bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conclusion
Authors: Gorlizki Yoram , Khlevniuk Oleg
Published: January 2021

This chapter suggests how a public discursive framework can help provide a benchmark for comparing the Soviet Union with other regimes, including that of contemporary post-communist Russia. It summarizes how substate leaders and their strategies can shed light on dictatorship and on how it changes over time. It also explains that the Soviet case falls into two broad categories, one empirical and historical, the other comparative and theoretical. The chapter draws attention to a parallel act of delegation at the regional level. It also recounts how Joseph Stalin handed over power on a provisional basis to regional leaders due to his inability to penetrate the inner recesses of local administration.
The Alps
Authors: Schaumann Caroline
Published: January 2021

This chapter studies the evolution of Alpine climbing in the mid-1800s and examines the ways in which Humboldtian writing and science, the Romantic sublime, and bodily sensations and disruptions shaped perceptions and representations of European forays to Alpine summits. It presents a brief overview of the history of Alpine development from antiquity to the present, with special consideration of British tourism in the Alps. The chapter recounts how mountaineering emerged as a sport of radical individualism that solidified and simultaneously challenged new models of masculinity and broadly affected patterns of tourism, leisure, and consumption by the end of the nineteenth century. It also mentions German climbers on the remote Similaun glacier who came across Ötzi the Iceman, a corpse that was remarkably well preserved in the ice in 1991. It points out how scientists concluded that Ötzi's body was dated to circa 3500 BC, which gives evidence that even in prehistoric times Neolithic humans regularly frequented the mountains.
Transcontinental Shifts
Authors: Schaumann Caroline
Published: January 2021

This chapter explores the impact of European mountaineering discourses on Clarence King. It recounts how King, like some of his European counterparts, came to the mountains to escape the confines of a Victorian society. It also examines King's representations of risks taken in the mountains that helped create a distinctly American image of the explorer. The chapter describes King's mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada in 1872 that mythologized the exploration of the West during a period in which some Americans began to worry that the frontier would disappear. It also reveals some of the continuities and differences in the transnational evolution of climbing in North America.
Peppermint in America
Authors: Allosso Dan
Published: January 2021

This chapter recounts the arrival of peppermint in Connecticut, which was the time Samuel Ranney, the first peppermint king, was growing up in Middletown. It mentions the first appearance of peppermint in colonial America in the early 1760s with advertisements for peppermint essence in the New York Mercury and the New York Gazette in 1763 and 1764. It also talks about advertisements for “Essence of Peppermint” that were appearing in other New York newspapers, three Boston papers, and as far away as Pennsylvania and Georgia by 1770. The chapter explains how peppermint essence was first manufactured in the London suburb of Mitcham, where hybrid peppermint plants were first commercially cultivated around 1750. It also looks at the markets for both English and American peppermint-based medicines that were well established and growing quickly by the last decade of the eighteenth century.
The Dark Side of Family Business
Authors: Allosso Dan
Published: January 2021

This chapter mentions Hiram Hotchkiss's death on October 27, 1897 and points out how the account of his life was printed across eight columns. It also talks about Hiram's obituary that recounts the inaccurate story of how Hiram had singlehandedly invented the peppermint oil business and listed all the awards he had won for his peppermint oil. The chapter contradicts the obituary's' portrayal of Hiram as a benevolent and self-made entrepreneur. It emphasizes how Hiram was actually a monomaniacal autocrat who blustered and bullied his way toward a success that, despite his claims, he never really achieved. It also highlights the story of Hiram's business conduct that illustrates the extent to which he believed that the rules of society did not apply to him.
Epilogue
Authors: Allosso Dan
Published: January 2021

This chapter summarizes the development of the peppermint oil industry under the leadership of three families of peppermint kings that were prominent during distinct moments in the economic history of the United States. It recounts the earliest commerce in peppermint oil in colonial America and peppermint's culture and distilling in the early republic. It also analyzes the rurality of the peppermint kings as the common element that describes their attitudes and actions. This chapter describes the agency of the peppermint kings that confutes the widely accepted depiction of peripheral agriculturalists that was increasingly dominated by centralized economic power. It also examines the initiative of rural people and the ways they resisted mainstream American trends, which contributed to the understanding of rural America.
From Henry’s Birth to the End of the Minority 1207–1227
Authors: Carpenter David
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses the period from Henry III's birth to the end of the minority. Henry was born on October 1, 1207, in the royal castle of Winchester. Henry's birth strengthened King John's immediate political position and secured the future of his dynasty, what he later called ‘our perpetual hereditary succession’. Around 1211 or 1212, John made a major decision about Henry's future by entrusting him to the guardianship of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester. Bishop Peter was still impacting on Henry's life and envenoming English politics more than twenty years later. The chapter then details Henry's accession to the throne, after which his governors issued a new version of Magna Carta.
Lady Mary’s Revelation
Authors: Weightman Gavin
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses how Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was struck down by an attack of malignant smallpox in 1715. It was assumed for a while she would not survive, but she pulled through. When her husband, Wortley Montagu, was appointed ambassador to Turkey, Lady Mary joined him. They stayed first in Adrianople, where, for the first time, Lady Mary became aware of the practice of 'transplanting' the smallpox. The simplicity and effectiveness of it seemed miraculous. Elderly women made punctures in the arms of children and rubbed in infectious smallpox matter. The symptoms of the disease as it developed were light, and when the few pustules died away there were no pock marks. Lady Mary's experience was not lost on Daniel Sutton, who, it will be seen was very much influenced by Lady Mary's account of the primitive 'folk' practice of inoculation when he came to devise his own 'Suttonian' method.
A Rural Revolution
Authors: Weightman Gavin
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on Daniel Sutton's method of 'Suttonian' inoculation against smallpox. It is not easy to appreciate now how it might be possible for a 'medical revolution' to take place when it involved absolutely no advance in the understanding of infections, nor any close studies of the effectiveness of different drugs or medical procedures. But 'Suttonian inoculation' was a genuine breakthrough, and was recognised as such at the time by most medical authorities. It evolved from a rejection of customary medical practice and a partial return to the simplicity of the Turkish method of inoculation. Lady Mary's anecdotal accounts of the work of the elderly Greek ladies were probably more influential than any theories about the nature of disease. It was a rustic kind of revolution which began in the Suffolk village of Kenton in the mid-eighteenth century.
Sutton Misses the Boat
Authors: Weightman Gavin
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes how, by 1766, Daniel Sutton had reached his zenith, apparently untroubled by the competition of Thomas Dimsdale and others who believed they had discovered the secrets of his success. It was then that Sutton learned that a whole new world of riches awaited him and his acolytes across the Channel. Smallpox was rife in Europe and Russia and yet inoculation was rarely practised and fiercely opposed where it was attempted. But news of the success of Suttonian inoculation, promoted indirectly by the translation of Dimsdale's guide to the 'modern method' attracted the attention of royalty, who were as vulnerable to the scourge of smallpox as their subjects. England produced the most skilled inoculators and a demand for their services grew. Sutton's name would be top of the list and an early approach was made to him.
Cowmania!
Authors: Weightman Gavin
Published: January 2021

This chapter discusses how vaccination was to conquer the world in a very short space of time, despite the fact that the research on which it was based was very limited and, in some vital respects, faulty. Edward Jenner was ingenious and imaginative but he was not meticulous. This very soon became apparent as experiments were made with the vaccine. There was one great problem when experiments with the effectiveness of cowpox vaccine were begun in earnest in many parts of the world: where to get the necessary infective matter. Ultimately, 'Cowmania' was a wild, worldwide clamour for a medical innovation which had not been subject to more than cursory, and not always satisfactory, scrutiny. Suttonian inoculation, on the other hand, had stood the test of time and there were those who doubted if vaccination offered a great improvement. One, not surprisingly, was Daniel Sutton himself.
Jenner’s Debt to Sutton
Authors: Weightman Gavin
Published: January 2021

This chapter assesses whether Edward Jenner would have discovered the protective power of cowpox even if there had been no inoculation before vaccination. In his account of how he made his discovery, Jenner attributes it directly to his experiences as an inoculator. All the histories Jenner presented to support his case for vaccine inoculation could not have been performed without Suttonian inoculation. And when Jenner came to attempt his first practical experiment with the vaccine, he was already an experienced Suttonian inoculator. He believed the key to Sutton's success was the manner of inserting the infective matter with the lancet barely breaking the skin or drawing blood. That is how he chose to perform his first vaccination.
The Czechoslovak Road to the Secret Police
Authors: Pucci Molly
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the evolution of communist secret police networks in Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1948. It argues that the era was widely understood by local agents as one of “national roads to socialism” with respect to local security forces as well as other areas of institution building. It details the communist takeover of power in February 1948, when, uniquely in the context of the Eastern Bloc, communist leaders formed revolutionary councils called Action Committee to expel non-communists from state institutions and public life. It then follows the debates inside the Czechoslovak communist elite following the takeover of power in 1948 and their trips abroad to examine the “Soviet model” of the secret police in other countries of the Eastern Bloc.
Secret Police Networks in the Soviet Zone of Occupation in Germany
Authors: Pucci Molly
Published: January 2021

This chapter enters the Soviet Zone of Occupation in eastern Germany, where the first East German political police, K5, was formed to assist the Soviet occupiers in carrying out denazification investigations and conduct background checks on members of the new state administration. It provides a brief history of the Soviet security forces active in the Zone at the time, including the NKVD, headed by General Ivan Serov, and the NKGB, headed by Viktor Abakumov. It explores the context of occupation, denazification, and terror in which East German police officials were trained under these Soviet security authorities and the porous boundaries between Soviet and German legal authority in the Zone.
Building the Stasi in the German Democratic Republic
Authors: Pucci Molly
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the creation of the East German Stasi in February 1950 and the training of new officials in the 1952 Campaign to Build Socialism. It places the founding of the Stasi in the context of a radical shift in the internal culture of the leading Socialist Unity Party, which was transformed from a mass organization to a ruling elite through terror and expulsions between 1948 and 1951. Throughout, it explores the shift from Soviet to East German jurisdiction in the security forces, police, and courts. It concludes with a discussion of the uprising in Germany in June 1953 and its consequences for the Stasi’s structure and personnel.
Sparta's Second Attic War
Authors: Rahe Paul A.
Published: January 2021

In a continuation of the multivolume series on ancient Sparta, this book details the second stage in the six-decades-long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some seventeen years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. The book explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce. It traces the course of the war that then took place, examining the strategy each community pursued and the tactics adopted, before explaining how and why mutual exhaustion forced on these two powers yet another truce doomed to fail. At stake for each of the two peoples caught up in this enduring strategic rivalry, as the book shows, was nothing less than the survival of its political regime and of the peculiar way of life to which that regime gave rise.
Pericles’ Calculated Risk
Authors: Rahe Paul A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter talks about Thucydides, son of Olorus, who provided the narrative of the great war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. It discusses the civil strife that had erupted at Epidamnus in 436 or early 435, in which the Corinthians found themselves confronted with a fateful opportunity. It also describes pólis as a populous settlement of ample wealth and considerable strategic importance that was situated on an easily defended named Dyrrachium. The chapter looks into the Athenians' desire not to initiate a general war with the Spartan alliance and to defend the territorial integrity of Corcyra. It also mentions how Pericles urged to form a defensive alliance with the Corcyraeans an epimachía in order to deter Corinthian aggression.
Lacedaemon at Bay
Authors: Rahe Paul A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter talks about the Lacedaemonian and allied Peloponnesian's defeat in Navarino Bay. It investigates the Spartans' local truce with the Athenian generals and negotiations for a peace agreement in order to recover their infantry men and safeguard the men trapped on Sphacteria. The chapter also mentions how Spartans suffered additional and catastrophic losses at the time of the plague. It points out how the Spartans negotiated a peace agreement with Argos in 420 that included an unprecedented clause contemplating the possibility that one or the other community might succumb to an epidemic. It also highlights the Peloponnesians' repeated attempts to assert their preeminence at sea in the Corinthian Gulf, the Ionian Sea, and the Adriatic, which had failed ignominiously.
Mutual Exhaustion
Authors: Rahe Paul A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter recounts the expedition conducted by Brasidas, son of Tellis, who made good with his promise of the Lacedaemonians' slogan “the freedom of the Greeks.” It talks about how the majority of the Lacedaemonians were weary of war, fearful of a helot revolt, eager to recover the men captured on Sphacteria, and ready to forge a peace. It also reviews how the Spartans' thirty years of peace with Argos came to an end within two years. The chapter discusses the prosperity of Lacedaemon's ancient enemy, the Argives, which were feared to enter the Peloponnesian War on the Athenian side. It looks into the negotiation of truce between Spartans and the Athenians in February or early March of 423.
Epilogue
Authors: Rahe Paul A.
Published: January 2021

This chapter analyzes the contest at Mantineia, which was considered “the greatest battle” to have taken place in the Hellenic world. It recounts how the Spartans acquitted themselves of both the charge of malakía, lodged against them by the Hellenes as a consequence of the disaster on Mantineia, as well as the charge of aboulia and bradutēs. It also looks into the intent of Laconizers to overthrow the Argive democracy and persuade their compatriots to accept a treaty of peace and an alliance. The chapter talks about the renunciation of confederacy that linked Lacedaemonians with the Mantineians, Eleans, and Athenians in order to contract an alliance with Sparta. It also mentions how Mantineians gave up their little empire and made terms with the Lacedaemonians.
The Battle Has Already Begun
Authors: Helgen Erika
Published: January 2021

This chapter provides a background on Catholic–Protestant relations in the Brazilian Northeast. It talks about how the Brazilian Northeast became famous as a place of economic backwardness, political feuds, crippling droughts, popular unrest, and, religious fanaticism following the publication of Euclides da Cunha's Os sertões in 1902. It also looks into da Cunha's account of the Brazilian military's confrontation and eventual destruction of the allegedly fanatical millenarian community of Canudos, which made regional and national elites continuously fearful of the violent potential of northeastern religiosity. The chapter suggests a new religious history of modern Latin America that puts religious pluralism at the center rather than at the margins of historical analysis. It seeks to understand the ways in which religious competition and conflict redefined traditional relationships between church and state, lay and clergy, popular and official religion, and local and national interests.
Quem Não Crê, Brasileiro Não É
Authors: Helgen Erika
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines how Catholics and Protestants developed competing visions for Brazil's social and political future as each came to view the other as the primary obstacle to national progress. It analyzes how anti-protestantism came to be a fundamental element of the national Restorationist project during the 1920s and 1930s. The chapter describes the Catholics's view of Protestants as enemies who threatened not only the religious project of the Catholic Church but also the political unity and stability of the Brazilian nation. It also assesses how Protestants saw the Catholic Church as a threat in returning Brazil to its backward, superstitious, colonial past and reversing a century of liberal achievements that defined Brazilian imperial and republican history. It reviews the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, both sides attacking the other for being harmful to the health of the modern nation and political arena as each mounted an aggressive campaign to influence the writing of the 1934 constitution.
Church(es) Divided
Authors: Helgen Erika
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the decades following the end of the Vargas regime, which saw the emergence of social, political, and theological innovations in both Catholic and Protestant churches. It analyzes how the new movements not only opened up new opportunities for ecumenical dialogue, but also engendered deep internal divisions within the religious denominations that prevented the widespread adoption of the ecumenical agenda. It also talks about the Pentecostal boom that accelerated the diversification of Brazilian religious culture, Catholics and Protestants alike. The chapter discusses the anti-Protestantism of the Secretariado Nacional de Defesa da Fé (SNDF) as one element of a larger set of oppositional positions that distinguished conservative Brazilian Catholics from their more progressive counterparts. It also describes how religions continued to struggle to come to terms with religious pluralism and competition that defined the latter half of the twentieth century.
Hamlet's Choice
Authors: Lake Peter
Published: January 2021

This incisive book reveals how in Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, Shakespeare worked through a range of Tudor anxieties, including concerns about the nature of justice, resistance, and salvation. In both Hamlet and Titus, the princes are faced with successions forged under questionable circumstances and they each have a choice: whether or not to resort to political violence. The unfolding action, the book argues, is best understood in terms of contemporary debates about the legitimacy of resistance and the relation between religion and politics. Relating the plays to their broader political and polemical contexts, Lake sheds light on the nature of revenge, resistance, and religion in post-Reformation England.
The generic matrix Revenge tragedy, history play, murder pamphlet and conversion narrative
Authors: Lake Peter
Published: January 2021

This chapter processes a variety of different sorts of contemporary concerns, such as political, confessional and religious issues. It examines how William Shakespeare's plays elicit from its audience and then manipulates a series of narrative expectations derived from a range of different contemporary genres. It also looks into the irruptive intervention of the ghost that has cut Hamlet off from the values and traditions out of which the narrative quest for life is sustained. The chapter points out how the play has utterly undermined all the canons of Renaissance humanist assumption that had hitherto underpinned Hamlet's existence and sense of himself as an actor or social, political and moral agent in the world. It also explains how Hamlet exploits the void by offering the audience a variety of different sorts of story or narrative template with which to make sense of what is happening to the characters.
The politics of conscience
Authors: Lake Peter
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on the action of William Shakespeare's plays and explains in detail how various concerns, points of references, and sets of narrative expectation are brought together and resolved. It highlights the depiction of Hamlet's spiritual crisis and his obsession over the prospect of suicide. It puzzles over the extent and the spiritual and epistemological consequences of Hamlet's own madness or melancholy, analysing whether he is the subject of demonically induced delusions and lies. The chapter looks into the term “atheist” in its Elizabethan sense, which is someone who is acting, or trying to act, as though God, the soul and the afterlife do not exist. It also compares Hamlet's soliloquies to someone talking like an atheist but acting like a Christian.
Prelude
Authors: Tibble Steve
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes a time before strategy, when the lands of the Middle East were intensely fractured, and trust and loyalty were scarce commodities. It looks at a time when self-interest was paramount and where chaos was so ingrained that an entire life could be lived without knowing anything else. It also talks about wars that are guided by politics, driven by policy objectives, and implemented through strategy but often lost in the rushed outpouring of human actions and emotions. The chapter discusses the liberation of Jerusalem and the end of the First Crusade, where most of the original crusaders returned home and some remained to defend the Holy Land. It also includes the four political entities that are collectively known as the “crusader states”: The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.
Introduction
Authors: Beider Harris , Chahal Kusminder
Published: January 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how the term “white working class” became weaponized and used as a vessel to describe people who were seen to be “deplorable.” The national narrative appears to credit (or blame) white working-class mobilization across the country for the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections. Those who take this position see the white working class as being problematic in different ways: grounded in norms and behaviors that seem out of step with mainstream society; at odds with the reality of increased ethnic diversity across the country and especially in cities; blaming others for their economic plight; and disengaged from politics. While the conventional narrative about Trump, and his relation to the white working class, has the benefit of being presented as a straightforward connection to a forgotten majority, the experiences and conversations collected in this book offer more nuanced and challenging findings about the other America. Indeed, the rise of Trump and the association with the white working class needs to be placed in the wider context of a surge in support for populism in many parts of the world. Ultimately, the book explores how white working-class Americans view race, change, and immigration.
The lived experience of being white and working class
Authors: Beider Harris , Chahal Kusminder
Published: January 2021

This chapter argues that definitions of the white working class, which have been used extensively, need to be reconsidered. Typically, these definitions focus on non-Hispanic white people without a college degree. Yet, using this definition, the billionaire internet entrepreneurs Bill Gates of Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook would be framed as members of the white working class. Clearly, this is not the case. Missing in the discussion on definition is how people themselves consider working-class life and social mores, and especially the importance of values and norms in shaping their lived experiences. The chapter assesses further the challenges of ascribing privilege to the white working-class communities who took part in the study. In the various discussions, “white” was often viewed uncritically and implicitly, and was dropped quickly, when exploring the lived experiences of the white working class by the research participants. The importance of working hard and being honest was emphasized, as well as the relevance of class. White working-class communities were viewed as classed, while communities of color were often raced.
Hope and change: choosing a president
Authors: Beider Harris , Chahal Kusminder
Published: January 2021

This chapter reflects on the challenge of choosing a president, drawing on conversations with white working-class communities about their lived economic and social experiences, as well as their lived values. It emphasizes how the rise of Donald Trump, from an outside candidate for the Republican nomination to being elected president in 2016, created a backdrop for the book. His was the “hope and change” candidacy and he clearly “weaponized” the discussion on white working-class communities by portraying himself as the victim of political elites who had no interest in the lives of ordinary people. This was in contrast to Trump's defeated opponent Hillary Clinton, who could not move from being seen as an establishment candidate who was out of touch with white working-class values, which were so important in defining who belonged to this group. The chapter then takes a critical view of the white working class being positioned as enthusiastic cheerleaders for Trump.
The challenges of cross‑racial coalition building
Authors: Beider Harris , Chahal Kusminder
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the possibilities of building cross-racial coalitions between the white working class and communities of color as the United States transitions from majority white to a minority white country. Fifty years after the campaign for civil rights and the passage of landmark legislation during the 1960s, there is little evidence of formal and sustainable cross-racial coalition building at the grassroots or grasstops level between the white working class and communities of color. White working-class communities wanted to engage with communities of color but did not have the means of engaging across racial boundaries beyond a superficial everyday level. Discussions between different communities were “soft-wired” and based on fleeting exchanges in informal spaces rather than becoming “hard-wired” in a strategic plan that can create a framework for coalition building. Stakeholders were largely ambivalent and occasionally hostile toward engaging with white working-class communities to build effective cross-racial alliances. Similar to white working-class communities in relation to communities of color, stakeholders found it challenging to engage with these groups.
Conclusion
Authors: Beider Harris , Chahal Kusminder
Published: January 2021

This concluding chapter addresses the issues of defining white working-class communities; the challenges of choosing a president; the importance of qualitative data and lived experiences in revealing a granular and detailed understanding of macro-changes in society; and the prospects of cross-racial coalition building. Looking ahead to the 2020 presidential elections and beyond, the chapter questions whether policymakers and researchers will learn from the messages of this research and others about the lived experiences of white working-class communities and their own sense of being left behind. The chapter then argues for a radical overhaul of the way in which white working-class communities are discussed, engaged with, and represented by policymakers and political organizations. Returning to the context of rising populism across the globe, white working-class communities cannot simply be ignored. Rather the white working class should be considered to be as diverse as any other group, an important legacy population, and a community that has a range of views shaped by location, politics, and culture. This opens up the prospect of exciting possibilities for research, policy, practice, and coalition building.
Identity and intersectionality
Authors: Gilleard Chris , Higgs Paul
Published: January 2021

This chapter addresses the question of intersectionality and the positioning of older people at points in a complex set of locations structured and leant upon by multiple sources of difference and inequality. It argues that social locations are no longer organised through simple binary divisions underpinned by single hierarchies of power and influence. Instead, identities and inequalities are located in the interstices that social divisions and differences form. The positioning both of age and of able-bodiedness, class, ethnicity, gender is rendered contingent by this intersectionality, making each of these potential divisions the source of at most a limited set of demi-regularities that constrain both the political claims of different social groups and the restrict the commonalities of different communities. The chapter concludes that intersectionality, though a much-contested concept, does draw attention to the social positioning of and social divisions within later life.
Introduction: critical reflections on research impact
Authors: Smith Katherine E. , Bandola-Gill Justyna , Meer Nasar , Stewart Ellen , Watermeyer Richard
Published: January 2021

This chapter briefly explains what we mean by ‘the impact agenda’ and what the UK approach to research impact assessment involves. This chapter also makes the case for why an empirical investigation of the recent changes associated with research impact assessment is required and provides key definitions and an overview of the rest of the book.
The rise of research impact
Authors: Smith Katherine E. , Bandola-Gill Justyna , Meer Nasar , Stewart Ellen , Watermeyer Richard
Published: January 2021

This chapter charts the origins and emergence of the research impact agenda in the UK, noting some of its historical antecedents and international influences. It explores the apparent motivations and rationales that have underpinned the various dimensions of research impact assessment, and the associated expectations that different actors appear to have. The chapter includes a visual summary of key developments in the evolution of research impact assessment and incentivisation in the UK.
Conclusion: what would an evidence-informed impact agenda involve?
Authors: Smith Katherine E. , Bandola-Gill Justyna , Meer Nasar , Stewart Ellen , Watermeyer Richard
Published: January 2021

This chapter seeks to apply the critical perspectives of the previous chapters to provide some pragmatic and practical suggestions for redeveloping the UK research impact agenda. To do this, the chapter summarises the key concerns about, and support for, research impact identified in the book and situates these findings in the context of existing literature/debates. It then draws on suggestions from each of the book’s five authors to outline alternative potential approaches to incentivising, monitoring and rewarding research impact, informed by the ideas evident in their respective research and subject areas.
Introduction
Authors: Dean Jon
Published: January 2021

This introductory chapter provides an overview of charity. Charity is a subject largely untouched by modern sociologists, often left instead to the policy analysts who seek to understand the logic of charities, their management, their delivery of services, and their resourcing. In focusing mainly on charity and not on charities, this book re-examines that more ephemeral notion, and brings a new theoretical lens to how charity operates and works in modern society. This includes a desire to focus on the social reaction to acts of charity, and how that reaction plays out in the internal monologue of the charitable individual. The book shows what it is that makes charity ‘good’, and how this awareness of charity's goodness drives more charity, in a way that can be rewarding for the demonstrably charitable, but also how this goodness creates huge silences and violences about how charity is both practised and operationalised. The ‘good glow’ of charity is inherently powerful and sociologically problematic in terms of policy and everyday practice.
#humblebrags and the good giving self on social media
Authors: Dean Jon
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines young people's perception and experiences of charity and voluntary action online, and what the implications of these practices might be. Findings show that despite the supposedly globalised nature of social media connections, friends and family still drive young people's giving online. Young participants report awkwardness about asking for donations and feeling that they may be ‘guilt tripping’ others into giving by requesting donations from friends. They also worry that talking about charity online could be perceived as ‘showing off’ how good they were or ‘humblebragging’ in a faux presentation of goodness, and, in the wake of several scandals in the non-profit sector, were concerned about authenticity in the charitable acts and good deeds of their peers. Contextualised within the sociology of youth on social media, such findings indicate difficulties for non-profits online, as wider social media behaviour shapes the reception of charity.
Poppy fascism
Authors: Dean Jon
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on the poppy, the fundraising symbol of remembrance for the contribution of the armed services, and more specifically, the yearly controversy that surrounds it. Known as ‘poppy fascism’, the demand that all public figures must wear the poppy prominently and respectfully during the autumn in the lead-up to Remembrance Sunday, this phenomenon illustrates how the essential goodness of charity symbols can be weaponised and used competitively and judgementally. Examining the yearly poppy outcry through the lens of postcolonial theory, one sees how the poppy is forced to bear a lot of cultural and symbolic weight, partly because it is held up as an unalloyed ‘good thing’. The chapter then outlines the problems created by ‘poppy fascism’ for sector leaders. It also shows what this simple charitable fundraising and remembrance tool says about modern Britain today.
Effective altruism and ignoring charity’s symbolic power
Authors: Dean Jon
Published: January 2021

This chapter presents an alternative way of thinking about charity: the effective altruism movement. It explores how the movement's proponents deal with the concept of the symbolic power of doing good, when that movement's central desire is for one to see past the symbolic power of charity, to be able to ignore it, so one can throw off the shackles of clumsy emotion and really focus on putting charity to work, for as much good as it can muster. One needs to remove the ‘thrill’ from charity because ‘relying on good intentions alone to inform your decisions can be potentially disastrous’. This feeds into a critique of the consequences of ‘moral licensing’, where people who perform good or charitable actions ‘often compensate by doing fewer good actions in the future’, showing that ‘people are often more concerned about looking good or feeling good rather than actually doing good’. By applying data and rationality to a charitable endeavour, one does not rob the act of virtue but instead do the more virtuous thing, which is to act on more than virtue. Ultimately, there is a need to basically bypass the social norms and symbolic rewards offered by charity and doing good.
The housebuilding business
Authors: Colenutt Bob
Published: January 2021

This chapter describes the rise of the volume housebuilders in the UK. It interrogates their business model highlighting the key factors such as profits and land valuations on which developers and landowners seek support, and usually get it, from Government. The land banking practices of the housebuilders are give particular attention. The chapter challenges official reviews of the housebuilding sector which have cleared it of land hoarding and forming cartels to keep up prices.
Shaping national housing and planning policy
Authors: Colenutt Bob
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines three examples of how the property lobby has influenced national policy on planning and housing and in doing so has prolonged the housing crisis. The first is the role of developers and landowners in the ill-fated Growth Areas programme in the Sustainable Communities Plan of New Labour in the 2000s the second is how the property lobby directly influenced the writing of the national planning framework (NPPF) of the Coalition Government in 2012 and the third example is the manipulation by the property lobby of the viability assessment process for planning obligations which has directly reduced the amount of affordable housing provided by developers. It is argued that this measure which was introduced by Government after the 2008 Crash and written into the NPPF, continues to dominate the provision of affordable housing to this day.
Unblocking the impasse
Authors: Colenutt Bob
Published: January 2021

The final chapter calls for a decisive break from the policies and practices and removal of the blockages that have strangled social and affordable housing development over the past 40 years. It calls for a national social housing drive to solve the housing crisis. The chapter argues that radical land and planning reforms are essential, and that local government will need to be refocused and re-skilled for this task. It warns of the likely backlash from the property lobby who will attempt to block any or all of these reforms. Therefore, continued community pressure and action is essential if reform is to be achieved.
Postscript
Authors: Colenutt Bob
Published: January 2021

The property lobby was written during the political storm over Brexit and before the General Election of 2019 was called. Now that the Election has happened and Brexit is underway, a postscript is called for. What if anything will these changes mean for the property lobby?...
Race and social policy: challenges and obstacles
Authors: Meer Nasar
Published: January 2021

This chapter asks what the pressing racial inequalities are in contemporary British society and to what extent is social policy as a discipline equipped to analyse and respond to these. It provides an overview of some contemporary outcomes in the key areas of labour market participation, education, and criminal justice, summarising some prevailing features and patterns, before going on to explore in more detail whether social solicy as it is presently configured, focusing as it does on the concern with a redistributive notion of equality, is sufficiently well placed to grasp these. The chapter then develops a fascinating argument based on the observation of the need to fully incorporate an account of institutional racism and ‘everyday bordering’, as well as a critical understanding of the so-called ‘progressives dilemma’ set out by David Goodhart. The history of social policy as a disciplinary practice may stymie the kinds of foci that are needed. This analysis demands a recognition that mainstream social policy inquiry is parochial, but also that the object of inquiry is shaped by historical racism.
Young people as cultural critics of the monocultural landscapes that fail them
Authors: Bowler Rick , Razak Amina
Published: January 2021

This chapter examines the experience and views of young British Muslim women and their solutions to the limitations embedded in the monocultural mindsets organising the public spaces of their Sunderland cityscape. The narratives of the young ‘Mackem’ women clearly identify how long-standing racialised ideas connecting whiteness as belonging, which were pervasive in the local monoculture, act as an impediment to solution-focused opportunities for a multi-vocal intercultural present. The chapter draws on empirical data to foreground the voice of young women, offering a counter-narrative to dominant constructions of young British Asian Muslims whose experiences have been publicly articulated through the prism of continuing British racism and Islamophobia. The young women involved in the research articulated themselves as cultural critics of the dominant monocultural white imaginary of Britishness, nationhood, and belonging. Their nuanced understanding of British identity illustrated an orientation of their life-world beyond the confines of monocultural imaginaries, offering hope for intercultural belonging.
Returnees: unwanted citizens or cherished countrymen
Authors: Sojka Bozena , Saar Maarja
Published: January 2021

This chapter looks at the ‘othering’ of migrants within discourses of return migration — a reflection of the complex interplay between race, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity, particularly in the fluid context of migration. It analyses Polish and Estonian social policy experts' narratives on returnees and their access to welfare. The concept of othering in relation to welfare can help one to better understand national discourses around migration and return migration. Poland and Estonia have adopted vastly different attitudes towards return migrants: while Estonian policy experts stressed the positive nature of migration (migrants were seen as successful individuals), Polish narratives around migration are more negative, drawing attention to the ‘social costs’ of migration, such as broken families. The Polish experts thus questioned the potential belonging of return migrants, seeing them as a burden on the welfare state, while Estonian experts saw return migration as mostly positive and a sign of loyalty.
Cultural education and the good citizen: a systematic analysis of a neoliberal communitarian policy trend
Authors: Tonkiss Katherine , Wootton Malgorzata , Stamou Eleni
Published: January 2021

This chapter assesses the articulation of notions of ‘good citizenship’ in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of policies targeting the cultural literacy of young people in the UK over the past decade. To do so, it analyses the findings of a systematic review of relevant policy documents published between 2007 and 2018. Cultural literacy policies have been used to promote a particular vision of the good citizen through a ‘neoliberal communitarian’ model of governance. This model combines the individualising logics of neoliberalism that emphasise responsibility and self-regulation with the collective focus of communitarianism on shared culture and values. These threads are deployed simultaneously to ‘responsibilise’ citizens in order to reduce the perceived burden that they present to the state, as well as to police nationalist parameters of inclusion and exclusion.
How geographical and ideological proximity impact community youth justice (in)accessibility in England and Wales
Authors: Brooks-Wilson Sarah
Published: January 2021

This chapter addresses the unintended consequences of a community youth justice sector that has been severely impacted by austerity policies and is decreasing in terms of staff, children, and the wider distribution of practice. The lens of institutional geography is used to reinterpret changes in the youth justice system of England and Wales. The analysis produces new knowledge on how location, movement, and ideology impact community sentence accessibility for children. Despite scant policy attention, practice locations and transport coverage operate in tandem, with one required to fill gaps left by the other in order to maintain service accessibility. Yet, in the context of persistent austerity, both services are affected by increasing service gaps and government accessibility guidance remains narrow in scope, with connections between poverty and service accessibility currently poorly acknowledged. The social policy implications are substantial given that entrenched poverty is overwhelmingly found within populations of convicted and diverted children.
Popular education and its roots
Authors: Mayo Marjorie
Published: January 2021

Competing definitions of the concept of popular education are summarised, showing how the concept has been developed from different perspectives – and then applied in varying ways, in practice. This sets the context for the discussion of popular education as the basis for developing critical consciousness and social transformation.
The chapter goes on to summarise the legacies of previous critical educationalists in USA and elsewhere, including the contributions of British experiences and approaches. These legacies have contributed to the thinking of the legendary Brazilian Paulo Freire and others, in the contemporary context.
The final section explores the roots of participatory action research, as these have been developed in India, Latin America and elsewhere, in international development contexts.
Principles and practice
Authors: Mayo Marjorie
Published: January 2021

This chapter focuses on varying approaches to the values, principles and practices of learning for active citizenship and social change. Government projects in UK have included active learning to promote active citizenship, such as the Take Part programmes, for example. These programmes built on the values, principles and approaches of civil society initiatives, including the experiences of the Workers Educational Association.
The chapter concludes with examples of the application of values and principles via the arts, both in Britain and internationally.
Community–university partnerships
Authors: Mayo Marjorie
Published: January 2021

Community-university partnerships can lead to the co-production of really useful knowledge, enabling communities to research their own issues and concerns. As a result, communities and social movements can develop more effective strategies, in response. Such partnerships have significant potential, but only if they are based upon mutual understanding and trust.
There are pressures on universities in the current policy context, impacting on the scope for developing collaborative rather than more competitive ways of working, respecting communities’ priorities and time constraints. Despite these pressures though, the chapter provides examples of mutually beneficial partnerships, including partnerships developing participatory research via community arts and cultural initiatives.