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Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex
by Megan WalkerThis edited collection interrogates how social and cultural representations of individuals with intersex variations impact how they are understood and treated from legal and medical perspectives across the world. Contributors consider how novelists, filmmakers, artists, and medical professionals have represented people with intersex variations, and highlight the importance of ethical representation and autonomy to encourage wider cultural and medical knowledge of intersex variations as a naturally occurring phenomenon. The text also examines the ways in which individuals with intersex variations are represented and viewed in India, Italy, Pakistan and Israel, as well as how this impacts decision making for the individuals, families and medical providers. This book argues that reactions to intersex variations will not change unless they are no longer presented as treatable disorders. It positions representation at the forefront, shifting the emphasis away from a concern for maintaining gender norms to upholding the human rights of intersex people. This volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars in intersex studies as well as policymakers and activists.
The Responsibility of Science (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science #57)
by Harald A. MiegThis open access book provides an overview of issues of scientific responsibility. The volume comprises three types of contributions: first, analyses of the responsibility of science; second, analyses of the structural conditions for science and its responsibility; and third, normative versions of scientific responsibility. The questions and problems dealt with include science as a profession, ambivalence of research and dual-use, innovation vs. precaution, notions of responsibility, the role of science within society and its relation to human rights, as well as scientific and public discourses. The book addresses scholars in the fields of Science Studies and Research Policy.This is an open access book.
Decline and Prosper!: Changing Global Birth Rates and the Advantages of Fewer Children
by Vegard SkirbekkGlobally, women are having half as many children as they had just fifty years ago. Why have birth rates fallen, and how will low fertility affect our shared future? In Decline and Prosper!, demographic expert Vegard Skirbekk offers readers an accessible, comprehensive and evidence-based overview of human reproduction. Readers learn about the evolution of childbearing across different populations and how fertility is related to (changes in) our reproductive capacity, contraception, education, religion, partnering, policies, economics, assisted reproduction, and catastrophes. Readers will explore the future of family size and its impact on human welfare, women’s empowerment and the environment. Skirbekk argues that low fertility is on the whole a good thing, while recognizing the challenges of population aging and “coincidental” childlessness. A balanced, integrative examination of one of the most important issues of our time, Decline and Prosper! drives home the fact that we must ultimately adapt to a world with fewer children. The book will be invaluable to anyone who is interested in the far-reaching effects of global fertility, including researchers and students of demography, social statistics, medical sociologists, family and childhood studies, human geographers, sociology of culture, social and public policy.
Teaching Science Students to Communicate: A Practical Guide
by Susan Rowland Louise KuchelThis highly-readable book addresses how to teach effective communication in science. The first part of the book provides accessible context and theory about communicating science well, and is written by experts. The second part focuses on the practice of teaching communication in science, with ‘nuts and bolts’ lesson plans direct from the pens of practitioners. The book includes over 50 practice chapters, each focusing on one or more short teaching activities to target a specific aspect of communication, such as writing, speaking and listening. Implementing the activities is made easy with class run sheets, tips and tricks for instructors, signposts to related exercises and theory chapters, and further resources. Theory chapters help build instructor confidence and knowledge on the topic of communicating science. The teaching exercises can be used with science students at all levels of education in any discipline and curriculum – the only limitation is a wish to learn to communicate better! Targeted at science faculty members, this book aims to improve and enrich communication teaching within the science curriculum, so that science graduates can communicate better as professionals in their discipline and future workplace.
Digital Games After Climate Change (Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication)
by Benjamin J. AbrahamThis book presents the first sustained analysis of the digital game industry’s carbon footprint and its role in exacerbating global climate change. Identifying the ways videogames can actually help combat the climate crisis, it argues for the urgency of transitioning to a fully carbon neutral games industry, exploring the challenges and opportunities inherent in this undertaking. Beginning with an analysis of debates around the persuasive power of games, the book argues that real impact can only be achieved by focusing on the material conditions of game production – by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from making, selling, and playing games, as well as the hardware used to play them. Abraham makes a compelling argument that a sustainable games industry is possible, and outlines the actions that everyone can take to reduce the harms that digital games cause to people and planet.
Plato’s Labyrinth: Dinosaurs, Ancient Greeks, and Time Travelers (Science and Fiction)
by Michael CarrollOne wants to preserve history.Another seeks to resurrect a legendary army.A third plans to infuse the past with technology to save millions.If you could go back in time, what would you do?Something strange is going on at ChronoCorp. Coffin-shaped pods and glowing talismans, feathered dinosaurs and ancient murals; the private laboratory’s quirky scientists have been quite busy, indeed. The reason? Katya, Xavier, Todd, and colleagues are on a singular scientific mission: to surpass the limits of modern physics and unlock the power of time travel.Their early experiments have proved a resounding success, taking them to far-flung places in both time and space, from nineteenth-century New York to ancient Thera. But as their research progresses, the stakes get ever higher. Enter a world of competing interests and conflicting timelines, where nothing is quite what it seems. Why is Xavier acting so oddly? Where exactly did their eccentric benefactor Mila van Dijk get her wealth? What is the Primus Imperium, and what does its mysterious head—known only as “The Ambassador”—want from them? Come along as the colleagues at ChronoCorp and their ragtag allies race to sew up several unravelling timelines, battling those who would harm them in the past and present to preserve what is left of their future.
Social News: How Born-Digital Outlets Transformed Journalism
by Edward HurcombeThis book is the first to define and describe ‘social news’, a new kind of journalism emerging in response to social media. Drawing on the author’s extensive research into news and social media platforms, Social News critically examines the rise of well-known outlets such as BuzzFeed and Mic in the US, and Junkee and Pedestrian in Australia. Hurcombe argues that these outlets became successful by strategically engaging with social media, producing sociable content personalised for millennials. Such outlets have been criticised for violating the rules of ‘quality’ journalism. However, this book shows how social news has provided a platform for marginalised voices and has been able to engage readers neglected by legacy news. While social media is frequently seen as a threat to the news industry, Social News shows that digital platforms have been driving new forms of journalism: ones that challenge our understanding of what journalism is, can be, and should be.
Politics and Racism Beyond Nations: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Crises
by J. P. LinstrothThis book brings together theoretical knowledge from diverse fields as anthropology, biology, neurology, peace studies, political science, psychology, and sociology to address key challenges that transcend borders. It demonstrates how differences are created on many levels to reveal how the “othering project” is evident through national policies of immigration, through aspiring nationalisms, through genocidal inhumanity, and the subsequent effects of such othering evident in racial trauma. It further argues that we cannot limit our understanding of racism to forms of “white nationalism” or “whiteness movements” in the developed world and regions but look to the global formulation of such discrimination in colonial histories. The book introduces each chapter by providing rich ethnographic narratives from informants based upon the author’s research on nationalism, racism, genocide, terrorism, trauma, scientific tolerance, and love and peace as well as some auto-ethnographic narratives from the author’s research on these themes.
True Tales of Medical Physics: Insights into a Life-Saving Specialty
by Jacob Van DykSince the discovery of the x-ray over 125 years ago, scientists and medical professionals alike have harnessed the power of the atom to heal and protect. This book brings together an all-star cast of high-profile and award-winning scholars, introducing the general readership to an often unnoticed yet societally vital profession – medical physics. This collection of personal short stories offers an informal, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of these esteemed professionals, encapsulating their transformative “aha” moments within a whimsical hodgepodge of instructive and inspiring anecdotes. They even pass on words of wisdom discovered from their diverse experiences throughout the academic, clinical, and commercial worlds. The wealth of information packed into these vignettes runs the gamut from practical career advice to lighthearted tales of humorous misadventure, providing a tremendous overview of the breadth and depth of medical physics as a career and discipline while imparting sage advice that extends well beyond the field. In his Foreword to this book Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, provides his strong endorsement of the life-saving work carried out by medical physicists and the profession as a whole.From the general public to the budding student in search of career guidance, as well as young and seasoned practicing professionals, these thought-provoking, witty, and simply entertaining “untold stories” encourage the reader to reflect on and ponder the many enduring lessons born from unexpected life-turning events.
Micro-Management of Irregular Migration: Internal Borders and Public Services in London and Barcelona (IMISCOE Research Series)
by Reinhard SchweitzerThis open access book provides an analysis of the functioning, consequences and inherent limitations of internalised immigration control. By adopting the perspective of irregular residents as well as local service providers, the book sheds new light on the intricate mechanisms that either help or hinder the diffusion of immigration control into concrete institutional settings, like schools or hospitals. A simple and innovative analytical framework enables the systematic comparison of three different spheres of service provision across two distinct local as well as also national contexts. This is necessary to understand the complex interplay between formal law and policy, the intrinsic rules and logics operating within institutions, and the ethical or practical obligations and constraints attached to particular roles and professions. Based on empirical findings and rigorous analysis, the book argues that internalised control is part of the problem that irregular migration poses for society, rather than constituting a potential solution to it.
The Handbook of Security
by Martin GillThe substantially revised third edition of The Handbook of Security provides the most comprehensive analysis of scholarly security debates and issues to date. It reflects the developments in security technology, the convergence of the cyber and security worlds, and the fact that security management has become even more business focused. It covers newer topics like terrorism, violence, and cybercrime through various offence types such as commercial robbery and bribery. This handbook comprises mostly brand new chapters and a few thoroughly revised chapters, with discussions of the impact of the pandemic. It includes contributions from some of the world's leading scholars from an even broader geographic scale to critique the way security is provided and managed. It speaks to professionals working in security and students studying security-related courses.
Iberian Interfaces: Literary and Cultural Relations between Spain and Portugal, 1870-1930
by Antonio Sáez Delgado Santiago Pérez IsasiThis book explores a key historical moment for literary and cultural relations between Spain and Portugal. Focusing on the period between 1870 and 1930, it analyses the contacts between Portuguese and Spanish writers and artists of this period, showing that, at least among the cultural elites, there were intense and fruitful dialogues across political and linguistic borders. The book presents the Iberian Peninsula as a complex and multilingual cultural polysystem in which diverse literary cultures coexist and are mutually dependent upon each other. It offers a panoramic view of Iberian literary and cultural history, encompassing not just Portuguese and Spanish literary productions, but also Catalan, Galician and Basque works. Combining a clear theoretical foundation with deep historical knowledge and references to specific texts and works, the book offers a thorough introduction to Iberian literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Convergent Chinese Television Industries: An Ethnography of Chinese Production Cultures (Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business)
by Lisa LinThis book provides a rich description of the shifting production cultures in convergent Chinese television industries, through the examination of daily production practices, showing how they embody a new set of opportunities and tensions across strategic, programming and individual levels. Lin argues that the current Chinese television landscape is an ideological, cultural and financial paradox in which China’s one-party ideological control clashes with consumer-orientated capitalism and technological advancement. These tensions are finely poised between new opportunities for innovation and creative autonomy, and anxiety over political interference marked by censorship and state surveillance. Through its in depth study of ethnographic data across Chinese broadcast and digital streaming sectors (including CCTV, Hunan Broadcasting System, and Tencent Video), this book illuminates how Chinese producers have placed their aspirations for creative freedoms within technological advancements and rhetorical strategies, both demonstrating compliance with ideological control, and leaving room for resistance and resilience to one-party state ideology. Nuanced and timely, Convergent Chinese Television Industries unveils a complex picture of an industry undergoing dramatic transformations.
Adolescent Mental Health in The Middle East and North Africa (Global Perspectives on Health Geography)
by Caroline Barakat Fatme Al AnoutiThis 2-volume set focuses on adolescent health in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), and presents the latest research on the health risk behaviours and social behaviours that adolescents from the MENA region engage in. While there has been a surge in peer-reviewed research publications on population health in the MENA region in the last couple of decades, very few books offer a resource to address the diverse negative influences that disproportionately affect adolescents and children in the MENA region, including increased tobacco consumption culture, low emphasis on physical activity, increased sedentary behaviours, weak health policies, and societal issues related to displacement and political conflicts. These books offer a synthesis of current knowledge on adolescent health issues in the MENA region, and aim to provide evidence-informed adolescent health care practices that address current issues related to mental, physical, reproductive and nutritional health. Volume 1 focuses on mental health in the MENA region, the development and implementation of youth friendly public policies, and how to strategize in the age of COVID-19. The study will aid health care professionals, policy makers, government organizations and health program planners to assess current policies and practices related to adolescent health in the MENA region, and to identify the best courses of action moving forward.
Evil in the Modern World: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
by Laura Dryjanska Giorgio PacificiThis interesting volume focuses on a set of phenomena which increasingly alarm the political world and public opinion: from the more obvious ones like torture, disease, human trafficking, abuse, genocide, displacement, to more subtle forms found in sports, technology and law. It looks at how and why these phenomena are universally condemned, and could be considered to threaten the very foundations of modern democracy; yet continue to be tolerated. The volume therefore goes beyond what Hannah Arendt has called the "banality of evil" and discusses the presence of condemned and heinous practices in society as fluid and chaotic but as non-trivial; capable of great transmutations through various epochs. Practices and actions considered as "evil" manifest in situations where individuals or groups hold power or seize power, and the contributions in this volume explore the close relation between power and evil. The volume draws upon sociology, psychology, cultural studies, political science, as well as philosophy, theology, anthropology, and neurology of the individual and of the group to provide a comprehensive understanding of the multiple facets of evil in the contemporary world.
Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice: Playing on the Threshold (Palgrave Games in Context)
by Mike PieroVideo Game Chronotopes and Social Justice examines how the chronotope, which literally means “timespace,” is an effective interpretive lens through which to understand the cultural and ideological significance of video games. Using ‘slow readings’ attuned to deconstruction along the lines of post-structuralist theory, gender studies, queer studies, continental philosophy, and critical theory, Mike Piero exposes the often-overlooked misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, and patriarchal structures present in many Triple-A video games through their arrangement of timespace itself. Beyond understanding time and space as separate mechanics and dimensions, Piero reunites time and space through the analysis of six chronotopes—of the bonfire, the abject, the archipelago, the fart as pharmakon, madness, and coupled love—toward a poetic meaning making that is at the heart of play itself, all in affirmation of life, equity, and justice.
Gender and Migration: IMISCOE Short Reader (IMISCOE Research Series)
by Anastasia Christou Eleonore KofmanThis open access short reader offers a critical review of the debates on the transformation of migration and gendered mobilities primarily in Europe, though also engaging in wider theoretical insights. Building on empirical case studies and grounded in an analytical framework that incorporates both men and women, masculinities, sexualities and wider intersectional insights, this reader provides an accessible overview of conceptual developments and methodological shifts and their implications for a gendered understanding of migration in the past 30 years. It explores different and emerging approaches in major areas, such as: gendered labour markets across diverse sectors beyond domestic and care work to include skilled sectors of social reproduction; the significance of families in migration and transnational families; displacement, asylum and refugees and the incorporation of gender and sexuality in asylum determination; academic critiques and gendered discourses concerning integration often with the focus on Muslim women. The reader concludes with considerations of the potential impact of three notable developments on gendered migrations and mobilities: Black Lives Matter, Brexit and COVID-19. As such, it is a valuable resource for students, academics, policy makers, and practitioners.
Global Dance Cultures in the 1970s and 1980s: Disco Heterotopias (Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music)
by Flora Pitrolo Marko ZubakThis book explores some of disco’s other lives which thrived between the 1970s and the 1980s, from oil-boom Nigeria to socialist Czechoslovakia, from post-colonial India to war-torn Lebanon. It charts the translation of disco as a cultural form into musical, geo-political, ideological and sociological landscapes that fall outside of its original conditions of production and reception, capturing the variety of scenes, contexts and reasons for which disco took on diverse dimensions in its global journey. With its deep repercussions in visual culture, gender politics, and successive forms of popular music, art, fashion and style, disco as a musical genre and dance culture is exemplary of how a subversive, marginal scene – that of queer and Black New York undergrounds in the early 1970s – turned into a mainstream cultural industry. As it exploded, atomised and travelled, disco served a number of different agendas; its aesthetic rootedness in ideas of pleasure, transgression and escapism and its formal malleability, constructed around a four-on-the-floor beat, allowed it to permeate a variety of local scenes for whom the meaning of disco shifted, sometimes in unexpected and radical ways.
Feminist IR in Europe: Knowledge Production in Academic Institutions (Trends in European IR Theory)
by Maria Stern Ann E. TownsThe aim of this open access book is to take stock of, critically engage, and celebrate feminist IR scholarship produced in Europe. Organized thematically, the volume highlights a wealth of excellent scholarship, while also focusing on the politics of location and the international political economy of feminist knowledge production. Who are some of the central feminist scholars located in Europe? How might the concentration of these scholars in Northern Europe and the UK shape the contents of their scholarship? What have some of the main contributions been, in the study of the following themes: security; war and military; peace; migration; international political economy and development; foreign policy; diplomacy; and global governance and international organizations? The volume offers both an intellectual history and a sociology of feminist IR scholarship in Europe. It showcases the vitality and breadth of feminist IR traditions, while simultaneously calling attention to their partial nature, exclusions and silences.
Women, Migration and Gendered Experiences: The Case of Post-1991 Albanian Migration (IMISCOE Research Series)
by Ermira DanajThis open access book focuses on Albanian internal and international female migration and places gender at the heart of postsocialist transformation. It explores the vulnerabilities that arise for female citizens from the contradictory policies produced by the Albanian state. By illuminating the intersection of gender and migration, it shows how Albanian women are likely to embed themselves in complex social relations and migration trajectories. By focusing on various cases – internal, international, return, economic and student female migrants – the book underlines that migration does not follow any kind of evolutionary development, according to which women go from 'traditional’ to ‘modern' gender relations. By providing a compelling account on the complex negotiations and tactics women employ to deal with gender inequalities, this book leads to a better understanding of gender and migration entanglements. It is a useful read to students, academics in migration and gender studies as well as social scientists and policy-makers in European countries.
Cyberhate in the Context of Migrations (Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse)
by Angeliki Monnier Axel Boursier Annabelle SeoaneThis edited book takes an interdisciplinary approach to shed light on the complex dynamics involved in the incidence of online hate speech against migrants in user-generated contexts. The authors draw on case studies from Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK, bringing together qualitative and quantitative analyses on user-generated online comments. The authors argue that online hate speech against migrants must be understood as a symptom of a representation crisis on migration, which can only be fully perceived through the study of the complex linguistic, interactional and connective processes within which it emerges. They focus on representations and shared meanings, community building and otherness, and delve into the role of network ecosystems in the process of the construction of public problems. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and post-graduate students as well as academics working on hate speech and migration studies in a variety of fields, and can also contribute to improving research protocols for automated analyses and detections of online hate speech.
Adolescent Health in the Middle East and North Africa: An Epidemiological Perspective (Global Perspectives on Health Geography)
by Caroline Barakat Rania Dghaim Fatme Al AnoutiThis 2-volumeset focuses on adolescent health in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), and presents the latest research on the health risk behaviours and social behaviours that adolescents from the MENA region engage in. While there has been a surge in peer-reviewed research publications on population health in the MENA region in the last couple of decades, very few books offer a resource to address the diverse negative influences that disproportionately affect adolescents and children in the MENA region, including increased tobacco consumption culture, low emphasis on physical activity, increased sedentary behaviours, weak health policies, and societal issues related to displacement and political conflicts. These books offer a synthesis of current knowledge on adolescent health issues in the MENA region, and aim to provide evidence-informed adolescent health care practices that address current issues related to mental, physical, reproductive and nutritional health. Volume 2 focuses on nutritional and reproductive health in the MENA region, predictive modelling of obesity, determinants of sexual and oral health, HIV, and diabetes. The study will aid health care professionals, policy makers, government organizations and health program planners to assess current policies and practices related to adolescent health in the MENA region, and to identify the best courses of action moving forward.
Migration in Southern Africa: IMISCOE Regional Reader (IMISCOE Research Series)
by Pragna Rugunanan Nomkhosi Xulu-GamaThis open access Regional Reader proposes new ways of theorizing migration in Southern Africa by arguing that traditional western forms of theorizing do not adequately fit the South-South migration context. It explores the existing definitions of a ‘migrant’ with a view to conceptualise a definition which will speak to the complexities, envisioning a more inclusive Southern African region. The book investigates the various levels of migration moving from the local (rural to urban and urban to rural) to cross border migration; middle-class versus working-class migrant household livelihoods; livelihoods procurement versus wage earning; social capital (networks) and how they make meaning of their circumstances in a ‘foreign’ space. It also acknowledges the intertwined issues of gender and class as important in analyzing migration processes and the chapters feature both in varying dimensions. As such, the book provides a great resource for students, academics and policy makers.
Histories of Experience in the World of Lived Religion (Palgrave Studies in the History of Experience)
by Raisa Maria Toivo Sari Katajala-Peltomaa'At a historic moment, when religion shows all its social and political strength in various post-modern societies around our globe, this fascinating collection of studies from the Middle Ages to twentieth-century Europe demonstrates all the richness and innovative force of investigating individual and shared experiences when questioning the cultural, political and social place of religion in society. It also makes known in English the work of a series of Finnish historians elaborating together a pioneering vision of the notion of experience in the discipline of history.'- Piroska Nagy, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada This open access book offers a theoretical introduction to the history of experience on three conceptual levels: everyday experience, experience as process, and experience as structure. Chapters apply 'experience' to empirical case studies, exploring how people have made and shared their religion through experience in history. This book understands experience as a simultaneously socially constructed and intimately personal process that connects individuals to communities and past to future, thereby forming structures that create and direct societies. It represents the crossroads of a new field of the history of experience, and an established tradition of the history of lived religion. Chapters offer a longue durée view from the fourteenth-century heretics, via experiences of miracle, madness, sickness, suffering, prayer, conversion and death, to the religious artisanship of soldiers in the Second World War frontlines. It concentrates on Northern Europe, but includes materials from Italy, France and United Kingdom.
Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Humanities and Natural Sciences Interwoven for our Understanding of Textiles (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology)
by Agata Ulanowska Karina Grömer Ina Vanden Berghe Magdalena ÖhrmanThe diverse developments in textile research of the last decade, along with the increased recognition of the importance of textile studies in adjacent fields, now merit a dedicated, full-length publication entitled “Ancient Textile Production from an Interdisciplinary Perspective: Humanities and Natural Sciences Interwoven for our Understanding of Textiles”. With this volume, the authors and the editors wish to illustrate to the current impact of textile archaeology on the scholarly perception of the past (not limited to archaeology alone). The volume presents new insights into the consumption, meaning, use and re-use of textiles and dyes, all of which are topics of growing importance in textile research. As indicated by the title, we demonstrate the continued importance of interdisciplinarity by showcasing several ‘interwoven’ approaches to environmental and archaeological remains, textual and iconographic sources, archaeological experiments and ethnographic data, from a large area covering Europe and the Mediterranean, Near East, Africa and Asia. The chronological span is deliberately wide, including materials dating from c. 6th millennium BCE to c. mid-14th century CE. The volume is organised in four parts that aim to reflect the main areas of the textile research in 2020. After the two introductory chapters (Part I: About this Volume and Textile Research in 2020), follow two chapters referring to dyes and dyeing technology in which analytical and material-based studies are linked to contextual sources (Part II: Interdisciplinarity of Colour: Dye Analyses and Dyeing Technologies). The six chapters of Part III: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Textile Tools discuss textiles and textile production starting from the analyses of tools, whether functional or as representative of technological developments or user identity. Archaeological and cultural contexts as well as textile traditions are the main topics of the six chapters in Part IV: Traditions and Contexts: Fibres, Fabrics, Techniques, Uses and Meanings. The two final chapters in Part V: Digital Tools refer to the use of digital tools in textile research, presenting two different case studies.