential early modern account of the formation of elite identity, the argument traces a path across the ensuing century towards the images of courtiers and nobles by the most persuasive of European portrait painters, Van Dyck, especially those produced in London during the 1630s. It investigates two related kinds of texts: those which, following Castiglione, model the conduct of the ideal courtier or elite social conduct more generally; and those belonging to the established tradition of debates about the condition of nobility -how far it is genetically inherited and how far a function of excelling moral and social behaviour. Van Dyck is seen as contributing to these discussions through the language of pictorial art. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, cultural history, early modern history and Renaissance studies.

This book explores the relation between democracy and industrialization in United States history. Over the course of the 1930s, the political center almost disappeared as the Democratic New Deal became the litmus test of class, with blue collar workers providing its bedrock of support while white collar workers and those in the upper-income levels opposed it. By 1948 the class cleavage in American politics was as pronounced as in many of the Western European countries-such as France, Italy, Germany, or Britain-with which we usually associate class politics. Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s which was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America that existed before. They won the political rights of American citizenship which had been previously denied them. They democratized labor-capital relations and gained more economic security than they had ever known. They obtained more economic opportunity for them and their children than they had ever known and they created a respect for ethnic workers, which had not previously existed. In the process, class politics re-defined the political agenda of America as-for the first time in American history-the political universe polarized along class lines. Eric Leif Davin explores the meaning of the New Deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole.

The book outlines the approaches of classical elite theory and democratic elitism for the study of national power structures. The book displays different research methods for elite study as well as the power conceptions included within these methods. An elite structure typology is derived from the elite theory and applied to chart the changes in the elite structure of one country, Finland. The data of this work is unique in international comparison: postal surveys were conducted among the elites and the citizenry in 1991, 2001, and 2011. The study explores empirically the changes occurring in the elite structure from the early 1990s to the present day-a period that has been characterized by important societal upheavals, such as the great recession of the early 1990s, Finland's accession to the European Union in 1995, and the international financial crisis and the Eurozone debt crisis in the 2000s. The main focus is on how the elite structure has changed in terms of vertical social mobility (i.e., openness) on the one hand and horizontal mobility (i.e., coherence) on the other. With regard to vertical social mobility, the research interest focuses on changes in elites' social background and various factors advancing their recruitment and career into elite positions. As for horizontal mobility, the study focuses on the elites' different channels of contact with other influential groups in society, networking with various societal institutions, the attitudinal unanimity within various elites and between the elites and the citizenry, mobility between different elite groups (i.e. circulation), the accumulation of power positions, and the retention and loss of elite positions. The findings are compared with previous international studies, especially Scandinavian elite studies. Finally, the study considers what the results tell us about the state of democracy.

Class counts. Class differences and class warfare have existed since the beginning of western civilization, but the gap in income and wealth between the rich (top 10 percent) and the rest has increased steadily in the last twenty-five years. The U.S. is heading for a financial oligarchy much worse than the aristocratic old world that our Founding Fathers feared and tried to avoid. The middle class is struggling and shrinking, the Medicare and Social Security trusts are drying up, and education is no longer the great equalizer. A moral society, one that is fair and just, sets limits on the accumulation of wealth and inherited privilege and also guarantees a safety net for the less fortunate. This book describes the need for a redistribution of wealth in order to make U.S. society more democratic, fair and just, and outlines the ways in which we can begin to make these very necessary changes. This is a timely and powerful book, one that should be read by anyone interested in preserving the social fabric of American life.

Noted scholar Lois Weis first visited the town of Freeway in her 1990 book, Working Class Without Work. In that book we met the students and teachers of Freeway's high school to understand how these working-class folks made sense of their lives. Now, fifteen years later, Weis has gone back to Freeway for Class Reunion. This time her focus is on the now grown-up students who are, for the most part, still working class and now struggling to survive the challenges of the global economy.
Class Reunion is a rare and valuable longitudinal ethnographic study that provides powerful, provocative insight into how the lives of these men and women have changed over the last two decades--and what their prospects might be for the future.

Noted scholar Lois Weis first visited the town of Freeway in her 1990 book, Working Class Without Work. In that book we met the students and teachers of Freeway's high school to understand how these working-class folks made sense of their lives. Now, fifteen years later, Weis has gone back to Freeway for Class Reunion. This time her focus is on the now grown-up students who are, for the most part, still working class and now struggling to survive the challenges of the global economy.
Class Reunion is a rare and valuable longitudinal ethnographic study that provides powerful, provocative insight into how the lives of these men and women have changed over the last two decades--and what their prospects might be for the future.

Thirty-five years after its initial publication, Harold Cruse's "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual," remains a foundational work in Afro-American Studies and American Cultural Studies. Published during a highly contentious moment in Afro-American political life, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual" was one of the very few texts that treated Afro-American intellectuals as intellectually significant. The essays contained in Harold Cruse's "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Reconsidered" are collectively a testimony to the continuing significance of this polemical call to arms for black intellectuals. Each scholar featured in this book has chosen to discuss specific arguments made by Cruse. While some have utilized Cruse's arguments to launch broader discussions of various issues pertaining to Afro-American intellectuals, and others have contributed discussions on intellectual issues completely ignored by Cruse, all hope to pay homage to a thinker worthy of continual reconsideration.

Academics often direct their research 'across' in order to examine issues that grip members of the middle classes, or 'down' in order to understand the difficulties workers and other marginalized groups endure. Research that is directed 'up' at individuals and groups with positions of greater wealth and power is less common, yet 'studying up' can contribute to our understanding of growing inequality, economic polarization and social change by studying the rich, powerful and elite in our society. Presenting the latest empirical case studies from Canada, The USA and Australia, this volume explores the challenges and difficulties involved in conducting research amongst the rich and elite, whilst shedding light on the manner in which power is harnessed, protected and controlled to manage and manipulate resources. A demonstration of the importance of studying up to our understanding of decision-making, governance and the nature of contemporary democracy in the global economy, Researching Amongst Elites will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists and geographers working in areas such as social research methods, social stratification, the sociology of elites and relations of class, wealth and power.

The linguistic origin of the term Dalit is Marathi, and pre-dates the militant-intellectual Dalit Panthers movement of the 1970s. It was not in popular use till the last quarter of the 20th century, the origin of the term Dalit, although in the 1930s, it was used as Marathi-Hindi translation of the word "Depressed Classes". The changing nature of caste and Dalits has become a topic of increasing interest in India. This edited book is a collection of originally written chapters by eminent experts on the experiences of Dalits in India. It examines who constitute Dalits and engages with the mainstream subaltern perspective that treats Dalits as a political and economic category, a class phenomenon, and subsumes homogeneity of the entire Dalit population. This book argues that the socio-cultural deprivations of Dalits are their primary deprivations, characterized by heterogeneity of their experiences. It asserts that Dalits have a common urge to liberate from the oppressive and exploitative social arrangement which has been the guiding force of Dalit movement. This book has analysed this movement through three phases: the reformative, the transformative and the confrontationist. An exploration of dynamic relations between subalternity, exclusion and social change, the book will be of interest to academics in the field of sociology, political science and contemporary India.

Presenting case studies of well-known shows including Will and Grace, Birds of a Feather, Sex and the City and Absolutely Fabulous, as well as 'reality' television, this book examines the transformations that have occurred in consumer society since its appearance and the ways in which these have been constructed and represented in popular media imagery. With analyses of the ways in which consumerism has played out in society, Consumerism on TV highlights specific aspects of the changing nature of consumerism by way of considerations of gender, sexuality and class, as well as less definable changes such as those to do with the celebration of ostentatious greed or the righteousness of the 'ethical' shopper. With attention to the highly delineated consumer field in which 'shopping' as an embedded practice of everyday life is caught between escapism and politics, authors explore a variety of themes, such as the extent to which consumerism has become embedded in forging identity, the positing of consumerism as a form of activism, the visibility of the gay male consumer and invisibility of the lesbian consumer, and the (re)stratification of consumer types along class lines. An engaging invitation to consider whether the positioning of consumerism through on-screen depictions is indicative of a new type of non-philosophical politics of 'choice' - a form of marketised, (a)political pragmatism - this book will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and cultural and media studies, with interests in class, consumption and gender.

Based on the re-discovery of a lost sociological project led by Norbert Elias at the University of Leicester, this book re-visits the project: The Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles. Norbert Elias's Lost Research makes use of the interview booklets documenting the lives of nearly 900 Leicester school leavers at the time, to give a unique account of Elias's only foray into large-scale, publicly funded research. Covering all aspects of the research from the development of the research proposal, the selection and management of the research team, the fieldwork, Elias's theoretical work to the ultimate demise of the research project, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of existing Eliasian texts by introducing this project to a wider audience and investigating and applying Elias's theoretical work to the areas of youth and school to work transitions. Shedding new light on Elias's thought, whilst exploring questions of methodology and the relevance of older research to modern questions, this book will be of interest to social theorists, as well as sociologists with interests in research methodology and the history of sociology.

This book offers a critical analysis of consumer credit markets and the growth of outstanding debt, presenting in-depth interview material to explore the phenomenon of mass indebtedness through the life trajectories of self-identified debtors struggling with the pressures of owing money. A rich and original qualitative study of the close relationship between financial capitalism, consumer aspirations, social exclusion and the proliferation of personal indebtedness, The Dark Side of Prosperity examines questions of social identity, subjectivity and consumer motivation in close connection with the socio-cultural ideals of an 'enjoyment society' that binds the value of the lives of individuals to the endless acquisition and disposal of pecuniary resources and lifestyle symbols. Critically engaging with the work of Giddens, Beck and Bauman, this volume draws on the thought of contemporary philosophers including Zizek, Badiou and Ranciere to consider the possibility that the expansion of outstanding consumer credit, despite its many consequences, may be integral to the construction of social identity in a radically indeterminate and increasingly divided society. A ground-breaking work of critical social research this book will appeal to scholars of social theory, contemporary philosophy and political and economic sociology, as well as those with interests in consumer credit and cultures of indebtedness.

This book updates our understanding of working-class fiction by focusing on its continued relevance to the social and intellectual contexts of the age of Trump and Brexit. The volume draws together new and established scholars in the field, whose intersectional analyses use postcolonial and feminist ideas, amongst others, to explore key theoretical approaches to working-class writing and discuss works by a range of authors, including Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, Jack Hilton, Mulk Raj Anand, Simon Blumenfeld, Pat Barker, Gordon Burn, and Zadie Smith. A key informing argument is not only that working-class writing shows 'working class' to be a diverse and dynamic rather than monolithic category, but also that a greater critical attention to class, and the working class in particular, extends both the methods and objects of literary studies. This collection will appeal to students, scholars and academics interested in working-class writing and the need to diversify the curriculum.

Unlike other regions around the world, several Latin American countries have managed to reduce income inequality over the last decade. Higher growth rates and growing employment, but also innovative wage policies and social programs, have contributed to reducing poverty and narrow income disparities. Yet, despite this progress, nation-states in the region demonstrate little capacity to substantially change their patterns of deeply rooted inequalities. Focusing on the limits and challenges of redistributive policies in Latin America, this volume synthesizes and updates the discussion of inequality in the region, introducing the perspective of global and transnational interdependencies. The book explores the extent to which redistributive policies have been interlinked with the provision and quality of public goods as well as with structural changes of the productive sector. Inspired by structuralist and neostructuralist thinking of Latin American economists, such as RaAl Prebisch and Celso Furtado, authors question the redistributive impact of the interplay of recent macroeconomic, fiscal and social policies, particularly under left and center-left administrations committed to greater equality. Bringing together experts in social, fiscal and macroeconomic policies to investigate the interdependent and global character of inequalities, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, economics, development and politics with interests in Latin America, inequality and public policy.

Decentering Biotechnology explores the nature of technology, objects and patent law. Investigating the patenting of organic life and the manner in which artifacts of biotechnology are given their object-ive appearance, Carolan details the enrollment mechanisms that give biotechnology its momentum. Drawing on legal judgements and case studies, this fascinating book examines the nature of object-ification, as a thought and a thing, without which biotechnology, as it is done today, would not be possible. Unable to reject biotechnology per se, recognizing that such a rejection would essentialize the very object-ive categories shown to be manufactured, Carolan ultimately argues for doing biotechnology differently. A theoretically sophisticated analysis of the nature of objects and the role of technology as a form of life which shapes the social landscape, Decentering Biotechnology engages with questions of power, globalization, development, resistance, exclusion, and participation that arise from treating biological objects differently from conventional property forms. As such, it will appeal to social theorists, sociologists and philosophers, as well as scholars of law and science and technology studies.

The economic crisis has brought social differences to the fore, reinventing the old question of inequality as democracy's missed opportunity. Many have attempted to find a rational explanation of the problem, tracing it back to poor economic policy and reckless liberalisation of finance, or the crisis of banks and governments, as well as the collapse of family relationships. At the same time, globalisation has reduced the differences between some nations, bringing emerging countries to the level of the more advanced, but has dangerously increased internal inequalities. In this book, the author examines the question of inequality and the social problems it is creating in societies across the world, arguing that with the crisis of modernity, the ideal of equality appears to be over. As more and more of the world's resources are concentrated in ever fewer hands, the promise of mass society as a means to grant equality and cancel the differences of classes appears to be giving way to a rising individualism. This book asks whether the apparent end of mass society will coincide with the end of equality and a re-evaluation of the worth of the individual. Are we heading towards a liquid world in which being equal is now considered less a virtue than a weakness?

Dick Houtman argues that neither authoritarianism nor libertarianism can be explained by class or economic background, but rather by position in the cultural domain-- what he calls cultural capital. Although he examines all of the statistics and arguments of the conventional approaches with care and concern, Houtman convincingly demonstrates that the conclusions drawn from earlier studies are untenable at a more general theoretical level. Despite differences among advocates of class explanations, their theories are based on largely identical research findings--in particular a strong negative relationship between education and authoritarianism. Unobstructed by the conclusions these authors felt called upon to draw from the findings themselves, Houtman configures them in a new way. The hypotheses derived from this new theory allow for a systematic, strict, and competitive testing of original theses without ignoring the value of and earlier research. After demonstrating that authoritarianism and libertarianism cannot be explained by class or economic background, Houtman examines the implications of this argument for today's death of class debate in political sociology. He holds it to be unfortunate that the relevance of class to politics is typically addressed by studying the relation between class and voting. This conceals a complex cross-pressure mechanism that causes this relationship to capture the net balance of class voting and its opposite, cultural voting, instead of class voting. He argues that references to a decline in class voting may be basically correct, but dogmatic reliance on the relation between class and voting to prove the point systematically underestimates levels of class voting and produces an exaggerated picture of the decline. "Dick Houtman has an eye for the critical gap in our grand theorizing, and like the classic Dutchman, has filled the gap. This book we must all read to find how better to fill the gaps in our own theorizing about culture, class, and politics."--Terry Nichols Clark, University of Chicago "Dick Houtman" is professor of sociology at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

This study is a major addition to understanding the problems of social inequality and the nature of caste and kinship. A full account is given of the social structure of the region, emphasizing the continuity of principles, which govern relations between castes and relationships within castes. The ethnographic data bear in particular on: the nature of untouchability; models of caste ranking; the way in which 'traditional' family structures adapt to a diversification of the economy and the debate about the 'instability' of regimes of generalized exchange. Originally published in 1979.

Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables 1. Introduction 2. Bedford in Context 3. Narrative Structures: The Cultural Codes of a Landscape Aesthetic 4. Anxious Pleasures: Place-Based Identity and the Look of the Land 5. Legislating Beauty: The Politics of Exclusion 6. The Taxman Cometh: The Gift of Nature in Suburbia 7. Fabricating History: The Production of Heritage in Bedford Village 8. Another Country: Latino Labor and the Politics of Disappearance 9. Epilogue Bibliography

Contents:
1. Race and Class in Manhattan and Harlem History
2. Locating Class and Race in Anthropology and History
3. Professionals, Entrepreneurs and Artists: Harlem's African American Professional-Managerial Workers
4. Work and its Impact on Income and Housing
5. Lifestyle, Consumption and Ideology
6. Negotiating Socioeconomic Boundaries in Kin Networks
7. Negotiating Socioeconomic Boundaries in Community Life
8. Conclusion: Race, Class, History and Identity

Class, Self, Culture puts class back on the map in a novel way by taking a new look at how class is made and given value through culture. It shows how different classes become attributed with value, enabling culture to be deployed as a resource and as a form of property, which has both use-value to the person and exchange-value in systems of symbolic and economic exchange.

The book shows how class has not disappeared, but is known and spoken in a myriad of different ways, always working through other categorisations of nation, race, gender and sexuality and across different sites: through popular culture, political rhetoric and academic theory. In particular attention is given to how new forms of personhood are being generated through mechanisms of giving value to culture, and how what we come to know and assume to be a 'self' is always a classed formation.

Analysing four processes: of inscription, institutionalisation, perspective-taking and exchange relationships, it challenges recent debates on reflexivity, risk, rational-action theory, individualisation and mobility, by showing how these are all reliant on fixing some people in place so that others can move.