Cultural practices and artifacts, in their multiple and varied forms, are grounded on values, which are so deeply internalized by people that usually remain in the background, as taken-for-granted guides for interpretations and decisions in everyday life. Shaping individual moral horizons is at the core of socialization processes, through which older generations aim to disseminate their culturally established values to the new ones, making use of suggestions mainly implicit in daily experiences and interactions. Despite the strength of these processes of cultural canalization, people find particular ways of positioning and interpreting social suggestions, drawing singular life trajectories and developing themselves as unique beings. This is truthful also in case of highly institutionalized settings like the military, in which people play in many forms an agentic role in their own development, being prepared to perform their professional duties in very complex and challenging activity contexts. This book is an invitation to dive deeper into human experiences lived in the military through qualitative and in-depth approaches, observing their affective qualities, the meanings they acquire and how they shape individuals' identities, fostering the development and try-out of specific ethical and moral values. The present work can contribute to research and professional practice in fields related to human development, social processes, education and people management in the military, as well as in other institutional contexts, especially by highlighting the affective, meaningful and moral-ethical dimensions of cultural experiences.

In this cutting edge collection authors examine risk thinking in a range of policy and practice contexts, including special needs education, digital exclusion, domestic violence and abuse, child protection and youth work. Four key interlinking themes emerge from the chapters. The first is how, within a neoliberal context, risk agendas can be used to justify and normalise the rationing and targeting of services. The second theme demonstrates that the use of such agendas can in themselves redefine what is constituted as social problems, and how they are understood and responded to in practice. Thirdly, it is clear welfare practice itself is being re-structured and re-theorised to adapt and conform to the new definitions and understandings that risk thinking has brought about. Finally, the fourth theme illustrates how the use of risk as a negative organising discourse is not inevitable but, in different contexts, can create positive outcomes for service users, practitioners and society.

Raimo Tuomela, late Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT), University of Helsinki, is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of our time. He published extensively on various topics within social philosophy; particularly, on social action, cooperation, group belief, group responsibility, group reasoning, social practices, and institutions. To celebrate his legacy, this volume engages with and delves deeply into his philosophy of sociality. By gathering original essays from a world-class line-up of social ontologists, social action theorists, and social philosophers, this collection provides the first comprehensive and critical treatment of Tuomela's outstanding contribution to social ontology and collective intentionality.

The organization of individuals into networks and groups is of fundamental importance in many social and economic interactions. Examples range from networks of personal contacts used to obtain information about job opportunities to the formation of trading partnerships, alliances, cartels, and federations. Much of our understanding of how and why such networks and groups form, and the precise way in which the network or groups structure affects outcomes of social and economic interaction, is relatively new. This volume collects some of the central papers in this recent literature, which have made important progress on this topic.

Building from the level of individual interaction, this book intends to shed light on what the author terms "infrasocial power" and the relation between this individual-actor oriented level and public power. In overviewing the origins of power, the author allows for the disaggregation of the social fabric, thus making it possible to: 1) isolate the "sequence" in which the phenomenon of superordination and subordination materialises; 2) identify the institutional "instruments" which can be used to limit infrasocial power; 3) discriminate between a social position achieved through engagement with others (and what we are capable of doing for them) from one occupied by means of force and deception; 4) explain the birth and function of public power; and 5) analyze the consequences produced by different political regimes.

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.

The book Profiles of Anthropological Praxis is something of a sequel to Anthropological Praxis: Translating Knowledge into Action, published in 1987 (Westview Press). As a casebook of anthropological projects, the new version shares a fascinating breadth of award-winning projects undertaken by applied anthropologists to address the needs of an array of stakeholders and situations. Each chapter will describe a problem and how a project attempted to address it with the following structure: Problem Overview, Project Description, Anthropologist's Role and Impact, Outcomes, and the Anthropological Difference - that is, how the unique approaches of anthropology were effectively applied to address human problems.

This book provides a theoretical framework for understanding the micropolitics of speed; a rich, nuanced, and embodied account of life in an accelerating world. What does it feel like to live in an era of profound social acceleration? What kinds of affects, perceptions, and identities does an accelerating world produce? The answers to these questions mean more than simply understanding the psychology of speed; they also mean understanding issues in contemporary politics as diverse as xenophobia and anti-immigration policies, patterns of transnational identification and solidarity, social isolation and alienation, and the ability of new media to coordinate social movements. While drawing extensively on the work of contemporary theorists, Simon Glezos recognizes that social acceleration is not a purely recent phenomenon. He therefore turns to thinkers such as Nietzsche, Spinoza, Bergson, and Merleau-Ponty, to ask how they sought to understand, and respond to, the rapid changes and unsettling temporalities of their eras, and how their insights can be applied to our own. Advancing theoretical understanding and offering a useful way to analytically conceptualize the nature of time, Speed and Micropolitics will be of interest to students and scholars studying affect theory, theories of the body, new materialism, phenomenology, as well as the history of political thought.

This book explores the ways in which memories of Stalin-era repression and displacement manifest across times and places through diverse forms of materialization. The chapters of the book explore the concrete mobilities of life stories, letters, memoirs, literature, objects, and bodies reflecting Soviet repression and violence across borders of geographical locations, historical periods, and affective landscapes. These spatial, temporal, and psychological shifts are explored further as processes of textual circulation and mediation. By offering novel multi-sited and multi-media analyses of the creative, political, societal, cultural, and intimate implications of remembrance, the collection contributes fresh interdisciplinary perspectives to both the field of memory studies and the study of Soviet repression. The case studies in this collection focus on the personal, autobiographical, and intimate representations, experiences, and practices related to the remembrance of Stalinist repression and displacement as they are mediated through memoirs, fiction, interviews, and versatile commemorative practices. Taken together, the book asks: what happens to memories, life stories, testimonies, and experiences when they travel in time and space and between media and are (re)interpreted and (re)formulated through these transfers? What kinds of memorial forms are gained through processes of mediation? What types of spaces for remembering, telling, and feeling are created, negotiated, and contested through these shifts? What are the boundaries and intersections of intimate, familial, community, national, and transnational memories? By analytically contextualizing the various case studies within broader memory discourses in a range of geographical and political contexts, the book offers rich and multilayered interpretations of the enduring ramifications of communist repression. The collection demonstrates that these multiply moving memories not only reflect Eastern European memory culture but reach far beyond and have transnational and transgenerational significance. As such, this timely book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the former Soviet Union or memory studies more broadly.

This book explores the growing attention that sociology has started to give to environmental issues in terms of peace and social justice. With a focus on sociological theory and its development, it reconstructs the long journey made by the social sciences towards the reconstruction, in a single theoretical paradigm, of the problems associated with the implementation of conditions of peace and sustainability. Beginning from the premise that environmental issues are never purely environmental, but entail political, economic and social implications, Sustainable Development and Peace offers an understanding of where we are heading, and how, reflecting on present challenges and possible directions for the future. It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory, development studies, politics and environmental studies.

The book is an attempt to bring together what are often seen as incommensurable scientific and philosophical positions. Its core argument is that a main reason for the divisions about what constitutes scientific knowledge relates to disagreements on philosophical issues. The book explores what these disagreements are about, and to discuss whether they can be overcome. Taking a historical perspective, the book traces the divides in science back to three main philosophical traditions: realism, idealism, and scepticism. It maps how these have inspired three main current positions in science: logical empiricism, phenomenology, and sociology of scientific knowledge. The book is intended for a general audience concerned with today's debates on scientific knowledge and society. It will be useful for students and researchers studying philosophy of science, sociology of scientific knowledge, realism, phenomenology, positivism, logical empiricism, analytical philosophy, and sustainable scientific knowledge.

Populism is a powerful force today, but its full scope has eluded the analytical tools of both orthodox and heterodox 'populism studies'. This book provides a valuable alternative perspective. It reconstructs in detail for the first time the sociological analyses of US demagogues by members of the Frankfurt School and compares these with contemporary approaches. Modern demagogy emerges as a key under-researched feature of populism, since populist movements, whether 'left' or 'right', are highly susceptible to 'demagogic capture'. The book also details the culture industry's populist contradictions - including its role as an incubator of modern demagogues - from the 1930s through to today's social media and 'Trumpian psychotechnics'. Featuring a previously unpublished text by Adorno on modern demagogy as an appendix, it will be of interest to everyone concerned about the rise of demagogic populism today. -- .

Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century offers an indispensable reexamination of the life, work, and interventions of a prominent liberal political theorist of the 20th century: Judith Shklar. Drawing on published and unpublished sources including Shklar's correspondence, lecture notes, and other manuscripts, Giunia Gatta presents a fresh theoretical interpretation of Shklar's liberalism as philosophically and politically radical. Beginning with a thorough reconstruction of Shklar's life and her interest in political theory, Gatta turns her attention to examining the tension between Shklar's critique of the term "modernity" and her passion for Enlightenment thinkers, including Rousseau and Hegel. In the second part of the book, Gatta roots Shklar's liberalism of permanent minorities in her work in the history of political thought, and highlights this contribution as a fundamental recasting of liberalism as the political philosophy of outsiders. She makes a compelling argument for a liberalism of permanent minorities that refuses to stand on the ground of firm foundations and, instead, is oriented by complex understandings of cruelty and fear. Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century is a much-needed reorientation of traditional liberal policies, allowing for a more meaningful intervention in many contemporary debates. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought and ideas, philosophy, international relations, and political science in general.

Exploring, clarifying and moving beyond the distinction between 'community' and 'society' for which he is best known, this book rediscovers the work of Ferdinand Toennies, providing fresh insights into his thought, which are often overlooked for want of a grasp of his background in philosophy. With attention to the fact that Toennies always wrote from a sociological perspective, it considers the importance of the breadth of his writing on a range of subjects, including politics, philosophy, economics and ethics, these being the foundations of social policy - a field with which Toennies was concerned as a scholar who sought not only to understand the world, but to change it for the better. The first book to provide an accessible overview of Toennies' work that places his thought in context, explores his key concepts and demonstrates his continuing relevance in sociology - a discipline he helped to establish - Reintroducing Ferdinand Toennies will appeal to scholars and students with interests in social theory, the history of sociology, and the sociology of Ferdinand Toennies.

This astonishing book presents a distinctive approach to the politics of everyday life. Ranging across a variety of spaces in which politics and the political unfold, it questions what is meant by perception, representation and practice, with the aim of valuing the fugitive practices that exist on the margins of the known. It revolves around three key functions. It:

• introduces the rather dispersed discussion of non-representational theory to a wider audience
• provides the basis for an experimental rather than a representational approach to the social sciences and humanities
• begins the task of constructing a different kind of political genre.

A groundbreaking and comprehensive introduction to this key topic, Thrift's outstanding work brings together further writings from a body of work that has come to be known as non-representational theory. This noteworthy book makes a significant contribution to the literature in this area and is essential reading for researchers and postgraduates in the fields of social theory, sociology, geography, anthropology and cultural studies.

The realm of higher education, much like everything else in a global and mobile world, has rapidly altered in the last few decades. More and more universities and seats of higher education are using strategies towards ' 'internationalization'; by increasing heterogeneity in rank, student composition, resource endowments, faculty profiles, and their social spaces. The essays in this volume take a critical look at universities across South Asia, more specifically, at the dynamics of student mobility and mobilizations existing in such localized social spaces, and compares these with their counterparts in universities across the world. While elite universities in South Asia, as elsewhere, have been caught in a stiff international competition and are aspiring for the highest ranks, students from the most excluded communities and remote parts of the country seek entry to badly endowed universities, facing obstacles during their courses, and upon seeking entry into employment. The volume evaluates such universities as spaces for mobility opportunity and mobilizations in a globally networked world. It combines local and international perspectives with thorough observations of the dynamics in localized university spaces while embedding them in transnational processes.

This book studies those who, in various domains of life, are resisting the increasingly harsh day-to-day pressures of "late capitalism," centering mainly on French examples. Far from the global euphoria of the sixties and seventies, everyday people are trying to loosen the grip of injustice in very concrete ways: people experiencing homelessness try to occupy and live in empty buildings; collectives of small farmers and consumers avoid long (and costly) commercial supply chains to defend their common interests; students and teachers organize to prevent the expulsion of undocumented migrants; and activists in the free software movement fight for the "common ownership" of software and of the Internet. Through civil disobedience in the midst of daily life, people are trying to resist, work against, and change laws that protect the interests of firms and corporations considered socially or ecologically unfair.

Complex knowledge, in many different forms, is generated, shared and accessed globally. Andrea Cerroni turns to this knowledge society to offer a comprehensive social theory of its processes and specificities, outlining controversies of knowledge and bridging the gap between knowledge and democracy. Proposing a systematic and interdisciplinary typology to deal with multitudes of knowledge types, the author builds a theoretically grounded framework around the sociology of knowledge. This book offers a panorama of the extant literature on knowledge types and takes advantage of suggestions from different scientific disciplines, from neurosciences and epigenetics, to anthropology and physics. Drawing on a long-term historical perspective, Cerroni assembles a cultural matrix, comprising ancient myths on nature, society and knowledge and modern myths of reductionism, individualism and relativism to inspire contemporary sociological imagination. Comprising an innovative and authoritative approach, this eclectic book will appeal to advanced scholars seeking a new theoretical framework for understanding the knowledge society. Students of sociology and epistemology will also benefit from its insights into the origins and philosophical background of the sociology of knowledge.

This book presents a comprehensive, lucid, and accessible approach to environmental sociology. It traces the origins of environmental sociology and examines the realist-constructionist debate in ecology for a holistic exploration of the field. The volume: Presents a step-by-step systematic approach to the study of environmental sociology Includes case studies from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas and introduces theoretical perspectives from Asia and Africa to provide a more comprehensive view of the field Has a separate section on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change Discusses ecological movements in India and highlights environmental issues of the Global South A key text for undergraduates, postgraduates, and civil services aspirants, this book goes beyond western scholarship to include indigenous approaches to the field. It will be indispensable for students of sociology, climate change, environmental studies, and sustainable development.

As our society confronts climate change, authoritarianism, and epidemics, what can examples from the past tell us about our present and future? How Worlds Collapse offers case studies of societies that either collapsed or overcame cataclysmic adversity. The authors of this volume find commonalities between past civilizations and our current society, tracing patterns, strategies, and early warning signs that can inform decision making today. While today's complex world presents unique challenges, many mechanisms, dynamics, and fundamental challenges to the foundations of civilization have been seen throughout history - highlighting essential lessons for the future.

Some studies estimate that each year, around a quarter of the population of Western countries will suffer from at least one mental disorder. Should this be interpreted as evidence for the progress of psychiatry, a discipline that is now able to identify and treat mental illnesses that have always existed, or might it be the case that modern life somehow creates new conditions, or social pathologies? This book argues that in fact something more fundamental has been taking place in recent years: the development of diagnostic cultures. Taking account of the phenomenon of patients themselves 'pushing for' pathologization - and acknowledging therefore that this is not simply a case of psychiatry pursuing an agenda of 'medicalisation from above' - this volume examines the emerging trend towards interpreting our sufferings in terms of psychiatric conceptions and diagnostic categories. Drawing on new empirical case studies of psychological diagnoses, including depression and ADHD, and employing both cultural-psychological and sociological analyses, it charts the development of contemporary diagnostic cultures and asks whether, in transforming existential, moral and political concerns into individual psychiatric disorders, we risk losing sight of the larger historical and social forces that affect our lives. A ground-breaking examination of the shift towards the pathologization of suffering and the dangers that this presents to human self-understanding, Diagnostic Cultures will be of interest to scholars of social theory and philosophy, the sociology of culture, psychology and the sociology health and medicine.

Developing directly from Fuller's recent book Humanity 2.0, this is the first book to seriously consider what a 'post-' or 'trans'-' human state of being might mean for who we think we are, how we live, what we believe and what we aim to be.

By studying how different societies understand categories such as time and causality, the Durkheimians decentered Western epistemology. With contributions from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, media studies, and sinology, this volume illustrates the interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor of the "category project" which did not only stir controversies among contemporary scholars but paved the way for other theories exploring how the thoughts of individuals are prefigured by society and vice versa.

Social capital is fundamentally concerned with resources in social relations. This Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world to address important questions on the determinants, manifestations and consequences of social capital. Various mechanisms of formal and informal social involvement, its relationship with other forms of social exclusion and its role in civic, instrumental and expressive domains of our socio-economic and community lives are explored. This unique Handbook: * combines cutting-edge theory with appropriate data and methods * explores the mechanisms of formal and informal social involvement including the role of parental class and cultural influence, and the consequences for our personal and community lives * links social capital with other domains of social inequality such as cultural practice and philanthropic behaviour in an in-depth examination of the social stratification processes * conducts a thorough analysis of formal and informal social involvement, and bonding and bridging social ties on trust, tolerance, community cohesion, educational attainment, labour market position, quality of life and ethnic entrepreneurism * analyzes social capital as both an outcome and as a mediating variable at the micro, meso and macro levels. Accessible yet rigorous, this Handbook presents a challenge to both social capital researchers interested in explaining social inequality and to policy-makers with responsibility for designing effective measures for combating social exclusion. It will also be essential reading for students in sociology, political science, developmental economics and management studies. Contributors: N. Allum, R. Andersen, L. Becares, Y. Bian, F. Buscha, C. Cheng, R.R. Cote, D. Cutts, N. Demireva, F. Devine, J.K. Dhillon, L. Donato, B.H. Erickson, J. Fiel, J. Field, E. Fieldhouse, A. Gamoran, A. Garcia-Macias, D. Griffiths, A. Heath, X. Huang, P.S. Lambert, J. Laurence, Y. Li, M. Lubbers, J.L. Molina, J. Nazroo, J. Pampalona, R. Patulny, J. Rodriguez Menes, M. Savage, M. Shoji, P. Sturgis, E.M. Uslaner, H. Valenzuela-Garcia, P.-P. Verhaeghe, W. Wang, A. Warde, M. Western, L. Zhang, L. Zhang, W. Zhang

This book uses an interdisciplinary inter-mediational approach to reflect on the relational complexity of unsettlement as a predominant sensibility of the present epoque. The book tackles interrelated aspects of unsettlement including temporality, the disconcerting effects of the Anthropocene, the biomedical facets of unsettlement and the post-pandemic futures. It uses a chimeric approach combining essayistic and speculative fiction writing methods, negotiating rational, affective and imaginative ways of inquiry, and showing rather than merely explaining. The book poses questions, but gives no ready-made answers, and invites to think together on the unsettlement as a negatively global human condition that can be collectively made into a generative move of resurgence and refuturing. Contributing to critical reflections on the main features and sensibilities of the current epoque, the book will be of interest to scholars and undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the general public, interested in critical global and future perspectives, in decolonial research, gender studies and posthumanities.