Books in the SpringerBriefs in Sociology series

This book problematises the socioeconomic and institutional construction of prostitution in Thai contexts, identifying the root causes that propel underprivileged, discriminated and deprived women and girls to enter the sex industry. The author considers Thailand¿s tolerance of prostitution and sex trafficking, despite criminalising prostitution since 1960. In doing so, they explain how criminalising prostitution does not lower the odds of women and girls engaging in commercial sex, but rather, legally marginalises them from receiving the necessary social and healthcare support. The book highlights that neither can Thailand pragmatically practice a zero-tolerance stance against prostitution - primarily due to severe police corruption and its heavy reliance on the sex tourism economy to support the national economic growth - nor is Thailand willing to fully crack down on the domestic sex industry. Engaging in an evaluation of how legalising and decriminalising prostitution, along with continuing to implement policies and interventions that alleviate the root causes of prostitution, can help Thailand build a more inclusive society and less-prostitution-reliant economy in the long term, the book provides a nuanced understanding of the relationships between society, inequality, governance, criminality, and policy in Southeast Asian contexts. It is relevant to students and researchers in sociology, socio-criminology, public policy, government and Southeast Asian studies.

This book extends a previously published model of social evolution by using macroeconomic measures to indicate both the current state of the society, and its evolutionary trajectory.

The open access book provides a critical account of parenthood in Polish society. The author distinguishes between different kinds of work done in connection to parenthood and shows how the existing institutional system reinforces gender and other forms of social inequalities even in a post-communist state like Poland.

Additionally, given the new focus on Simmel and intimate relations, the book is of interest to scholars of relational sociology, history of sociology, continental philosophy, history of philosophy, philosophy of culture, and philosophical anthropology.

This book provides an in-depth account of a qualitative study on the familial arrangements and domestic settings shaping interracial gay partnerships in the South African context, and it offers both empirical and theoretical insights on the topic.

This book describes what an "art of multiculturalism" could be and how in turn multiculturalism could be conceived as a form of art.

It discusses this enclave in the context of sociological, historical, and interdisciplinary work on urban artistic communities (i.e., bohemian and quasi-bohemian communities), and situates it within the larger urban artistic tradition, and within its contemporary urban context.

This book offers a comparison between our earthly society and the society of a hypothetical twin planet with the aim to understand and deal with some of the main problems of our global society, as well as to advance interaction with some extra-terrestrial society no less advanced than ours that sooner or later will be discovered.