Postmodern philosophy is shown to be a valuable tool for exposing the bankruptcy of laissez-faire economics and culture and in developing a democratic policy. Despite the claims made by conservatives, Choi, Callaghan, and Murphy argue that an unencumbered market does not encourage pluralism. Sources of power are left intact that work in various ways to truncate democracy. Postmodernism offers an alternative to the conservative ideology and provides a new approach to promoting social equity. The protests in Los Angeles during the spring of 1992 signaled that the United States is a troubled society. Specifically, many people are not close to experiencing democracy. This is the case even though American society is becoming increasingly diverse. Certain powerful interests constrict the American policy in very important ways. Postmodern philosophy is used by Choi, Callaghan, and Murphy to illustrate how this control is maintained through the manipulation of symbolism and other cultural factors. Accordingly, they contend, new symbolism is needed before a democratic, pluralistic polity can be said to exist. Postmodernism is also employed to show how a democratic mode of order can be conceptualized. Contrary to what some critics claim, Postmodernism is a worldly philosophy that has much to say about contemporary issues. This volume of cultural criticism will be of interest to political philosophers, sociologists, and others concerned with current social and political problems.

PC or Political Correctness has received bad press, according to Choi and Murphy. Indeed, the body of ideas and concepts embodied in PC have been trivialized by conservatives seeking to defend their own positions and by a press catering to a public put off by philosophical discussions. Choi and Murphy seek to analyze the key facets of the debate over PC.

Starting with an examination of the key concepts of PC, Choi and Murphy review the essentials of neo-conservative social philosophy and the Postmodern Alternative as well as neo-conservative critiques of postmodernism. By providing a comprehensive examination of PC from its historical and philosophical underpinnings, Choi and Murphy show what is at stake in the controversy. This book is an important synthesis for researchers and students of contemporary philosophy and social policy.

Professors Murphy and Choi use postmodern philosophy to expose an important source of racism and cultural domination. They examine foundationalism, which they see at the core of the Western intellectual tradition and which is shown to foster a metaphysics of domination. By contrast, postmodernism undermines this root of racism.

They demonstrate that foundationalism is not needed to support identity, institutions, or political order. Indeed, they assert that true pluralism is possible once foundationalist approaches to knowledge and order are set aside. Special attention is directed to two current modes of discrimination: institutional racism and symbolic violence. Murphy and Choi provide an intriguing look at ways to undercut the justification for racism and other threats to cultural difference. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars and other researchers in the areas of race relations, cultural studies, and political theory.

This collection of essays reflects a wide array of realities and experiences of people from different areas of the world, including England, Nicaragua, Colombia, Spain, and Guatemala. Globalization requires innovation and adaptation, things that are easier for some countries to achieve than others. This book states that the current form of globalization allows the West to dominate the world market at the expense of other countries. This collection challenges the framework of globalization and provides practical advice for making globalization beneficial to all countries. This volume seeks to transform globalization into something productive for humanity as a whole. The nature and history of globalization is discussed as well as its impact on the Third World. New approaches to globalization are presented, as well as the rationale of these recommendations. The book shows that globalization can be reworked in order to include all countries, from the First to Third World.

This book takes up the challenge of the failure of most initiatives in community-based service delivery to address the significant philosophical shift that is necessary to create, implement, and evaluate appropriately these sorts of projects. Challenging the tendency to focus entirely on practicalities, the authors emphasize the centrality of philosophy to any successful community-based undertaking. While fully acknowledging the importance of local knowledge and the guidance of projects by local people, this volume shows that these principles are often at odds with the 'Cartesian' mindset that underpins much project planning, with its emphasis on objectivity in science and knowledge. Since all knowledge is mediated by human activity and embedded in language and other modes of expression, this dualist approach must be reconsidered. A thorough rethinking of traditional service delivery, which takes into account issues of data, methodology, and bias together with questions of generalizability, community, power, and communication, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, social policy, and social work with interests in community-based service delivery.

This book takes up the challenge of the failure of most initiatives in community-based service delivery to address the significant philosophical shift that is necessary to create, implement, and evaluate appropriately these sorts of projects. Challenging the tendency to focus entirely on practicalities, the authors emphasize the centrality of philosophy to any successful community-based undertaking. While fully acknowledging the importance of local knowledge and the guidance of projects by local people, this volume shows that these principles are often at odds with the 'Cartesian' mindset that underpins much project planning, with its emphasis on objectivity in science and knowledge. Since all knowledge is mediated by human activity and embedded in language and other modes of expression, this dualist approach must be reconsidered. A thorough rethinking of traditional service delivery, which takes into account issues of data, methodology, and bias together with questions of generalizability, community, power, and communication, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, social policy, and social work with interests in community-based service delivery.

This progressive resource brings the innovative power of narrative medicine to the forefront of community public health care. Chapters describe community involvement across a continuum of control, from health consultants describing problems and suggesting solutions to health committees designing programs and evaluating results. Narrative strategies to this end, including authentic dialogue and community mapping, are examined in the context of public health and fleshed out with examples of different levels of participation by community members. From the respectful collaboration modeled here, the principles of community public health care can potentially expand beyond the immediate community into other social domains on a greater scale. Included in the coverage: * Narratives, local knowledge, and world entry. * Community and narratives. * What is dialogue? * Storylines, causes, and locus of interventions. * Community mapping tells a story. * The politics of storytelling. Narrative Medicine and Community-Based Health Care and Planning gives health psychologists, sociologists, social workers, and public health administrators realistic practical insights for tapping into the unique resources communities and clients have to offer. This is the next step in the evolution of public health, toward large-scale improvements in care delivery, access to and relevance of services, and patient and community outcomes.