This book investigates the urban crises of food insecurity and vacant land by examining how community gardens in Berlin and Rio de Janeiro serve as vital mechanisms for realizing the human right to food. Through a comparative study conducted between 2019 and 2023 involving 40 participants, the research explores urban commons' practices and how they address dimensions of food availability, accessibility, acceptability, and sustainability. The findings reveal distinct motivations and effects shaped by local socioeconomic contexts: while Berlin's gardens are primarily driven by socialization and environmental concerns, Rio de Janeiro's gardens focus on food security and social empowerment. Despite the differences, both cities demonstrate a shared commitment to agroecological production as a tool for urban resilience. Ultimately, the study confirms that urban food-sharing practices in these spaces advance the right to food across various dimensions, highlighting the urgent need for urban governance that protects community gardens to foster a global social-ecological transformation.

In 1955, Georges Bataille's Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux; or, The Birth of Art was published. It was the first comprehensive survey of the Lascaux cave, with lavish color photographs, and immediately translated into English for the international market. Bataille's text drew on concepts he had developed over the past thirty years, creating in the process one of the strangest publications on prehistoric art to ever be printed. This book is the first thorough contextualization of Bataille's work on Lascaux, positioning it within the vibrant post-War intellectual scene in France, and demonstrating how the concept of prehistory was a cornerstone of his thoughts from the late 1940's until his passing in 1962. Georges Bataille; or, The Birth of Art is an essential read for those interested in the connection between prehistory and Bataille's understanding of universal history, eroticism, expenditure, the birth of the sacred, and art making.

How can transitional justice take root where there is no transition? This book confronts this central tension by examining the Kurdish conflict in Turkey - a context where the absence of a transitional moment has not prevented grassroots actors from building a justice process of their own. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, it maps the transitional justice ecosystem in Turkey: the actors who sustain it, the demands they articulate, the strategies they pursue, and the networks they forge under conditions of ongoing conflict and authoritarian regime.

Rather than treating transitional justice as something imposed from above, the book situates civil society as its driving force, contributing to a broader rethinking of the field. Its conceptual contribution lies in the application of relationality as an analytical lens, drawing on feminist moral philosophy and relational sociology to unpack complex victim agency. The book offers empirical and theoretical tools for scholars and practitioners studying justice struggles in contexts that resist easy categorisation.

How is the rise of globalization-driven cultural conflict reflected in the metropolitan geography of public opinion and voting behaviour? This book answers that question by exploring divides between metropolitan centres and outskirts in contemporary Europe. It highlights how increased polarization between traditionalist-authoritarian-nationalist and green-alternative-libertarian values has a distinct metropolitan dimension - one rarely examined so far. This dimension is shaped by both compositional and contextual factors, such as geographic peripherality and housing market dynamics. Essential reading for understanding how urban and suburban contexts are associated with political behaviour in ways that transcend traditional left-right divides.

This book fills a critical gap in research on the shipbreaking industry by analyzing the shortcomings of current international and domestic laws. It argues that existing frameworks, such as the Hong Kong Convention and Basel Convention, are insufficient in protecting workers' health and safety, as evidenced by ongoing fatalities and work-related diseases in South Asia's shipbreaking industry.

The book proposes a new framework that goes beyond prevention to include compensation, holding international shipowners accountable for the harm caused to workers. This includes introducing a Shipbreaking Liability Certificate (SLC) and accompanying insurance, ensuring that affected workers or their families receive compensation. Drawing on lessons from other industries with successful regulatory changes, the book suggests that these measures be adopted under a legal framework supported by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

In addition to its practical recommendations, the book contributes a new theoretical approach by applying rectificatory global justice to the issue of shipbreaking, an area largely unexplored in existing literature. The combination of legal analysis and case studies provides a strong foundation for the proposed civil liability framework, offering a comprehensive solution to the challenges faced by the shipbreaking industry. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in the shipbreaking industry, from policymakers and legal experts to shipowners and international organizations.

In today's post-Roe world, U.S. maternal mortality is on the rise and laws regarding contraception, involuntary sterilization, access to reproductive health services, and criminalization of people who are gestating are changing by the minute.

Using a reproductive justice framework, Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts walks students through the social landscape around reproduction through the life course. Chapters by cutting-edge reproductive scholars, practitioners, and advocates address the social control of fertility and pregnancy, the promises and perils of assisted reproductive technologies, experiences of pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, and birth, and how individuals make sense of and respond to the cultural, social, and political forces that condition their reproductive lives. The book takes an intersectional approach and considers how gender, sexuality, fatness, disability, class, race, and immigration status impact both an individual's health and the healthcare they receive. The inclusion of timely topics such as increased legal limitations on abortion, transpeople and reproduction, and new developments in assisted reproduction and family formation, speaks to the current generation of students.

An essential text for undergraduate and graduate courses on families, gender, public health, reproduction, and sexuality.

The concept of Abbreviation, proposed by the researcher and professor Maria C.D.P Lyra in the late 1980s, was extensively explored in the two subsequent decades, emerging as an important theory that underpins the early stages of mother-infant communication. As a theory, it takes into consideration significant aspects of human development, including processes of meaning-making, language constitution, and dialogism. Abbreviation Theory thus becomes the central contribution in the field of Cognitive Psychology by Maria C.D.P Lyra, serving as a focal point in her studies on the mother-infant communication process and being further explored by several of her students in the 1990s and 2000s at the LABCCOM (Laboratory for Development Studies in Culture: Communication and Social Practices).

This book aims to explore the work of Professor Maria C.D.P Lyra as an internationally recognized Brazilian researcher, her life story, passion for knowledge construction, constituting a powerful representation of the science conducted in South America by women in their relatively unknown but intellectually robust laboratory work. The book also focuses on Abbreviation as the genesis of communication, intersubjectivity, and the self at various stages of Professor Maria Lyra's reflection, as well as the intersections of this theory with other fields in psychology beyond development.

This book is open access, What makes people competent at work? This question is becoming complicated with the emergence of new technologies and the hastened pace of global economic exchanges. While there is less consensus about what people should know and be able to do to be rewarded in the workplace, the discussion about skills and competencies becomes even hotter among those who express concern about the gaps between the demands and supplies of "skilled" workforces.

Given this situation, one of the main objectives of this book is to clarify the true nature of often-discussed "skills gaps", using the cases of manufacturing workers in the Global South. Instead of discussing the issues based on a broad, ambiguous understanding of human abilities, after an extensive, cross-disciplinary review of the literature and theorization, the book proposes a detailed classification of cognitive, non-cognitive (including socio-emotional skills and personality traits), and technical abilities. Then, it presents both contextually relevant and generalizable explanations about relationships among them. By doing so, the volume offers insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking ideas to reform their human resources development policies and practices.

The second objective of the volume is to propose the analytical perspective of Realist-Constructivism, using the "skills gaps" analysis as the empirical case, to demonstrate its theoretical, conceptual, and practical capacities to overcome the dichotomy between induction and deduction through abductive reasoning with a set of instruments to collect data that enable such analysis.

Empirical surveys, using a set of questionnaires and skills assessment we developed, were conducted in four countries in the Global South: Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, and Pakistan. With Realist-Constructivism, we can consider work-related competencies in close relation to the specific workplace requirements and culture, while situating them within broader industrial, economic, and regulatory frameworks. Our methods and instruments enable us to link the subjective epistemologies of competencies among individuals in the micro-ecologies of the workplace with the ontological realities of labor market opportunities and evaluations.

This open access book examines how Piedmont, in early modern Italy, developed silk production into a distinctive system of technological and social innovation. It explores the ways in which this fragile yet economically significant material shaped regional strategies of adaptation and growth, linking local expertise to the expanding networks of global trade. Across ten chapters, the author traces the evolution of a complex production ecosystem, from small workshops to royal manufactories, and considers how technology, policy, and labour interacted to sustain the silk economy. Particular attention is given to the contributions of women, migrants, and apprentices, whose work underpinned both the aesthetics of fashion and the practical mechanisms of manufacture. As political and economic transformations unfolded across eighteenth-century Europe, silk became a lens through which to examine tensions between tradition and change, and between vulnerability and resilience. By situating Piedmont within broader European processes, the book demonstrates that innovation emerged not solely from institutional or technological breakthroughs, but from the craft of making, the capacity to adapt, and the steady labour of human hands.

This Open Access book explores the evolving landscape of non-financial reporting and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) performance, with a specific focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises. Drawing on European regulatory frameworks, stakeholder theory, and empirical case studies, the book examines how SMEs navigate sustainability demands in a context traditionally dominated by large corporations and global standards.

The book addresses the historical evolution of CSR, the challenges of ESG integration for investors, and the methodological development of a composite ESG indicator tailored to SMEs. It introduces innovative tools such as the Mazziotta-Pareto Index and participatory accounting frameworks like CARE and SEMA, offering practical insights into ESG measurement and reporting. Through comparative case studies and analysis, it bridges the gap between ESG theory and SME realities, contributing to both academic research and professional practice.

Ideal for scholars in economics, finance, and sustainability, as well as practitioners and policymakers, this book advances the conversation on responsible innovation, regional development, and the future of ESG in the SME sector.

This open access volume provides an absorbing analysis of the multifaceted mission that gave rise to the Turkish Protestant movement. James Bultema identifies and investigates four central factors that have contributed to the movement's development: religious freedom, missionary activity, interdependent choice, and plausibility structures. He explores the complex interplay of these factors, drawing upon an array of qualitative interviews and historical studies to decipher the movement's first 55 years.

By means of hermeneutics and abductive reasoning, Bultema teases out his argument that imperfect but sufficient religious freedom created a fertile foundation for the growth of mostly tiny Turkish Protestant churches that were countercultural and vulnerable, but also vitally interconnected. His work contributes an intriguing case study on the complicated give-and-take of Christian mission and religious freedom in a Muslim-majority context, an original framework of interrelating conceptual constructs, and a most extensive mission history of the Turkish Protestant movement.

Students of Turkey and mission and scholars of religious studies, missiology, and modern Christianity, be sure to engage with a rewarding reading of Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016-winner of the Science Award on Religious Freedom 2026 from the Freie Theologische Hochschule (FTH) Giessen.

This book addresses the theme of peace- and state-building through a comparative study of the intervention of the European Union (EU) in Somalia and Mali between 2006 and 2022, as well as an analysis of the reorientation of the EU's external action post 2022. The main objective was to understand and analyse the EU's intervention under the stabilisation banner and focus on state-building and support to the security sector in countries marked by polycentric governance. It analyses the normative and regulatory role of the EU as an agent of the liberal interventionary order (as per O. Richmond's concept). The research contributes to the emergent post-liberal approach in peace and conflict studies by putting forward context-based knowledge. The theoretical framework is framed around the critique of peace as governance and the broader focus of state-building associated with stabilisation. The author further analysed the EU's attempts at growing actorness, particularly in the post-Lisbon Treaty. The research contributes to the fundamental critique of peacebuilding (critical turn), including through societal perspectives on EU's intervention and informing the local turn. By also encompassing the global turn in International Relations, the research confirmed the growing challenge of maintaining a global order based on multilateral rules and exposed how polycentricity outwitted the EU's normative aspirations.

This book offers an alternative narrative of the global history of political economy. From ancient civilizations to modern times, zero-sum logic has been a fundamental, yet often ignored, driving force behind political and economic systems worldwide. The authors reveal the contradictions within various ideologies -particularly liberalism and neoliberalism- that claim win-win scenarios while in fact relying on zero-sum principles.

By examining systems from mercantilism to digital economies, the book shows how zero-sum logic underpins diverse economic and political doctrines, including authoritarianism, democracy, and policies like austerity. It combines economic history, political philosophy, historical sociology, and geopolitics in an interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive analysis. The book uncovers how zero-sum logic has historically informed both ideology and practice, challenging prevailing narratives and highlighting the paradoxes within our global economic system.

The book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers from these disciplines, interested in a better understanding of the economic dynamics that shape our world, and the need for a new, cooperative approach to global political economy.

This book sheds light on metrics as a key element of power relations in the EU anti-poverty policy, not least because the calculative infrastructure underlying them actively shapes the distribution of power. These metric-based power dynamics are linked to the fundamental lines of division in the EU, namely the tension between the vested interests of Member States and of supranational bodies, as well as between economic and social policy objectives. The analysis also points to the blurring of the boundaries between the technical and political (interest-based) aspects of the policy-making process. Actors are surprisingly often not only aware of, but openly talk about, the normative choices and negotiations involved in creating indicators and the trade-off between cognitive value and alignment of interests. Many also believe that it is better to use "imperfect" but "commonly agreed" indicators than none at all. By unpacking these hidden infrastructures and everyday practices, this book brings a new perspective to the study of EU policy-making. Drawing on extensive empirical research, it provides a robust empirical account of how Europe governs through numbers.

Now in a 25th anniversary edition, featuring a foreword from bestselling author Rob Henderson of the Manhattan Institute and a new postscript from Theodore Dalrymple.

"A classic for our times. It is as fundamental for understanding the world we live in as the three R's." -Thomas Sowell

As a British psychiatrist who treated the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, Theodore Dalrymple had seemingly seen it all. Yet, in listening to and observing his patients, he has been continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives. Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dalrymple's book draws upon scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing--sometimes all at once. And Dalrymple writes in prose that transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.

This book is about psychiatric nursing in Bangladesh. Bangladesh, a densely populated South Asian nation with around 170 million people, has recently transitioned to a lower-middle-income country, yet it faces a significant dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. There is an extreme shortage of nurses in Bangladesh where currently (as of February 2023) 77,838 registered nurses are available. As per a cautious projection, the demand for nurses will be 483,000 in 2030. The latest estimate revealed that there are 0.43 psychiatric nurses for every 100,000 patients. Currently, no textbook is available in Bangladesh specifically focused on psychiatric nursing, despite the country's urgent need for mental health education. This book would provide basic insights and culturally relevant skills to help bridge the health services in the country. Offering localized content, practical case studies, and context-specific interventions will equip the next generation of nurses to better serve the mental health needs of Bangladeshi communities. There is no similar book in the market on psychiatric nursing in Bangladesh. Hence this will be the first book of its kind according to the curriculum of BSc Nursing in Bangladesh.

This book critically examines the foundational assumptions of vaccine systems, challenging the dominant linear narrative of vaccine creation and production, regulation, and distribution. Rather than treating these components as isolated and sequential, the project adopts a holistic approach to unpack their dynamic interrelations. The volume is organized into three parts-Creation and Production, Regulation, and Distribution-each showcasing how broader social, political, cultural, and economic processes shape the inter-relationships between these components.

It offers a unique contribution by reframing the understanding of vaccine systems through an interdisciplinary lens that draws on law, public health, innovation studies, psychology and science and technology studies. It is distinct in combining theoretical analysis with empirical insights from diverse national and socio-cultural contexts to examine how these systems operate in practice. In doing so, it supports the call for more inclusive, transparent, and context-sensitive models of vaccine governance, which is particularly important in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and in preparation for future public health challenges.

Women's healthcare is facing a crisis. On the publication of this book, there are increasing efforts to restrict or limit funding for research and to limit public funding for healthcare services. These restrictions are most obviously recognizable by the executive order suggesting that federal grants should not use the word "women" in funding proposals. Meanwhile, the 2025 federal budget restricts and contracts Medicaid funding, 75% of which is used by women and children.

As a result, Elizabeth Palley, Howard Palley and Marian Lief Palley reexamine the politics of women's healthcare and what advocates have done to further enhance policies that promote women's health and wellbeing. They also consider where women's health care advocates have been successful, where they have been stymied and where advances have been reversed. Examining topics such as women's healthcare during pregnancy in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, as well as political and cultural obstacles women currently face regarding healthcare access and equity, the authors assess the current state of women's healthcare and highlight where women are most vulnerable.

Seuchen verloren seit den spaeten 1950er Jahren ihren Schrecken, denn neue Impfstoffe, verbesserte Hygiene und Antibiotika liessen sie als beherrschbar erscheinen. Die Erfolge vermittelten das Gefuehl, in einer ?immunisierten Gesellschaft“ zu leben und moegliche zukuenftige Risiken praeventiv planend steuern zu koennen. Doch neue Infektionserkrankungen wie AIDS, SARS und Vogelgrippe erschuetterten diese Gewissheit seit den 1990er Jahren immer wieder. Als Schattenseiten von wirtschaftlicher Prosperitaet, globalem Handel und Tourismus gelten Epidemien als unausweichliche Gefahren. Was bleibt, ist eine umfassende Vorbereitung. Nicht mehr Praevention, sondern ?Preparedness“ bestimmt zunehmend die Planungen fuer und den Umgang mit Pandemien.

Aus interdisziplinaerer Perspektive beleuchtet der Sammelband anhand konkreter Fallbeispiele Planungen fuer Pandemien und Massnahmen der Praevention und ?Preparedness“ in Deutschland, den USA sowie auf Ebene der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Anders als klassische Darstellungen einzelner Infektionskrankheiten und Reaktionen auf diese setzt der Band an, bevor sich Pandemien manifestiert haben: bei der Praevention und der Vorbereitung auf den Pandemiefall. Im Zentrum stehen also pandemische Zukuenfte.