bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Broken swings and rusty roundabouts
Authors: Wilding Jo
Published: May 2022

Immigration and asylum legal aid work is largely funded on a system of fixed fees, paid in arrears when the case closes. This is intended to work on a ‘swings and roundabouts’ principle whereby underpayment on one case is balanced by overpayment on another. The chapter uses payment rates, costed cases and practitioners’ evidence to demonstrate that this principle does not work in practice, if carrying out the work to an adequate standard. It argues that fees are loo low, transaction costs are too high, excessive financial risk has been placed on practitioners, payment delays are too long, and economies of scale are unavailable in social welfare categories of legal aid work.
Negotiating everyday life with dementia: four families
Authors: Ceci Christine , Purkis Mary Ellen
Published: May 2022

This chapter tells the stories of the four families who participated in the study. For each family a descriptive case history is provided, drawing extensively on the study fieldnotes to highlight key aspects of their experiences of living with a dementia. These case examples are intended to be illustrative rather than exhaustive, a means to sensitize readers to the issues and complexities of families negotiating everyday life with dementia. This information shared in this chapter sets the stage for readings of subsequent chapters.
There could be alternatives! German economic advisory councils and the institutional reproduction of austerity economics
Authors: Plehwe Dieter , Neujeffski Moritz
Published: May 2022

Economics has been considered the academic discipline most responsible for the lock in of austerity doctrines in Germany. While the case of homogeneity in economics has been overstated, the controversy around economic policy advice goes on. On the one hand authors make a strong case of hierarchy and bias in the profession and in the media. On the other hand, authors point to the existence of competing groups of politically relevant advisors and the diversity of economic research institutes in the country. Qualifying the pluralist argument, we closely examine the members of four different advisory bodies in the field of economic and social policy between 1998 and 2017. The results show an extraordinary gender bias (very few women among the 135 members), a strong concentration of members in few academic institutions and a strong bias in favor of austerity. Alternatives would in turn require modifications of advisory bodies, diversification of university chairs and the development of competitive progressive think tanks.
The invention of laissez faire
Authors: Fanning Bryan
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines the birth of laissez faire liberalism. Laissez faire, a term taken from a phrase in French ‘laissez Faire et Laissez passer, le monde va de lui meme’, translates as ‘let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself’. Achieving this required that impediments to market forces such as laws and customs of providing welfare for the poor, which had operated for centuries, should be swept aside and that massive changes be made to how society was organised. The chapter discusses sociologist Max Weber's argument that capitalism was the product of a specifically new mindset and that ideological support for this as an economic system could be traced to shifts in religious beliefs and practices. Weber believes that the Puritan rules of Calvinism placed strict controls on individual behaviour that fostered the emergence of a distinctly new economic order. Unlike previous kinds of Christian ascetics who sought to withdraw from the material world, Puritans regarded work as a spiritual calling. The discussion also covers how R.H. Tawney focused on the intersections between religious and business ethics with respect to practices and prescriptions relating to usury. Then it sheds light on Adam Smith's analysis of the division of labour and his economic theory which held that individuals acted selfishly in the pursuit of their interests and in doing so contributed to the greater good. Next, it tackles Reverend Joseph Townsend's and Thomas Malthus' views on charity and population growth, respectively, in relation to mass hunger and starvation.
The case for social democracy
Authors: Fanning Bryan
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses the rise of social democracy. Social democrat political parties emerged during the late nineteenth century in several European countries including Germany, Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries as well as in the Low Countries. Except in Germany, these broke with Marxism or had developed with very little meaningful Marxist influence to begin with. The chapter highlights that the split from Marxism played out most prominently in the development of the German Social Democratic Party under the intellectual influence of Ernst Bernstein. Bernstein proposed social democracy as a viable road to socialism. The chapter also tackles social democracy and Swedish modernity. Then it looks at the electoral success of Sweden's Social Democratic Party, owing much to its ability to tap into Swedish nationalism and to portray socialism as the realisation of the concept of Folkhemmet.
Social engineering versus democracy
Authors: Fanning Bryan
Published: May 2022

This chapter highlights how the power of experts and technocrats — those who saw themselves as best qualified to govern — continued to vie with a commitment to government by democratic means. The discussion opens with the emergence of feminist advocacy of birth control and contraception in the late nineteenth century alongside campaigns for the rights to vote for women. By then, preoccupations with reducing the birth rate were joined by obsessions with eugenics among some influential social reformers in Britain, in several European countries, and in the United States. The underlying presumption of eugenics was that there were significant inheritable differences between individuals and that if undesirables could be prevented from having children, then social problems associated with these could be ameliorated. Champions of eugenic social engineering variously advocated contraception, restrictions on the rights of the unfit to marry and the sterilisation of the unfit. In Britain and in other democratic countries, eugenics came to be intellectually challenged by arguments that social problems could be better explained in terms of environmental factors rather than by biological ones.
Introduction
Authors: Pierson Christopher
Published: May 2022

The Introduction sets out the challenge facing the welfare state in the UK, in its historic context and in the face of COVID-19 and Brexit (and a recent history of austerity). It discusses the trajectory of the welfare state as a ‘strategy of equality’. It emphasises that ‘who owns what’, and the related question of the redistribution of wealth, remains key.
The last social democratic welfare state
Authors: Pierson Christopher
Published: May 2022

This chapter offers a detailed assessment of the management of welfare under New Labour (2007-2010). It shows that welfare spending grew very substantially in these years. It discusses outcomes in terms of incomes, wealth, poverty and social mobility. It reports the dynamics of social and income inequality. It assesses critically the claim that New Labour developed a ‘new’ social democracy, built around the ideas of ‘social investment’ and a ‘Third Way’. It concludes that New Labour’s was probably the last social democratic welfare state.
Future imperfect
Authors: Pierson Christopher
Published: May 2022

This chapter surveys the principle challenges for the future of the welfare state in Britain. Three are particularly important: ageing, the changing nature of work and the threat of climate change. It assesses a series of possible responses: 1) social investment, 2) asset-based welfare, 3) a Universal Basic Income (UBI). It evaluates the alternatives offered by three authors who all emphasise the importance of redistributing wealth: Branko Milanovic, Thomas Piketty, and Ian Gough.
Conclusion
Authors: Pierson Christopher
Published: May 2022

The book concludes that the welfare challenge of COVID-19 will be deep-seated and long-lasting. But the other challenges identified in the book – around ageing, work and climate change – will remain. A ‘strategy of equality’ can only be reinstated by addressing directly the growing inequality of the ownership of wealth in the UK. While potential solutions exist, it is hard to see who will implement them.
The ‘care crisis’: its scientific framing and silences
Authors: Dahl Hanne Marlene , Rhodes Carl
Published: May 2022

This chapter presents a historical knowledge of the framing of the care crisis theoretically. The ‘care crisis’ is a concept that was 'born in the USA' in a liberal welfare regime with a rampant neoliberalising more than two decades ago. This framing of the care crisis does not travel easily to other regimes such as the social-democratic welfare regimes, where it silences important aspects of care, such as professional care and issues of good care. Ultimately, the Anglo-American understanding of the care crisis has become hegemonic, that is, performing a kind of discursive imperialism. The chapter argues that researchers need to reflect upon their ‘scientific backpack’, their framing of the care crisis, and rethink the concept to fit the context, as well as recover lost insights from the early theorising of the care crisis.
Fraser’s care crisis theory meets the Nordic welfare societies
Authors: Hansen Lise Lotte , Bjørnholt Margunn , Horn Laura , Rhodes Carl
Published: May 2022

This chapter places Nancy Fraser's care crisis concept in the Nordic welfare society context. Fraser has developed her discussion of the care crisis with a focus mainly on the Anglo-American model, that is, in societies very different from the Nordic welfare model regarding the organisation of reproductive work, gender equality policies, and labour market regulation. In her broad framework, ‘crisis of care’ is ‘best interpreted as a more or less acute expression of the social-reproductive contradictions of financialised capitalism’. The chapter argues that her understanding of the role of reproductive work in capitalist societies today, as well as the idea of a deepening care crisis, also makes sense in a discussion of Nordic societies. There is, however, a need to take into account the historically specific institutional configurations, policies, and social practices that render the dynamics of care crisis in the Nordic welfare states different and variegated, but nonetheless fundamentally engender crisis tendencies that are becoming more and more visible.
Crisis of care: a problem of economisation, of technologisation or of politics of care?
Authors: Kovalainen Anne , Rhodes Carl
Published: May 2022

This chapter identifies three disconnected scientific fields and discourses about care ethics, economy (marketisation/outsourcing), and technologies in care. The offered remedies for the crisis of care are mainly technological and techno-material in nature, and based on digitalisation, technological efficiency, surveillance, and AI-based algorithmic solutions. Meanwhile, the remedies that relate to the politics of care are left untouched in these technological discourses, practices, and realities. The chapter proposes that the crisis of care should be analysed contextually as a process. Technologies of care are partially a governance solution of the economisation of the crisis of care and because of that they need to be addressed mainly as part of the political problem, and not solely as a technological solution.
Managerialism as a failing response to the care crisis
Authors: Hoppania Hanna-Kaisa , Olakivi Antero , Zechner Minna , Näre Lena
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines elder care in Finland, taking a deeper look at the prevailing neoliberal discourses and what this does to elder care. In Finland, policy-makers have begun to talk about a ‘national care crisis’ in elder care, making it a topic of political discussion — and so no longer exclusively discussed in academic texts. The chapter identifies an endemic crisis in elder care based upon neoliberalism and its focus upon good leadership in the discourse of managerialism. It argues that there is a need to direct our attention to the governance of care itself as it becomes part of the problem; that the solution (better management) becomes part of the problem (bad elder care) in a vicious circle. In this way, managerialism directs our attention away from the main drivers of a care crisis: understaffing and underfinancing.
Raising quality in Norwegian early childhood centres: (re)producing the care crisis?
Authors: Ljunggren Birgitte
Published: May 2022

This chapter focuses on Norwegian kindergartens, looking at a core element of the social investment paradigm, that of continuously raising the competences of the staff. Staff in the Nordic context may be either professionally educated carers (‘pedagogues’) or unskilled assistants. Based upon seven cases and interviews with leaders, pedagogical leaders, professional carers, and unskilled assistants, the chapter argues that there is a cross pressure between the child-centred logic of the kindergarten and competence-raising projects. Competence schemes of the government become a potential time thief, removing the staff from the children. The daily rhythm of the kindergartens is maintained, but with different tempos where time strategies are applied to make ends meet; multitasking and the postponing of tasks becomes more frequent.
Postscript: A care crisis in the time of COVID-19
Authors: Horn Laura , Jensen Carsten Juul , Ljunggren Birgitte , Rhodes Carl
Published: May 2022

This postscript presents a range of vignettes on the current situation of COVID-19. Taking the care crisis concept as reference point, each vignette describes a concrete moment, development, or process that offers reflections on the discussions in the book within the COVID-19 context. The first vignette provides a glimpse from the perspective of a practitioner of care, while the second highlights the ambiguities of the impact of policy reactions to COVID-19, where unintended consequences have indeed shown what early childhood care could look like if there was sufficient political will. The third vignette conveys a feeling of how mundane and at the same time existential hospital care is, on so many levels. Finally, the fourth vignette illustrates the disruptive context of academic work in the time of COVID-19.
Towards an ecological society
Authors: Wagenaar Hendrik , Prainsack Barbara
Published: May 2022

‘Be realistic; demand the impossible.’ This famous 1968 slogan is the motto for our chapter. We want to express that, despite the fact that this book is about policy making – with its associations of rational, technical solutions and incremental change - we cannot emphasize enough the importance of a coherent moral vision for overcoming the predicament of complexity and hegemony. But how do we achieve change? We acknowledge that although we need government and business to get out of the mess we are in, it would be naive to think they would do this on their own. We therefore argue for a larger role of civic associations in our political economy. Real reform combines the legitimacy of democratic influence, the effectiveness of expert administration and the openness and creativity of associational life within civil society. The idea of an Ecological Society rests on three principles: a rich associational civil society, problem-driven practical deliberation, and the creation of intermediary structures that mediate between state agencies and associational civic life. We conclude the chapter by discussing five major benefits of a rich associational life.
The world of prisons
Authors: Coyle Andrew
Published: May 2022

The author describes his experiences as Governor of Peterhead Prison, where he entered a world in which prisoners had smeared themselves with faeces and wore only a prison blanket and where staff wore body armour as they carried out their daily duties, and how he slowly introduced a degree of humanity and respect into the ethos of the prison. He was then asked to take command of Brixton Prison in the aftermath of an escape when two IRA prisoners shot their way to freedom. At that time Brixton was described by the Chief Inspector of Prisons as ‘a corrupting and depressing institution’, yet two years later the same Inspector reported on its ‘remarkable transformation’. This hands-on experience was crucial in establishing the author’s credibility when he subsequently advised on problematic prison systems in other countries.
Latin America: the iron fist or the New Model?
Authors: Coyle Andrew
Published: May 2022

Some of the world’s most overcrowded, violent and anarchic prisons are in Latin America. In many of them prisoners have untrammelled control of their own areas and staff only entered the interior of the prisons in large numbers and suitably armed. This chapter provides case studies of prisons in Venezuela and Colombia where lawlessness in the prisons is an extreme reflection of the dangers and difficulties which face many sections of the community in their daily lives. In El Salvador and Guatemala the overarching problem in prisons is the presence of warring gangs which had their genesis in Los Angeles and New York before members were deported back to the country of their or their parents’ birth. The reaction of some governments has been to meet violence with violence, what is commonly known as the mano dura, the ‘iron fist’, confining prisoners in appalling and dangerous conditions. As an alternative, the Dominican Republic offers a strong ray of hope for a more positive approach with what it calls its New Model of imprisonment.
‘Post-war’ to post-millennium
Authors: Scott Peter
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores the wider concepts needed to make sense of the evolution of higher education systems across the globe. It emphasizes that the development of mass higher education in the UK since 1960 did not take place in a vacuum. Many of the changes that have taken place, whether in terms of national policy, institutional missions, organisational culture or teaching and research, cannot properly be explained without some consideration of the wider political, social, economic, and cultural context. The chapter discusses the political changes from the 1960s to Brexit five decades later; the major themes such as over-centralisation of political power and decision making, and the replacement of consensus by new adversarial politics; the changing economic contexts, including the death of industrial England and the rise of neoliberal finance; and wider social change, such as the erosion of old solidarities and the rise of new ‘identities’ against a background of increasing inequalities, and a cultural revolution, rooted in the advance of social liberalism and the unbundling of traditional forms and structures of creative expression in the context of instantaneity, brands and celebrity.
Themes and transformations
Authors: Scott Peter
Published: May 2022

This chapter thematically discusses the development of higher education in the UK. It explores four themes or transformations: ‘steering’ and regulation at national and system levels; the political economy of higher education, in particular the reshaping of the system from binary to unified, but also the fragmentation of the UK system into two, possibly three, national sub-systems; the transformation of institutional governance and management—from collegiality to managerialism; and the new intellectual agendas, subjects, curricula and learning economies. The chapter also uses a geographically and conceptually wider lens towards the end of the discussion. It acknowledges that the general effects of mass higher education, the emergence of more coherent systems which needed to be ‘steered’, shifts in organisational cultures and in governance and management practice, the drive towards systematisation of good practice, the rise of metrics and management, the impact of new technologies on student learning were equally felt in other higher education systems beyond the UK.
Introduction
Authors: Khoo Helen
Published: May 2022

This Introduction situates the essays in this book within a wider moment of acknowledgement that deeper thinking and self-reflection about methods and ethics are needed in this time of ongoing, intersecting, recurring and protracted crises. Crises make it necessary to consider researchers’ and research participants’ capacities for safety and resilience, and their needs for care. Crisis response can make research more flexible and lead researchers to innovate, as well as to try out more thoughtful and creative practices. As research practices have pivoted towards the digital realm, we can learn from the researchers and communities who regularly use these methods. Their experiences raise deeper questions about researcher identity and connection, place more emphasis on affiliations and commitments, and foreground subjectivity and relational ethics in the research process.
Ethnography in crisis: methodology in the cracks
Authors: Koppe Zania
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses ethnographic research exploring the potential of a collaborative co-housing project to disrupt the social and spatial boundaries of inclusion/exclusion of intellectually disabled people. The research concerns a pilot project for residents with diverse abilities in Callan, Ireland, invested in ideas of “housing the social” and civic engagement. National housing shortages, financial crisis and policy austerity impacted social housing and highlighted needs for alternatives. A series of unexpected crises encountered during the fieldwork stalled the project, impacting the research. The situated and deductive research practices of ethnography facilitate shifting directions in research, responding to changes in the field and enabling the researcher to negotiate and adapt to crises and change.
Phenomenology of lived experience: multilayered approach and positionality
Authors: Dahal Bibek
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses researching the lived experience of social science researchers during a global pandemic, using hermeneutic phenomenology with a careful approach to methods and ethics. It discusses the researcher’s lived experience of research, the difficulties faced in the COVID-19 pandemic and how these were resolved through methodological and ethical reflexivity. Hermeneutic phenomenology research is the study of lived experiences — as the study of humanness within humanistic parameters. Time and space define humans’ lived experiences subjectively with vividness. The study of human experiences within contextual phenomena, defined by time and space including body and mind, is called ‘human science research’. A human science researcher explores research ethics from the perspective of how social scientists experience being ethical, as researchers.
Developing a Collaborative AutoNetnographic approach to researching doctoral students’ online experiences
Authors: McGrath Holly , Bowen-Salter Emma , Milanese Phoebe
Published: May 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to rapidly shift online, presenting both challenges and opportunities. This chapter explores the key challenge of continuing to support learning in an engaging environment, as well as the opportunities to conduct research on the impact and benefits of online learning, and to develop innovative research methodologies more aligned to an interactive, online world. This chapter discusses the development of Collaborative AutoNetnography (CAN), to support doctoral research students, taking into consideration the type students’ academic disciplines, opportunities to engage with peers, and whether they are studying overseas. This chapter explains the methodologies that the researchers collaboratively drew upon to develop CAN and discusses how it was implemented, including a reflection of key enablers, barriers and ethical aspects.
The ethical implications of using digital traces: studying explainability and trust during a pandemic
Authors: Dwyer Hector , Miller-Bakewell Tessa , Darbyshire Anirban , Basu Steve
Published: May 2022

This chapter gives an account of the ethical issues encountered while collecting data from a chatbot used in a university setting for a research project exploring explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) and trust. Chatbots can assist students to make sense of the university experience, especially when the usual information pathways offering assistance have been constrained by a pandemic. XAI seeks to provide users engaging with automated systems with insights into a given decision-making process. The rapid deployment of digital surveillance and monitoring technologies brings ethical risks and may impact trust in learning environments, educational experiences and future expectations of work life. Suggestions for ethical XAI research and practice include informing users about the data collection process, answering users’ questions, respecting their privacy and minimizing data collection.
A timed crisis: Australian education, migrant Asian teachers, and critical autoethnography
Authors: Teo Aaron
Published: May 2022

This chapter combines critical autoethnography with reflections on interviewing recently-migrated Asian teachers as co-researchers, using in-depth semi-structured interviews, conducted online. Reflective methodological reading combines with personal stories, allowing the reader to empathise and actively participate in the researcher’s thoughts and experiences, connecting past incidents of everyday racism with heightened awareness of anti-Asian racism surfaced by the contemporary COVID-19 pandemic. Critical auto-ethnography exposes a ‘vulnerable self’, sharing private details and emotions and engaging traditional and non-traditional audiences in dialogue. By writing stories about experiences that are not often told, the author exposes, analyses and challenges majoritarian stories of racial privilege and broader structures of racism. Autoethnography is political in nature, and critical autoethnography aims to catalyse emancipatory personal and social change.
Re-envisioning Alternative Futures
Authors: Kiely Elizabeth , Swirak Katharina
Published: May 2022

This chapter revisits key themes arising from the earlier chapters and considers the alternative trajectories for social policy and criminology that could be pursued. The chapter explores the potential for both these fields of study, criminology and social policy, and the practices they inspire to conjoin in ways, that are not about disciplining populations and /or are not in line with late neoliberal goals but instead about generating fairer, more just societies in the twenty-first century.
The Voter: Housewives and Mothers
Authors: Harmer Emily
Published: May 2022

This chapter analyses how women voters have been represented in news coverage of elections from 1918-2017. It begins with a brief discussion of the limited existing research into the mediated representation of women voters. The chapter then tracks three main trends over time: 1) the extent to which the voices of women voters are included in the news; 2) the policy issues which with which they are mostly associated and 3) the extent to which news coverage invokes their familial situation. The final section presents a qualitative analysis of the news coverage, discussing how women are portrayed as a distinct set of voters who are unpredictable or undecided. The chapter then shows how newspapers portrayed the motivations and values of women voters, before examining the way political issue coverage about them is gendered. The final section of the analysis focuses on how their voices are incorporated into news coverage.
Conclusion
Authors: Corbett Jack , Yi-chong Xu , Weller Patrick
Published: May 2022

In the concluding chapter, we consider what these interactions amount to for both small states, IOs and the LIO writ large. We argue that while SIDS only represent a fraction of the world’s population and economic wealth, and absorb only a very small proportion of IOs time and resources, their participation is nevertheless significant because of what it tells us about the values and principles of international society. SIDS are often portrayed as the canary in the coal mine of climate change. But the metaphor works for the LIO too. If SIDS see value in participation, and other states are inclusive of them, then we know that the principles of sovereign equality and the right to development matter. These efforts may be primarily symbolic. But a society that completely ignored its smallest members would strike many as illiberal. By studying the participation of small states in IOs we learn something about the health of liberal internationalism, too.
Conclusion: Our Words Must Spill
Authors: Weatherall Ruth
Published: May 2022

The conclusion brings the diverse threads of feminist anti-violence activism and academic activism together. Social justice is less about having the ‘right’ tools, and more about what happens when the tools are consistently refined in relation to an ever-shifting socio-political context. Difference is core to this reimagination. Sharing our tools and learning from the tools of others can help us to develop solidarity; even when those struggles are not our own. Accordingly, tracing the multiple lines of connection and divergence between academia and activism offers novel opportunities for social change. What emerges is not a prescriptive approach to academic activism, but a framework for how we develop our imaginative capacity for social justice and take tools, ideas, and practices into new terrains.
Remaking Academic Identities
Authors: Schwittay Anke
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores critical-creative pedagogy's potential to transform educators and students alike. It begins by analyzing the neoliberalization of contemporary universities and how critical pedagogy has emerged in resistance to it. The chapter draws selectively on the cannon of critical pedagogy, in a broad arch that spans from John Dewey to Paolo Freire to Maxine Greene and Sarah Amsler, as a critique of the current neoliberalized university. In parallel, the chapter then incorporates calls for the decolonization of the westernized university, which will be explored through the writings of Oliveira Andreotti, Boaventura de Souza Santos and Ramon Grosfoguel. The chapter studies the emergence of academic identities in relation to generative theory and to teaching that counters students' saviourism. It then describes two teaching activities: the first one shows how body mapping can be used in university classrooms to support alternative narratives of students' selves and their relations to others, and the second locates students as situated learners in their day-to-day surroundings.
Repairing Ecologies
Authors: Schwittay Anke
Published: May 2022

This chapter concentrates on repairing ecologies. It interrogates the dominant discourse of sustainable development that prioritizes economic growth over environmental sustainability, and then displays eco-centrism as an alternative. This leads into a discussion of Education for Sustainable Development as a global educational programme advanced by the United Nations. The chapter then demonstrates how teaching about ecological challenges can impart new knowledge about alternative ecological understandings, such as the Latin American concept of Buen Vivir and complex systems thinking, both of which highlight the relationality between humans and the natural environment. The chapter outlines the two learning activities, the first describing the use of serious games to teach students about climate change uncertainty, and the second showing how mapping campus infrastructures can help students to think about the sustainability of their learning environments.
Sociology and Nostalgia: Micro-, Meso-and Macro-level Dimensions of an Ambiguous Emotion
Authors: Jacobsen Michael Hviid , Wilson Janelle L.
Published: May 2022

This chapter highlights important contributions from the field of sociology to the study of nostalgia. Sociology offers a unique and valuable perspective from which to study nostalgia. Sociologists are especially apt to emphasize that the conceptualizations, experiences and uses of nostalgia are variable. The foundational work of Fred Davis (Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia) in 1979, is considered the first truly sociological treatment of the phenomenon of nostalgia. Davis’ distinction between ‘private’ and ‘collective’ nostalgia as well as his identification of three successive orders of nostalgia (‘simple’, ‘reflexive’ and ‘interpretive’) provided a solid foundation for other sociologists interested in analyzing the complex and ambiguous emotion of nostalgia. Well before the work of Davis, early sociologists could be viewed as exploring aspects of nostalgia – at least in an indirect way – as evidenced in their focus on societal changes and psychosocial challenges brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Karl Marx’s discussion of alienation, Max Weber’s concerns about over-rationalisation, Émile Durkheim’s conceptualization of social solidarity, Ferdinand Tönnies’ distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, and Georg Simmel’s description of objective and subjective culture all express dissatisfaction with the present and a sense of loss, which is at the heart of nostalgia. From the backdrop of these early sociologists, this chapter examines key sociological insights on nostalgia and, in so doing, discusses other relevant concepts such as meaning, memory, identity, social structure and politics. In this way, this chapter shows how sociological insights can shed light on the phenomenon of nostalgia on the micro, meso and macro levels of social analysis.
Giving Voice to Convicted Perpetrators of Sexual Harm: Assisted Desistance in the Community
Authors: Cresswell Clare B.
Published: May 2022

Research on desistance from sexual offending is a less well trodden path in criminology. This chapter presents the findings of a study conducted in the Republic of Ireland which explored a coordinated community-based response of three very different rehabilitative programmes for perpetrators of sexual harm. With the overarching aim of preventing further victims, each programme has either a practical, social or cognitive focus in assisting desistance from sexual crime. Results show the value of such a coordinated approach. Importantly, by giving a voice to the frequently ignored perpetrators of sexual harm as well as to all the different stakeholders involved with the programmes, the study captures their different experiences and interactions, which are important both for developing the theory of assisted desistance as well as for assisting practitioners.
The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program ® : Its Origin, Essence, and Global Reach
Authors: Pompa Lori
Published: May 2022

This chapter provides a description of, and reflection on, The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, a unique, groundbreaking initiative that brings people together for in-depth dialogue about issues of social justice. Since the program described herein is centered on the power and importance of dialogue, voices of inside and outside students, as well as instructors, from across the globe, and across time, are included throughout, providing somewhat of an imaginary dialogic conceit and illustrating the depth of this experience beyond what my words could ever express.
From ‘America First’ to Saving ‘Beautiful Babies’ in Syria
Authors: Rees Morgan T.
Published: May 2022

This chapter examines President Donald Trump's decision to bomb Syrian airfields following the chemical weapons attack in Al Shayrat on April 4, 2017. Images of the attack — in which children were seen foaming at the mouth — temporarily caused a displacement of Trump's ‘America First’ vision to defend the ‘beautiful babies’. The chapter first gives a brief background of the developments in the Syrian crisis after the 2013 attack and provides an overview of Trump's ‘America First’ foreign policy. Then the discussion progresses to cover how Trump succumbed to the same inconsistencies as his predecessors. Emotional images of dead and dying Syrian children, following a chemical weapons attack in Northern Syria, led to a more principled interpretation of foreign policy interests. Furthermore, the chapter tackles Trump's quick return to the ‘America First’ platform — which culminated in a decision to abandon Kurdish allies in Northern Syria in 2019 despite an almost certain humanitarian tragedy in light of a Turkish offensive.
The 2020 Iranian Crisis: De-escalating from the Use of Force
Authors: Rees Morgan T.
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses how tensions between principled and cognitive interpretations of US interests towards Iran saw the Trump administration on the brink of conflict as Trump struggled to reconcile his desire to re-establish US dominance, while at the same time avoiding war. Beginning early in his presidency, Trump asserted principled appeals in order to justify withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which eventually occurred in May 2018. On the heels of the US' withdrawal from the JCPOA, its relations with Iran quickly deteriorated as Trump reconstructed the principled threat posed by the Iranian regime. These tensions resulted in Trump's authorization to assassinate Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. In turn, Iran quickly retaliated with a missile strike against an Iraqi airbase leaving over 100 US soldiers injured. Trump repressed the impact of these strikes to de-escalate the crisis and avoid war rather than becoming entrapped in a wider regional conflict.
Energy (In)Securitization: Abusive Security Practices and Poor Energy Choices
Authors: Ganz Aurora
Published: May 2022

This chapter reorients the empirical attention towards the implications of energy securitization and exposes the Janus-faced relation between security and insecurity. Its analysis explores the multiple vulnerabilities created by energy securitization in Azerbaijan. Energy securitization is tied to forms of abuse, violence and harassment. This chapter reveals how security professionals have reoriented their rights to use force to protect energy sites against activists, workers, ordinary people and local communities. This section also shows that despite the criticality attached to energy by the multiple securitization processes, Azerbaijan's energy system is unreliable. The study discusses the country's lack of access to, affordability and availability of electricity, the low degree of sustainability of its energy system, the impact on the environment, and the inadequacy of public investments in the domestic energy industry.
Conclusion
Authors: Ganz Aurora
Published: May 2022

This chapter sets out the conclusions of this book, offering a summary of the main conceptual arguments and findings of the empirical work. These concluding remarks reaffirm the relevance of this research and its contribution to understanding energy securitization in Azerbaijan. Its final section discusses how future research can move forward.
Crowdfunding and the Democratization of Finance
Authors: Davis Mark , Davis Bruce
Published: May 2022

Do you know where your money is? More importantly, do you know what your money is doing? Most of us feel confident that we know what money is. But few of us feel confident in taking responsibility for what our money does. We hand over the power of money to banks and mainstream finance with real, often damaging consequences for people and planet. A unique collaboration between an academic and a practitioner, this book tells the story of money from ancient Athens to the Bitcoin revolution to explain how crowdfunding is the way for people to reclaim the power of their money in pursuit of a fairer and greener society.
What is Crowdfunding?
Authors: Davis Mark , Davis Bruce
Published: May 2022

Chapter two introduces the reader to the basics of crowdfunding, the types of models that exist and what each of them means for your money. We briefly survey the size and scale of global crowdfunding sectors, before returning to the UK where both authors are based to hear from crowdfunding platforms themselves about their role in democratizing finance.
Co-creating the Tolerant City: The Role of Inspirational Civic Leadership
Authors: Hambleton Robin , Aksztejn Wirginia
Published: May 2022

The key challenge facing those who want to co-create tolerant and inclusive cities is the growth in place-less power. Place-less decision makers are unconcerned about the impacts of their decisions on communities living in particular places. This chapter examines the way place-less power limits the effectiveness of local civic leadership but it also shows that democratically elected local leaders can take on place-less power. A conceptual framework, described as New Civic Leadership, is introduced to explain how the different realms of place-based civic leadership in a locality can work together to co-create tolerant and inclusive cities and, in effect, confront angry populism. Two inspirational examples of progressive place-based leadership are presented to illustrate the argument - Gdańsk, Poland (written by Wirginia Aksztejn) and Bristol, UK. A closing section identifies emerging themes for future scholarship and practice.
Urban Climate Leadership in Metropolitan Areas: How Has the Political Parliamentary Model Influenced Oslo’s Climate Leadership?
Authors: Hanssen Gro Sandkjær
Published: May 2022

The chapter analyses political climate leadership in one of the Nordic capitals, Oslo, being the European Green Capital in 2019. As the core-city in a metropolitan area, Oslo is dependent upon neighbourhood municipalities, regional and state actors to achieve its climate goals. Taking the climate governance-categories of Bulkeley (2013) as a point of departure, the chapter discusses how the political leadership of Oslo play out their role, and how the political models of local government influence climate leadership. The analysis is based on document studies and qualitative interviews of key actors in the political and administrative leadership at local, regional and national level.
Introduction: Going Local
Authors: Hetherington Peter
Published: May 2022

This chapter highlights the potential of local supply chains in addressing the looming crisis of food insecurity in Britain and the impact of global heating. It looks at land as a basic resource sadly neglected by governments. The discussion underscores that Britain is just growing over half the food it needs and should be capable of producing more to reach a respectable level of self-sufficiency. It also warns that the land is ill-prepared for the climate emergency as rising sea and water levels threaten the most productive farming areas in eastern England. Nonetheless, the chapter emphasizes that amid the immense challenges ahead, the smallholders, shopkeepers, and food networks invariably delivered hope, and not despair.
Introduction
Authors: McGregor Rafe
Published: May 2022

This introductory chapter discusses three theories of criminological fiction. Vincenzo Ruggiero's aim in Crime in Literature: Sociology of Deviance and Fiction (2003) is to use canonical literary works as a tool for communicating sociological meaning and elaborating criminological analysis. His thesis is that crime and crime control can be viewed through a literary rather than legal lens and that the literary lens draws attention to the significance of value, emotion, and the imagination in conceptions of crime and its control. Meanwhile, Jon Frauley develops the critical realist framework in Criminology, Deviance, and the Silver Screen: The Fictional Reality and the Criminological Imagination (2010), arguing first for a greater recognition of the significance of theory and the practice of theorising within criminology and then for the value of fictional realities for theory and theorising. The third theory argues that criminological fiction can provide at least three types of criminological knowledge: phenomenological, counterfactual, and mimetic. This book sets out a new methodology for critical criminology by exploring the aetiological value of allegories.
Conclusion
Authors: McGregor Rafe
Published: May 2022

This concluding chapter summarises the book's argument for criminological criticism as an alternative way of doing critical criminology. The main challenge to meet with respect to deploying criminological criticism as a method for critical criminology is the distance between the causes of harm as represented in fiction and those same causes as they exist in reality. The chapter then presents two conclusions. First, collaboration between literary studies and critical criminology is beneficial to both disciplines. Second, interdisciplinary research between the humanities and the social sciences can make actual interventions in harm and social injustice. Ultimately, the chapter urges social scientists and humanities scholars to see rather than unsee the research programmes of other disciplines and to recognise them as equally valuable means to the shared end of creating a more just world.
The Significance of Building and Construction
Authors: Imrie Rob
Published: May 2022

The chapter outlines and evaluates the building culture that shapes the design and construction of the built environment. Primed by a political economy of building, the prevailing approach to construction is a continuous output, shaped by a corporate, global, construction nexus, or deeply embedded interests propagating building as a primary source of investment and wealth. While constructing habitats is intrinsic to human life, the rationality of building far exceeds what people need, and much is wasteful and harmful to people and ecology. The chapter demonstrates that there is an imperative to build, or a building culture that rarely stops to question why we build or what building is for. Rather, an ideology of building permeates society that encourages a never-ending supply of bricks and mortar, developed and delivered by a building industry that has long lost any sense of craft or constructing in ways that ‘brings something that cares into being’ (Fry, 2011: 140).
Speculation and Building Booms
Authors: Imrie Rob
Published: May 2022

Chapter 4 explores the most significant dynamic of building and construction, that is, the speculation in land and real estate. It is particularly evident with the emergence of super-rich enclaves in cities, and the construction of buildings only affordable to wealthy investors. In major cities, like London and New York, the construction of, primarily, residential buildings is part of a broader process of creating investment portfolios. Such properties are less to be lived in and regarded more as economic assets that enable global investors to accumulate wealth. This phenomenon is part of a casino capitalism in which the built environment is regarded as comprising tradable objects, to be exchanged as part of a system of technocratic asset management. In the chapter, the significance of ‘building as assets’ and the impacts on the socio-spatial development of cities is discussed, including pricing people out of local housing markets and rendering neighbourhoods as ‘dead zones’. Buildings are built but rarely inhabited, or are part of a daytime economy that, at best, includes partial human presence and, at worst, perpetuates ‘ghost places’.