- Table View
- List View
A Better Metro Manila?: Towards Responsible Local Governance, Decentralization and Equitable Development
by Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem Maria Ela L. AtienzaThis book contributes to efforts in furthering the democratization and development processes in the Philippines by examining the decentralization efforts in Metro Manila. It explores existing as well as proposed development models for governance with focus on the effective and efficient delivery of social services, bringing forth growth with equity through development efforts, and addressing national-local concerns to promote political and socio-economic stability in the country. In doing so, the book examines the strong and weak governance points in the National Capital Region of the Philippines, and identifies areas for reform.
A Better World, Inc.: Corporate Governance for an Inclusive, Sustainable, and Prosperous Future
by Alice KorngoldThe first edition of A Better World, Inc. showed how companies can profit by solving global problems. Increasingly, companies and investors are capitalizing on these opportunities. The three factors necessary for success were revealed to be effective corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, and collaboration. Racial equity and justice, and gender equity, were also themes in the original edition. By drawing on new research and case studies, this updated edition shows that inclusion and sustainability are in fact fundamental prerequisites for prosperity for companies and society. Specifically, racial inequity and injustice, and gender inequity, are systemic problems that impede businesses from achieving their greater potential in the global marketplace; in the meantime, society suffers as well. The second edition of A Better World, Inc. builds on the first by showing that companies have the power and incentives – and their boards of directors have the responsibility and the authority – to drive solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges. Readers will learn how companies and their boards, together with nonprofits and governments, can drive prosperity by centering equity and sustainability.This edition is organized to address environmental, social, and governance practices, which are priority interests for investors, media, the public, government, and others to assess company practices and profitability.
Between Market Economy and State Capitalism: China's State-Owned Enterprises and the World Trading System (Cambridge International Trade and Economic Law)
by Henry Gao Weihuan ZhouOne major issue facing the world trading system today is how to deal with the challenge of China's state capitalism. Many commentators believe that the existing WTO rules are insufficient and, thus new rules are needed. This book challenges this conventional wisdom. Through meticulous studies and fresh analysis of the commitments in China's WTO accession package, existing rules on state capitalism in WTO agreements and recent attempts to make new rules on these issues at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels, this book argues that existing WTO rules, especially those on subsidies, coupled with China-specific rules in its accession protocol, do provide feasible tools to counter China's state capitalism. This book also discusses the reasons for the lack of usage of these rules and provides concrete policy suggestions on how the rules may be better utilized, as well as how to conduct constructive negotiations on new rules in the WTO and beyond.
Beyond AI: ChatGPT, Web3, and the Business Landscape of Tomorrow (Future of Business and Finance)
by Ken Huang Yang Wang Feng Zhu Xi Chen Chunxiao XingThis book explores the transformative potential of ChatGPT, Web3, and their impact on productivity and various industries. It delves into Generative AI (GenAI) and its representative platform ChatGPT, their synergy with Web3, and how they can revolutionize business operations. It covers the potential impact surpassing prior industrial revolutions.After providing an overview of GenAI, ChatGPT, and Web3, it investigates business applications in various industries and areas, such as product management, finance, real estate, gaming, and government, highlighting value creation and operational revolution through their integration. It also explores their impact on content generation, customer service, personalization, and data analysis and examines how the technologies can enhance content quality, customer experiences, sales, revenue, and resource efficiency. Moreover, it addresses security, privacy, and ethics concerns, emphasizing the responsible implementation of ChatGPT and Web3. Written by experts in this field, this book is aimed at business leaders, entrepreneurs, students, investors, and professionals who are seeking insights into ChatGPT, ChatGPT Plug-in, GPT-based autonomous agents, and the integration of Gen AI and Web3 in business applications.
Beyond Homelessness, 15th Anniversary Edition: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement
by Steven Bouma-Prediger Brian J. WalshEnvision a future beyond homelessness. The rise in homeless encampments. The destruction of our planet. The disconnection from place caused by capitalism and technology. Beyond the unavailability of housing, our culture is experiencing a devastating loss of home.In Beyond Homelessness, Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh illuminate the relationship between socioeconomic, ecological, and cultural homelessness. Bouma-Prediger and Walsh blend groundbreaking scholarship with stirring biblical meditations, while enriching their discussion with literature, music, and art. Offering practical solutions and a hope-filled vision of home, they show how to heal the profound dislocations in our society. In this fifteenth-anniversary edition, the authors return to their work with a new postscript, in which they discuss the evolution of their ideas and share true stories of home and community built anew. This revitalized classic is a must-read for any Christian committed to social justice—and anyone longing for home.
Beyond Legal Positivism: The Moral Authority of Law (Law and Philosophy Library #143)
by Whitley R. KaufmanLegal Positivism has been the dominant school of legal philosophy for much of the last century, despite its many critics. Its central tenet has long been that there is no necessary connection between law and morality. This book provides a broad but clear and jargon-free account of the central objections to the theory and why those objections are sufficient to show that legal positivism is no longer tenable. This includes a broad critique of the purported distinction method of legal positivism, the idea of ‘conceptual analysis,’ as well as a detailed assessment of the most influential of all legal positivist theories, that of H.L.A. Hart. The book also provides a defense of the natural law school, which holds in contrast to legal positivism that the authority of law arises from its intrinsic connection to morality. The author demonstrates that most of the criticism of the natural law school arises from a caricatured account of that doctrine, for instance the idea that it requires substantive theological commitments or particular conceptions of human nature. In contrast, the author presents an account of natural law theory that is grounded in a commitment to moral truth, but not to any theological beliefs. The nature of law can only be understood in terms of its moral function, to provide a clear set of moral rules that are required for a society to function effectively.
Beyond Scandinavian Exceptionalism: Normalization, Imprisonment and Society (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology)
by Helene De VosThis book explores how prison life is normalized in different countries, with a critical and detailed look at ‘Scandinavian exceptionalism’ — the idea that Scandinavian prisons have exceptionally humane conditions — and compares these prisons to ones in Belgium. It provides a more nuanced, systematic and contextualized comparison of normalization in two countries. Through analyzing policy and legislative documents, participant observation and interviews, it seeks to understand how normalization is implemented differently in prison legislation, policies and practices and compares the two societies for context. It also considers the material prison environment, security, the social environment and the use of time in prison. It provides insights into how normalization can be successfully and holistically implemented in both policy and practice, to contribute to a more ‘pure’ form of liberty deprivation as punishment without too many unintended effects.
Beyond the Virus: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives on Inequalities Raised by COVID-19
by Sabrina Germain, Adrienne Yong and Patricia TuittAs the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, stark social inequalities have increasingly been revealed and, in many cases, exacerbated by the global health crisis. This book explores these inequalities, identifying three thematic strands: power and governance, gender and marginalized communities. By examining these three themes in relation to the effects of the pandemic, the book uncovers how unequal the pandemic truly is. It brings together invaluable insights from a range of international scholars across multiple disciplines to critically analyse how these inequalities have played out in the context of COVID-19 as a first step towards achieving social justice.
Biblical Organizational Spirituality, Volume 2: Qualitative Case Studies of Leaders and Organizations (Christian Faith Perspectives in Leadership and Business)
by Bruce E. WinstonThis book expands on the New Testament leadership principles introduced in Volume 1 and draws connections to the contemporary organizational leadership literature. By applying these principles to analyze modern organizations and leaders, it aims to uncover how they are manifested within an organization and their impact on both the organization and individual employees. Through interviews with leaders and coding of the transcripts, the chapter authors develop scale-development items to measure the concept of organizational spirituality within organizations. This volume offers theoretical framing and practical applications for scholars and practitioners in the field of organizational leadership, particularly those interested in the Christian perspective.
Big Brother Naija and Popular Culture in Nigeria: A Critique of the Country's Cultural and Economic Diplomacy
by Christopher Isike Olusola Ogunnubi Ogochukwu UkwuezeThis book is about Big Brother Naija (BBN), which is a Nigerian version of the Big Brother franchise featured in more than 50 countries of the world with its major concept drawn from George Orwell ’s novel, Nineteen Eigther-Four . It is organised and starred by Nigerians but viewed in many parts of the world. The book critically engages this relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria which apparently lacks scholarly attention. It proffers insights into the show’s significance and implications for the nation with relation to mental health, morality, cultural di
Biopolitics and Resistance in Legal Education
by Thomas Giddens and Luca Siliquini-CinelliTaking up the study of legal education in distinctly biopolitical terms, this book provides a critical and political analysis of resistance in the law school. Legal education concerns the complex pathways by which an individual becomes a lawyer, making the journey from lay-person to expert, from student to practitioner. To pose the idea of a biopolitics of legal education is not only to recognise the tensions surrounding this journey but also to recognise that legal education is a key site in which the subject engages, and is engaged by, a particular structure—and here the particular structure of the law school. This book explores the resistance to that structure, including: different ways in which law’s pedagogic structures might be incomplete, or are being fought against; the use of less conventional elements of cultural discourse to resist the abstraction of the lawyer in students’ subject formation; the centralisation of queer and feminist discourses to disrupt the hierarchies of the legal curriculum; the use of digital technologies; the place of embodiment in legal education settings; and the impacts of posthuman knowledges and contexts on legal learning. Assembling original, field-defining essays by both leading international scholars and emerging researchers, this book constitutes an indispensable resource in legal education research and scholarship that will appeal to legal academics everywhere.
Biopolitics and Shock Economy of COVID-19: Medical Perspectives and Socioeconomic Dynamics (Contributions to Economics)
by Nezameddin Faghih Amir ForouharfarThis edited volume discusses the biopolitics and shock economy of COVID-19, emphasizing medical perspectives and the socioeconomic dynamics of the pandemic and the ensuing institutional responses. Written by an international, multidisciplinary group of academic and professional experts, chapters embrace a wide range of topics such as: medical perspectives on COVID-19; application of geospatial technology; infectivity, immunogenicity, and disease as important factors for adoption of relevant biopolitical measures; shock economy; COVID-19-induced transaction costs; social support and resilience of inhabitants of marginalized areas; business resilience factors; entrepreneurship; and digital transformation. Jointly addressing global examples of biopolitical governance and overarching macroeconomic effects of the pandemic, this volume will be of interest to academics across disciplines as well as policymakers and practitioners on the ground.
Biopolitics and Structure in Legal Education
by Luca Siliquini-Cinelli and Thomas GiddensTaking up the study of legal education in distinctly biopolitical terms, this book provides a critical and political analysis of structure in the law school. Legal education concerns the complex pathways by which an individual becomes a lawyer, making the journey from lay-person to expert, from student to practitioner. To pose the idea of a biopolitics of legal education is not only to recognise the tensions surrounding this journey, but also to recognise that legal education is a key site in which the subject engages, and is engaged by, a particular structure—and here the particular structure of the law school. This book explores that structure by addressing the characteristics of the biopolitical orders engaged in legal education, including: understanding the lawyer as a commodity, unpicking the force relations in legal education, examining the ways codes of conduct in higher education impact academic freedom, as well as putting the distinctly Western structures of legal learning within a wider context. Assembling original, field-defining essays by both leading international scholars and emerging researchers, it constitutes an indispensable resource in legal education research and scholarship that will appeal to legal academics everywhere.
Biosafety Measures, Technology Risks and the World Trade Organization: Thriving and Surviving in the Age of Biotech
by Alessandra GuidaThis book examines the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with a focus on the capacity of its judiciary to strike a reasoned balance between free trade in biotechnology and biosafety as to promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals. By adopting an innovative interpretation of the precautionary principle and proportionality analysis, the work offers normative suggestions to develop what the author terms “a constructive bridge of knowledge” between decision-makers, scientists, social experts and expert witnesses, which can support a judicial balance by design rather than by chance. Biotechnology is sometimes regarded as a panacea for modern-day challenges, such as feeding a growing world population and counteracting climate-change problems, and a means of offering significant economic opportunities. However, biotechnology can present uncertain, though serious, risks to human health and the environment (i.e., biosafety). Trading biotech products magnifies these risks and benefits globally. This book explores the topical, though still underexplored, question of how to find a point of equilibrium between the revolutionary advancement offered by technology and the need to safeguard biosafety from uncertain, though potentially irreversible, technology risks. It offers a thorough analysis of normative, judicial and epistemic issues hindering a reasoned balance between trade and non-trade interests under the WTO. The work offers practical relevance for the resolution of legal disputes in contexts of uncertainty, as well as innovative theoretical contributions. It will be a valuable resource for policymakers working on precautionary governance and management, scholars in the areas of trade law, human rights law and environmental law, law students and practitioners, as well as NGOs working in the field of new technologies, biosafety, sustainability and food safety.
Biosecurity, Economic Collapse, the State to Come: Political Power in the Pandemic and Beyond
by Christos BoukalasThis book offers an in-depth critical account of the state’s responses to the biosecurity and the economic crises. It is thus the first study to address both crises ensuing from the pandemic, and to synthesise the responses to them in a comprehensive account of political power. What kind of state emerges from the pandemic? The pandemic caused two crises, in biosecurity and in the economy. The state was forced to tackle both; but subduing one inevitably exacerbated the other. Emerging from the impossible task of handling two conflicting crises is a new form of state, the state to come. Addressing biosecurity, the book deciphers its key modalities, epistemic premises, its law, the threat it aims to oppose, and the ways in which it relates to public health and society —especially its extraordinary power to suspend society. Addressing the economic crisis, the book deciphers the actuality and prospects of both the economy and the state’s economic policy. It claims that economic policy is now dual: it adopts countercyclical measures to serve and entrench a neoliberal economy. The responses to the twin crises inform the outline of the emerging state: its structure, logic, and legality; its power and its relation to society. This is a state of extraordinary power; but its only purpose is to preserve the social order intact. It is a despotic state: powerful, and set to impose social stasis. This book offers groundbreaking analysis based on our pandemic experience. It is indispensable for critical scholars and students in Politics, Security Studies, Sociology, Law, Political Economy and Public Health.
Biotechnology Law and Policy: Emerging Legal Issues, Cases and Materials
by Alessandro StasiThis book covers an extensive range of issues raised by biotechnological advancements from a regulatory perspective. Written in a clear and readable style, its main objective is to give readers an idea of the relationship between biotechnology and law. Biotechnology advancements and their ethical, moral, economic, and social implications in different fields and the consequential normative demands on the law are crucial to this book. The chapters cover a multitude of themes and some of the most important legal issues arising in relation to biotechnology, including the historical development of a legal framework sufficient to protect public safety, the current biotechnology regulatory system, and the rules directing the primary agencies that regulate the products of biotechnology, namely the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Environmental Protection Agency, patents and IP rights in biotechnology, the regulation of human genome editing and its impact on health research, law and emerging genome editing technologies from recombinant DNA to CRISPR/Cas9, the development of legal principles to protect property rights in the human body and allow the efficient use of human tissue, organs, DNA, and cell-lines in medical research, and legal issues arising from the use of genetic engineered plants and animals.Presenting arguments that have been drawn from careful examination of various international documents and decisions made by legal institutions and judicial bodies, this book would be a valuable read for practitioners as well as academics of biotechnology law.
Bizarro: The Surreal Saga of America's Secret War on Synthetic Drugs and the Florida Kingpins It Captured
by Jordan S. RubinInside a drug war so screwy that people don’t know what’s illegal—until it’s too late. Bizarro is a page-turning tale of the unprecedented prosecution of Burton Ritchie and Ben Galecki, the Florida-based founders of a sprawling "spice" (synthetic cannabinoid) operation. With this book, journalist and former New York City narcotics prosecutor Jordan S. Rubin exposes a Reagan-era law called the Analogue Act, which targets dealers selling drugs that are "substantially similar" to controlled substances—an unwieldy law that produces erratic results in court. Rubin brings readers deep inside the synthetic war, exploring how Ritchie and Galecki landed in its crosshairs and why one of the DEA’s own chemists may have been their best chance at freedom, until he was arrested too. This stranger-than-fiction narrative is backed by thousands of pages of court records and exclusive interviews with defendants, lawyers, law enforcement, celebrities, and more. Bizarro reveals the world of underground chemists making drugs faster than the government can ban them, dealers making millions in a gray market, and a justice system run amok.
Black Iconography and Colonial (re)production at the ICC: (In)dependence Cha Cha Cha?
by Stanley Mwangi WanjiruThis book explores the reproduction of colonialism at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and examines International criminal law (ICL) vs the Black body through an immersive format of Art, Music, Poetry, and Architecture and post-colonial/critical race theory lens. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the book interrogates the operationalization of the Rome statute to detail a Eurocentric hegemony at the core of ICL. It explores how colonialism and slavery have come to shape ICL, exposing the perpetuation of the colonial and warns that it heralds ominous contemporary and future implications for Africa. As currently envisaged and acted out at the ICC, this law is founded on deceptive and colonial ideas of ‘what is wrong’ in/with the world. The book finds that the contemporary ICL regime is founded on white supremacy that corrupts the law’s interaction with the African. The African is but a unit utilised by the global elite to exploit and extract. From time to time, these alliances disintegrate with ICL becoming a retaliatory tool of choice. What is at stake, is power, not justice. This power is hierarchical with Eurocentrism at the top throughout modern history. Colonialism is seen not to have ended but to have regerminated through the foundation of the ‘independent’ African state. The ICC reproduces the colonial by use of European law, and ultimately the over representation of the black accused. To conclude, the book provides a liberated African forum that can address conflicts in the content, with a call for the end of the ICC’s involvement in Africa. The demand is made for an African Court that utilises non-colonising African norms which are uniquely suited to address local conflicts. Multidisciplinary in nature, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of International Criminal Law, Criminal Justice, Human Rights Law, African Studies, Global Social Justice, Sociology, Anthropology, Postcolonial Studies, and Philosophy.
Black, Quare, and Then to Where: Theories of Justice and Black Sexual Ethics (Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People)
by jennifer susanne leathIn Black, Quare, and Then to Where jennifer susanne leath explores the relationship between Afrodiasporic theories of justice and Black sexual ethics through a womanist engagement with Maât the ancient Egyptian deity of justice and truth. Maât took into account the historical and cultural context of each human’s life, thus encompassing nuances of politics, race, gender, and sexuality. Arguing that Maât should serve as a foundation for reconfiguring Black sexual ethics, leath applies ancient Egyptian moral codes to quare ethics of the erotic, expanding what relationships and democratic practices might look like from a contemporary Maâtian perspective. She also draws on Pan-Africanism and examines the work of Alice Walker, E. Patrick Johnson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Sylvia Wynter, Sun Ra, and others. She shows that together these thinkers and traditions inform and expand the possibilities of Maâtian justice with respect to Black sexual experiences. As a moral force, leath contends, Maât opens new possibilities for mapping ethical frameworks to understand, redefine, and imagine justices in the United States.
Black Swan: Economic Crises, Volume II (Accounting, Finance, Sustainability, Governance & Fraud: Theory and Application)
by Bernur AçıkgözThis book continues the discussion from Volume I on economic, fiscal, and financial crises in world history that have had a great impact on the entire world and the fiscal measures taken by governments to combat each crisis. Such events are often described as black swans, a concept introduced by Economist and Risk Analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb in the book Fooled By Randomness in 2001, in reference to events that were thought to be impossible but had a huge impact when they did happen.The beginning of this book notes that crises are catastrophic periods when the consequences of economic mistakes made by governments are reflected to the public. Although economic crises are seen as opportunities in some cases, they have created a burden for the people. Some economic crises even triggered the world war. A recent example, Adolf Hitler, was seen as a hope of salvation in Germany due to the Great Depression and was brought to power.The twentieth century, when two great world wars took place on the stage of history, is the witness of major economic crises as well as wars. These crises have caused social and economic paradigm shifts to be experienced much faster and more effectively than the previous centuries. The transformation of the demand-oriented economic understanding created by the Great Depression in 1929 into an interventionist social state understanding, especially after the World War Two, increased the intervention of states in the socioeconomic field. In this period, the reconstruction of the countries, the development of social welfare services, the assurance of human rights, the acceleration of industrialization and development, and the economic growth and income growth of the countries resulted in the golden age enjoyed by the societies of the period.The interventionist social state, seen as a prescription and opportunity in the past crisis, was one of the cornerstones of the crisis in the last quarter of the century in the 1970s. Against interventionism, with the rise of neo-liberalism, financial liberalization, information society, and technological discoveries, globalization has become the new phenomenon of the age. This book examines in detail the causes, occurrences, and results of the twentieth-century crises.
The Blessings of Liberty: A Concise History of the Constitution of the United States
by Michael Les BenedictThis concise, accessible text provides students with a history of American constitutional development in the context of political, economic, and social change. Constitutional historian Michael Benedict stresses the role that the American people have played over time in defining the powers of government and the rights of individuals and minorities. He covers important trends and events in U.S. constitutional history, encompassing key Supreme Court and lower-court cases. The volume begins by discussing the English and colonial origins of American constitutionalism. Following an analysis of the American Revolution's meaning to constitutional history, the text traces the Constitution's evolution from the Early Republic to the present day. This fourth edition is updated to include the 2016 election, the Trump administration, the 2020 election, and the first activities of the Biden administration.
Blissful Blindness: Soviet Crimes under Western Eyes
by Dariusz TołczykThe most heinous Soviet crimes – the Red Terror, brutal collectivization, the Great Famine, the Gulag, Stalin's Great Terror, mass deportations, and other atrocities – were treated in the West as a controversial topic. With the Cold War dichotomy of Western democracy versus Soviet communism deeply imprinted in our minds, we are not always aware that these crimes were very often questioned, dismissed, denied, sometimes rationalized, and even outright glorified in the Western world. Facing a choice of whom to believe –the survivors or Soviet propaganda– many Western opinion leaders chose in favor of Soviet propaganda. Even those who did not believe it behaved sometimes as if they did. Blissful Blindness explores Western reactions (and lack thereof) to Soviet crimes from the Bolshevik revolution to the collapse of Soviet communism in order to understand ideological, political, economic, cultural, personal, and other motivations behind this puzzling phenomenon of willful ignorance. But the significance of Dariusz Tolczyk's book reaches beyond its direct historical focus. Written for audiences not limited to scholars and specialists, this book not only opens one's eyes to rarely examined aspects of the twentieth century but also helps one see how astonishingly relevant this topic is in our contemporary world.
Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump
by Miles TaylorINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The author behind the &“eye-popping&” (CNN) #1 New York Times bestseller A Warning presents an urgent look at how our deeply divided nation is setting the stage for &“The Next Trump.&”Donald Trump will be president again, whether he is on the ballot or not. That is because Trumpism is overtaking the Republican Party and will mount a vigorous comeback, potentially in the hands of a savvier successor—The Next Trump. This prophecy will come true, according to Miles Taylor, if we do not learn the lessons of the recent past. With the 2024 election approaching, the formerly &“Anonymous&” official is back with bombshell revelations and a sobering national forecast. Through interviews with dozens of ex-Trump aides and government leaders, Taylor predicts what could happen inside &“Trump 2.0,&” the White House of a more competent and more formidable copycat. What sounds like a political thriller—from shadowy presidential powers and CIA betrayals to angry henchmen and assassination plots—is instead America&’s political reality, as Taylor uses untold stories to shed light on the ex-President&’s unfulfilled plans, the dark forces haunting our civic lives, and how we can thwart the rise of extremism in the United States. Blowback is also a surprisingly emotional and self-critical portrait of a dissenter, whose own unmasking provides a vivid warning about what happens when we hide the truth from others and, most importantly, ourselves.
Blue Planet Law: The Ecology of our Economic and Technological World (Sustainable Development Goals Series)
by Maria da Glória Garcia António CortêsBlue Planet Law is the global and future-oriented environmental law that is necessary to face the global environmental crisis in the Anthropocene, assuming especially the link between climate action (SDG 13) and ocean sustainability (SDG 14). This open access book focuses on means of overcoming global environmental problems such as climate change, ocean degradation and biodiversity loss and the consequent risks for human life, health, food and wellbeing. It explores how environmental law, at the international, European and national levels, might set economic and technological development on a more sustainable path. Law must engage in dialogue with other areas such as philosophy, economics, ecology, and biology. This book highlights protection of the climate and the oceans and sustainable use of natural resources, through new policies, economies and technologies, including biotechnology, with a view to the preservation of life, health, food and a healthy environment for the present and future generations. The book may be seen as a contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 13 and 14 and a tribute to the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Conference (1972), on its 50th Anniversary.
Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962 (South Asia in Motion)
by Kalyani RamnathFor more than century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work. This all changed with the war and as India, Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya wrested independence from the British empire. Set against the tumult of the postwar period, Boats in a Storm centers on the legal struggles of migrants to retain their traditional rhythms and patterns of life, illustrating how they experienced citizenship and decolonization. Even as nascent citizenship regimes and divergent political trajectories of decolonization papered over migrations between South and Southeast Asia, migrants continued to recount cross-border histories in encounters with the law. These accounts, often obscured by national and international political developments, unsettle the notion that static national identities and loyalties had emerged, fully formed and unblemished by migrant pasts, in the aftermath of empires. Drawing on archival materials from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, London, and Singapore, Kalyani Ramnath narrates how former migrants battled legal requirements to revive prewar circulations of credit, capital, and labor, in a postwar context of rising ethno-nationalisms that accused migrants of stealing jobs and hoarding land. Ultimately, Ramnath shows how decolonization was marked not only by shipwrecked empires and nation-states assembled and ordered from the debris of imperial collapse, but also by these forgotten stories of wartime displacements, their unintended consequences, and long afterlives.