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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social theory
1. This book will find a market on theory courses, and it also has significant potential to be used on a range of programmes such as Inside-Out in the US, and the Prison-University Partnerships Network in the UK. 2. While most theory books only offer brief coverage of the origins of criminological thought, this is the main focus of this book. Unlike other books that offer mainly a twentieth century account, this traces the development of our understanding of crime and deviance throughout the ages to inform readers of the significant role the past has played in our contemporary theories of crime. 3. Each chapter is written by an incarcerated author housed at a men's medium and maximum-security prison in the US who are supported by one or more co-authors: university students who carry out the research for each chapter, offering a new way of thinking about theory and making a significant contribution to convict criminology.
This vibrant and significantly revised new edition is a comprehensive and accessible text for studying political theory in a changing world. Bringing together classic and contemporary political concepts and ideologies into one book, it introduces the major approaches to political issues that have shaped our world, and the ideas that form the currency of political debate. Consistently, it relates political ideas to political realities through effective use of examples and case studies making theory lively, contentious, and relevant. With significant revisions which reflect the latest questions facing political theory in an increasingly international context, key features and updates include: Two brand new chapters on Migration and Freedom of Speech and a significant new section on the radical right; Thought-provoking case studies to bring the theory to life including social media and internet regulation, Brexit and the EU, anti-vaxxer campaigns, surrogacy tourism, and autonomous anarchist zones; A revamped website, including podcasts, to aid study of, and reading around, the subject. Introduction to Political Theory, Fourth Edition is the perfect accompaniment to undergraduate study in political theory, political philosophy, concepts and ideologies, and more broadly to the social sciences and philosophy.
The first text to examine the concept of trust and the role that it played on the Industrial Revolution, this book is a key resource for students' studying nineteenth century British history as well as historically minded sociologists. Analytical in style and comprehensive in approach, Social Capital, Trust and the Industrial Revolution covers a range of themes, including: the forms of behaviour, institutions and strategies that contributed to the formation of trust the circumstances that could lead to its rise or fall the presence of distrust the relationship and links between trust and power. Although research has shown that high levels of social capital and trust promotes economic growth, low crime rates and improved labour relations, little work has been done on the historical impact of this essential resource. David Sunderland's incisive monograph is resets the balance and demonstrates how social capital played a crucial role in the industrial, social and political changes of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Key text for scholars, researchers and students of refugee studies, migration and diaspora studies, public policy, social policy and development studies Discusses current laws like CAA and procedures like NRC
This book provides an overview and analysis of the thought of figures across the human and social sciences on the character, causes, and consequences of discontent in modern societies. Exploring the important social and cultural conditions associated with modernity, it focuses on the contributions of 38 prominent scholars from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries - philosophers, historians, and social scientists - on the subject of discontent and social malaise, and individual and collective well-being. Thematically organized, this volume offers brief portraits of the lives and key ideas of these thinkers, leading toward a presentation of modernity as a "differentiated complaint." Reclaiming an important tradition in the human and social sciences that sees life on a grand scale, that integrates personal affairs with social and cultural matters, and that dares people to recommit themselves to this broader vision of human involvement, Anatomies of Modern Discontent will appeal to readers across the social sciences and humanities, particularly those with interests in social theory, sociology, and philosophy.
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 book provides an overview and analysis of the thought of figures across the human and social sciences on the character, causes, and consequences of discontent in modern societies. Exploring the important social and cultural conditions associated with modernity, it focuses on the contributions of 38 prominent scholars from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries - philosophers, historians, and social scientists - on the subject of discontent and social malaise, and individual and collective well-being. Thematically organized, this volume offers brief portraits of the lives and key ideas of these thinkers, leading toward a presentation of modernity as a "differentiated complaint." Reclaiming an important tradition in the human and social sciences that sees life on a grand scale, that integrates personal affairs with social and cultural matters, and that dares people to recommit themselves to this broader vision of human involvement, Anatomies of Modern Discontent will appeal to readers across the social sciences and humanities, particularly those with interests in social theory, sociology, and philosophy.
COVID Societies presents a compelling and accessible overview of key sociocultural theories that can help us make sense of the diverse, dynamic and complex elements of the COVID crisis. These include discussions of the political economy perspective; biopolitics; risk society and cultures; gender and queer theory; and more-than-human theory. The book provides insights into everyday life around the world as people battled with containing the pandemic and explores the broader historical, social, cultural and political contexts in which these responses have developed. COVID-19 is the most serious pandemic to affect the world in the past century. We have all lived in 'COVID societies', the long-term effects of which have yet to be experienced or imagined. The COVID crisis has affected countries, regions within countries and social groups within regions in strikingly different ways. These impacts are continually changing, just as the novel coronavirus has mutated into different strains and variants. Throughout the book, a series of intertwined threads cross back and forth between the macropolitical and micropolitical dimensions of COVID-19: contagion, death, risk, uncertainty, fear, social inequalities, stigma, blame and power relations. Overarching these threads are five complementary themes: the historicity of COVID societies; the tension between local specificities and globalising forces; the control and management of human bodies; the boundary between Self and Other; and the continuously changing sociomaterial environments in which the world is living with and through the shocks of the COVID crisis. This book will be of great interest to anyone seeking to understand the manifold complex sociocultural consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This book presents, for the first time in the English language, Marcel Gauchet's interpretation of the challenges faced by contemporary Western societies as a result of the crisis of liberal democratic politics and the growing influence of populism. Responding to Gauchet's analysis, international experts explore the depoliticising aspects of contemporary democratic culture that explain the appeal of populism: neo-liberal individualism, the cult of the individual and its related human rights, and the juridification of all human relationships. The book also provides the intellectual context within which Gauchet's understanding of modern society has developed-in particular, his critical engagement with Marxism and the profound influence of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort on his work. It highlights the way Gauchet's work remains faithful to an understanding of history that stresses the role of humanity as a collective subject, while also seeking to account for both the historical novelty of contemporary individualism and the new form of alienation that radical modernity engenders. In doing so, the book also opens up new avenues for reflection on the political significance of the contemporary health crisis. Marcel Gauchet and the Crisis of Democratic Politics will be of great interest to scholars and postgraduate students of social and political thought, political anthropology and sociology, political philosophy, and political theory.
Bringing together the work of scholars from across Europe, this book shows how Simmel's categories can be used to explore contemporary issues and further shed light on trends characteristic of global modernity. Thematically organised around the major societal challenges currently faced by developed countries - those of making societies that are inclusive, reflexive and creative, sustainable, and democratic societies - it examines diverse phenomena, such as living in an increasingly multicultural societies, the social exclusion of vulnerable ethnic groups, the increasing concern with cyberbullying, the need to fight climate change, the rise of political populism, and the recruitment of youths from western countries to Islamic religious fundamentalism. Drawing on Simmel's sociological theory and expounding new approaches to research inspired by his work, this volume emphasises the conceptual pillars of Simmelian thought, meanings, processes, and forms. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the work of Simmel and its contemporary relevance.
Are marriages made in heaven? In reality many people need a little help in the arrangement of such matters, whether from Jewish shadkhans (matchmakers), go-betweens, computer or video-dating agencies, marriage bureaux, Asian arranged marriages, gay dating agencies or personal ads. Originally published in 1984, the author's clear-sighted look at the mating trade takes some of the mystique away from the subject and is the first serious and detailed account of the 'third party' in marriage. Dr Mullan looks at the 'singles scene' and the 'arranged marriage' historically and cross-culturally, and makes it clear that there is nothing necessarily odd or deviant about the mating trade. It is a business like any other, and as long as people continue to want 'perfect partners', marriage, permanent relationships, dates and sex, and while evolving social structures make such demands ever more difficult to meet, the business will thrive. It could even expand and grow, but the author believes that first it will have to clean up its act!
This sequel to Randall Collins' world-influential micro-sociology of violence introduces the question of time-dynamics: what determines how long conflict lasts and how much damage it does. Inequality and hostility are not enough to explain when and where violence breaks out. Time-dynamics are the time-bubbles when people are most nationalistic; the hours after a protest starts when violence is most likely to happen. Ranging from the three months of nationalism and hysteria after 9/11 to the assault on the Capitol in 2021, Randall Collins shows what makes some protests more violent than others and why some revolutions are swift and non-violent tipping-points while others devolve into lengthy civil wars. Winning or losing are emotional processes, continuing in the era of computerized war, while high-tech spawns terrorist tactics of hiding in the civilian population and using cheap features of the Internet as substitutes for military organization. Nevertheless, Explosive Conflict offers some optimistic discoveries on clues to mass rampages and heading off police atrocities, with practical lessons from time-dynamics of violence.
Space is crucial to geography and is widely used as a concept across the humanities and social sciences. Space will provide the first accessible, in-depth textbook which provides a critical introduction to different geographical approaches to space, tracing the link between conceptualisations of space and key traditions in the history and philosophy of geography, as well as broader thinking in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences Consolidates and develops recent debates about how different species of space co-exist in contemporary geographical thought, as such it will clarify existing debates and provide useful pointers for further conceptual and theoretical elaboration. Use of the same three case studies throughout the various books chapters offers an excellent strategy for conveying the continuities and discontinuities that distinguish the ebbs, flows and evaporation of intellectual currents. It will include 'key idea boxes', 'key scholar boxes', 'case study boxes' and guides for further reading. The case studies will include both 'longitudinal' and 'one-off' examples. Thematic organization provides an effecient and creative way of synthesizing diverse material and drawing out differences between theorizations of space and spatiality Each chapter has been planned so as to demonstrate how space has been approached and analysed by scholars working in specific traditions of geography (as well as traditions of thought within the humanities and social sciences). This will enable the text to be used as a core reading for compulsory first/second year undergraduate courses on the 'history and philosophy of geography' and 'theory and methodology in geography' the book draws upon the author's own theoretical research on theories of space and spatiality, to advance original arguments as to what space is and what spacing and spatiality entail
This book draws together debates from two burgeoning fields, liminality and informality studies, to analyze how dynamics of rule-bending take shape in Rome today. Adopting a multiscalar and transdisciplinary approach, it unpacks how gaps and contradictions in institutional rulemaking and application force many residents into protracted liminal states marked by intense vulnerability. By merging a political economy lens with ethnographic research in informal housing, illegal moneylending, unauthorized street-vending and waste collection, the author shows that informalities are not marginal or anomalous conditions, but an integral element of the city's governance logics. Multiple actors together construct the local cultural norms, conventions and moral economies through which rule-negotiation occurs. However, these practices are ultimately unable to reconfigure historically rooted power dynamics and hierarchies. In fact, they often aggravate weak urbanites' difficulties in accessing rights and services. A study that challenges assumptions that informalities are predominantly features of developing economies or limited to specific groups and sectors, this volume's critical approach and innovative methodology will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology interested in social theory, urban studies and liminality.
In the wake of an unparalleled housing crisis at the end of the Second World War, Glasgow Corporation rehoused the tens of thousands of private tenants who were living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in unimproved Victorian slums. Adopting the designs, the materials and the technologies of modernity they built into the sky, developing high-rise estates on vacant sites within the city and on its periphery. This book uniquely focuses on the people's experience of this modern approach to housing, drawing on oral histories and archival materials to reflect on the long-term narrative and significance of high-rise homes in the cityscape. It positions them as places of identity formation, intimacy and well-being. With discussions on interior design and consumption, gender roles, children, the elderly, privacy, isolation, social networks and nuisance, Glasgow examines the connections between architectural design, planning decisions and housing experience to offer some timely and prescient observations on the success and failure of this very modern housing solution at a moment when high flats are simultaneously denigrated in the social housing sector while being built afresh in the private sector. Glasgow is aimed at an academic readership, including postgraduate students, scholars and researchers. It will be of interest to social, cultural and urban historians particularly interested in the United Kingdom.
This first volume of The Class Structure of Capitalist Societies offers a bold and wide-ranging assessment of the shape and effects of class systems across a diverse range of capitalist nations. Plumbing a trove of data and deploying cutting-edge techniques, it carefully maps the distribution of the key sources of power and documents the major convergences and divergences between market societies old and new. Establishing that the multidimensional vision of class proposed decades ago by Pierre Bourdieu appears to hold good throughout Europe, parts of the wider Western world and Eastern Asia, the book goes on to examine a number of significant themes: the relationship between class and occupation; the intersection of class with gender, religion, geography and age; the correspondences between social position and political attitudes; self-positioning in the class structure; and the extent of belief in meritocracy. For all the striking cross-national commonalities, however, the book unearths consistent variations seemingly linked to distinct politico-economic regimes. This title will appeal to scholars and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in sociology, politics and demography, and is essential reading for all those interested in social class across the globe. Chapter 3 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
In On Biopolitics, Marco Piasentier discusses one of the most persistent questions in biopolitical theory - the divide between nature and language - and attempts to redraw the conceptual map which has traditionally defined the permissible paths to address this question. Taking his cue from Foucault's exhortation to think philologically and biologically, Piasentier traverses the main theoretical and methodological frameworks which have informed the biopolitical debate on nature and language, biology and politics. Biopolitical theory becomes the center of gravity for an investigation encompassing diverse philosophical models, from the Heideggerian linguistic turn to post-Darwinian naturalism. The divide between traditions is not proof of an impossible encounter, but constitutes the site for a new conceptual topography. Working in this interdisciplinary space, Piasentier puts into question the command of language and the ends of nature: two vestiges of a 'human, all too human' worldview that preclude the possibility of thinking philologically and biologically about biopolitics. On Biopolitics: An Inquiry into Nature and Language is essential reading for humanities and social sciences scholars with an interest in moving beyond debates about nature and language.
Nancy Fraser and Participatory Parity provides a philosophical framework based on the work of Nancy Fraser, examining how her ideas can be used to analyse contemporary issues in higher education and reimagine higher education practices. Providing a forum for considering Fraser's work in relation to participatory parity in higher education, the book shows how her political philosophy is relevant to higher education pedagogies, scholarship and practice. The recent student protests in South Africa in 2015 and 2016 has created an impetus to think about how to do things differently in higher education in response to economic, cultural and political inequities. This South African experience is aptly used as a prime example of rethinking issues of coloniality and social injustice in higher education. The contributors' use of Nancy Fraser's theories provides their analyses and reflections with a particularly sharp lens and clear focus. The book also puts her work into conversation with other contemporary writers on social justice and explores the resonances and differentiations of the various approaches. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of social justice in education and educational policy.
The concept of risk is an outgrowth of our society's great concern about coping with the dangers of modern life. The Perception of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, risk perception and risk management, to examine the gap between expert views of risk and public perceptions. Ordered chronologically, it allows the reader to see the evolution of our understanding of such perceptions, from early studies identifying public misconceptions of risk to recent work that recognizes the importance and legitimacy of equity, trust, power and other value-laden issues underlying public concern.
Judging and Emotion investigates how judicial officers understand, experience, display, manage and deploy emotions in their everyday work, in light of their fundamental commitment to impartiality. Judging and Emotion challenges the conventional assumption that emotion is inherently unpredictable, stressful or a personal quality inconsistent with impartiality. Extensive empirical research with Australian judicial officers demonstrates the ways emotion, emotional capacities and emotion work are integral to judicial practice. Judging and Emotion articulates a broader conception of emotion, as a social practice emerging from interaction, and demonstrates how judicial officers undertake emotion work and use emotion as a resource to achieve impartiality. A key insight is that institutional requirements, including conceptions of impartiality as dispassion, do not completely determine the emotion dimensions of judicial work. Through their everyday work, judicial officers construct and maintain the boundaries of an impartial judicial role which necessarily incorporates emotion and emotion work. Building on a growing interest in emotion in law and social sciences, this book will be of considerable importance to socio-legal scholars, sociologists, the judiciary, legal practitioners and all users of the courts.
Space is crucial to geography and is widely used as a concept across the humanities and social sciences. Space will provide the first accessible, in-depth textbook which provides a critical introduction to different geographical approaches to space, tracing the link between conceptualisations of space and key traditions in the history and philosophy of geography, as well as broader thinking in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences Consolidates and develops recent debates about how different species of space co-exist in contemporary geographical thought, as such it will clarify existing debates and provide useful pointers for further conceptual and theoretical elaboration. Use of the same three case studies throughout the various books chapters offers an excellent strategy for conveying the continuities and discontinuities that distinguish the ebbs, flows and evaporation of intellectual currents. It will include 'key idea boxes', 'key scholar boxes', 'case study boxes' and guides for further reading. The case studies will include both 'longitudinal' and 'one-off' examples. Thematic organization provides an effecient and creative way of synthesizing diverse material and drawing out differences between theorizations of space and spatiality Each chapter has been planned so as to demonstrate how space has been approached and analysed by scholars working in specific traditions of geography (as well as traditions of thought within the humanities and social sciences). This will enable the text to be used as a core reading for compulsory first/second year undergraduate courses on the 'history and philosophy of geography' and 'theory and methodology in geography' the book draws upon the author's own theoretical research on theories of space and spatiality, to advance original arguments as to what space is and what spacing and spatiality entail
Selected Readings on Race, Class, and Gender: An Exploration of Human Rights and the Effects of Capitalism encourages readers to analyze social conflicts, socialized prejudices, and conditions of intolerance that arise from tension between people of different races, classes, and genders. It provides students with an intersectional framework to demonstrate how our participation within political, economic, and social affairs is crucial in reforming existing systems of oppression. The readings within the text shine a light on those who are marginalized and asks readers to address the systemic conditions that continue to discriminate and oppress individuals at a personal and institutional level. It encourages readers to rethink their internalized biases and dismantle existing conditions of racism, classism, and genderism. Students are provided with strategies to resist the totalizing power that controls our systems of knowledge. Throughout, study questions, comprehension questions, critical thinking questions, and expansion questions inspire critical thought and meaningful discussion. Designed to help readers better understand their own identities and the systems that influence them, Selected Readings on Race, Class, and Gender is a timely and essential anthology for courses in the humanities, including sociology, race studies, and gender studies, among others.
This book addresses the absence of a strong alignment with the future in contemporary social life and explores anomalous temporal experience as a way to expand political imaginations. In the aftermath of the modern myth of progress, it argues we have entered into a kind of dystopia-brutal or seemingly benign-of the continual present that is resistant to systemic change but is nevertheless animated through cycles of novelty and obsolescence. Exploring a condition in which we are out of ideas and facing a 'non-future' of blind technical improvement and fear, the author examines the heterochronia of eerie atmospheres and temporal suspensions. Rather than a reinstatement of the great dream of The Future, a temporality of possibility is explored in strange dimensions of otherwise mundane sites: logistic spaces and ex-urban landscapes; boredom connected to digital media; and the material culture of a recently abandoned town. Drawing on contemporary social and cultural theory, as well as urban geography and media studies, the book develops its conceptual position through a series of vignettes of key sites and experiences. Through an elliptical and generative approach, it analyses zones where novelty collapses and where figures of defiance and possibility might emerge. A rigorous theoretical examination of contemporary life and culture grounded in a close examination of sites and material examples, Temporal Politics and Banal Culture: Before the Future will appeal to scholars of social theory, sociology, cultural geography, cultural studies and social philosophy.
Originally published in England in 1959, this book evolves a new theory of conflict in industrial society. By way of illustrating and testing this theory, the book provides detailed analyses of various social phenomena. The author carries out a full critique of Marx in the light of history and modern sociology and discusses the theories of class-conflict of James Burnham, Fritz Croner and Karl Renner. |
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