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Association Football: A Study in Figurational Sociology (Routledge Research in Sports History)
by Graham Curry Eric DunningThis book presents a synthesis of the work on early football undertaken by the authors over the past two decades. It explores aspects of a figurational approach to sociology to examine the early development of football rules in the middle part of the nineteenth century. The book tests Dunning’s status rivalry hypothesis to contest Harvey’s view of football’s development which stresses an influential sub-culture outside the public schools. Status Rivalry re-states the primacy of these latter institutions in the growth of football and without it the sport’s story would remain skewed and unbalanced for future generations.
Association Models (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)
by Raymond Sin-Kwok WongOffers readers invaluable guidance on handling cross-classified data Broadening the scope of association models beyond the typical sociological and psychological fields, author Raymond S. Wong shows readers how to analyze and comprehend any social science data presented in cross-classified formats. Through a careful exposition of various association models, the text examines the underlying structure of odds-ratios, offering a unified framework for students and researchers in the process. Rich illustrative examples (from data generated by the General Social Survey and other sources) demonstrate why and how association models are a better option than conventional log-linear models or non-parametric specifications. This resource is appropriate for graduate students and researchers across the social and behavioral sciences who need to chose and apply the appropriate statistical tools to decipher and interpret cross-classified data.
Associative Democracy and the Crises of Representative Democracies (Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism)
by Veit Bader Marcel MaussenThe familiar problems of democratic capitalism have given way to a deep crisis challenging the basic forms of governance introduced around the late 18th century and then gradually expanded and developed until the late 20th century. Associative Democracy and the Crises of Representative Democracies argues that we are in urgent need of normative guidelines and a strong understanding of a broad range of institutional options and innovative experiments in associative democracy in order to address the structural problems that existing institutional arrangements are confronted with whilst maintaining and strengthening democratic forms of government and governance. The argument is developed against the background of a thorough survey of empirical social scientific studies on the crises of capitalisms and representative democracies. This book focuses primarily on democratic alternatives, though it also works out principles and institutions of democratic socialism as alternatives to capitalism. After introducing the theoretical approach, the book illustrates the ways this framework of analysis can be of use, with particular focus on three issues that are highly topical when it comes to the challenges our institutions are confronted with: democratic governance in relation to ecological crises and uncertainty; the threats to democracy raised by the crisis of political parties and representative party-democracy, and the challenges related to privatization and marketization of public services, particularly in healthcare. The book concludes by exploring opportunities to democratize the economy, locating viable alternatives to capitalism in the tradition of democratic socialism. This urgent and thought-provoking book will be of great interest to academics and students in various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including political science, sociology, and economics.
Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover
by Annie Sprinkle Beth Stephens Jennie KleinThe story of the artistic collaboration between the originators of the ecosex movement, their diverse communities, and the Earth What&’s sexy about saving the planet? Funny you should ask. Because that is precisely—or, perhaps, broadly—what Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens have spent many years bringing to light in their live art, exhibitions, and films. In 2008, Sprinkle and Stephens married the Earth, which set them on the path to explore the realms of ecosexuality as they became lovers with the Earth and made their mutual pleasure an embodied expression of passion for the environment. Ever since, they have been not just pushing but obliterating the boundaries circumscribing biology and ecology, creating ecosexual art in their performance of an environmentalism that is feminist, queer, sensual, sexual, posthuman, materialist, exuberant, and steeped in humor.Assuming the Ecosexual Position tells of childhood moments that pointed to a future of ecosexuality—for Annie, in her family swimming pool in Los Angeles; for Beth, savoring forbidden tomatoes from the vine on her grandparents&’ Appalachian farm. The book describes how the two came together as lovers and collaborators, how they took a stand against homophobia and xenophobia, and how this union led to the miraculous conception of the Love Art Laboratory, which involved influential performance artists Linda M. Montano, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and feminist pornographer Madison Young. Stephens and Sprinkle share the process of making interactive performance art, including the Chemo Fashion Show, Cuddle, Sidewalk Sex Clinics, and Ecosex Walking Tours. Over the years, they celebrated many more weddings to various nature entities, from the Appalachian Mountains to the Adriatic Sea. To create these weddings, they collaborated with hundreds of people and invited thousands of guests as they vowed to love, honor, and cherish the many elements of the Earth.As entertaining as it is deeply serious, and arriving at a perilous time of sharp differences and constricting categories, the story of this artistic collaboration between Sprinkle, Stephens, their diverse communities, and the Earth opens gender and sexuality, art and environmentalism, to the infinite possibilities and promise of love.
The Assumption of Agency Theory
by Kate Forbes-PittThe Assumption of Agency Theory revisits the Turing Test and examines what Turing’s assessor knew. It asks important questions about how machines vis à vis humans have been characterized since Turing, and seeks to reverse the trend of looking closely at the machine by asking what humans know in interaction and how they know it. Building upon existing theories of philosophy of mind, this book shows not how humans operate theoretically, but how they use every day human skill to overcome knowledge barriers and understand each other through knowing themselves. Only once human interaction has been theorized in this way are machines able to be placed within it; when it is easier to understand what humans believe them to be. This book characterizes a non-human agent that shows itself in interaction but is distinct from human agency: an agent acting with us in our ongoing reproduction and transformation of structure. Turing predicted that at the end of the twentieth century, we would refer to thinking machines ‘without fear of contradiction’. The Assumption of Agency Theory shows how and why, even if we don’t say it, we deal with machines every day as if they are thinking, acting agents.
The Assumptions Economists Make
by Jonathan SchleferEconomists make confident assertions in op-ed columns and on cable newsâso why are their explanations often at odds with equally confident assertions from other economists? And why are all economic predictions so rarely borne out? Harnessing his frustration with these contradictions, Jonathan Schlefer set out to investigate how economists arrive at their opinions. While economists cloak their views in the aura of science, what they actually do is make assumptions about the world, use those assumptions to build imaginary economies (known as models), and from those models generate conclusions. Their models can be useful or dangerous, and it is surprisingly difficult to tell which is which. Schlefer arms us with an understanding of rival assumptions and models reaching back to Adam Smith and forward to cutting-edge theorists today. Although abstract, mathematical thinking characterizes economistsâ work, Schlefer reminds us that economists are unavoidably human. They fall prey to fads and enthusiasms and subscribe to ideologies that shape their assumptions, sometimes in problematic ways. Schlefer takes up current controversies such as income inequality and the financial crisis, for which he holds economists in large part accountable. Although theorists won international acclaim for creating models that demonstrated the inherent instability of markets, ostensibly practical economists ignored those accepted theories and instead relied on their blind faith in the invisible hand of unregulated enterprise. Schlefer explains how the politics of economics allowed them to do so. The Assumptions Economists Make renders the behavior of economists much more comprehensible, if not less irrational.
Assumptions of Social Psychology: A Reexamination
by Robert E. LanaThis book is a thorough revision of the successful Assumptions of Social Psychology, first published in 1969. Reexamining the implicit and explicit assumptions concerning inquiry as to the nature of the human organism, it takes as its major thesis the idea that the epistemologies utilized by social psychologists -- encompassing behavioral, intentional, and historical analyses -- are complementary rather than contradictory. After examining key figures in the history of Western epistemology, such as Descartes, Vico, Hume, and Kant, contemporary issues such as the nature of causation, intentions, behavior, rhetoric, and hermeneutics are discussed. A major thesis is that the epistemologies utilized by social scientists encompassing behavioral, cognitive, and historical analyses are complimentary rather than contradictory. In order to demonstrate this, the historical underpinnings of social psychological epistemologies and an argument for the complimentarity of major social psychological theoretical approaches are developed. Most importantly, some of the possibilities for building explanation of social phenomena, which are alternatives to existing forms of explanation, are discussed.
Assuring Quality Ambulatory Health Care: The Martin Luther King Jr. Health Center
by Donald Angehr SmithIn its ten-year existence the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Health Center has been pledged to quality health care and has developed detailed procedures to assure its staff and consumers that such care can and does exist. An essential part of its program has been a committee established early in the center's history to continually monitor and evaluate
Ästhetik und Organisation: Ästhetisierung und Inszenierung von Organisation, Arbeit und Management (Organisation und Gesellschaft)
by Ronald Hartz Werner Nienhüser Matthias RätzerDie Beiträge des Bandes diskutieren die Ästhetisierung und Inszenierung von Arbeit, Organisation und Management im Kontext der Diagnose eines ästhetischen Kapitalismus, einer fortschreitenden Kulturalisierung der Ökonomie und des Aufstiegs kreativer, immaterieller und ästhetischer Arbeit. Unternehmen, Arbeitsprozesse, Produkte und Dienstleistungen geraten zunehmend in den Fokus ästhetischer Gestaltung – es geht um Aussehen, Ausstrahlung, Glanz und Atmosphäre. Der Band thematisiert dabei auch problematische Effekte einer Ökonomisierung des Ästhetischen und einer Ästhetisierung der Ökonomie und erschließt somit neue Perspektiven für eine kritische Organisationsforschung.
Astrobiology and Society in Europe Today (SpringerBriefs in Astronomy)
by David Dunér Tony Milligan Erik Persson Klara Anna CapovaThis White Paper describes the state of astrobiology in Europe today and its relation to the European society at large. With contributions from authors in twenty countries and over thirty scientific institutions worldwide, the document illustrates the societal implications of astrobiology and the positive contribution that astrobiology can make to European society. The White paper has two main objectives: 1. It recommends the establishment of a European Astrobiology Institute (EAI) as an answer to a series of challenges relating to astrobiology but also European research, education and the society at large. 2. It also acknowledges the societal implications of astrobiology, and thus the role of the social sciences and humanities in optimizing the positive contribution that astrobiology can make to the lives of the people of Europe and the challenges they face.This book is recommended reading for science policy makers, the interested public, and the astrobiology community.
Astrobiology, History, and Society: Life Beyond Earth and the Impact of Discovery (Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics)
by Douglas A. VakochThis book addresses important current and historical topics in astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The first section covers the plurality of worlds debate from antiquity through the nineteenth century, while section two covers the extraterrestrial life debate from the twentieth century to the present. The final section examines the societal impact of discovering life beyond Earth, including both cultural and religious dimensions. Throughout the book, authors draw links between their own chapters and those of other contributors, emphasizing the interconnections between the various strands of the history and societal impact of the search for extraterrestrial life. The chapters are all written by internationally recognized experts and are carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand the meaning of astrobiology and SETI for our human society.
Astrology in India: A Sociological Inquiry
by Nupurnima YadavThis book critically examines the larger world of astrology in India, its ubiquity and relationship with religion, caste, gender, class and aspirations. It looks at astrology through an empirical and phenomenological lens, analyzing different meanings and questions associated with it. How do people see astrology—as magic, science, religion, or a knowledge system? The volume analyses the role of astrology in religious and social ceremonies; the interplay of faith and fear; beliefs, practices, mysticism, and skepticism in middle-class households; and gendered negotiations in everyday life. It also delves into how astrology has emerged as a livelihood and an industry, the continued fascination with it even in an era of technological advancement, and its domination of the vernacular media. Insightful and highly comprehensive, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of sociology, political sociology, social anthropology, anthropology, cultural studies, gender studies and urban Sociology.
Asuntos Internos: Las tramas de la corrupción policial en España
by Jorge CabezasEl reputado periodista Jorge Cabezas nos ofrece una inquietante panorámica de la reciente corrupción policial en España. Un relato trepidante y unas historias más propias de la novela negra que de la crónica de sucesos, que nos plantean la perturbadora pregunta: ¿quién vigila a los que nos defienden del mal? Asuntos Internos es una exhaustiva investigación de la corrupción policial de los últimos años a través de casos que reflejan en gran medida la situación en que se hallan nuestras Fuerzas de Seguridad. Desde la trama de agentes corruptos de la Guardia Civil en Málaga hasta el sombrío mapa de la crónica negra en Cataluña, pasando por el maltrato al que son sometidos quienes pretenden luchar contra la corrupción de los Cuerpos, las operaciones Carioca o Emperador o el esperpéntico asunto de El pequeño Nicolás. El análisis del autor también se detiene en las policías municipales e incluso aborda el fenómeno de las mafias policiales. Este libro pretende abrir el debate sobre la necesaria renovación de unos cuerpos intocables durante décadas por su condición de baluarte en la lucha contra el terrorismo.
Asylum and Nonreligion: Emotions, Evidence-making and Credibility
by Ben LawsThis open access Palgrave Pivot explores the experiences of nonreligious asylum seekers in Northern Europe. While religious persecution is often cited as a reason for seeking asylum, nonbelievers also face significant persecution in their home countries due to their lack of religious affiliation. Despite this, their experiences are frequently overlooked in academic discussions, and asylum assessment centers have been slow to develop frameworks that address their unique challenges. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research from Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, this book provides a comprehensive examination of the challenges nonbelievers face, as well as the opportunities they create as agents within the system. Emotions offer an analytical window into the world of nonbelievers, highlighting their desperation and innovative practices of evidence creation. Throughout the book, the logics of credibility assessment are critically explored, revealing the cultural chasm between assessors and nonreligious claimants.
Asylum Denied: A Refugee's Struggle for Safety in America
by David Ngaruri Kenney Philip G. Schrag"Asylum Denied "is the gripping story of political refugee David Ngaruri Kenney's harrowing odyssey through the world of immigration processing in the United States. Kenney, while living in his native Kenya, led a boycott to protest his government's treatment of his fellow farmers.
Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives (Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies)
by Nick Gill Anthony GoodDrawing on new research material from ten European countries, Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives brings together a range of detailed accounts of the legal and bureaucratic processes by which asylum claims are decided. The book includes a legal overview of European asylum determination procedures, followed by sections on the diverse actors involved, the means by which they communicate, and the ways in which they make life and death decisions on a daily basis. It offers a contextually rich account that moves beyond doctrinal law to uncover the gaps and variances between formal policy and legislation, and law as actually practiced. The contributors employ a variety of disciplinary perspectives – sociological, anthropological, geographical and linguistic – but are united in their use of an ethnographic methodological approach. Through this lens, the book captures the confusion, improvisation, inconsistency, complexity and emotional turmoil inherent to the process of claiming asylum in Europe.
Asylum, Work, and Precarity: Bordering the Asia-Pacific (Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific)
by Nicholas HenryThis book explores the regional coordination and impact of state responses to irregular migration in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The main argument is that regional and international trends of securitisation and criminalisation of irregular migration, often associated with framing the issue in terms of migrant smuggling and human trafficking, have intensified carceral border regimes and produced greater precarity for migrants. Bilateral and multilateral processes of regional coordination at multiple levels of government are analysed with a focus on the impact on asylum seekers and migrant workers in major destination and transit countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia. The book will be of interest to a wide academic audience interested in the interdisciplinary field of Border Studies, as well as general readers concerned with the treatment of refugees and migrant workers who cross borders in search of safety, security, and a better life.
Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Pelican Ser.)
by Erving GoffmanA total institution is defined by Goffman as a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated, individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Prisons serve as a clear example, providing we appreciate that what is prison-like about prisons is found in institutions whose members have broken no laws. This volume deals with total institutions in general and, mental hospitals, in particular. The main focus is, on the world of the inmate, not the world of the staff. A chief concern is to develop a sociological version of the structure of the self.Each of the essays in this book were intended to focus on the same issue--the inmate's situation in an institutional context. Each chapter approaches the central issue from a different vantage point, each introduction drawing upon a different source in sociology and having little direct relation to the other chapters.This method of presenting material may be irksome, but it allows the reader to pursue the main theme of each paper analytically and comparatively past the point that would be allowable in chapters of an integrated book. If sociological concepts are to be treated with affection, each must be traced back to where it best applies, followed from there wherever it seems to lead, and pressed to disclose the rest of its family.
Asymmetric Demography and the Global Economy: Growth Opportunities and Macroeconomic Challenges in an Ageing World
by José María Fanelli<p>The global demographic transition presents marked asymmetries as poor, emerging, and advanced countries are undergoing different stages of transition. Emerging countries are demographically younger than advanced economies. This youth is favorable to growth and generates a demographic dividend. However, the future of emerging economies will bring a decline in the working-age share and a rise in the older population, as is the case in today's developed world. Hence, developing countries must get rich before getting old, while advanced economies must try not to become poorer as they age. <p>Asymmetric Demography and the Global Economy contributes to our understanding of why this demographic transition matters to the domestic macroeconomics and global capital movements affect the asset accumulation, growth potential, current account, and the economy's international investment position. This collaborative collection approaches these questions from the perspective of "systemically important" emerging countries i.e., members of the G20 but considers both the national and the global sides of the problem.
Asymmetric Kernel Smoothing: Theory and Applications in Economics and Finance (SpringerBriefs in Statistics)
by Masayuki HirukawaThis is the first book to provide an accessible and comprehensive introduction to a newly developed smoothing technique using asymmetric kernel functions. Further, it discusses the statistical properties of estimators and test statistics using asymmetric kernels. The topics addressed include the bias-variance tradeoff, smoothing parameter choices, achieving rate improvements with bias reduction techniques, and estimation with weakly dependent data. Further, the large- and finite-sample properties of estimators and test statistics smoothed by asymmetric kernels are compared with those smoothed by symmetric kernels. Lastly, the book addresses the applications of asymmetric kernel estimation and testing to various forms of nonnegative economic and financial data. Until recently, the most popularly chosen nonparametric methods used symmetric kernel functions to estimate probability density functions of symmetric distributions with unbounded support. Yet many types of economic and financial data are nonnegative and violate the presumed conditions of conventional methods. Examples include incomes, wages, short-term interest rates, and insurance claims. Such observations are often concentrated near the boundary and have long tails with sparse data. Smoothing with asymmetric kernel functions has increasingly gained attention, because the approach successfully addresses the issues arising from distributions that have natural boundaries at the origin and heavy positive skewness. Offering an overview of recently developed kernel methods, complemented by intuitive explanations and mathematical proofs, this book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an in-depth and up-to-date guide to nonparametric estimation methods employing asymmetric kernel smoothing.
Asymmetry and Aggregation in the EU
by David G. Mayes Matti Vir�nThis book presents a clear exposition of what constitutes asymmetry in economics. It provides an empirical application of these ideas in the case of the EU. In particular, it shows how important asymmetry is for the appropriate design of policy in the Euro Area.
Asymptotic Statistics in Insurance Risk Theory (SpringerBriefs in Statistics)
by Yasutaka ShimizuThis book begins with the fundamental large sample theory, estimating ruin probability, and ends by dealing with the latest issues of estimating the Gerber–Shiu function. This book is the first to introduce the recent development of statistical methodologies in risk theory (ruin theory) as well as their mathematical validities. Asymptotic theory of parametric and nonparametric inference for the ruin-related quantities is discussed under the setting of not only classical compound Poisson risk processes (Cramér–Lundberg model) but also more general Lévy insurance risk processes. The recent development of risk theory can deal with many kinds of ruin-related quantities: the probability of ruin as well as Gerber–Shiu’s discounted penalty function, both of which are useful in insurance risk management and in financial credit risk analysis. In those areas, the common stochastic models are used in the context of the structural approach of companies’ default. So far, the probabilistic point of view has been the main concern for academic researchers. However, this book emphasizes the statistical point of view because identifying the risk model is always necessary and is crucial in the final step of practical risk management.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill BrysonBryson takes readers on a tour of his house, a rural English parsonage, and finds it crammed with 10,000 years of fascinating historical bric-a-brac. Each room becomes a starting point for a free-ranging discussion of rarely noticed but foundational aspects of social life. A visit to the kitchen prompts disquisitions on food adulteration and gluttony; a peek into the bedroom reveals nutty sex nostrums and the horrors of premodern surgery; in the study we find rats and locusts; a stop in the scullery illuminates the put-upon lives of servants. Bryson follows his inquisitiveness wherever it goes, from Darwinian evolution to the invention of the lawnmower, while savoring eccentric characters and untoward events (like Queen Elizabeth I's pilfering of a subject's silverware). There are many guilty pleasures, from Bryson's droll prose--"What really turned the Victorians to bathing, however, was the realization that it could be gloriously punishing"--to the many tantalizing glimpses behind closed doors at aristocratic English country houses. In demonstrating how everything we take for granted, from comfortable furniture to smoke-free air, went from unimaginable luxury to humdrum routine, Bryson shows us how odd and improbable our own lives really are.
At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America
by Rebecca Kneale GouldThis study of homesteading in America from the late nineteenth century to the present examines the lives and beliefs of those who have ascribed to the homesteading philosophy, placing their experiences within the broader context of the changing meanings of nature and religion in modern American culture.
At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America
by Stacy TorresUncovers how people aged 60 and older struggle, survive, and thrive in twenty-first-century urban America. To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and other everyday challenges. The sensitive portrait Torres paints in At Home in the City moves us beyond stereotypes of older people as either rich and pampered or downtrodden and frail to capture the multilayered complexity of late life. These pages chronicle how a nondescript bakery in Manhattan served as a public living room, providing company to ease loneliness and a sympathetic ear to witness the monumental and mundane struggles of late life. Through years of careful observation, Torres peels away the layers of this oft-neglected social world and explores the constellation of relationships and experiences that Western culture often renders invisible or frames as a problem. At Home in the City strikes a realistic balance as it highlights how people find support, flex their resilience, and assert their importance in their communities in old age.