This groundbreaking ethnography offers a deep psychological framework for understanding the Santa Muerte (Saint Death) phenomenon in Mexico. Emerging from a social landscape marked by ultra-violent criminality, government corruption, soaring rates of femicide, forced disappearances, and pervasive impunity, devotion to Santa Muerte signals a profound breakdown of the traditional Hispano-Christian image of God. Her veneration can be understood as a psychological response from a society grappling with 'bad death,' where loss and violence are ever-present in daily life.

Anchored in intimate case studies and a Jungian archetypal interpretation, the book demonstrates how Santa Muerte's inherent moral ambiguity enables devotees to navigate the blurred boundaries between good and evil, safety and peril, and justice and lawlessness. She stands as a potent response to the ongoing socio-political and psychological instability created by Mexico's dominant patriarchal institutions (state, church, and cartels).

The book explores the spirituality of the most vulnerable and marginalised in response to persistent threats and the collapse of conventional safety nets, arguing that devotion to Santa Muerte functions as a critical psychological container for destructive forces, offering a sense of order and control amid the real and existential dangers of a society living through the chaos of an 'apocalypse.' This is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary Mexican studies, as it highlights the psychological impact of life near death.

Just transition offers a way for fossil fuel-dependent economies to meet climate goals while ensuring that society as a whole - communities, workers, young people and marginalised groups - remains in the forefront of the conversation.

This book explores the political economy of just transition in East, West and Southern Africa in order to shine a light on contested epistemologies, policy configurations and case studies of practice at various scales. In the African context, just transition is particularly significant due to the continent's rich natural resources, including oil, gas and minerals, which have historically been exploited without adequate consideration for environmental sustainability and local communities' socio-economic rights. This book analyses how a just transition, in practice, should aim to rectify these historical injustices by promoting inclusive decision-making processes that involve the affected groups, workers and communities. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, who apply a climate justice analytical lens and just transition concepts, the chapters question the extent to which pathways towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 are achievable in Africa and whether this can be attained without undermining economic growth, jobs, livelihoods and lives.

Just Transition and Climate Justice in Sub-Saharan Africa will be an important read for policymakers and researchers in the fields of climate justice, environmental law, African and environmental studies.

This book explores the post-harem lives of Ottoman palace women who, unlike valide sultans, mothers of princes (sehzades), or imperial princesses (hanim sultans), lost their formal prominence after the death of the reigning sultan and have remained largely overlooked in imperial historiography. These women, often without surviving children or powerful networks, have been relegated to the background of dynastic narratives and treated as peripheral figures in mainstream history writing. Focusing on the consorts of Sultan Abduelhamid I (r. 1774-1789), this volume examines how these women sustained their social status, financial stability, and symbolic ties to the dynasty in the aftermath of palace life. Drawing upon a wide range of Ottoman archival materials, including rental agreements, vakfiye (waqf deeds), household expense records, and posthumous inventories, it reveals the economic strategies, spatial transitions, and charitable activities through which these women rebuilt a sense of belonging and dynastic visibility outside the palace walls. The book demonstrates that although these women did not enjoy fixed entitlements from the central treasury, they succeeded in securing stable and long-term income sources through investments in rental properties, esham bonds, and agricultural estates. Their engagement with the imperial revenue system, distinct from that of valide sultans and hanim sultans, shows an alternative but equally structured model of female economic agency. By tracing these overlooked trajectories, the book offers a fresh lens on gender, space, and power in the Ottoman Empire and fills a critical gap in the literature on dynastic wealth, representation, and imperial femininity. The book will be of great interest to students, researchers, and educators working in the fields of Ottoman history, gender studies, Middle Eastern economic history, cultural anthropology, and sociology.

Grounded in ethnographic research over five years in Palestinian villages near Bethlehem, Olive Growing in Palestine follows the lives of four families and fifty other individuals involved with olive growing as a form of resistance. Providing a counterpoint to Eurocentric studies of daily lives and labor, Simaan shares perspectives from Global South scholarship, which offers alternate analysis of why people do what they do and how they respond to adversity. The book focuses on two questions. First, how has Israeli settler colonialism affected olive farmers' daily lives? And second, how do olive farmers respond to the restrictions on their daily activities imposed by structures and policies that aim to divorce them from their land and trees?

Olive Growing in Palestine explores a collection of values and action that shape, and are shaped by, the daily lives of these farmers: Sutra (doing for being), 'Awna (doing for belonging), and Sumud (doing for belonging and becoming). These values recalibrate and expand our understanding of Global South knowledge and practice. That recalibration gives communities, activists, and scholars new tools to counter global forces of ethnic-based discrimination, imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, and the human-made climate crisis.

Iran's Soft Power: Influence Across the Globe provides a timely and comprehensive analysis of how the Islamic Republic has projected its influence through cultural, ideological and humanitarian means across key regions of the Global South.

Focusing on the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, this book offers an in-depth examination of Iran's soft power strategies, including the promotion of religious and political ideology, educational and humanitarian outreach and the use of cultural diplomacy. Drawing on recent examples, it explores how Iranian institutions - such as cultural centres, media outlets and religious networks - have worked to extend Tehran's global presence beyond traditional military or economic power. The book also addresses the structural limits and geopolitical challenges that constrain Iran's soft power, offering a nuanced assessment of its reach across different socio-political contexts.

This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, Middle East studies and global politics, as well as policymakers and analysts seeking to understand Iran's evolving role in international affairs through the lens of soft power.

Dictators and the Higher Education Dilemma explores a powerful contradiction at the heart of modern authoritarian regimes: While universities are essential for producing skilled labor and projecting national progress, they also cultivate critical thinkers who can challenge state power. Drawing on Iran's modern history, from the Pahlavi monarchy to the Islamic Republic, Saeid Golkar shows how dictators use universities not only to train technocrats and showcase development but also as tools for shaping ideology, suppressing dissent, and co-opting academics. In authoritarian systems, education becomes a double-edged sword, essential for growth yet dangerous when it empowers independent thought. Golkar reveals how regimes manipulate admissions, censor curricula, and reward loyalty to create compliant intellectuals and loyal elites. Blending personal experience with rich historical and political analysis, this book exposes the tactics used to turn universities into instruments of social control. It speaks to a growing trend worldwide, offering vital insights into the clash between authoritarian power and academic freedom from Iran to China, Russia, and beyond.

This book examines India's freedom struggle, post-independence political development, and major military conflicts. The book analyzes key figures including Gandhi, Nehru, Bose, and so on, alongside critical events from the independence movement through the 1970s. Sections cover the freedom movement, post-1947 political transitions, Indo-Pakistan wars, controversial historical issues and also includes:

• Comprehensive examination of India's freedom movement and key political leaders
• Detailed analysis of post-independence political developments and leadership transitions
• Historical assessment of major Indo-Pakistani wars and military conflicts from 1947-1971
• Critical evaluation of controversial events including Emergency, Operation Bluestar, and political mysteries
• Scholarly perspectives on Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Bose, and other prominent national figures

With foreword by Dr. Karan Singh, the work provides scholarly analysis of India's political evolution and unresolved historical questions for students and researchers of modern Indian history.

This title has been co-published with Aakar Books. T & F does not sell or distribute the print edition in South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).

Since it first mesmerized Western audiences in the early 20th century, Balinese masked dance-drama (Topeng) has drawn sustained scholarly attention. Yet until now, much of that attention has been filtered through non-Balinese perspectives. Telling Other Tales seeks to redress this imbalance by presenting Topeng as a living, plural tradition-one whose meaning is co-created by Balinese and non-Balinese performers, scholars and other observers alike. In these essays, academic rigor and personal testimony sit in rich dialogue. Historians, anthropologists and theatre scholars engage alongside Balinese priests, musicians and Topeng practitioners, weaving together formal analysis with evocative reflections. Together, they illuminate how this ancient theatrical form is not only studied, but lived, acted and re-imagined in the everyday.

This volume will appeal to scholars of performance, Asian studies and cultural anthropology-or to anyone curious about how traditional forms both shape and are shaped by the many people who carry them forward.

Explores Muslim queer and trans experiences in the world's largest Muslim-majority country

Many gender and sexual minorities in Indonesia remain practicing Muslims, but they face violence stemming from Muslim society's rejection of their sexual and gender identities. With their faith often pitted against their desires and ways of living, many are confronted with a forced choice between two seemingly irreconcilable ways of being.

Drawing on ethnographic research in multiple locations in Indonesia, Enduring Otherwise examines how Muslim individuals and communities grapple with the challenges and possibilities of inhabiting queer and trans religiosity. Some distance themselves from religious tenets because of the harms implicated in them, while others immerse themselves in religious practices and spiritual values, seeking to reimagine them. There are also those who remain caught in tensions, having to navigate a life entrenched in ambivalence. Yet across these varied engagements, they continue to find ways to keep going.

This book showcases how everyday gestures of endurance complicate widely held notions of survival and resilience. Through such actions, Muslim queer and trans subjectivities build complex relationships with faith, piety, and religious norms, while also laying the groundwork to transform the conditions that marginalize them.

Offering a nuanced account of the affective politics of worldmaking at the intersection of sexuality, gender, and religion, Enduring Otherwise highlights how the drawn-out moments of hope, failure, improvisation, and exhaustion experienced by queer and gender non-conforming Indonesians configure efforts to create a world where no one will have to endure the unendurable anymore.