This edited volume approaches waiting both as a social phenomenon that proliferates in irregularised forms of migration and as an analytical perspective on migration processes and practices. Waiting as an analytical perspective offers new insights into the complex and shifting nature of processes of bordering, belonging, state power, exclusion and inclusion, and social relations in irregular migration. The chapters in this book address legal, bureaucratic, ethical, gendered, and affective dimensions of time and migration. A key concern is to develop more theoretically robust approaches to waiting in migration as constituted in and through multiple and relational temporalities. The chapters highlight how waiting is configured in specific legal, material, and socio-cultural situations, as well as how migrants encounter, incorporate, and resist temporal structures. This collection includes ethnographic and other empirically based material, as well as theorizing that cross-cut disciplinary boundaries. It will be relevant to scholars from anthropology and sociology, and others interested in temporalities, migration, borders, and power. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

1. This accessible volume and comprehensive subject guide comprises key readings on law and social justice, with a focus on dispossessions, marginalities and rights. 2. A topical volume that brings together expert analyses and emerging research on contemporary themes. 3. It will be of interest to departments of law, socio-legal studies, legal history, South Asian studies, human rights, jurisprudence and constitutional studies, gender studies, history, politics, conflict and peace studies, sociology and social anthropology. It will also appeal to legal historians and practitioner of law, and those in public administration, development studies, environment studies, migration studies, cultural studies, labour studies and economics.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license Through a variety of empirical studies, this volume offers fresh insights into the manner in which different forms of communicative action transform urban space. With attention to the methodological questions that arise from the attempt to study such changes empirically, it offers new theoretical foundations for understanding the social construction and reconstruction of spaces through communicative action. Seeing communicative action as the basic element in the social construction of reality and conceptualizing communication not only in terms of the use of language and texts, but as involving any kind of objectification, such as technologies, bodies and non-verbal signs, it considers the roles of both direct and mediatized (or digitized) communication. An examination of the conceptualization of the communicative (re-)construction of spaces and the means by which this change might be empirically investigated, this book demonstrates the fruitfulness of the notion of refiguration as a means by which to understand the transformation of contemporary societies. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, social theorists, and geographers with interests in social construction and urban space.

Media Theory for A Level provides a comprehensive introduction to the 19 academic theories required for A Level Media study. From Roland Barthes to Clay Shirky, from structuralism to civilisationism, this revision book explains the core academic concepts students need to master to succeed in their exams. Each chapter includes: * Comprehensive explanations of the academic ideas and theories specified for GCE Media study. * Practical tasks designed to help students apply theoretical concepts to unseen texts and close study products/set texts. * Exemplar applications of theories to set texts and close study products for all media specifications (AQA, Eduqas, OCR and WJEC). * Challenge activities designed to help students secure premium grades. * Glossaries to explain specialist academic terminology. * Revision summaries and exam preparation activities for all named theorists. * Essential knowledge reference tables. Media Theory for A Level is also accompanied by the essentialmediatheory.com website that contains a wide range of supporting resources. Accompanying online material includes: * Revision flashcards and worksheets. * A comprehensive bank of exemplar applications that apply academic theory to current set texts and close study products for all media specifications. * Classroom ready worksheets that teachers can use alongside the book to help students master essential media theory. * Help sheets that focus on the application of academic theory to unseen text components of A Level exams.

Social Change in a Material World offers a new, practice theoretical account of social change and its explanation. Extending the author's earlier account of social life, and drawing on general ideas about events, processes, and change, the book conceptualizes social changes as configurations of significant differences in bundles of practices and material arrangements. Illustrated with examples from the history of bourbon distillation and the formation and evolution of digitally-mediated associations in contemporary life, the book argues that chains of activity combine with material events and processes to cause social changes. The book thereby stresses the significance of the material dimension of society for the constitution, determination, and explanation of social phenomena, as well as the types of space needed to understand them. The book also challenges the explanatory significance of such key phenomena as power, dependence, relations, mechanisms, and individual behavior. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, geographers, organization studies scholars, and others interested in social life and social change.

This book explores the concept of 'home' in Liverpool over phases of 'regeneration' following the Second World War. Using qualitative research in the oral history tradition, it explores what the author conceptualises as 'forward-facing' regeneration in the period up to the 1980s, and neoliberal regeneration interventions that 'prioritise the past' from the 1980s to the present. The author examines how the shift towards city centre-focused redevelopment and 'event-led' initiatives has implications for the way residents make sense of their conceptualisations of 'home', and demonstrates how the shift in regeneration focus, discourse, and practice, away from Liverpool's neighbourhood districts and towards the city centre, has produced changes in the ways that residents identify with neighbourhoods and the city centre, with prominence being given to the latter. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field as mechanisms for understanding different senses of home and shifts from localised views to globalised views, this book will appeal to those with interests in urban sociology, regeneration, geography, sociology, home cultures, and cities.

-London-based case studies are discussed in the broader context of metropolitan cities worldwide, providing generalizable as well as specific lessons and examples -Interviews across several fields: international architects, government planners, deputy prime ministers, community organizers, etc. -Targeted toward students as well as a wide range of urban practitioners (planners, politicians, architects, government officials, etc.)

In his newest book, Stehr builds on his classic book Knowledge Societies (1994) to expand the concept toward one of knowledge capitalism for a now, much-changed era. It is not only because of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that we are living in a new epoch; it is the idea that modern societies increasingly constitute comprehensive knowledge societies under intensive capitalism, whereby the legal encoding of knowledge through national and international law is the lever that enables the transformation of the knowledge society into knowledge capitalism. The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, negotiated between 1986 and 1994 as part of the World Trade Organization, is the backbone of the modern society and marks a clear historical demarcation, and although knowledge capitalism is primarily an economic development, the digital giants who are in the driver's seat have significant effects on the social structure and culture of modern society.

In his newest book, Stehr builds on his classic book Knowledge Societies (1994) to expand the concept toward one of knowledge capitalism for a now, much-changed era. It is not only because of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic that we are living in a new epoch; it is the idea that modern societies increasingly constitute comprehensive knowledge societies under intensive capitalism, whereby the legal encoding of knowledge through national and international law is the lever that enables the transformation of the knowledge society into knowledge capitalism. The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement, negotiated between 1986 and 1994 as part of the World Trade Organization, is the backbone of the modern society and marks a clear historical demarcation, and although knowledge capitalism is primarily an economic development, the digital giants who are in the driver's seat have significant effects on the social structure and culture of modern society.

This book explores the demise of the grand narrative of European modernity. That once commanding narrative located the meaning of the past in the present and the meaning of the present in an ever-receding future. Today, instead, the present defines both the past and the future. The 'contemporary' has replaced 'modern' and 'post-modern' self-understandings. The times of the past and the future have been transformed into versions of 'now' while the present has acquired its own history. History of the Present describes the emergence of this 'contemporary' historical consciousness across a wide spectrum of cultural phenomena ranging from historiography to heritage and museum studies, and from the globalization of the novel to the rise of science fiction. The culture of the 'contemporary' appears particularly clearly in the merging of high and low culture along with art and fashion. This book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and social theory, museum and heritage studies, and literary history and criticism.

Few of us, amidst our daily chores and responsibilities, consider how mundane infrastructures-from electrical grids to sewage systems-have developed over millennia in ways that enable everything we cherish, from democracy to technological innovation to individual liberty. But what drives the evolution of this infrastructure? And why is infrastructure so critical to human flourishing? In this book, the most innovative and interdisciplinary study of cultural evolution ever produced, new concepts are explored, new histories are brought into contact and new ground-breaking insights are defended. What makes creativity unique in human societies is not only our capacity to generate and modify our diverse individual intuitions about the social and physical world, but also our capacity to form and leave groups fluidly in a dancing rhythm of oscillation across the expanse of history. This book walks the reader carefully through these processes, with clear concepts and an approachable writing style.

Social functions and functional explanations play a prominent role not only in our everyday reasoning but also in classical as well as contemporary social theory and empirical social research. This volume explores metaphysical, normative, and methodological perspectives on social functions and functional explanations in the social sciences. It aims to push the philosophical debate on social functions forward along new investigative lines by including up-to-date discussions of the metaphysics of social functions, questions concerning the nature of functional explanations within the social domain, and various applications of functionalist theorising. As such, this is one of the first collections to exclusively address a variety of philosophical questions concerning the nature and relevance of social functions.

Sacred Civics argues that societal transformation requires that spirituality and sacred values are essential to reimagining patterns of how we live, organize and govern ourselves, determine and distribute wealth, inhabit and design cities, and construct relationships with others and with nature. The book brings together transdisciplinary and global academics, professionals, and activists from a range of backgrounds to question assumptions that are fused deep into the code of how societies operate, and to draw on extraordinary wisdom from ancient Indigenous traditions; to social and political movements like Black Lives Matter, the commons, and wellbeing economies; to technologies for participatory futures where people collaborate to reimagine and change culture. Looking at cities and human settlements as the sites of transformation, the book focuses on values, commons, and wisdom to demonstrate that how we choose to live together, to recognize interdependencies, to build, grow, create, and love-matters. Using multiple methodologies to integrate varied knowledge forms and practices, this truly ground-breaking volume includes contributions from renowned and rising voices. Sacred Civics is a must-read for anyone interested in intersectional discussions on social justice, inclusivity, participatory design, healthy communities, and future cities. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003199816, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This is a comprehensive, critical introduction to the sociology of money, covering many topics, from the origins of money to its function today. Though our coins, bank notes and electronic tokens do function as means of exchange, money is in fact a social, intangible institution. This book shows that money does indeed rule the world. Exploring the unlikely origins of money in early societies and amidst the first civilizations, the book moves onto inherent liaison with finance, including the logic of financial markets. Turning to the contemporary politics of money, monetary experiments and reform initiatives such as Bitcoin and positive money, it finally reveals the essentially monetary constitution of modern society itself. Through criticizing the simplistic exchange paradigm of standard economics and rational choice theory, it demonstrates instead that money matters because it embodies social relations.

Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives is a landmark volume providing students, university lecturers, and practitioners with a comprehensive and structured guide to the major topics and trends of research on counter-narratives. The concept of counter-narratives covers resistance and opposition as told and framed by individuals and social groups. Counter-narratives are stories impacting on social settings that stand opposed to (perceived) dominant and powerful master-narratives. In sum, the contributions in this handbook survey how counter-narratives unfold power to shape and change various fields. Fields investigated in this handbook are organizations and professional settings, issues of education, struggles and concepts of identity and belonging, the political field, as well as literature and ideology. The handbook is framed by a comprehensive introduction as well as a summarizing chapter providing an outlook on future research avenues. Its direct and clear appeal will support university learning and prompt both students and researchers to further investigate the arena of narrative research.

In this comprehensive and clear introduction to contemporary social theory, Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert explore the major theoretical traditions from the Frankfurt School to the digital revolution and beyond. Fully revised and updated, this second edition has been expanded to consider the most recent developments in social theory, including a new chapter on the digital revolution and the increasingly significant impact of technological developments (such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics) on society, culture and politics. Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory provides the reader with a superb overview of key developments in social theory, including the Frankfurt School, American pragmatism, structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, globalization and world-systems theory. In doing so, the textbook explores the ideas of a wide range of social theorists, including Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Talcott Parsons, Erving Goffman, Harold Garfinkel, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, C. Wright Mills, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Julia Kristeva, Jurgen Habermas, Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Manuel Castells, Cornel West, Immanuel Wallerstein and Zygmunt Bauman. This textbook provides stylish exposition with powerful social critique and original insights. It will be indispensable to students and academics alike.

This book probes the sources and nature of the 'discontents of modernity'. It proposes a new approach to the philosophic-critical discourse on modernity. The Enlightenment is widely understood to be the foundational moment of modernity. Yet despite its appeal to reason as the ultimate ground of its authority and legitimacy, the Enlightenment has had multiple historical manifestations and, therefore, can hardly be said to be a homogenous phenomenon. The present work seeks to identify a unitive element that allows us to speak of the Enlightenment. To do so, it enjoins the concept of 'ethos' and its relation to the 'discontents of modernity'. This book proposes a new theoretical framework for the examination of the interrelationships between 'critical thought' and 'modernity', based on a fundamental distinction between criticism and negation. It will appeal to scholars and students of critical theory, the history of ideas, philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and political science.

Young people in East Asia are increasingly experiencing a prolonged transition to adulthood. They are spending longer in school, entering the labour market later, and getting married later still. This protracted young adulthood interacts with forces of both tradition and modernization, as social and economic changes generate profound effects on the transition from school to work, on family formation, on personal relationships, and on subjective well-being. Journey to Adulthood explores the special characteristics of young adulthood in East Asia. It uses Taiwan as illustrative example, with comparative findings from its East Asian neighbours Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. It describes the particular growth context of a millennial generation, and the challenges they face as they attempt to balance family formation, personal development and entry into a market economy. Edited by Chin-Chun Yi and Ming-Chang Tsai, this collection helps us to understand the structural configurations East Asian young adults collectively represent. Taking a cross-cultural and comparative perspective, it enables meaningful policy suggestions on family dynamics, educational strategy, and health and well-being across the globe. Dr Chin-Chun Yi and Dr Ming-Chang Tsai both work within the Institute of Sociology, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Whatever else they may be doing, human beings are also and always expressing themselves whenever they are in the awareness of others. As such, the metaphor of life as theater - of people playing roles to audiences who review them and then coordinate further action - is an ancient idea that has been resurrected by social scientists as an organizing simile for the analysis and understanding of social life. The Drama of Social Life examines this dramaturgical approach to social life, bringing together the latest original work from leading contemporary dramaturgical thinkers across the social sciences. Thematically organized, it explores: c the work of classical and contemporary thinkers who have contributed most to this theoretical framework c the foundational concepts of the dramaturgical approach c a rich array of substantive areas of empirical investigation to which dramaturgy continues to contribute c directions for future dramaturgical thinking. An indispensable collection that updates and extends the dramaturgical framework, The Drama of Social Life will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social psychology, performance studies, cultural studies, communication, film studies, and anthropology - and all those interested in the work of Goffman and symbolic interactionist theory and practice.

This volume offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical developments underpinning our present understandings of the relationship between language and the social by integrating the study of language with key strands of sociological theory.// The book posits that theory conditions how objects are constructed and in turn the meanings allocated to them and explores the implications for the relationship between language and the social. The volume traces this relationship from its foundations in the work of Enlightenment philosophers, in which sociology and linguistics emerged as coherent disciplines. Taking this work as a point of departure, the book examines the unfolding of the interplay between language and the social across developments in sociological theory in subsequent eras, encompassing such strands as Marxism, functionalism, interactionism, anti-foundationalism, poststructuralism, critical theory, and critical realism. A final chapter turns its eye toward contemporary sociolinguistics and its treatment of different sociological perspectives and future directions for its continued development. // Reflecting on trajectories in sociological theory toward informing our understanding of the relationship between language and the social today, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, philosophy of language, and those working in sociology and geography with an interest in language issues.

In this ground-breaking book, the author proposes a new theory of state formation based upon a rethinking of the nexus war, state, and citizenship. He seeks to move beyond explanations provided by traditional approaches by discussing and presenting alternative state-society and state theories, arguing that a relational-processual understanding of the states has been neglected in existing literature. The book begins with a critical discussion of the concept of the state and society in social and political theory. The author suggests an alternative theoretical-methodological framework based upon German relational theory (such as Hegel, Clausewitz, Carl Schmitt, and, in particular Norbert Elias). Drawing upon the concepts of survival unit and figuration the book provides a political, historical and sociological comparative analysis of the relation between war, state, and citizenship in France, England and Germany from the Middle Ages to the mid-17th century, with emphasis on the 16th and 17th centuries. In addition, the book addresses two puzzles in social theory. First, the author addresses the question: why is the world divided into a multiple number of units? Will it remain like this or can we expect one unit - one world state - in the future? Second, the author looks into why and how this divided world is maintained: what makes the demarcation between states and how is this demarcation upheld? The issues discussed in the book are central to political and historical sociology and will be of interest to scholars and students working in both these fields, as well as to those working in political science and IR, social theory and history.

The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies documents the richness, variety, and creativity of contemporary international research on Georg Simmel's work. Starting with the established role of Simmel as a classical author of sociology, and including the growing interest in his work in the domain of philosophy, this volume explores the research on Simmel in several further disciplines including art, social aesthetics, literature, theatre, essayism, and critical theory, as well as in the debates on cosmopolitanism, economic pathologies of life, freedom, modernity, religion, and nationalism. Bringing together contributions from leading specialists in research on Simmel, the book is thematically arranged in order to highlight the relevance of his oeuvre for different fields of recent research, with a further section tracing the most important paths that Simmel's reception has taken in the world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities, and to sociologists, philosophers, and social theorists in particular, with interest in Simmel's thought.

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.

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 develops a contemporary theory of nationalism that addresses 21st century political challenges, exploring theoretical and empirical understandings of the concepts of 'the nation' and 'nationalism' and the failure of various theoretical accounts to decipher the diverse manner by which nationalism comes to be embedded in our social and political world. Accounting for the dynamism and 'intertextuality' of nationalism, Nationalism and Hegemony shows how 'the nation' and 'nationalism' come to be consolidated as conceptual and experiential power structures and how the interests of political groups are advanced through diverse nationalist modalities, which can at any time be activated for political purposes. A critique of the various and diverse manifestations of nationalism, this contribution to both theory and political practice will appeal to scholars working in the fields of sociology and social and political theory.