Books published by ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon

That we live in a world ruled and confused by cultural diversities has become common sense. It was the social sciences that gave birth to a new theoretical paradigm, the creation of cultural theories. Since then, social science theorizing applies to any social phenomenon across the world exploring cultural diversities in any social practice-except in regard to the social sciences and how they practice the creation of knowledge. How academics in the social sciences across the world create knowledge is no topic for cultural theories. Social science theorizing seemingly assumes that creating knowledge does not know such diversities. Kazumi Okamoto presents the development of an analytical instrument that helps study ''academic culture'', analyze ''academic practices'' of how social sciences create and distribute knowledge, and the influence the ''academic environment'' has on their knowledge productions. Applying this theoretical tool to the academe in Japan, she further presents a case study about how social scientists in Japan interpret academic practices and how they are affected by their academic environment. Studying the academic culture in the case of Japan, she reveals that not only the academic practices and the academic environment of the academe in Japan show much less diversities than cultural theories tend to presuppose, but that the assumption that creating social science knowledge does not know cultural diversities is an error as well.

In the past, the European social sciences labelled and discredited knowledge that did not follow the definition for scientific knowledge as applied by the European social sciences as an alternative concept of knowledge, as "indigenous" knowledge. Perception has changed with time: Not only has indigenous knowledge become an entrance ticket to the European social science world, but the indigenization of European theories is seen by some as the contribution of "peripheral" social sciences to join the theories of the "centers".This book offers contributions to the discourses about alternative concepts of knowledge, inviting the reader to decide if they are alternative, indigenous, or European types of knowledge. However, in order to make this decision, the reader must know what the nature of the European concepts of science and of scientific knowledge is; this might be a motivation to read a book that presents thoughts claiming to be alternative concepts of knowledge, alternative to the European concept of science.

The European social sciences tend to absorb criticism that has been passed on the European approach and re-label it as a part of what the critique opposes; criticism of European social sciences by "subaltern" social sciences, their "talking back", has become a frequent line of reflection in European social sciences. The re-labelling of the critique of the European approach to social sciences towards a critique from "Southern" social sciences of "Western" social sciences has somehow turned "Southern" as well as "Western" social sciences into competing contributors to the same "globalizing" social sciences. Both are no longer arguing about the European approach to social sciences but about which social thought from which part of the globe prevails.If the critique becomes a part of what it opposes, one might conclude that the European social sciences are very adaptable and capable of learning. One might, however, also raise the question whether there is anything wrong with the criticism of the European social sciences; or, for that matter, whether there is anything wrong with the European social sciences themselves. The contributions in this book discuss these questions from different angles: They revisit the mainstream critique of the European social sciences, and they suggest new arguments criticizing social science theories that may be found as often in the "Western" as in the "Southern" discourse.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the social sciences discover an epochal "turn" making it necessary to revolutionize their theory-building: As a response to what they call the globalization of the social, they find the need to globalize their theorizing as well.It is odd to discover after two centuries of colonialism and imperialism, after two world wars and several economic world crises that there is a world beyond the national socials; it is even more strange that the social sciences globalize their theorizing by comparing theories about nationally confined socials and by creating all sorts of, preferably, "local theories", just as if any national social was a secluded social biotope. Discussing how to globalize the social sciences, they argue that globalizing social science theorizing means finding a way of theorizing that must, above all, be liberated from "scientism" in order to allow a "provincialization" of thinking. Not surprisingly, the globalizing social sciences also rediscover mythological and moral thinking as a means for a "true scientific universalism".Michael Kuhn''s new book presents many thought-provoking arguments on the oddities of the globalizing social sciences and on how these oddities are not accidents, but a consequence of the nature of how the social sciences theorize about the social.

This book highlights current debates about concepts, methods, and policies related to poverty in Latin America. It focuses on child and adolescent well-being and the issue of inclusive societies. Its goal is to promote new and critical thinking about these issues globally and in Latin America. The authors clearly emphasize the need to develop new conceptual and practical avenues that can address the issues of poverty, marginalization, exclusion, and old and new inequalities in post-neoliberal times. The objective is to advance the rights of all children and adolescents in the region. This urgent book represents a unique opportunity for practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and students to get access to the most up-to-date key knowledge on child poverty and inequality from a conceptual and practical point of view.

Worldwide child and youth poverty and deprivation remain the biggest barrier to achieving a better life in adulthood. Progress in lifting children out of poverty in the last decades has been slow and limited in the developing world, while the recent global economic crisis has exacerbated child poverty, youth unemployment, and social exclusion in many developed countries. By critically unraveling the long-term consequences of growing up poor, the close linkages between multiple deprivations and violation of human rights in childhood and adolescence, and their effects on labor market entry and future career in a number of developing and developed countries, this book significantly enriches the existing literature. Drawing on multiple disciplinary perspectives, it makes a forceful case for the eradication of child poverty to take center stage in the Sustainable Development Goals.