Böcker i Routledge Advances in Sociology-serien

The book is comprised of empirical analyses of the relationships people have during their lives and how these affect their individual welfare. These include relationships between members of a couple, between parents and children, between the children themselves and between non-related individuals.

Until now, there has been relatively little empirical evidence on the role of social relations in innovation and innovation policies. Lack of innovation is not necessarily caused by lack of technology or unwillingness to innovate, but often, because of a lack of supportive social capital between the actors. This book analyzes this urgent problem, and proposes models and measures for better regulation.

How can we raise the standard of living of the world''s poor and maintain high levels of social health and well-being in the developed world, while simultaneously reducing the environmental damage wrought by human activity? The social dimension of sustainability is becoming recognized as a necessary if not sufficient condition for attaining economic and environmental sustainability. The requisite dialogue requires inclusion at multi-levels. This collection of works is an ambitious and multi-disciplinary effort to indemnify and articulate the design, implementation and implications of inclusion. Included are theoretical and empirical pieces that examine the related issues at the local, national and international levels. Contributors are grounded in Sociology, Economics, Business Administration, Public Administration, Public Health, Psychology, Anthropology, Social Work, Education, and Natural Resource Management.

This collection of original articles deals with two intertwined general questions: what is the visual sphere, and what are the means by which we can study it sociologically? These questions serve as the logic for dividing the book into two sections, the first ("Visualizing the Social, Sociologizing the Visual") focuses on the meanings of the visual sphere, and the second ("New Methodologies for Sociological Investigations of the Visual") explores various sociological research methods to getting a better understanding of the visual sphere. We approach the visual sphere sociologically because we regard it as one of the layers of the social world. It is where humans produce, use, and engage with the visual in their creation and interpretation of meanings. Under the two large inquiries into the "what" and the "how" of the sociology of the visual sphere, a subset of more focused questions is being posed: what social processes and hierarchies make up the visual sphere? How various domains of visual politics and visuality are being related (or being presented as such)? What are the relations between sites and sights in the visual research? What techniques help visual researcher to increase sensorial awareness of the research site? How do imaginaries of competing political agents interact in different global contexts and create unique, locally-specific visual spheres? What constitutes competing interpretations of visual signs? The dwelling on these questions brings here eleven scholars from eight countries to share their research experience from variety of contexts and sites, utilizing a range of sociological theories, from semiotics to post-structuralism.

Climate change is widely agreed to be one of the greatest challenges facing society today. Thus far, however, efforts to promote pro-environmental behaviour have centred on typically limited understandings of individual agency, choice and change. This book shows how much more the social sciences have to offer. The expert contributors to Sustainable Practices show how a practice approach can help us understand what societal transitions towards sustainability involve, and how they might be achieved.

"Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge ... Abington, Oxon"--Title page verso.

"Simultaneously published in the UK"--Title page verso.

What is Europe? What are the contents of the concept of Europe? And what defines European identity? Instead of only asking these classical questions, this volume also explores who asks these questions, and who is addressed with such questions. Who answers the questions, from which standpoints and for what reasons? Which philosophical, historical, religious or political traditions influence the answers? This volume produces a complex and plural picture of the concepts, ideas, debates and (ex)changes associated with the concept of Europe, and has a clear significance for today¿s debates on European identity, Europeanization, and the EU.

Contributors from the fields of sociology, anthropology, history and women's studies focus on the everyday social interactions that makeschools, workplaces and neighbourhoods sites of cultural creativity, transformation and resistance.

This book offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary perspective on the key European social movements in the past forty years. Expert contributions explore the European tradition of social movement theorising, the construction of the anti-capitalist "movement of movements" within the European setting, and the new anti-austerity protests in Iceland, Greece, Spain, and elsewhere.

As the scholarly and interdisciplinary study of human/animal relations become crucial to the urgent questions of our time, notably in relation to environmental crisis, this volume explores the inner tensions within the broad field of animal studies and provides a platform for the latest critical thinking on the condition and experience of animals.

This book ranges in a detailed, systematic fashion across the major traditions of social theory prominent in Japan today ¿ from theories of identity and individualization to systems theory and globalization studies. The volume introduces readers to the rich diversity of social-theoretical critique in contemporary Japanese social theory, and provides an authoritative set of exchanges between Japanese and Western social scientists on current trends of development in twenty-first century social thought.

Comprised of nine theoretical, methodological and empirical chapters, this path-creating edited collection contains original works by both established and young, up-and-coming social scientists, including those from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Greece and the U.S.

Demonstrates the varied contributions of public resistance to technological developments over the years.

Bourdieüs theory of social fields is one of his key contributions to social sciences and humanities. However, it has never been subjected to genuine critical examination. This book fills that gap and offers a clear and wide-ranging introduction to the theory. It includes a critical discussion of its methodology and relevance in different subject areas in the social sciences and humanities.

This book originates from a research project involving extensive collection and analysis of primary and secondary materials (scholarly literature, statistical data, and interviews with key actors) on global management and local resistances in all major world regions during the last years. It seeks to assess the overall management situation in the world, looking at the world as a social system where some countries act as winners of socioeconomic globalization, others as losers, and some as both. Offering analytical and comparative insights at the global level, this book will be useful for scholars, students, NGOs, and policy makers.

Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications reflects the current status of biographical research as an intrinsic part of qualitative methods as used across the main substantive fields in social sciences. Biographical research has developed from the collection and interpretation of the life story interview and range of `personal documents¿ (e.g. letters, diaries) to, in recent years, interlinking with multi-media, and arts based and other creative multi-sensory methods. The book reflects these exciting developments by mapping the field and outlining `creative¿ cross-disciplinary research which will stimulate the interest of new and experienced researchers.