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Nollywood: The Creation of Nigerian Film Genres
by Jonathan HaynesNigeria's Nollywood has rapidly grown into one of the world's largest film industries, radically altering media environments across Africa and in the diaspora; it has also become one of African culture's most powerful and consequential expressions, powerfully shaping how Africans see themselves and are seen by others. With this book, Jonathan Haynes provides an accessible and authoritative introduction to this vast industry and its film culture. Haynes describes the major Nigerian film genres and how they relate to Nigerian society--its values, desires, anxieties, and social tensions--as the country and its movies have developed together over the turbulent past two decades. As he shows, Nollywood is a form of popular culture; it produces a flood of stories, repeating the ones that mean the most to its broad audience. He interprets these generic stories and the cast of mythic figures within them: the long-suffering wives, the business tricksters, the Bible-wielding pastors, the kings in their traditional regalia, the glamorous young professionals, the emigrants stranded in New York or London, and all the rest. Based on more than twenty years of research, Haynes's survey of Nollywood's history and genres is unprecedented in scope, while his book also vividly describes landmark films, leading directors, and the complex character of this major branch of world cinema.
Nomad
by Ayaan Hirsi Ali"This woman is a major hero of our time." --Richard Dawkins Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world's attention with Infidel, her compelling coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom--her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women's every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values. In these pages Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after she broke with her family, and how she struggled to throw off restrictive superstitions and misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. Nomad is a portrait of a family torn apart by the clash of civilizations. But it is also a touching, uplifting, and often funny account of one woman's discovery of today's America. While Hirsi Ali loves much of what she encounters, she fears we are repeating the European mistake of underestimating radical Islam. She calls on key institutions of the West--including universities, the feminist movement, and the Christian churches--to enact specific, innovative remedies that would help other Muslim immigrants to overcome the challenges she has experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism. This is Hirsi Ali's intellectual coming-of-age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and that also conveys an urgent message and mission--to inform the West of the extent of the threat from Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. A celebration of free speech and democracy, Nomad is an important contribution to the history of ideas, but above all a rousing call to action.
Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
by Gaia Vince“The MOST IMPORTANT BOOK I imagine I'll ever read.”—Mary RoachFROM AN AWARD-WINNING SCIENCE JOURNALIST comes an urgent investigation of environmental migration—the most underreported, seismic consequence of our climate crisis that will force us to change where—and how—we live.“An IMPORTANT and PROVOCATIVE start to a crucial conversation.” —Bill McKibben“We are facing a species emergency. We can survive, but to do so will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken. This is the biggest human crisis you’ve never heard of.”Drought-hit regions bleeding those for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades. What exactly is happening, Vince asks? And how will this new great migration reshape us all?In this deeply-reported clarion call, Vince draws on a career of environmental reporting and over two years of travel to the front lines of climate migration across the globe, to tell us how the changes already in play will transform our food, our cities, our politics, and much more. Her findings are answers we all need, now more than ever.
Nomad Codes
by Erik Davis Susan WillmarthIn these wide-ranging essays, Erik Davis explores the codes-spiritual, cultural, and embodied-that people use to escape the limitation of their lives and enrich their experience of the world. These include Asian religious traditions and West African trickster gods, Western occult and esoteric lore, postmodern theory and psychedelic science, as well as festival scenes such as Burning Man (of which Davis is the best-known chronicler). Articles on media technology further explore themes Davis took up in his acclaimed book Techgnosis, while his profiles of West Coast poets, musicians, and mystics extend the California terrain he previously mapped in The Visionary State.Whether his subject is collage art or the "magickal realism" of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, transvestite Burmese spirit mediums or Ufology, tripster king Terence McKenna or dub maestro Lee Perry, Davis writes with keen yet skeptical sympathy, intellectual subtlety and wit, and unbridled curiosity.The common thread running through all these pieces is what Davis calls "modern esoterica," which he describes in his preface as a 'no-man's-land located somewhere between anthropology and mystical pulp, between the zendo and the metal club, between cultural criticism and extraordinary experience, whether psychedelic, or yogic, or technological." Such an ambiguous and startling landscape demands that the intrepid adventurer shed any territorial claims and go nomad. Davis wanders with sharp eyes and an open mind, which is why Peter Lamborn Wilson calls him "the best of all guides to modern American spirituality."
Nomad-State Relationships in International Relations: Before and After Borders
by Jamie LevinThis book explores non-state actors that are or have been migratory, crossing borders as a matter of practice and identity. Where non-state actors have received considerable attention amongst political scientists in recent years, those that predate the state—nomads—have not. States, however, tend to take nomads quite seriously both as a material and ideational threat. Through this volume, the authors rectify this by introducing nomads as a distinct topic of study. It examines why states treat nomads as a threat and it looks particularly at how nomads push back against state intrusions. Ultimately, this exciting volume introduces a new topic of study to IR theory and politics, presenting a detailed study of nomads as non-state actors.
Nomadic New Women: Exile and Border-Crossing between Spain and the Americas, Early to Mid-Twentieth Century
by Renée M. Silverman Esther Sánchez-PardoNomadic New Women: Exile and Border-Crossing between Spain and the Americas, Early to Mid-Twentieth Century examines how gender and sexuality, border-crossing and exile intersect in women’s intellectual and artistic practices during the volatile historical period of the first half of the twentieth century, in and around Spain and the Americas. Each of the twelve chapters in this highly interdisciplinary volume analyzes the combined impact of gender and sexual identity, and the traversing of particular national and world-regional boundaries, on creative work. Together and separately, the contributors push the limits of past and present research on exile and migration, displacement and nomadism to reveal how the complex interrelationships among gender, sexuality, and cultural production come under intense pressure by the crossing of borders.
Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti (Gender And Culture Ser.)
by Rosi BraidottiRosi Braidotti's nomadic theory outlines a sustainable modern subjectivity as one in flux, never opposed to a dominant hierarchy yet intrinsically other, always in the process of becoming, and perpetually engaged in dynamic power relations both creative and restrictive. Nomadic theory offers an original and powerful alternative for scholars working in cultural and social criticism and has, over the past decade, crept into continental philosophy, queer theory, and feminist, postcolonial, techno-science, media, and race studies, as well as into architecture, history, and anthropology. This collection provides a core introduction to Braidotti's nomadic theory and its innovative formulations, which playfully engage with Deleuze, Foucault, Irigaray, and a host of political and cultural issues.Arranged thematically, essays begin with such concepts as sexual difference and embodied subjectivity and follow with explorations in technoscience, feminism, postsecular citizenship, and the politics of affirmation. Braidotti develops a distinctly positive critical theory that rejuvenates the experience of political scholarship. Inspired yet not confined by Deleuzian vitalism, with its commitment to the ontology of flows, networks, and dynamic transformations, she emphasizes affects, imagination, and creativity and the politics of radical immanence. Incorporating ideas from Nietzsche and Spinoza as well, Braidotti establishes a critical-theoretical framework equal parts critique and creation. Ever mindful of the perils of defining difference in terms of denigration and the related tendency to subordinate sexualized, racialized, and naturalized others, she explores the eco-philosophical implications of nomadic theory, feminism, and the irreducibility of sexual difference and sexuality. Her dialogue with technoscience is crucial to nomadic theory, which deterritorializes the established understanding of what counts as human, along with our relationship to animals, the environment, and changing notions of materialism. Keeping her distance from the near-obsessive focus on vulnerability, trauma, and melancholia in contemporary political thought, Braidotti promotes a politics of affirmation that has the potential to become its own generative life force.
Nomadic and Indigenous Spaces: Productions and Cognitions
by Peter Koch Judith Miggelbrink Joachim Otto Habeck Nuccio MazzulloThis volume is devoted to aspects of space that have thus far been largely unexplored. How space is perceived and cognised has been discussed from different stances, but there are few analyses of nomadic approaches to spatiality. Nor is there a sufficient number of studies on indigenous interpretations of space, despite the importance of territory and place in definitions of indigeneity. At the intersection of geography and anthropology, the authors of this volume combine general reflections on spatiality with case studies from the Circumpolar North and other nomadic settings. Spatial perceptions and practices have been profoundly transformed by new technologies as well as by new modes of social and political interaction. How do these changes play out in the everyday lives, identifications and political projects of nomadic and indigenous people? This question has been broached from two seemingly divergent stances: spatial cognition, on the one hand, and production of space, on the other. Bringing these two approaches together, this volume re-aligns the different strings of scholarship on spatiality, making them applicable and relevant for indigenous and nomadic conceptualizations of space, place and territory.
Nomadland
by Jessica BruderACADEMY AWARD WINNER: Best Picture, Best Director & Best ActressStarring Oscar winner Frances McDormand & directed by Chloé Zhao'Sublimely written' Sunday Times'Scorching, beautifully written, vivid, disturbing (and occasionally wryly funny)' Rebecca SolnitNomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy - one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of people who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.From the beetroot fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labour pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads.Golden Globes Winner: Best Film, Best DirectorBafta Winner: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress
Nomadland: Surviving America In The Twenty-first Century
by Jessica BruderThe end of retirement? <P><P>From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves “workampers.” <P><P>On frequently traveled routes between seasonal jobs, Jessica Bruder meets people from all walks of life: a former professor, a McDonald’s vice president, a minister, a college administrator, and a motorcycle cop, among many others—including her irrepressible protagonist, a onetime cocktail waitress, Home Depot clerk, and general contractor named Linda May. <P><P>In a secondhand vehicle she christens “Van Halen,” Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying Linda May and others from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable “Earthship” home, they have not given up hope. <P><P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Nomads and the Outside World, Second Edition
by Anatoly M. Khazanov Julia CrookendenHailed by reviewers as "majestic and magisterial," Nomads and the Outside World was first published in English in 1984. With the author's new introduction and an updated bibliography, this classic is now available in an edition accessible to students. From reviews of the first edition: "Magisterial. . . . Combining a phenomenal erudition, a candid judgment, and a subtle sense of irony, Khazanov sets out to challenge the orthodox view of nomadic feudalism and, in the process, has produced the first comparative survey of pastoral societies that can claim to be truly comprehensive, covering their history in Eurasia, the Middle East, and Africa from the origins of pastoralism to the dawn of the modern era. "--Tim Ingold, Current Anthropology "This is the best study on pastoral nomadism that the reviewer has ever read. At last we have a major attempt to present the whole phenomenon in historical, ecological, spatial and structural perspective. . . . Superb scholarship. It is the kind of work that can only be produced as a result of years of specific research, much deep thinking . . . and a determination to reject cant. "--John C. Wilkinson, Geographical Journal "Khazanov's book on pastoral nomadism is a heroic endeavor of a kind no one has seriously attempted before. . . . Particularly valuable to western readers are the materials on the numerous peoples of Central Asia and Siberia . . . and their integration with analysis of more familiar societies such as those of North and East Africa and the Middle East. . . . The insights provided by this book are too numerous to list. "--Caroline Humphrey, Times Literary Supplement
Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran: The Qashqa'i in an Era of Change (Iranian Studies)
by Lois BeckExamining the rapid transition in Iran from a modernizing, westernizing, secularizing monarchy (1941-79) to a hard-line, conservative, clergy-run Islamic republic (1979-), this book focuses on the ways this process has impacted the Qashqa’i—a rural, nomadic, tribally organized, Turkish-speaking, ethnic minority of a million and a half people who are dispersed across the southern Zagros Mountains. Analysing the relationship between the tribal polity and each of the two regimes, the book goes on to explain the resilience of the people’s tribal organizations, kinship networks, and politicized ethnolinguistic identities to demonstrate how these structures and ideologies offered the Qashqa’i a way to confront the pressures emanating from the two central governments. Existing scholarly works on politics in Iran rarely consider Iranian society outside the capital of Tehran and beyond the reach of the details of national politics. Local-level studies on Iran—accounts of the ways people actually lived—are now rare, especially after the revolution. Based on long-term anthropological research, Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran provides a unique insight into how national-level issues relate to the local level and will be of interest to scholars and researchers in Anthropolgy, Iranian Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.
Nomads in the Sedentary World
by Andre Wink Anatoly M. KhazanovStudies the role played by nomads in the political, linguistic, socio-economic and cultural development of the sedentary world around them. Spans regions from Hungary to Africa, India and China, and periods from the first millennium BC to early modern times.
Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World
by Anthony Sattin“Sattin is a terrific storyteller.” —David Farley, New York Times The remarkable story of how nomads have fostered and refreshed civilization throughout our history. Moving across millennia, Nomads explores the transformative and often bloody relationship between settled and mobile societies. Often overlooked in history, the story of the umbilical connections between these two very different ways of living presents a radical new view of human civilization. From the Neolithic revolution to the twenty-first century via the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the great nomadic empires of the Arabs and Mongols, the Mughals and the development of the Silk Road, nomads have been a perpetual counterbalance to the empires created by the power of human cities. Exploring the evolutionary biology and psychology of restlessness that makes us human, Anthony Sattin’s sweeping history charts the power of nomadism from before the Bible to its decline in the present day. Connecting us to mythology and the records of antiquity, Nomads explains why we leave home, and why we like to return again. This is the history of civilization as told through its outsiders.
Nomeolvides Armenuhi (Edición actualizada): La historia de mi abuela armenia
by Magda TagtachianLa conmovedora historia de Armenuhi, abuela de la autora, que sobrevivió a la persecución y muerte en el Genocidio Armenio y llegó sola a la Argentina a los 14 años. Armenuhi enhebró en Buenos Aires el presente y futuro de toda la familia. Fue paciente, amorosa y determinada. Protegió y guió a cada uno de los suyos, como lo había hecho su padre cuando escapaban por el desierto con hambre, frío y sed. Cuando se desencadenó la feroz persecución contra el pueblo armenio, en 1915, Armenuhi tenía un año y medio y vivía con su familia en el pueblo de Aintab, por entonces parte del Imperio Otomano. Como muchos de sus compatriotas, viajó oculta en alforjas cuando, en su huida, los padres cruzaron a pie el desierto Der Zor, sin alimentos ni agua. Tres años después regresaron, pero el sueño duró poco. Esta vez, para salvarse debieron arrojarse de un tren en movimiento que los llevaba a un destino siniestro donde los armenios morían extenuados, calcinados por el sol, o vejados a manos de los soldados otomanos. Apenas adolescente, Armenuhi (que significa "mujer armenia") fue enviada a Buenos Aires para casarse con Yervant, un hombre que doblaba su edad y a quien jamás había visto. Con él convivió cincuenta años, y juntos fundaron una familia que se hizo enorme y permanece hasta hoy entrelazada. Incansable, Armenuhi transitó durante años los pasillos de consulados, embajadas y la Cruz Roja para traer a sus padres y sus hermanos desde Oriente medio y ayudar a su hermana a salir de la Armenia soviética. Hurgando en recuerdos propios y familiares, Magda Tagtachian reconstruye en Nomeolvides Armenuhi la vida de una mujer que sobrevivió al genocidio de su pueblo y que, con amor y determinación, dedicó su vida a proteger y guiar a cada uno de los suyos.
Nomography (Theory Redux)
by Eloy Fernández PortaWhat if the most joyful act was not to transgress a norm but to erect it? What if creativity consisted in enunciating a law under the pretext of violating it? And what if it turned out that you, who claim to prefer exceptions, only talk about them because they allow you to imagine the rules? This book proposes a provocative interpretation of the dynamic relationship between the normative and the transgressive. Combining sociology, biopolitics and satire, it offers a surprising theory of normative imagination as a cognitive mode characteristic of the era of emotional capitalism. Gender, fashion, artistic creation and surveillance are analyzed from the perspective of a regulatory drive, a continuously renovated and imperative push for normalcy that no longer comes from factual powers but from citizens themselves. These, united in a spontaneous popular court, armed with smartphones and driven by juridical compulsion, become the axis of societies of control. In this way the affective ways of constructing subjectivity are replaced by the distinctive pathology of our times, the name of the globalized game: normopathy for all.
Non-Aligned Psychiatry in the Cold War: Revolution, Emancipation and Re-Imagining the Human Psyche (Mental Health in Historical Perspective)
by Ana AntićThis book explores the relationship between socialist psychiatry and political ideology during the Cold War, tracing Yugoslav ‘psy’ sciences as they experienced multiple internationalisations and globalisations in the post-WWII period. These unique transnational connections – with West, East and South – remain at the centre of this book. The author argues that the ‘psy’ disciplines provide a window onto the complications of Cold War internationalism, offering an opportunity to re-think postwar Europe's internal dynamics. She tells an alternative, pan-European narrative of the post-1945 period, demonstrating that, in the Cold War, there existed sites of collaboration and vigorous exchange between the two ideologically opposed camps, and places like Yugoslavia provided a meeting point, where ideas, frameworks and professional and cultural networks from both sides of the Iron Curtain could overlap and transform each other. Moreover, the book offers the first analysis of East European psychiatrists’ contacts with and contributions to the decolonizing world, exploring their participation in broader political discussions about decolonization, anti-imperialism and non-alignment. The Yugoslav brand of East-West psychoanalysis and psychotherapy bred a truly unique intellectual framework, which enabled psychiatrists to think through a set of political and ideological dilemmas regarding the relationship between individuals and social structures. This book offers a thorough reinterpretation of the notion of ‘communist psychiatry’ as a tool used solely for political oppression, and instead emphasises the political interventions of East European psychiatry and psychoanalysis.
Non-Artistic Kitsch
by Michał SzostakThe book aims to provide a contemporary individual with an extensive but focused set of examples of kitsch in non-artistic spheres to create theoretical and practical backgrounds for conscious recognition of kitsch in fields like psychology, education, politics, law, religion, terrorism, television, or journalism. Two perspectives are underlined: 1) the consciousness of the presence and role of kitsch experience within the philosophy of living and 2) the management of kitsch experience within the philosophy of living (kitsch as a means for achieving goals). Due to the diverse topics covered by particular chapters, no unified methodology is applied in the whole volume. However, due to the kitsch’s complex and metaphysical character, the only fundament is using the “kitsch experience theory” (Szostak and Sułkowski, 2020) to narrate the volume coherently. The authors apply a qualitative methodological approach, extensively using case studies, comparative analyses, and ethnographic focus.
Non-Binary Family Configurations: Intersections of Queerness and Homonormativity
by Brian Joseph Gilley Giuseppe MasulloThis volume provides a close look at the ways in which LGBTQ2 people form familial bonds. It brings together stories from non-binary families across continents and cultures and recenters care as a foundational value for creating familial ties. This volume therefore addresses a gap in the literature concerning non-binary family configurations by going beyond the legal battle for non-binary partnership rights. In recent discussions on marriage equality, the notion of familial bonds, which was important in early discussions on non-binary family research, has been decentered in favor of legal and homonormative understandings of individual rights. This volume centers familial bonds as the first step toward reimagining how to do research on the family and adds to research on family studies as well as gender studies.Students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, social work, gender studies, family research, well-being research, and anyone else working on or with non-binary families will find this book highly topical and interesting.
Non-Binary Gender Identities: The Language of Becoming (Gender and Sexualities in Psychology)
by Sebastian CordobaNon-Binary Gender Identities examines how non-binary people discover, adopt, and negotiate language in a variety of social settings, both offline and online. It considers how language, in the form of gender-neutral pronouns, names, and labels, is a central aspect of identity for many and has been the subject of much debate in recent years. Cordoba captures the psychological, social, and linguistic experiences of non-binary people by illustrating the multiple, complex, and evolving ways in which non-binary people use language to express their gender identities, bodies, authenticity, and navigate social interactions – especially those where their identities are not affirmed. These findings shed light on the gender and linguistic becomings of non-binary people, a pioneering theoretical framework developed in the book, which reflects the dynamic realities of language, subjectivities, and the materiality of the body. Informed by these findings, the text offers recommendations for policy makers and practitioners, designed to facilitate gender-related communication and decrease language-related distress on non-binary people, as well as the general population. This important book advances our understanding of non-binary gender identities by employing innovative methodologies – including corpus-based research and network visualisation – furthering and developing theory, and yielding original insights. It is essential reading for students and academics in social psychology and gender studies, as well as anyone interested in furthering their understanding of non-binary gender identities.
Non-Binary Genders: Navigating Communities, Identities, and Healthcare
by Ben VincentMethodologically innovative in its use of mixed-media diary research, this timely book offers a focused sociological study of non-binary people’s identities and experiences in the UK. From negotiating a sense of legitimacy when ‘not feeling trans enough’ to how identities can shift over time, it reveals important nuances of diverse gender identities while offering crucial insights into trans-related healthcare inequalities. The findings of this ground-breaking research mark an important contribution to the wider fields of gender studies, LGBTQ scholarship and medical policy.
Non-Binary Lives: An Anthology of Intersecting Identities
by Daniel Morrison Lucy Nicholas Alex Iantaffi Fred Langridge Igi Moon Sam Hope Calvin Hall Jespa Jacob Smith Vynn Ynda Jas Lj Ludo Tolu Mina Tolu Kimwei McCarthy Annelyn Janib Dang Nguyen Rev Rowan Bombadil Ed Lord Eli Effinger-Weintraub Al Head Chai-Yoel Korn Karen Pollock Mud Howard Cal Orre S. W. Underwood H Howitt Francis Ray White Drew SimmsWhat does it mean to be non-binary in the 21st Century?Our gender identity is impacted by our personal histories; the cultures, communities and countries we are born into; and the places we go and the people we meet. But the representation of contemporary non-binary identities has been limited, until now.Pushing the narrative around non-binary identities further than ever before, this powerful collection of essays represents the breadth of non-binary lives, across the boundaries of race, class, age, sexuality, faith and more.Leading non-binary people share stories of their intersecting lives; how it feels to be non-binary and neurodiverse, the challenges of being a non-binary pregnant person, what it means to be non-binary within the Quaker community, the joy of reaching gender euphoria.This thought-provoking anthology shows that there is no right or wrong way to be non-binary.
Non-Bullshit Innovation: Radical Ideas from the World’s Smartest Minds
by David Rowan*updated with new material*'Digital transformation' and 'disruptive innovation' used to be empty buzzwords serving to justify pointless box-ticking and absurd corporate posturing. And then a global pandemic suddenly forced every kind of organization to embrace genuine, urgent innovation as a matter of survival. But how can we ensure that the non-bullshit version of innovation delivers economic recovery at this crucial moment? Are there strategies we can all adapt from the world's most creative leaders to innovate effectively in our own lives?David Rowan, founding editor-in-chief of WIRED UK, embarked on a twenty country quest to find out. Packed full of tips for anyone looking for radical ways to adapt and thrive in the digital age, this carefully curated selection of stories will prepare you for whatever the future may bring - because the world will never move this slowly again.___________________________'In this remarkable book, David Rowan tells a story of transformation: how an organisation has found a new way of doing things through innovation driven by ruthless entrepreneurial imagination. What is especially useful is that he does not just stick with small startups, let alone dreamy "inventors". He finds innovation in big companies and even within governments.' - Matt Ridley, The Times
Non-Equilibrium Social Science and Policy
by Paul Ormerod Andrzej Nowak Jeffrey Johnson Bridget Rosewell Yi-Cheng ZhangThe overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture the economic realities we observe in the world today - with vested interests getting too often in the way of real advances. Insights into behavioral economics and modern computing techniques have made possible both the integration of larger information sets and the exploration of disequilibrium behavior. The domain-based chapters of this work illustrate how economic theory is the only branch of social sciences which still holds to its old paradigm of an equilibrium science - an assumption that has already been relaxed in all related fields of research in the light of recent advances in complex and dynamical systems theory and related data mining. The other chapters give various takes on policy and decision making in this context. Written in nontechnical style throughout, with a mix of tutorial and essay-like contributions, this book will benefit all researchers, scientists, professionals and practitioners interested in learning about the 'thinking in complexity' to understand how socio-economic systems really work.
Non-Governmental Organisations and International Law
by Prahlad RaiThis book explores how non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with their sphere of influence within the State and beyond, enrich the international community by working on critical areas affecting people’s lives and expectations, to facilitate a more humanising international law. It provides ideas, highlights issues, and identifies actors, actions, and the scope of NGOs in international law. It charts possibilities and limitations of NGOs within the legal framework of a State and its evolution over the years. The book highlights how NGOs, having obtained 'consultative status' from the UN Economic and Social Council, have now extended their access and area of influence to international actors like inter-governmental organisations, international courts and tribunals. It provides an overview of NGO's performance and the important role they play in the making of human rights, protection of environment and business ethics. The book is primarily doctrinal containing case studies of important NGOs. The purview is an inquiry, analysis and overview of literature of NGOs in international law from a wide range of sources. The book will help shape the debate over power and functions of NGOs in the background of new loci of NGOs’ work. It is useful for students, research scholars, the NGO community, corporations' CSR departments, and concerned governmental agencies. Additionally, being interdisciplinary in nature, it caters to the demands of politics, sociology, management, public policy and social work apart from law.