Humanities & Social Sciences

Epistemic Freedom in Africa is about the struggle for African people to think, theorize, interpret the world and write from where they are located, unencumbered by Eurocentrism. The imperial denial of common humanity to some human beings meant that in turn their knowledges and experiences lost their value, their epistemic virtue. Now, in the twenty-first century, descendants of enslaved, displaced, colonized, and racialized peoples have entered academies across the world, proclaiming loudly that they are human beings, their lives matter and they were born into valid and legitimate knowledge systems that are capable of helping humanity to transcend the current epistemic and systemic crises. Together, they are engaging in diverse struggles for cognitive justice, fighting against the epistemic line which haunts the twenty-first century. The renowned historian and decolonial theorist Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni offers a penetrating and well-argued case for centering Africa as a legitimate historical unit of analysis and epistemic site from which to interpret the world, whilst simultaneously making an equally strong argument for globalizing knowledge from Africa so as to attain ecologies of knowledges. This is a dual process of both deprovincializing Africa, and in turn provincializing Europe. The book highlights how the mental universe of Africa was invaded and colonized, the long-standing struggles for 'an African university', and the trajectories of contemporary decolonial movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall in South Africa. This landmark work underscores the fact that only once the problem of epistemic freedom has been addressed can Africa achieve political, cultural, economic and other freedoms. This groundbreaking new book is accessible to students and scholars across Education, History, Philosophy, Ethics, African Studies, Development Studies, Politics, International Relations, Sociology, Postcolonial Studies and the emerging field of Decolonial Studies.

Preaching, a practice composed of and accompanied by a myriad of different activities, is an essential element of Muslim religious life both within and beyond mosques. As such, Islamic preaching is a common means of religious promulgation and knowledge transfer, of pastoral guidance and uplift, but also of communication between believers, and as a source of negotiating religious normativity, power relations, and societal topics. Given the centrality of preaching in Muslims’ religious life, this collective volume presents contributions on various aspects of performance, text, space, and materiality of Islamic preaching in history and present. The interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary framework captures Islamic preaching as it unfolds in its social setting. The volume aims at representing the inner-Islamic diversity by depicting the practice of preaching as it came about in different times and geographical locations, shedding light onto Friday gatherings and sermons (ḫutba), and other forms of preaching (e. g. waʿẓ), be it during Ramadan, at religious feasts and commemorations, or on personal occasions such as weddings and funerals. Therefore, each chapter offers a different insight into the interwoven character of sermons’ contents, the preacher him/herself, and the audience by emphasising the role of their bodily performance, of the temporality and spatiality of preaching, and of the objects and items involved. ; Preaching, a practice composed of and accompanied by a myriad of different activities, is an essential element of Muslim religious life both within and beyond mosques. As such, Islamic preaching is a common means of religious promulgation and knowledge transfer, of pastoral guidance and uplift, but also of communication between believers, and as a source of negotiating religious normativity, power relations, and societal topics. Given the centrality of preaching in Muslims’ religious life, this collective volume presents contributions on various aspects of performance, text, space, and materiality of Islamic preaching in history and present. The interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary framework captures Islamic preaching as it unfolds in its social setting. The volume aims at representing the inner-Islamic diversity by depicting the practice of preaching as it came about in different times and geographical locations, shedding light onto Friday gatherings and sermons (ḫutba), and other forms of preaching (e. g. waʿẓ), be it during Ramadan, at religious feasts and commemorations, or on personal occasions such as weddings and funerals. Therefore, each chapter offers a different insight into the interwoven character of sermons’ contents, the preacher him/herself, and the audience by emphasising the role of their bodily performance, of the temporality and spatiality of preaching, and of the objects and items involved.

Victorian Indigenous songs brought together in one compelling volume, blending linguistic, musicological and historical expertise with rich cultural context, performance insights and rare recordings.

Histories of environment and histories of technology have moved in exciting, interdisciplinary directions in recent years, with increasing recognition that both environments and technologies are made and remade, gaining meaning only in specific historical settings. With historical scholarship weighted towards examples from the North Atlantic world, this volume provides a collection of grounded case studies from across the modern world that interrogate the relationship between environment and technology in developmental practices and discourses. Development projects have often involved assumptions that humans can create and wield technology to harness, improve or protect the non-human environment. This volume will not simply discredit these assumptions by revealing their nefarious effects on our society and planet, but instead historicise them by locating them within specific power structures and epistemologies. The connections and conversations between dispersed cases raised here point us to more nuanced conclusions about the causes and effects, the objects and subjects of history, in this dynamic interaction between environment, technology, and development.

Microfluidics have aroused a new surge of interest in recent years in environmental and energy areas, and inspired novel applications to tackle the worldwide challenges for sustainable development. This book aims to present readers with a valuable compendium of significant advances in applying the multidisciplinary microfluidic technologies to address energy and environmental problems in a plethora of areas such as environmental monitoring and detection, new nanofluid application in traditional mechanical manufacturing processes, development of novel biosensors, and thermal management. This book will provide a new perspective to the understanding of the ever-growing importance of microfluidics.

Affirming Methodologies: Research and Education in the Caribbean centres local and indigenous ways of knowing in research and education praxis in the Caribbean. The research methodologies and pedagogies are presented in this book within an Affirming Methodologies framework. They bring forward localized epistemologies whereby Caribbean ways of being and knowing are affirmed, and the expected western hierarchies between researcher and researched are removed. The chapters present approaches to knowledge construction and knowledge sharing based on practices, lived experiences, traditions, language patterns, and rituals of Caribbean communities. The importance of an Affirming Methodologies approach is demonstrated, and the characteristics of culturally affirming research methodologies and pedagogies in diverse environments including Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and the Caribbean diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada are explored and presented. Grounded on an understanding of the authors’ Caribbean positionality, ontological distinctions within the Caribbean research context are considered. This book moves forward from a decolonizing methodology approach, and, as such, the chapters are written, not in opposition to, or tested against Eurocentric approaches to research, but deeply rooted in a Caribbean ethos. This book will engage researchers (both qualitative and quantitative), postgraduate students, academics, practitioners, policymakers, community workers, and lay persons who seek to employ culturally relevant local and indigenous research approaches in their work. Each chapter offers practical suggestions on the 'how' of research practice, making them accessible, relevant, and flexible for novice and seasoned researchers alike.

This book stems from a collective desire: to remember the figure and works of Alberto Magnaghi, a great intellectual who always combined scientific activity and civil commitment, a territorialist planner who dedicated many years of his life to research, lecturing, developing theories and experimenting with methods and projects aimed at restoring voice, dignity and centrality to territories and local communities. The writings here collected reassemble the many aspects of a multifaceted figure who crossed different worlds: from politics to art, from music to science, an amazingly original, never banal path emerges. The book is also intended as a baton to be passed on to the youth so that they can follow the path towards a desirable future, to which we must strive even in the dark times that seem to discourage action.

In the antebellum period, slave owners weaponized southern Black joy to argue for enslavement while abolitionists wielded sorrow by emphasizing racial oppression. Both arguments were so effective that a political uneasiness on the subject still lingers. Lindsey Stewart wades into these uncomfortable waters by developing Zora Neale Hurston’s contributions to political theory and philosophy of race by introducing the politics of joy as a refusal of neo-abolitionism, a political tradition that reduces southern Black life to tragedy or social death. Zora Neale Hurston’s essays, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and figures including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, Saidiya Hartman, Imani Perry, Eddie Glaude, and Audra Simpson offer crucial insights and new paths for our moment. Examining popular conceptions of Black political agency at the intersection of geography, gender, class, and Black spirituality, The Politics of Black Joy is essential reading.

Geospatial information plays an important role in managing location dependent pandemic situations across different communities and domains. Geospatial information and technologies are particularly critical to strengthening urban and rural resilience, where economic, agricultural, and various social sectors all intersect. Examining the United Nations' SDGs from a geospatial lens will ensure that the challenges are addressed for all populations in different locations. This book, with worldwide contributions focused on COVID-19 pandemic, provides interdisciplinary analysis and multi-sectoral expertise on the use of geospatial information and location intelligence to support community resilience and authorities to manage pandemics.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.1201/9781003082613, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This book explains the concept of using phytotechnology with biomass production to improve soil quality and restore contaminated sites to a useful state that has economic and social value. Phytotechnology with Biomass Production: Sustainable Management of Contaminated Sites focuses on the application of second-generation biofuel crops, primarily Miscanthus, to slightly contaminated or marginal postmilitary and postmining soils. Based on recent and ongoing research from the United States, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Germany, along with case studies from other countries, this is the first comprehensive book on using phytotechnology with biomass production at contaminated sites at a global level. FEATURES Focuses on an important topic of a growing global activity: soil improvement through biomass production Includes case studies and success stories from different countries on application of Miscanthus phytotechnology to sites differently contaminated by trace elements, pesticides, and petroleum products Discusses the peculiarities of Miscanthus production on postmilitary and postmining contaminated lands and the impact of plant growth regulators, soil amendments, fertilizers, and biochar to the process Introduces soil fauna as indicators of soil health during Miscanthus phytotechnology application Presents Miscanthus value chain associated with the processing of Miscanthus biomass to different bioproducts While written primarily for faculty, students, research scientists, environmental and agricultural professionals, gardeners, farmers, landowners, and government officials, this book has value for all who are working on phytotechnology projects and phytomining to reduce risk and/or improve soil quality at contaminated sites. Phytotechnology with Biomass Production: Sustainable Management of Contaminated Sites is also a great new resource for those who are new to the topic and want to learn to apply phytotechnologies and biomass production with further conversion into energy and bioproducts.

The present chapter assumes that using multilateralism to address world-scale problems has an impact on the future of world politics and may be the game-changer of the world political order. In the first section, attention is drawn to the establishment of the present world order, the multilateral institutions and policies that have been the cornerstone of such order, and the current order transition process. Based on the research knowledge about the ongoing world climate policymaking process, the second section explains the persistent role of multilateral policymaking as the way of responding to the problems that are widespread over the entire planet and are inherent to the structure of the world polity of the sovereign states.

The book describes the results of the AGaStor Project’s social research carried out in northwestern Poland which recognizes the main social opportunities and barriers to the introduction of CCUS to society. At the national and regional level, the social barriers of CCUS acceptance are ignorance, uncertainty and the lack of public debate about this technology. On the local scale, social acceptance depends on the needs and fears of the local community. Some of those fears – distrust and perception of CO2 as a waste – could be recognized as universal dilemmas connected with CCUS. Although as knowledge about CCUS increases, a significant change in attitude can be observed. This change does not mean an acceptance of that technology. It is rather a shift towards more benign forms of resistance – from NIMBY to WIMBY. The book presents actual mechanisms of social reaction to UGS and CCUS investment, which will be a valuable contribution to managing social change in the context of green transition. The issue of social acceptance of CCUS should be of interest to decision makers and practitioners who manage investment projects in the broadly understood green transformation on a daily basis, and also to postgraduate students, researchers, academics and lecturers in political studies, sociology or economics, and in engineering studies connected with energy transformation.

In questo contributo vengono sinteticamente presentate le attività di base legate alla programmazione e all'amministrazione di un istituto bibliotecario in riferimento alla gestione dei fondi librari, alle modalità di finanziamento, al ruolo del personale specializzato. Particolare rilevanza assumono, in questo contesto, gli standard emanati dalla FIAB e dall'AIB.

This essay provides an outline of the familial, social, and cultural network of the Milanese Jesuati between the end of the fifteenth century and the first decades of the sixteenth century. Particular attention is given to their interactions with Cardinal Bernardino López de Carvajal, one of the protagonists of the schismatic Council of Pisa-Milan (1510-1512). Starting from the creation of their settlement of San Girolamo, new documentary evidence is employed to show how the surrounding urban area and the physical buildings that should have been erected there actually mirrored the local network of both the Jesuati and Carvajal. The patronage of the cardinal in San Girolamo and the creation of a Last Judgement fresco are then discussed and connected to the eschatological tensions stirring Milan at the time.

Cities worldwide have recognised that their street spaces are not fit for the future. They overheat, absorb too little rainfall, offer insufficient space for social interaction, harm local economies, and encourage forms of mobility that damage both climate and public health. Street spaces must therefore be redesigned — and while this may often seem daunting, numerous examples from Austria and around the world demonstrate that it is entirely possible. This handbook presents the Austrian context for street space transformation, from initial idea through planning and implementation to evaluation, addressing questions of design, expected effects, the legal framework in Austria, obstacles and solutions in redesign projects, lessons from pioneer projects, and suitable methods and tools. A large team of researchers and practitioners has compiled approaches, background knowledge, tools, and lessons learned from completed projects.