Society and culture: general Books

Modern technological systems entail risks and uncertainties of hitherto unknown dimensions. This book discusses the construction of risk and safety within a variety of empirical contexts where technologies and their risk are debated and handled by...

This study aims to fill the gap in the existing literature on China's Democratic development, by presenting a comprehensive and detailed examination of the key factors that have created and sustained state domination over society in China.

There are relatively few books that provide comparative analysis of European cities in relation to immigrants and political participation. This fresh and insightful volume, from the same team that published Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship...

Despite considerable interest in social capital amongst urban policy makers and academics alike, there is currently little direct focus on its urban dimensions. In this volume leading urban researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Australia,...

The influx of female migrants to Europe has posed challenges to established European feminist movements. In this book the author assesses the significance of female immigration to Italy and its impact on Italian feminism by analyzing the way in which...

There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, implying that beauty is subjective. But can it be said that 'better looking' people have more social power? This book provides a fascinating insight into the social stratification of people...

Multiple killings by serial or spree killers and the mass violence seen in war crimes and other atrocities have typically been understood as discrete category types, which can foster the view that there are fundamentally different kinds of human beings,...

Having been state-owned for decades, the railway reform in China confused many people, particularly in terms of its ownership and property rights arrangements. Western literature always prescribes that the best model for railway reform is privatization...

In the years since the death of Mao Zedong, interest in Chinese writers and Chinese literature has risen significantly in the West. In 2000, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature followed by Mo Yan in...

Fifty years ago, familiar images of the lottery would have been strange, as no state lottery existed then. Few researchers have uncovered the obscure role lotteries play in the changing composition of American taxation. Even less is known about what role...

Disabled women represent one of the most marginalised minority groups in the world, hence they are largely silent while their sexuality is ignored, suppressed, forbidden and buried underneath the carpet. Until recently, most of the Global Northern...

India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative...

This book explores contemporary transformations of identities in a digitizing society across a range of domains of modern life. As digital technology and ICTs have come to pervade virtually all aspects of modern societies, the routine registration of...

This book analyzes in detail the main social, economic and special transformation of the city of São Paulo. In the last 30 years, São Paulo has become a more heterogeneous and less unequal city. Contrary to some expectations, the recent economic...

What is it like to make television comedy? How do writers get their ideas made, and how do commissioners and producers decide what to make? How do members of the comedy industry work with large broadcasters and production companies, and what does it mean...

Light Touches: Cultural Practices of Illumination, 1800-1900 explores how urban lives in the nineteenth century were increasingly touched by innovations in the technologies and aesthetics of illumination. Dramatic changes in qualities of light - and...

Contrary to what is suggested in media and popular discourses, Europe is neither a monolithic entity nor simply a collection of nation states. It is, rather, a union of millions of individuals who differ from one another in a variety of ways while also...

This book provides a comprehensive account and analysis of the Rwenzururu movement in Western Uganda. The movement began in the 1960s in the Rwenzori region of Toro District, and was a protest by the minority Bakonzo and Baamba ethnic groups...

Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa interrupts the relative silence around teenage constructions of love in South Africa. Against the backdrop of gender inequalities, HIV and violence, the book situates teenage constructions of love and...

State-sponsored torture and peacebuilding encapsulate the essence of many of the current conflicts in Indonesia. Papua in particular provides a thought-provoking example of the intricacy and complexity of building peace amidst enduring conflict and...

Jokes have always been part of African culture, but never have they been so blended with the strains and gains of the contemporary African world as today. Joke-Performance in Africa describes and analyses the diverse aesthetics, forms, and media of jokes...

Post/Colonialism and the Pursuit of Freedom in the Black Atlantic is an interdisciplinary collection of essays of wide historical and geographic scope which engages the legacy of diaspora, colonialism and slavery. The contributors explore the...

This book examines information and public opinion control by the authoritarian state in response to popular access to information and upgraded political communication channels among the citizens in contemporary China. Empowered by mass media,...

The world continues to be threatened by non-state, religiously-rationalized violence. While some fail to the see the connections between the United States' intervention in the Middle East and this ongoing threat, the non-state perpetrators of terror...

This book examines the underexplored notion of epistemic marginalization of women in the African intellectual place. Women's issues are still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies and academics in sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched...

Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangladesh.As emblems of Bengali culture, Bauls have long been a...

This book examines the relationship that exists between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Animation has played a key role in defining our collective expectations and experiences of fantasy cinema, just as fantasy storytelling has often served...

The right to development (RTD) seeks to address global inequities hidden in world politics and global institutions through the game of influences played by powerful actors. The negative impacts of the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and the...

This volume brings together influential contemporary research and discussion papers to explore the issue of women's economic empowerment in the Indian Ocean rim. Women's economic empowerment has become a central policy concern of many Indian Ocean rim...

This book makes an important return to reception studies at an exciting juncture of media distribution and modes of consumption. The editors' introduction contextualizes this new work within a long history of feminist approaches to audience research, and...

The vast circulations of mobile devices, sensors and data mean that the social world is now defined by a complex interweaving of human and machine agency. Key to this is the growing power of algorithms - the decision-making parts of code - in our...

The field of organisational communication has been rapidly transforming in the wake of the linguistic and discursive turns that have been sweeping across the social sciences since the mid-eighties. These 'turns' have prompted organisational communication...

Kenya's 2007 General Election results announcement precipitated the worst ethnic conflict in the country's history; 1,133 people were killed, while 600,000 were internally displaced. Within 2 months, the incumbent and the challenger had agreed to a...

News coverage on Africa is closely connected not only with how Western audiences see the continent, but also with how a wide Western audience builds its opinion on issues that carry consequences for the public's and governments' support and policy...

This book, appropriately titled Decolonisation, Africanisation and the Philosophy Curriculum, signposts and captures issues about philosophy, the philosophy curriculum, and its decolonisation and Africanisation. This topic is of critical...

This book addresses the involuntary and arbitrary displacement of individuals resulting from armed conflict and gross human rights violations. It shows that forcible displacement constitutes a serious violation of international law and of...

In recent years, the Zimbabwe crisis rendered the country and its citizens to be a typical case of 'failed states', the world over. Zimbabwean society was and is still confronted with different challenges which include political, economic and social...

Today's convergent media industries readily produce stories that span multiple media, telling the tales of superheroes across comics, film and television, inviting audiences to participate in the popular universes across cinema, novels, the Web, and more...

This book provides case studies, many incorporating in-depth interviews and surveys of journalists. It examines issues such as journalists' attitudes toward their contributions to society; the impact of industry and technological changes; culture...

What does it imply for Nigerian philosophers to conscientiously and engagingly reflect on Nigeria as a place of philosophy and as a dynamic plural context of socioeconomic, political, cultural and ethnic problems? Any answer to this question...

Nuaulu people on the Indonesian island of Seram have displayed remarkable linguistic and cultural resilience over a period of 50 years. In 1970 their language and traditional culture was widely considered 'endangered.' Despite this, Nuaulu have not only...

In this book, Oluwatoyin Oduntan offers a critical intervention in the scholarly fields of Nigerian, and West African history, as well as towards understanding the intellectual ideas by which modern African society was formed, and how it functions. The...

This book explores the prosecution of wartime sexual violence in international criminal law and asks what the juridicalisation of gender-based violence signifies for women. The book explores the portrayal of the various gendered identities that surface...

In comparison to other social groups, India's rural poor - and particularly Adivasis and Dalits - have seen little benefit from the country's economic growth over the last three decades. Though economists and statisticians are able to model the form and...

The 1990s heralded waves of spectacular forms of local resistance and globalized protest against oil exploitation and environmental pollution in oil-producing regions of the developing world. One of the most spectacular local uprisings against global oil...

Since 2001 The Democratic Republic of Congo has been engaged in a three-fold transition process towards liberalisation, democratisation, and peace. Throughout this process, external actors (donors, international financial institutions, the UN system, aid...

This book provides an historical overview of the Japanese Communist Party from its foundation to the present. It outlines the development of the party, explores its stance on key issues and discusses how the party has set a high moral tone, avoiding...

The ambition of the book is to investigate a possible transition in the markets for food in the Nordic countries. Six chapters from various disciplinary traditions study change and innovation within the food sectors in Denmark, Sweden and Norway; while...