Suchergebnisse

Life for people on atolls is hard, affected by droughts, rough seas and other adverse climatic conditions, and now, rise in sea level threatens their very inhabitance. No wonder kinship is the foundation of atoll societies, traditional and modern! This book presents a multidisciplinary, retrospective analysis of a Pacific Atoll People living in several countries but held together as a diaspora through notions of kinship. The People have ancestral, cultural, social and continuing residential connections with Nikunau Atoll, at the centre of the Pacific Ocean and once a Cinderella of the British Empire. The analysis explicates their present diasporic circumstances and the pathways through which these arose historically. The intention is to provide a basis for better prospects for succeeding generations from a critical, better-informed standpoint. The analysis relies on the partisan stance of the author, whose kinship ties with I-Nikunau (= people who identify with Nikunau) are affinal, and his 30-year immersion among the People in question. In addition, a large quantity of literature sources and other secondary data are woven into the analysis, as situations and events are grappled with, articulated, interpreted and written into the book. The circumstances are analysed under 14 themes, namely, geographical, demographical, economic, environmental, cultural, societal, etc. The analysis should stir the waters of recent research about Nikunau and Kiribati, much of it concerned with environmental changes making uninhabitable Nikunau, Tarawa and other atolls where I-Nikunau reside, and imagining their resettlement on higher ground, for example, New Zealand, where several diasporic communities exist already. This recent research refers frequently to the social, cultural and economic matters covered in this book, indicating how relevant and important these

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1: Ordinary language and theoretical explanations -- Ordinary language explanations -- The construction of a data-language: behaviourism -- The logic of successful theory -- Chapter 2: Matching the physical science paradigm -- Cause and generality -- The failure of sociological theory: a priori or contingent? -- Chapter 3: Causal explanation and rational action -- The argument that causal accounts of human behaviour are ruled out a priori -- Rational action -- Chapter 4: An alternative conceptualisation: voluntaristic action theory -- The action frame of reference -- The definition of action -- Chapter 5: Bringing history back in: laws and the explanation of human action -- Uniqueness and contingency -- Concluding remarks -- Notes -- Index.

First published in 1980, this book presents a study of knowledge and the patterns of social and scientific thought. Keith Dixon argues that traditional and contemporary formulations of the sociology of knowledge involve a series of fallacies, and the claim to reduce knowledge to ideology devalues the role of reasoned inquiry. Chapters discuss such areas as the theories of Marx and Mannheim, the sociology of science and of religious belief. With a detailed conclusion analysing the foundations and limits of the sociology of knowledge, this reissue will provide an interesting and useful analysis

Unashamedly polemical, this reissue of Freedom & Equality, first published in 1986, presents a strong and persuasively argued case for democratic socialism. In contrast to many recent books justifying conservatism and varieties of Marxism, Keith Dixon defends the two great principles underpinning democratic socialism - freedom and equality. He aims both to restore the idea of freedom to its proper place in the political vocabulary of the left and to defend a stark version of freedom as absence of constraint. Only this version of freedom, he argues, is consistent with the proper defence of civi

Cet article analyse les conséquences de l'élection de Jeremy Corbyn à la tête du parti travailliste britannique. Le caractère inédit de la campagne politicomédiatique contre Corbyn est souligné, en particulier dans la conjugaison d'attaques venant de l'intérieur de l'appareil travailliste et de l'offensive de la quasi-totalité des médias. La dimension transnationale de cette offensive est illustrée par l'exemple français. Ensuite les principaux défis qui attendent la nouvelle équipe de direction travailliste sont présentés, en particulier la question européenne et la gestion du Brexit ainsi que la reconquête de l'électorat populaire, en Écosse notamment. Enfin, la question des alliances politiques futures est évoquée : celle-ci étant au coeur de toute stratégie de retour au pouvoir du parti travailliste.