Books published by Palgrave MacMillan

This edited volume presents a multi-perspectival inquiry into the models that have shaped the study of ancient economies in past decades. The contributions collected here respond to the prevailing tendency to measure ancient Mediterranean economies using methods and techniques designed for assessing the performance of modern economies, considering a range of approaches that might generate a more socially and morally attuned history of the ancient Mediterranean. The volume explores the challenges of quantification and critically examines the ideological assumptions implicit within the models usually applied to the study of ancient economic performance. The chapters advocate for more inclusive alternatives to traditional ideas of 'growth' that take factors such as social inequality, fairness, wellbeing and the relationship between humans and the natural environment into consideration. The book examines through a series of different questions the importance of querying the appropriateness of economic methods from an ethical or socially aware position. Rather than condemning older models, methods, and points of view for their inadequacies, this book focuses on leveraging the benefits from existing methods in economics and suggesting new frameworks to reach toward historical approaches that are both methodologically sophisticated and attuned to the moral, ethical, and political concerns of the twenty-first century. This book will be a valuable resource for interdisciplinary researchers in economics, economic history, ancient history and archaeology.

This book unpacks the notion of pedagogy in South African technical and vocational education and training (TVET), enhancing the importance of the psychological dimension of learning. The book is premised on the idea that as stories of actual, grounded teaching and learning practices emerge from South African colleges, a coherent picture of pedagogy can be established. With chapters by practising TVET educators writing about their own work, the volume seeks to reconceptualise vocational teaching and learning processes with diversity and inclusivity in mind. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of TVET and education in South Africa, as well as South African college practitioners and policymakers.

In the fields of management and organization, there is an ongoing debate about different ontological assumptions about people in and around organizations, and the dangers of self-fulling prophecies, i.e., the phenomena in which unsubstantiated, unethical, or dysfunctional assumptions about people can lead to adverse practical consequences. This open access book advances this debate, but in a self-reflexive direction, asking: Who do we, as scholars in the fields of management and organization, think we are? What ontological assumptions about ourselves do we live by? Do we think we are something "special", a 'Homo Academicus', distinctively separated from the life-world of managers and employees but linked with other academics such as, say, philosophers and sociologists? If so, what are the consequences and implications of such assumptions? Part of the popular Palgrave Debates in Business and Management series, each of the chapters disclose, problematize, and criticize different ontological assumptions about 'Homo Academicus' that underpins research in the fields of management and organization. It will be of great interest to management and organization scholars and students, as well as those with a broader interest in methodology and critical studies.

This book critically examines the role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education, against the backdrop of rapid developments in online learning. Reporting on a method by which one could isolate ideologically charged words from websites, the author underlines the need to pause, question and understand the underlying motives behind MOOCs, and ask fundamental questions about their data use, commercial interests, and ability to provide 'good' education. With its step-by-step ideological analysis, the author challenges educators, policymakers, and students alike to reconsider the fabric of online courses and their associated platforms. The book will appeal to scholars of digital education and sociology, as well as scholars from the critical sciences.

This book offers a research-based, holistic overview of the entire value chain of the global food industry. It captures and defines over 80 contemporary 'megatrends' in agriculture and the food market that can be empirically documented and have a major impact on business, economies, industries, societies, and individuals. Today the world is characterized by more uncertainty and unpredictability than in previous periods. In the midst of these changing times, the book demonstrates how a number of more stable trends still exist within global agriculture, which can be important indicators in both the short and long term. The book highlights how developments in agriculture, the food industry and food markets have a central position in policy debates around climate change, sustainability, food crises, hunger, and food supply, and shows how by identifying various megatrends and their underlying economic drivers, as well as potential disruptive forces, we can reduce both risk and vulnerability in the future. Megatrends within consumption, food loss, food crises, international trade, retail industry and ownership of farms are discussed and their relevance illuminated for a wide range of stakeholders, including policy-makers and agri-businesses, as well as farmers and consumers. This book will be a useful resource for researchers in agricultural and environmental economics, as well as policy-makers and professionals in agri-food organisations and public food institutions. This is an open access book.

In thematic terms, this book seeks to promote vital debate on the interactions between economic, political, and social processes. Latin American Political Economy publishes new, relevant, and empirically grounded scholarship that deepens our understanding of contemporary Latin American political economy and contributes to the formulation and evaluation of new theories that are both context-sensitive and subject to broader comparisons. Inspired by the need to provide new analytical perspectives for understanding the massive social, political, and economic transformations underway in Latin America, the series is directed at researchers and practitioners interested in resurrecting political economy as a primary research area in the developing world. It is especially concerned with how findings may further our understanding of development models, the socio-political institutions that sustain them, and the practical problems they confront.

This book provides the first systematic, empirical analysis of the media's approach to US vice-presidential selection (or the "veepstakes"). In their news coverage, Devine finds that media outlets typically treat vice-presidential selection as little more than a game--by focusing on how potential running mates might help to win the election, rather than how they might help the next president to govern. Based on an original content analysis of hundreds of veepstakes profiles from 2000-2020, this book quantifies the news media's relative emphasis on various selection criteria, in general and across different electoral circumstances. The analysis suggests that journalists generally fail to serve the public interest by emphasizing electoral over governing considerations. However, Devine also points to positive examples of media coverage that help the public to evaluate potential running mates' governing credentials, and suggests ways in which scholars, journalists, and citizens might encourage media outlets to provide more substantive, responsible coverage of the vice-presidential selection process in future elections.

This open access book explores the use of urban technologies for urban safety and security. Rather than focusing on the technologies themselves, it provides and in-depth analysis of the complex urban transformations linked to the increasing integration of technical systems in the built environment. Interdisciplinary contributions explain how technologies can improve urban safety, whilst offering a broader discussion relative to urban, socio-economic and political factors. Against simplistic techno-solutionist ideas, the authors illustrate the role of technology as means to an end and show how technologies can widen our understanding of safety and security. Readers will be introduced to issues relative to the practical implementation, development, and testing of urban technologies via numerous case studies from cities around the world.

This book contends that the development of modern Chinese international thought has been profoundly shaped by the distinctive nature of the Chinese state as a contender state and its global positioning since 1912. The argument posited demonstrates that, notwithstanding the varied perspectives on the 'international' held by Chinese intellectuals throughout the 20th century, there exist commonalities across the periods analyzed in this book. In essence, the book emphasizes that the shared elements influencing the production of modern Chinese international thought do not derive from a unified cultural Chinese identity but rather stem from China's evolving geopolitical position in the modern world.

This book examines the contributory role of inclusive housing management services in safeguarding the living environment, empowering neighborhoods, sustaining lovable home, building social capital, fostering community wellbeing and social sustainability from the perspectives of the sociology of housing. By repositioning professional housing management as an important driving force in community building, this book argues that the community-initiated inclusive housing management model has been acting as a driving force in enhancing a sense of belonging, cultural renewal, environmental sustainability, social integration and community cohesion particularly in cities with high density and compact development. This case study in Hong Kong will make an important contribution to interdisciplinary research in urban sociology, business management, community development, leadership building and environmental health. This study also contributes to the international literature on the dynamics of neighborhood and community governance by addressing the concrete local community initiatives and collaborative management practices in meeting the ever-changing environmental, social and health risks in Hong Kong and beyond. It will be of value to scholars researching on housing management and inclusive community building in world cities globally

This book is the second installment of a trilogy that explores the spatial dimensions of music. Music has generated substantial interest among geographers, but other academic disciplines have also developed related spatial perspectives on music. This trilogy brings together multiple approaches, each book investigating a bundle of interrelated themes. New Geographies of Music 2: Music in Urban Tourism, Heritage Policies and Place-making starts by exploring contemporary approaches to the study of popular music, as well as the relations existing between music, tourism, heritage and urban geography. The chapters address a range of issues, including how music shapes the "feel" of touristic towns and urban public spaces, how music scenes have an increasing role in heritage and tourism policies, and how this recognition of music has consequences on artistic practices and urban imaginaries. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between space and music.

This book sheds light on the overall description and explanation of the current socio-political, economic and cultural environment concerning the development of China's audio streaming programs industry. It interprets the emergence of the "ear economy" through the subjects of media ecology, media psychology, communication studies and cultural criticism, media industrial studies, sociology and anthropology. The book skillfully weaves together historical, cultural, and industry studies, along with textual and critical discourse analysis. This interdisciplinary work contributes to multiple academic fields including literary and cultural studies, media and communication studies, China/Asia studies, and political theory.

This book explores the past and current traces that cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals used by humans have left in Anglophone literary fiction. In times of accelerated global warming, an acute pandemic, and breakthroughs in bioengineering practices, discussions on how to rethink the relationships to these animals have become as heated as perhaps never before. Livestock and Literature examines what literature has to contribute to these debates. In particular, it draws on counter-narratives to so-called livestock animals' commodification in selected science- and speculative fiction (SF) works from the twenty-first century. These texts imagine 'what if' scenarios where "livestock" practice resistance, transform into biotechnologically modified, postanimal beings, or live in close companionship to humans. Via these three points of access, the study delineates the formal and thematic strategies SF authors apply to challenge anthropocentric and speciesist thought patterns. The aim is to shed light on how these alternative storyworlds expand readers' understanding of the lives of farmed animals; seeking insight into how literature shapes human-animal relationships beyond the page.

This edited volume focuses on Curriculum scholars' critical reflections on teacher education (TE) within South Africa to offer insights into critical considerations for the socio-economic, transformational, social and environmental justice and decolonization challenges that the country faces. Much of the literature on teacher education takes on a policy and practice focus to the exclusion of deep and fundamental curriculum questions on what is teacher education for, for whom, where and who decides. Within South Africa, the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualification (MRTEQ) forms the official policy that informs teacher education curriculum and certification to become a teacher. This volume raises critical and complicated questions for teacher educators and curriculum scholars to inspire a deeper understanding of teacher education beyond a set of parochial policy prescribed modules/courses that one needs to take to become a professional teacher.

This book investigates the complex interrelationships between neuroscience, arts, technical design, and the spectrum of neurodivergent conditions, introducing the emerging topic of neuroarts. It emphasizes the power of art and technologies as a multisensory tool for helping neurodivergent individuals discover their sensory preferences, and for neurotypical individuals to broaden their understanding of the world by simulating different sensory experiences. Drawing on the enactivism theory, which posits that cognitive processes are inherently shaped through the dynamic interplay between an organism and its environmental context, the authors discuss the applications of emerging technologies and propose a new theory to discuss and identify 'neurotribes' based on their relation to sense making or the body.A timely and well-needed resource for scholars in the fields of neuroaesthetics and neurodiversity, as well as art therapists, clinical psychologists, and medical practitioners specializing in neurodiversity and sensory perception disorders, this book can also serve cultural institutions developing inclusive experiences for a neurodiverse public, and professionals in the tech industry focusing on AI, augmented reality, and sensory technology.

This book reexamines the socioeconomic and political transformation that occurred in Brazil during the 1940s as a result of the Second World War. Integrating social and political history, the author explores the adoption of new policies around state-sponsored industrialisation, the consolidation of Brazilian labour law institutions, and the expanded influence of ¿racial democracy¿ in the country's domestic and foreign policy. The book argues that the nature of the Brazilian state and its definitions of citizenship were redefined both from ¿the top¿ ¿ as a result of Brazil¿s integration in the new international order following the War ¿ and ¿from below¿ - as antifascism and mass nationalism opened new spaces for subaltern agency. Challenging traditional narratives on Brazil¿s transition from the Estado Novo dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas to a postwar democratic experience, this book highlights the extent to which political developments were shaped by key global processes and foreign relations with the USA. The book also focuses on the ¿bottom-up¿ forces and actors that brought about change in Brazil, emphasising the role of workers, protestors, and popular actors in shaping history. Breaking new ground in Brazilian historiography, this book makes a significant contribution to studies of populism and democratisation in Latin America.

​In the postwar years, Dutch survivors Eddy de Wind, Louis Micheels, and Elie A. Cohen, who went on to become practicing psychoanalysts, penned accounts of their survival of the Nazi camps. Their sober assessments contrast sharply with those by Bruno Bettelheim and Viktor Frankl, which emphasized decisiveness, 'positive thinking', and resistance, missing the fact that many Holocaust victims with those characteristics or other qualities did not survive. De Wind's, Micheels' and Cohen's accounts are more sober, (self-)critical, and shaped by analytical practice. By analyzing them anew and comparing them with accounts by female doctors who survived Block 10 in Auschwitz, this book argues that their theories of survival accord with contemporary sensibilities in psychoanalysis and Holocaust historiography. Psychoanalytic concepts have changed over time in response to greater understanding of the Holocaust and recent Holocaust historiography makes us more receptive to insights that were unfashionable in the first postwar decades.

This book examines the establishment and implementation of the AfCFTA, which is the largest free trade area globally, covering 54 African countries. It explores how this initiative has the potential to reshape Africa-EU relations by promoting intra-African trade, economic integration, and diversification, as well as inter-regional trade. Both continents have potential to serve as global actors in reshaping the global order in ways that can affect how multilateralism foster inclusive development. However, whether this will happen would be a function of how the EU and AU define their interests and relationship.

The book systematically presents Derrida's views on hospitality, as reflected in his texts and lectures from 1995 until his death in October 2004. Derrida's engagement with hospitality is perhaps the most important and extensive philosophical attempt to respond critically to the growing hostility of many governments worldwide towards specific categories of foreigners, such as refugees and immigrants. Particular emphasis is placed on the 'aporetic' nature of hospitality that Derrida describes: namely, that, on the one hand, the provision of hospitality brings us face to face with the hyper-ethical 'law' of 'unconditional hospitality, ' which requires the unconditional reception of the other, i.e. the provision of hospitality to the foreigner without conditions, restrictions or expecting anything in return. On the other hand, the provision of hospitality forces us to face the 'conditional' laws of hospitality, which, while establishing a right to and a duty of hospitality, simultaneously restrict hospitality by setting conditions for the arrival and stay of the foreigner. The book also analyses the 'decision' and the 'event' of hospitality, as well as the unresolved 'aporia' at the heart of the ethics of hospitality (or of ethics in general), an aporia or contradiction related to the fact that we cannot be hospitable towards a singularity without 'sacrificing' some other singularities. Attention is paid to Derrida's attempt to open the provision of hospitality beyond humans, that is, to other living beings. Derrida's views on hospitality are examined in the book in the light of the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Immanuel Kant and René Schérer.

This book suggests and promotes new paradigms for intellectual disability. Challenging the predominant neoliberal agenda, it combines extensive clinical experience, conceptual analysis, and recent research. The authors explore the way that promotion of autonomy and choice overlooks the fundamentally relational needs of people with intellectual disabilities by examining four significant, repeating themes. What neoliberal policies are and how they suffocate innovation; the recurring scandals that characterise ID services in all cultures; the counter-intuitive belief that behavioural interventions can somehow address emotional distress; and fundamental tensions in the relationship between parents and services. Each chapter proposes alternative and hopeful ways to address the 40% of people with intellectual disabilities whose distress generates challenges for parents and staff. Written primarily for intellectual disability researchers, professionals, service managers, and policy-makers, this book constitutes a useful reading also for scholars in psychology, psychiatry and nursing, as well as specialist historians, geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists engaged with intellectual disabilities.

This book explores the history of, and approaches to, documentary production within China from the Cultural Revolution to the present day. It examines the institutionalisation of socialist realism during the PRC's revolutionary era; considers the emergence of the fluid xianchang aesthetics and the creation of contingent subjectivities in relation to physicist Carlo Rovelli's loop quantum gravity theory; explores two factory films through the angle of temporality; argues that time in the post-X era is multi-layered and can be experimented through a cinematic ruin aesthetics; and theorises ecological temporality in relation to Jean-Paul Sartre's ontology on being as freedom and Caroline Godart's analysis of difference.

This book explores the activism of the Italian collective Wu Ming. Engaging in a dynamic conversation with critical theory, post-workerist philosophy and eco-criticism, Saporito illuminates how Wu Ming's forms of protest radically challenge neoliberal models of subjectivity through a revived commitment to an ​eco-centric ethics. The book charts how Wu Ming's interventions, combining embodied, literary and online activism, aim to performatively create life-rhythms, practices and ultimately a political subjectivity alternative to fast-paced anthropocentric models imposed by neoliberal apparatuses. In-depth analyses of Wu Ming's participation in the 27th Genoa G8 Summit, literary texts and online presence define the trajectory of their interventions, which moved from a traumatic repudiation of neoliberal apparatuses in Genoa to a thorough exploration of how these apparatuses produce and control subjectivity. Wu Ming's literary texts invite the reader to grasp the complexity of the human-non-human relations these apparatuses exploit, while affirmatively exploring eco-centric ethical relations to the non-human other. Wu Ming open their bodies to these relations via hikes, walks, and performances where they try out slow-paced life rhythms and experiment with the non-human affordances of multiple media. Wu Ming's transmedia activism links these offline initiatives with online strategies that promote the collective creation of critical content, slow down online users' fast-paced experience, and mobilise a network of human and non-human agents that re-energise embodied, street actions.

This book explores how and why policy and political actors have responded to the recent European 'refugee crisis', and the effects of these responses across different governmental levels. Whereas previous studies have tended to focus on discourses and policies implemented by governments, far less attention has been paid to how and why these discourses and policies emerge. Drawing on evidence from Italy - a country that has been centrally affected by the 'crisis' - this book examines knowledge-formation and decision-making processes and actors' interactions related to asylum-seeking migration at sub-national, national and EU level. It shows that policymakers at all levels of government were influenced by perceptions of public attitudes towards immigration, which were however often disconnected from objective evidence. As such, the book argues that migration policymaking is driven not so much by public opinion, as much as it is by perceptions of public opinion. The book will appeal to all those interested in multi-level governance, migration studies, public policy, and European politics. Andrea Pettrachin is Researcher at the University of Turin, and Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy.

This book explores the relations between China and the Palestinian organizations and their development during the period of 1964-1971. It serves as a case study for understanding China's relations with the Arab world, the superpowers' competition in the Middle East, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in general. It offers a compelling retrospective on a critical period at a time when the contours of power and peace in the Middle East have shifted dramatically. Highlighting the importance of building bridges of understanding and reconciliation across the Middle East divides, it draws on the author's long experience of study, research, speaking, and writing about the Arab-Israeli conflict and Jewish-Muslim reconciliation.

This book takes urban Wolof beyond Senegal to consider the effects of mobility on language and examine how the diasporans engage in their daily language practices as transmigrants. The parallel between languaging and migrating underpins the author's argument, as he examines the dynamicity of languaging at both micro and macro levels, as speakers navigate across spaces and languages. Moving away from a code-based approach, the author makes a compelling case that the urbanite, rather than shuttling between codes, deploys instead idiolectal features from a unique linguistic repertoire which comprises at once semiotic, cognitive, and language features. His indigenous approach affords novel perspectives in linguistic ethnography and complements the Euro-Western methodologies.

This book analyses contemporary and future conditions of global finance and capitalism in an age of catastrophe. It illuminates the links between various crises that have beset the world economy in recent decades and sets these in philosophical context, drawing on the work of Marx, Bataille and Baudrillard to forge new understandings of the impact of capitalist hegemony on society and nature. The book introduces the concept of the 'over' as a lens through which to reflect on capitalist excess and its negative consequences, such as over-accumulation of goods, over-pollution of the environment, and over-speculation of capital. In particular, it shines a light on the trends of financialization and stagflation, with chapters examining increasingly embedded features of the world economy such as hyper-inflation, the dominance of advanced economy central banks, the phenomenon of repurchase agreements, new asset managers for the ultra-wealthy and index funds to show how capitalist structures continue to drive inequality, ecological breakdown, and geopolitical precarity on a global scale. With a rigorous philosophical and theoretical framework, this book will appeal to political economists, Marxist economists and scholars interested in theories of capitalism.

This book advocates for teacher professional development done differently. The author introduces a process described as 'crystallizing conscientização', which restores agency to teachers. Looking beyond incremental improvements in teacher micro-skills promoted by neo-managerial approaches to professional development, the book considers the wider impact of teachers' personal, professional and political identities on their work. This critical reflective practice combines crystallization as method with Freirean principles of conscientização, asking questions that reveal the impact of whiteness in schools and the role that education performs in replicating whiteness and perpetuating injustice. The book will appeal to academics in the diverse fields of sociology of education, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, curriculum and pedagogy and teachers' work, as well as providers of initial teacher education programs and pre-service teachers.

This book argues for the reconstitution of the cultural in African cultural industries and societies. It posits that African cultural industries face a deep-seated problem of the crisis of normativity that is largely rooted in the coloniality of modern cultural policy and an unconscious, but pervasive anti-Black racism culture in the continent itself. The book places hope for re-animating African agency and national cultural identities in the decolonization of cultural policy and cultural industries as consciousness industries. Only through relevant cultural policy, a higher-order cross-institutional moral and ethical value system for reconstituting the cultural in post-colonies, can Africa build truly democratic, progressive, cosmopolitan, decolonized, and self-respecting citizens and societies. Using decolonial cultural policy studies, the book develops a decolonial cultural critique that locates African culture industries within the racialized power dynamics of capitalist modernity. It explores the decolonization praxis of cultural industries and acknowledges the complexity of cultural decolonization iniatives in a continent that is so diverse, interconnected, globalized, and facing newer modes of colonialism that are aggressive and covert.

This book examines for the first time how ancient Egypt is reflected in early modern Venetian sources. As a center of the printing industry, Venice was an important hub for the accumulation and dissemination of direct information on the Near East and the Levant. Therefore, ancient Egypt played a significant role in the cultural memory of Venice due to the lagoon city's religious and mercantile orientation towards the East. The book explores how the acquisition, selection, and interpretation of Egyptian objects took shape in Venice, and which actors were involved in the circulation of knowledge about ancient Egypt. Venice can be used as a lens through which to understand the reception of ancient Egypt in the early modern period. Meaningful and partly unpublished sources from primarily Italian archives highlight the visual imagination of ancient Egypt and its lexicographical codification. The author draws upon these sources to examine the Venetian image of ancient Egypt in the early modern period and the epistemic change that accompanied it.

This book explores the development of coffee substitutes in nineteenth-century Sweden. In doing so, it considers the the threshold between the preindustrial and industrial periods by analyzing trade, consumption, social, economic, and environmental changes, and the Second Agricultural Revolution. By analyzing the development of coffee substitutes in Sweden, the project discovers even the social and gender norms connected to the usage of new beverages. Connecting developments in Sweden with wider European and global contexts, it provides a unique insight into the period's environmental and food histories. Finally, the book traces how reenactment takes place through growing plants and preparing historical beverages.