Humanities & Social Sciences

As Asia alone holds the majority of the world’s fast-expanding private higher education (PHE), this volume probes the character, diversity, and significance of Asian PHE. Across seven national case studies, astride both developing and developed countries, older and newer HE systems, in entrenched democracies to creakier ones, to Communist rule, the volume systematically addresses a common PHE typology. This fosters volume coherence and cross-national comparison.The two most central comparisons within each country are private vs public and private versus private. Authors all identify significant differences between PHE and its longer standing public counterparts, though with variation in the degree and contours of blurring across sectors. Even more novel for scholarship on this subject matter, authors dig into patterns of differences and similarities across the now quite varied manifestations of PHE: religious, gender, nationally elite, increasingly business and job-oriented, international, nonprofit, for-profit etc. However rigorous the comparative frameworks contributing to volume coherence, authors integrate particulars of national historical and contemporary context wherever their national expertise leads them. This helps make the book appropriate for those generally interested in Asian affairs, especially in East and Southeast Asia. At the same, the private-public and private-private comparisons engage most key issues of top concern to those keenly interested in higher education generally: institutional autonomy versus government control, regulation, competition across institutions, management, effectiveness and innovation, faculty composition and roles, student composition and roles, accountability measures, challenges of quality assurance amid rapid expansion, the partial privatization of public institutions, tuition, internationalization, and so forth. The volume will be valuable for all concerned with global PHE and HE overall. It should likewise be an important work for those studying, working in, or making policy within or for PHE in Asia.

"Cleaning is central to all societies. It is an experience shared by almost everyone. A clean home is related to both respectability and status. The mere execution of the deed – whether it concerns taking care of other peoples’ dirt or ones’ own – ranks, however, strikingly low, contaminating everyone who has to perform it. Therefore, cleaning is permeated by hierarchies of for instance gender, class, sexuality and race. Even though cleaning activates several existential and politically burning questions, it is surprisingly non-existing in research. The point of departure for this study is anthropological, and the material is a number of interviews with Swedes of today about their habits and experiences of cleaning. In focus are questions of cleaning as a cultural symbol, a bodily practice, temporality, and as an expression of taking care of decay. By investigating the meaning of what cleaning means to people – how it is experienced, organized, and distributed in everyday life – I want to discuss how such a central part of our existence is regarded as something that lacks value."

Humor, so scheint es, ist kein Spaß – jedenfalls nicht immer und nicht für alle. Der mörderische Anschlag auf die französische Satirezeitschrift Charlie Hebdo aus dem Jahr 2015 hat dies nur allzu deutlich werden lassen. Namen wie Lisa Eckart, Dieter Nuhr und Jan Böhmermann, Dave Chapelle aus den USA oder Dieudonné M’bala M’bala aus Frankreich – so unterschiedlich die Personen und ihr Humor auch sind – stehen für Auseinandersetzungen, in denen es um weit mehr als um vermeintliche „Grenzen der Komik“ geht. Vielmehr kulminieren hier essentielle gesellschaftliche Debatten über Geschlechterordnungen, um kulturelle Unterschiede in Migrationsgesellschaften über die Bedeutung von Religion, über sexuelle Selbstbestimmung und anderes mehr. Der vorliegende Band knüpft an diese Debatten an und gibt ihnen eine historische Tiefendimension: In der Frage, worüber gelacht und wer verlacht wurde, so die These des Bandes, spiegelten sich auch in der Vergangenheit immer wieder gesellschaftliche Debatten, in denen es nicht nur um subversive Kritik, sondern auch um Dominanzverhältnisse und Normvorstellungen ging.

The experience of engaging with art and history has been utterly transformed by information and communications technology in recent decades. We now have virtual, mediated access to countless heritage collections and assemblages of artworks, which we intuitively browse and navigate in a way that wasn't possible until very recently. This collection of essays takes up the question of the cultural meaning of the information and communications technology that makes these new engagements possible, asking questions like: How should we theorise the sensory experience of art and heritage? What does information technology mean for the authority and ownership of heritage?

This comparative study examines Orientalist discourse through a wide range of mountain representation from the Canadian Rockies and Austrian Alps, including exploration reports, newspaper articles, promotional documents, governmental records, mountaineering reports, guidebooks, travel diaries, letters, poems, novels, and TV series. Tracing Orientalist and colonial legacies in the project of mountain travel across times, genres, and geographies, Müller examines the ways in which Orientalism is evidenced in mountain writing from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries and deployed by contemporary authors in critical rewritings. Rewriting Alpine Orientalism presents a framework capable of analysing and critiquing particular colonial codifications written onto mountains and the interventions that rewrite mountain tourism.

The analysis of land management, lineage and family through the case study of early modern Spanish nobility from sixteenth to early nineteenth century is a major issue in recent historiography. It aims to shed light on how upper social classes arranged strategies to maintain their political and economic status. Rivalry and disputes between old factions and families were attached to the control and exercise of power. Blood, land management and honour were the main elements in these disputes. Honour, service to the Crown, participation in the conquest and ‘pure’ blood (Catholic affiliation) were the main features of Spanish nobility. This book analyses the origins of the entailed-estate (mayorazgo) from medieval times to early modern period, as the main element that enables us to understand the socio-economic behaviour of these families over generations. This longue durée chronology within the Braudelian methodology of the research aims to show how strategies and family networks changed over time, demonstrating a micro-history study of daily life.

Der Sammelband „Gezimmertes Morgenland" widmet sich einem wenig erforschten Phänomen der europäischen Orientfaszination: den sogenannten „Arabischen Zimmern", die im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts Einzug in zahlreiche Adelssitze, großbürgerliche Wohnungen aber auch Museen hielten. Elf internationale ExpertInnen analysieren dieses Phänomen erstmals in einem breiten Umfang, indem sie nicht nur einzelne Interieurs beschreiben, sondern die Rezeption und Reproduktion zunächst als Distinktionsmerkmal adeliger und bürgerlicher Repräsentation erkennen und darauf aufbauend sowohl die marktorientierten Interessen als auch die wissenschaftliche Faszination daran anhand von Beispielen aus ganz Europa verdeutlichen.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book looks at the role that civil society organizations play in dealing with conflict and violence. The authors argue that in most of the prevalent conceptualizations the conflict dimension of civil society is either downplayed or inadequately addressed. They contend that the ability to deal with conflict is at the heart of organized civil society; in the political process, one of civil society's key functions is to express and mediate between different interests, thus contributing to political decision-making. The chapters draw on detailed, empirical data from the CIVICUS Civil Society Index - a unique comparative data-set drawn from 25 countries, which has not previously been made publicly available. It examines the different ways violence has been manifested in civil societies, the meaning of violent protest and the impact of security legislation that might hinder the mediating efforts of civil society. The book offers a sophisticated comparison between conflict and post-conflict countries and an analysis of the role of civil society in conflict resolution, reconciliation and transitional justice.

This book, newly available in paperback, argues for greater openness in the ways we approach human rights and international rights promotion, and in so doing brings some new understanding to old debates. Starting with the realities of abuse rather than the liberal architecture of rights, it casts human rights as a language for probing the political dimensions of suffering. Seen in this context, the predominant Western models of rights generate a substantial but also problematic and not always emancipatory array of practices. These models are far from answering the questions about the nature of political community that are raised by the systemic infliction of suffering. Rather than a simple message from 'us' to 'them', then, rights promotion is a long and difficult conversation about the relationship between political organisations and suffering. Three case studies are explored - the Tiananmen Square massacre, East Timor's violent modern history and the circumstances of indigenous Australians. The purpose of these discussions is not to elaborate on a new theory of rights, but to work towards rights practices that are more responsive to the spectrum of injury that we inflict and endure. The book is a valuable and innovative contribution to rights debates for students of international politics, political theory, and conflict resolution, as well as for those engaged in the pursuit of human rights.

Ökologische Krisen erschüttern die Grundlagen unseres Zusammenlebens und erfordern eine historisch beispiellose sozial-ökologische Transformation, die auf massive Widerstände trifft. Angesichts der existenziellen Gefahren des Klimawandels ist eine Doppelstrategie gegen Kollaps und Klimabarbarei erforderlich: ökologische Modernisierung jetzt und radikaler Systemwandel langfristig. Frank Adloff zeigt die Handlungsspielräume der Sozialwissenschaften bei dieser Aufgabe auf, die die Grenzen des Machbaren benennen, Natur und Gesellschaft neu denken sowie alternative soziale Welten entwerfen. Eine solche »Soziologie des Wirklichen und des Möglichen« sollte nach dem Ende des linearen Fortschritts eine neue Balance zwischen Freiheit und ökologischem Gemeinwohl suchen.

Der Ruf nach einer koordinierten Asylpolitik wird angesichts der ungleichen Bedingungen, die Geflüchtete vor und in Europa vorfinden, immer lauter. In diesem Sinne arbeitet die Europäische Union seit Jahren an einem »Gemeinsamen Europäischen Asylsystem«, das gerade auch das Verwaltungshandeln vor Ort verändern soll. Dieser Band stellt die Ergebnisse einer Forschungsstudie vor, die das praktische Arbeiten in deutschen und schwedischen Asylbehörden vergleichend untersucht. Im Fokus stehen der behördliche Umgang mit den Vorgaben der europäischen Asylpolitik, das Ausmaß einer Europäisierung des lokalen Verwaltungshandelns und die Schwierigkeiten einer grenzüberschreitenden Verwaltungskooperation.

Mit seinen stetig komplexeren Erläuterungen bildet dieses Werk den steigenden Schwierigkeitsgrad ab, den Studierende während der ersten Semester erleben. Durch zahlreiche Beispiele und künstlerisch sehr ansprechendes Bildmaterial unterstützt der Autor das selbständige und zugleich kreative Hinterfragen von physikalischen Zusammenhängen.

The idea behind this book – devoted to the relations between adults and children – emerged within a specific educational experience launched in an experimental manner in 2006 by the faculty of educational science of Florence University and now in its fourth edition. These are teaching courses held in the evening and on Saturdays to make it easier for students with daytime jobs to attend the lessons. The quest for new forms of organisation was accompanied by a meditation on teaching, which brought out several very interesting educational themes which were effectively transversal to the various disciplines. This book presents the results of this methodological approach, aimed at fostering a conscious, reflective and personal learning. As the title suggests, the essays are designed to focus the question of the educational relationship within a multidisciplinary perspective. Us-them, to remind ourselves that adults have a fundamental and inescapable responsibility. The relationship is typically asymmetrical, with special features and decidedly variable over time. It has in fact been marked for centuries by a failure to recognise the needs of the youngsters and their own subjectivity, to the point of arriving at disturbing levels of violence and coercion. Such cases have been justly referred to a 'black pedagogy', which sadly is far from being everywhere a thing of the past, and even in Italy has left deep and persistent traces. For these reasons the study of the educational relationship has numerous relevant aspects of interest, all extremely topical, and represents a fundamental argument that adults must consciously address. Educators and teachers, parents and students, can all thus enhance their sensitivity and competence with a view to consolidating the reflective practices that are now considered absolutely indispensable for those who live in contact with children and adolescents.

Architecture

Migration Narratives presents an ethnographic study of an American town that recently became home to thousands of Mexican migrants, with the Mexican population rising from 125 in 1990 to slightly under 10,000 in 2016. Through interviews with residents, the book focuses on key educational, religious, and civic institutions that shape and are shaped by the realities of Mexican immigrants. Focusing on African American, Mexican, Irish and Italian communities, the authors describe how interethnic relations played a central role in newcomers’ pathways and draw links between the town’s earlier cycles of migration. The town represents similar communities across the USA and around the world that have received large numbers of immigrants in a short time. The purpose of the book is to document the complexities that migrants and hosts experience and to suggest ways in which policy-makers, researchers, educators and communities can respond intelligently to politically-motivated stories that oversimplify migration across the contemporary world. This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Boston College.