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The migration of professionals is widely seen as a paradigmatic representation and a driver of globalization. The global elite of highly qualified migrants—managers and scientists, for example—are partly defined by their lives’ mobility. But their everyday lives are based and take place in specific cities. The contributors of this book analyze the relevance of locality for a mobile group and provide a new perspective on migrant professionals by considering the relevance of social identities for local encounters in socially unequal cities. Contributors explore shifting identities, senses of belonging, and spatial and social inequalities and encounters between migrant professionals and ‘Others’ within the cities. These qualitative studies widen the understanding of the importance of local aspects for the social identities of those who are in many aspects more privileged than others.
‘Environmental Problem-Solving' presents short excerpts from carefully selected readings, expert commentaries on those readings, assignments, and the best MIT student responses to the assignments and exam questions with excellent student response. The book presents four main models of environmental policy-making: competing theories of environmental ethics; tools for environmental assessment and environmental decision-making; and techniques for public engagement and group decision-making. The book covers the material presented in the semester-long course required of all students enrolled in MIT’s Environmental Policy and Planning Specialization.
This volume is a vital contribution to conversations about urban sustainability, looking beyond the propaganda to explore its consequences for everyday life.
Mercenaries and Missionaries examines the relationship between rapidly diffusing forms of capitalism and Christianity in the Global South. Using more than two hundred interviews in Bangalore and Dubai, Brandon Vaidyanathan explains how and why global corporate professionals straddle conflicting moral orientations in the realms of work and religion. Seeking to place the spotlight on the role of religion in debates about the cultural consequences of capitalism, Vaidyanathan finds that an "apprehensive individualism" generated in global corporate workplaces is supported and sustained by a "therapeutic individualism" cultivated in evangelical-charismatic Catholicism. Mercenaries and Missionaries...
Green European addresses the quest for a better understanding of European type(s) of environmentalism. This monograph focuses on public attitudes and behaviours and the culturally rooted as well as country specific differences. The book addresses the wider issue that many European countries are rendered ‘green’ or as having an advanced environmental awareness, but the question - ‘how green are Green Europeans really’, is yet to be answered. The book covers a variety of unique data-driven comparative studies and is divided into three parts: the first addresses perceptions of environmental and technological threats and risks, the second part deals with environmental activism in Europe, the third discusses environmental attitudes, environmental concerns and their imminent link to personal pro-environmental behaviour. The empirical comparative nature of the contributions is enabled by data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP).
Alongside the ‘critical theory’ of the Frankfurt School, West Germany was also home to another influential Marxist current known as the Marburg School. In this volume, Marburg disciple Lothar Peter traces the school’s history and situates it in the political discourse and developments of its time. The renowned political scientist Wolfgang Abendroth plays a large role, but unlike most histories of the Marburg School Peter also takes the sociologists Werner Hofmann and Heinz Maus into account as well as their many students and successors. They were united by the conviction that teaching and scholarship must necessarily be tied to the practical goal of transforming society – an approach that met with considerable opposition in the harshly anti-Communist atmosphere of the period. This book was first published in 2014 as Marx an die Uni. Die "Marburger Schule" – Geschichte, Probleme, Akteure by PapyRossa Verlag, Cologne, ISBN 978-38-94-38546-0. With a new Introduction by Ingar Solty.
About the Book MICHIEL BAAS BRINGS ALIVE A WORLD OF MEN SCULPTING BODIES, REDEFINING MASCULINITIES AND CONFRONTING THEIR VULNERABILITIES IN THE GYMS OF URBAN INDIA. The gyms of urban 'new India' are intriguing spaces. While they cater largely to well-off clients, these shiny, modern institutions also hold the promise of upward mobility for the personal trainers who work there. By improving their English, 'upgrading' their dressing style and developing a deeper understanding of the lives of their upmarket customers, they strategise to climb the middle-class ladder. Their lean, muscular bodies—which Bollywood has set the tone for are crucial to this. Diverging from an older masculine ideal r...
Across Asia, consumer culture is increasingly shaping everyday life, with neoliberal economic and social policies increasingly adopted by governments who see their citizens as individualised, sovereign consumers with choices about their lifestyles and identities. One aspect of this development has been the emergence of new wealthy middle classes with lifestyle aspirations shaped by national, regional and global media – especially by a range of new popular lifestyle media, which includes magazines, television and mobile and social media. This book explores how far everyday conceptions and experiences of identity are being transformed by media cultures across the region. It considers a range of different media in different Asian contexts, contrasting how the shaping of lifestyles in Asia differs from similar processes in Western countries, and assessing how the new lifestyle media represents not just a new emergent media culture, but also illustrates wider cultural and social changes in the Asian region.
The problem of citizenship has long affected Latin America, simultaneously producing inclusion and exclusion, division and unity. Its narrative and practice both reflect and contribute to the region’s profound inequalities. However, citizenship is usually studied on the margins of society. Despite substantial public interest in recent mass mobilizations, the middle and upper classes are rarely approached as political agents or citizens. As the region’s middle classes continue to grow and new elites develop, their importance can only increase. This interdisciplinary volume addresses this gap, showcasing recent ethnographic research on middle- and upper-class citizenship in contemporary La...