Books published by Palgrave MacMillan

This edited volume addresses current challenges, trends and transformations in global communication governance. Exploring changes in the actors, issues, values and contexts of media and communications, it investigates the crossroads that media policy is facing and offers visions for the future. A diverse range of scholars and expert practitioners discuss what regulatory reforms and governing mechanisms are required to advance democratic participation and fundamental rights in platform societies.Organized around five sections, the volume considers the geopolitics of emerging communication orders; the changing roles of actors and stakeholders; the challenge of embedding rights and values in regulatory arrangements; the intersection of technology and policy; and the need to rethink epistemologies and methodologies for researching this field.Contributions from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds include provocative think pieces and longer analyses. All chapters are grounded in historically-aware understandings of contemporary transformations, while anticipating dynamics of our communication futures.

This book provides balanced critical linguistic and literary representations of gender and power relations in Ghanaian and Nigerian texts, contrary to most existing literary and linguistic studies on gender that have either focused on male chauvinism or male emasculation. This text provides novel insight into gender dynamics, liberation and empowerment especially as it relates to language and power in Africa.

Management scholars worldwide increasingly capitalize on theoretical models and research designs from the behavioural sciences to close the implementation gap in mission-driven organisations. This book aims at synthesising the theoretical frameworks and evidence that has flourished over the past decades in order to advance the scholarly debate and the implications for practice in the domains of performance management, information systems, investments strategies, people administration, and change and innovation. It provides meaningful insights to tackle real-world challenges that organizations and their managers face on a daily basis; including why two managers can make radically different decisions in front of the same information, which cognitive traps most often get in the way of good performance management, and how managerial interventions can limit such errors and variability.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of technology start-up arenas in Nairobi and examines their global place. These start-ups are popularly perceived as representing future prosperity that is incorporated in the present. The author examines how developing country arenas lay bare the power asymmetries and taken-for-granted assumptions that determine which technoscientific imaginaries become globalized and universal, and are supported by legitimizing narratives, logics and institutions. A framing of 'catch-up' or 'leapfrogging' for technoscientific development that is based on capitalist modernity is regarded as incontrovertible--so much so that alternative values and approaches to technology production are rarely contemplated. This book documents how actors in Nairobi's startup arena relate to these imaginaries and the affects, enactments and places that they produce.

This book offers a novel theory of the roles narrative plays in cognition by arguing that we can develop rich interdisciplinary research by thinking of narrative as a form of processing. Narrative processing describes a mode of anticipating, organizing, and simulating experience that is provisional, ongoing, and deeply integrated into how we make sense of what happens and how we figure ourselves into it. Accounts of narrative differ widely between cognitive psychology, contemporary philosophy, and literary studies. As a result, it is difficult to reconcile research about narrative from these disciplines. Yet the questions at stake in this research are often profound. For example, how are experiences organized into meaningful sequences? How do the rich and complex features of a 'life narrative' emerge from the ways experience is processed in perception, working memory, and other components of present cognition? The model of narrative processing proposed in this book complements several influential, emerging theories of cognition, including predictive processing, emotion as a component to cognition, and ecological theories of cognition. The book argues that the role of narrative in higher-order cognition is reciprocally related to the emergent narrative features of lower-order cognition. In doing so, it provides a coherent concept of narrative with the potential to inform research in various disciplines.

COVID-19 impacted economic activity in a way that hurt households, businesses, industries, and governments. What followed immediately was a period of high uncertainty, and what's to come is still unknown. Economists have a lot to learn from this point in history, as different countries have handled this very differently from others. This book journeys through what one emerging economy has done to attempt recovery following immense disruption: Mexico's recovery following the pandemic. This volume offers empirical studies that trace the post-pandemic recovery period in Mexico, providing insight into what this emergent economy went through and did after 2021. The first part of the book examines macroeconomics, such as tax collection, and microeconomics, such as household income. These chapters draw on policy and the actions driving the economic recover in this emergent economy. The second half of the book focuses on what organizations can do to improve internal governance as well as market success.Full of new conceptual and empirical studies, the book explains what it looks like to rebuild an emerging economy. It will appeal to economists, economic scholars, and policymakers trying to make sense of the best ways to move forward following intense period of economic instability.

This book explores two unique studies of women's economic behaviour during Australia's COVID-19 crisis. The first describes the care 'frontline' in the feminised labor sectors of healthcare and education, identifying extreme workload pressures, deteriorating conditions, and a shockingly high incidence of workplace bullying: including women targeting other women workers. The author argues workplace cultures are almost inevitable in Australia's advanced neoliberal economy, where a patri-colonial legacy continues to devalue and under-resource women's work.In contrast, a second study of voluntary care provisioning taking place in 'hyperlocal digital sharing networks' over the same period identifies very different economic behaviours. Here, women - and occasionally men - instead engage in 'care-full' labors of gifting, collective provisioning, and hive mind problem-solving, that align with the gift economy models seen in degrowth theory.This book will interest scholars in gender studies, sociology, and economics, particularly those interested in care work, the gift economy, and women's labor.

This book will look at digital popular cultures in the post-millennial Indian context and trace patterns of consumption and forms of agency that it engenders thus offering an interpretative analysis of digital content on different platforms. The book consists of three sections. The first section centres around novel practices such as transnational consumption of digital popular content. The second section deals with influencer marketing and the ways in which mediated personalities get transformed. The third section includes textual analysis of OTT and other digital content in order to understand its effects on refashioning social identities such as class caste and gender.

This open access book provides thought-provoking anthropology grounded in comparative ethnography. The theory captures the current historical moment, the long-term trends that led us here, and the prospects for a humane future. The experience of complexity characterizing a globalized information society triggers simplexes. These unidimensional responses instrumental in bringing about a predictable effect are altering our ways of communicating and the technologies we design. In Part I, a 'speciated' history, injected with the anthropology of Bateson and Gluckman, describes the semantic and experiential impoverishment of the lifeworld. After going through the affects of distrust (the neolithic lifeway), of futility (industrial lifeway) and disconnection (post-knowledge), the human species today depends for its survival on installing a new lifeway, which manages to wed (eco-social) inclusion to the already difficult first pair of the French Revolution. The species needs to rehumanize. Part II illustrates the remedies currently developed: to reframe, re-sphere and re-source. What do critical street art, international football matches, presidential elections, hip-hop dissing performances, charismatic church services, intuition stimulation, and 'pre-ceptive' experiences of consciousness have in common? They are moments of the real. Rooted in 'life sensing', they are tensors organizing frameshift. As multiplex measures tackling the simplex, these tensors overcome the cultural relativism of the postmodern matrix.

This open access book examines the chronic underperformance of economies with respect to inclusion, sustainability and resilience. It finds that the standard liberal economic growth and development model has evolved over the past century in a fundamentally unbalanced manner that underemphasizes the crucial role of institutions - legal norms, policy incentives and public administrative capacities - in translating market-based growth in the production of goods and services into broad and sustainable gains in social welfare at the household level. Correcting this imbalance of emphasis in economic theory and policy between markets and institutions, production and distribution, and national income and household living standards is the single most important step required to transcend 20th century trickle-down "neoliberalism" and replace it with a more human-centred model of economic progress in the 21st century. The book breaks new ground by integrating the principal institutional dimensions of the social contract into the heart of macroeconomic theory and presenting extensive corresponding reforms of domestic and international economic policy to refocus them on the median living standards, rather than primarily aggregate wealth or GDP, of nations. This is the bottom-line measure of national economic performance, and it depends on the strength of both markets of exchange and institutions in such areas as labour and social protection, financial and corporate governance, competition and rents, anti-corruption, infrastructure and basic necessities, environmental protection, education and skilling, etc. Extensive comparative data are presented demonstrating that countries at every level of economic development have ample policy space to narrow their "welfare gaps" - their underperformance on these and other key aspects of household living standards relative to the frontier of leading policy practice in peer countries.

This open access book introduces a groundbreaking concept - civil society elites - and serves as an essential resource for scholars, researchers and students interested in the complexities of power and influence within contemporary civil societies. Through a series of unique empirical studies, the authors offer a comprehensive examination of the individuals occupying the upper echelons of influential civil society organisations and movements. By delving into the factors that propel individuals into key positions and examining the connections between civil society leaders within and across sectors, the book offers insight into the mechanisms that shape access to powerful positions in civil societies. As a reflection of current debates on elites and populism, the book furthermore explores the expression and conceptualisation of counter-elite positions and criticism of civil society elites. With its original approach, the book serves as a catalyst for further research into inequalities, power structures and elites within civil societies.

This volume offers phenomenological studies that examine the lived experiences of biblical leaders, emphasizing external summons and a prosocial intention while offering suggestions for future research. Part 1 focuses on various aspects of divine calling and leadership, covering topics such as the calling of biblical prophets like Jeremiah and Samuel, and the downfall of Solomon. Part 2 explores successful biblical leadership and followership from a qualitative, phenomenological lens, analyzing the experiences of Abraham, Paul, and Samson. Part 3 presents both positive and negative portrayals of biblical leadership, demonstrating how both types can lead to social justice outcomes.Presenting a Christian perspective of the relationship between the leaders and their sense of calling, this book employs a phenomenological approach to investigate the significance of various aspects of God's calling, such as the leader's discernment of the calling, predictors of a leader's calling, thesocial- cultural influences of the calling, the relationship between personality traits and calling, and the evolution of a leader's calling. This book will contribute to scholarly discussions related to meaningful work, workplace satisfaction, employee engagement, and responsible leadership.

This volume, a follow up to Reimagining Science Education in the Anthropocene (2021), continues a transdisciplinary conversation around reconceptualizing science education in the era of the Anthropocene. Drawing educators from many walks of life and areas of practice together in a creative work that helps reorient science education toward the problems and peculiarities associated with this contemporary geologic time. This work continues the mission of transforming the ways communities inherit science and technology education: its knowledges, practices, policies, and ways-of-living-with-Nature. Our understanding of the Anthropocene is necessarily open and pluralistic, as different beings on our planet experience this time of crisis in different ways. This second volume continues to nurture productive relationships between science education and fields such as science studies, environmental studies, philosophy, the natural sciences, Indigenous studies, and critical theory in order to provoke a science education that actively seeks to remake our shared ecological and social spaces in the coming decades and centuries. This is an open access book.

Within and beyond organization studies, an epistemology of practice allows us to view the ongoing interaction between doing and knowing, the knowing subject and the known object, social and material, humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans. This book is a collection of reflections by scholars across the social sciences around epistemological practices and the epistemology of posthumanist practice theory. Practice theories and practice-based studies have developed a rich methodology for studying working practices. This book is an epistemological reflection that challenges the distinction between theory and method, questions the knowing practices that give form to the object of knowledge, how they draw boundaries between what comes to matter and what is excluded from mattering. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of organization studies and beyond, allowing social science researchers to rethink their positioning within their own research practices and leaving them open to a broader, looser and more generous understanding of qualitative methodologies.Chapters 1, 2, 5 and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This edited collection considers the significance of Creole cultures within current, changing global contexts. With a particular focus on post-colonial Small Island Developing States, it brings together perspectives from academics, policy makers and practitioners including those based in Dominica, St Lucia, Seychelles and Mauritius. Together they provide a rich exploration of issues that arise in relation to safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage that sustains Creole identities. Commencing with considerations of the UNESCO (2003) Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the collection then presents case studies from the Seychelles, Mauritius, St. Lucia and Dominica. These attest to the many and different ways through which Creole cultural practices remain significant to the lived experiences of Creole communities. These chapters exemplify how through activities such as storytelling, singing, dancing, making artworks and the alternative economic practice of koudmen, Creole peoples sustain cultural identities that draw strength from their traditions. Yet there is also recognition of the continual struggle to sustain Creole cultural practices in the face of global economic and political pressures and related uncertainties. This global economic landscape also has an impact upon how Creole cultures are presented to tourists and hence upon the ways in which cultural practices are supported.

This open access book examines places on the margins and the dynamics through which a marginal position of a place is created. Specifically, it explores how places, mostly in sparsely populated areas, often perceived as immobile and frozen in time, come into being and develop through interference of everyday mobilities and creative practices that cut across the spheres of culture and nature as usually defined. Through fieldwork and case studies from areas in Iceland, Finland, Greenland, and Scotland, the book's twelve chapters draw out the multiple relations through which places emerge, where people compose their lives as best they can with their surroundings. A special concern is to explore the links between travelling, landscape, and material culture and how places and margins are enacted through mobilities and creative practices of humans and other beings. The emphasis on mobility disturbs the perception of a place as a bounded entity and offers a useful and necessary understanding of places as mobile and fluid. Mobilities on the Margins is a novel and timely contribution to the exploration of human and more-than-human interactions in a world of increasingly fluid mobilities and insistent crises.

This book addresses a gap in and outside academia: how to help Sociology undergraduates develop skills for career success while maintaining a sociologically rigorous approach. Matching sociological theories, methods, and knowledge with contemporary capitalistic managerial and work practices, it shows how sociology undergraduates are not only employable but have marketable advantages over graduates of other disciplines. A student following the program embodied in this book will actively nurture a strong sociological identity; create a job search plan integrating personal and disciplinary interests, values, and skills; design job application materials that provide the best fit for specific jobs and organizations; and launch a satisfying career path. Beyond an employment guide, it will facilitate the teaching of career development by Sociology faculty; increase students' ongoing confidence in their potential; and provide a solid foundation for communicating the transformative power ofSociology to employers and managers in the government, business, and non-profit sectors.

​This open access neuroaesthetics textbook, the first in the world, is designed for teaching a semester module (14 meetings) to undergraduate/masters students from both the sciences and the humanities. Written in a style that appeals to humanities students without prior science training, and to science students without prior humanities training, the textbook contains 6 Units, material for an introductory class, and summative comments to be discussed in a closing meeting. Each Unit comprises an overview designed as student home reading, a lecture, and a lab. The labs contain detailed step-by-step instructions for running a basic experiment and analysing the collected data, that can be easily implemented in humanities and science departments alike. The textbook introduces students to philosophical considerations of neuroaesthetics topics in context of the history of empirical aesthetics, showcases experimental approaches to the empirical study of dance, the visual arts, and music, and supports hands-on training in experimental research methods.

This two-volume set charts a cross-disciplinary discursive terrain that proffers rich insights about deceit in contemporary postcolonial Sub-Saharan African politics. In an attempt to produce a nuanced and multi-faceted academic dialoguing platform, the two volumes have a particular focus on the aspects of treachery, fear of difference (oppositional politics), and discourses/ semiotics of mis/self- representation. The major aim of the proposed volumes is to contribute toward the often problematised conversations about the unfolding (post)colonial Sub-Saharan world which is topical in decolonial and Pan-African studies. The volumes seek to place political thinking and postcolonial political systems under the scholarly gaze with the view to highlight and enhance the participation of African cross-disciplinary scholarship in the postcolonial political processes of the continent. Most significantly, it is through such probing of the limitations of our own disciplinary perspectives which can help us appreciate the complexity of the postcolonial Sub-Saharan African politics. The first volume uses Zimbabwe as a case study, while the second volume broadens to examine postcolonial politics in Sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Marxism and Education is an international and interdisciplinary volume, which provides a thorough and precise engagement with emergent developments in Marxist theory in both the global South and North. Drawing on the work of authoritative scholars and practitioners, the handbook explicitly shows how these developments enable a rich historical and material understanding of the full range of education sectors and contexts. The handbook proceeds in a spirit of openness and dialogue within and between various conceptions and traditions of Marxism and brings those conceptions into dialogue with their critics and other anti-capitalist traditions. As such, it contributes to the development of Marxist analyses that push beyond established limits, by engaging with fresh perspectives and views that disrupt established perspectives.

Water has become increasingly central to addressing multiple development and environmental objectives in the course of climate change. Exploring the multiple dimensions of water governance, policy and management in a holistic way is thus imperative for financial innovations to take place in the water sector. This book constitutes, first of all, a reference document allowing African managers and policymakers to broaden their knowledge of financing strategies and tactics in order to raise funds for water services provision and water resources development. Additionally, the book reviews the agenda on water and sanitation services in order to ensure water resources development has a place in funding structures. The book presents and discusses contemporary instruments of financing water services and water resources development in Africa. In this regard, three major thematic areas are recognized as key: Coverage of the legal and institutional contexts pertaining to water financing innovations; an assessment of economic mechanisms and principles subtending financial innovations in the water sector; and applications of innovative water financing mechanisms based on scale formation and adoption practices. This book highlights the principles of economic profitability and financial sustainability to enable creditworthiness and a snowball effect of borrowing, and will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, and academics, as well as development agencies and financiers of sustainable development and environmental (Blue and Green) economies.

This edited collection sheds light on the complex nature of migratory movements through the lens of economic and social history. It addresses a variety of migration issues involving Europe and the Americas in order to offer new insights on past and future migration and integration policies. The volume comprises multi-disciplinary research from both continents dealing with the economic, political, demographical and sociological impact of migration. This interdisciplinary approach aims to stimulate intellectual dialogue on the migration phenomenon among the international community of scholars in Europe and North and South America. It is divided into three parts, which offer an essential contribution to the issue of migration and aim at better understanding the effect that different forms of migration have had and will continue to exert on economic and social change in receiving countries. This book is a valuable resource for a wide audience including academics, students in the economic and social sciences, and government and EU officials working with migration topics.

This open access book, now in its second edition, offers a comprehensive overview of the experiences of First in Family (FiF) or first-generation students in higher education. It draws upon narratives of students and their family members and spans the entire university student life cycle (pre-entry, commencement, progression and graduation) with a focus on specific cohorts including mature-aged students, parents or carers, as well as the differentiated experiences of male and female learners. With research drawn from three major research projects and including over 650 FiF students from across all Australian states and territories, as well as Europe, this wealth of perspectives provides unique insights into the lived reality of attending university in contemporary higher education settings. The book is written for a broad audience and will appeal to those working in universities, as well as family members and students who may be contemplating participating in higher education.

Women presented the first effective challenge to the Islamic regime and the clerical authority in post-revolutionary Iran. Women's activism in support of their legal rights and personal freedom, however, did not develop into a strong movement against the rising fundamentalism. The Iranian socialists did not support women's autonomous organizations. The convergence of the Left's populism with Islamic populism, and the influence of the Iranian/Shiite political culture that promotes male authority and female submission, could not reconcile with women's claims to individual rights, choice, and personal freedom and their struggle for autonomy and self-determination in private or public life.

This book presents an original interpretation of the building history of London in terms of its evolving political economy. Each of the seven ages of the city from the Roman to the modern, are portrayed through their monumental buildings, concentrating in particular on their symbolic purpose as expressions of the status and authority of those who built them. The concluding synthesis explores how these successive layers of building can be seen to be a product of the evolving class structure, the changing distribution of wealth, and the shifting struggle for political power within the city and the nation. Although the focus is on London, the analysis is applicable to any urbanized economy at any stage of development. This book offers unique insight into London as a landscape of power and as a city that has assumed a succession of identities over the last two millennia. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in urban economy, economic history, and thepolitical economy.

This book on entrepreneurship, compiles a series of evidence-based episodes from the lives of the marginalized and the minority-oriented entrepreneurs to comprehend whether entrepreneurship is truly a socio-economic emancipatory strategy. Varying experiences of entrepreneurs, from different geographical territories, origins and gender are examined under a critical lens to deconstruct its emancipatory potential and appreciate its power in generating human freedom, equal opportunities, and in uplifting the oppressed and suppressed classes globally. In specific the book explores entrepreneurs located in two geographically diverse regions across the world. The social entrepreneurs in the contested region of Palestine and the black and ethnic entrepreneurial group based in Georgia, United States. The book is a planned and purposeful compilation of raw [i.e., in terms of emotions and feelings], untold stories of entrepreneurs who have embraced entrepreneurship to eradicate their harsh realities and subsequently emancipate themselves. The book integrates a critical perspective, encompassing a variety of theoretical frameworks such as critical race theory, critical theory, critical realism and different power modalities and philosophies to investigate the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship and justify it as a socio-economic emancipatory strategy. This book ventures into the murky and dark waters of entrepreneurship by exploring this concept within the black and immigrant communities, as a collective social entrepreneurship reform movement, female entrepreneurship, informal entrepreneurship operating under occupation, to provide detailed insights on bricolage and other complexed economic issues.

This open access book illustrates how systemic theory, as both a meta-theory and a relational organic theory, can be a suitable framework for understanding and appreciating the new horizons of systemic practice with children and families in their various contexts. The different chapters shed light on how systemic perspectives, as they are presented in their varying contexts, promote hope by giving room for reflections on uncertainty, change, opportunities, interconnections, and differences. The authors describe and reflect on how systemic approaches can be useful for practitioners and make space for a multiplicity of different perspectives that address the needs of children and those assisting them in their various settings, where children grow and develop in the context of their unique needs and challenges. It covers safeguarding children's rights through parental separation and divorce; families experiencing anticipatory grief; parents struggling with substanceuse problems; gender incongruence; eating disorders; systemic perspectives on psychiatric diagnosis; children with disabilities; and systemic practice in school. The book will be a source of inspiration, as the purpose is to illustrate the systemic field in constant motion, which encourages, maybe even requires a plurality of theories, perspectives and approaches. But, most importantly, it demonstrates how working with children and families is a privilege.

This book offers novel insights into how students can develop a personal growth mindset during their degree programs that allows them to view new challenges as opportunity to grow personally, reflect on the new knowledge and experience, and subsequently improve their skills to critically examine and evaluate information in a journey of personal growth. Based on learning theories drawn from cognitive and social psychology and over 12 years of integrating the 'personal growth mindset' into course design, it offers a novel framework that allows higher education teachers to constructively align learning objectives and assessments with crucial transferable skill development, and fostering a mindset for personal growth among students that focuses on continuously improving and reflecting on feedback. The objective is to empower academics to build courses and degree programs that are 'fit for purpose' by equipping social science students with the skills and mindsets that will benefit them throughout their careers in ever changing and newly emerging jobs. The book will appeal to those who are interested in how individuals learn in educational settings and in the wider workplace.

Why have the economies of some developing countries fallen back while others have advanced? Why have so many stabilization and structural adjustment programs failed to deliver growth dividends? This book shows that there is a common and valid answer: political credibility defined as the predictability of the institutional rules of the game. This case is not only argued theoretically but also found to be confirmed by empirical analysis. Ten case studies pitting Latin American countries against Southeast Asian ones reveal the sources of political credibility. Economic openness is the necessary precondition, long-term reputation or democratic participation the sufficient one. Despite the seemingly superior strength of authoritarian reputation democratic control is the more successful road.

This open access book explores the intersection of gender and climate change, suggests ways in which innovative technologies can accelerate climate relief actions, and offers strategies for integrating climate change initiatives into national policies and planning. By examining the devastating consequences of climate change on women and girls throughout the continent, the authors pose a crucial question: Does gender matter in climate change discussions in Africa? Political and social traditions have burdened women with greater vulnerability to the impacts of climate-related natural disasters, including violence, displacement, poverty, famine and lack of access to clean water. However, women are also key to effective and inclusive climate mitigation, adaptation, and decision-making. The authors provide a compelling discourse that identifies the social and economic benefits for all citizens when gender-inclusive policies shape equitable and targeted action plans, from mitigation to adaptation and funding. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 13 calls for urgent action and commitment to combat climate change. The implementable and action-oriented propositions presented in this book will be of interest to students, educators, practitioners, third-sector actors, and policymakers committed to gender equality, sustainable development and climate action in Africa.