In Retail and Social Change Steven Miles, presents a cross-disciplinary analysis of the evolution of retail and how in both its material and virtual guises it has come to reframe our relationship with the social world.
Histories of Portugal s transition to democracy have long focused on the 1974 military coup that toppled the authoritarian Estado Novo regime and set in motion the divestment of the nation s colonial holdings.
Although sociology is present as a discipline or as a social practice in most countries in the world, its future as a not-only Western social science has hardly been addressed before.
Finding ways to understand the nature of social change and social order-from political movements to market meltdowns-is one of the enduring problems of social science.
Why did the 1989 Chinese student movement end in violent confrontation at Tiananmen Square, despite the fact that both the Chinese government and the students very much wanted to avoid violence?
In spite of the fact that crime is an emotive topic, the question of emotion has been largely overlooked in criminological research, which has tended instead to examine criminal conduct in terms of structural background variables or rational decision-making.
The expansion of social history that took place in the twentieth century has produced some of the most exciting works in the field of historical studies.
The grounded theory method is founded on a view of analysis whereby the research questions and potential hypotheses are not articulated at the outset; rather, the researcher initially seeks to gain familiarity with a research context, and only in later stages does the process become progressively more focused and targeted.
The concept of society sui generis - society as a level of reality which could be studied scientifically - crystallized in the middle of the nineteenth century in Europe, with the work of Durkheim, Marx and Weber and today, more than at any other period in history, the idea of the social has gained a foothold in philosophy, biology, and neuroscience.
Using Europe as an example, this book readdresses and updates the concept of 'society', exploring society in the context of both globalization and conflict theory to develop a new theory of society for our times.
Interest in Fromm is increasing: as a prominent Marxist, sociologist, psychoanalytic theorist, and public intellectual, the unique normative-humanist thrust of his writings provides a crucial critical reference point for those seeking to understand and transcend the societal pathologies of our age.
This important text argues for a 'strong' notion of structuration theory in contrast to the seminal but more abstract and relatively under-developed project represented by Anthony Giddens's writings.
Explicitly comparative in its approach, Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition discusses central issues regarding multiculturalism in today's Europe, based on studies of Norway and the Netherlands.
With the advent of colonialism and the monetarized market economy, the gift economy, once a widely embedded cultural and economic practice, has become a niche of modern diplomacy, often serving as the means for corruption rather than human connection.
Understood historically, culturally, politically, geographically, or philosophically, the idea of Europe and notion of European identity conjure up as much controversy as consensus.
In a society where youthfulness and vitality are highly valued, the quest for anti-aging solutions has become increasingly popularized in bio-medical gerontology.
While certain aspects of Henri Lefebvre's writings have been examined extensively within the disciplines of geography, social theory, urban planning and cultural studies, there has been no comprehensive consideration of his work within legal studies.
This book extends Max Weber's theory of the value-spheres of modernity into wholly new areas, showing that the addition of home, nature and sport to Weber's own list of five spheres (economic, scientific/intellectual, political/legal, erotic and aesthetic) yields original insights into these aspects of modernity and modernity itself.
Family Configurations develops current scholarship on families and intimate lives by demonstrating that family relationships, far from being fluid and inconsequential, are more structured and committed than ever.
Presenting a survey of the social, cultural and theoretical issues which surround and inform our understanding of masculinity, this book explores the interface between traditional sociological approaches and the work covered by more post-structural, media-driven or cultural perspectives.
Ireland's history of contested language systems has always been linked to its political realities; Language, Identity and Liberation attends to a movement of contemporary Irish writing that considers the significance of the region's tumultuous cultural, social and political history in portrayals of contemporary Ireland's everyday life and speech.
This book provides a bridge between Shakespeare studies and classical social theory, opening up readings of Shakespeare to a new audience outside of literary studies and the humanities.