bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Weak institutions and dangerous working conditions: coping by the wiremen of public electricity distribution utility in India
Authors: Swami Sneha , Wagle Subodh
Published: January 2025

The chapter proposes that institutional weaknesses create dangerous work conditions for wiremen – the frontline workers of an Indian Public Electricity Distribution Utility (IPEDU). Wiremen then respond by adopting specific coping actions, which impact the policy outcome, interests of the IPEDU, or the well-being of wiremen or consumers. The institutional weaknesses include institutional voids and dysfunctionality, resource constraints, accountability gaps, professional lacunas, and political interference. Further, in response, wiremen frequently deploy coping strategies such as providing mutual support, taking extra precautions, self-financing safety, reconciled acquiescing (to dominant actors), and jugaad or contrivance. At times, these are supplemented by other coping strategies such as diverting dangers, feigned compliance, collective action, or substance abuse. The chapter presents research based on data collected through in-depth, multi-round, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews of 42 wiremen and participant and non-participant observation at seven field offices of the IPEDU in two districts of Maharashtra, India.
Challenging inequalities with critical biographical research methods
Authors: Bradley Ciara , Kavanagh Lynsey
Published: January 2025

Gender inequality is endemic in our society and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities between women and men in almost all areas of life, both in Europe and beyond, rolling back on progress of recent decades (European Commission 2021: 3). Emerging evidence since the onset of the pandemic shows that this has been acutely experienced by marginalised and minority groups, compelling researchers and policy makers to critically interrogate this ‘new social architecture’ and the notion that ‘we are all in this together equally’. This chapter reflects on two research projects that took place pre-pandemic utilising critical biographical research methodologies: the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) for data collection and both the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method and the Voice Centred Relational Method (VCRM) for analysis. We discuss two of the many valuable contributions of these methods: the Participant Structured Interview in BNIM which amplifies the voice and experience of the research participant; and how the VCRM and BNIM analysis facilitates the analyses of the biographical within the structural. We assert that critical biographical methodologies can make a significant contribution to the need to understand gender-based and intersectional inequalities in pandemic and post-pandemic times.
Strategic management as an enabler of co-creation in public services
Authors: Ongaro Edoardo , Sancino Alessandro , Pluchinotta Irene , Williams Hannah , Kitchener Martin , Ferlie Ewan
Published: January 2025

The current transformations in society, the economy and the public sector call for the development of more unified theoretical frameworks. This chapter takes the literature on strategic management as a theoretical entry angle and aims to better understand how the adoption of models of strategic management can enable processes of public value co-creation. Utilising the literature centred on the notion of ‘schools of thought’ in the strategic management of public services, the chapter discusses how co-creation as a mode of governance in public services can contribute to innovative public service solutions and value co-creation. The Welsh Water’s ‘Water Resilient Community’ – a project characterised by long-term strategic planning as well as by local innovation – is used to illustrate the argument. Four propositions on the drivers/enablers and key managerial issues for undertaking a strategic approach to co-creation as a mode of governance are offered to enhance future practice, research and theory.
Introduction
Authors: Wilken Jean Pierre , Parpan-Blaser Anne , Prosser Sarah , van der Pas Suzan , Jansen Erik
Published: January 2025

The editors, scholars from Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands, co-presented Social Innovation and Social Work themed symposia at the European Conferences of Social Work Research (ECSWR) in 2019 (Leuven) and 2021 (online, Bucharest). The discussions around social innovation and numerous exchanges at the conferences enabled us to share insights about emerging trends and knowledge from across Europe on a wide range of topics around innovation in social work. Our common motivation for establishing this book was therefore a shared wish for a resource for inspiration and a framework to ultimately ensure improved outcomes for societal challenges and to increase social quality of people and communities. This book provides a broad collection of theoretical and practical studies about social innovation in connection to social work. Readers will be introduced to varied approaches and evidence-based examples that together help in grasping the concept of social innovation in the context of social work and to gain competence in relevant terms and aspects. The intention is to increase readers’ abilities to introduce and implement social innovation in social work in a way that leads to lasting positive change for the common good. We have not attempted either a textbook that exhaustively analyses where participatory innovations are making most impact across Europe, nor to cover all possible kinds of innovation. Instead, we explore where social work could go in terms of social innovation in ways that are relevant and topical to the people it is intended to benefit and to develop as a discipline.
Social innovation and service users’ involvement: enhancing the knowledge of social work
Authors: Driessens Kristel , Natland Sidsel , Lyssens-Danneboom Vicky
Published: January 2025

This chapter describes how service user involvement in social work education and research is related to social innovation. The involvement of service users can in itself be seen as social innovation, but also facilitates learning and research processes that increase the knowledge and competences of future social workers to work in socially innovative ways. We discuss the content, process and empowerment dimensions of social innovation in cooperative methods with service users in social work education and research. By presenting selected examples from education and research, we discuss their potential in the production of new or newly combined knowledge; the goal of addressing social problems that respond to normative needs; the added value for social work education, social work research, the profession and service users; the transformation in social relations or social structures along the lines of the fight against injustice, inequality and inaccessibility.
The rediscovery of community: community development as social innovation
Authors: Wilken Jean Pierre , Narusson Dagmar
Published: January 2025

The field of community development is rapidly gaining interest when it comes to social work and social innovation. Community-building can be regarded as a countermovement to neoliberal individualisation and its negative side effects like loneliness and polarisation. The notion of community is rediscovered and reinstalled. Social workers and other professionals play an important role in offering communities support to revitalise. From Robert Putnam’s work we learned about the notion of social capital and how working on bridging and bonding can strengthen community life. Although social work already has a long history when it comes to community development, since the end of the last century it was a neglected field. Also, the nature of communities has changed considerably. Therefore, the profession of the community worker also needs innovation. In this chapter we discuss recent developments regarding community-building, social innovation and social work.
Developing the innovative power of social work: synthesis and future directions
Authors: Jansen Erik , Parpan-Blaser Anne , van der Pas Suzan , Prosser Sarah , Wilken Jean Pierre
Published: January 2025

The chapters in this book provide exciting insights about the crossroads between social work and social innovation. These insights show that there are at least two angles to consider: the innovative power of social work in the human service domain, and the role and meaning of social work in all kinds of innovations in other areas (economy/​entrepreneurship, digitalisation, ecology, housing), raising the question of what the human value of these innovations is. The first angle relates to how social work can be innovative itself, as a field of practice and an academic discipline. It includes the competencies of social workers and the innovative character of social work research. In other words: this angle highlights social workers as social innovators. The second angle brings to the fore the critical-ethical role social work can play regarding the added value of so-called ‘social innovations’ for human well-being, applying the normative framework as expressed in the international definition of social work. Another aspect considers how social work can help in creating this value by bringing in its knowledge about human needs, social relations and social quality.
The Science of Housework
Authors: Oakley Ann
Published: January 2025

The Science of Housework is about an international movement to make housework a scientific subject and to introduce household science courses into higher education on a par with other sciences. The book charts the author’s journey from writing about the sociology of housework in the 1970s to studying the science of housework today. It considers the history of housework and housewives, and the reasons why the household science movement has been neglected in this history. Feminist scholars have mostly dismissed the household science movement as oppressive to women. The prominence in anthropological work of ideas about purity and danger has diverted attention from the public and private health importance of housework, and it is this role which underpins everyday life today.
Youth Justice
Authors: Case Stephen
Published: January 2025

This book offers a multi-level thematic analysis of youth justice policy making in England and Wales within and between nations, systems, organisations and individual professionals. The project investigates the key contextual influences on the development, identity and implementation (past, present and future) of youth justice policy by focusing on the making and makers of policy. The book interrogates how youth justice professionals make sense/meaning of policy making in the real world and how professional perspectives and identities drive and shape contributions to policy formation, development and implementation nationally and locally. It explores youth justice policy making as a complex, contextualised and constructed reality that is re/experienced and re/created through dynamic relationships and interactions within and between a range of contextual influences and policy ‘makers’ working across a range of policy at multiple levels of the social system. Particular attention is given to policy-making influences and policy-maker influencers (governmental and non-governmental) functioning across macro-, meso- and micro-level contexts and the mechanisms of policy making operating within these dynamic and relational contexts.
The Configurational Perspective
Authors: Husted Emil
Published: January 2025

The chapter unfolds what I call the ‘configurational perspective’. Drawing on Maurice Duverger, I describe this perspective as a way of approaching the study of parties that is much more systematic and formalized than the classical perspective. Configurational scholars focus on the structural anatomy of parties, using the premise that it is the organization rather than the ideology that distinguishes parties from one another. As such, the goal for configurational research is often to categorize parties as belonging to an organizational ideal type such as the mass, catch-all or movement party. I begin by outlining Duverger’s general theory of party organization. Among other things, I focus on his concept of ‘basic elements’ (caucus, branch, cell, militia) and clarify how parties are typically based on one of these elements. In the latter part of the chapter, I survey the post-Duvergerian literature and outline seven ideal-typical configurations that authors have identified in empirical studies of parties as organizations. In conclusion, I discuss what organization scholars might learn from engaging with configurational party research.
The Cultural Perspective
Authors: Husted Emil
Published: January 2025

The chapter outlines the cultural perspective. This represents a rather novel approach to political parties. I argue that this is an area where organization scholars have something to offer political scientists in terms of parties. Drawing on the work of Joanne Martin, I describe the cultural perspective as a way of approaching the study of party organization that focuses on the norms and values that condition the inner life of parties. Instead of assuming that parties only have one culture or a couple of subcultures, I use Martin’s framework to unfold how party cultures can be integrative, differential and fragmented. Some norms and values might be clearly defined and shared by all members of the party; others might seem inconsistent or ambiguous and cause intra-party conflicts or confusion. Next, I draw on the notions of normative and neo-normative control to show how party cultures can function as social control mechanisms. In conclusion, I discuss what political scientists working with party organizations might learn from engaging more deeply with cultural research.
Alternativet in Cultural Perspective
Authors: Husted Emil
Published: January 2025

This chapter applies the cultural perspective to Alternativet, to explore the norms and values that condition the inner life of the party. Drawing on Joanne Martin’s framework for cultural analysis, I explore the integrative, differential and fragmented aspects of Alternativet’s organizational culture(s). First, I explore how the party’s commitment to six core values and six debate principles creates an organizational culture that encourages ordinary members to read their own views into Alternativet as a political project, without preventing other members with different views from doing the same. This is a highly effective cultural set-up that I claim has assisted Alternativet in overcoming many thorny issues, including the ‘problem of particularization’. Next, I show how cultural differences emerged around the local elections in 2017, which effectively produced two distinct subcultures focused on the ‘party part’ and the ‘movement part’ of the organization. Finally, I explore how the deeply ambiguous foundation of Alternativet’s organization has helped keep members in line and on board, and how the party’s cultural set-up functions as a social control mechanism.
The Ontology of Class: Moving beyond Inequality and Identity
Authors: Gallas Alexander
Published: January 2025

In Part I of this volume, I argued that there is a normative foundation for labour studies, which consists in the assumption that class domination is an obstacle to human flourishing. Furthermore, I problematized how scientific knowledge production is implicated in capitalist class domination, and I criticized the proponents of the PRA for not sufficiently recognizing the relevance of class relations in their attempts to develop a framework for empirical research. I argued that it is impossible to assess whether union activities improve the lot of workers without considering how they affect class relations of forces. All of this calls for firmly linking global labour studies in general, and strike research in particular, with class theory. This is what I do in this part of the book. Drawing upon authors writing about class theory from a Marxist angle and about questions of ontology, epistemology and methodology from a critical realist perspective, I take a somewhat irreverent approach. I build an argument that is my own, but that is still indebted to ideas that I have inherited from these other authors. I proceed in this part by systematically developing the concept of class. In this chapter, I discuss the ontological question of what kind of entity it refers to. I contrast two different conceptions, one centred on socioeconomic resources, and the other on identity, and explain how far they subscribe to a form of material and ideational reductionism, respectively. As an alternative, I present a critical-realist, materialist conception of class that highlights its intransitive dimension and the fact that it is an effect of the organization of work.
Outsourcing Public Services
Authors: Boeger Nina
Published: January 2025

This chapter introduces primary and secondary objectives in public service outsourcing. While the former focus on the delivery of the services in question, the latter address the pursuit of ancillary policy goals in their delivery – for example, to create employment and new businesses, to address discrimination and inequalities, and to support environmentally sustainable business practice. In line with the aims of the book, the chapter considers secondary objectives that relate to corporate ownership forms, introducing the new duty in UK law to consider business diversity in public procurement as well as current policies that support smaller and social providers in public procurement. The chapter considers, more generally, the evolution of ‘social value’ as a secondary procurement objective in Britain.
Assembling an Analytical Apparatus: CCO Encounters Deleuzian New Materialism
Authors: Kuhn Timothy
Published: January 2025

The development of an alternative theory of the firm suitable to contemporary capitalism involves a shift towards focusing on communication practices as constitutive of organization, as opposed to the traditional representational/transmissive view. The chapter connects Communication as Constitutive of Organization (CCO) scholarship with new materialist thinking, focusing on the immanent potentialities and relational processes that comprise the practices of organizing. It then builds on the work of philosopher Gilles Deleuze to highlight difference and the virtual, assemblage and (hybrid, dispersed) agency, machinic practices, and the contrast between arborescent and rhizomatic models of organization to further hone CCO thinking. Through an exploration of these conceptual resources, the chapter establishes the theoretical foundation for a Communicative Theory of the Firm (CTF).
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch, But …
Authors: Alakavuklar Ozan Nadir
Published: January 2025

This chapter, informed by insights from Marxian political economy and the diverse economies framework, offers a compelling exploration of how alternative organizational structures manifest within the complex web of diverse economic practices. Specifically, it highlights how prevailing economic dynamics create opportunities for the emergence of noncapitalist modes of alternative organization, as exemplified by the Free Food Store. Central to this analysis is the pivotal role played by use value of both food and labour in mediating alternative economic, symbolic and political relationships. Furthermore, the chapter unravels the relational nature of diverse economic practices, unveiling a noncapitalist parasitic alternative organization that thrives within and for the community. This chapter introduces the concept of ‘use value’ as a vital theoretical tool for dissecting the intricate interplay between capitalist and noncapitalist economic practices from a critical political economy perspective.
Introduction
Authors: Mills Elizabeth
Published: January 2025

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
Introducing African Diplomacy as a Field of Study
Authors: Botha Sven , van Wyk Jo-Ansie
Published: January 2025

This book attempts to help readers understand how African states practise diplomacy. It does not aim to make contributions to diplomatic theory, despite a clear and ever-present intellectual gap that remains in this area. It is a first attempt in this process. The chapter is dedicated to introducing the reader to African diplomacy as a sub-discipline of diplomatic studies and international relations. It briefly unpacks how the perceptions about Africa as an international actor have changed over time before explaining how the change in perception is inspired by African diplomacy. It argues that African diplomatic practice is unique as it amplifies the need to expand our routine understanding of why diplomacy is practised. The chapter concludes by offering a brief overview of the chapters that follow.
Maritime Diplomacy and the African Maritime Agenda
Authors: Vreÿ Francois
Published: January 2025

Diplomacy is an enduring state practice, and maritime diplomacy developed alongside the different domains of diplomatic practice that have taken shape over time. Contemporary diplomacy has many facets to cover the ever-expanding matters states wish to address in pursuit of their national interests. Maritime diplomacy is a unique type of diplomacy directed at pursuit of maritime state interests and operates in parallel with and as an adjunct to the general practice of diplomacy. This chapter demarcates and describes maritime diplomacy and then turns to African maritime agenda and interests in the early 21st century. It covers three broad topics to define maritime diplomacy and to highlight Africa’s maritime debate and the continent’s maritime diplomacy. It delimits diplomacy as a practice before outlining the exercise of defence, naval and maritime diplomacy. The chapter covers Africa’s maritime debate, threats and vulnerabilities before offering illustrative examples of maritime diplomacy from African actors, and instances of external maritime diplomacy directed towards the continent.
Labour Law and Feminist Approaches to Personhood
Authors: Rodgers Lisa
Published: January 2025

This chapter starts with the context of the relationship between labour law and feminist theorizations generally, and an explanation of the failure of feminism and the feminist method to reach the mainstream of labour law theory. It is argued that this represents a missed opportunity for both labour law and social justice. The second section presents the feminist critique of the liberal legal subject and explains why this critique is so important for social justice. The third section suggests ways in which that critique can be positively developed into a social theory for labour law. It investigates the promise of vulnerability theory, and particularly the suggestion that the liberal legal subject should be replaced with the ‘vulnerable subject’ of law. It then moves to outline the potential of the ‘relational’ subject and the value of the promotion of relational autonomy for social justice for workers. The limitations of those approaches are then considered, and in particular, the need to incorporate some of the insights outlined in Chapter 2.
Changing Eating Habits
Authors: Warde Alan
Published: January 2025

This chapter considers the nature, origins and consequences of Britain’s early ‘nutrition transition’ and the emergence of its urban-industrial diet. It notes the importance of industrialisation, imperialism and war in the shaping of the 20th-century diet. It reviews class differences in everyday eating from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Post-war reconstruction after 1945 reduced class inequalities and the British population shared a relatively homogeneous diet for a couple of decades. Everyday eating underwent modification from the 1960s with the introduction of foreign food items, in shops and especially through commercial catering. Controversies over the nature and degrees of continuity and change are discussed, both substantively and methodologically. The various elements of the practice of eating are outlined, distinguishing arrangements for meals, acquisition of foodstuffs, cooking and taste. The chapter concludes with a consideration of social trends, cultural processes and institutional development.
Eating with Style
Authors: Warde Alan
Published: January 2025

This chapter addresses issues of standards of taste and class distinction. It begins with an analysis of ‘foodyism’ – the growing enthusiasm for procuring, eating and discussing ‘good’ food. Enthusiasm depended significantly on the spread of dining out for pleasure, the effects of which are analysed in detail for the period 1995–2015 in terms of its familiarisation and diversification. Differentiation in styles of dining out is illustrated in a comparison between groups of people with omnivorous and restricted orientations, although both groups assert to similar principles regarding variety, comfort and knowledgeable appreciation. The role of cultural intermediation in turning food into an object worthy of aesthetic evaluation is shown to be part of the entrenchment of consumer culture in the later 20th century. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the association between food enthusiasm, cultural omnivorousness and the new middle class.
The Ethics of Research into Human Trafficking Beyond ‘Do No Harm’: Developing a ‘Living’ Ethical Protocol
Authors: Hynes Patricia , Dottridge Mike
Published: January 2025

Human trafficking has risen up the policy and legislative agendas of many countries during the past two decades following the UN Trafficking Protocol. Known forms of harm from anti-trafficking efforts have been described as ‘collateral damage’ – a term which describes the dangers of anti-trafficking measures having adverse impacts on the rights and freedoms of people. That these types of harms exist within work to protect people experiencing human trafficking is a key consideration when conducting research. This chapter looks at the ethics of conducting research into human trafficking and/or ‘modern slavery’. The chapter questions whether the principle of ‘do no harm’ is sufficient to guide researchers through these sometimes polemical and often contentious research environments. Given that power imbalances are built into responses to people who are trafficked, it is suggested that the concept of ‘harm’ be broadly interpreted from the outset of research. It is also suggested that social stigma, and the possibility that research might reify this, be understood within research processes and that the framing of trafficking research needs to include sensitivity towards regularly used negative terminology. To explore this, the chapter tracks the development of a ‘living’ Ethical Protocol developed for a two-year study looking at human trafficking from Albania, Nigeria, and Vietnam to the UK. Conceptual approaches, methodology, procedural ethics, existing ethical guidelines, ethics in practice, looking beyond the principle of ‘do no harm’, the context in which research takes place, and wider considerations of the use of research are then outlined.
Gendering the Border Struggles
Authors: Mao Jingyu
Published: January 2025

The lens of intimacy reveals how migrant performers’ work and lives are governed by the gendered aspects of bordering. Performers undertake sexualized labour because of the ethnic scripts, which readily sexualize ethnic minority women, and the need to pamper guests and create intimacy in the banquets. Female performers who engage in this sexualized labour need to constantly defend their virtuous reputations, yet their relationships with significant others are overshadowed. In the local contexts where promoting ethnic culture is closely related to economic development, female performers refer to this aspect of ethnic scripts to frame ethnic performance as ‘promoting ethnic culture’. In this way, they manage to legitimize and justify doing sexualized labour, demonstrating their agency. By looking broadly at intimacy as negotiated within work as well as ‘private’ relationships, intimacy as a lens reveals how gender is negotiated in close association with ethnicity and rural–urban inequalities.
Underdeveloped, Frontier and Outermost: Small Island Universities in Indonesia
Authors: Sutrisno Agustian , Pillay Hitendra , Baldacchino Godfrey
Published: January 2025

This chapter examines challenges faced by universities in Indonesia’s small islands. Unlike small island states, Indonesia, as the largest archipelagic state, has five large islands (more than 100,000 square kilometres) alongside thousands of small islands. Despite Indonesia’s good economic growth, this is not distributed equitably. The smaller eastern islands have much lower human development index scores compared to the main islands in the western part of the country. The government has designated the less developed small islands as underdeveloped, frontier and outermost regions. This chapter analyses higher education in the smaller islands. If Indonesia is to fulfil its aspiration of improving inclusive development and its human capital quality, the small island universities’ role needs to be strategically positioned within the national higher education architecture. Notwithstanding the need for favourable policies, the future of small island universities also depends on their ability to navigate through limited resources to address pertinent local issues.
Fostering Food Justice in Academia and Beyond
Authors: Adlerova Barbora , Faus Ana Moragues
Published: January 2025

This chapter mobilizes feminist action research together with Fraser’s three dimensions of social justice (economic, socio-cultural and political) to navigate (food) injustices across different scales in and beyond academia. It expands the framework by incorporating ethics of care to focus on the micro-dimension of the day-to-day research activities. Applying a care-full participative justice lens brings to the fore the mundane, messy practices, which are explored alongside the ‘spectacular’ decisions about recruitment of participants, the choice of methods or the questions of dissemination. It advocates a justice approach in academia as a humble way of being and performing everyday more-than-research decisions, rather than disconnected, disengaged pieces of research activities and writing.
Disrupting the Field? Creating Community-centred Spaces for Epistemic Justice with Rwandese Diaspora Youth
Authors: Dickinson Jen , Uwimanzi Natasha
Published: January 2025

This chapter offers an analysis of the power dynamics of practising epistemic justice in research, by examining the spaces created for collaborative knowledge production about Rwanda. Drawing on reflections on the Rwanda Diaspora Youth Partnership Programme (RDYPP), a one-year participatory study seeking to understand how British youth from Rwandese backgrounds experienced engagement with post-genocide reconstruction, we argue that co-created spaces can work towards producing scholarship that is ‘organic to the contexts’ (Nhemachena et al, 2016) while also centring multiple epistemic contributors as part of a critical and pluralized academic landscape. However, we also acknowledge the inherent tensions and tradeoffs associated with the influence of academic environments and the day-to-day spaces of collaborators’ lives. We conclude by emphasizing the potential of collaboration as a tool for intersubjective learning and un-learning within networks of differently positioned knowledge holders, and therefore as vital for disrupting the pre-existing frameworks that contribute to epistemic injustices in Rwandan research.
The Priority of Justice
Authors: Mitchell Don
Published: January 2025

This chapter argues that for all their interest in researching the geography of justice and injustice, geographers have rarely theorized the concept of justice itself. It argues that such a conceptual theorization is necessary. By revisiting and reading anew the work of Iris Marion Young, Rainer Forst, Susan Moller Okin and others, it suggests that such a theorization should [[AQ: should be?]] historical-materialist in epistemology, focus on questions of group differentiation and solidarity, develop further Young’s theory of responsibility, place considerations of power and modes of production at its centre, and reject the late Clive Barnett’s argument that it is injustice rather than justice that should be prioritized in our theoretical efforts and geographical research.
Reimagining Engagement between Citizens and Parliament
Authors: Leston-Bandeira Cristina , Caluwaerts Didier , Vermassen Daan
Published: January 2025

This chapter reimagines the relationship between citizens and parliament. Five core principles of public engagement – inclusivity, relevance, relatability, continuity and sustainability – drive the process of reimagining; and result in a reimagined parliamentary public engagement that would be welcoming and inclusive, consequential and future generations aware. In reflecting upon how far the UK parliament is from this reimagined future, core features of parliament – such as its collective and hierarchical nature, and its dependency on electoral cycles – are identified as inhibitors of a principled reimagining of parliamentary public engagement. The chapter concludes by calling for a far more institutionalised approach to engagement, to make it more meaningful, consequential and better resourced.
The ‘Political Now’
Authors: Piacentini Teresa
Published: January 2025

The chapter explains the notion of the ‘political now’ as a framework for locating how we talk about migration, both in the current conjuncture and as a historically situated site for critically engaging with ways of knowing and relating. Specifically, this chapter explores the necessity of foregrounding colonial ties and imperial legacies in migration teaching, and argues that failure to centre connections to the past to understand the present is a form of epistemic violence that risks reproducing depoliticized and de-historicized migration knowledges in the classroom. This involves acknowledging missing narratives, historical links and dominant international migration narratives and their effects in our teaching, particularly regarding racialized hierarchies in migration governance and the associated epistemic harm. Through teachable moments, case studies and research activities, this chapter provides tangible methods for connecting the political now to its colonial past. It explores what such connections mean from multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives for understanding how dominant narratives feed the immigrant imaginary and for anti-racist and anti-oppressive pedagogies. It also sets out the ethical and political implications of reproducing normative assumptions about migration and knowledge practices, emphasizing the importance of thinking about ways to avoid perpetuating these harms in our classrooms.
The Political Classroom
Authors: Piacentini Teresa
Published: January 2025

This chapter explores how ethical considerations are intertwined with political concerns. The constant presence and messiness of politics in the world outside the classroom urges us to think critically and ethically about being political and how we engage with and practise politics within learning spaces. It explores the political dimensions of the critical classroom, knowledge production, where learning takes place and who gets access to it. It locates knowledge in the ‘culture wars’ creep into the classroom and the political imperatives that have a firm grip on migration discourse that influence the attention we give to certain political issues while ignoring others. Turning to the politics of emotions in the classroom, the chapter considers storytelling, counter-stories, witnessing and holding knowledge as ways of being political and unpacking the politics of knowing. It argues that these can dismantle limited and reductive deficit-focused frames of understanding by centring personal testimony and expertise as serious knowledge. Through case studies, it offers alternative ways to do the politics of migration in the classroom as interruptive and disruptive of the politics of inclusion and access, and to consider the university as a space of learning with and not limited to learning about.
Histories of Heating: Looking Back, Moving Forwards
Authors: Ambrose Aimee , Palm Jenny , Parkes Stephen , Speake Beth
Published: January 2025

Transitions to low carbon domestic heating systems need to speed up. However, the speed of the transition must not compromise inclusivity and opportunities to redress injustices inherent in the current system. This chapter forwards two core arguments: first, it argues that, although mundane, changes to the way we heat our homes are also personal and can be life-altering. If the transition to low carbon heating is to avoid disadvantaging anyone then care must be taken to understand how different groups within society, and even different individuals within a household, are differentially affected by changes to home heating. Second, drawing on an Anglo-Swedish study, we argue that we have transitioned from one approach to home heating to another before, offering opportunities to learn from experiences of past heating transitions to inform a fairer and more inclusive transition this time around. Learning from past heating transitions requires the introduction of historical methods to the field of energy studies and we consider the merits of oral histories in this context. Important considerations are prompted by the deep, personal accounts of transition shared by respondents, raising important considerations for those driving the transition, helping to bridge policy discourse and life worlds.
Pre-Figurative Hybrids for Post-Carbon Inclusion
Authors: Nelson Anitra
Published: January 2025

This chapter focuses on three degrowth cases of prefigurative hybrids – Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie (A Laboratory for New Economic Ideas) established in Leipzig (Germany) in 2011; Cargonomia, in Budapest and its surrounds (Hungary), emerging in the early 2010s to visibly appear in mid-2015; and Haus des Wandels (House of Change or House for Transformation) started mid-2018 in Heinersdorf (rural Brandenburg) within 20 km of the German border with Poland. The chapter starts with a brief discussion of such hybrids, offers sketches of the cases and a discussion of the ethnographic approach. The chapter progresses case-by-case, identifying key characteristics of these experimental and aspirational degrowth efforts, and certain ecological sustainability achievements and challenges in realizing principles of post-carbon inclusion and commoning in mundane living. It is concluded that such prefigurative degrowth hybrids have experimental and experiential values and the potential to be scaled out, affirming their function as critical approaches within post-carbon transitions.
Assembling a Fractional Europe
Authors: Trauttmansdorff Paul
Published: January 2025

Chapter 3 explores eu-LISA’s management of IT systems and infrastructures as multiple sites at which Europe is supposed to materialize. It asks when, and under which circumstances, (digital) border security is conceived and constructed as a distinctly European infrastructure. To this end, the chapter turns to the imaginations and visions of Europeanhood or European identity that are linked to the digital infrastructure governing borders. It draws from the work of Steven Hilgartner (2000) to develop an understanding of infrastructuring as a performative technique of frontstaging and backstaging. Thereby, the chapter examines the agency’s various performative acts that seek to present the fragmented, digital infrastructure of borders as a promise of European collectivity, integration and coherence.
Introduction: Hidden in Plain Sight
Authors: Montalva Barba Miguel
Published: January 2025

This chapter summarizes gentrification, settler colonialism, and Whiteness literature by focusing on race, place, and space. What becomes apparent in the discussion is the importance of private property as it is tied to White children and families to achieve exclusive White futures. By focusing on private property through the lens of a wide variety of disciplines, the chapter highlights the utilization of discourses about the White child and family as tools for the extraction and hoarding of resources and the advancement of exclusionary White futures. The term gensociocide is proposed to address what housing advocates state about gentrification, that it is a form of genocide.
Community and Diversity
Authors: Montalva Barba Miguel
Published: January 2025

When looking through the settler colonial framework, this chapter demonstrates how the building and establishment of exclusive White communities is maintained and reinforced. One way to understand how White communities are maintained is to focus on the narratives that White people use to make sense of their residential histories, tied to ideas about private property. Respondents shared histories about why they decided to move, live, and stay in Jamaica Plain. Their histories mainly highlighted their childhood neighbourhoods projected onto Jamaica Plain, which is vital to their sense of self, identity, and relationship to Jamaica Plain. This chapter shows that Whiteness is perpetually reproduced by those who fit into the narrow idea of community. Respondents often looked inward to what they meant by “community,” who they included, and what community means.
Conclusion: Gensociocide
Authors: Montalva Barba Miguel
Published: January 2025

This concluding chapter extends the utility of the term gensociocide to speak about the devastating consequences of emplacing a White-middle-class ethos into place and space by highlighting the importance of private property. By showing key examples, the case is made that gensociocide provides language to be able to speak about the devastating consequences of gentrification, that is, the emplacement of Whiteness and White supremacy. Miguel Montalva Barba uses his own immigration experience to address the violence that gensocioside produces.
Pereira: A Violent Order in a ‘Coffee Paradise’
Authors: García Pinzón Viviana
Published: January 2025

This chapter focuses on the study of the emergence and configuration of a violent order in Pereira and its implications for local governance. The chapter explains how these developments are the result of a sequence encompassing the dislodging and rearticulation of the ecology of governance and local order. This sequence is formed by the intersection of three key processes. First, the undermining of the licit economic structure, particularly the coffee economy, and market-oriented reforms as well as the related reconfiguration of the ecology of governance. Second, transformations of both the illegal drugs market and the structure of organized crime in Colombia. Third, the effects of the civil war. These processes interacted against the backdrop of a divided city in which violence was already present, playing a central role in shaping the relationship between the state and the urban poor. Hence, rather than resulting from a collapse of Pereira’s local order, violence strengthened upon the readjustment of a set of networks and societal relations as well as ideational and material conditions. Violence has, likewise, had a very productive role in the configuration of the local order, notably as a force propelling the city’s adjustment to the demands of global markets.
Tunja: Local Governance in a State-Led Order
Authors: García Pinzón Viviana
Published: January 2025

Tunja’s trajectory is the one that most closely resembles the classical Weberian state-centric ideal type among the set of diverse cases. This chapter traces the underpinnings of the local order in Tunja and argues that the trajectory and dynamics of violence witnessed in this city result from three processes. First, the nature of state formation and the seminal ecology of governance in this region. Second, Tunja experienced a process of illiberal peace during and at the end of ‘La Violencia’. Third, Tunja occupies a peripheral position within networks of capital (legal and illegal), criminal networks and human mobility flows. The corollary of these processes is a trajectory of governance etched by the preponderance of statutory institutions and state control over violence. Against this backdrop, the changes that Colombia has experienced over the last four decades did not substantially alter the ecology of governance but, instead, reinforced the tenets of the previous pathway while providing new avenues for enhancing local democracy. In a nutshell, Tunja has followed a trajectory that predominantly experienced gradual change and the absence of armed actors challenging the state’s power.
Conclusion
Authors: García Pinzón Viviana
Published: January 2025

This chapter recapitulates the main elements of the analytical approach, key findings and the integral aspects of the empirical analysis. It discusses the findings and examines the trajectories of governance of the set of four cities from a cross-case perspective, taking the scope of the multifaceted transitions induced by the third wave of democratization in Latin America as a point of reference. Last, the chapter elaborates on empirical policy implications, emphasizing the need to develop a more comprehensive approach to address urban violence in Latin America, including a much-improved understanding of the conditions and processes enabling the entrenchment of criminal groups in local communities and nurturing illegal economies, on the one hand, and ensuring the endurance of state violence, on the other. Such a perspective entails the recognition of the diversity of cities in the region. In this regard, the chapter foregrounds the characteristics of peripheral cities and their implications for a richer understanding of the dynamics of urban violence and peace.
Over-Efficiency in the Lower Criminal Courts
Authors: Yates Shaun S.
Published: January 2025

In England and Wales, the lower criminal courts (the magistrates’ courts) process more than 95 per cent of all criminal cases. These courts are the workhorse of the justice system and, consequently, their capacity to deliver social good and harm is significant. Over the last 30 years, governments have continuously put pressure on these courts to become more efficient, to do more with less. These mounting pressures have raised questions regarding the courts ability to uphold quality justice values (such as verdict accuracy and defendant comprehension) alongside that of efficiency-related values (such as speediness, cost-savings and waste-mitigation). Indeed, a prominent question emerges: to what extent does efficient justice align with quality justice? Yates’s work answers this question by providing readers with a critical analysis of unique stenographic data. Here, Yates offers rich insights into what takes place in the lower criminal courts in concrete, real-world terms. From discussing this data, Yates argues that while certain areas could benefit from increased efficiency, such as by eliminating processes that cause unnecessary hardship to court users, the courts are overly efficient in other respects. This ‘over-efficiency’ concept draws attention to how the courts should avoid relying on classic managerial efficiency values to primarily substantiate the justice process. Indeed, the courts should prioritize values that contribute towards social justice and procedural due process, with efficiency contributing in a secondary capacity. Yates’s work concludes by offering a range of policy reform recommendations that can tackle the problem of over-efficiency in the lower criminal courts.
Modes of Connectivity: On the Economic Ontology of Platforms
Authors: Manzerolle Vincent
Published: January 2025

This chapter provides a framework for examining the ‘economic ontology’ (Mäki, 2001) of contemporary platforms through a historical and conceptual lens. In doing this, it integrates concepts from media theory and Marxist political economy, emphasizing the connective and coordinative function that platforms play in mediating transactions. The chapter’s overarching goal is to contribute to a more general history of the relationship between media and capitalist accumulation. To do this, the chapter foregrounds ‘connectivity’ as a core theme for understanding the recurrent intertwining of profound changes in media and markets, culminating in contemporary forms of platform-centric strategies of accumulation.