This volume addresses issues of precariousness in a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, looking at socio-economic transformations as well as the identity formation and political organizing of precarious people. The collection bridges empirical research with social theory to problematize and analyse the precariat.

Since 1989 neo-nationalism has grown as a volatile political force in almost all European societies in tandem with the formation of a neoliberal European Union and wider capitalist globalizations. Focusing on working classes situated in long-run localized processes of social change, including processes of dispossession and disenfranchisement, this volume investigates how the experiences, histories, and relationships of social class are a necessary ingredient for explaining the re-emergence and dynamics of populist nationalism in both Eastern and Western Europe. Featuring in-depth urban and regional case studies from Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Italy and Scotland this volume reclaims class for anthropological research and lays out a new interdisciplinary agenda for studying identity politics in the intensifying neoliberal conjuncture.

A suicide scandal in Shanghai reveals the social fault lines of democratic visions in China's troubled Republic in the early 1920s. On September 8, 1922, the body of Xi Shangzhen was found hanging in the Shanghai newspaper office where she worked. Although her death occurred outside of Chinese jurisdiction, her US-educated employer, Tang Jiezhi, was kidnapped by Chinese authorities and put on trial. In the unfolding scandal, novelists, filmmakers, suffragists, reformers, and even a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party seized upon the case as emblematic of deep social problems. Xi's family claimed that Tang had pressured her to be his concubine; his conviction instead for financial fraud only stirred further controversy. The creation of a republic ten years earlier had inspired a vision of popular sovereignty and citizenship premised upon gender equality and legal reform. After the quick suppression of the first Chinese parliament, commercial circles took up the banner of democracy in their pursuit of wealth. But, Bryna Goodman shows, the suicide of an educated "new woman" exposed the emptiness of republican democracy after a flash of speculative finance gripped the city. In the shadow of economic crisis, Tang's trial also exposed the frailty of legal mechanisms in a political landscape fragmented by warlords and enclaves of foreign colonial rule. The Suicide of Miss Xi opens a window onto how urban Chinese in the early twentieth century navigated China's early passage through democratic populism, in an ill-fated moment of possibility between empire and party dictatorship. Xi Shangzhen became a symbol of the failures of the Chinese Republic as well as the broken promises of citizen's rights, gender equality, and financial prosperity betokened by liberal democracy and capitalism.

The analysis of social distinction cannot indefinitely remain confined to logics of reasoning that are markedly ethnocentric. To understand many manifestations, past and present, of superiority, we need to do more than just apply the allegedly ubiquitous schemes of Veblen or Bourdieu.
The time for abstract universalising grand theories is over. What is required instead is an inductive approach which starts from the realities of an ever more global field and aims at developing models of interpretation that are sensitive to the whole array of observable attitudes.
This book, which is a follow up to the critical enterprise initiated in The Sociology of Elite Distinction, provides new foundations for the comparative study of this important subject. It is a must-read for social scientists and beyond.

..".a fresh and an important contribution ...this book presents an ethnographically rich and conceptually strong account of recent transformations in the educational field and their implications for class relations in Turkey." . Middle East Journal

Middle classes are by definition ambiguous, raising all sorts of paradoxical questions, perceived and real, about their power and place relative to those above and below them in a class-structured society. Focusing on families of the new middle class in Istanbul, the authors of this study address questions about the social construction of middle-class reality in the context of the rapid changes that have come about through recent economic growth in global markets and the global diffusion of information technology. After 1980, Turkey saw a structural transformation from state-owned and managed industry, banking, and media and communications to privatization and open markets. The idea of being middle class and the reality of middle-class practices became open for negotiation and interpretation. This study therefore offers a particularly interesting case study of an emergent global phenomenon known as the transnational middle class, characterized by their location of work in globalizing cities, development of transnational social networks, sumptuary consumption habits, and residences in gated communities. As the authors show, this new middle class associates quality education, followed by property and lifestyle issues, with the concept of a comfortable life.

Originally published in 1887, Edward Carpenter's England's Ideal and other Papers on Social Subjects is a collection of his essays in the field of Social Science with a focus on English society at the time of writing. His writing was so influential that there was a near constant demand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for this work to be reprinted with this particular edition being published in 1919. Papers included in this volume discuss issues such as labour, trade and property and all provide insight into the English class structure as well as illuminating Carpenter's socialist values. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.

The MacArthur grant-winning environmental justice activist's riveting memoir of a life fighting for a cleaner future for America's most vulnerable A Smithsonian Magazine Top Ten Best Science Book of 2020 Catherine Coleman Flowers, a 2020 MacArthur "genius," grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama, a place that's been called "Bloody Lowndes" because of its violent, racist history. Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it's Ground Zero for a new movement that is also Flowers's life's work-a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets and, as a consequence, live amid filth. Flowers calls this America's dirty secret. In this "powerful and moving book" (Booklist), she tells the story of systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that foster Third World conditions not just in Alabama, but across America, in Appalachia, Central California, coastal Florida, Alaska, the urban Midwest, and on Native American reservations in the West. In this inspiring story of the evolution of an activist, from country girl to student civil rights organizer to environmental justice champion at Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, Flowers shows how sanitation is becoming too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards-not only those of poor minorities.

This comprehensive, interdisciplinary collection examines diverse forms of anti-social behaviour in Victorian and contemporary Britain, providing a unique comparison of the methods which have been employed by governments to control it.

When the Coalition Government came to power in 2010 in claimed it would deliver not just austerity, as necessary as that apparently was, but also fairness. This volume subjects this pledge to critical interrogation by exposing the interests behind the policy programme pursued and their damaging effects on class inequalities. Situated within a recognition of the longer-term rise of neoliberal politics, reflections on the status of sociology as a source of critique and current debates over the relationship between the cultural and economic dimensions of social class, the contributors cover an impressively wide range of relevant topics, from education, family policy and community to crime and consumption, shedding new light on the experience of domination in the early 21st Century.

Defenders of the Motherland studies how the most powerful social groups in tsarist Russia reacted to the challenges posed by the Russian Revolutions of 1917. Arguing that elite groups-especially nobles, landowners, and officers-played an important role in these events, Matthew Rendle shows how the alienation of tsarist elites from the tsar during the First World War and their support for the new Provisional Government in February 1917 secured the initial success of the revolution.
Elites engaged actively with revolutionary politics, serving in the government and forming unions to promote their interests and gather wider support. In doing so, they fostered fears of counter-revolution amongst the lower social classes, radicalizing the popular mood and paving the way for the Bolsheviks.
Although increasingly disillusioned with events, elites were not solely counter-revolutionary and were far from united. A poorly-supported military revolt in August 1917 demonstrated different aspirations for the future, whilst as many served the Bolshevik regime after October 1917 as opposed it. The divisions that had existed prior to 1917, exacerbated by the revolution, consequently undermined the White armies' opposition to Bolshevism during Russia's civil war. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks' fear of "class enemies" was endemic, and their obsession with removing the threat that former elites posed laid the foundations of the violent and repressive Soviet regime

The performing arts is one particular area of youth community practice can that can be effectively tapped to attract youth within schools and out-of-school settings, or what has been referred to as the "third area between school and family." These settings are non-stigmatizing, highly attractive community-based venues that serve youth and their respective communities. They can supplement or enhance formal education, providing a counter-narrative for youth to resist the labels placed on them by serving as a vehicle for reactivity and self-expression. Furthermore, the performing arts are a mechanism through which creative expression can transpire while concomitantly engaging youth in creative expression that is transformative at the individual and community level. Music, Song, Dance, Theater, and Social Work explores the innovative programs and interventions in youth community practice that draw on the performing arts as a way to reach and engage the target populations. The book draws from the rich literature bases in community development and positive youth development, as well as from performing arts therapy and group interventions, offering a meeting point where innovative programs have emerged. All in all, the text is an invaluable resource for graduate social work and performing arts students, practitioners, and scholars.

This monograph - which was very well received when originally published in France - contains a great deal of detailed information about the attitudes towards learning and written culture among members of the nobility in different parts of Europe in the Middle Ages. An encounter between a warring knight and the world of learning could seem a paradox. It is nonetheless related with the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, an essential intellectual movement for western history. Knights not only fought in battles, but also moved in sophisticated courts. Knights were interested on Latin classics and reading, and writing poetry. Supportive of "jongleurs" and minstrels, they enjoyed literary conversations with clerics who would attempt to reform their behaviour, which was often brutal. These lettered warriors, while improving their culture, learned to repress their own violence and were initiated to courtesy: selective language, measured gestures, elegance in dress, and manners at the table. Their association with women, who were often learned, became more gallant. A revolution of thought occurred among lay elites who, in contact with clergy, began to use their weapons for common welfare.This new conduct was a tangible sign of Medievalist society's leap forward towards modernity.

Drawing on case studies from the global South, this book explores the politics of mediated citizenship in which citizens are represented to the state through third party intermediaries. The studies show that mediation is both widely practiced and multi-directional and that it has an important role to play in deepening democracy in the global South.

What enables the few working-class people who enter higher education to achieve against the odds? This book offers answers by comparing social contexts, educational institutions and policies in Austria and England to demonstrate a surprising number of similarities behind those who succeed using Bourdieu's concept of habitus.

Ernest Aves (1857-1917) was an influential social analyst and civil servant. This title, first published in 1907, during Aves' work for the Board of Trade, investigates the different forms of industrial co-operation within Britain; the fundamental principle of this is stated as "equitable association", leading to increased profitability and the strengthening of industry. Chapters discuss such areas as centralisation, co-operative production and co-operative agriculture. This interesting reissue will be of particular value to students of economics with an interest in co-operative industry and the history of economic thought.

In his recent work, Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with, he argues, the revolutionary potential to change the world: the "precariat." This, according to Standing, is a class-in-the-making, internally divided into angry and bitter factions consisting of a multitude of insecure people, living bits-and-pieces lives, in and out of short-term jobs, without a narrative of occupational development, including millions of frustrated educated youth, millions of women abused in oppressive labour, growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life, millions being categorised as "disabled" and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social, cultural, political and economic rights than citizens around them . This present book explores the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and applications of the concept. Demonstrating the sheer breadth and depth of application, the chapters cover a wide-range of topics, from the relationships between precariat and authoritarianism, multitude (another concept to achieve popular consciousness), and place as well as the nature of precarious identities and subjectivities among those working in immaterial labour. The book concludes with a reply by Standing to reviews of "Precariat."

This book was published as a special issue of Global Discourse."

Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view of female struggles for liberation. Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born. 'The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied' The New York Times

This is a classic study of Philadelphia's business aristocracy of colonial stock with Protestant affiliations. It is also an analysis of how fabulously wealthy nineteenth-century family founders produced a national upper-class way of life. But as that way of life came to an end, the upper-class outlived its function; this, argues E. Digby Baltzell, is precisely what took place in the Philadelphia class system. For sociologists, historians, and those concerned with issues of culture and the economy, this is indeed a classic of modern social science.

Since the legalisation of off-course cash betting in 1960, and the rise of varying forms of gambling, the British have come to be known as a nation of gamblers. Until this study was published in 1976, barely any evidence existed against which to assess the claim that gambling had become a major social problem. The authors present data drawn from area surveys carried out in Swansea, Sheffield, Wanstead and Woodford, and explore how well previous sociological theories of gambling agree with their findings, particular in connection with certain aspects of work and leisure. Examining different forms of gambling, including betting, bingo and gaming machines, the chapters consider how gambling choices vary between different social groups, and how much time and money is spent on them. With the internet making it easier than ever before to place bets, this title is especially relevant, and provides a systematic basis for an explanation of gambling in relation to social structure.

With respect to the developing and threshold economies, it is no longer the poor who are the only focus of media attention. Today, the new middle classes are about to take centre stage, too. With their lifestyles and attitudes, the new middle classes are considered to be both the products as well as the promoters of globalization. They are a highly heterogeneousgroup in socio-economicterms as well as in habits 1 and preferences, including their societal role as consumers and citizens. The ?rst wave of scholarly and political attention can be traced back to the mid-nineties. The focal point was surprise and unease about indubitable symptoms of consumerism which, until then had been seen as a characteristic of the richest western societies. However, since the nineties, consumerism has run rampant in - velopingcountriestoo.Thishasparticularlybeennotedwithrespecttotheemerging middle classes in South East Asia. The "will to consume seemed inexhaustible, and appetites insatiable. This rage to consume ...] was both celebrated and feared by political leadersand other social/moralgatekeepers, who beganto condemnthe p- cess as 'Westernization' and even 'westoxi?cation"' (Chua 2000: xii). Ever since, the debate about the lifestyles of the new middle classes and their role in society has gained momentum.

First published in 1976, the essays in this volume are concerned with the distribution of income and wealth. The papers were first presented at the Royal Economic Society's conference in 1974, which examined the evidence concerning the personal distribution of earnings, compared the distributions apparent in different periods and societies, and studied the association between personal attributes and income. The contributions, from internationally-renowned authors, reflect these areas, and address the questions surrounding inequality, the taxation of wealth and capital transfers that remain relevant in twenty-first century society.

The history of American universities is punctuated by shifts in the terms on which the mission of higher education is defined and debated. A dramatic moment with lasting effects came with the introduction of German-speaking exile intellectuals in the Hitler era. In Germany, the academic culture of the early twentieth century was torn by the struggle between Wissenschaft and Bildung, two symbolic German terms, whose lack of precise English equivalents is a sign of the different configuration in America. The studies in this book examine the achievements of numerous influential emigre intellectuals against the background of their mediation between the two cultural traditions in science and liberal studies. In showing the richness of reciprocal influences, the book challenges claims about the disruptive influence of exile culture on the American mind.