Social theory Books

Book SynopsisThe field of digital technology in education has long been under-theorised. This book will enable the reader to reflect on the use of theory when explaining technology use and set out ways in which we can theorise better.Table of Contents1. What is theory? 2. What is theorising? 3. Theorising learning with technology 4. Teachers and technology: why does take-up seem so difficult? 5. A theory of technology 6. Optimism and pessimism when it comes to theorising technology 7. How can we theorise better?

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Book SynopsisThis key text offers the first overview of the strengths-based approach in social work from the UK perspective. Covering the five main models of strengths-based practice, with case studies and practical guidance on theory into practice, the text enables students and practitioners to apply the benefits in their own social work practice.Table of Contents1. An Introduction to Strengths-Based Approaches: Inclusive and Respectful Practice – Deanna Edwards and Kate Parkinson 2. Theoretical Context for the Strengths-Based Approach – Kate Parkinson and Deanna Edwards 3. Solution-Focused Practice – Guy Shennan 4. Family Group Conferences – Kate Parkinson, Deanna Edwards and Will Golden 5. Signs of Safety – Lauren Bailey and Steve Myers 6. Multisystemic Therapy – Simone Fox, Mhairi Fleming and Anne Edmondson 7. A Narrative Approach to Social Work – Michaela Rogers and Jennifer Cooper 8. Strengths-Based Approaches in Adult Social Care – Sarah Pollock and Alex Withers 9. Strengths-Based Approaches in Mental Health Services – Emily Weygang 10. People With Lived Experience of Strengths-Based Approaches – Deanna Edwards, Kate Parkinson and People With Lived Experience 11. Conclusion – Deanna Edwards and Kate Parkinson

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Book SynopsisA uniquely hybrid approach to welfare state policy, ecological sustainability and social transformation, this book explores transformative models of welfare change. Using Ireland as a case study, it addresses the institutional adaptations needed to move towards a sustainable welfare state.Table of ContentsIntroduction: The case for a welfare imagination Part 1: From problems to solutions: a post-growth ecosocial political economy 1. Commodification and decommodification 2. From unsustainable environmental outcomes to a post-growth world 3. From an unequal society to ecosocial welfare Part 2: Building an ecosocial imaginary 4. Reciprocity and interdependence: enabling institutions 5. Universal basic services 6. Participation income Part 3: An ecosocial political imaginary 7. Power and mobilisation 8. Imaginaries and ideas 9. Achieving change through high-energy democracy and coalition-building Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThis book explores tax and social policy and how they interact with each other. It covers key interactions, debates and challenges of tax and social policy and examines how analyses might be combined and policy options developed for effective delivery in both areas.Table of Contents1. Introduction – Andy Lymer, Margaret May and Adrian Sinfield 2. Fiscal and Social Policy: Two Sides of the Same Coin – Chris Pond 3. Tax and the Social Policy Landscape – Andy Lymer 4. Fiscal Welfare and Tax Expenditures – Adrian Sinfield 5. Employment, Self-Employment and Taxation – Kevin Caraher and Enrico Reuter 6. Pensions and Taxation – Micheál Collins and Andy Lymer 7. Tax, Benefits and Household Income – SD McKay 8. Taxation, Health and Social Care – Sally Ruane 9. Homes, Housing and Taxation – James Gregory, Andy Lymer and Carlene Wynter 10. Wealth Taxation: The Case for Reform – Karen Rowlingson 11. Gender and Taxation – Susan Himmelweit 12. Taxation and Local Taxes – Michael Orton 13. Corporate Tax and Corporate Welfare – Kevin Farnsworth 14. The Climate Crisis and Taxation – Paul D. Bridgen and Milena Büchs 15. Conclusions – Andy Lymer, Margaret May and Adrian Sinfield

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Book SynopsisThis book tackles the prevailing contradiction within policy analysis, that rigorous thought should be uncontaminated by values, despite policy analysis being inherently values based. In resolving the issue, this book provides a new, solid foundation for policy analysis.Table of ContentsIntroduction PART I The binary view: effects and durability 1. Some effects of the binary view 2. The quest for exogenous values 3. The durable fl otsam of the binary view 4. Convenient belief PART II Non- binary analysis 5. Forms of care 6. Networks of belief 7. Networks of beliefs and practices 8. Decision contexts 9. The analyst in context PART III Caveats 10. Experts and expertise 11. The limits of dialogue Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThis book tackles the prevailing contradiction within policy analysis, that rigorous thought should be uncontaminated by values, despite policy analysis being inherently values based. In resolving the issue, this book provides a new, solid foundation for policy analysis.Table of ContentsIntroduction PART I The binary view: effects and durability 1. Some effects of the binary view 2. The quest for exogenous values 3. The durable fl otsam of the binary view 4. Convenient belief PART II Non- binary analysis 5. Forms of care 6. Networks of belief 7. Networks of beliefs and practices 8. Decision contexts 9. The analyst in context PART III Caveats 10. Experts and expertise 11. The limits of dialogue Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe overlapping crises of COVID-19, climate change, and rising levels of conflict are exacerbating global inequalities. This book offers a definition and framework for social sustainability, as well as examples and concrete guidance on how development can foster progress towards it.

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Book SynopsisPatricia Hill Collins offers a set of analytical tools for those wishing to develop intersectionality's capability to theorize social inequality in ways that would facilitate social change.Trade Review“With remarkable brilliance and breadth, Patricia Hill Collins examines the theoretical dimensions of intersectionality in new ways and in dialogue with other influential social theories and resistant knowledges. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory explains why critical social theory matters in the real world and how intersectionality can achieve its potential as a tool for social action needed to transform the world for the better. Once again, Patricia Hill Collins shines as a masterful scholar of critical inquiry, politics, and social change.” -- Dorothy Roberts, author of * Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty *“Anyone who claims the mantle of Black feminist theorist is standing in the house Patricia Hill Collins built. She is one of our most important intellectual architects. Here she continues to be at her very best, asking the thorny questions that those of us who are scholars and practitioners of intersectionality often avoid. Collins reminds us what it looks like to use ideas in service of freedom projects, demanding at every turn that we do it with integrity, rigor, and a critical attention to the high stakes nature of social justice work. This book resets our freedom compass, reminding us both of what our work is and for whom we do it.” -- Brittney Cooper, author of * Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower *"This remarkable monograph expresses the most important facets of the critical lens. . . [and] gives hope that collective social action has the potential to affect democratic change even under conditions of multiple oppressions." -- Anna Amelina & Jana Schäfer * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- I. Ken * Choice *“This book constitutes an extremely valuable resource for students, activists, and scholars who, while having already engaged with foundational texts on the topic, seek to deepen their understanding of intersectionality. Further, Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory also opens a door for those who wish to continue the intellectual journey of theorizing intersectionality that Collins eloquently embarks on. -- Miriam Yosef * KULT_online *“This book is more than a mere investigation of the theoretical of methodological aspects of intersectionality.... Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory is a book that cannot be missed by scholars, activists, and students of all disciplines.” -- C. Laura Lovin * Feminist Encounters *“Intersectionality as Critical SocialTheory is required reading for academics, activists and educators working across and between disciplines including feminist studies, philosophy, critical race theory, sociology, and education. Now more than ever, Professor Hill Collins is essential.” -- Adina Giannelli * Gender and Education *“Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory is a dense and exceedingly thoughtful book. Collins is careful and focused, asking hard questions about the nature of social theory and theorizing.” -- Rose M. Brewer * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part I. Framing the Issues: Intersectionality and Critical Social Theory 1. Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry 21 2. What's Critical about Critical Social Theory? 54 Part II. How Power Matters: Intersectionality and Intellectual Resistance 3. Intersectionality and Resistant Knowledge Projects 87 4. Intersectionality and Epistemic Resistance 121 Part III. Theorizing Intersectionality: Social Action as a Way of Knowing 5. Intersectionality, Experience, and Community 157 6. Intersectionality and the Question of Freedom 189 Part IV. Sharpening Intersectionality's Critical Edge 7. Relationality within Intersectionality 225 8. Intersectionality without Social Justice? 253 Epilogue. Intersectionality and Social Change 286 Appendix 291 Notes 295 References 331 Notes 353

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Book SynopsisHabit has long preoccupied a wide range of theologians, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. In Habit’s Pathways Tony Bennett explores the political consequences of the varied ways in which habit’s repetitions have been acted on to guide or direct conduct. Bennett considers habit’s uses and effects across the monastic regimens of medieval Europe, in plantation slavery and the factory system, through colonial forms of rule, and within a range of medicalized pathologies. He brings these episodes in habit’s political histories to bear on contemporary debates ranging from its role in relation to the politics of white supremacy to the digital harvesting of habits in practices of algorithmic governance. Throughout, Bennett tracks how habit’s repetitions have been articulated differently across divisions of class, race, and gender, demonstrating that although habit serves as an apparatus for achieving success, self-fulfillment, aTrade Review“Habit’s Pathways makes a valuable contribution to discussions and theories of habit in its assemblage and detailed analysis of all the important thinkers on the subject, from Augustine, Kant, and Dewey to Deleuze, Foucault, and Malabou, devising what surely must be the new standard account of habit in contemporary Western thought. A tremendous achievement.” -- Susan Zieger, author of * The Mediated Mind: Affect, Ephemera, and Consumerism in the Nineteenth Century *“Tony Bennett, one of our most important cultural critics, reckons with the many meanings of habit in an argument that is both wide-ranging and fine-grained. Delving into its intellectual and political histories, he delivers a trenchant and highly illuminating analysis of habit’s relations to freedom and constraint.” -- Rita Felski, John Stewart Bryan Professor, University of VirginiaTable of ContentsNote on the Text vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction. Habit—Then and Now 1 1. Powering Habit 19 2. Dead Ends and Nonstarters: Habit, Discipline, Biopower, and the Circulation of Capital 46 3. Unwilled Habits: Descending Pathways 70 4. Pathways to Virtue 97 5. Unfolding Pathways: Habit, Freedom, Becoming 111 6. Exploded Pathways: Plasticity's Mentors 137 7. Progressive Pathways: The Dynamics of Modernity, Race, and the Unconscious 160 8. Contested Pathways: Habit and the Conduct of Conduct 184 Conclusion. The Arbitrariness of Habit 206 Notes 211 References 225 Index 243

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Book SynopsisBrings together scholars from four continents to produce “dispatches” on the current state of this burgeoning field. The volume probes the context, parameters, and contours of interreligious studies, including its relation to other disciplines, its promise as a field of research, its particular terminology and methodology, and its civic agenda.Table of Contents Foreword by Anna Halafoff Preface—Hans Gustafson 1 Introduction—Hans Gustafson Part 1. Sketching the Field 2 Area, Field, Discipline—Oddbjørn Leirvik 3 Identifying the Field of Research—Geir Skeie 4 A Civic Approach to Interfaith Studies—Eboo Patel 5 The Scholar, the Theologian, and the Activist—Marianne Moyaert 6 Lessons from a Liminal Saint—Mark E. Hanshaw 7 Interreligion and Interdisciplinarity—Jeanine Diller 8 Interreligious or Transreligious?—Anne Hege Grung Part 2. History and Method 9 Historical Precedents—Thomas Albert Howard 10 From Comparison to Conversation—Frans Wijsen 11 Ethnographic Approaches and Limitations—Nelly van Doorn-Harder 12 Vitality of Lived Religion Approaches—Hans Gustafson 13 Empirical Approaches to Interreligious Relations—Ånund Brottveit 14 Ecumenical and Interreligious—Aaron Hollander 15 Places and Spaces of Encounter—Timothy Parker Part 3. Theological and Philosophical Considerations 16 Grist for Theological Mills—J. R. Hustwit 17 Dialogical Theology and Praxis—Wolfram Weisse 18 Interreligious Theology and Truth Seeking—Perry Schmidt-Leukel 19 Vivekananda's Vision—Jeffery D. Long Part 4. Contemporary Challenges 20 Decolonizing the Study of Religion—Kevin Minister 21 Decolonizing Interreligious Studies—Paul Hedges 22 Secular Imperatives—Kate McCarthy 23 (Neo)Liberal Challenges—Brian K. Pennington 24 Complicating Religious Identity—Russell C. D. Arnold 25 In Reactionary Times—Rachel S. Mikva 26 Confronting Xenoglossophobia—Caryn D. Riswold and Guenevere Black Ford 27 Kairos Palestine and Autoimmune Rejection—Peter A. Pettit V Praxis and Possibility 28 Cross-Cultural Leadership as Interfaith Leadership—Barbara A. McGraw 29 Interreligious Empathy—Catherine Cornille 30 Howard Thurman's Mentorship of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi—Or N. Rose 31 Peacebuilding—Navras J. Aafreedi 32 Nation Building—Asfa Widiyanto 33 Scholarship as Activism—Jeannine Hill Fletcher 34 Dialogue and Christian–Muslim Relations—Douglas Pratt 35 Gender and Christian–Muslim Relations—Deanna Ferree Womack 36 Conclusion—Hans Gustafson

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Book SynopsisScholars and laypeople alike are interested in religion, and many more still are interested in how to lead a meaningful life - how to flourish. The collaborative undertaking represented by Religion and Human Flourishing will further attest to the perennial importance of the questions of religious belief and the pursuit of the good life.Table of Contents Introduction Adam B. Cohen Part 1 1 Meanings and Dimensions of Flourishing A Programmatic Sketch Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz 2 Virtues, Vices, and the Good Life A Theologian's Perspective on Compassion and Violence Celia Deane-Drummond 3 Status Viatoris and the Path Quality of Religion Human Flourishing as a Sacred Process of Becoming Jonathan Rowson 4 Spiritual Well-Being and Human Flourishing Conceptual, Causal, and Policy Relations Tyler J. VanderWeele Part 2 5 Religion and Human Flourishing in the Evolution of Social Complexity Harvey Whitehouse 6 The Next Generation Evolutionary Perspectives on Religion and Human Flourishing Dominic D. P. Johnson 7 Religions Help Us Trust One Another Adam B. Cohen 8 Religion's Contribution to Prosociality Azim F. Shariff Part 3 9 Religion's Contribution to Population Health Key Theoretical and Methodological Considerations Christopher G. Ellison 10 Offender-Led Religious Movements Identity Transformation, Rehabilitation, and Justice System Reform Byron R. Johnson 11 Some Big-Data Lessons about Religion and Human Flourishing David G. Myers 12 Smart and Spiritual The Coevolution of Religion and Rationality Laurence R. Iannaccone 13 The Economics of Religion in Developing Countries Sriya Iyer 14 On Balance Azim F. Shariff

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Book SynopsisModeration suffers in today's culture of excesses. In resuscitating this discarded virtue, Harry Clor unveils the intrinsic power of moderation to influence and engage, from the public square to the deeply personal. On Moderation answers critics of this misunderstood value, demonstrating its continued relevance to human flourishing.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Political Moderation: Balancing the Extremes Personal Moderation: Taming the Excess Philosophical Moderation: Tempering the Mind Conclusion Notes Bibliography Suggested Readings Index

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Book SynopsisArgues that however misguided individual conclusions about science may be, most Christians reason their way to those conclusions in the same way that non-Christians do: they rely upon trusted sources of information to guide them through an overwhelmingly expansive information landscape.Table of Contents Introduction: Christianity and the Mistrust of Experts 1 The Science of Science Skepticism: Three Explanations for Christian Mistrust 2 Christian Skepticism toward Experts: A Brief History 3 Blinded by Naturalism: Can Secular Science Be Trusted? 4 Science and the Holy Spirit: The Relevance of Christianity to Technical Knowledge 5 Against Common Sense: The Limits of "Thinking for Yourself" 6 Why Christians Need Expert: Between Blind Trust and Populist Skepticism 7 Different Types of Expertise: Science Compared to Other Kinds of Knowledge 8 What Scientific Experts Cannot Tell Us: The Goals and Boundaries of Science 9 Communities of Critical Thinking: A Christian Defense of Institutions for Knowledge 10 Against the Conspiratorial Frame: Scientific Trust and the Future of the Church

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Book SynopsisExplores the development of Pentecostalism in Hong Kong between 1907 to 1942. Focusing on Pentecostal missionaries and the Chinese leaders who worked alongside them, Alex Mayfield analyses how changes within the social structures and ideological frameworks of global Pentecostalism dramatically impacted the movement within the colony.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Place-Names Introduction The Cipher City: Mapping Hong Kong in Pentecostal Mission History 1. The Gateway City: Pentecostal Mission and the Struggle for Center 2. The Holy City: Denominational Identity and Pentecostal Missionary Structures 3. The Soul-Saving City: Inducement, Education, and Evangelistic Institutions 4. The Heathen City: Pentecostal Spirituality in Hong Kong's Religious Marketplace 5. The Women's City: Gender and the Pentecostal Missionary Enterprise Conclusion The Kaleidoscopic City: Hong Kong and the Evolution of Global Pentecostalism

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Book SynopsisThe sixth edition of this bestselling text offers a concise history of anthropological theory from antiquity to the twenty-first century, with new and significantly revised sections that reflect the current state of the field.Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface Timeline Introduction Part One: The Early History of Anthropological Theory Anthropology in Antiquity The Middle Ages The Renaissance Voyages of Geographical Discovery The Scientific Revolution The Enlightenment The Rise of Positivism Marxism Classical Cultural Evolutionism Evolutionism versus Diffusionism Archaeology Comes of Age Charles Darwin and Darwinism Sigmund Freud Émile Durkheim Marcel Mauss Max Weber Ferdinand de Saussure Part Two: The Earlier Twentieth Century American Cultural Anthropology Franz Boas Robert Lowie and Alfred Louis Kroeber Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict Zora Neale Hurston Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf The Development of Psychological Anthropology British Social Anthropology A.R. Radcliffe-Brown Bronislaw Malinowski E.E. Evans-Pritchard Edmund Leach Max Gluckman and the “Manchester School” The Legacy of British Social Anthropology Part Three: The Later Twentieth Century French Structural Anthropology Claude Lévi-Strauss Mary Douglas Latter-Day Structuralists Structural Marxists Marshall Sahlins The Legacy of French Structural Anthropology Cognitive Anthropology Ethnoscience and the “New Ethnography” Cultural Neo-evolutionism Leslie White Julian Steward Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service The New Archaeology Cultural Materialism Marvin Harris Nature versus Nurture Biology of Behaviour The New Physical Anthropology Ethology and Behavioural Genetics Sociobiology The Symbolic Turn Victor Turner and Symbolic Anthropology Clifford Geertz and Interpretive Anthropology Post-processual Archaeology The Influence of Symbolic and Interpretive Approaches Transactionalism Fredrik Barth Anthropology and Feminism Political Economy Marx and the World System Sins of the Fathers Ideology, Culture, and Power Postcolonialism Linguistic Anthropology Comes of Age Speech Acts and the Ethnography of Communication Ethnolinguistics and Sociolinguistics Postmodernity Paul Feyerabend Michel Foucault Pierre Bourdieu Anthropology as Text Critical Medical Anthropology Part Four: The Early Twenty-First Century Globalization Culture, Gender, and Sexualities Public Anthropology Development and Controversy Distinguishing Public from Applied Anthropology Debating Fieldwork Ethics and the Military Serving a Global Public World Traditions and Collaborative Anthropology National Traditions and the Dominance of Anglo-America Collaboration with “Other” Voices Anthropologies of the Digital Age

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Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with young activists and young people who have experienced homelessness, Burnt by Democracy illustrates how growing wealth inequality has weakened democracy across five Western nations.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The growth of inequality across (neo)liberal democracies 2. Democratic dispositions in the twenty-first century 3. Democratic biographies: Pathways towards a democratic disposition 4. Democracy’s failures/failures of democracy 5. The social distribution of democratic knowledge 6. Belonging to the state: Citizenship as symbolic power Conclusions: When I say the word “democracy,” what comes to mind? Appendix 1: Youth participants by country (all names are pseudonyms) Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with young activists and young people who have experienced homelessness, Burnt by Democracy illustrates how growing wealth inequality has weakened democracy across five Western nations.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The growth of inequality across (neo)liberal democracies 2. Democratic dispositions in the twenty-first century 3. Democratic biographies: Pathways towards a democratic disposition 4. Democracy’s failures/failures of democracy 5. The social distribution of democratic knowledge 6. Belonging to the state: Citizenship as symbolic power Conclusions: When I say the word “democracy,” what comes to mind? Appendix 1: Youth participants by country (all names are pseudonyms) Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAlexander Kluge is one of contemporary Germany''s leading intellectuals and artists. A key architect of the New German Cinema and a pioneer of auteur television programming, he has also cowritten three acclaimed volumes of critical theory, published countless essays and numerous works of fiction, and continues to make films even as he expands his video production to the internet. Despite Kluge''s five decades of work in philosophy, literature, television, and media politics, his reputation outside of the German-speaking world still largely rests on his films of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. With the aim of introducing Kluge''s heterogeneous mind to an Anglophone readership, Difference and Orientation assembles thirty of his essays, speeches, glossaries, and interviews, revolving around the capacity for differentiation and the need for orientation toward ways out of catastrophic modernity. This landmark volume brings together some of Kluge''s most fundamental statements on lTrade Review"Richard Langston has assembled a remarkable collection of essays and interviews by Alexander Kluge that introduces English-speaking readers to a different Kluge than they are familiar with. The excellent translations capture the incisiveness, range, and wit of one of the most intelligent, prolific, and creative minds in contemporary Europeean history." -- Christopher Pavsek, Simon Fraser University, author of The Utopia of Film"Alexander Kluge's colossal oeuvre sets out to shepherd both Theodor W. Adorno's and Walter Benjamin's Frankfurt School into the twenty-first century. Richard Langston's anthology provides English-language readers with an essential compendium containing five decades of Kluge's reflections on Critical Theory's poetical potential." -- Rainer Stollmann, University of Bremen"Interest in Alexander Kluge's astonishingly varied production has exploded in the English-Language world. This volume makes available for the first time a judicious selection of his most important essays and shows Kluge the essayist is no less remarkable than Kluge the filmmaker, Kluge the author of fictions, Kluge the theorist, or Kluge the media visionary." -- Michael Jennings, Princeton University, coauthor of Walter BenjaminTable of ContentsTranslator Information List of Illustrations Acknowledgment Part I: Introduction The Guardian of Difference: The Essayist Alexander Kluge by Richard Langston, by Richard Langston Part II: Literature 1. The Difference: Heinrich von Kleist (1985) 2. Storytelling Is the Representation of Differences (2001) 3. The Peacemaker (2003) 4. Companions in Now-Time (2007) 5. Storytelling Means Dissolving Relations (2008) 6. Theory of Storytelling: Lecture One (2013) 7. What Is a Metaphor? (2016) Part III: Film 8. Word and Film (1965) by Edgar Reitz, Alexander Kluge, and Wilfried Reinke 9. Bits of Conversation (1966) 10. The Realistic Method and the "Filmic" (1975) 11. Film: A Utopia (1983) 12. A Plan with the Force of a Battleship (2008) 13. No Farewell to Yesterday: New German Cinema from 1962 to 1981 as Seen from 2011 (2012) Part IV: From Classical to New Media: Opera, Television, Internet 14. An Answer to Two Opera Quotations (1983/84) 15. On the Expressions "Media" and "New Media": A Selection of Keywords (1984) 16. Medialization: Musealization (1990) 17. The Opera Machine (2001) 18. Primitive Diversity (2002) 19. Planting Gardens in the Data Tsunami (2010) Part V: Theory 20. The Role of Fantasy (1974) 21. The Function of the Distorted Angle in the Destructive Intention (1989) 22. The Political without Its Despair: On the Concept of "Populism" (1992) 23. War (2001) 24. The Art of Drawing Distinctions (2003) 25. Critique, Up Close and Personal (2007) 26. The Actuality of Adorno (2009) 27. Inventory of a Century: On Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project (2013) 28. An Instance of Internet Telephony over the Himalayas (2016) Index

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Book SynopsisBeyond Description brings anthropologists and other social scientists together to examine the problem of explanation. What is an explanation? What can it add? What makes it authoritative, clarifying, or misleading? Whom does it serve and how is it produced? These questions lie at the heart of recent public crises of confidence in expertise, political representation, and classic liberal visions of whom we can rely on for true and trustworthy accounts. In a world beset by events and processes that seem to defy expert predictions of their impossibility, and in which post-hoc accounts can often feel more like rationalizations than explanations, competing voices vie for public presence and seek to silence one another. Anthropology and the social sciences face such questions too, making contemporary explanatory practice both an empirical and a reflexive challenge. By combining ethnographic studies of practices of explanation in a range of contemporary political

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Book SynopsisBeyond Description brings anthropologists and other social scientists together to examine the problem of explanation. What is "an explanation?" What can it add? What makes it authoritative, clarifying, or misleading? Whom does it serve and how is it produced? These questions lie at the heart of recent public crises of confidence in expertise, political representation, and classic liberal visions of whom we can rely on for true and trustworthy accounts. In a world beset by events and processes that seem to defy expert predictions of their impossibility, and in which post-hoc accounts can often feel more like rationalizations than explanations, competing voices vie for public presence and seek to silence one another. Anthropology and the social sciences face such questions too, making contemporary explanatory practice both an empirical and a reflexive challenge. By combining ethnographic studies of practices of explanation in a range of contemporary political, medical, artistic, religious, and bureaucratic settings, the essays in Beyond Description offer critical examinations of changing norms and forms of explanation in the world and within anthropology itself.

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Book SynopsisThis text, first published in 2006, presents the most important and influential social psychological theories and research programs in contemporary sociology. Original chapters by the scholars who initiated and developed these theoretical perspectives provide full descriptions of each theory and its background, development, and future. This second edition has been revised and updated to reflect developments within each theory, and in the field of social psychology more broadly. The opening chapters of Contemporary Social Psychological Theories cover general approaches, organized around fundamental principles and issues: symbolic interaction, social exchange, and distributive justice. Following chapters focus on specific research programs and theories, examining identity, affect, comparison processes, power and dependence, status construction, and legitimacy. A new, original piece examines the state and trajectory of social network theory. A mainstay in teaching social psychology, this revised and updated edition offers a valuable survey of the field.Trade Review"Bringing together leading sociologists, this volume elucidates recent developments in the theoretical foundations of social psychology and the major research programs that they have inspired. It is essential reading for social psychologists and will surely become a staple of graduate seminars in the years to come." -- Jeylan Mortimer * University of Minnesota *"This is an invaluable contribution to sociological social psychology. Written by the most renowned scholars in the field, it offers a marvelously comprehensive review of the major theoretical traditions and programs. The breadth and depth of coverage, and attention to recent theoretical developments, make this volume essential reading for sociologists and others interested in the field." -- Brian Powell * Indiana University *"Peter J. Burke has gathered developers and expert practitioners from fourteen different social psychological paradigms to provide up-to-date accounts. A superb teaching and research resource, the book will be indispensable to social psychologists, and an efficient introduction to key macro implications of social psychological theories and research for those who study large-scale social structures and processes." -- Robin Stryker * University of Arizona *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Symbolic Interaction Framework George J. McCall chapter abstractThis chapter sets forth the core themes of symbolic interaction as a set of axioms and postulates, the interpretation of which varies over time, as differing theories of mind and of communication develop. These core themes are traced to the work of the Scottish moralists, especially Adam Smith. Next are examined the interpretation of early American philosophy (the pragmatism of Charles Peirce and John Dewey), psychology (James Baldwin and William James), and sociology (Charles H. Cooley, George H. Mead, Robert Park and W.I. Thomas). The contributions of Herbert Blumer and Everett Hughes are discussed along with more recent developments in symbolic interaction (such as identity theory). Finally, author contends that the symbolic interaction tradition is the root of various special theories (such as affect control theory and comparison theory, among others). 2Social Exchange Framework Scott V. Savage and Monica M. Whitham chapter abstractThe social exchange perspective begins with the premise that in order to get what they need and value, humans must trade benefits with others. Thus, the perspective views social interaction as a series of structurally-bounded exchanges of valued social and material resources between actors located in larger social networks and groups. This chapter describes the concepts and assumptions foundational to most social exchange theories and then provides a history of the social exchange perspective in sociology. This history details how theorists have used these concepts and assumptions to explain social life, with a particular focus on how current trends in the social exchange literature relate to classic theories and general themes in the tradition. 3Justice Frameworks Karen A. Hegtvedt chapter abstractAs a form of "glue" that holds people together, justice concerns permeate group functioning. This chapter highlights three central questions: What is justice? How do people perceive injustice? What are responses to perceived injustice? Addressing these questions involves identification of common terms, key assumptions, and the motivations that drive the core of research on distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. The chapter then analyzes theory and empirical research pertinent to how individual factors (e.g., characteristics, beliefs, and motivations) combine with situational factors to produce perceptions of (in)justice. Assessments of injustice resulting in emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses round out the chapter and lead to attention to processes that mediate between perceived injustice and its consequences. 4Identity Theory Jan E. Stets chapter abstractIn this chapter, the author provides an overview of identity theory beginning with its roots in symbolic interaction, followed by a discussion of the theory as it is currently conceptualized. The internal and external processes related to an identity are reviewed as well as the relationship between a single identity and multiple identities. Identity theory continues to develop beyond its current boundaries, and the author outlines the theoretical, methodological, and substantive advances that have been taking place. For example, we now are studying different bases of identities (person, role, and social/group), devising new ways of measuring identities, and examining stigmatized and counter-normative identities. The future is bright for this ever-developing theory, and some directions for future research are offered. 5Social Identity Theory Michael A. Hogg chapter abstractSocial identity theory is a social psychological analysis of the role of self-conception in group membership, group processes, and intergroup relations. It describes how social categorization of self and others, motivated by pursuit of a clear sense of identity (identity uncertainty reduction) and a favorable self-evaluation (positive social identity), influences self-conception and social perception, and generates group and intergroup behaviors; and how this dynamic is in turn influenced by people's perceptions of the nature of social reality. Since its early origins in the 1970s social identity theory has developed to become perhaps social psychology's preeminent midlevel theory of group behavior. It addresses phenomena such as prejudice, discrimination, ethnocentrism, stereotyping, intergroup conflict, conformity, normative behavior, group polarization, crowd behavior, organizational behavior, leadership, deviance, and group cohesiveness. This chapter describes the theory's historical origins, metatheoretical framing, conceptual components, and numerous developments, extensions, and applications. 6Affect Control Theories of Social Interaction and Self Dawn T. Robinson and Lynn Smith-Lovin chapter abstractAffect control theory is a mathematical, formal theory that describes the way people import cultural meanings into our everyday social interactions. It makes predictions about a broad range of social psychological phenomena, including role behavior, behavioral responses to deviance or undefined situations, emotional responses, labeling of self and others, attribution of moods or personal characteristics, and so on. The theory has been tested using qualitative, experimental, and survey techniques. Several recent extensions of the theory are described here, including the affect control theory of self, an affect control theory of institutions, a Bayesian generalization of affect control theory that allows for analysis under multiple identities and uncertainty about identities, and a group application of affect control theory. Three theoretical simulation tools are described—INTERACT, GroupSimulator, and BayesACT. 7Power, Dependence, and Social Exchange Theory Karen S. Cook, Coye Cheshire, and Alexandra Gerbasi chapter abstractPower is one of the most fundamental processes of interest in the social sciences. Emerson's (1962, 1964) theory of power and its link to dependence has become a citation classic. It reoriented the study of power to the analysis of social exchange relations and the structures or networks that connect them. This chapter traces the development of this view of power and its extension primarily within the social exchange tradition in social psychology. The theory grew over time to encompass a number of related social processes beyond power in networks to include analyses of coalition formation, collective action, commitment, social cohesion and trust. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future research topics including those that relate to the rapidly expanding world of online social exchanges, communities and networks that are far reaching, 8Elementary Theory Pamela Emanuelson and David Willer chapter abstractElementary theory determines the effects of social structure on actors' interests, and predicts the effect of their interests on their behavior. This chapter reviews the major concepts, assertions and applications of Elementary Theory emphasizing the theory's broad scope and utility for explaining behavior in a range of past and present social structures. The chapter starts by providing basic concepts, and then combines defined concepts to create nuanced and dynamic models of social structure. Conditions of structure are introduced and their effects for both coercive and exchange structures are explained. The chapter concludes by examining prior applications of Elementary Theory to explain behavior in social structures including bureaucratic organizations and ancient polities. 9The Affect Theory of Social Exchange Edward J. Lawler chapter abstractThe affect theory of social exchange treats social exchange as a prototypical joint task that fosters positive or negative emotions and feelings. Accomplishing a social exchange makes people feel good, and if they experience this repeatedly with the same people, they tend to attribute their feelings in part to the group or organizational context. This is especially likely if the joint task generates a sense of shared responsibility. Shared responsibility promotes social unit attributions of positive emotion, and this helps explain how people involved in repeated exchange develop emotional or affective commitments to their group or organizational units. The instrumental ties that underlie exchange thereby become expressive. Important consequences include greater cooperation, cohesion, and solidarity. 10The Theory of Comparison Processes Guillermina Jasso chapter abstractWhen humans reflect on their attributes and possessions, they often compare what they have, called the actual holding, to a comparison holding that reflects what they would like to have or expect or think just. These comparisons generate judgments and sentiments that include self-esteem, the sense of justice, and happiness. The hallmark of comparison processes (also known as reference dependent processes) is that the actual holding and the comparison holding have opposite effects on the outcome. For example, as actual earnings increase, self-esteem increases, but as expected earnings increase, self-esteem decreases. The outcomes in turn affect every area of behavior. Comparison theory systematically yields, from its parsimonious starting postulates, a broad range of testable predictions, including novel predictions. Thus, the stage is set for further theoretical development and concomitantly for empirical test of the predictions. This chapter provides an introduction to comparison theory and its research agendas. 11Expectations, Status, and Behavior Theories Joseph Berger and Murray Webster, Jr. chapter abstractStatus construction theory describes how structural conditions in society frame and constrain social encounters among people who differ on a nominal social distinction such as gender or race/ethnicity, so that these local contexts of action foster the development and spread of shared status beliefs about the social difference. Status beliefs are cultural beliefs that people in one category of a social difference (men, whites) are more socially esteemed and considered generally more competent than people in a contrasting category of the difference (women, people of color). Status beliefs transform social differences into axes of inequality in society. Empirical tests of the theory's propositions show that the key to this happening is the unequal distribution between categories of a social difference of material resources or technology that allows actors from one category to become more influential in cross-difference encounters than actors from a contrasting category. 12Status Construction Theory Cecilia L. Ridgeway chapter abstractThe authors describe and review several branches of the expectation states theoretical research program. The theoretical branches reviewed here include, among others: power and prestige; status characteristics; reward expectations; legitimation; and double and multiple standards. For each branch, they describe its theoretical arguments and assumptions, and some of the relevant empirical research. This chapter also introduces research on a new branch of the program on the spread of status value. They review a theory describing how status value spreads and present some of the latest experimental research on this problem. This chapter shows that the program has grown considerably over the years. In particular, that growth has resulted in an increase in the domain that it is applicable to, and an increase in the precision of the empirical propositions that can be derived from its major theoretical assumptions. 13Legitimacy Theory Morris Zelditch Jr. chapter abstractLegitimacy theory is a theory of legitimate authority that has subsequently been extended to the legitimacy of acts, persons, positions, and regimes. This theory addresses three questions: (1) What is the nature of the process of legitimation? (2) What are its consequences? (3) What are its causes and conditions? Two publications since legitimacy theory appeared in 2006 extended its scope to the legitimacy of groups dependent on mobilizing the resources of their own members, and address three further questions: (1) What is the effect of the fact that groups are often nested in other groups on the legitimacy processes in such hierarchies of groups? (2) What is the effect of the group's legitimacy on its capacity for collective action and of its capacity for collection action on the group's legitimacy? (3) What is the effect of the legitimacy of the group on its capacity to mobilize member resources? 14Social Networks Structural Focus Theory Scott L. Feld chapter abstractThis chapter shows how social network focus theory helps to understand how individuals experience social networks. The chapter begins with basic assumptions about how social relations arise from repeated joint participation in activities, and how individuals' participation in multiple foci of activity imply particular types of patterns of clusters in networks. Further assumptions about variation in numbers of foci with which individuals associate and numbers of individuals associated with each focus lead to implications for the nature and numbers of direct and indirect connections among people. Further assumptions about homogeneity of characteristics of people associated with each focus, focused sources of strengths of ties, and the nature of homophilous choices within structured contexts lead to further specific implications about the nature of direct and indirect connections in networks. The chapter concludes with discussion of possibilities for further extensions and applications of social network focus theory. Introduction Peter J. Burke chapter abstractContemporary Social Psychological Theories contains an overview of three primary perspectives and ten major theories that serve to guide much research in sociological social psychology today. Each theory chapter is selected to cover a major cumulative research program and is authored by the persons who have played a major role in the development of the theory.

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Book SynopsisWhat objects exist in the social world and how should we understand them? Is a specific Pizza Hut restaurant as real as the employees, tables, napkins and pizzas of which it is composed, and as real as the Pizza Hut corporation with its headquarters in Wichita, the United States, the planet Earth and the social and economic impact of the restaurant on the lives of its employees and customers? In this book the founder of object-oriented philosophy develops his approach in order to shed light on the nature and status of objects in social life. While it is often assumed that an interest in objects amounts to a form of materialism, Harman rejects this view and develops instead an “immaterialist” method. By examining the work of leading contemporary thinkers such as Bruno Latour and Levi Bryant, he develops a forceful critique of ‘actor-network theory’. In an extended discussion of Leibniz’s famous example of the Dutch East India Company, Harman argues that this company qualifies for objecthood neither through ‘what it is’ or ‘what it does’, but through its irreducibility to either of these forms. The phases of its life, argues Harman, are not demarcated primarily by dramatic incidents but by moments of symbiosis, a term he draws from the biologist Lynn Margulis. This book provides a key counterpoint to the now ubiquitous social theories of constant change, holistic networks, performative identities, and the construction of things by human practice. It will appeal to anyone interested in cutting-edge debates in philosophy and social and cultural theory.Trade Review"It is rare to find academic and philosophical writing that is this clear. Harman’s explanations of not just his own position but also the other views to which he responds are thorough, concise and in a style and vocabulary that are accessible to non-experts."The British Society for Literature and ScienceTable of ContentsPart One: Immaterialism 1. Objects and Actors 2. The Dangers of Duomining 3. Materialism and Immaterialism 4. Attempts to Evolve ANT 5. The Thing-in-Itself Part Two: The Dutch East India Company 6. Introducing the VOC 7. On Symbiosis 8. Governor-General Coen 9. Batavia, the Spice Islands, and Malacca 10. The Intra-Asian VOC 11. Touching Base Again with ANT 12. Birth, Ripeness, Decadence, and Death 13. Fifteen Provisional Rules of OOO Method References

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Book SynopsisThis revised edition of this extremely popular introduction to social theory has been carefully and thoroughly updated with the latest developments in this continually changing field. Written in a refreshingly lucid and engaging style, Introducing Social Theory provides readers with a wide-ranging, well organized and thematic introduction to all the major thinkers, issues and debates in classical and contemporary social theory. Introducing Social Theory traces the development of social theorizing from the classical ideas about modernity of Durkheim, Marx and Weber, right up to a uniquely accessible review of the contemporary theoretical controversies in sociology that surround post-colonialism, gender and feminist theories, and public sociology. The ideal textbook for students of sociology at all levels, from A-level to undergraduates, Introducing Social Theory is remarkably easy to follow and understand. This new edition lives up to its predecessors' goal that students need never be intimidated by social theory again.Trade Review"This is a real treasure. This revised edition continues to focus on essential and practical aspects in major sociological theories. It introduces to readers - with clarity and succinctness - interlocking debates and themes in these theories. Moreover, it provides new exploration on theoretical practice in relations to public sociology and the uncertainties of modernity. I remain highly impressed!"—Peter Chua, San Jose State University "For a first taste of the complexity and richness of social theory, this book is excellent. This third edition includes discussions of cutting-edge material. Strongly recommended!"—Patrick Baert, University of Cambridge "This is a cool, charming book students and lecturers will enjoy from cover to end."—Sociological Research OnlineTable of Contents 1. An Introduction to Sociological Theories 2. Marx and Marxism 3. Max Weber 4. Emile Durkheim 5. Interpretive Sociology: Action Theories 6. Language, Discourse and Power in Modernity: Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault 7. Social Structures and Social Action 8. Feminist and Gender Theories 9. Sociology and Its Publics

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Book SynopsisOn the occasion of Habermas’s 80th birthday, the German publisher Suhrkamp brought out five volumes of Habermas’s papers that spanned the full range of his philosophical thought, from the theory of rationality to the critique of metaphysics. For each of these volumes, Habermas wrote an introduction that crystallized, in a remarkably clear and succinct way, his thinking on the key philosophical issues that have preoccupied him throughout his long career. This new book by Polity brings together these five introductions and publishes them in translation for the first time. The resulting volume provides a unique and comprehensive overview of Habermas’s philosophy in his own words. In the five chapters that make up this volume, Habermas discusses the concept of communicative action and the grounding of the social sciences in the theory of language; the relationship between rationality and the theory of language; discourse ethics; political theory and problems of democracy and legitimacy; and the critique of reason and the challenge posed by religion in a secular age. The volume includes a substantial introduction by Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin, which offers a synoptic view of the development of Habermas’s thought as a whole followed by concise accounts of his contributions in each of the areas mentioned. Together they provide the reader with the necessary background to understand Habermas’s distinctive and original contribution to philosophy. Philosophical Introductions will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in philosophy and in the humanities and social sciences generally, as well as anyone interested in the most important developments in philosophy and critical theory today.Table of Contents Preface Introduction: The Work of Jürgen Habermas: Roots, Trunk and Branches Jean-Marc Durand-Gasselin 1. Foundations of Sociology in the Theory of Language 2. Theory of Rationality and Theory of Meaning I. Formal Pragmatics II. Communicative Rationality III. Discourse Theory of Truth IV. On Epistemology 3. Discourse Ethics I. Moral Theory II. On the System of Practical Discourses 4. Political Theory I. Democracy II. The Constitutional State III. Nation, Culture and Religion IV. Constitutionalization of International Law? 5. Critique of Reason I. Metaphilosophical Reflections II. Postmetaphysical Thinking III. The Challenge of Naturalism IV. The Challenge of Religion Notes Index

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Book SynopsisPierre Bourdieu is arguably the most influential sociologist of the twentieth century, especially since the once common criticisms of his determinism and reproductionism have receded. Now, however, his intellectual enterprise faces a new set of challenges unearthed by decades of sympathetic research: how to conceive the relationship between society and place, particularly in an increasingly global world; how to recognize the individual as a product of multiple forces and pressures; how to make sense of family relations and gender domination; and, ultimately, how to grasp how we each come to be the unique beings we are. This book tackles these challenges head on, starting from the philosophical core of Bourdieu's sociology and taking in hints and suggestions across his corpus, to propose a range of novel concepts and arguments. In the process it outlines a new way of looking at the world to complement Bourdieu's own – one in which the focus is on the multiple social structures shaping individuals' everyday lives, not the multiple individuals comprising a single social structure.Trade Review"This outstanding book is bound to inspire the growing numbers of students and academics interested in Pierre Bourdieu’s general orientation and in building their own work on it. It makes an important contribution, particularly to Bourdieusian studies in family, gender and childhood." Leena Alanen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland "Atkinson’s book pushes the field of Bourdieu studies into new and exciting territory. Drawing on the author’s expertise in phenomenology, it shows how Bourdieu’s theory can illuminate the study of everyday life, the family and gender. This will be an essential resource for Bourdieu scholars for years to come." Jeffrey J. Sallaz, University of Arizona"Rather than take 'field' as the starting point, as many interpreters of Bourdieu's work have done, Atkinson argues that the individual and their movement across time and space (their lifeworld) which creates and is constrained by 'circuits of symbolic power' is a better approach. […] Atkinson offers a corrective by placing the accent on the individual without forgetting the structures of power. […] This book will be of particular interest to scholars in the sociology of education, psychological sociology, the family, and gender studies."Deborah Reed-Danahay, AnthroposTable of Contents Acknowledgement 1. Introduction 2. The Lifeworld 3. The Field of Family Relations 4. Social Becoming 5. Gender Epilogue: Sketch of a Research Programme Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisIn this important new book Rein Raud develops an original theory of culture understood as a loose and internally contradictory system of texts and practices that are shared by intermittent groups of people and used by them to make sense of their life-worlds. This theory views culture simultaneously in two ways: as a world of texts, tangible and shareable products of signifying acts, and as a space of practices, repeatable activities that produce, disseminate and interpret these clusters of meaning. Both approaches are developed into corresponding models of culture which, used together, are able to provide a rich understanding of any meaning in action. In developing this innovative theory, Raud draws on a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to semiotics and philosophy. The theory is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from both �high� and popular culture, and from Western and Asian traditions, dealing with both contemporary and historical topics. The book concludes with two case studies from very different contexts – one dealing with Italian poetry in the 13th century, the other dealing with the art scene in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. This timely and original work makes a major new contribution to the theory of culture and will be welcomed by students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.Trade Review"A high wire act of cultural theorizing, ambitious and original. Raud pushes the textual tradition of semiotics further than anybody has ever done, into situated, existential practices and circulating cultural institutions. The case studies are fascinating in themselves and illustrate how Raud's theory might work in practice."—Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University "Professor Raud's range is amazing and his book combines in an exciting way perspectives which usually are kept separate. His voice, coming from a less well-known tradition, adds a genuinely new element."—Maurice Bloch, The London School of Economics and Political Science "Meaning in Action would be worth reading for the ambition and importance of its project alone, but Raud's thorough analysis of the fundamentals of culture make this an extremely worthwhile read, and one that I think may spawn a vital discussion about the basic conceptual structure of culture itself."—Cultural SociologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction An outline of the theory and the book 1 Looking for culture, looking at things Social/cultural Cultural communities The cultural subject Summary 2 Meaning and signification The problem of reference Two kinds of concepts The internalisation of meaning Claims and bids Summary 3 Culture as textuality Base-texts and result-texts The operational memory Organisation of knowledge Standards and codes Summary 4 Culture as a network of practices The cultural role: functions and goals of a practice The social position: the carrier and status of a practice Materials and rules Cultural institutions Summary 5 Case Study I: The metaphysics of love and the beginnings of Italian vernacular poetry Italian political landscape in the 13th century: the bidding space The poetic context The carriers of the practice The science of love as privileged knowledge Vulgare, the medium Institutions and textuality Summary 6 Case Study II: Art and politics in Eastern Europe in the 1990s The institutions The carriers Textuality, codes and languages Summary 7 Concluding remarks A few final words References Index

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Book SynopsisIn this important new book Rein Raud develops an original theory of culture understood as a loose and internally contradictory system of texts and practices that are shared by intermittent groups of people and used by them to make sense of their life-worlds. This theory views culture simultaneously in two ways: as a world of texts, tangible and shareable products of signifying acts, and as a space of practices, repeatable activities that produce, disseminate and interpret these clusters of meaning. Both approaches are developed into corresponding models of culture which, used together, are able to provide a rich understanding of any meaning in action. In developing this innovative theory, Raud draws on a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology, sociology and cultural studies to semiotics and philosophy. The theory is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from both �high� and popular culture, and from Western and Asian traditions, dealing with both contemporary and historical topics. The book concludes with two case studies from very different contexts – one dealing with Italian poetry in the 13th century, the other dealing with the art scene in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. This timely and original work makes a major new contribution to the theory of culture and will be welcomed by students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.Trade Review"A high wire act of cultural theorizing, ambitious and original. Raud pushes the textual tradition of semiotics further than anybody has ever done, into situated, existential practices and circulating cultural institutions. The case studies are fascinating in themselves and illustrate how Raud's theory might work in practice."—Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University "Professor Raud's range is amazing and his book combines in an exciting way perspectives which usually are kept separate. His voice, coming from a less well-known tradition, adds a genuinely new element."—Maurice Bloch, The London School of Economics and Political Science "Meaning in Action would be worth reading for the ambition and importance of its project alone, but Raud's thorough analysis of the fundamentals of culture make this an extremely worthwhile read, and one that I think may spawn a vital discussion about the basic conceptual structure of culture itself."—Cultural SociologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction An outline of the theory and the book 1 Looking for culture, looking at things Social/cultural Cultural communities The cultural subject Summary 2 Meaning and signification The problem of reference Two kinds of concepts The internalisation of meaning Claims and bids Summary 3 Culture as textuality Base-texts and result-texts The operational memory Organisation of knowledge Standards and codes Summary 4 Culture as a network of practices The cultural role: functions and goals of a practice The social position: the carrier and status of a practice Materials and rules Cultural institutions Summary 5 Case Study I: The metaphysics of love and the beginnings of Italian vernacular poetry Italian political landscape in the 13th century: the bidding space The poetic context The carriers of the practice The science of love as privileged knowledge Vulgare, the medium Institutions and textuality Summary 6 Case Study II: Art and politics in Eastern Europe in the 1990s The institutions The carriers Textuality, codes and languages Summary 7 Concluding remarks A few final words References Index

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Book SynopsisSketches in the Theory of Culture is a remarkable work by all measures. Written by Zygmunt Bauman when he was still a professor in Poland, and originally intended for publication in 1968, it was suppressed by the Polish government in the wave of repression following the protests in March of that year. For decades, it was thought to be lost. Astonishingly, it survived in the form of an uncorrected set of proofs which was recently discovered, and is the basis of this edition. Now published in English for the first time, this book sheds new light on Bauman’s work prior to his emigration and illuminates the intellectual climate of Poland in the late 1960s. Bauman’s pursuit of a semiotic theory of culture includes a discussion of processes of individualization and the intensification of global ties, anticipating themes that became central to his later work. Though this book stands as a testament to a historical moment, it also transcends it. ‘[W]e live in an age that seems, for the first time in human history, to acknowledge cultural multiplicity as an innate and fixed feature of the world, one which gives rise to new forms of identity that are at ease with plurality, like a fish in water’, writes Bauman – a statement that is as true today as it was when he penned it in the 1960s. Sketches in the Theory of Culture is a strikingly prescient reflection on culture and society by one of the most influential social thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities and to the many readers of Bauman’s work.

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Book SynopsisSketches in the Theory of Culture is a remarkable work by all measures. Written by Zygmunt Bauman when he was still a professor in Poland, and originally intended for publication in 1968, it was suppressed by the Polish government in the wave of repression following the protests in March of that year. For decades, it was thought to be lost. Astonishingly, it survived in the form of an uncorrected set of proofs which was recently discovered, and is the basis of this edition. Now published in English for the first time, this book sheds new light on Bauman’s work prior to his emigration and illuminates the intellectual climate of Poland in the late 1960s. Bauman’s pursuit of a semiotic theory of culture includes a discussion of processes of individualization and the intensification of global ties, anticipating themes that became central to his later work. Though this book stands as a testament to a historical moment, it also transcends it. ‘[W]e live in an age that seems, for the first time in human history, to acknowledge cultural multiplicity as an innate and fixed feature of the world, one which gives rise to new forms of identity that are at ease with plurality, like a fish in water’, writes Bauman – a statement that is as true today as it was when he penned it in the 1960s. Sketches in the Theory of Culture is a strikingly prescient reflection on culture and society by one of the most influential social thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities and to the many readers of Bauman’s work.Table of ContentsA Message in a Bottle: on the Recovered Work of Zygmunt Bauman viiDariusz Brzeziński From the Author 1 Part I Sign and Culture I The Origins of the Semiotic Theory of Culture, or the Crisis of Cultural Anthropology 7 II Towards a Semiotic Theory of Culture 31 III Man and Sign 62 IV The Problem of Universals and the Semiotic Theory of Culture 94 V Some Research Problems in the Semiotic Theory of Culture 119 Part II Culture and Social Structure I Cultural and Extra-Cultural Organization of Society 155 II Economics, Culture, and Typologies of Societies 172 III Cultural Determinants of the Research Process 203 IV Three Observations About Problems of Contemporary Education 216 V Masses, Classes, Elites: Semiotics and the Re-Imagination of the Sociological Function of Culture 231 Afterword 251Zygmunt Bauman, 2016 Notes 256 Index 269

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Book SynopsisBorn Liquid is the last work by the great sociologist and social theorist Zygmunt Bauman, whose brilliant analyses of liquid modernity changed the way we think about our world today. At the time of his death, Bauman was working on this short book, a conversation with the Italian journalist Thomas Leoncini, exactly sixty years his junior. In these exchanges with Leoncini, Bauman considers, for the first time, the world of those born after the early 1980s, the individuals who were ‘born liquid’ and feel at home in a society of constant flux. As always, taking his cue from contemporary issues and debates, Bauman examines this world by discussing what are often regarded as its most ephemeral features. The transformation of the body – tattoos, cosmetic surgery, hipsters – aggression, bullying, the Internet, online dating, gender transitions and changing sexual preferences are all analysed with characteristic brilliance in this concise and topical book, which will be of particular interest to young people, natives of the liquid modern world, as well as to Bauman’s many readers of all generations.Trade Review"A welcoming introduction to Bauman’s sociological craft and a kind of goodbye to a man whose thoughtfulness has marked our discipline. In these conversations, he comes across as someone of immense humanity, at ease with thinking but open to the challenge posed by others."Sociological Research OnlineTable of Contents Contents 1. Skin-deep transformations Tattoos, plastic surgery, hipsters 2. Transformations of aggressivity Bullying 3. Transformations of sex and dating Declining taboos in the era of finding love online Postscript The last lesson

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Book SynopsisBorn Liquid is the last work by the great sociologist and social theorist Zygmunt Bauman, whose brilliant analyses of liquid modernity changed the way we think about our world today. At the time of his death, Bauman was working on this short book, a conversation with the Italian journalist Thomas Leoncini, exactly sixty years his junior. In these exchanges with Leoncini, Bauman considers, for the first time, the world of those born after the early 1980s, the individuals who were ‘born liquid’ and feel at home in a society of constant flux. As always, taking his cue from contemporary issues and debates, Bauman examines this world by discussing what are often regarded as its most ephemeral features. The transformation of the body – tattoos, cosmetic surgery, hipsters – aggression, bullying, the Internet, online dating, gender transitions and changing sexual preferences are all analysed with characteristic brilliance in this concise and topical book, which will be of particular interest to young people, natives of the liquid modern world, as well as to Bauman’s many readers of all generations.Trade Review"A welcoming introduction to Bauman’s sociological craft and a kind of goodbye to a man whose thoughtfulness has marked our discipline. In these conversations, he comes across as someone of immense humanity, at ease with thinking but open to the challenge posed by others."Sociological Research Online

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Book SynopsisIt is impossible to understand capitalism without analyzing slavery, an institution that tied together three world regions: Europe, the Americas, and Africa. The exploitation of slave labor led to a form of proto-globalization in which violence was indispensable to the production of wealth. Against the background of this expanding circulation of capital and slave labor, the first revolution in Latin America took place: the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 and culminated with Haiti’s declaration of independence in 1804. Taking the Haitian Revolution as a paradigmatic case, Grüner shows that modernity is not a linear evolution from the center to the periphery but, rather, a co-production developed in the context of highly unequal power relations, where extreme forms of conquest and exploitation were an indispensable part of capital accumulation. He also shows that the Haitian Revolution opened up a path to a different kind of modernity, or “counter-modernity,” a path along which Latin America and the Caribbean have traveled ever since. A key work of critical theory from a Latin American perspective, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical and cultural theory and of Latin America, as well as anyone concerned with the global impact of capitalism, colonialism, and race.Trade Review“Eduardo Grüner’s remarkable book is not only a brilliant discussion of slavery and the Haitian Revolution; it is also a profound philosophical and critical reflection, from the viewpoint of the slaves’ rebellion, on the contradictions of Eurocentric Enlightenment and of Western (capitalist) modernity.”Michael Löwy, author of The Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx “What is revolutionary today about the Haitian Revolution, in which African slaves brought Napoleon's army to ignominious defeat? How does it fundamentally challenge ways of thinking not just about modern history, but about thinking itself? Read Grüner’s book to find the answers to these pertinent questions.”Michael Taussig, Professor, Columbia University, Class of 1933Table of ContentsPreface by Gisela Catanzaro Prologue Chapter 1: The Category of Slavery and Modern Racism Elements for an Ethno-Historical Sociology of Ancient and Modern Slavery The Question of Racism Racism in “Early Modernity” The Traces of Time A Better World? Chapter 2: The Rebellion of the (Slave) Masses and the Haitian Revolution On the Combined and Uneven From Particularism to (False) Universalism: A “Philosophical Revolution” The (Uncertain) Logic of Slave Rebellions The Rest of the Americas Enter Saint-Domingue/Haiti A Portrait of Saint-Domingue/Haiti in 1791 An Excursus on Vodou and its Revolutionary Character The Social Complexities of Saint-Domingue The Confused Dynamic of the Revolution The Meaning(s) of the Haitian Revolution On “Creative” Violence Chapter 3: The Disavowed “Philosophical Revolution”: From Enlightenment Thought to the Crisis of Abstract Universalism Shadows in the Enlightenment: Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Slavery Slavery without Scare Quotes: Between Hegel and Marx The Black Enlightenment: The Haitian “Constitutional Revolution” The Difficulties of Theorizing (Haitian) Revolution Literature and Art Have Their Say Epilogue

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Book SynopsisThe datafication of our world offers huge challenges and opportunities for social science. The ‘data-drivenness’ of computational research can occur at the expense of theoretical reflection and interpretation. Additionally, it can be difficult to reconcile the ‘quantitative’ dimensions of big data with the ‘qualitative’ sensibilities needed for its understanding. At the same time, this opens up possibilities for reimagining key principles of social inquiry. In this experimental and provocative book, Simon Lindgren argues that a hybrid approach to data and theory must be developed in order to make sense of today's ambivalent, turbulent, and media-saturated political landscape. He pushes for the development of a critical science of data, joining the interpretive theoretical and ethical sensibilities of social science with the predictive and prognostic powers of data science and computational methods. In order for theories and research methods to be more useful and relevant, they must be dismantled and put together in new, alternative, and unexpected ways. Data Theory is essential reading for social scientists and data scientists, as well as students taking courses in social theory and data, digital methods, big data, and data and society.Trade Review�In this elegant book, Lindgren moves beyond the frequent schizophrenia of methods debates to ask: what happens when traditional social theory and data analytics are combined smartly? The result is illuminating and useful. Highly recommended!� Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science �This is a very interesting book with an original approach which will be useful to scholars and students.� Lina Dencik, Cardiff University �In this provocative text, Lindgren leads us on an innovative path that should both challenge and inspire researchers across the quant-qual divide. A new social science methods classic for the digital media era!� Sarah T. Roberts, UCLATable of ContentsIntroduction: Data Theory1 Beyond Method2 Decoding Social Forms3 Unintended Consequences4 Actor-Networks5 Collective Presentations6 Symbolic Power7 Theoretical I/O Conclusion: Theory/DataReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe datafication of our world offers huge challenges and opportunities for social science. The ‘data-drivenness’ of computational research can occur at the expense of theoretical reflection and interpretation. Additionally, it can be difficult to reconcile the ‘quantitative’ dimensions of big data with the ‘qualitative’ sensibilities needed for its understanding. At the same time, this opens up possibilities for reimagining key principles of social inquiry. In this experimental and provocative book, Simon Lindgren argues that a hybrid approach to data and theory must be developed in order to make sense of today's ambivalent, turbulent, and media-saturated political landscape. He pushes for the development of a critical science of data, joining the interpretive theoretical and ethical sensibilities of social science with the predictive and prognostic powers of data science and computational methods. In order for theories and research methods to be more useful and relevant, they must be dismantled and put together in new, alternative, and unexpected ways. Data Theory is essential reading for social scientists and data scientists, as well as students taking courses in social theory and data, digital methods, big data, and data and society.Trade Review�In this elegant book, Lindgren moves beyond the frequent schizophrenia of methods debates to ask: what happens when traditional social theory and data analytics are combined smartly? The result is illuminating and useful. Highly recommended!� Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science �This is a very interesting book with an original approach which will be useful to scholars and students.� Lina Dencik, Cardiff University �In this provocative text, Lindgren leads us on an innovative path that should both challenge and inspire researchers across the quant-qual divide. A new social science methods classic for the digital media era!� Sarah T. Roberts, UCLATable of ContentsIntroduction: Data Theory 1 Beyond Method 2 Decoding Social Forms 3 Unintended Consequences 4 Actor-Networks 5 Collective Presentations 6 Symbolic Power 7 Theoretical I/O Conclusion: Theory/Data References Index

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Book SynopsisThis book by one of Latin America’s leading cultural theorists examines the place of the subject and the role of biographical and autobiographical genres in contemporary culture. Arfuch argues that the on-going proliferation of private and intimate stories – what she calls the ‘biographical space’ – can be seen as symptomatic of the impersonalizing dynamics of contemporary times. Autobiographical genres, however, harbour an intersubjective dimension. The ‘I’ who speaks wants to be heard by another, and the other who listens discovers in autobiography possible points of identification. Autobiographical genres, including those that border on fiction, therefore become spaces in which the singularity of experience opens onto the collective and its historicity in ways that allow us to reflect on the ethical, political, and aesthetic dimensions not only of self-representation but also of life itself. Opening up debate through juxtaposition and dialogue, Arfuch’s own poetic writing moves freely from the Holocaust to Argentina’s last dictatorship and its traumatic memories, and then to the troubled borderlands between Mexico and the United States to show how artists rescue shards of memory that would otherwise be relegated to the dustbin of history. In so doing, she makes us see not only how challenging it is to represent past traumas and violence but also how vitally necessary it is to do so as a political strategy for combating the tides of forgetting and for finding ways of being in common.Trade Review"Leonor Arfuch's Memory and Autobiography is a brilliant reflection on autobiography not as a mere exercise in self-construction but as an act of witnessing the unforgettable and as a call to communal dialogue. An invaluable contribution by one of Latin America's most insightful cultural critics."—Sylvia Molloy, Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities Emerita, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction by Michael Lazzara Prologue I. A Beginning II. The Gaze as Autobiography: Time, place, objects 1. Journeys: time, place 2. Objects, memory 3. Biographies / autobiographies 4. Recapitulations III. Memory and Image IV. Women Who Narrate: Autobiography and Traumatic Memories 1. About narration 2. Biography, memory 3. Being and the limit 4. (In)conclusions V. Political Violence, Autobiography and Testimony 1. The tone of the debate 2. Colophon VI. The Threshold, the Frontier. Explorations in the Limits 1. Language and transgression 2. Art on the frontier 3. Public art / critical art VII. The Name, the Number 1. On the massacre 2. The distance of the number 3. Ethics and responsibility 4. Naming 5. Silence, names Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book by one of Latin America’s leading cultural theorists examines the place of the subject and the role of biographical and autobiographical genres in contemporary culture. Arfuch argues that the on-going proliferation of private and intimate stories – what she calls the ‘biographical space’ – can be seen as symptomatic of the impersonalizing dynamics of contemporary times. Autobiographical genres, however, harbour an intersubjective dimension. The ‘I’ who speaks wants to be heard by another, and the other who listens discovers in autobiography possible points of identification. Autobiographical genres, including those that border on fiction, therefore become spaces in which the singularity of experience opens onto the collective and its historicity in ways that allow us to reflect on the ethical, political, and aesthetic dimensions not only of self-representation but also of life itself. Opening up debate through juxtaposition and dialogue, Arfuch’s own poetic writing moves freely from the Holocaust to Argentina’s last dictatorship and its traumatic memories, and then to the troubled borderlands between Mexico and the United States to show how artists rescue shards of memory that would otherwise be relegated to the dustbin of history. In so doing, she makes us see not only how challenging it is to represent past traumas and violence but also how vitally necessary it is to do so as a political strategy for combating the tides of forgetting and for finding ways of being in common.Trade Review"Leonor Arfuch's Memory and Autobiography is a brilliant reflection on autobiography not as a mere exercise in self-construction but as an act of witnessing the unforgettable and as a call to communal dialogue. An invaluable contribution by one of Latin America's most insightful cultural critics."—Sylvia Molloy, Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities Emerita, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction by Michael Lazzara Prologue I. A Beginning II. The Gaze as Autobiography: Time, place, objects 1. Journeys: time, place 2. Objects, memory 3. Biographies / autobiographies 4. Recapitulations III. Memory and Image IV. Women Who Narrate: Autobiography and Traumatic Memories 1. About narration 2. Biography, memory 3. Being and the limit 4. (In)conclusions V. Political Violence, Autobiography and Testimony 1. The tone of the debate 2. Colophon VI. The Threshold, the Frontier. Explorations in the Limits 1. Language and transgression 2. Art on the frontier 3. Public art / critical art VII. The Name, the Number 1. On the massacre 2. The distance of the number 3. Ethics and responsibility 4. Naming 5. Silence, names Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisShortly before his death, Zygmunt Bauman spent several days in conversation with the Swiss journalist Peter Haffner. Out of these conversations emerged this book in which Bauman shows himself to be the pre-eminent social thinker for which he became world renowned, a thinker who never shied away from addressing the great issues of our time and always strove to interrogate received wisdom and common sense, to make the familiar unfamiliar. As in Bauman’s work more generally, the personal and the political are interwoven in this book. Bauman’s life, which followed the same trajectory as the social and political upheavals of the 20th century, left its trace on his thought. Bauman describes his upbringing in Poland, military service in the Red Army, working for the Polish Secret Service after the war and expulsion from Poland in 1968, providing personal accounts of the historical events on which he brings his social and political insights to bear. His reflections on history, identity, Jewishness, morality, happiness and love are rooted in his own personal journey through the turbulent events of the 20th century to which he bore witness. These last conversations shed new light on one of the greatest social thinkers of our time, offering a more personal perspective on a man who changed our way of thinking about the modern world.Trade Review"Making the Familiar Unfamiliar could have been the opening episodes of one of the world’s greatest podcasts—if Bauman had lived long enough to continue his conversation with Swiss journalist Peter Haffner."Shepherd Express

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Book SynopsisUntrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in an atomised society, where the loss of the symbolic structures inherent in ritual behaviour has led to overdependence on the contingent to steer identity. Avoiding saccharine nostalgia for the rituals of the past, Han provides a genealogy of their disappearance as a means of diagnosing the pathologies of the present. He juxtaposes a community without communication – where the intensity of togetherness in silent recognition provides structure and meaning – to today’s communication without community, which does away with collective feelings and leaves individuals exposed to exploitation and manipulation by neoliberal psycho-politics. The community that is invoked everywhere today is an atrophied and commoditized community that lacks the symbolic power to bind people together. For Han, it is only the mutual praxis of recognition borne by the ritualistic sharing of the symbolic between members of a community which creates the footholds of objectivity allowing us to make sense of time. This new book by one of the most creative cultural theorists writing today will be of interest to a wide readership.Trade Review"Byung-Chul Han's new book challenges the reader to go far beyond the worn-out critique of neoliberalism. On the one side, there is the progressive replacement of substance through communication, painted as a road to existential perdition; it contrasts, on the other side, with the utopian view of a return towards the security of rituals in their form and appearance. This reversal of long-established thought is expressed in a compressed and energetic language that reads like a manifesto."—Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford UniversityTable of ContentsPreliminary Remark The Compulsion of Production The Compulsion of Authenticity Rituals of Closure Festivals and Religion A Game of Life and Death The End of History The Empire of Signs From Duelling to Drone Wars From Myth to Dataism From Seduction to Porn Bibliography Notes

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Book SynopsisThis book dissects the complex social, cultural and political factors which led the UK to take its decision to leave the EU and examines the far-reaching consequences of that decision. Developing the conceptual framework of securitization, Ryder innovatively uses primary sources and a focus on rhetoric to examine the ways that political elites engineered a politics of fear, insecurity and Brexit nationalism before and after the Brexit vote. He situates Brexit within a wider shift in international political ideas, traces the resurgence in popularity of far-right politics and explores how Britain and Europe now face a choice between further neoliberal reform or radical democratic and social renewal.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Paradigm shift, reflexivity and securitisation Brexit Nationalism: History, Crisis and Identity The Road to Brexit Politics in Focus: The Conservatives Politics in Focus: Labour The Nationalists: Exclusionary and Civic Brexit: Views from Europe Boris Johnson: Getting Brexit done? Antidotes to Brexit

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Book SynopsisThis fresh appraisal of philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s work foregrounds the geographical aspects of one of the leading social and political theorists of the 20th century.   Margath A. Walker considers how Marcusean philosophies might challenge the way we think about space and politics, and create new sensibilities. Applying them to contemporary geopolitics, digital infrastructure, and issues like resistance and immigration, the book shows how social change has been stifled, and how Marcuse’s philosophies could provide the tools to overturn the status quo.  She demonstrates Marcuse’s relevance to individuals and society, and finds this important theorist of opposition can point the way to resisting oppressive forces within contemporary capitalism.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Why Not Demand the Impossible? Geography and Marcuse Dimensionality Flattened Mission Reconstruction Trialectic Topologies of the Right Here, Not Yet and Over False Binaries New Sensibilities

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Book SynopsisWritten by leading social scientists working in and across a variety of analytic traditions, this ambitious, insightful volume explores interpretation as a focal metaphor for understanding the body’s influence, meaning, and matter in society. Interpreting body and embodiment in social movements, health and medicine, race, sex and gender, globalization, colonialism, education, and other contexts, the book’s chapters call into question taken-for-granted ideas of where the self, the social world, and the body begin and end. Encouraging reflection and opening new perspectives on theories of the body that cut through the classic mind/body divide, this is an important contribution to the literature on the body.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Between Meaning and Matter - Anne Marie Champagne and Asia Friedman 1. Toward a Strong Cultural Sociology of the Body and Embodiment - Anne Marie Champagne 2. Thinking the Molecular - Ben Spatz 3. Interpreting Africa’s Seselelãme: Bodily Ways of Knowing in a Globalized World - Kathryn Linn Geurts and Sefakor Komabu-Pomeyie 4. Gender on the Post-Colony: Phenomenology, Race, and the Body in Nervous Conditions - Sweta Rajan-Rankin and Mrinalini Greedharry 5. Reinterpreting Male Bodies and Health in Crisis Times: From “Obesity” to Bigger Matters - Lee F. Monaghan 6. Beauty, Breasts, and Meaning after Mastectomy - Piper Sledge 7. “You Are Not the Body”: (Re)Interpreting the Body in and through Integral Yoga - Erin F. Johnston 8. Black Girls’ Bodies and Belonging in the Classroom - Brittney Miles 9. Embodied Vulnerability and Sensemaking with Solidarity Activists - Chandra Russo 10. Our Bodies, Our Disciplines, Our Selves - Annemarie Jutel

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Book SynopsisSemiotics provides key analytical tools to understand the creation and reproduction of meaning in social life. Although some fields have productively incorporated semiotic models, sociology still needs to engage with semiotic mediation. Written by a diverse group of authors in interpretive sociology, this ambitious volume asks what the relationship between meaning systems and action is, how we can describe culture and which roles we assign to language, social processes and cognition in a sociological context. Contributors offer empirical research that not only outlines the conceptual issues at stake, but also demonstrates ‘how to do things’ with semiotics through case studies. Synthesizing a diverse and fragmented landscape, this is a key reference work for scholars interested in the connection between semiotics and sociology.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Interpretive Sociology and the Semiotic Imagination - Andrea Cossu and Jorge Fontdevila 1. Marked and Unmarked: A Semiotic Distinction for Concept-Driven Interpretive Sociology - Wayne H. Brekhus 2. Blumer, Weber, Peirce and the Big Tent of Semiotic Sociology: Notes on Interactionism, Interpretivism, and Semiotics - J. I. (Hans) Bakker 3. Collective Agency: A Semiotic View - Rein Raud 4. Theorizing Side-Directed Behavior - Paul McLean and Eunkyung Song 5. Cultural Syntax and the Rules of Meaning Making: A New Paradigm for the Interpretation of Culture - Todd Madigan 6. Memory, Cultural Systems, and Anticipation - Andrea Cossu 7. Stigma Embedded Semiotics: Indexical Dilemmas of HIV across Local and Migrant Networks - Jorge Fontdevila 8. Supremacy or Symbiosis? The Effect of Gendered Ideologies of the Trans- versus Posthuman on Wearable Technology and Biodesign - Elizabeth Wissinger

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Book SynopsisSocialism is conceptualised on a unique basis, that is, by deploying intersectionality for both a) the conceptualisation of emancipatory practices and b) accounting for relations between humans as well as those between humanity and nature in the formulation of institutional principles guiding post-capitalist life.Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Intersectionality, Pluriversality, and Libertarian Socialism 3. Pluriversal Intersectionality and Capitalist Domination 4. Pluriversal Emancipation 5. Work, Property, and Resource Allocation 6. On the ‘Production of Life’ and Labour of Care 7. Beyond the Modern Liberal-Capitalist State 8. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge? Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists. Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.Table of ContentsThinking With Imposters: The Imposter As Analytic ~ Else Vogel, David Moats, Steve Woolgar and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson The Desire to Believe and Belong: Wannabes and Their Audience in a North American Cultural Context ~ Caroline Rosenthal A Menagerie of Imposters and Truth-Tellers: Diederik Stapel and the Crisis in Psychology ~ Maarten Derksen Learning From Fakes: A Relational Approach ~ Catelijne Coopmans Imitations of Celebrity ~ Mandy Merck Natural Imposters?: A Cuckoos View of Social Relations ~ Martin Abbott and Daniel Large Conjuring Imposters: The Extraordinary Illusions of Mundanity ~ Brian Rappert States of Imposture: Scroungerphobia and the Choreography of Suspicion~ James Kaufmann The Face of ‘The Other’: Biometric Facial Recognition, Imposters, and the Art of Outplaying Them ~ Kristina Grünenberg Faking Spirit Possession: Creating ‘Epistemic Murk’ in Bahian Candomblé ~ Mattijs van de Port The Guerrilla’s ID Card: Flatland Against Fatland in Colombia ~ Olga Restrepo Forero and Malcolm Ashmore Good Enough Imposters: The Market for Instagram Followers in Indonesia and Beyond ~ Johan Lindquist Thinking Beyond the Imposter: Gatecrashing Un/Welcoming Borders ~ Fredy Mora-Gamez Postscript: Thinking With Imposters – What Were They Thinking? ~ Agnes, Forrest Carter, Civet Coffee Bean, Cuckoo, Iansá and Oxum, Sarah Jane, Han Van Meegeren, David Rosenhahn, Diederik Stapel and Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez

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Book SynopsisThe figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge? Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists. Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.Table of ContentsThinking With Imposters: The Imposter As Analytic ~ Else Vogel, David Moats, Steve Woolgar and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson The Desire to Believe and Belong: Wannabes and Their Audience in a North American Cultural Context ~ Caroline Rosenthal A Menagerie of Imposters and Truth-Tellers: Diederik Stapel and the Crisis in Psychology ~ Maarten Derksen Learning From Fakes: A Relational Approach ~ Catelijne Coopmans Imitations of Celebrity ~ Mandy Merck Natural Imposters?: A Cuckoos View of Social Relations ~ Martin Abbott and Daniel Large Conjuring Imposters: The Extraordinary Illusions of Mundanity ~ Brian Rappert States of Imposture: Scroungerphobia and the Choreography of Suspicion~ James Kaufmann The Face of ‘The Other’: Biometric Facial Recognition, Imposters, and the Art of Outplaying Them ~ Kristina Grünenberg Faking Spirit Possession: Creating ‘Epistemic Murk’ in Bahian Candomblé ~ Mattijs van de Port The Guerrilla’s ID Card: Flatland Against Fatland in Colombia ~ Olga Restrepo Forero and Malcolm Ashmore Good Enough Imposters: The Market for Instagram Followers in Indonesia and Beyond ~ Johan Lindquist Thinking Beyond the Imposter: Gatecrashing Un/Welcoming Borders ~ Fredy Mora-Gamez Postscript: Thinking With Imposters – What Were They Thinking? ~ Agnes, Forrest Carter, Civet Coffee Bean, Cuckoo, Iansá and Oxum, Sarah Jane, Han Van Meegeren, David Rosenhahn, Diederik Stapel and Jorge Enrique Briceño Suárez

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Book SynopsisThe idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized – Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias’s reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Process-Sociological Approach to Understanding Civilization The Return of Discourses of Civilization and Barbarism Elias’s Explanation of the European Civilizing Process The Nation-State, War and Human Equality The Classical European ‘Standard of Civilization’ Civilization, Diplomacy and the Enlargement of International Society Standards of Civilization in the Post-European Global Order Civilizing Processes at the Level of Humanity as a Whole Summary and Conclusions

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Book SynopsisThe idea of civilization recurs frequently in reflections on international politics. However, International Relations academic writings on civilization have failed to acknowledge the major 20th-century analysis that examined the processes through which Europeans came to regard themselves as uniquely civilized – Norbert Elias’s On the Process of Civilization. This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the significance of Elias’s reflections on civilization for International Relations. It explains the working principles of an Eliasian, or process-sociological, approach to civilization and the global order and demonstrates how the interdependencies between state-formation, colonialism and an emergent international society shaped the European 'civilizing process'.Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Process-Sociological Approach to Understanding Civilization The Return of Discourses of Civilization and Barbarism Elias’s Explanation of the European Civilizing Process The Nation-State, War and Human Equality The Classical European ‘Standard of Civilization’ Civilization, Diplomacy and the Enlargement of International Society Standards of Civilization in the Post-European Global Order Civilizing Processes at the Level of Humanity as a Whole Summary and Conclusions

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