bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘A good mother is a good mother and a good wife’: gender politics and mothering practice among older Iranian Muslim women
Authors: Amini Elham
Published: May 2024

By viewing mothering as a multifaceted concept that comprises both mundane practice and symbolic meaning, this chapter explores the processes through which the identity of a good mother is shaped among older Iranian Muslim women by hegemonic gender norms, and how these women, in turn, express their agency. Drawing on 30 biographical interviews with older Muslim women living in Tehran and Karaj, this chapter discusses how these women negotiate and mediate gender power through their bodies, as well as in the specific ways in which they interpret dominant cultural symbolism to construct their gendered biographies and identities. Significantly, this chapter presents the expressions that participants used to define ‘a proper wife’ and a ‘successful mother’ to explore normative gender expectations from the points of view of the participants. This, along with their consideration of what constitutes ‘a good girl’, substantially expands our understanding of femininity and masculinity, and of gender relations between men and women in Iran.
Exploration of mothering and shifting identities in Kenya
Authors: Lukalo Fibian
Published: May 2024

This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to understand how social-mothering is perceived and experienced by one mother, drawing on her life biography. Using in-person interviews, the chapter explores the concept of social mothering by focusing on the life narrative of one female informal worker (Melodi) in Nairobi, Kenya, and showing how her social-mothering experiences are embedded within broader personal life trajectories and choices. Melodi’s life narrative is considered within its socio-economic, cultural and historical contexts to prioritise unheard voices and fully understand how social mothering is constructed, shifts and is experienced. Living in an informal urban settlement situates Melodi in spaces of contestation whereby the challenges of social mothering are juxtaposed with her own subjective mothering identity. The life history method enables mapping of co-existing and competing frames, revealing the ontological multiplicity of social mothering. Here, African feminist theory offers an avenue for the articulation of multiple perspectives within which to map and explore the relational worlds of social mothering. These findings on the shifting spaces for social mothering are important for the development of African feminist theory given the uncertainties that mothers continue to face.
Unplanned breakdown of foster mothering: biographical perspectives on identity challenges of foster mothers
Authors: Reimer Daniela
Published: May 2024

The legal and social situation of foster care and the role expectations of foster parenthood embody a variety of tensions. In many foster families, mothers experience their role as ‘the mother of the foster child’, and foster mothers want to be ‘good mothers’ – often even ‘better mothers’ compared with the child’s birth mother. Accordingly, foster mothers tend to exhibit intensive mothering. However, if foster care placements break down, the affected foster mothers experience the breakdown not only as an end of their role as foster mothers, but as a shattering of their entire identity. The chapter is based on a study conducted in Switzerland, Germany and the UK on ‘Breakdown in Foster Care’ and focuses solely on the German sample. A brief introduction to the structural context of foster care in Germany is provided, and structural ambivalences and contradictions reagrding foster care from the German-language literature are presented and discussed. In the context of the aforementioned project, partial biographical interviews of the various actors involved were conducted, and multi-perspective case studies were reconstructed. The chapter draws on two contrasting case studies of foster mothers and their foster sons.
Exploring mothering in future biographical research: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and new research agendas
Authors: Moran Lisa , Nurse Lyudmila , Sidiropulu-Janků Kateřina
Published: May 2024

This Conclusion summarises the main points of the book, drawing on insights from global biographical and narrative research while revealing the complexities of social expectations of mothering and motherhood that prevail in contemporary societies. The Conclusion identifies many ways that this book contributes to existing literature, and, crucially, how it advances conceptual and empirical insights into mothers’ everyday lives, imagined futures and interconnecting past, present and future selves from the bottom-up perspective. The chapter brings the reader ‘full circle’ from the key question posed in the Preface ‘Why a book on modern mothering?,’ to providing future agendas for biographic narrative research. It explores fruitful conceptual and methodological avenues for transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research dialogues.
NHS at 75: general practice through the lens of access
Authors: Checkland Kath , Voorhees Jennifer , Hammond Jonathan , Spooner Sharon
Published: May 2024

Since the inception of the NHS, general practice services have been delivered by GPs working as independent contractors rather than employees. As the NHS reaches its 75th birthday, services are under huge strain, and policy solutions have focused upon augmenting services with new technologies and new types of staff, as well as longer opening hours. Access to care is a particular problem, and in this chapter we consider these contemporary policy solutions through the lens of access as a ‘human fit’ between services and the population served. We argue that this lens allows us to see past technocratic questions as to whether more appointments have been delivered or timely access achieved, to ask more fundamental questions about what general practice is for, and how should it be conceptualised in planning for the future. We argue that making general practice fit for the next 75 years requires a renewed focus on generalist and holistic care.
NHS hospitals and the bedpan doctrine: the first 75 years
Authors: Sheaff Rod , Allen Pauline
Published: May 2024

Since its inception NHS hospital management has been subject to the ‘bedpan doctrine’. Although no-one seems certain exactly when, Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, is often credited with saying that ‘If a bedpan is dropped on a hospital floor in Tredegar, I want the noise to reverberate in the corridors of the Palace of Westminster’. Essentially, the government is ultimately responsible for how NHS hospitals are managed or mismanaged. However, there are practical limits upon how far central government can actually anticipate or prevent politically awkward developments and events in NHS hospitals. The tension has existed for 75 years since but some health policies exacerbate it. This chapter uses bedpan doctrine as a framework for examining how the governmental balance between central control and local managerial discretion has played out in NHS hospitals, especially since the 2008 financial crash, a watershed in UK economic development, that of NHS hospitals included.
Adultism, children’s political participation and voting rights
Authors: Meade Philip
Published: May 2024

At the latest since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, children worldwide have been regarded as persons with their own special rights. These include rights that are intended to protect them and influence decisions that affect them. But how far these so-called participation rights go and whether they also include political rights is disputed. They oppose social structures that nail children down to a subordinate position, which today is subsumed under the term adultism, the meaning of which is explained at the beginning of the chapter. In this chapter it is discussed, especially with regard to children of the Global South, how far political rights, especially the right of children to vote, can contribute to counteracting adultism as a form of the colonization of children. This question is discussed not only in relation to children living today, but also in relation to future generations and intergenerational justice.
Flexible adaptation or resistance? Paradoxes and pitfalls of discourses on resilience in children
Authors: Liebel Manfred , Budde Rebecca , Markowska-Manista Urszula , Meade Philip
Published: May 2024

This chapter reconstructs the various concepts of resilience that have been developed and become influential in recent decades and questions some problematic trends in its application. The emancipatory intentions originally associated with it have increasingly been reversed and raise the question of whether the concept of resilience is still suitable for emancipatory action. This also applies to social and educational work with children. While discussing some immanent limitations and contradictions of the resilience discourse, the chapter asks whether it is possible to conceive other concepts within its framework. Some reflections are undertaken about how children living in extremely stressful conditions can defend themselves and address the causes of their suffering, and what needs to be considered in this context. To this end, the chapter takes up reflections and concepts that are discussed and lived under the term resistance in the social movements of indigenous and popular people, especially in Latin America. They revolve around the question of how oppression and exploitation can be resisted and the possibility for a dignified life is given.
Children’s protagonism: considerations for its reconceptualization
Authors: Liebel Manfred , Budde Rebecca , Markowska-Manista Urszula , Meade Philip
Published: May 2024

The basic idea of children’s protagonism (protagonismo infantil), which emerged in Latin America in the 1970s, is that children are social subjects. They claim to play an active role in society and to be able to meaningfully influence the decisions that affect their lives. This is understood both as a right and an opportunity that children should have, and as a practice they already live. The emphasis is not on individual action, but on collective and organized action of the children themselves. After introducing the basic ideas of the concept, the chapter reviews its history and reflects on the risks, misunderstandings and reinterpretations associated with protagonism. Finally, the main challenges for its reconceptualization are presented. Also, the question is raised to what extent the concept of protagonism can serve as an orientation in education and social work.
A History of Rape Law in Action
Authors: Conaghan Joanne , Russell Yvette
Published: May 2024

This chapter explores the evolution and development of conceptions of rape, from a predominantly property crime, perpetrated against a (male) property holder, then to an offence concerned with protecting women’s chastity (viewed largely in terms of standards of morality/decency), and finally to the modern conception of rape as a violation of sexual autonomy. The chapter draws both on legal and non-legal materials to present a contextualised analysis of rape law in action from 1200 to the present day.
Tracking the Use of Sexual History Evidence in the Courtroom
Authors: Conaghan Joanne , Russell Yvette
Published: May 2024

In Chapter 5, we assess the veracity of the claim which reverberated around the legal and political establishment after Evans that sexual history evidence is only rarely or exceptionally considered in rape trials. Again, focusing primarily on empirical studies conducted in England and Wales, but drawing also on overseas studies, the chapter summarises significant past studies of sexual history evidence (for example Adler [1987] and Lees [1996]), identifies and details the various contemporary studies, from Kelly et al (2006) to Smith (2018) and Daly (2022), highlighting the methods applied, scope, limitations and gaps in current knowledge to present as comprehensive picture as possible of the extent of the problem contemporaneously. Chapter 5 is critical in establishing the persistence of problems with sexual history evidence notwithstanding legal reforms, staunchly problematising claims that this kind of evidence features only exceptionally in rape trials.
Intersectionality, Pluriversality, and Libertarian Socialism
Authors: Masquelier Charles
Published: May 2024

This chapter explains that the intersectionalist utopia drawn in the book is informed by an approach to intersectionality predominantly influenced by the work of Global South scholars. This distinctively counter-cultural approach, known as ‘co-formation’ (Collins, 2019), will be shown to exhibit several parallels with the concept of pluriversality found within Latin American decolonial scholarship. The relationality presupposed by such a pluriversal approach to intersectionality, it is further argued, distinguishes itself from other relational approaches like actor-network theory in its attempt to analyse power by exposing the radical interdependence of diverse structures of domination. The chapter ends with a discussion of the affinity between pluriversal intersectionality and the libertarian strand of socialist thought and shows how, broadly speaking, the latter can provide a fruitful basis upon which to institutionalize radical interdependence.
Quarantine Continuum: Medicalization of Borders and the Securitization of Migration and Health
Authors: Iliadou Evgenia
Published: May 2024

In this chapter, I explore the genealogies of militarization, securitization and medicalization of borders as a response to the overlapping refugee and COVID-19 ‘crises’ in Greece. In doing so, I challenge the mainstream discourses which represent and normalize exceptional and violent discriminatory security and COVID-19-related enforcements at, within and beyond the borders as something new. Instead, I place the mandatory surveillance and sanitation border enforcements on mainland Greece and the island of Lesvos in a genealogical framework. Certain patterns of violence, quarantine and border control of the present display similarities with earlier patterns. Therefore, the sanitation and military border enforcements are perceived in a diachronic sense, as a continuum rather than a crisis. I argue that the health inspections and discriminatory quarantine practices at the borders unfolded as a continuum across time and space.
Futurity: Changing Futures in a Changing World
Authors: Leccardi Carmen , Jedlowski Paolo , Cavalli Alessandro
Published: May 2024

It can be stated without grounds for contradiction that the history of modernity finds a perfect synthesis in the transformation of the social representations of time. In particular, as we move away from the religious order of the world, we witness a transformation in the ways in which the relationship between past, present and future is thematized. This chapter finds its premises in these very redefinitions to then focus, in the first part, on the key element of modern temporal horizons: the ideology of progress. This ideology transforms the future into a time open to continuous and irreversible improvement, fostering unprecedented expectations. The decline of the ‘religion of progress’ since the first half of the 20th century has reversed this vision, generating a growing presentism. Fuelling this phenomenon is also the renowned process of social acceleration, through which the future blends in with the present. The second part of the chapter analyses the results of this process from a social point of view, as well as biographical. The threatening future of the 21st century, however, creates fertile ground for new movements, starting with the climate justice movements, which effectively bring responsibility towards present and future generations back to the centre of the social scene.
Conclusion
Authors: Gibson Kate
Published: May 2024

Chapter 6 gathers together the key themes of this book to offer concluding remarks pertaining to the ways middle-classness is reproduced and communicated through everyday domestic food practices. Based on these themes, the chapter presents a discussion about the broader implications of taste, middle-class identities and domestic food provisioning in contemporary Britain. It suggests that the small-scale domestic interactions presented in this book have implications for a broader understanding of the relational ways that class provides access to particular ways of eating and legitimizes eaters who participate in very specific ways of valuing ‘good’ food.
Science and Democracy
Authors: Soneryd Linda , Sundqvist Göran
Published: May 2024

This book explores the relationship between science and democracy from an STS perspective. Through the focus on the interplay between science and politics and the role of participation when it comes to highly expert-dependent issues, the book contributes important insights into the relation between science and democracy. The book also introduces STS as a field of research and presents an overview of classical and current STS scholarship and debates with a special focus on science and democracy. The main argument is that science and democracy belong together – they are co-produced – and are separate. The book takes the reader on a journey that starts by emphasizing the differences between science and democracy and then introduces their similarities and interdependencies. The journey goes through three parts: separation, overlap, and co-production. The book concludes by summarizing specific contributions of STS research to the discussion of science and democracy, based on four themes: representation and participation; separation and hybridization; situated practices and democratic theory; and STS and normativity.
Science and Politics as Separate Domains
Authors: Soneryd Linda , Sundqvist Göran
Published: May 2024

Science and democracy have emerged as important institutions in modern Western societies. But what does it mean that a society is ‘modern’? Among other things, modernity means that the world is understood in the light of scientific knowledge, instead of traditional knowledge and religious beliefs. Scientific knowledge takes precedence over other forms of knowledge and becomes the yardstick from which other knowledge claims are judged. This situation becomes an important part of the characterization of modernity (Beck 1992: Chapter 7). That science becomes superior to other forms of knowledge in modern society is only valid on a rather basic level. However, we are expected to accept that the earth was not created in seven days, that all living things consist of one or more cells, and that the dropped coffee cup falls to the ground due to gravity. The limit, or the boundary, of what issues can legitimately be answered from a scientific point of view can never be strictly formulated. Does climate change have human causes? Has extreme weather become more common due to a higher global average temperature? Is a global climate tax the best measure for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Do we all need to change our individual lifestyles due to climate change? Where in the climate discussion does science end and politics start, and is climate change mitigation a scientific issue at all? These questions illustrate that it is not obvious what questions science can answer and when science should have priority over other kinds of knowledge.
Close but Not Too Close
Authors: Soneryd Linda , Sundqvist Göran
Published: May 2024

As an interlude, this chapter is an effort to connect, bridge, and provide an overlap between the other two parts of this book: Separation and Co-production. In this work, the picture of a clear division between science and politics is complicated. The focus is on science and politics as two separate activities with their own institutions and practices, but the chapter also turns to the question of how the interplay between science and politics is understood in terms of overlaps and connections. Better communication, increased proximity, or more interaction while maintaining an arm’s-length distance – there are many expressions of how science and politics connect and should be connected; and from the science side, they can be summarized as an ambition to make science relevant to policy, to make it close to politics but not too close (Gieryn 1995: 435, referring to Jasanoff 1990). In other words, policy-relevant research involves a balancing act between separation and integration (Sundqvist et al 2015, 2018). According to this view, research must be sufficiently separate to maintain its autonomy, but integrated enough to be socially relevant. This ambition entails a critique of an overly strong division, but also points out the risks that one side will take command of the other. From this perspective, a scientization of politics and a politicization of science are both highly undesirable and considered as risks. There is thus a need for a proper distance between science and politics. To be fair, it is noted that several of the approaches and perspectives presented in Chapter 3 devote a great deal of effort to understanding the interplay between science and politics.
Automation in Medical Imaging: Who Gets What AI Sees? Insights from the Adopters’ Perspective
Authors: Berardi Filomena , Vernoni Giorgio
Published: May 2024

This chapter takes stock of progresses in automation of medical imaging with the aim of (a) exploring some of the complex implications arising from the human–technology interaction within healthcare; and (b) highlighting non-techno-economic factors which could discourage the automation process. A systematized literature review has been undertaken on different but interconnected fields of study related to (i) the determinants of labour automation; (ii) the implementation of different generations of digital technologies and AI in medical imaging; and (iii) technology adoption criteria and domains of acceptance/rejection. Additionally, we integrate the use of expert interviews in the analysis of these topics to gain additional insights into the current dynamics of AI and digital technologies acceptance/rejection. We suggest that patients’ and clinicians’ perspectives, as well as factors which may hinder integration digital technologies and AI within radiology, could be further investigated. To do this we draw from the Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability (NASSS) framework and adopt a socio-psychological perspective. This review highlights the need to fill the gaps in the existing literature on technology adoption criteria and identifies recommendations and areas of investigation for future research.
Transformative Societies
Authors: Keahey Jennifer
Published: May 2024

This chapter provides an overview of the Latvian and South African case studies. It explicates the theoretical and conceptual frameworks applied in the book and details historical eras of great transformation. After describing research methods and author positionality, the chapter concludes by summarizing the chapters to come.
Organic Farming and Slow Food in Post-Soviet Latvia
Authors: Keahey Jennifer
Published: May 2024

This chapter shares research findings from fieldwork conducted at the time of Latvia’s accession into the European Union. It shows how land reforms enabled a generation of farmers to return to the land, where small-scale famers have combined the matriarchal horticultural model of ancient Latvian tradition with investments in local and slow food. It also examines the political, economic, and cultural challenges that Latvia has experienced as part of its integration into the European Union.
The Sexual Politics of Masculinity and Vulnerability On-Road: Gender, Race and Male Victimisation
Authors: Levell Jade
Published: May 2024

This chapter explores narratives of sexual relations on-road. Using a lens of feminist theory to argue that the ‘personal is political’, this chapter draws attention to men’s experiences of sexual lives on-road. This chapter brings together Connell’s masculinity theory with feminist theory and apply it to narratives of life on-road. It also looks to the racialisation and sexualisation of Black young men’s bodies within a heteronormative context, and how together this dynamic has limited Black men on-road for finding a space and a voice to talk about their own non-consensual, exploitative, abusive or transactional sexual experiences. This chapter argues that Black men on-road have inherited a gender trauma, which, using an intersectional lens, is tied up with gender, race and class (and the stigma of criminality) and so it is imperative to open up a space to allow for vulnerabilities and a deepened understanding of sexual politics.
The Road, in Court: How UK Drill Music Became a Criminal Offence
Authors: Fatsis Lambros
Published: May 2024

UK drill music routinely features in the nation’s courtrooms as evidence of criminal wrongdoing, owing to the graphic imagery of the genre’s lyrical and video content. Such a response may seem justified, due to fatal incidents associated with drill music, but it remains difficult to prove a direct link between drill lyrics or videos and the evidential facts of criminal offences. Beyond speculation and interpretation, relying on drill music to bring criminal charges against individuals not only turns music-making into a criminal offence. It also exposes prosecutorial tactics that fail to uphold high standards of evidence and reproduce racist stereotypes about Black music genres and ‘criminality’. Drawing on my ongoing involvement as an expert witness in court cases that translate drill lyrics and videos into incriminating evidence, this chapter challenges the admissibility of such evidence as factually inaccurate to prove guilt – arguing that putting drill on trial conflates the literary and the literal, risking prejudicial assumptions about an art form, its producers and audiences.
Diary of an On-Road Criminologist: An Auto-Ethnographic Reflection
Authors: Glynn Martin
Published: May 2024

This chapter presents a reflexive account of an ‘on-road’ criminologist who has operated both in prisons and the streets for over four decades. The ‘on-road’ criminologist inhabits the world of his/her research participants. ‘On-road’ dialogue takes place in shopping centres, barbershops, bookies, car parks, street corners and other locations within the confines of the inner cities. In light of the proliferation of ‘county lines’, violence during the (COVID-19) lockdown and the growing sophistication of the digital space, ‘on-road’ criminological research is a vital component in the way we understand the changing nature of our inner cities, which moves beyond the traditional ethnographic encounter. The author argues that a critical aspect of being an ‘on-road’ researcher is in the sociocultural identification and articulation of ‘political Blackness’. Blackness centres on the understanding of the history of Black oppression and subordination, combined with acquiring the psychic tools and ability to transcend its impacts. Central to the proposition therefore laid out in this chapter is the way the narrative of the ‘on-road’ criminologist is produced and produces change within our understanding of inner-city life and the wider criminal justice system.
What Is Torture?
Authors: Evans Malcolm D.
Published: May 2024

Torture is one of the most widely prohibited forms of human rights abuse, yet precisely what torture is can be the subject of much debate and remains highly contested. Drawing largely on the foundational jurisprudence concerning Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, this chapter sets out the contours of the definition of torture in international law and its relationship to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment’. It argues that elements of the approach to that distinction which are often found in that jurisprudence are fundamentally flawed and offers an alternative approach to understanding what amounts to torture, legally speaking – and therefore what it is that the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture are intended to prevent.
Accepting the Unacceptable
Authors: Evans Malcolm D.
Published: May 2024

The experience the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture gained through its visits is that there are many serious problems which are not considered to be problems at all and accepted as being ‘just the way things are’. As a result, completely unacceptable forms of ill-treatment are allowed to pass not only unchallenged but even unnoticed by those who are responsible for them. The currently fashionable expression ‘hidden in plain sight’ might seem to sum this up: that we do not notice what is going on right in front of us. This is despite its not being hidden at all and being clearly visible. It is just accepted as acceptable when obviously it is not. This chapter explores this phenomenon and why it can be that states which routinely condemn forms of ill-treatment fail to even recognise it as occurring at all.
Engaging Universities in Capacity Building for a Co-operative Economy
Authors: Kuznetsov Andrei , Kuznetsova Olga
Published: May 2024

The chapter offers a ‘landscape review’ to reflect on the state-of-the-art assessment of the gap between competencies and knowledge needed to boost the role of the cooperative sector in a modern economy and the supply of research and training through higher education. It argues for the need to correct the focus of the education provision by universities and business schools to ensure a tighter fit with changing business conditions favouring plurality and new societal demands supporting participatory democracy. The chapter identifies related capabilities and skill shortages that need to be addressed and maintains that co-operatives should be more receptive to mainstream business and management education. The analysis lays foundations for international cross-sectoral initiatives that can be delivered by academia in collaboration with the cooperative sector.
Conclusion: Clues to a Co-operative Future?
Authors: Manley Julian , Kuznetsova Olga , Webster Anthony
Published: May 2024

Moving on from the penultimate chapter that sees possibilities of European-influenced cooperative systems to a Japanese context, the concluding chapter takes and informed forward-looking reflection on what has been discussed in the preceding chapters in the book. This chapter therefore acts as a final summary of the book as a whole and a consideration of what the future may hold in a cooperative context, both in practical and theoretical terms. In this chapter, the editors emphasize the larger questions that form the backdrop to the book and to a socio-economic future for Europe, questions such as the place and role of democracy, the possibility of co-operation becoming a means of governing a post-growth society, and where competition inherent in the capitalist world can seriously be challenged and replaced by the co-operation of a new beginning.
Making Bushfire Babies
Authors: Roberts Celia , Rasmussen Mary Lou , Allen Louisa , Williamson Rebecca
Published: May 2024

Mainstream scientific and critical accounts of climate crisis, including those describing the Pyrocene and the Anthropocene, typically fail to consider reproduction and kin, even when ‘overpopulation’ is understood as an important factor in the unfolding emergency. Feminist analysis of these debates also tends to remain rather abstract in its attention to reproduction, with key scholars suggesting that we ‘make kin, not babies’ in order to address these issues. Focusing on people who were ‘making bushfire babies’ in the terrible Australian summer of 2019–2020, we argue that the material details of reproduction in climate crisis must be brought to light, and should become central to ethical and political debate going forward. Climate crisis is already seriously reshaping reproduction and kin; we must find ways to articulate and act upon their complex entanglements.
Englishness and Football Cultures: Belonging, Race and the Nation
Authors: Solomos John
Published: May 2024

Over the past few decades, the role of race and racism in contemporary football cultures has been an issue that has attracted both scholarly and policy interest. In this chapter, the focus is on the evolution in the ways these issues have been analysed. Although much early research focused on the image of the racist football hooligan as the subject of concern, we have seen more efforts in the period since the 2000s to engage with the wider bodies of scholarship on race, ethnicity and national identity. The chapter begins by providing an overview of the background to the process of race making in football cultures. I then move on to discuss the impact of these processes of race making on Black players and supporters. This then allows us to return to the example of the events surrounding the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) European Football Championship in 2020 in order to analyse the important role that the England national team plays in the formation of ideas about race and national identity in the contemporary environment. In the final part of the chapter, I touch on the need to include antiracism in any rounded analysis of this issue and conclude by exploring what the account in this chapter tells us about the changing role of race and racism in contemporary football cultures.
Racism in Football: Perspectives from Two Sides of the Atlantic
Authors: Kassimeris Christos
Published: May 2024

Racism in football has, evidently, quite a long history. Whether in the form of mimicking monkey sounds, throwing bananas at Black players or generally abusing non-White footballers, racism has almost become common practice in and around football stadiums in many countries across the world. Better known today as ‘hate crime’, and certainly a part of national legislation and international statutes, the many different shapes and forms of racial discrimination that continue to blemish the popular game of football are often easily identifiable, whether they be actions carried out within the anonymity that characterizes a crowd of football supporters or the result of racist stereotypes held by the game’s senior officials. While national and international governing bodies, along with football clubs, officials and players, often condemn the phenomenon of racism in football, and the pertinent governing bodies all maintain regulations that stipulate specific penalties when relevant incidents occur, too little has been achieved. Since racial discrimination varies from one cultural setting to another, this chapter first assesses the official position of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the Union of European Football Associations and the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football vis-à-vis racism in football. Then it examines race-related cases in English, American and Italian football. Our point of departure is FIFA’s Good Practice Guide on Diversity and Anti-Discrimination, for it explicitly states that ‘one racist comment … does not necessarily make a person racist’ (FIFA, nd: 91).
Trans Exclusion in Football
Authors: Colliver Ben
Published: May 2024

In England and Wales, various legislative developments have sought to provide greater legal and social recognition for transgender people. However, in recent years, transgender people have gained increasing political, social and academic attention and have, resultantly, been subject to public scrutiny. In online spaces, this scrutiny has focused particularly on transgender people’s right to access ‘single-sex’ spaces and activities, including sport. It has been argued that trans people, and specifically trans women, have an unfair advantage when participating in sport that is segregated by gender. However, given the lack of trans representation in football, little is known about how trans people access and participate in this sport.
This chapter provides a critical analysis of trans exclusion within football in England and Wales. It is argued that football policy and culture reinforce the dominant western gender binary, resulting in the exclusion of trans people. The current professional football structure excludes nonbinary individuals and may prevent trans people from accessing and participating in football. On the other hand, grassroots football, which often has mixed-gender teams, provides opportunities for trans people to engage in football in a more inclusive way. This chapter also explores the broader social consequences for trans people that may result from exclusion in football and the symbolic power that exclusion holds.
Tackling Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia in Football: What (If Anything) Works?
Authors: Crolley Liz , Garland Jon
Published: May 2024

This chapter explores the different approaches taken in recent years to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football and analyses their impact. It contextualizes the situation in football by looking at societal trends more broadly amid recent media coverage of hate crime targeting LGBT+ people. By examining case studies and interviewing key people involved in LGBT+ organizations in football and their allies, the chapter seeks to identify what makes LGBT+ campaigns successful and proposes recommendations for future engagement with fans and communications around hate crimes directed at LGBT+ people.
Introduction
Authors: Gibbs Nick
Published: May 2024

This chapter serves to introduce the book. First, the scene is set with a background to the consumption of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs), including a working definition and brief overview of existing research. A note on methodology is then offered, which describes the author’s ‘connective’ ethnographic journey into the murky world of IPED use and supply, and innovative means of data collection. The structure and content of the book are then mapped in order to signpost the reader to what is to follow.
Conclusion
Authors: Gibbs Nick
Published: May 2024

The book’s conclusion attempts to weave together the various themes that dominate the work, cohering around three undergirding sections: Why use IPEDs?; Potsford’s local closed market structure; and market trajectory: commercialization and SNS supply. Chapters 4 to 7 are drawn upon to present a multi-layered theorization as to why the men under study were drawn towards image and performance enhancing drugs. Building out from a psychoanalytical account of bodily desire, to include meso and macro factors such as sporting and occupational context, the role of pleasure and lifestyle, and will-to-recognition on social media, the chapter offers some much-needed nuance to the question of motivation. Potsford’s offline market is then summarized, drawing heavily on Chapter 9. This is then woven into the final section, which reiterates the growth and development of the IPED market, bringing together Chapters 9, 10, and 11 to present a dual space of traditional offline, culturally embedded supply, alongside a burgeoning online market catering to an evolving consumer base. The chapter, and book, are drawn to a close with a number of recommendations for future research and policy implementation.
The US, China, and the Implications of Uneven and Combined Development
Authors: Parisot James , Lin Jake
Published: May 2024

This chapter engages with the theory of uneven and combined development to consider its use for interpreting the rise of US and Chinese capitalism, and the potential for future conflict. It asks, first, what can an uneven and combined development perspective help us understand about global politics and world power? Second, how can this help us make sense of the complex intertangles between the US and China? From there, it provides an overview of the uneven development of these two political economies and theorizes about the future of cooperation and confrontation.
South Asian Contestations and India’s Strategic Role: An Advaita Account
Authors: Shahi Deepshikha
Published: May 2024

This chapter illustrates the shifts in the conventional historical trajectory of geopolitical rivalries in South Asia by focusing on certain topical issues, for example, the Doklam standoff, Pulwama attack, Ladakh clash, Taliban takeover, arms race, trade war, pandemic blame-game, and Russia–Ukraine crisis. While these topical issues have triggered fresh patterns of quadrilateral interactions between four key (non-)state actors in South Asia, namely, India, Pakistan, China, and the US, the competitive and cooperative trends underpinning these quadrilateral interactions are difficult to fathom in terms of traditional Western-centric International Relations (IR) theories (which perceive “the international” in terms of inter-state animosity, rivalry, or friendship). As an alternative to Western-centric IR theories, this chapter employs a Global IR theory inspired by the Indian philosophy of Advaita (non-duality) to facilitate an improved investigation of these topical issues, thereby providing a novel intellectual framework to interpret the contemporary postures of US–China confrontations in world politics.
The Human Impact of Justice System Transparency
Authors: Townend Judith , Welsh Lucy
Published: May 2024

Chapter Five draws attention to a much-overlooked aspect of open justice: the implications and side-effects of publicity, arising from both the availability and unavailability of information. Some of these effects have been amplified by digital technology, such as the development of global search engines which are perceived to create indefinite online records of individuals’ criminal convictions.
Undoubtedly, there is a cost and human impact to publicity of criminal court proceedings, whether it is justified as unavoidable collateral harm of the process – or seen as an unwarranted and damaging intrusion of privacy. But equally, in other contexts, there can be a cost for freedom of expression and access to justice in the absence of information.Though the authors cannot offer full answers based on their preliminary research on the impact of publicity on defendants in the criminal courts (indeed, they contend, some tensions between privacy and transparency can never be ironed out), they propose that systems should be designed to maximise equal and fair outcomes; minimise unnecessary stigmatisation and intrusion on the individuals; and avoid further entrenching existing societal exclusion and inequalities.
The Green Road Project and Women’s Green Victimisation in Turkey
Authors: Bahar Halil Ibrahim
Published: May 2024

Paving the way for transportation of minerals and other extracted resources between Turkey, Russia and Europe, in the Eastern Black Sea (EBS) region of Turkey, the controversial 2,600km ‘Green Road’ is planned to be constructed. The project also aims to connect tourism centres throughout the highlands of the provinces of Artvin, Rize, Trabzon, Giresun, Ordu, Gumushane, Bayburt and Samsun in the EBS region; all previously protected as conservation areas and public land. Environmentalists and people in this region are greatly concerned that the project may have a potentially devastating impact on the environment, and local people are under threat of green crime from extractive industries. There are fears that the ‘Green Road’ will cause erosion, forest loss, habitat fragmentation, stream pollution and other ecological destruction. The project also threatens the traditional, seasonal migrations of people who bring their livestock up into the highland pastures to graze each summer. These devastating developments cause women’s green victimisation (WGV) and put women’s livelihoods at risk, ultimately forcibly removing them from their traditional living spaces. This chapter employs the Treadmill of Production (ToP) theory to analyse WGV in Turkey. To understand solidarity efforts and the collective actions of women against WGV in the EBS region of Turkey, the ToP will be combined with an eco-feminist analysis. Drawing data from online ethnographic research, it proposes that the incorporation of green and feminist criminology is needed to understand the gendered dynamics involved in WGV in Turkey, which is rooted in patriarchal power structures. Such a power structure not only causes green crime it also threatens the social, economic and political survival of women. The study concludes that regional, national and transnational resistance networks against dams, mines and other environmental threats are fertile grounds to raise awareness, especially among women, and address WGV.
Formal Education
Authors: Levin Jack , Wiest Julie B.
Published: May 2024

This chapter takes a close look at patterns of covert violence within U.S. schools. There is an unusually large number of middle-aged U.S. teachers (with no previously known serious medical problems) who have suffered sudden health emergencies—including death—in their classrooms, as well as numerous cases of students who have inserted a harmful substance (for example, cleaning fluids, eyedrops, or nail polish) into their teacher’s unattended water bottle or coffee cup. These patterns became apparent only in recent decades, after a profound shift in school discipline in the United States that simultaneously seems to have empowered disgruntled students to feel entitled to enact revenge against any teacher who made them angry. Yet, retaliation via overt methods is generally futile, as students have a severe power deficit compared to teachers. In addition to multiple examples of student-perpetrators, this chapter includes examples of other powerless school employees who covertly targeted supervisors (for example, a custodian in one case and a bus driver in another) and explains why the incidence of covert violence is far lower in higher-education settings.
The Workplace
Authors: Levin Jack , Wiest Julie B.
Published: May 2024

This chapter examines the many layers, motivations, and outcomes that represent covert violence in the U.S. workplace. Although these acts seem to occur less frequently in this social institution compared to others, the connections to powerlessness are even clearer. This is largely because power itself tends to be distributed more explicitly in the workplace, particularly via overt hierarchies that delineate salaries, prestige, and autonomy in ways that have important implications for workers’ lives. Disgruntled employees usually lack enough clout to retaliate directly against an offensive co-worker or boss without seriously harming themselves, yet covert violence offers opportunities for the revenge they seek with far less risk of being harmed or hassled—or even detected at all. Indeed, some acts of covert crime in the workplace are so well planned and executed that it is never absolutely clear that they were intentionally committed at all. Included are examples of workers who have targeted bosses, rival co-workers, customers, and even the company itself.
Mass Media
Authors: Levin Jack , Wiest Julie B.
Published: May 2024

This chapter includes several cases of secretive celebrity stalkers but otherwise mostly takes an unconventional approach to the idea of violence via media. In particular, the rise of digital technologies has allowed for new methods of covert attack—including doxxing, deepfakes, and other forms of terrifying harassment—as the so-called “dark web” provides a shroud of anonymity for powerless individuals who have developed new and collective ways to threaten, harass, and assault the objects of their obsession. Even without an anonymous online community, some covert attackers experience enough personal satisfaction for the act alone to be worthwhile. Examples date back decades, including multiple radio and television hijackings in the 1980s and 1990s for oftentimes bizarre/nonsensical reasons (for example, the “Max Headroom incidents” of 1987), and continue to evolve alongside advances in media technology.