The Elgar Encyclopedia of Development is a ground-breaking resource that provides a starting point for those wishing to grasp how and why development occurs, while also providing further expansion appropriate for more experienced academics. With concise explorations of over 130 key terms, events, actors, theories, practices, agencies, and policies in the field, this Encyclopedia introduces a broader viewpoint to the ever-evolving discipline of development studies. Entries act as helpful references that clarify key subjects, identify influential literature and highlight correct practitioner procedure. Key Features: Interdisciplinary and international analysis of development Succinct and accessible entries that illustrate significant historical shifts Authored by experts and emerging leaders in contemporary areas of study such as rising powers and green economies Addresses core development issues such as child labour, class, food security, poverty, sustainability and urban development This essential Encyclopedia will be an important reference for students and scholars pursuing disciplines such as development economics, international politics, development studies and social policy. Development practitioners looking to improve existing practices will additionally benefit from its theoretical foundations and historical trajectories of important events.

See and appreciate nature like never before with this colouring book! In this interactive and awesome book, kids will have a blast colouring and learning about insects and arachnids from around the world (and the difference between the two!) – from the mighty Hercules beetle and dangerous black widow spider to venomous scorpions, speedy millipedes, and so many more! Featuring 40 line art designs to bring to life, each illustration also includes fascinating fun facts for kids to read about the creature’s natural habitat, where it lives in the world, what it eats, how long it lives, how it contributes to the ecosystem in its region, and whether it slinks on the ground, soars through the air, or tunnels underground. This book also includes dozens of full colour bonus stickers. A great way to teach children about nature and how to respect all of its amazing inhabitants, this book is a creative outlet to express themselves that also provides a fun and unique learning experience!

Frequent references are made to the 'Asian economic miracle' as a means of describing the wave of GDP growth experienced across the Asia-Pacific region over the past twenty years. Implicit in this description is the assumption that the Asia-Pacific region has progressed at the same rate that GDP has risen over the same period. But is this truly the case? Employing a Genuine Progress Indicator as an alternative measure of sustainable welfare, the contributors to this book aim to answer this question by presenting case studies of seven Asia-Pacific nations. The results reveal that all is not as positive as conventional indicators might suggest. The book shows that the three wealthy nations - Australia, New Zealand, and Japan - have long reached a level of GDP beyond which further growth is detrimental to their sustainable welfare while the four poorer nations - China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam - are fast approaching a similar situation, but at much lower per capita levels of sustainable welfare. In view of these results, it is argued that genuine progress in the Asia-Pacific region requires the wealthy nations to focus on qualitative improvement (development) rather than GDP growth. As for the poorer nations, it is argued that population stabilisation demands urgent attention while the GDP growth required over the next two to three decades must be as clean, efficient, and equitable as possible. Sustainable Welfare in the Asia-Pacific will appeal to a wide audience of academics and researchers in the areas of ecological, environmental and natural resource economics, development, green national accounting, and environmental management. It will also find a readership in policymakers, environmental managers and NGOs, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

A novel is among the most intricate of human creations, the result of thousands of choices and decisions. In How to Reread a Novel, Matthew Clark explicates the intricacies of fiction writing through practical analysis of the resources of narration, demystifying some of the tools novelists use to build worlds. Drawing on classical philology, the rhetorical tradition, and recent approaches to narratology, Clark explores reading fiction as a complex experience of perception, cognition, and emotion, in which the writer of a narrative attempts to create and control the experience of the reader through the deployment of narrative techniques. Texts examined range from the Iliad and the Odyssey to contemporary literature, including detailed discussions of novels by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Raymond Chandler, as Clark investigates fundamental methodologies of narrative storytelling and the effects they employ to form beauty and meaning. By exploring some of the central techniques of narrative composition, How to Reread a Novel helps uncover subtleties in a text that may be missed on a first reading, encouraging readers to go beyond the surface to see what creates the unique experience of reading fiction.

This title offers a constructive appraisal of the relationship between secular development and Christian mission, demonstrating the opportunities and problems associated with the work of faith-based organisations. This book considers the implications, consequences, opportunities and constraints faced when mission and development endeavours coincide. This is explored from various perspectives, including that of history, theology and those involved in mission work and missionary organizations. Despite eighty percent of the world's population professing religious belief, religion has been largely excluded from consideration of those seeking to aid development in poorer countries. Moreover, the work of missionaries has often involved the provision of basic welfare services that in many parts of the world predate the interventions undertaken by 'professional' secular aid workers. Are missionaries doing development work or is development a critical aspect of mission?

This book examines how international aid donors and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) can assist countries in the Asia-Pacific region achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The book examines the progress countries have made towards the MDGs and highlights the need to tailor the goals to individual country circumstances.

With eighty percent of the world's population professing religious faith, religious belief is a common human characteristic. This fascinating and highly unique Handbook brings together state-of-the-art research on incorporating religion into development studies literature and research. The expert contributors illustrate that as religious identity is integral to a community's culture, exclusion of religious consideration will limit successful development interventions; it is therefore necessary to conflate religion and development to enhance efforts to improve the lives of the poor. Issues addressed include: key tenets, beliefs and histories of religions; religious response to development concerns (gender, environment, education, microfinance, humanitarian assistance); and the role of faith based organizations and missionaries in the wider development context. Practical case studies of countries across Africa, Eastern Europe and the Pacific (including Australia) underpin the research, providing evidence that the intersection between religion and development is neither new nor static. By way of conclusion, suggestions are prescribed for extensive further research in order to advance understanding of this nascent field. This path-breaking Handbook will prove a thought-provoking and stimulating reference tool for academics, researchers and students in international development, international relations, comparative religion and theology. Contributors: N.A. Alolo, J. Anderson, M. Bano, L. Bi, S. Bradbury, G. Buchanan, M. Clarke, J.A. Connell, B. De Cordier, S. Deneulin, I. Fanany, R. Fanany, X. Fang, S.T. Flanigan, F. Helmiere, G. Hoffstaedter, R. Ireland, M. Jennings, H. Marquette, J. Miller, C. Moe-Lobeda, Y. Narayanan, I. Nolte, L. Rae, J. Rees, P. Riddell, A.W. Sanford, M. Sharpe, C. Starkey, J. Sweet, D.S. Tatla, D. Tittensor, E. Tomalin, A. Ware, V.-A. Ware, J. Wills, A. Yumina

Education and the Fantasies of Neoliberalism revitalizes conversations about the nature and purpose of education in a global context characterized by concerns about quality and equity in education, reflecting wider economic and political anxieties around declining productivity and social inclusion. The book illustrates how Lacanian psychoanalytic theory offers a conceptual vocabulary for exposing and critiquing the fantasmatic nature of policy and practice, while foregrounding the tensions and contradictions they seek to conceal. Specifically, the book draws on ideas of lack, fantasy and desire from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to gain insights into the contentious but disavowed politics of reform in education. The book builds on cutting-edge work in political and psychoanalytic theory to offer unique insights that challenge and contest the simplistic and often trivializing readings of education in contemporary media and political debates. Offering a novel perspective on education policy reform, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of philosophy of education and educational policy and politics.

Paradoxes of Democracy, Leadership and Education engages both critically and creatively with important social, political and educational issues, and argues that the organisational forms of contemporary schooling are caught up in politically significant contradictions. Highlighting the inescapable paradoxes that educators must grapple with in their thought and practice as they seek to reconcile democracy and leadership in education, this book addresses the question of whether socially just democratic futures can be realised through education. Divided into two parts, the first part explores theoretical frameworks and concepts, presenting theory and raising issues and questions, while the second shares diverse examples of practice, renewing and reanimating the links between education, leadership and democracy, and providing models of alternatives. Studying a number of global developments that can be seen as potentially threatening, such as a growing inequality in wealth and income and the declining participation and trust in democratic processes, this text is at the forefront of international innovations in educational theory and philosophy. A fascinating and vital read for all researchers and students, Paradoxes of Democracy, Leadership and Education considers the opportunities and challenges that are confronting and threatening education in the modern world.

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have long been recognised as having an advantage in delivering programs and interventions amongst communities of the same faith. However, many FBOs today work across a variety of contexts, including with local partners and communities of different faiths. Likewise, secular NGOs and donors are increasingly partnering with faith-based organisations to work in highly-religious communities. Development Across Faith Boundaries explores the dynamics of activities by local or international FBOs that cross faith boundaries, whether with their partners, donors or recipient communities. The book investigates the dynamics of cross-faith partnerships in a range of development contexts, from India, Cambodia and Myanmar, to Melanesia, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. The book demonstrates how far FBOs extend their activities beyond their own faith communities and how far NGOs partner with religious actors. It also considers the impacts of these cross-faith partnerships, including their work on conflict and sectarian or ethnic tension in the relevant communities. This book is an invaluable guide for graduates, researchers and students with an interest in development and religious studies, as well as practitioners within the aid sector.

Community development is most effective and efficient when it is situated and led at the local level and considers the social behaviours, needs and worldviews of local communities. With more than eight out of ten people globally self-reporting religious belief, Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific: Sacred places as development spaces argues that the role and impact of religions on community development needs to be better understood. It also calls for greater attention to be given to the role of sacred places as sites for development activities, and for a deeper appreciation of the way in which sacred stories and teachings inspire people to work for the benefit of others in particular locations. The book considers theories of 'place' as a component of successful development interventions and expands this analysis to consider the specific role that sacred places - buildings and social networks - have in planning, implementing and promoting sustainable development. A series of case studies examine various sacred places as sites for development activities. These case studies include Christian churches and disaster relief in Vanuatu; Muslim shrines and welfare provision in Pakistan; a women's Buddhist monastery in Thailand advancing gender equity; a Jewish aid organisation providing language training to Muslim Women in Australia; and Hawaiian sacred sites located within a holistic retreat centre committed to ecological sustainability. Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific demonstrates the important role that sacred spaces can play in development interventions, covering diverse major world religions, interfaith and spiritual contexts, and as such will be of considerable interest for postgraduate students and researchers in development studies, religious studies, sociology of religion and geography.

The ancient ritual drink used in religious ceremonies and known as soma in India and as haoma in the Zoroastrian tradition is praised in the highest terms - as a kind of deity - in both Zoroastrian and Vedic texts, which date from around 1,700 - 1,500 BCE. It is said to provide health, power, wisdom and even immortality. Many theories have been published about the possible botanical identity of this 'nectar of immortality', a plant which appears to have psychedelic/entheogenic properties.Matthew Clark spent several years researching and travelling widely in his quest of soma. In his fascinating, original and highly readable book, this modern explorer of ancient wisdom reviews scholarly research, explores mythology and ritual and shares his extensive knowledge of psychoactive plants and fungi. The author suggests that the visionary soma drink was based on analogues of ayahuasca, using a variety of plants, some of which can now be identified.Dr. Matthew Clark is a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), where he has taught courses on Hinduism. He has spent many years in India, which he first visited in 1977. He first engaged with yoga in the mid-1970s and lectures regularly on yoga and philosophy. He is also a song-writer and musician (Mahabongo).

The study of Islam since the advent of 9/11 has made a significant resurgence. However, much of the work produced since then has tended to focus on the movements that not only provide aid to their fellow Muslims, but also have political and at times violent agendas. This tendency has led to a dearth of research on the wider Muslim aid and development scene. Focusing on the role and impact of Islam and Islamic Faith Based Organisations (FBOs), an arena that has come to be regarded by some as the 'invisible aid economy', Islam and Development considers Islamic theology and its application to development and how Islamic teaching is actualized in case studies of Muslim FBOs. It brings together contributions from the disciplines of theology, sociology, politics and economics, aiming both to raise awareness and to function as a corrective step within the development studies literature.

This book studies the relationships between economic growth and social welfare and the policy implications of these relationships for development. Understanding the relationships between economic growth and social welfare is an enduring issue within contemporary development economics and welfare economics. These relationships are analysed in this book by operationalising normative social choice theory. Normative social choice theory is an appropriate approach as it explicitly incorporates society's preferences, values and choices in determining how social welfare should be defined and measured. Two approaches, aggregate and hierarchical, are developed and empirically applied to Thailand for a twenty-five year period 1975-1999. This book concludes that in terms of social welfare, economic growth cannot always be assumed desirable. What is needed is social welfare enhancing economic growth. A review of the policy implications of this finding is also undertaken.

Teacher Education and the Political is a striking book which addresses the nature and purpose of teacher education in a global context characterised by economic and political anxieties around declining productivity and social inclusion. These anxieties are manifested in recent policy developments such as the promotion of professional standards, the deregulation and marketisation of teacher education and the imposition of performance-related regimes that tie teachers' pay to outcomes in high-stakes testing. The book assesses the implications of such policies for the work of teachers as well as for teacher educators and those undertaking initial teacher training. It is argued that these policy moves can be read as a depoliticising and de-intellectualising of teacher education. In this context, they illustrate how contemporary theory can provide a language for critiquing recent developments and imagining new trajectories for policy and practice in teacher education. Drawing on the work of theorists from Derrida and Mouffe to Agamben and Lacan, this book argues for the need to maintain a space for intellectual autonomy as a critical dimension of the ethico-political work of teachers. Together these ideas and analyses provide examples of the power of negative thinking, illustrating its capacity to unsettle comfortable truths and foreground the political nature of teacher education. Current teachers, teacher educators and school leaders will be particularly interested readers, alongside those concerned with policy in the wider educational landscape.

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have long been recognised as having an advantage in delivering programs and interventions amongst communities of the same faith. However, many FBOs today work across a variety of contexts, including with local partners and communities of different faiths. Likewise, secular NGOs and donors are increasingly partnering with faith-based organisations to work in highly-religious communities. Development Across Faith Boundaries explores the dynamics of activities by local or international FBOs that cross faith boundaries, whether with their partners, donors or recipient communities. The book investigates the dynamics of cross-faith partnerships in a range of development contexts, from India, Cambodia and Myanmar, to Melanesia, Bosnia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. The book demonstrates how far FBOs extend their activities beyond their own faith communities and how far NGOs partner with religious actors. It also considers the impacts of these cross-faith partnerships, including their work on conflict and sectarian or ethnic tension in the relevant communities. This book is an invaluable guide for graduates, researchers and students with an interest in development and religious studies, as well as practitioners within the aid sector.

Community development is most effective and efficient when it is situated and led at the local level and considers the social behaviours, needs and worldviews of local communities. With more than eight out of ten people globally self-reporting religious belief, Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific: Sacred places as development spaces argues that the role and impact of religions on community development needs to be better understood. It also calls for greater attention to be given to the role of sacred places as sites for development activities, and for a deeper appreciation of the way in which sacred stories and teachings inspire people to work for the benefit of others in particular locations. The book considers theories of 'place' as a component of successful development interventions and expands this analysis to consider the specific role that sacred places - buildings and social networks - have in planning, implementing and promoting sustainable development. A series of case studies examine various sacred places as sites for development activities. These case studies include Christian churches and disaster relief in Vanuatu; Muslim shrines and welfare provision in Pakistan; a women's Buddhist monastery in Thailand advancing gender equity; a Jewish aid organisation providing language training to Muslim Women in Australia; and Hawaiian sacred sites located within a holistic retreat centre committed to ecological sustainability. Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific demonstrates the important role that sacred spaces can play in development interventions, covering diverse major world religions, interfaith and spiritual contexts, and as such will be of considerable interest for postgraduate students and researchers in development studies, religious studies, sociology of religion and geography.

Set in the rapidly changing world of the contemporary United Arab Emirates and bringing together detailed linguistic analysis with cutting edge social theory, this book explores the development of the first cohort of students to complete a new Bachelor of Education in English language teaching, theorizing the students' learning to teach in terms of the discursive construction of a teaching identity within an evolving community of practice. Both a study of the influence of issues such as gender and nationalism in language teacher education in the Middle East, as well as of the power of discourse and community in shaping identity, this book will be of relevance to anyone working in teacher education as well as to those with an interest in theorizations of discourse and identity.

On Sunday 26 December 2004, a tsunami of up to 30 metres high hit the northern tip of Sumatera in Indonesia, causing immediate destruction and the deaths of at least 130,000 in Indonesia alone. The scale of the devastation and ensuing human suffering prompted the biggest response endeavour to any natural disaster in history. Post-Disaster Reconstruction will be the first major book that analyses the different perspectives and experiences of the enormous post-tsunami reconstruction effort. It looks specifically at the reconstruction efforts in Aceh, one of the regions most heavily-hit by the tsunami and a province that has until recently suffered nearly three decades of armed conflict. Positioning the reconstruction efforts within Aceh's multi-layered historical, cultural, socio-political and religious contexts, the authors explore diverse experiences and assessments of the reconstruction. It considers the importance of the political and religious settings of the reconstruction, the roles of communities and local non-government organisations and the challenges faced by Indonesian and international agencies. From the in-depth examination of this important case study of disaster reconstruction - significant not only because of the huge scale of the natural disaster and response but also the post-conflict issues - the editors draw together the lessons learned for the future of Aceh and make general recommendations for post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction-making.

The study of Islam since the advent of 9/11 has made a significant resurgence. However, much of the work produced since then has tended to focus on the movements that not only provide aid to their fellow Muslims, but also have political and at times violent agendas. This tendency has led to a dearth of research on the wider Muslim aid and development scene. Focusing on the role and impact of Islam and Islamic Faith Based Organisations (FBOs), an arena that has come to be regarded by some as the 'invisible aid economy', Islam and Development considers Islamic theology and its application to development and how Islamic teaching is actualized in case studies of Muslim FBOs. It brings together contributions from the disciplines of theology, sociology, politics and economics, aiming both to raise awareness and to function as a corrective step within the development studies literature.

This book examines the attitudes of tertiary students in Melanesia and Timor-Leste to national identity and key issues of nation-building. Their views are pivotal to understanding the challenges of building a more cohesive sense of national identity and political community in these states. Melanesian countries show a relatively high degree of similarity in their responses to the surveys on national identity carried out by the authors, but with key differences attributable to particular historical, regional or linguistic legacies of colonial rule. The ongoing importance of traditional authority and kastom/adat in conceptions of political community and identity is evident in all four case study sites, and in each case matches indicators of respect for modern state authority. Although different for each site, the authors' findings also illustrate the importance of students' geographical region of origin, language orientation and gender in explaining key differences in attitudes towards national identity. The book demonstrates that strong levels of national identification and pride persist among the future leaders of the countries surveyed, even in the face of ongoing regional and linguistic divisions and weak state capacity, suggesting a strong potential basis for nation-building agendas if wider challenges of democratic performance, service provision and regional development can be addressed over time.

Children will love getting creative with dozens of line art designs that give each car, tractor, and truck a funny face! * Features dozens of vehicles, including vintage cars, construction vehicles, taxis, fire engines, farm trucks and tractors * Fun facts outline what each vehicle does * Includes bonus stickers