For centuries, the trickster has been used in various narratives, including mythological, literary and cinematic, to convey the idea of agency, rebellion and, often turbulent, progress. In "The Trickster and the System: Identity and Agency in Contemporary Society," " "Helena Bassil-Morozow shows how the trickster can be seen as a metaphor to describe the psycho-anthropological concept of change, an impulse that challenges the existing order of things, a progressive force that is a-structural and anti-structural in its nature. The book is about being able to see things from an unusual, even odd, perspective, which does not coincide with the homogenous normality of the mass, or the social system, or a political ideology, or some other kind of authority.

"

The Trickster and the System" offers an analytical paradigm which can be used to examine relationships between tricksters and systems, change and stability, in a wide range of social, political and cultural contexts. It covers a range of systems, describes different types of tricksters and discusses possible conflicts, tensions and dialogues between the two opposing sides. One of the central ideas of the book is that social systems use shame as a tool to control and manage all kinds of tricksters individuality, agency, creativity, spontaneity, innovation and initiative, to name but a few. The author argues that any society that neglects its tricksters (agents of change), ends up suffering from decay, stagnation or even mass hysterical outbursts.

"

The Trickster and the System: Identity and Agency in Contemporary Society "provides a fresh perspective on the trickster figure in a variety of cultural contexts. It covers a range of psychological, cultural, social and political phenomena, from personal issues to the highest level of society s functioning: self-esteem and shame, lifestyle and relationships, creativity and self-expression, media, advertising, economy, political ideology and, most importantly, human identity and authenticity. The book is essential reading for scholars in the areas of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, myth, cultural and media studies, narrative analysis, cultural anthropology, as well as anyone interested in critical issues in contemporary culture.

Helena Bassil-Morozow is a cultural philosopher, film scholar and academic writer whose many publications include "Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd "(Routledge, 2010) and "The Trickster in Contemporary Film "(Routledge, 2011). Helena is currently working on another Routledge project, "Jungian Film Studies: the Essential Guide "(co-authored with Luke Hockley). Her principal academic affiliation is the University of Bedfordshire, Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies & Science. "

In some ways the development of the theory and practice of marital therapy seems like a relative newcomer to those clinicians who practice systems therapy. Most of the books in the field stress the total family as the unit of treatment in terms of understanding the dynamics of family interactions and intervention techniques. For the past 15 or 20 years, clinicians interested in systems work sought training in "family" therapy programs and at "family" therapy workshops. This training led to a dramatic shift in the practice of psychotherapy away from the individual as the unfit of treatment to the family. Much less emphasis has been given to the marital dyad or couple as the unit of treatment.

The questions such as, why the focuses of national policies vary significantly across countries, although their sources of policies are to a great extent identical; why national development experiences mostly cannot be transplanted successfully among countries; why some ineffective institutions persist over long periods of time, have attracted numerous efforts. This book provides a new perspective and argues that the answers lie in the existence of the networks of institutions and thus of national systems of policies (NSP) within national frameworks.

Institutions are the equilibria of games and exist as rules of games. Therefore, a basic setting is that institutions emerge endogenously from a series of social interactions, and the interacting human agents are connected and interdependent at the overlapping interaction platforms. National policies and developmental strategies can be modelled in this approach too. The networks of institutions describe the dynamic connected structure among institutions in the process of social interactions over time. Regarding the national policies response to the recent economic crises, this book argues that the difference comes from the distinct understandings of the tags of the policies, which highly depend on the distinct national contexts, such as national interests, cultural background, political systems and so forth.

This book represents a significant contribution to the literature which will be essential reading for those interested in institutional economics, network theory, social structures and economic policy. In particular, the approach of applying network game theory in institutional emergence, and the terms developed, i.e. tags of institutions, and national systems of policies, in this book, are illuminating and deserve more attention."

Since the 1970s, various sociological approaches have tried to understand and conceptualize the global, yet few of them have systematically addressed the full spectrum of social relationships. Prominent exponents of the global approach - such as world systems analysis - instead have focused on particular domains such as politics or the economy. Under the label of world society, however, some authors have suggested alternatives to the predominant equivocation of society and the nation-state. The contributions to this volume share that objective and take their point of departure from the two most ambitious projects of a theory of world society: world polity research and systems theory, mapping out the common ground shared by world polity research and systems theory and assessing their potential to inform empirical analyses of globalization.

Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations in Sociology focuses on two main issues in sociology. Firstly, how macro-conditions can explain macro-outcomes mediated by actor behaviour at the micro-level (micro-macro links). Secondly, how alternative micro-models affect macro-outcomes (microfoundations). The contributions reflect key features of micro-macro modelling in sociology as well as recent progress in this field. The chapters address core features of explanations of social phenomena using micro-macro models, the problem of cooperation, heterogeneity of actors, structural balance, opinion formation, segregation, and problems of micro-macro models that are based on rational choice assumptions. Moreover, the contributions show how different research methods can be applied fruitfully, such as laboratory experiments, equilibrium analysis, and agent-based modelling. As a result, the book can be a guide for graduate students who want to develop their skills in building micro-macro models. In addition, the book provides specialists of the different substantive research areas with up-to-date new developments in their research area. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Mathematical Sociology.

Beyond Hate offers a critical ethnography of the virtual communities established and discursive networks activated through the online engagements of white separatists, white nationalists, and white supremacists with various popular cultural texts, including movies, music, television, sport, video games, and kitsch. Outlining the ways in which advocates of white power interpret popular cultural forms, and probing the emergent spaces of white power popular culture, it examines the paradoxical relationship that advocates of white supremacy have with popular culture, as they finding it to be an irresistible and repugnant reflection of social decay rooted in multiculturalism. Drawing on a range of new media sources, including websites, chat rooms, blogs and forums, this book explores the concerns expressed by advocates of white power, with regard to racial hierarchy and social order, the crisis of traditional American values, the perpetuation of liberal, feminist, elitist ideas, the degradation of the family and the fetishization of black men. What emerges is an understanding of the instruments of power in white supremacist discourses, in which a series of connections are drawn between popular culture, multiculturalism, sexual politics and state functions, all of which are seen to be working against white men. A richly illustrated study of the intersections of white power and popular culture in the contemporary U.S., and the use of use cyberspace by white supremacists as an imagined site of resistance, Beyond Hate will appeal to scholars of sociology and cultural studies with interests in race and ethnicity, popular culture and the discourses of the extreme right.

A detailed and richly illustrated analysis of charisma and the political and cultural conditions in which charismatic figures arise, this work of historical sociology critically engages with Max Weber's ambiguous concept of charisma to examine the charismatic careers of a number of figures, including Joan of Arc, Hitler and Nelson Mandela, as well as that of Jesus, who, the author contends - in contradistinction to Max Weber - was not a charismatic leader, in spite of his portrayal in Christian theology. Shedding light on the process of charismatic transformation as it occurs within intensely solidaristic groups and the importance of patronage in charismatic careers, the book distinguishes between charismatic rule and charismatic leadership. With close attention to the social and political legacy of charisma for modern capitalism, it also examines the emergence of a global class of the super-rich, a process buttressed by a belief on the part of business leaders in their own charismatic powers. A rigorous examination of the under-researched political process of charisma, the understanding of which remains as important in modern society as in history, Charisma and Patronage will appeal to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, history, politics and social geography.

Beyond Hate offers a critical ethnography of the virtual communities established and discursive networks activated through the online engagements of white separatists, white nationalists, and white supremacists with various popular cultural texts, including movies, music, television, sport, video games, and kitsch. Outlining the ways in which advocates of white power interpret popular cultural forms, and probing the emergent spaces of white power popular culture, it examines the paradoxical relationship that advocates of white supremacy have with popular culture, as they finding it to be an irresistible and repugnant reflection of social decay rooted in multiculturalism. Drawing on a range of new media sources, including websites, chat rooms, blogs and forums, this book explores the concerns expressed by advocates of white power, with regard to racial hierarchy and social order, the crisis of traditional American values, the perpetuation of liberal, feminist, elitist ideas, the degradation of the family and the fetishization of black men. What emerges is an understanding of the instruments of power in white supremacist discourses, in which a series of connections are drawn between popular culture, multiculturalism, sexual politics and state functions, all of which are seen to be working against white men. A richly illustrated study of the intersections of white power and popular culture in the contemporary U.S., and the use of use cyberspace by white supremacists as an imagined site of resistance, Beyond Hate will appeal to scholars of sociology and cultural studies with interests in race and ethnicity, popular culture and the discourses of the extreme right.

Change is inevitable, we are told. A job is lost, a couple falls in love, children leave home, an addict joins Narcotics Anonymous, two nations go to war, a family member's health deteriorates, a baby is born, a universal health care bill is voted into law. Life comprises events over which we have considerable, partial, or little or no control. The distance between the event and our daily lives suggests a quirky spatial politics. Our lives move forward depending upon how events play out in concert with our reactions to them. Drawing on nearly three decades of geographic projects that involve ethnographies and interviews with, and stories about, young people in North and South American, Europe and Asia and using the innovative technique of ethnopoetry, Aitken examines key life-changing events to look at the interconnections between space, politics, change and emotions. Analysing the intricate spatial complexities of these events, he explores the emotions that undergird the ways change takes place, and the perplexing spatial politics that almost always accompany transformations. Aitken positions young people as effective agents of change without romanticizing their political involvement as fantasy and unrealistic dreaming. Going further, he suggests that it is the emotional palpability of youth engagement and activism that makes it so potent and productive. Pulling on the spatial theories of de Certeau, Deleuze, Massey, Agamben, Ranciere, Zizek and Grosz amongst others, Aitken argues that spaces are transformative to the degree that they open the political and he highlights the complexly interwoven political, economic, social and cultural practices that simultaneously embed and embolden people in places. If we think of spaces as events and events encourage change, then spaces and people become other through complex relations. Taking poetry to be an emotive construction of language, Aitken re-visualizes, contorts and arranges people's words and gestures to

First published in 1978, Studying Society is a stimulating introductory text in sociology and social studies. It discusses socially relevant themes such as childhood, school, teenagers, families, housing, communities, and power. The themes are introduced through original examples like photographs, newspaper cuttings, charts, and case studies to help students develop skills of information gathering, interpretation, imagination, objectivity, and discussion. It is a pupil-centred, activity based working book that includes wealth of information from a wide variety of sources. It is a unique attempt to combine enjoyable and stimulating learning activities with the serious demands of external examinations. It will help teachers to convince pupils that learning can be both informative and exciting.

Sociologists and historians are not always the best of neighbours, each group tending to perceive the other in terms of the crudest of stereotypes. However, the two approaches are obviously complementary - change is structured, and structures change. Each discipline can free the other from its own kind of parochialism and the aim of this book is to bridge the gap between these tow subcultures, to give historians a more acute sense of structure and sociologists a more acute sense of change.

Disrupting, questioning and altering the taken-for-granted 'cosmos' of everyday life, the experiences of illness challenge the different ways in which social normalcy is remembered, maintained and expected. This book explores the manifold experiences of life threatening, infectious or non-curable illnesses that trouble the practices and relations of human and social life. Challenging a mere deficit-model of illness, it examines how the cosmopolitics of illness require and initiate an ethos that cares for difference and diversity. Eventful Bodies presents rich qualitative and ethnographic data alongside print and on-line media sources from Germany and North America, exploring case studies involving Alzheimer's disease, stroke and the global threat of infectious diseases such as SARS. The book engages with debates in cosmopolitics and exposes the agency of those overlooked by contemporary discourses of cosmopolitanism, thus developing a new theory of illness and delineating a novel empirical agenda and conceptual space for sociological and anthropological research. A rigorous examination of the changes wrought in the social world by illness and the implications of this for social and political theory, Eventful Bodies will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, social and political theorists, geographers and scholars of science and technology studies, with interests in medical sociology, health, illness and the body.

This edited collection focuses on global migration in its inter-regional, international and transnational variants, and argues that contemporary migration scholarship is significantly advanced both within anthropology and beyond it when ethnography is theoretically engaged to grapple with the social consequences and asymmetries of twenty-first century capitalism's global modalities. Drawn from settings across the globe, case studies explore the nuanced formations of class and power within particular migration flows while addressing the complex analytics of a contemporary critical political economy of migration. Subjects include global migrants as capitalists, entrepreneurs and "cosmopolitans," as well as workers and immigrants who are subject to varying degrees of precariousness under intensified competition for profits within contemporary global economies. By re-addressing the question of the relationship between changes in global capitalism and migration, the book aims for a timely intervention into the debates on migration which have come to be one of the most contentious emotionally fraught issues in North America and Europe.

This volume presents a series of illustrative and critical perspectives upon the developing study of men and masculinities and its importance for sociological theory. The contributions, by women and men from Britain and the United States, are organized around the unifying themes of Power and Domination; Sexuality; Identity and Perception. Feminism has raised profound questions for the social sciences, for sociological theory and for the study of men. The contributors to this volume discuss how such questions can be addressed. They demonstrate the range of theoretical traditions that can be brought to bear on the study of men, and underline the importance of understanding 'masculinities' in the plural. In a concluding section, three different views upon the controversy surrounding 'Men's Studies' are presented.

'In this remarkable collection of essays, Holton and Turner demonstrate that Parsonian sociology addresses the most central problems of our time - issues of sickness and health, power and inequality, the nature of capitalism and its possible alternatives. They develop a mature and original perspective on Parsons as the only classical theorist who avoided crippling nostalgia. Holton and Turner not only talk about Parsonian sociology in a profound and insightful way, they do it, and do it well. As sociology moves away from the rigid dichotomies of earlier debate, this book will help point the way.' - Jeffrey Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Sociology, UCLA

Max Weber's lecture 'Science as a Vocation' is a classic of social thought, in which central questions are posed about the nature of social and political thought and action. The lecture has often taken to be a summation of Weber's thought. It can also be argued that, together with the responses of its admirers and critics, it provides a focus for discussion of the nature of modernity and its political consequences, and of the philosophical and political implications of the social or human sciences. This volume provides a full, clear, revised translation of the lecture, together with translations from the German of key contributions to the lively debate that followed its publication. The book concludes with a substantial essay on the current significance of the lecture, which discusses its relevance to the debates about the nature of science as a cultural phenomenon; the disjunction between science and nature; Weber's conception of the disenchantment of the world; the division of scientific labour; and the fundamental nature and place of sociology.

This is an important account of the development of the 'field-theory' approach in the social sciences. Harald Mey concentrates on the writers from the 1930s to the present day who have used this approach to the study of the individual and of society, and gives a clear exposition of such 'field-theory' application in its many differing forms. In addition, the author shows how a concept which was initially useful in the physical sciences came to be used first by psychologists, and subsequently by sociologists and others in related disciplines, in their search for answers to the problems presented by the study of society. Mey describes how the use of the 'field-theory' perspective has fared when applied to specific areas of social research - education, personal relationships, group behaviour. He also compares the 'field-theory' approach to the study of societies with the structural/functional approach, and explains why he believes 'field-theory' has a number of advantages over the structural/functional approach, especially when it comes to the dynamic problem of social change.

A striking feature of the human condition is its dual, contradictory, inherently split character; on the one hand, autonomy and freedom; on the other, constraint and dependence on social structure. This volume addresses this central problem of the linkage between human action and social structure in sociological and social science theory. Contributions cover several different approaches to the agency-structure problematic, and represent the work of a number of leading international sociologists. Their efforts point to a reorientation of social theory, both on philosophical and methodological levels.

After a period in which sociology was torn apart by the polarized claims of micro- and macro-methodology, an increasing number of sociologists are now attempting a fusion of the two approaches. In this volume, some of the most distinguished sociologists set out possible resolutions of the debate. Each of the chapters, placed in perspective by the editors' prologue, approaches the problem from a unique angle. Aaron Cicourel argues for a macro-basis of social interaction; Randall Collins shows how the macro consists of an aggregate of micro-episodes; Troy Duster presents a methodological model for generating a systematic data base across different contexts of social action through his examination of the procedures governing screening for inherited disorders. Rom Harre launches a philosophical attack on what he sees as a spurious bifurcation of micro- and macro-levels. Anthony Giddens explores the problem of unintended consequences, and Gilles Fauconnier, through a depiction of Jesuitical casuistry, shows how vital clues to macro-structure can be elicited from the micro-phenomenon of language. Victor Lidz continues the language theme in his chapter on the implications of advances in linguistic theory for macro-systems theory. Niklas Luhmann illustrates the micro-macro problem by the communication about law in interaction systems. The theory of historical materialism is reassessed by Jurgen Habermas. Taking the example of Renault and electric vehicles, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour investigate how micro-actor status is attained and the sociologist's involvement in this transformation. Finally, Pierre Bourdieu, writing on men and machines, analyses the historical imperatives that create the complex relation between man and his environment.

Non-manual workers are fast becoming the largest occupational category in Western capitalist countries. This is the first book to present a detailed socialist analysis of this much discussed change in the class structure of contemporary capitalism. Focusing on the class position of managerial and supervisory workers, Robert Carter takes as his starting-point the inadequacy of both orthodox Marxist and Weberian models of class relations. Rather, he concurs with recent structuralist theorists of class who maintain that there exists between capital and labour in the process of producing a new middle class. He parts company from the work of these theorists, however, in his insistence that the organisation and consciousness of the new middle class have also to be examined because of the practical consequences these have on class relations. The book therefore examines the historical rise of the middle class, both in the private and the state sector, together with the tendency of the class to respond to its changing relations with capital and labour by unionising. It is sharply critical of the dominant models of the causes and nature of white-collar unionism - both industrial relations and Weberian ones - and indeed rejects these models in favour of a perspective which views the extent and nature of middle-class unionism within the dynamics of class relations.

What is the significance of Structuralism for social science? How original is Levi-Strauss' contribution to social theory? Is he Marxist? Though Structuralism, and its leading representative Levi-Strauss, are central to sociology, anthropology and psychology, the complexity of his work and the obscurity of his commentators have often proved a barrier to understanding. Now for the first time, Dr Badcock provides a jargon-free assessment of Levi-Strauss' place in the tradition of French sociological thought - particularly to predecessors such as Comte, Durkheim and Mauss - discusses his relationship to Marx, Sartre, Freud and Talcott Parsons and provides a concise, non-technical account of his complex ideas on kinship, totenism and myth.

Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia has been a profoundly provocative book. The debate about politics and social knowledge that was spawned by its original publication in 1929 attracted the most promising younger scholars, some of whom shaped the thought of several generations. The book became a focus for a debate on the methodological and epistemological problems confronting German social science. More than thirty major papers were published in response to Mannheim's text. Writers such as Hannah Arendt, Ernst Robert Curtius, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Helmuth Plessner, Hans Speier and Paul Tillich were among the contributors. Their positions varied from seeing in the sociology of knowledge a sophisticated reformulation of the materialist conception of history to linking its popularity to a betrayal of Marxism. The English publication in 1936 defined formative issues for two generations of sociological self-reflection. Knowledge and Politics provides an introduction to the dispute and reproduces the leading contributions. It sheds new light on one of the greatest controversies that have marked German social science in the past hundred years.

Professor Wesolowski presents a detailed study of Marx's theory of class structure and compares it with non-Marxist theories of social stratification, in particular the functionalist theory of stratification and the theory of power elite. He is also concerned to develop and extend the Marxist approach to the study of class structure and social stratification in a socialist society. The book begins with a thorough and original reconstruction of Marx's theory of class domination in a capitalist society, and goes on to show that contemporary non-Marxist theories of power elites complement rather than contradict Marx's concept of class domination. The author examines in detail the functionalist theory of stratification, but rejects it, preferring the Marxist approach. Finally, though, he demonstrates the complementary nature of the two approaches to the study of class structure by expounding a comprehensive paradigm for empirical research based on Marxist theory but including some elements of contemporary stratification theories as well.

What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of techne and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon," of universal scope. This work - the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic - breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.

Social Change and Social Work discusses and examines how social work is challenged by social, political and economic tendencies going on in current societies. The authors ask how social work as a discipline and practice is encountering global and local transformations. Divided into three parts, topics covered include the changing social work mandate throughout history; social work paradigms and theoretical considerations; phenomenological social work; practice research; and gender and generational research. Taken together, the chapters in this anthology provide an authoritative and up-to-date overview of current discussions within the European social work research community.