You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
There is currently an acute lack of scholarly engagement with Buddhism and youth. Based on ground-breaking empirical research, Understanding Young Buddhists: Living out Ethical Journeys explores the stories of young Buddhists, through a rich analysis of their lived experiences. Page and Yip explore their journeying into Buddhism, their Buddhist belief and practice, their management of sexuality, and their social positioning in relation to family and kin, friendship networks, youth culture, and occupational aspirations. Using lived religion as a theoretical lens, and bringing into dialogue research on Buddhism and youth, Understanding Young Buddhists convincingly demonstrates the resourcefulness and creativity of young Buddhists in developing ethics for life, as they negotiate the diverse challenges and opportunities in their journeys of life.
Exploring the intersection between religion, gender and sexuality within the context of everyday life, this volume examines contested identities, experiences, bodies and desires on the individual and collective levels. With rich case studies from the UK, USA, Europe, and Asia, Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Everyday Life sheds light on the manner in which individuals appropriate, negotiate, transgress, invert and challenge the norms and models of various religions in relation to gender and sexuality, and vice versa. Drawing on fascinating research from around the world, this book charts central features of the complexities involved in everyday life, examining the messiness, limits, transformations and possibilities that occur when subjectivities, religious and cultural traditions, and politics meet within the local as well as transnational contexts. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology, anthropology, geography and cultural studies examining questions of religion and spirituality, gender and sexuality, and individual and collective identities in contemporary society.
Drawn from extensive, new and rich empirical research across the UK, Canada and USA, Queer Spiritual Spaces investigates the contemporary socio-cultural practices of belief, by those who have historically been, and continue to be, excluded or derided by mainstream religions and alternative spiritualities. As the first monograph to be directly informed by 'queer' subjectivities whilst dealing with divergent spiritualities on an international scale, this book explores the recently emerging innovative spaces and integrative practices of queer spiritualities. Its breadth of coverage and keen critical engagement mean it will serve as a theoretically fertile, comprehensive entry point for any scholar wishing to explore the queer spiritual spaces of the twenty-first century.
This book brings together the work of an international team of experts investigating the intersection of bisexuality, religion and spirituality. Drawing from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, theology, religious studies and literary studies, it critically examines, both theoretically and empirically, the lived experiences of bisexual people of diverse religious faiths and spiritualities, in the context of the UK, Canada, Lebanon, Turkey, Australia and the USA. As an important and insightful exploration of an under-researched and often misunderstood minority, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in sexuality, religion, spirituality and identity.
Within Western Buddhism, practitioners are often assumed to be white and middle-class. Based in ground-breaking empirical research, Cosmopolitan Dharma: Race, Sexuality, and Gender in British Buddhism explores the stories of Buddhists from minority communities, through a rich analysis of their lived experiences. Smith, Munt and Yip explore their various contestations of dominant white and heteronormative cultures in Western Buddhism. Using cosmopolitanism as the theoretical lens, Cosmopolitan Dharma argues convincingly that the Buddhist ethos of human interconnectivity needs to be further developed to truly embrace the ‘Other’ of different kinds (not least Western Buddhism’s own internal ‘Others’). Cosmopolitan Dharma, through Buddhists’ own narratives, explores how cultural politics from the ground up can offer a more inclusive philosophy and lived experience of spirituality.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Contemporary Religion and Sexuality provides academics and students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in the area of sexuality and religion, broadly defined. This collection of expert essays offers an inter-disciplinary study of the important aspects of sexuality and religion, calling upon sociological, cultural, historical and theological contributions to an under-researched subject. The Companion focuses on the exploration of diverse religious faiths, spiritualities, and sexualities with contributions that embrace many contrasting approaches related to the contemporary context. By adopting a truly inter-disc...
Redoing Gender demonstrates how difficult it is to be anything other than a man or a woman in a society that selectively acknowledges those two genders. Gender nonbinary people—who identify as other genders besides simply “man” or “woman”—have begun to disrupt this binary system, but the limited progress they have made has required significant everyday labor. Through interviews with 47 nonbinary people, this book offers rich description of these forms of labor, including “rethinking sex and gender,” “resignifying gender,” “redoing relationships,” and “resisting erasure.” The final chapter interrogates the lasting impact of this labor through follow-up interviews with participants four years later. Although nonbinary people are finally managing to achieve some recognition, it is clear that this change has not happened without a fight that continues to this day. The diverse experiences of nonbinary people in this book will help cisgender people relate to gender minorities with more compassion, and may also appeal to those questioning their own gender. This text will also be of keen interest to academics across Sociology and Gender Studies.
List of Figures - Acknowledgments - Fida Sanjakdar/Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip: Critical Pedagogy and the Re-imaginings of Sexuality Education: An Introduction - Part 1: Sexuality Education, Ideologies and Socio-cultural Politics - Heather Shipley: Religion, Secularism and Sexuality Education: LGBTQI Identities in Education and the Politics of Ideology in Canada - Eduardo Mattio/Juan Marco Vaggione: Sex Education in Argentina: Ideological Tensions and Critical Challenges - Elsie Whittington/Rachel Thomson: Educating for Consent: Beyond the Binary - Ekua Yankah/Peter Aggleton: Reconceptualising Sexuality Education in the Wake of the HIV, Ebola and Zika Epidemics - Part 2: Sexuality Education and Inst...
This book focuses on the social psychological aspects of gay men’s lives and provides a cutting-edge examination of topics including sexual orientation, sexual behavior, identity, relationships, prejudice, and health. The Social Psychology of Gay Men forces us to re-think existing theory and research, much of which has taken heterosexuality for granted. With identity process theory at its heart, this book advocates a social psychology of gay men which incorporates three levels of analysis – the psychological, interpersonal and societal. The book promises not only a deeper understanding of gay men’s lives but also pathways for enhancing wellbeing, intergroup relations and equality in this key population. This illuminating and thought-provoking text is an invaluable resource not only for psychologists, but for students, scholars and practitioners working in the area of gay men’s life.
An inclusive and accessible resource on the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality Companion to Sexuality Studies explores the significant theories, concepts, themes, events, and debates of the interdisciplinary study of sexuality in a broad range of cultural, social, and political contexts. Bringing together essays by an international team of experts from diverse academic backgrounds, this comprehensive volume provides original insights and fresh perspectives on the history and institutional regulatory processes that socially construct sex and sexuality and examines the movements for social justice that advance sexual citizenship and reproductive rights. Detailed yet accessible cha...