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Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century (New Frontiers of Social Policy)
by Patrick Barron Louise Cord José Cuesta Espinoza Michael WoolcockAll development is about people: the transformative process to equip, link, and enable groups of people to drive change and create something new to benefit society. Development can promote societies where all people can thrive, but the change process can be complex, challenging, and socially contentious. Continued progress toward sustainable development is not guaranteed. The current overlapping crises of COVID-19, climate change, rising levels of conflict, and a global economic slowdown are inflaming long-standing challenges—exacerbating inequality and deep-rooted systemic inequities. Addressing these challenges will require social sustainability in addition to economic and environmental sustainability. Social Sustainability in Development: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century seeks to advance the concept of social sustainability and sharpen its analytical foundations. The book emphasizes social sustainability’s four key components: social cohesion, inclusion, resilience, and process legitimacy. It posits that •Social sustainability increases when more people feel part of the development process and believe that they and their descendants will benefit from it. •Communities and societies that are more socially sustainable are more willing and able to work together to overcome challenges, deliver public goods, and allocate scarce resources in ways perceived to be legitimate and fair so that all people may thrive over time. By identifying interventions that work to promote the components of social sustainability and highlighting the evidence of their links to key development outcomes, this book provides a foundation for using social sustainability to help address the many challenges of our time.
Social Sustainability in Unsustainable Society: Concepts, Critiques and Counter-Narratives (Ethical Economy #67)
by Jo Krøjer Luise Li LangergaardThis book offers a unique, critical exploration of concepts and practices of social sustainability through both a critical concept analysis as well as empirical studies of practices that undermine social sustainability. It addresses the questions: What is the main role of social relations and social practice in the transition from fundamentally unsustainable societies and local practices towards a sustainable future? And how does economical sustainability reduce or enhance social sustainability? The chapters in this work define and understand social sustainability in relation to principles such as solidarity, community, welfare, reciprocity, and regenerative co-existence. These principles are analyzed through the lens of emotions, respect, carefulness, sensitivity, and art, to establish counter-principles and narratives to principles like growth, efficiency, capitalism, and mastery of nature. Such counter-narratives to mainstream understandings and histories of economy aid in shedding light on a variety of different aspects of sustainability. The book presents a methodological plurality including conceptual and empirical approaches, praxis-oriented and inductive approaches. The chapters present interdisciplinary approaches concerning welfare, ecology, sociology, organization and economy, social psychology and aesthetics and therefore appeal to a broad audience of scholars and academics.
Social Sustainability in Urban Areas: Communities, Connectivity and the Urban Fabric
by Judith Allen Tony Manzi Karen Lucas Tony Lloyd-JonesThis groundbreaking new volume on social sustainability offers both critique and creative solutions. It challenges the conventional wisdoms of social sustainability and presents practical examples of projects that will help practitioners to think carefully and innovatively about the situations they are addressing. The book consists of original contributions from academics working in the fields of urban planning, housing, regeneration, transport and international sustainable development. Drawing on case study research gathered in the UK, Europe and Africa, it adopts an original, interdisciplinary approach to both theory and practice, illustrating the challenges and opportunities facing policy-makers and practitioners attempting to develop, manage and maintain sustainable communities. The authors argue that the dominant approach of 'how to do' small scale social sustainability fails to locate it within broader social processes. Ignoring the context not only sustains, but also actively reproduces wider inequalities. The book presents a new, more coherent and more complete approach to issues of social sustainability in urban areas. The book approaches current urban policy discourses in three different ways, represented by three sections: firstly focusing on small places within the urban fabric, secondly addressing the whole urban fabric by examining whether changing urban living and working patterns. The third section explores some of the ways that funding can be secured to achieve the aims of social sustainability and the social planning associated with it.
Social Synthesis: Finding Dynamic Patterns in Complex Social Systems (Complexity in Social Science)
by Philip HaynesHow is it possible to understand society and the problems it faces? What sense can be made of the behaviour of markets and government interventions? How can citizens understand the course that their lives take and the opportunities available to them? There has been much debate surrounding what methodology and methods are appropriate for social science research. In a larger sense, there have been differences in quantitative and qualitative approaches and some attempts to combine them. In addition, there have also been questions of the influence of competing values on all social activities versus the need to find an objective understanding. Thus, this aptly named volume strives to develop new methods through the practice of ‘social synthesis’, describing a methodology that perceives societies and economies as manifestations of highly dynamic, interactive and emergent complex systems. Furthermore, helping us to understand that an analysis of parts alone does not always lead to an informed understanding, Haynes presents to the contemporary researcher an original tool called Dynamic Pattern Synthesis (DPS) – a rigorous method that informs us about how specific complex social and economic systems adapt over time. A timely and significant monograph, Social Synthesis will appeal to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, research professionals and academic researchers informed by sociology, economics, politics, public policy, social policy and social psychology.
Social Systems and Design
by Gary S. MetcalfWe live in the worlds that we help to create every day. Every activity either supports an existing system or effects some change, however small. But is it possible to consciously create the worlds in which we want to live? This volume brings together systems theorists and practitioners who have worked on that question for decades. It explores connections between design and systems ideas to explain why some efforts have been more successful than others, and what is needed if we are to move forward. It offers reflections on early and large-scale attempts at impacting societal systems, as well as proposals for taking those ideas into the future. Examples date back to the Club of Rome in the 1960s and look forward to the creation of ecologically sustainable systems in the future. They address the need for collaboration and inclusion in settings from communities to corporations. And while theories are presented as support for the examples, they are explained in practical ways meant to be accessible both to students and to general readers.
Social Systems and Social Regulations
by Elaine CummingIn Social Systems and Social Regulations, Elaine Cumming describes attitudes of patients and clients toward health and welfare organizations. The focus is on the complex relationships between regulative agents, as revealed by the movement of clients through health and welfare systems. The author observes how doctors, clergy members, police officers, welfare officers, psychiatrists, social workers, and other social agents relate to one another and to their clients and charges.Cumming selected Syracuse, New York, typical of many middle-sized American cities of the 1960s, for her field studies. These involved several agencies and thousands of individuals. The result is a thoughtful analysis that can readily be applied to many aspects of the entire social system. Who are the clients? What are their problems? How do agents respond to them? These are some of the topics dealt with at length.From the view point of the agents, the author discusses how they see their own roles in the overall regulative system; how areas of operation interact and overlap; how the network of agencies changed over a five year period; what major problems remained to be overcome at the time; and what changes could and should have been made. When initially published, this was a new examination of the regulative system in America. Students and scholars will still find this work invaluable in the study of social control. Professionals will find many points for contrast and comparison and an analytical framework for evaluating and solving problems faced in health and welfare operations throughout the country.
Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South: Towards Safe and Inclusive Cities (Routledge Studies in Cities and Development)
by Jennifer Erin Salahub Markus Gottsbacher John De BoerWhile cities often act as the engines of economic growth for developing countries, they are also frequently the site of growing violence, poverty, and inequality. Yet, social theory, largely developed and tested in the Global North, is often inadequate in tackling the realities of life in the dangerous parts of cities in the Global South. Drawing on the findings of an ambitious five-year, 15-project research programme, Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South offers a uniquely Southern perspective on the violence–poverty–inequalities dynamics in cities of the Global South. Through their research, urban violence experts based in low- and middle-income countries demonstrate how "urban violence" means different things to different people in different places. While some researchers adopt or adapt existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks, others develop and test new theories, each interpreting and operationalizing the concept of urban violence in the particular context in which they work. In particular, the book highlights the links between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities based on income, class, gender, and other social cleavages. Providing important new perspectives from the Global South, this book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and students with an interest in violence and exclusion in the cities of developing countries.
Social Theory: A Textbook
by Carsten Bagge Laustsen Lars Thorup Larsen Mathias Wullum Nielsen Tine Ravn Mads P. SørensenThis textbook offers a new approach to understanding social theory. Framed around paired theoretical perspectives on a series of sociological problems, the book shows how distinctive viewpoints shed light on different facets of social phenomena. The book includes sociology’s "founding fathers", major 20th-century thinkers and recent voices such as Butler and Zizek. Philosophically grounded and focused on interpretation and analysis, the book provides a clear understanding of theory’s scope while developing students’ skills in evaluating, applying and comparing theories.
Social Theory: Classical and Contemporary – A Critical Perspective
by Berch BerberogluSocial Theory provides a sophisticated yet highly accessible introduction to classical and contemporary social theories. The author’s concise presentation allows students and instructors to focus on central themes. The text lets theorists speak for themselves, presenting key passages from each theorist’s corpus, bringing theory to life. The approach allows instructors the opportunity to help students learn to unpack sometimes complex prose, just as it offers inroads to class discussion. Chapters on Addams and early feminism, on Habermas and the Frankfurt School, on Foucault, and on globalization and social movements round out contemporary coverage. The book presents and explains key theories, just as it provides an introduction to central debates about them.
Social Theory (Routledge Revivals)
by G.D.H. ColeFirst published in 1920, Social Theory endeavours to put together the social contents of various experiences of the ordinary man, and to make them, as far as they form one, a coherent and consistent whole. Social theory is not concerned directly with all the actions of individual men, but mainly with their actions taken in concert through some temporary or permanent organized group, and with the actions of such groups as they affect and react upon the individual. It is not primarily concerned with the State but with the whole problem of human association – that is, of associative will and action. This book will be of interest to students of economics, political science and sociology.
Social Theory: A Reader, Third Edition
by Black Hawk Hancock Roberta GarnerThe third edition of this popular reader reflects considerable changes. With over seventy readings representing a wide diversity of theorists, it offers a breadth of coverage not available in other collections. The framework for understanding theory as a set of conversations over time is maintained and deepened, with a focus on key transitional theorists who helped pave the way from classical to contemporary theory. New contextual and biographical materials surround the primary readings, and each chapter includes a study guide with key terms, discussion questions, and innovative classroom exercises. The result is a fresh and expansive take on social theory that foregrounds a plurality of perspectives and defines contemporary trends in the field, while being both an accessible and manageable teaching tool.
Social Theory: Roots And Branches (Fifth Edition)
by Peter KivistoEdited by Peter Kivisto, this acclaimed collection of accessible primary source readings enables students to experience "firsthand" a wide range of perspectives that are shaping current sociological theory. Now in its fifth edition, Social Theory: Roots and Branches covers both classical theory (the roots) and contemporary theory (the branches) and shows how they are linked. Part One features work from such well-known classical theorists as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel. It also presents selections by theorists outside of the discipline and from writers who are often overlooked in competing collections, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Harriet Martineau. Part Two offers readings that illustrate major contemporary theoretical approaches, ending with a section on cutting-edge directions in theoretical discourse. Now featuring a revised and expanded introductory chapter, this fifth edition offers seventeen new readings, including eight by theorists who are new to this collection.
Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings
by Charles LemertFor nearly a quarter-century, Charles Lemert has shared his love of social theory, and the questions it explores, in this collection of readings. With 140 selections that begin in the nineteenth century and end in 2015, Social Theory charts the long arc of the development of the field. This edition retains classic texts by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois and writings of major contemporary figures like Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill Collins, while adding pieces from Harriet Martineau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Thomas Piketty, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, among others. Revised and updated with a new section exploring social theory at the limits of the social, Lemert's Social Theory remains essential reading.
Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings (Sixth Edition)
by Charles LemertFor nearly a quarter-century, Charles Lemert has shared his love of social theory, and the questions it explores, in this collection of readings. With 140 selections that begin in the nineteenth century and end in 2015, Social Theory charts the long arc of the development of the field. This edition retains classic texts by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and W.E.B. Du Bois and writings of major contemporary figures like Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill Collins, while adding pieces from Harriet Martineau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kimberly Williams Crenshaw, Thomas Piketty, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, among others. Revised and updated with a new section exploring social theory at the limits of the social, Lemert's Social Theory remains essential reading.
Social Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings
by Charles LemertSocial Theory is more than a reader. Feminists, race theorists, decolonizing leaders, and others are thoughtfully introduced by Charles Lemert’s substantial commentaries. Social Theory has always sought to keep up with the new while respecting the old—from Durkheim and Weber to Latinx and LGBTQ pioneers. When the book first appeared it was, as it remains, a collection of selections from those who have changed how we think about social things. Today, as the world is threatened by a global wave of anti-democratic movements, Social Theory adds a new early section to remind us of the origins of democratic values in 1700s. A new concluding section focuses the theoretical mind on how, in the 2020s, social theorists are rethinking the world in order to better understand and resist the menace of anti-democratic movements.
Social Theory
by Charles LemertThis first truly multicultural anthology collects important, readable texts representative of the full range of social theory from the nineteenth century to the present. Now that social theory is practiced in many disciplines, it is necessary to reflect on the variety of theories being read today and the earlier sources that are customarily neglected. If today we read Donna Haraway, Henry Louis Gates, and Michel Foucault, we should also read and understand Charlotte Perkins Gilman and W.E.B. Du Bois, alongside Max Weber, Georg Simmel, William James, and others from the end of the nineteenth century. This book, therefore, sets a wider gauge for the understanding of the history of social thought than could have been possible before. It brings together theories in unexpected and exciting ways: those of Talcott Parsons and Dorothy Smith, Robert K. Merton and Jacques Lacan, Immanuel Wallerstein and Frantz Fanon, James Coleman and Molefi Asante. Extensive introductory essays by the editor situate the readings in their historical place and time, identifying the currents of social change that shaped fundamental questions of modern and postmodern life. This fourth edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to include cutting-edge documents on teletechnologies, masculinities, rhizomes, bare life, and more.
Social Theory: A New Introduction
by Mark MurphyThis textbook delivers a new thematic introduction to social theory that explores theoretical issues in their contemporary social contexts. Each chapter is devoted to a specific thematic area, including the state, governance, the economy, civil society, culture, language, knowledge, the self, emotions, the body, and social justice. Each chapter details the key issues for debate and the relevant theories while linking those debates and theories to everyday life. Distributed throughout the chapters are focused sections on key concepts and their research applications, alongside helpful additional detail including a glossary, further suggested readings, chapter summaries, and questions for discussion. The book also provides useful information on key theoretical movements such as feminism, Marxism, and post-structuralism, as well as biographies of key theorists. As such, it reflects the breadth of social theory and its interdisciplinary nature by drawing on thinkers not just from sociology, but also from philosophy, history, literature, geography, cultural and gender studies.The book’s logical structure and clear pedagogical features make it an appealing and accessible introductory text for students new to social theory. The chapters demonstrate the relevance of social theory to everyday life, such that readers can understand and actively engage with key concepts.
Social Theory and Asian Dialogues: Cultivating Planetary Conversations
by Ananta Kumar GiriCritically exploring the presuppositions of contemporary social theory, this collection argues for a trans-civilizational dialogue and a deepening of the universe of intellectual discourse in order to transform sociology into a truly planetary conversation on the human condition. Focusing on perspectives from Asia, notably East Asia and India, it interrogates presuppositions in contemporary critical social theory about man, culture and society, and considers central themes such as knowledge and power, knowledge and liberation. The diverse contributions tackle key questions such the globalization of social theory, identity and society in east asia, as well as issues such as biopolitics, social welfare and eurocentrism. They also examine dialogues along multiple trajectories between social theorists from the Euro-American world and from the Asian universe, such as between Kant and Gandhi, Habermas and Sri Aurobindo, the Bildung tradition in Europe and the Confucian traditions. Arguing for a global comparative engagement and cross-cultural dialogue, this is a key read for all those interested in the future of social theory in the wake of globalization and the rise of the global south.
Social Theory and Communication Technology (Routledge Revivals)
by Terje RasmussenThis title was first published in 2001. An investigation of new forms of interaction and communication. The essays address theoretical contributions and insights which may assist us in the understanding of modern society inhabited by a wide range of new media.In order to answer questions on this subject, the text suggests a "structural hermeneutic" - a view on the public as agents embedded in their lifeworlds (rather than as consumers and receivers), who play a large part in reproducing structural and distanciated processes of meaning. The essays explore the implications of such daily practices as making a telephone call or sending an email, receiving money from a bank machine using a credit card, or retrieving information from a Web site. Each of these practices reproduce patterns of information and communication practices, which reshape communication processes in society. The essays examine the relationship between media change and social change, with particular emphasis on their contribution to social interaction in everyday life and in the reproduction of social systems.
Social Theory and Nursing (Routledge Key Themes in Health and Society)
by Martin LipscombDespite noteworthy exceptions, nursing’s literature largely disregards the ways in which social and sociological theory permeates, guides and shapes research, education, and practice. Likewise, social theory’s ability to position nursing within wider structures of healthcare and educational provision is similarly and puzzlingly downplayed. The questions nurses ask and the problems they face cannot however, adequately be addressed without engaging with social and sociological theory and, to progress this engagement, contributors to this book explore how social theories are used by and might apply to nursing and nursing practice. The book draws on a wide range of perspectives – philosophical, theoretical, empirical and political – to offer a robust and wide-ranging critique and analysis. Social Theory and Nursing is essential reading for nursing researchers, academics and educators, as well as scholars and researchers in medical sociology, medicine and allied health.
Social Theory and Social History
by Donald M. Macraild Avram TaylorThe expansion of social history that took place in the twentieth century has produced some of the most exciting works in the field of historical studies. As the range of the social historian's concerns has grown, so has the range of methodologies and theoretical approaches they employ. Historians have made greater use of the theoretical insights of social scientists, and boundaries between the disciplines have become blurred as a consequence. Social Theory and Social History: - covers the major developments within social history - offers an introduction to the most important social theorists - discusses the relationship between history and the social sciences - considers the use of theory in the writing of history - examines current debates within historiography In this concise introductory guide, Donald M. MacRaild and Avram Taylor explore the complex relationship between social theory and social history, arguing that an awareness of the relation between the two is the key to a deeper understanding of the process of historical change.
Social Theory and Social History (Theory and History)
by Donald MacRaild Avram TaylorThe expansion of social history that took place in the twentieth century has produced some of the most exciting works in the field of historical studies. As the range of the social historian's concerns has grown, so has the range of methodologies and theoretical approaches they employ. Historians have made greater use of the theoretical insights of social scientists, and boundaries between the disciplines have become blurred as a consequence. Social Theory and Social History:- covers the major developments within social history- offers an introduction to the most important social theorists- discusses the relationship between history and the social sciences- considers the use of theory in the writing of history- examines current debates within historiographyIn this concise introductory guide, Donald M. MacRaild and Avram Taylor explore the complex relationship between social theory and social history, arguing that an awareness of the relation between the two is the key to a deeper understanding of the process of historical change.
Social Theory and Social Movements
by Jochen Roose Hella DietzThe volume will address two questions arising in the context of social movements: What do we learn about social movements by adopting the perspectives offered by specific social theories? Can the confrontation with social movements also help to further develop or revise these social theories? Social movements are not only a potential challenge to societies, they also challenge social theory. "Social Theory and Social Movements" systematically explores the implications of this social force for theory building in the social sciences. From this double vantage point, the book discusses the theories of social movements of Niklas Luhmann, Jeffrey Alexander, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler, as well as Rational Choice Theory, Relational Sociology and Organizational Neo‐Institutionalism.
Social Theory and the Global Environment (Global Environmental Change Ser.)
by Ted Benton Michael RedcliftThis book marks a watershed in the social sciences. The qualitative, critical perspective of sociology and allied disciplines challenges the technocentric `managerialism' which dominates environmental policy, its discourse and its impact. The authors explore the relationship between social theory and sustainability in an attempt to transend technical rhetoric and embrace a broader understanding of `nature'.
Social Theory and the Urban Question
by Peter SaundersSocial Theory and the Urban Question offers a guide to, and a critical evaluation of key themes in contemporary urban social theory, as well as a re-examination of more traditional approaches in the light of recent developments and criticism. Dr Saunders discusses current theoretical positions in the context of the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. He suggests that later writers have often misunderstood or ignored the arguments of these 'founding fathers' of the urban question. Dr Saunders uses his final chapter to apply the lessons learned from a review of their work in order to develop a new framework for urban social and political analysis. This book was first published in 1981.