This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.

The futures discussed in this book primarily arise from awareness of the potentially disruptive impact of climate change and ecological instability on human societies. Part of the paradox of cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is that it is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. As a result actions depend on imagination and political action. Future-loaded terms like 'anthropogenic climate change', 'food security', 'sustainability', 'energy security', and 'biodiversity' evoke a specific politics that privileges scientific or economic knowledge, while potentially suppressing the contestations within, and between, those knowledges. Remedies like carbon taxes, carbon trading, renewable energy and nature conservation risk obscuring forms of social and cultural difference in favour of the proposed moral unity of 'global humanity' on a threatened planet. These are 'holistic' projects that suppress parts of the world, or particular social dynamics, in favour of others.By contrast, this book's framework embraces an appreciation of difference and non-holism, as it is unlikely that one solution to the many disruptive futures perceived throughout the world can be found. Indeed any such 'one solution' may increase the disruptive effects found in local situations. Each chapter invites reflection on diverse ways of comprehending global warming and other manifestations of major environmental change, as well as on the forms, and shapers, of agency that influence people's understanding and response. In order to encourage the appreciation of the different future worlds either imagined and emergent in the present, the scope of the chapters extends beyond the usual geopolitical focus on the North Atlantic world, to encompass Nepal, islands in the Pacific, Sweden, coastal Scotland and remote, regional and urban Australia. The book is uniquely informed by empirically based and multidisciplinary social science modes of inquiry, together with a broad-ranging examination of the 'futures' based discourse, policy and politics that have become an intrinsic part of the contemporary world.It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental anthropology, environmental studies, psychology and politics.

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

Climate change and ecological instability have the potential to disrupt human societies and their futures. Cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. Thinking and acting towards the future involves efforts of imagination that are linked to our sense of being in the world and the ecological pressures we experience. The three key ideas of this book - ecologies, ontologies and mythologies - help us understand the ways people in many different societies attempt to predict and shape their futures. Each chapter places a different emphasis on the linked domains of environmental change, embodied experience, myth and fantasy, politics, technology and intellectual reflection, in relation to imagined futures. The diverse geographic scope of the chapters includes rural Nepal, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Sweden, coastal Scotland, North America, and remote, rural and urban Australia. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, cultural studies, psychology and politics.

This book is the first general social analysis that seriously considers the daily experience of information disruption and software failure within contemporary Western society. Through an investigation of informationalism, defined as a contemporary form of capitalism, it describes the social processes producing informational disorder. While most social theory sees disorder as secondary, pathological or uninteresting, this book takes disordering processes as central to social life. The book engages with theories of information society which privilege information order, offering a strong counterpoint centred on "disinformation." Disorder and the Disinformation Society offers a practical agenda, arguing that difficulties in producing software are both inherent to the process of developing software and in the social dynamics of informationalism. It outlines the dynamics of software failure as they impinge on of information workers and on daily life, explores why computerized finance has become inherently self-disruptive, asks how digital enclosure and intellectual property create conflicts over cultural creativity and disrupt informational accuracy and scholarship, and reveals how social media can extend, but also distort, the development of social movements.