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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues
Drawing on longitudinal interviews, government records, and
personal narratives, feminist sociologist Lisa Brush examines the
intersection of work, welfare, and battering. Brush contrasts
conventional wisdom with illuminating analyses of social change and
social structures, highlighting how race and class shape women's
experiences with poverty and abuse and how "domestic" violence
moves out of the home and follows women to work.
Eight years after the Arab Spring there is still much debate over the link between Internet technology and protest against authoritarian regimes. While the debate has advanced beyond the simple question of whether the Internet is a tool of liberation or one of surveillance and propaganda, theory and empirical data attesting to the circumstances under which technology benefits autocratic governments versus opposition activists is scarce. In this book, Nils B. Weidmann and Espen Geelmuyden Rod offer a broad theory about why and when digital technology is used for one end or another, drawing on detailed empirical analyses of the relationship between the use of Internet technology and protest in autocracies. By leveraging new sub-national data on political protest and Internet penetration, they present analyses at the level of cities in more than 60 autocratic countries. The book also introduces a new methodology for estimating Internet use, developed in collaboration with computer scientists and drawing on large-scale observations of Internet traffic at the local level. Through this data, the authors analyze political protest as a process that unfolds over time and space, where the effect of Internet technology varies at different stages of protest. They show that violent repression and government institutions affect whether Internet technology empowers autocrats or activists, and that the effect of Internet technology on protest varies across different national environments.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Young Forever, uncover the powerful web of corporate interests that are hijacking our food, our health—and our future. This is not a diet book. It’s an indictment. Food Fix Uncensored is the fully revised and expanded edition of Dr. Mark Hyman’s bestselling 2020 wake-up call, now more revealing than ever. In a world where food is engineered more for profit than nourishment, every bite you take matters—not just for your health, but for the future of our planet. Dr. Hyman invites you to question:
The shocking stats you read about Americans' declining health are not the result of personal failures. They’re policy failures by design – the result of a system rigged by Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Pharma to keep you sick and addicted. Food Fix Uncensored rips the veil off the multibillion-dollar machine hijacking our bodies, our brains, and our children’s futures, and hands you the tools to take it all back. Balancing cutting-edge nutritional science with unflinching journalistic investigation, Food Fix Uncensored doesn’t just ask you to eat differently. It dares you to see differently. After reading this, you’ll never look at your food the same way again.
This book explains the health and safety measures that employers are required to implement in the workplace to protect their employees and the public against COVID-19. It contains several checklists that systematically work through and simplify the applicable Directions issued by the Minister of Employment and Labour. The Consolidated Directions on Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces were published in the Government Gazette on 1 October 2020. They place a legal responsibility on employers to take further measures to safeguard employees and the public against COVID-19. Penalties can be imposed on employers who fail to comply with the Directions (in terms of the Occupational Health and Safety Act).
In recent decades there has been an explosion in work in the social and physical sciences describing the similarities between human and nonhuman as well as human and non-animal thinking. This work has explicitly decentered the brain as the sole, self-contained space of thought, and it has found thinking to be an activity that operates not only across bodies but also across bodily or cellular membranes, as well as multifaceted organic and inorganic environments. For example, researchers have looked at the replication and spread of slime molds (playfully asking what would happen if they colonized the earth) to suggest that they exhibit 'smart behavior' in the way they move as a potential way of considering the spread of disease across the globe. Other scholars have applied this model of non-human thought to the reach of data mining and global surveillance. In The Biopolitics of Alphabets and Embryos, Ruth Miller argues that these types of phenomena are also useful models for thinking about the growth, reproduction, and spread of political thought and democratic processes. Giving slime, data and unbounded entities their political dues, Miller stresses their thinking power and political significance and thus challenges the anthropocentrism of mainstream democratic theories. Miller emphasizes the non-human as highly organized, systemic and productive of democratic growth and replication. She examines developments such as global surveillance, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning, which have been characterized as threats to the privacy, dignity, and integrity of the rational, maximizing and freedom-loving democratic citizen. By shifting her level of analysis from the politics of self-determining subjects to the realm of material environments and information systems, Miller asks what might happen if these alternative, nonhuman thought processes become the normative thought processes of democratic engagement.
The Culture of AIDS in Africa enters into the many worlds of
expression brought forth across this vast continent by the ravaging
presence of HIV/AIDS. Africans and non-Africans, physicians and
social scientists, journalists and documentarians share here a
common and essential interest in understanding creative expression
in crushing and uncertain times. They investigate and engage the
social networks, power relationships, and cultural structures that
enable the arts to convey messages of hope and healing, and of
knowledge and good counsel to the wider community. And from Africa
to the wider world, they bring intimate, inspiring portraits of the
performers, artists, communities, and organizations that have
shared with them their insights and the sense they have made of
their lives and actions from deep within this devastating epidemic.
Social Science, 15/e, approaches social science from a common-sense perspective, rather than from a conventional social science angle. Readers will see how seemingly diverse disciplines intermingle - anthropology and economics, for example. In the end, students will be able to approach social issues with unbiased problem-solving skills.
The Russians are invading. But the locals have a plan. It's March 2022 and Russian tanks are roaring across the vast, snow-dusted fields of Ukraine. Their destination: Voznesensk, a town with a small bridge that could change the course of the war. The heavily-armed Russians are expecting an easy fight - or no fight at all. After all, Voznesensk is a quiet farming town, full of pensioners. But the locals appear to have other ideas. Svetlana, a grandmother with arthritis, reacts in fury when Russian troops turn her cottage into their blood-soaked headquarters. Valentin, a quick-talking lawyer, joins the town's 'Dads Army' defenders, crouching in a trench with an AK47. Meanwhile, 21-year-old Sergei grabs a Molotov cocktail and lies in wait for Russian tanks as they push towards Dead Water Bridge. The odds are terrible. But a plan is emerging, and there's a chance it could save not just Voznesensk, but the rest of southern Ukraine. Meanwhile, inside the tanks, an inner battle rages. As Russian officer Igor Rudenko prepares to invade, he has a secret. He is Ukrainian himself. A gripping work of reportage that tells the story of a pivotal moment in Ukraine's war, this is a real-life thriller about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with resilience, humour and ingenuity
Despite significant accomplishments over the past 35 years,
antiviolence activists know that justice for most abused women
remains elusive. Most victims do not call the police or seek help
from the courts, making it crucial to identify new ways for
survivors to find justice. This path-breaking book examines new
justice practices for victims that are being used in the United
States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These informal,
dialogue-based practices, referred to as "restorative justice,"
seek to decrease the role of the state in responding to crime, and
increase the involvement of communities in meeting the needs of
victims and offenders. Restorative justice is most commonly used to
address youth crimes and is generally not recommended or disallowed
for cases of rape, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse.
Nevertheless, restorative practices are beginning to be used to
address violent crime.
In this book, Miguel Basanez presents a provocative look at the impact of culture on global development. Drawing on data from governments, NGOs, the World Values Survey and more addressing over one hundred countries, he argues that values, as the "building blocks" of culture, are directly related to the speed with which social, cultural and economic development occurs. Basanez utilizes quantitative survey data to delineate three cultural hyperclusters across the globe: cultures of honor, which prioritize political authority; cultures of achievement, which emphasize economic advancement; and cultures of joy, which focus on social interactions. According to Basanez, these cultures evolved chronologically, mirroring the development of agrarian, industrial and service societies. He argues that a country's developmental path is profoundly influenced by its people's values and culture, as crystallized through its formal and informal governing institutions. Culture is passed down over generations through families, schools, the media, religious institutions, leadership, and the law. Although culture and values are in a permanent state of evolution, leaders and policymakers can also push cultural change in order to promote desirable goals such as economic growth, democratization, and equality. Over the course of the book, Basanez introduces two new measures of development: the Objective Development Index (which blends rubrics such as health, education, income, gender equality, political rights and civil liberties, and economic inequality) and the Subjective Development Index (which uses responses to the World Values Survey to classify countries according to their values).
In the decade following the housing crisis, Americans remain enthusiastic about the prospect of owning a home. Homeownership is a symbol of status attainment in the United States, and for many Americans, buying a home is the most important financial investment they will ever make. We are deeply committed to an ideology of homeownership that presents homeownership as a tool for building stronger communities and crafting better citizens. However, in No Place Like Home, Brian McCabe argues that such beliefs about the public benefits of homeownership are deeply mischaracterized. As owning a home has emerged as the most important way to build wealth in the United States, it has also reshaped the way citizens become involved in their communities. Rather than engaging as public-spirited stewards of civic life, McCabe demonstrates that homeowners often engage in their communities as a way to protect their property values. This involvement contributes to the politics of exclusion, and prevents particular citizens from gaining access to high-opportunity neighborhoods, thereby reinforcing patterns of residential segregation. A thorough analysis of the politics of homeownership, No Place Like Home prompts readers to reconsider the power of homeownership to strengthen citizenship and build better communities.
Municipal Perspectives on Development, Governance and Service Delivery offers insight into the experience, practice and future of local government in South Africa. The book merges practical and theoretical perspectives to inform policy debates, to educate and to guide the practice of local government. The contributions were written by a diversity of authors working in academia, government and civil society. They offer insight into how local government has changed over the past two decades of democracy and give an account of some of the major issues faced. Municipal Perspectives on Development, Governance and Service Delivery was edited by Tinashe Carlton Chigwata and Jaap de Visser from DOI at the University of the Western Cape, and Lungelwa Kaywood, formerly of SALGA’s Research Office. The book is a valuable resource to students, academics, practitioners and civil society actors that do research or work in local government.
Routledge Library Editions: Development will re-issue works which address economic, political and social aspects of development. Published over more than four decades these books trace the emergence of development as one of the most important contemporary issues and one of the key areas of study for modern social science. The books cover the most important themes within development and include studies of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Authors include Sir Alexander Cairncross, W. Arthur Lewis, Lord Peter Bauer and Cristobal Kay. An extensive collection of previously hard to access or out of print books, this set presents an unrivalled opportunity to build up a wealth of material in the field of development studies, with a particular focus upon economic and political concerns. The volumes in the collection offer both a global overview of the history of development in the twentieth century, and a huge variety of case studies on the development of individual nations. For institutional purchases for e-book sets please contact [email protected] (customers in the UK, Europe and Rest of World)
During the past several decades, the fetus has been diversely represented in political debates, medical textbooks and journals, personal memoirs and autobiographies, museum exhibits and mass media, and civil and criminal law. Ourselves Unborn argues that the meanings people attribute to the fetus are not based simply on biological fact or theological truth, but are in fact strongly influenced by competing definitions of personhood and identity, beliefs about knowledge and authority, and assumptions about gender roles and sexuality. In addition, these meanings can be shaped by dramatic historical change: over the course of the twentieth century, medical and technological changes made fetal development more comprehensible, while political and social changes made the fetus a subject of public controversy. Moreover, since the late nineteenth century, questions about how fetal life develops and should be valued have frequently intersected with debates about the authority of science and religion, and the relationship between the individual and society. In examining the contested history of fetal meanings, Sara Dubow brings a fresh perspective to these vital debates.
Beyond Bias offers the first scholarly study of contemporary right-wing documentary film and video. Drawing from contemporary work in political theory and psychoanalytic theory, the book identifies what author Scott Krzych describes as the hysterical discourse prolific in conservative documentary in particular, and right-wing media more generally. In its hysterical mode, conservative media emphasizes form over content, relies on the spectacle of debate to avoid substantive dialogue, mimics the aesthetic devices of its opponents, reduces complex political issues to moral dichotomies, and relies on excessive displays of opinion to produce so much mediated "noise" as to drown out alternative perspectives or viewpoints. Though often derided for its reliance on nonsense or hyperbole, conservative media marshals incoherence as its prized aesthetic and rhetorical weapon, a means to bolster the political status quo precisely by confusing those audiences who come into its orbit. As a work of documentary studies, Beyond Bias also places conservative non-fiction films in conversation with their more conventional counterparts, drawing insight from the manner by which conservative media hystericizes such issues as the archive, observational methods, directorial participation, and the often moral imperatives by which documentary filmmakers attempt to offer insight into their subjects.
Sex, Politics, and Putin investigates how gender stereotypes and sexualization have been used as tools of political legitimation in contemporary Russia. Despite their enmity, regime allies and detractors alike have wielded traditional concepts of masculinity, femininity, and homophobia as a means of symbolic endorsement or disparagement of political leaders and policies. By repeatedly using machismo as a means of legitimation, Putin's regime (unlike that of Gorbachev or Yeltsin) opened the door to the concerted use of gendered rhetoric and imagery as a means to challenge regime authority. Sex, Politics, and Putin analyzes the political uses of gender norms and sexualization in Russia through three case studies: pro- and anti-regime groups' activism aimed at supporting or undermining the political leaders on their respective sides; activism regarding military conscription and patriotism; and feminist activism. Arguing that gender norms are most easily invoked as tools of authority-building when there exists widespread popular acceptance of misogyny and homophobia, Sperling also examines the ways in which sexism and homophobia are reflected in Russia's public sphere.
The editors of Ethics at the Cinema invited a diverse group of moral philosophers and philosophers of film to engage with ethical issues raised within, or within the process of viewing, a single film of each contributor's choice. The result is a unique collection of considerable breadth. Discussions focus on both classic and modern films, and topics range from problems of traditional concern to philosophers (e.g. virtue, justice, and ideals) to problems of traditional concern to filmmakers (e.g. sexuality, social belonging, and cultural identity).
Today, two-thirds of the world's nations have abolished the death
penalty, either officially or in practice, due mainly to the
campaign to end state executions led by Western European nations.
Will this success spread to Asia, where over 95 percent of
executions now occur? Do Asian values and traditions support
capital punishment, or will development and democratization end
executions in the world's most rapidly developing region?
Academic food ethics incorporates work from philosophy but also anthropology, economics, the environmental sciences and other natural sciences, geography, law, and sociology. Scholars from these fields have been producing work for decades on the food system, and on ethical, social, and policy issues connected to the food system. Yet in the last several years, there has been a notable increase in philosophical work on these issues-work that draws on multiple literatures within practical ethics, normative ethics and political philosophy. This handbook provides a sample of that philosophical work across multiple areas of food ethics: conventional agriculture and alternatives to it; animals; consumption; food justice; food politics; food workers; and, food and identity.
From the war on terror to the rise of China, this book unlocks the major strategic themes and security challenges of the early twenty-first century. Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific provides the analytical frameworks needed to make sense of this complex but exciting strategic universe. Offering a unique mix of global strategic thinking and Asia-Pacific security analysis, this book is for readers from Sydney to Seoul who want to put their own local security challenges in a wider regional and global context. It is also for North American and European readers requiring an understanding of the dynamic security developments in the Asia-Pacific region around which so much of global strategy is increasingly based. The really vital questions facing the international community are dealt with here: Why do governments and groups still use armed force? Has warfare really changed in the information age? Why should we be concerned about non-traditional security challenges such as water shortages and the spread of infectious disease? Is a great clash imminent between the United States and China? What are the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and between India and Pakistan? Can Southeast Asia survive the challenges of transnational terrorism? What does security mean for the Pacific island countries and for Australia and New Zealand? With contributions from leading commentators and analysts, Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific offers a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the field. |
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