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Painters have their Retrospective Exhibitions, poets their Selected Poems, chess masters their Best Games, singers their Greatest Hits. But a researcher? It seems bold, even vainglorious, to present my Greatest Hits and Best Games. So much of social science is collaborative, so much depends on organisations, networks, shared ideas and shared excitement. This book is not an autobiography, but it is a collection of work by one researcher over forty years. I hope to show by example how intellectual projects can develop, how different lines of thought can meet and weave. The collection is arranged in five sections, concerned with class structure, gender relations, the making of masculinities, the social dimension of education, and the global economy of knowledge. It includes some of my best-known writing and allows me to raise questions about change. These fields all involve questions of social justice. When I started out, I assumed that accurate knowledge and good understanding would support action for social justice. Sometimes that assumption was battered — at other times I could be more optimistic. Choosing the articles wasn't easy. It wasn't a matter of picking favourites. I wanted texts that would say something relevant to readers now, and texts that would show the development of a field through time. Unexpectedly, that meant a tilt towards theory. I mostly do theoretical work close to empirical studies, whether fieldwork or archival; I try to think in the presence of the data, so to speak. So here it is. It may or may not be my Best Games or Greatest Hits, but it is the best collection of my work. I hope it will be useful to anyone interested in how ideas develop, how social science is built, and what directions we might take intellectual work in the near future.

A renowned feminist thinker argues we need to get in the way of happiness, our own and other people's, to build a more just world Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion's sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so “woke”? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy—and this handbook is for you. In this book, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how killing joy can be a radical world-making project. Presenting sharp analysis of literature, film, and influential feminist works, and drawing on her own experiences as a queer feminist scholar-activist of color, Ahmed reveals the invaluable lessons of the feminist killjoy, from the importance of asking questions to the power of the eye roll. The Feminist Killjoy Handbook offers an outstretched hand to feminist killjoys everywhere and an essential intellectual guide to the transformative power of getting in the way.

‘A clarion voice from a new generation of British feminists'Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family‘A powerful, utterly engaging read and a vital call to action'Meg-John Barker, author of Rewriting the Rules‘Made me reconsider so many of the cultural scripts I've been fed my whole life. Unsparing, important and hopeful'Annie Lord, author of Notes on HeartbreakIn a world where money rules, what does it mean to have good relationships?Radical Intimacy explores how the capitalist system shapes our intimate lives, and what we can do about it. Through the topics of self-care, romance and sex, family, home, death and friendship, the book looks at the histories and modern realities of these forms of intimacy, and considers what it might mean for things to be otherwise.From political sex scandals to climate justice, from Britney Spears to communes, from Black Lives Matter to alternatives to the nuclear family, Sophie K. Rosa interrogates common sense ideas about ‘the good life'. What might our desires look like in a better world? And how can care, connection and community support our struggles for liberation? Sophie K. Rosa is a writer and journalist. She has written for many publications including Novara Media, the Independent, the Guardian, Buzzfeed, VICE, Al Jazeera, Aeon and CNN.

This book showcases the online activism of women's groups around the world in the post-#MeToo era, and presents an overview of the diversity of its current expressions. The focus of this book extends beyond campaigns against rape culture to include women's struggles on other political and environmental issues, such as the campaign against the radical right-wing in Austria. Moreover, the book's chapters highlight the genuine complexity of the efforts of women activists who are not only challenging the patriarchal order within male-controlled digital platforms but are also challenging the hegemonic voices within the women's movements. The book's case studies attest to the proliferation of digital campaigns aimed not only against discrimination of women but against discrimination based on their color, age, ethnicity, and nationality. The internet helps them to voice their agenda and strive for social change as well as to create both connective and collective identities.

Redoing Gender demonstrates how difficult it is to be anything other than a man or a woman in a society that selectively acknowledges those two genders. Gender nonbinary people—who identify as other genders besides simply “man” or “woman”—have begun to disrupt this binary system, but the limited progress they have made has required significant everyday labor. Through interviews with 47 nonbinary people, this book offers rich description of these forms of labor, including “rethinking sex and gender,” “resignifying gender,” “redoing relationships,” and “resisting erasure.” The final chapter interrogates the lasting impact of this labor through follow-up interviews with participants four years later. Although nonbinary people are finally managing to achieve some recognition, it is clear that this change has not happened without a fight that continues to this day. The diverse experiences of nonbinary people in this book will help cisgender people relate to gender minorities with more compassion, and may also appeal to those questioning their own gender. This text will also be of keen interest to academics across Sociology and Gender Studies.

The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary reference work essential for students and researchers interested in the field of love, romance and popular romance fiction. This first-of-its-kind volume illustrates the broad and interdisciplinary nature of love studies. International contributors, including leaders in their field, reflect a range of perspectives from cultural studies, history, literature, popular romance studies, American studies, sociology and gender studies. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Companion is divided into 12 parts:Love, romance and historical and social change Love and feminist discoursesLove and popular romance fiction Love, gender and sexuality Romancing Australia South and Southeast Asian romance communities Nation, place and identity in US popular romance novelsRomantic love and national identity in Chinese and Taiwanese discourses of loveMuslim and Middle Eastern romances Discourses of romance fiction and technologies of powerWriting love and romance Legal and theological fiction and sexual politicsThis is an important and unique collection aimed at researchers and students across cultural studies, women and gender studies, literature studies and sociology.

This book examines the role of post-conflict memorial arts in bringing about gender justice in transitional societies. Art and post-violence memorialisation are currently widely debated. Scholars of human rights and of commemorative arts discuss the aesthetics and politics not only of sites of commemoration, but of literature, poetry, visual arts and increasingly, film and comics. Art, memory and activism are also increasingly intertwined. But within the literature around post-conflict transitional justice and critical human rights studies, there is little questioning about what memorial arts do for gender justice, how women and men are included and represented, and how this intertwines with other questions of identity and representation, such as race and ethnicity. The book brings together research from scholars around the world who are interested in the gendered dimensions of memory-making in transitional societies. Addressing a global range of cases, including genocide, authoritarianism, civil war, electoral violence and apartheid, they consider not only the gendered commemoration of past violence, but also the possibility of producing counter-narratives that unsettle and challenge established stereotypes.Aimed at those interested in the fields of transitional justice, memory studies, post-conflict peacebuilding, human rights and gender studies, this book will appeal to academics, researchers and practitioners.

Based on the author's viral New York Times op-ed, this heartfelt book is a celebration and exploration of the tomboy phenomenon and the future of girlhood. We are in the middle of a cultural revolution, where the spectrum of gender and sexual identities is seemingly unlimited. So when author and journalist Lisa Selin Davis's six-year-old daughter first called herself a'tomboy,'Davis was hesitant. Her child favored sweatpants and T-shirts over anything pink or princess-themed, just like the sporty, skinned-kneed girls Davis had played with as a kid. But'tomboy'seemed like an outdated word—why use a word with'boy'in it for such girls at all?So was it outdated? In an era where some are throwing elaborate gender reveal parties and others are embracing they/them pronouns, Davis set out to answer that question, and to find out where tomboys fit into our changing understandings of gender.In Tomboy, Davis explores the evolution of tomboyism from a Victorian ideal to a twentyfirst century fashion statement, honoring the girls and women—and those who identify otherwise—who stomp all over archaic gender norms. She highlights the forces that have shifted what we think of as masculine and feminine, delving into everything from clothing to psychology, history to neuroscience, and the connection between tomboyism, gender identity, and sexuality. Above all else, Davis's comprehensive deep-dive inspires us to better appreciate those who defy traditional gender boundaries, and the incredible people they become.Whether you're a grown-up tomboy or raising a gender-rebel of your own, Tomboy is the perfect companion for navigating our cultural shift. It is a celebration of both diversity and those who dare to be different, ultimately revealing how gender nonconformity is a gift.

The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 with grand ambitions for ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all, with ‘no one left behind'. However, these goals will be impossible to achieve without addressing inequity, inequality, marginalisation, and exclusion related to gender, and to other intersecting social hierarchies linked to deeply emotional, culturally bound norms and judgements of worth. This book asks readers to consider issues of knowledge, power, and effectiveness, emphasising the limits of taking a categorical approach to gender and other social hierarchies, and the importance of process in what is known about generating transformative social change.Engendering Transformative Thinking and Practice in International Development draws on a range of real world examples which demonstrate both the limitations of the frameworks currently in use, and the very real possibilities for change when the intersecting social hierarchies that sustain and create inequity and inequality are challenged. This book brings together theoretical perspectives on social change, gender, intersectionality, and forms of knowledge, concluding with a set of proposals for revitalising a change agenda that recognises and engages with intersectionality and practical wisdom. Perfect for students and scholars of social change, gender, and development, this book will also be useful for practitioners looking for new ideas to help to generate social change.

The authors are proud sponsors of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop. The Kaleidoscope of Gender: Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities provides an accessible, timely, and stimulating overview of the cutting-edge literature and theoretical frameworks in sociology and related fields in order to understand the social construction of gender. The kaleidoscope metaphor and its three themes—prisms, patterns, and possibilities—unify topic areas throughout the book. By focusing on the prisms through which gender is shaped, the patterns which gender takes, and the possibilities for social change, the reader gains a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others, both locally and globally. Editors Catherine Valentine, Mary Nell Trautner, and the work of Joan Spade, focus on the paradigms and approaches to gender studies that are constantly changing and evolving. The Sixth Edition includes incorporation of increased emphasis on global perspectives, updated contemporary social movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, and an updated focus on gendered violence.

Through the study of local and global activism, Women, Social Change and Activism: Then and Now engages scholars interested in the artistic, economic, educational, ethical, historical, literary, philosophical, political, psychological, religious, and social dimensions of women's lives and resistance. Through an interdisciplinary inquiry of past and present dilemmas that women and girls have faced globally, this book offers a variety of insights into multicultural issues even outside of the gender studies field.

Through the stories of women in movement in the Americas, Europe and Australasia, this book explores a decolonising and feminised politics of liberation which is being weaved through the words and worlds of black, colonised and subaltern women. These stories demonstrate the complex and multiple forms of critique as practice that are being developed by women in movement in multiple sites of the Global South. Written through story, prose, poetry, analysis and offering case-studies, methodologies, practices and generative questions the book expresses and contributes to the (co) creation of a new language of liberation. This is an enfleshed language in which there is a return of the world to the word, of the body to the text, and of the heart/womb to thought. This is a language of the political in which a new political subjectivity that is multiple, deeply relational and becoming is formed. The book offers a window onto the complexities and depths of the wounding enacted by patriarchal capitalist coloniality through these stories but it also offers, through sharing and conceptualising prefigurative and dialogical co-creation of critique, the gift of practices of healing as emancipation, and the conditions of possibility for our collective liberation.

The story of gay rights has long been told as one of single-minded focus on the fight for sexual freedom. Yet its origins are much more complicated than this single-issue interpretation would have us believe, and to ignore gay liberation's multidimensional beginnings is to drastically underestimate its radical potential for social change. Ferguson shows how queer liberation emerged out of various insurgent struggles crossing the politics of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and deeply connected to issues of colonization, incarceration, and capitalism. Tracing the rise and fall of this intersectional politics, he argues that the one-dimensional mainstreaming of queerness falsely placed critiques of racism, capitalism, and the state outside the remit of gay liberation. As recent activism is increasingly making clear, this one-dimensional legacy has promoted forms of exclusion that marginalize queers of color, the poor, and transgender individuals. This forceful book joins the call to reimagine and reconnect the fight for social justice in all its varied forms.

While social change regarding trans(sexuality) has evolved within an expanding nexus of concepts, practices, regulations and institutions, this process has barely been analysed systematically. Against the background of legislative processes on gender recognition in a society shaped by heteronormative hegemony, Adrian de Silva traces how sexology, the law, federal politics and the trans movement interacted to generate or challenge concepts of trans(sexuality) from the mid-1960s to 2014 in the Federal Republic of Germany. The interdisciplinary study draws upon and contributes to debates in (trans)gender and queer studies, political science, sociology of law, sexology and the social movement.

A trillion-dollar industry, the US non-profit sector is one of the world's largest economies. From art museums and university hospitals to think tanks and church charities, over 1.5 million organizations of staggering diversity share the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) designation, if little else. Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit model. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded gathers essays by radical activists, educators, and non-profit staff from around the globe who critically rethink the long-term consequences of what they call the'non-profit industrial complex.'Drawing on their own experiences, the contributors track the history of non-profits and provide strategies to transform and work outside them. Urgent and visionary, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded presents a biting critique of the quietly devastating role the non-profit industrial complex plays in managing dissent.Contributors. Christine E. Ahn, Robert L. Allen, Alisa Bierria, Nicole Burrowes, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), William Cordery, Morgan Cousins, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Stephanie Guilloud, Adjoa Florência Jones de Almeida, Tiffany Lethabo King, Paul Kivel, Soniya Munshi, Ewuare Osayande, Amara H. Pérez, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, Dylan Rodríguez, Paula X. Rojas, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Sisters in Action for Power, Andrea Smith, Eric Tang, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Ije Ude, Craig Willse

This book reviews the achievements of American women in the American economy; in education; in government; in religion; in the military; in law enforcement and in communications. The author predicts the feminization of American life with particular reference to changes in the American family and the ever increasing dominance of women in all American institutions.

This book brings together a unique collection of theoretical and empirical analyses of women's access to land, labour and livelihoods in contemporary India. The authors recognize that gender relations must be viewed intersectionally, along with other social relationships such as caste, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and age, in order to inform an integrated analysis of women's persistent disadvantage in India. The chapters examine a diverse range of rural and urban livelihoods within sectors such as tea plantations, nursing, hair salons, sex work and waste collection. Documenting the shifts in these sectors in the context of economic liberalization, the authors offer insights on the challenges of development interventions as women negotiate shifts in their livelihood options. Written to engage, the contributions to this book will be of interest both to the general reader and to academics and practitioners in development and gender/women's studies.

For every female suicide in Ireland, there are five male suicides. This book is based on fieldwork done in and around Cork, Ireland between 2008 and 2012 among some forty young lads, aged 18-34. This anthropological approach aims to help explain why some groups in a specific society or community are more prone to commit suicide than others. In addition to suicide, this book focuses extensively on related issues such as alcohol, drug abuse, and other self-destructive behaviors prominent within Irish lad culture. This includes peer pressures and loyalties, chauvinistic jargon, homophobic bullying, humor, and the culture of mocking so as to grasp the cultural expectations of this particular form of masculinity. The everyday workings of gender segregation and gender-appropriateness is examined in detail by informants while addressing the underlying question whether increased gender equality—which includes men—could lessen young men's vulnerability to self-destructive behaviors and suicide in Ireland.

Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change is the first collection to gather together prominent scholars on yoga and the body. Using an intersectional lens, the essays examine yoga in the United States as a complex cultural phenomenon that reveals racial, economic, gendered, and sexual politics of the body. From discussions of the stereotypical yoga body to analyses of pivotal court cases, Yoga, the Body, and Embodied Social Change examines the sociopolitical tensions of contemporary yoga. Because so many yogic spaces reflect the oppressive nature of many other public spheres, the essays in this collection also examine what needs to change in order for yoga to truly live up to its liberatory potential, from the blogosphere around Black women's health to the creation of queer and trans yoga classes to the healing potential of yoga for people living with chronic illness or trauma. While many of these conversations are emerging in the broader public sphere, few have made their way into academic scholarship. This book changes all that. The essays in this anthology interrogate yoga as it is portrayed in the media, yoga spaces, and yoga as it is integrated in education, the law, and concepts of health to examine who is included and who is excluded from yoga in the West. The result is a thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and the limitations of yoga for feminist social transformation.

Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives and engaging with new empirical evidence from around the world, this collection examines how privilege, agency and affect are linked, and where possibilities for social change might lie.

As new forms of family and'non-traditional'families grow in number, there is a need to understand these'new'arrangements and models of parenthood. This ground-breaking book discusses, using a comparative and a sociological perspective, examples of the relationship between changing gender identities and processes of family formation in the Western experience. It aims to show that, in the 21st century, it is possible to form a family without sex, without children, without a shared home, without a partner, without a working husband, without a heterosexual orientation or without a biological'sexual body.'Diversity in family life'will help readers discover and understand the characteristics, advantages and drawbacks of these new models of parenthood, and their political implications in terms of social movements, characteristics and demands.

The United States faces a growing crisis in care. The number of people needing care is growing while the ranks of traditional caregivers have shrunk. The status of care workers is a critical concern.Evelyn Nakano Glenn offers an innovative interpretation of care labor in the United States by tracing the roots of inequity along two interconnected strands: unpaid caring within the family; and slavery, indenture, and other forms of coerced labor. By bringing both into the same analytic framework, she provides a convincing explanation of the devaluation of care work and the exclusion of both unpaid and paid care workers from critical rights such as minimum wage, retirement benefits, and workers'compensation. Glenn reveals how assumptions about gender, family, home, civilization, and citizenship have shaped the development of care labor and been incorporated into law and social policies. She exposes the underlying systems of control that have resulted in women—especially immigrants and women of color—performing a disproportionate share of caring labor. Finally, she examines strategies for improving the situation of unpaid family caregivers and paid home healthcare workers.This important and timely book illuminates the source of contradictions between American beliefs about the value and importance of caring in a good society and the exploitation and devalued status of those who actually do the caring.

Reading texts in relation to feminist, queer, and race theory and Buddhist philosophy, this book argues that an understanding of spirit is critical to explaining the power that social movements have to change hearts, minds, and social structures.

While there has been increased attention to issues of sexuality in the Caribbean over the past decade, there continue to be very few in-depth ethnographic studies of sexual minorities in this region. A timely addition to the literature, Flaming Souls explores public discourses focusing on homosexuality and the everyday lives of gay men and ‘queens'in contemporary Barbados.David A.B. Murray's dynamic study features interviews with government and health agency officials, HIV/AIDS activists, and residents of the country's capital, Bridgetown. Using these and records from local libraries and archives, Murray unravels the complex historical, social, political, and economic forces through which same-sex desire, identity, and prejudice are produced and valued in this Caribbean nation-state. Illustrating the influence of both Euro-American and regional gender and sexual politics on sexual diversity in Barbados, Flaming Souls makes an important contribution to queer studies and the anthropology of sexualities.

Clones, Fakes and Posthumans: Cultures of Replication explores cloning and related phenomena that inform each other, like twins, fakes, replica, or homogeneities, through a cultural prism. What could it mean to think of a cloning mentality? Could it be that a “cloning culture” has made biotechnological cloning desirable in the first place, and vice versa that biotechnological cloning then enforces technologies of social and cultural cloning? What does it mean to say that a culture replicates? If biotechnological cloning has to do with choice and repetitive reproduction of selected characteristics, how are those kinds of desires expressed socially, politically and culturally? Lifting the issue of cloning above the biotechnological domain, we problematize the cultural context, including modernity's readiness to imitate and manipulate nature, and the skewed privileging of desirable socialities as a basis for exclusive replication. We also explore possible relations between a cloning mentality and a consumer society that fosters a brand-name mentality. The construction and (coercive) implementation of copy-prone technological and symbolic items are at the very heart of the consumer society and its modes of mass production as they have emerged from and seek to articulate, define, and refine modernity and modernization.

This introduction to social change covers the momentous and relatively recent changes that have occurred in the human condition, examining not only the major causes and conditions underlying our current situation, but also the main choices and options we face as we strive to shape our individual and collective futures. This edition of Social Change has been thoroughly updated and revised. Building on previous editions, the book introduces a social scientific approach to change, discusses the components of change and the factors driving them, examines change on the macro-level, then looks toward the future with a discussion of planned change. Most chapters explore societies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and include comparative dimensions, especially along First, Second, and Third World lines. The engaging narrative traces several themes, such as the rise of capitalism and the socialist alternative, or civil rights movements in the United States and elsewhere, throughout the book.Social Change, Third Edition features a new discussion of the recent economic crisis and the interconnectedness of the global economy, new empirical data on globalization, and updated discussions of the concepts of evolution and altruism. It also incorporates the dramatic changes in India and China throughout the book.

Find A New Level of Confidence and Help Change the WorldWhat would you do if you ran the world? If you knew you couldn't fail? Maybe it's time to stop wondering and start putting it into practice. Shelly Rachanow's daily words of encouragement will give you inspiration, hope, and words of courage to help you discover confidence in yourself.Your acts, both big and small, matter. Learn about a teenage girl and CNN hero, kids in Zimbabwe saving their part of the planet, and a busy mom who is not too busy to work every day to help impoverished families live better lives. What Would You Do If You Ran the World? shows you how to take control of the things you want to change about yourself and the world around you.Find the confidence and courage to change the world. Shelly Rachanow's book contains a diverse collection of brave, beautiful, brilliant, creative, and totally possible ideas that women have shared, complemented by inspirational quotes from famous women and action lists like'Ten Things You Can Start Doing Now.'Rachanow's warm and encouraging voice motivates readers to join other amazing women who are kicking serious butt for the good of all. Learn to:Listen to your own guiding voiceGet involved in your own communityLive a satisfying life of'inspiration in action”If you enjoyed books that brought out your inner rockstar such as Untamed, Let That Sh•t Go, or You Are a Badass, then you'll love What Would You Do If You Ran the World?

The family institution is undergoing a radical transformation. The modern meanings of kinship, marriage, parenthood, gender, and sexuality are now being questioned, and debates on same-sex marriages and parenthood or on divorce and blended families are reflective of these challenges. The (Un)Making of the Modern Family is neither an indictment of the new family nor a rallying cry. It is a classical exercise of family sociology that draws upon a range of disciplines – history, anthropology, psychology, and demography – to provide an interpretive model for understanding contemporary changes in the family. It explores traditional family forms in order to identify changes that gave birth to the ideal type of the modern family, and it discusses how the modern family's constituent elements (the family as institution, conjugal and parent-child relationships, and gender and sexuality) relate to modernity's central feature – the concept of the individual. By reconstructing an archetype of the modern family, this book explains why individuals have experienced its deconstruction as a profound identity crisis. It will appeal to anyone concerned with the future of the (post)modern family and society. Published originally by Les Presses de l'Université Laval as La fin de la famille moderne, this book was awarded the 2000-1 Prix Jean-Charles Falardeau for the best book published in French in Canada in the field of social sciences.

This text offers a wide-ranging account of the dynamic relationship between gender, culture and society. Incorporates feminist theory, theories of men and masculinity, and post-structuralism, as well as recent global events, ensuring a highly topical and relevant discussion.

Howard brings together top contributorsin avolume that provides a survey of new research and theoretical work on the topic of individualization. Topics covered include gender, social policy reform, and economy.

This book gives insights on youth, masculinity and place by exploring spatially marginalized masculinities in stigmatized and romanticized out-of-the-way places in'developed'Western countries. It shows the impact of globalization on place and identity through global ethnographic studies and media representations of young men in peripheral places.

This book presents a novel interpretation of the nature, causes and consequences of sex inequality in the modern labour market. Employing a sophisticated new theoretical framework, and drawing on original fieldwork, the book develops a subtle account of the phenomenon of sex segregation and offers a major challenge to existing approaches. In an environment increasingly defined by attempts to converge and consolidate international policy objectives, an in-depth understanding of contemporary forms of inequality is vital to anyone interested in the effective translation of normative accounts of social justice into practical policy. Aimed at academics and advanced students working in social policy, sociology and political science, as well as policy makers, this book makes an important contribution to knowledge and debate in the field.

We live in a world obsessed with abdomens. Whether we call it the belly, tummy, or stomach, we take this area of the body for granted as an object of our gaze, the subject of our obsessions, and the location of deeply felt desires. Diet, nutrition, and exercise all play critical roles in the development of our body images and thus our sense of self, not least because how we are made to feel about bodies (both our own and those of others) is often grounded in dietary and lifestyle choices. Cultures of the Abdomen traces the history of social, cultural, and medical ideas about the stomach and related organs since the seventeenth century, and demonstrates that a focused study of the abdomen is necessary for understanding the deep historical meanings that underscore our contemporary obsessions with hunger, diet, fat, indigestion, and excretion. It locates that history from dietary ideals in early modern Europe to the vexing issue of American fat in the twenty-first century, surveying along the way developments in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Throughout history, women have participated in and sometimes initiated rebellions to defend the welfare of their family, community, class, race or ethnic group.This volume presents original research on women's activism in Asia, Europe, Australia and Latin America. It explores how women have advanced social change and their influence on, and response to, existing transformations in society. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine women's activities and conditions in diverse social and political contexts, from revolutionary societies, to status quo societies, to societies in decline. With its primary focus on agency and social change, this book deconstructs patriarchal discourses and unearths aspects of female agency in an array of cultural, historical and geopolitical contexts. Chapters on movements in China, Japan, Australia, Croatia, Russia and a range of other countries both contribute to our understanding of change in those societies and seek to locate women at the center of politically aware movements. Although not exclusively a book about feminist activism, this essential collection is motivated by the feminist desire to restore to history a range of women's experiences.This book introduces new ways of thinking across boundaries, identities and complexities in a still essentially patriarchal world. It will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of gender studies, activism and comparative politics.

In Queer Social Philosophy, Randall Halle analyzes key texts in the tradition of German critical theory from the perspective of contemporary queer theory, exposing gender and sexuality restrictions that undermine those texts'claims of universal truth. Addressing such figures as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, and Habermas, Halle offers a unique contribution to contemporary debates about sexuality, civil society, and politics.

In this ethnographic study, the author examines the policies and practices of family planning programs in Egypt to see how an elitist, Western-informed state attempts to create obliging citizens. The state sees voluntary compliance with the law for the common good as the cornerstone of modernity. Family planning programs are a training ground for the construction of self-disciplined individuals, and thus a rewarding area of study for the fate of social programs in developing countries. Through a careful examination of state-endorsed family planning practices in urban and rural contexts, the author shows us the pervasive, high-pressure persuasion of women, who are encouraged to think as individual decision makers of their immediate families and their national interests. But what of the other forces at work in these women's lives, binding them to their extended families and to their religious identities? And what of the laws that allow for polygamy and discriminate against women in marriage, inheritance, and as part of the workforce? These forces operate against the received wisdom of the state. Is the Muslim community thought to end at the borders of Egypt? What about local constructions of masculinity when the state appeals to wives to decide for themselves? How does widespread labor migration to foreign countries affect attitudes toward family planning? How is female contraception viewed by the Islamic Brotherhood and other modern Muslim groups? This book questions much that we have taken for granted and gives us grounds for reexamining our assumptions about family planning and the individual and state in developing countries such as Egypt.

Do men and women experience participation in social movements differently? Are gender roles reproduced or undermined during a struggle for liberation? In this brief text examining gender roles in social movements, M. Bahati Kuumba shows how liberation struggles are viewed through women's eyes and how gender affects women's mobilization, strategies, and outcomes in social movement organizations. Using two well-known examples, the American civil rights movement and the South African national liberation movement, Kuumba documents the circumscribed roles of women, the unheralded role of movement leaders such as Ella Baker and Frances Baard, and how gender affected movement activities and results. Gender and Social Movements is the ideal text to introduce a sophisticated view of race and gender into social movement courses.

Our world is an increasingly unstable place, but current changes offer new opportunities as well as new challenges. This key volume provides an accessible exploration of identity as a contemporary concern in everyday life and as a key concept in social science. Drawing on work from a range of disciplines and focusing on the key social divisions of gender, class and nation, it shows how these challenges and opportunities work out in practice. What is really happening when people either individually or in groups identify with particular definitions of themselves or strike out to take up new identities? Do gender, class and ethnicity offer some stability and even certainty about who we are, or are they to be seen as limitations on our freedom to choose our own identities? Are we in the end bound by the social constraints and inequalities with which we started out?This key text is essential reading for all students starting out in the social sciences and for anyone with an interest in the dilemmas of identity-making in contemporary society.