As the world becomes digitalized, developing countries are starting to see an increase in technological advancements being integrated into their society. These advancements are creating opportunities to improve both the economy and the lives of people within these areas. Affordability Issues Surrounding the Use of ICT for Development and Poverty Reduction is a relevant scholarly publication that examines the importance of information and communications technology (ICT) and its ability to aid in developing countries and the methods to make such technologies more accessible and cost less. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics, including community networks, infrastructure sharing, and the digital divide, this book is geared toward academics, technology developers, researchers, students, practitioners, and professionals interested in the importance of understanding technological innovations.

Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs examines racial and ethnic politics outside traditional urban contexts and questions the standard theories we use to understand mobility and government responses to rapid demographic change and political demands. This study moves beyond traditional scholarship in urban politics, departing from the persistent treatment of racial dynamics in terms of a simple black-white binary. Combining an interdisciplinary, multi-method, and multiracial approach with a well-integrated analysis of multiple forms of data including focus groups, in-depth interviews, and census data, Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs explains how redistributive policies and programs are developed and implemented at the local level to assist immigrants, racial/ethnic minorities, and low-income groups - something that given earlier knowledge and theorizing should rarely happen. Lorrie Frasure-Yokley relies on the framework of suburban institutional interdependency (SII), which presents a new way of thinking systematically about local politics within the context of suburban political institutions in the United States today.

Sapiens showed us where we came from. In uncertain times, Homo Deus shows us where we’re going.

Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century and beyond – from overcoming death to creating artificial life.

It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?

'Homo Deus will shock you. It will entertain you. It will make you think in ways you had not thought before’ Daniel Kahneman, bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Drawing from extensive ethnographic research on abortion debates in public spaces, this book explores the beliefs, motivations and practices of UK anti-abortion activists. Whilst they represent a tiny minority, there is recent evidence of an increase in activism outside UK abortion clinics; faith-based groups regularly organise 'vigils' seeking to deter service users from entering clinics. In response to this, pro-choice groups launched a campaign for buffer-zones around clinics. Although there is overwhelming public support for abortion, it remains an area of public contestation that touches on ideas about bodily autonomy, religious freedom and reproductive rights. Despite being active in the UK since before the 1967 Abortion Act, anti-abortion activism has received little attention. Taking a lived religion approach, Anti-Abortion Activism in the UK explores the sacred and profane commitments of anti-abortion activists and counter-demonstrations outside clinics, examining the contestations over space. The authors argue that as a moral reform social movement, the anti-abortion activists typically frame their activism in terms of risk and abortion harm, but their religiously-informed understanding of ultra-sacrificial motherhood as 'natural' for women undermines this framing. Their conservative gender and sexuality attitudes position them culturally as a moral minority. The displays of public religion are also anomalous in a country in which religion is usually seen as a private issue. Their presence outside abortion clinics causes a significant amount of distress, but public support for the establishment of safe zones outside of abortion-service provision is strong and is a proportionate response to safeguard the freedoms of those seeking abortion.

In 2011, the Midwest suffered devastating floods. Due to the flooding, the US Army Corps of Engineers activated the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway, one of the flood prevention mechanisms of the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project. This levee breach was intended to divert water in order to save the town of Cairo, Illinois, but in the process, it completely destroyed the small African American town of Pinhook, Missouri. In When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri, authors David Todd Lawrence and Elaine J. Lawless examine two conflicting narratives about the flood--one promoted by the Corps of Engineers that boasts the success of the levee breach and the flood diversion, and the other gleaned from displaced Pinhook residents, who, in oral narratives, tell a different story of neglect and indifference on the part of government officials. Receiving inadequate warning and no evacuation assistance during the breach, residents lost everything. Still after more than six years, displaced Pinhook residents have yet to receive restitution and funding for relocation and reconstruction of their town. The authors' research traces a long history of discrimination and neglect of the rights of the Pinhook community, beginning with their migration from the Deep South to southeast Missouri, through purchasing and farming the land, and up to the Birds Point levee breach nearly eighty years later. The residents' stories relate what it has been like to be dispersed in other small towns, living with relatives and friends while trying to negotiate the bureaucracy surrounding Federal Emergency Management Agency and State Emergency Management Agency assistance programs. Ultimately, the stories of displaced citizens of Pinhook reveal a strong African American community, whose bonds were developed over time and through shared traditions, a community persisting despite extremely difficult circumstances.

Religion is considered by many to be something of the past, but it has a lasting hold in society and influences people across many cultures. This integration of spirituality causes numerous impacts across various aspects of modern life. The variety of religious institutions in modern society necessitates a focus on diversity and inclusiveness in the interactions between organizations of different religions, cultures, and viewpoints. Religion and Theology: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice examines the cultural, sociological, economic, and philosophical effects of religion on modern society and human behavior. It also explores the impact of gender identity and race within religious-based institutions and organizations. Highlighting a range of topics such as religious traditionalism, spirituality, and comparative religion, this publication is an ideal reference source for theologists, religious officials, managers, government officials, theoreticians, practitioners, researchers, policymakers, advanced-level students, and sociologists.

Although many contemporary scholars have deepened our understanding of civil society, a concept that made its entry into modern social thought in the 17th century, by offering insightful exegetical inquiries into the tradition of thinking about this concept, critiquing the limits of civil society discourse, or seeking to offer empirical analyses of existing civil societies, none have attempted anything as bold or original as Jeffrey C. Alexander's The Civil Sphere. While consciously building on this three centuries long tradition of thought on the subject, Alexander has broken new ground by articulating in considerable detail a theoretical framework that differs from what he sees as the two major perspectives that have heretofore shaped civil society discourse. In so doing, he has sought to construct from the bottom up a model of what he calls the civil sphere, which he treats in Durkheimian fashion as a new social fact. In this volume, six internationally recognized scholars comment on the civil sphere thesis. Robert Bellah, Bryan S. Turner, and Axel Honneth consider the work as a whole. Mario Diani, Chad Alan Goldberg, and Farhad Khosrokhavar offer analyses of specific aspects of the civil sphere. In their substantive introduction, Peter Kivisto and Giuseppe Sciortino locate the civil sphere thesis in terms of Alexander's larger theoretical arc as it has shifted from neofunctionalism to cultural sociology. Finally, Alexander's clarifies and further elaborates on the concept of the civil sphere.

Social dialogue is critical for defining relations within and between different constituencies and bringing divergent interests towards a consensus. To bring understanding to the management of these dynamics of convergence and divergence, analyzing network relations that underlie social processes and structures of governance is necessary for growth. Social Partnership and Governance Under Crises is a collection of innovative research that focuses on the development of network relations while furthering the studies on governance of the public sector under crisis conditions. While stressing topics that include labor studies, political economy, and public administration, this book is ideal for public policy practitioners, public administrators, government officials, development agencies, academicians, researchers, and students.

Steve Ditko (1927-2018) is one of the most important contributors to American comic books. As the cocreator of Spider-Man and sole creator of Doctor Strange, Ditko made an indelible mark on American popular culture. Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity resets the conversation about his heady and powerful work. Always inward facing, Ditko's narratives employed superhero and supernatural fantasy in the service of self-examination, and with characters like the Question, Mr. A, and Static, Ditko turned ordinary superhero comics into philosophic treatises. Many of Ditko's philosophy-driven comics show a clear debt to ideas found in Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Unfortunately, readers often reduce Ditko's work to a mouthpiece for Rand's vision. Mysterious Travelers unsettles this notion. In this book, Zack Kruse argues that Ditko's philosophy draws on a complicated network of ideas that is best understood as mystic liberalism. Although Ditko is not the originator of mystic liberalism, his comics provide a unique window into how such an ideology operates in popular media. Examining selections of Ditko's output from 1953 to 1986, Kruse demonstrates how Ditko's comics provide insight into a unique strand of American thought that has had a lasting impact.

This book traces religion and secularity in eleven countries not shaped by Western Christianity (Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco), and how they parallel or diverge from Charles Taylor's grand narrative of the North Atlantic world, A Secular Age (2007). In all eleven cases, the state - enhanced by post-colonial and post-imperial legacies - highly determines religious experience, by variably regulating religious belief, practice, property, education and/or law. Taylor's core condition of secularity - namely, legal permissibility and social acceptance of open religious unbelief (Secularity III) - is largely absent in these societies. The areas affected by state regulation, however, differ greatly. In India, Israel and most Muslim countries, questions of religious law are central to state regulation. But it is religious education and organization in China, and church property and public practice in Russia that bear the brunt. This book explains these differences using the concept of 'differential burdening'.

Social theory can sometimes seem as though it's speaking of a world that existed long ago, so why should we continue to study and discuss the theories of these dead white men? Can their work still inform us about the way we live today? Are they still relevant to our consumer-focused, celebrity-crazy, tattoo-friendly world? This book explains how the ideas of classical sociological theory can be understood, and applied to, everyday activities like listening to hip-hop, reading fashion magazines or watching reality TV. Taking the reader through central sociological texts, Social Theory In Popular Culture explains why key theorists - from Marx to Saussure - are still considered to be the bedrock of sociology and sociological enquiry. Each chapter examines a different key thinker and applies their work to a recognisable aspect of popular cultural, showing how the central issues underpinning classic social thought - class, conflict, gender, power, ethnicity, and social status - can still be readily observed within the modern global world. Encouraging the reader to critique and reflect upon the ways in which classic social theory applies to their own worlds, this is the perfect antidote to dry social theory explanations. It is an eye-opening read for all students and scholars across the social sciences.

Disaster management is an imperative area of concern for society on a global scale. Understanding how to best utilize information and communication technology to help manage emergency and disaster situations will lead to more effective advances and innovations in this important field. Smart Technologies for Emergency Response and Disaster Management is a pivotal reference source that overviews current difficulties, challenges, and solutions that technology must adapt to in crisis situations. Highlighting pertinent topics such as network recovery, evacuation design, sensing technologies, and video technology, this publication is ideal for engineers, professionals, academicians, and researchers interested in discovering more about emerging technologies in crisis management.

Kathy Charmaz (1939-2020) was the developer of Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT), a key method in qualitative research internationally and across many disciplines and professions. She was Professor Emerita of Sociology at Sonoma State University, California, and former Director of its Faculty Writing Program. Her book, Constructing Grounded Theory, is the definitive guide to developing a constructivist perspective, and is the seminal title for anyone serious about doing CGT research. This Festschrift to honour Kathy Charmaz's scholarship features fourteen chapters plus an editors' introduction, exploring CGT extensively, examining topics including "Indigenization" of the method, its approaches to decolonizing research, uses of CGT in social justice research, and the legacies of Kathy Charmaz's remarkable mentorship. Edited by Antony Bryant and Adele E. Clarke, both of whom co-authored and edited with Kathy, and eminent scholars of qualitative methods in their own right, this is a glowing tribute to her long and distinguished career.

Covering a topic applicable to fields ranging from education to health care to psychology, this book provides a broad critical analysis of the assumptions that researchers and practitioners have about causation and explains how readers can improve their thinking about causation. In virtually every laboratory, research center, or classroom focused on the social or physical sciences today, the concept of causation is a core issue to be questioned, tested, and determined. Even debates in unrelated areas such as biology, law, and philosophy often focus on causality-"What made that happen?" In this book, experts from across disciplines adopt a reader-friendly approach to reconsider this age-old question in a modern light, defining different kinds of causation and examining how causes and consequences are framed and approached in a particular field. Each chapter uses applied examples to illustrate key points in an accessible manner. The contributors to this work supply a coherent critical analysis of the assumptions researchers and practitioners hold about causation, and explain how such thinking about causation can be improved. Collectively, the coverage is broad, providing readers with a fuller picture of research in social contexts. Beyond providing insightful description and thought-provoking questioning of causation in different research areas, the book applies analysis of data in order to point the way to smarter, more efficient practices. Consequently, both practitioners and researchers will benefit from this book.

Many governments in developing nations are finding it nearly impossible to address challenges posed to their countries, including poverty, disease, and high levels of youth unemployment. Thus, social entrepreneurs are attempting to address these social challenges through the creation of social enterprises. However, further research is needed as to what social entrepreneurship is and how these enterprises can utilize and formulate marketing strategies. Strategic Marketing for Social Enterprises in Developing Nations provides innovative insights for an in-depth understanding of where marketing and social entrepreneurship interact, providing clarity as to what social entrepreneurship is as an organizational offering, what drives social entrepreneurship, and the formulation of marketing strategies for social enterprises. Highlighting topics such as income generating, marketing management, and media dependency theory, it is designed for managers, entrepreneurial advisors, entrepreneurs, industry professionals, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students.

In the last three decades, the human body has gained increasing prominence in contemporary political debates, and it has become a central topic of modern social sciences and humanities. Modern technologies - such as organ transplants, stem-cell research, nanotechnology, cosmetic surgery and cryonics - have changed how we think about the body. In this collection of thirty original essays by leading figures in the field, these issues are explored across a number of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, including pragmatism, feminism, queer theory, post-modernism, post-humanism, cultural sociology, philosophy and anthropology. A wide range of case studies, which include cosmetics, diet, organ transplants, racial bodies, masculinity and sexuality, eating disorders, religion and the sacred body, and disability, are used to appraise these different perspectives. In addition, this Handbook explores various epistemological approaches to the basic question: what is a body? It also offers a strongly themed range of chapters on empirical topics that are organized around religion, medicine, gender, technology and consumption. It also contributes to the debate over the globalization of the body: how have military technology, modern medicine, sport and consumption led to this contemporary obsession with matters corporeal? The Handbook's clear, direct style will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience in the social sciences, particularly for those studying medical sociology, gender studies, sports studies, disability studies, social gerontology, or the sociology of religion. It will serve to consolidate the new field of body studies.

Brian Skyrms presents eighteen essays which apply adaptive dynamics (of cultural evolution and individual learning) to social theory. Altruism, spite, fairness, trust, division of labor, and signaling are treated from this perspective. Correlation is seen to be of fundamental importance. Interactions with neighbors in space, on static networks, and on co-evolving dynamics networks are investigated. Spontaneous emergence of social structure and of signaling systems are examined in the context of learning dynamics.