This volume examines the interrelationship between telecommunications and tourism in shaping the nature of space, place and the urban environment at the end of the 20th century: how these agents are instrumental in production of homogenous world-spaces, presupposing new kinds of political/cultural identities. Author from UNSW.

This innovative study of language and identity in recent and contemporary cases of ethnic conflict in Europe and Eurasia sets out a response to the limitations in the fields of linguistics and political science. Using examples of language policy and planning in conflict situations, it examines the functions of language as a marker of identity in ethnic conflict, and the extent to which language may be a causal factor in ethnic conflict.

Modern technological systems entail risks and uncertainties of hitherto unknown dimensions. This book discusses the construction of risk and safety within a variety of empirical contexts where technologies and their risk are debated and handled by individuals, groups or organizations.

This book provides theoretical and empirical discussion of migration, identity and Europeanisation. With contributions from leading international scholars, it provides both an overview of theoretical perspectives and a comprehensive set of case studies, covering both Eastern and Western Europe. Contributors draw from disciplines such as historical sociology, discourse analysis, social psychology and migration studies, while the editors bring these subjects into a coherent theoretical and historical framework, to discuss the emergence of new collective identities and new borders in Europe...

An important new contribution to the social sciences is the idea of social capital. Social capital consists of the resources that are embedded within people's social networks. Validated by empirical research, this book presents social capital research as an integrated theoretical research programme. The programme consists of two hypotheses. The social capital hypothesis holds that those with better social capital are better able to realise their ends. And according to the investment hypothesis people invest in ties to the degree that these are instrumental in achieving their ends. The volume...

This volume brings together scholars from across the disciplines to examine diverse examples of immigration to the paradigmatic nation of immigrants. The volume covers a wide range of time periods, ethnic and national groups, and places of immigration. Contemporary Chinese children brought to the US through adoption, Mexican laborers hired to work in the mid-west in the 1930s, Indian computer programmers hired to work in California, and more, are examined in a series of chapters that show the great diversity of issues facing immigrants in the past and in the present. Divided into three...

Since the publication of the Coleman report in the US, it has been widely accepted that the evidence that schools are marginal in the grand scheme of academic achievement is conclusive. Despite this, educational policy across the world remains focused almost exclusively on schools. and Richard Arum, this book contributes to a debate that has implications across the board in social sciences and policy-making. It should be useful to students and academics within sociology, economics and education and should also find a place on the bookshelves of education policy-makers.

Rave Culture and Religion explores the role of the technocultural rave in the spiritual life of contemporary youth. Documenting the socio-cultural and religious parameters of rave and post-rave phenomena at various locations around the globe, scholars of contemporary religion, dance ethnologists, sociologists and other cultural observers unravel this significant youth cultural practice. The collection provides insights on developments in post-traditional religiosity (especially 'New Age' and 'Neo-Paganism') through studies of rave's Gnostic narratives of ascensionism and re-enchantment,...

In the 1850s the social and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville spoke of 'a virus of a new and unknown kind' to explain the inexplicable failure of the French Revolution. This book uses Tocqueville's idea of the virus to explore the fatal relationship between the concepts of utopia and dystopia in western social and political thought. It traces this relationship from Ancient Greece to post-modern America and attempts to untangle their apparently fatal connection through a new virology that might promote a less paranoid future for our global society.

There is an increasing interest in religion and belief and the diverse forms these take in the contemporary world. This timely book provides a unique analysis of these issues through a discussion of the work of Marx and Weber.

Taking Max Weber's interpretations of capitalism and religion as its point of departure, Weber and the Persistence of Religion re-examines a wide range of classical and contemporary texts, including Immanuel Kant, Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, to help explain the peculiar character of religion and spirituality in mature capitalist...