"This book examines how social issues shape and influence our engagement with sport, leisure time physical activity and health-promoting exercise. Connecting the personal with the public, it helps the reader to develop a deeper understanding of how social contexts and structures create or constrain opportunities for exercise, leisure and sport. Touching on key contemporary themes including diversity, inclusion, non-participation and health inequalities, the book offers new case material and theoretical tools for understanding the relationships between sport, leisure, health and wider society. This is an indispensable companion for any course on the sociology of sport, exercise, leisure, or physical activity and health"--
"Timothy D. Taylor's Making Value gathers the author's recent writings that expand upon anthropological value theory in the study of cultural production and consumption. These essays cover the creation and exchange of value in a wide range of contexts, from indie rock scenes and early non-Western music recordings, to the effects of supply chains, value-seeking practices of trendspotters, value within musical performance as a medium, and more. Drawing from literature in anthropology, ethnomusicology, philosophy, and economics, Taylor not only highlights the history of value in these instances, but also emphasizes how value is used in practice. Through the essays in this book, Taylor argues that theorizing value in music aids us in moving beyond "the music itself" to attempt to understand what is meaningful and valuable to those who make and listen to it."
Amid an unprecedented digital revolution, our society grapples with profound challenges, from the upheaval of traditional global systems to the ethical implications of technology's inexorable advance. As academic scholars seek a comprehensive understanding of this dynamic environment, Driving Decentralization and Disruption With Digital Technologies emerges as a beacon of insight. This compelling book confronts the intricate issues spawned by decentralization, de-globalization, and the transformative power of digital technologies, providing a roadmap for traversing the complexities of our digitally connected world. The book starts by unraveling the disruptive forces at play, shedding light on the threats posed to existing hierarchies and the potential consequences for disadvantaged groups. Digital disintermediation, driven by platforms and peer-to-peer networks, shakes the foundations of traditional economic systems, leaving banks and markets in flux. As global relationships redefine themselves in the face of decentralized markets, supply chains, and economic ties, scholars grapple with the profound implications for the future. Driving Decentralization and Disruption With Digital Technologies stands out by offering a deep dive into decentralized technologies, particularly blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. It showcases their capacity to empower individuals and local communities, examining the transformative potential of decentralized finance (DeFi) and governance models. The book examines the difficult issue of digital identity and data sovereignty, examining policy considerations, challenges, and the promise of decentralized identification systems. For academic scholars seeking clarity amidst the complexities of the digital era, Driving Decentralization and Disruption With Digital Technologies is the indispensable guide. It meticulously dissects the ethical and societal ramifications of the digital revolution, advocating for a fair and just digital society. By fostering an understanding of the intricate interplay between technology, decentralization, and de-globalization, this book equips scholars with the knowledge needed to navigate the uncharted territories of a digitally connected world. Driving Decentralization and Disruption With Digital Technologies is a roadmap for academics seeking to comprehend and contribute to the ongoing transformation of our global society
"Digitalization is shaping our everyday lives yet navigating its processes can feel like a trek into the unknown, where both the possibilities and the consequences of digitalization are unclear and difficult to grasp. Exploring how digitalization affects all aspects of our lives, from health to culture, this book aims to develop and strengthen the readers ability to think critically about such developments. Written in a clear and concise manner with references to science fiction and pop culture, this book presents potent theoretical perspectives for understanding digitalization processes as societal change. Various exercises are included throughout to test readers understanding of key concepts. Replete with illustrations and examples, this book is an accessible guide to digitalization in the modern societal context appealing to students at the undergraduate level as well as general readership"--
"By 2050, the number of adults aged 60 and over will double. More than ever, students in the helping professions must develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to work with older adults. The goal of this book is to change the perspective on aging and the aging process while offering broad, introductory level knowledge on gerontology. It examines aging from a holistic, intersectional, strengths-based, life span perspective to integrate aging into the human development process. The authors aim to challenge stereotypes about aging and help readers understand aging as an integral part of the human experience, rather than a separate process that "others" older adults. In a changing and aging world, challenges of aging intersect with other challenges such as economic inequality, instability caused by climate change, global patterns of migration, political polarization, and, recently, the pandemic, which highlighted that social isolation is a detrimental and growing concern. Despite growing understanding and awareness of its impact, ageism remains a force in a youth-oriented world. This book examines the aging process from micro, mezzo, and macro lenses. The micro lens looks at individual processes of aging such as biological, emotional, spiritual, and psychological factors along with topics such as health, resilience, sexuality, and creativity as we age. The mezzo lens looks at processes beyond the individual including work, roles, family, caregiving, living arrangements, religious involvement, and health care. The macro lens looks at factors such as culture, media, laws, policies, language, and stereotypes about aging"--
"This book argues that social transformation is both necessary and possible if democracies are to respond effectively to the climate crisis without social collapse. Climate transformation and social transformation are intimately connected. Understanding how to address climate change requires a historical approach both to the climate and to our collective institutions of humanity. Drawing on the works of Karl Polanyi and Thomas Piketty, Nicholas Low traces the course of historic social transformations from Britain, Russia and Australia to highlight key commonalities: social crisis, the widespread sense by those in power that 'something has to change', the shift in ideology, and the political champions that drove the change. Within its international scope, the book delves deeper into specific instances of inequality and poverty from Britain, the USA, Australia and the Global South. It shows how these examples are connected with the current climate emergency. Finally, the author draws together all the evidence from past transformations to outline how a new social democratic transformation could generate a better future, creating the social solidarity necessary to cope with the climate crisis. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental politics and policy, political ecology, environmental sociology and environmental studies more broadly. Its argument is also highly relevant for political actors working towards social and economic transformation"--
This fully revised and updated edition of Social Movements and Protest Politics provides interdisciplinary perspectives on the sociology of protest movements. It considers major theories and concepts, which are presented in a clear, accessible, and engaging format. The second edition contains new chapters on methods and ethics of social movement research, and legal mobilization, protest policing and criminal justice activism, including calls to abolish or defund police made at protests during the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition also introduces readers to the concept of the 'post-protest society' wherein the right to protest is whittled away to near vanishing point and authorities have considerable legal recourse to ban protests and render the tactics of protest movements ineffective. This edition also looks at recent developments and novel protest movements, including Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Gilets Jaunes, #MeToo and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, as well as the rise of contemporary forms of populism in democratic societies. The book presents specific chapters outlining the early origins of social movement studies and more recent theoretical and conceptual developments. It considers key ideas from resource mobilization theory, the political process model and new social movement approaches. It provides extensive commentary on the role of culture in social protest (including visual images, emotions, storytelling, music, and sport), religious movements, geography and struggles over space, media and movements, and global activism. Historical and contemporary case studies and examples from a variety of countries are provided throughout, including the American civil rights movement, Greenpeace, Pussy Riot, indigenous peoples' movements, liberation theology, Indignados, Occupy, Tea Party, and Arab Spring. Each chapter also contains illustrations and boxed case studies to demonstrate the issues under discussion.
"The latest developments in robotics and artificial intelligence and a preview of the coming decades, based on research and interviews with the world's foremost experts. If there's one universal trait among humans, it's our social nature. Having relationships with others is a hard-wired need that literally shapes us and the lives we lead. The craving to connect is universal, compelling, and frequently irresistible. This concept is central to Robots and the People Who Love Them. This book is about socially interactive robots and how they will transform friendship, work, home life, love, warfare, education, and nearly every nook and cranny of modern life. It is an exploration of how we, the most gregarious creatures in the food chain, could be changed by social robots. On the other hand, it questions how will we remain the same, and how will human nature express itself when confronted by a new class of beings created in our own image? Drawing upon recent research in the development of social robots, including how people react to them, how in our minds the boundaries between the real and the unreal are routinely blurred when we interact with them, and how their feigned emotions evoke our real ones, science writer Eve Herold takes readers through the gamut of what it will be like to live with social robots and still hold onto our humanity. This is the perfect book for anyone interested in artificial intelligence, robotics, and what they mean for our future"--
"Disease and society have historically had an uneasy relationship. Society's developments (e.g., global travel, crowded cities, concerts and events with large attendance) shape whether a virus can take hold and spread. And, a virus can bring society to a halt, as it did in the early days of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. This reciprocal relationship between disease and society prompted the call to action that underlies this book. This introductory chapter outlines both the importance of studying the pandemic from a social science perspective and the challenges that await social scientists who have and will study how society and the pandemic influence each other"--
"Health systems across the world face multiple pressures. Input costs are soaring, systems are struggling to keep-up with increasing demand for their services and areas of the world still lack universal health coverage. All of this whilst health inequalities between the best and worst-off within countries persist and, in some countries, are even widening. There is a need to think of new initiatives in response to these global health challenges. One such response is social finance. Social finance is about creating social returns. This innovative and rapidly growing sector promotes new ways of banking and funding social and public services. However, social finance has an underrecognised, and potentially underexploited, role in responding to specific aspects of global health challenges: funding and facilitating access to health (care) services and acting on health. The objectives of this book are to conceptualise and evidence different forms of social finance - microfinance and impact bonds - acting in these ways and to critically engage with current debates and challenges. With such evidence to hand, we can either avoid adoption of new trends in financing public services or, more hopefully, attract greater policy support and resources for new tools for public health and in supporting more precarious, but potentially essential, parts of the finance sector. This book will be essential reading to students, researchers, policymakers and the general public alike who are interested in, or who work in, and across, health systems and social finance"--
"Extraction/Exclusion makes visible the political and practical exclusions shaped by resource extraction. Drawing on scholarship from across the social sciences, the volume portrays how inclusionary language and practices often result in further exclusions, concealing unchanged systems of domination and dispossession"--
"Calls to defund the police or to stop brutal police violence, argue Mark Maguire and Setha Low, will never succeed as long as there are those who enjoy and take comfort in security capitalism. Security capitalism can be recognized by the marks it leaves on society, remaking public space in its own image--privatized, fortified, unequal, striated, and access-controlled. With a global and comparative lens that takes readers from Nairobi to New York City, Maguire and Low offer intimate portraits of the people behind security capitalism--the police, policy makers, and private contractors who agree that a price must be paid in blood to maintain public safety--and critique phenomena like the transfer of public funds to arms dealers via the militarization of police, securitized housing developments, and ineffectual counterterrorism efforts. But more than just an exposé of the nefarious corporations, corrupt agencies, and incompetent governments, this book uniquely shines the spotlight on the ordinary citizens whose desires for safety drive these phenomena. Angela Davis has written of the challenge of persuading people that "safety, safeguarded by violence, is not really safety." Maguire and Low aid us in thinking through the challenge, providing a common language to discuss security capitalism and offering ways to escape its clutches"--
"Inclusive Disruption serves as a primary guide to help readers understand what financial technology is and how it has evolved to change the future financial landscape. The central ideas of fintech are explained in details, with topics ranging from distributed innovation, inclusive blockchain to decentralised inclusive technologies. The book also gathers the views of key opinion leaders and cutting-edge practitioners who are at the forefront of fintech development. Therefore, it not only presents useful insights about financial technology but also represents an invaluable source of knowledge for readers who are interested in fintech."