On Value and Valuation asks whether the category of economic value remains theoretically viable, how value is formed, and how it should be understood. It explores the interlinkages between economic value and social and cultural values.

On the one hand, the book draws on anthropological and sociological accounts of the evaluative frameworks within which things take on their social meanings; on the other, it explores and critiques the Marxist account of the formation of value in capitalist production. Its aim is to reconcile these two conceptions, and it does so by arguing that economic value is not a property of goods and services but is formed in specific institutions of valuation. It analyses new sources of value generated in markets in derivatives, in carbon credits and ecosystem services, in expert systems, and in new digital entities and seeks to deepen our understanding of value as a force driven by a web of social relations of accumulation that channel power and coercion.

This book will be of interest to students of heterodox economics and Marxist theory, as well as to those with a wider concern with questions of social and economic value.

Elaborating a new approach to the comparative political economy of banking, Financial Democracy presents evidence of both the recent return to traditional bank management and the resurgence of alternative banks with social and public policy missions.

The book begins with a critique of contemporary approaches to banking, finance, and money in political economy, financial economics, and, indeed, the major schools of economics since 1945. In this analysis, traditional banks were expected to be replaced with market-based banking and new types of non-bank entities able to tap market efficiencies. Drawing on a unique combination of participatory democratic theory, comparative political economy, theories and concepts on banking and finance, and the varieties of democracy, democratization, and regime change in political science, the findings of this book are precisely the contrary. Historical-institutional methods and balance-sheet analysis reveal change in the opposite direction: a back-to-the future return to traditional strategies of deposit taking and loan making and public finance at banks. A variety of social reactions of self-defense, especially since 2010, are documented in case studies of six large advanced and underdeveloped economies; reactions against the commodification of credit, finance, and banking caused by the liberalization of domestic markets for credit and banking.

This book will be of interest to readers in political economy, banking, finance, and democratization.

Smart Farming, Smarter Solutions: Revolutionizing Agriculture with Artificial Intelligence presents a comprehensive exploration of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are transforming modern agriculture. With contributions from experts across the globe, the book covers a wide spectrum of smart farming innovations including AI-powered crop monitoring, precision irrigation, robotics, drones, big data, and supply chain optimization. This volume, designed for researchers, practitioners, students, and policy-makers, showcases cutting-edge developments that promote sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture. It is an essential reference for understanding the intersection of artificial intelligence and agriculture in building future-ready farming systems.

Agricultural Water Security: A Global Perspective offers a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and solutions surrounding sustainable water use in agriculture. Bridging the gaps between water availability, demand, and governance, this book examines the intricate connections between agricultural production, food security, and socioeconomic factors influencing water management decisions. Through global case studies and cutting-edge research, it presents strategies for balancing water supply and demand, improving water-use efficiency, and adapting to climate change and population growth. An indispensable resource for students, researchers, policymakers, and professionals in water and agricultural sciences, this book provides the insights needed to tackle the pressing issue of agricultural water security in an era of increasing water stress.

• Explores the physical, economic, and policy dimensions of agricultural water security, integrating global case studies and the latest research.
• Presents solutions for balancing water supply and demand, enhancing water-use efficiency, and adapting to climate change and population growth.
• Examines agricultural water security at farm, regional, national, and global levels, emphasizing integrated and sustainable management approaches.

This compelling volume addresses key issues at the critical intersection of intangible cultural heritage and traditional medical practices, highlighting the urgent need for their preservation in an increasingly globalized world.

The chapters within this book explore key themes such as the paradox of authenticity versus rationalization in traditional healing, the political implications of heritage-making in diverse contexts - from India and China to Mexico and Chile - and the role of local communities in asserting their medical knowledge as part of their cultural identity. Contributions from experts in anthropology, political science, law, and history provide a rich, multidisciplinary perspective on how these practices are integrated into contemporary heritage processes. By examining case studies that illustrate both the challenges and successes of safeguarding traditional medical knowledge, this book offers original insights into the evolving concept of intangible cultural heritage. It emphasizes the significance of these practices in fostering cultural resilience and identity, making it a vital addition to the discourse on heritage studies and global health. This work not only enriches our understanding of traditional medical practices but also advocates for their recognition and protection in a rapidly changing world.

This book serves as an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in the dynamics of intangible cultural heritage and traditional medical practices.

This edited volume provides coverage of international trade and investment in Africa. Trade and investment are crucial to promoting to economic growth and development, and have important policy implications for governments, and other stakeholders in economies of the global South. The book offers an extensive examination of critical issues in trade and investment, encompassing a wide range of areas such as trade policy and development, international trade, investment and economic growth, finance, payment systems, and trade development, as well as contemporary issues in international trade. It focuses on emerging, cutting-edge research on the broad areas of trade and investment, contributes significantly to contemporary literature, and informs policy design in these areas.

This distinctive, topical, and accessible work is intended for a wide range of readers interested in international trade and investment, including policymakers, practitioners, academics, researchers, and students at all levels studying international trade, economics, and finance. Overall, it serves as a valuable resource for anyone seeking to deepen their knowledge and understanding of international trade, investment, and economic development in today's complex and rapidly changing global economy.

This book delves into the interrelationship among gender, power, and economic disparity in the Global South through an intersectional lens. It analyses the interplay of diverse forms of oppression, such as class, caste, race, ethnicity, and geography, and their impacts on individual lives and prospects for success. This analysis employs diverse case studies to examine how historical legacies, social and political institutions, and economic mechanisms generate and perpetuate inequality across various domains.

Gender, Power, and Economic Inequality in the Global South illustrates how women, particularly from Dalit, black, indigenous, and other marginalized groups, wield power and resist exclusion while challenging patriarchal norms and advocating for equity in politics, the economy, the environment, and the digital realm. It distinctly focusses on the Global South and critically examines global development narratives, prioritizing local knowledge, action, and feminist futures in its endeavours. Further, the book examines the dynamics of power within institutions, informal economy, housing, technology, peacebuilding, and international cooperation. Encompassing a broad spectrum of disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, law, and environmental studies, the book also examines how global trends, such as the green transition and digital innovation, influence gendered realities.

This edited text serves as an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, practitioners, and advanced students in gender studies, development studies, international relations, and related fields due to its pertinent information and policy recommendations. It urges readers to critically examine conventional notions and consider gender and power in the Global South with greater openness and equity.

Gender Politics of Monetary Governance in Germany and the Eurozone provides a nuanced reading of how gender politics matter in monetary governance, contributing to a gendered critique of the political economy of Germany and the Eurozone and to efforts of 'de-patriarchalising' monetary and economic governance.

While gender aspects of economic governance have increasingly been made visible in critical scholarship, less focus has been placed on the role of masculinities and monetary governance. This book shows that the intersection of gender politics and monetary governance plays a fundamental role in the making of the political economy. It argues that, materially, monetary governance amplifies gendered power hierarchies in (re)productive relations. Culturally, gendered narratives play an important role in establishing the credibility and legitimacy of monetary governance. They do so by metaphorically making sense of monetary policy through masculinised gender qualities of authority, (self-) control, toughness, while disavowing feminised qualities such as temptation and excess. The book shows how these narratives have been mobilised at key junctures to promote a prioritisation of monetary and fiscal 'discipline' in German economic history, the institutional design of EMU, and in the governance of the Eurozone crisis. These narratives are vital in producing opportunities for some and restricting them for others, enabling particular, hierarchical forms of accumulation while foreclosing possibilities for different ways of doing economic relations. Yet, meanings are contingent, incomplete, and open to challenge, and thus monetary governance can be re-signified to facilitate social thriving beyond the strictures of heteronormativity and austerity.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars researching International Political Economy, Gender and Politics, Men and Masculinity Studies, Economic Sociology and Cultural Economy, and European Studies.

The development of Smart Cities (SC) is inextricably linked to the need to obtain financing for both current projects and long-term investments. Issues related to the financing of Smart Cities, raising funds, their capital structure or financing risks are underexplored and are described in a fragmented manner, with reference to individual initiatives or projects. This book argues that the creation of Smart Cities requires a long-term and holistic approach toward financing strategies. It systematizes the issues related to Smart City financing and develops a financing model that considers a lasting, systematic and complete approach to the development of Smart City solutions. It identifies the opportunities and risks associated with the various sources of financing and the risks of financing in the developed model and presents complex issues related to urban finance in a structured manner. The book characterizes project and collective financing (crowdfunding, associations and foundations), as innovative forms of fundraising and examines the cost of capital and risk vs. green and sustainable financing. The book is illustrated with accessible analyses and practical examples. This book is a comprehensive reference for students and scholars in the fields of public management, public finance and urban planning. It can also be used by both Smart City researchers and practitioners, such as representatives of city governments, municipal governments and local stakeholders, in the process of analyzing and selecting sources of financing for Smart City solutions.

Myths have long plagued the understanding of Africa. Today, the myths continue but are very different and certainly are more sophisticated, taking the form of economic models of behavior or statistical analyses, sometimes based on faulty data or interpretations of it. It is not surprising, as a result, that they lead to very different policy conclusions.

This book reviews the performance of low-income African countries and highlights the challenges posed by measurement and methodological problems. It also discusses some of the more significant myths that have arisen, as well as the way that economic models - which themselves are also myths - if carefully structured, can often be useful for understanding, if not carefully describing, the situation of many low-income African countries. Structured in three parts, the book first critiques historical and narrative-driven myths, then investigates model-based myths around convergence and growth; and the final section synthesizes eight dominant myths that continue to shape policy. The book addresses key themes such as poverty traps, economic growth, and urbanization, providing an examination of the complexities surrounding these issues in low-income African countries. It brings together current development issues in one place in a way that builds upon new and improved data sources. Insights from various fields are integrated into the book, providing a holistic understanding of the development landscape in low-income Africa.

This book will appeal to academics, researchers, and advanced students, as well as policymakers and development practitioners, concerned with poverty and development issues, especially in Africa.

Public Budgeting and Financial Management provides an accessible, applied introduction and overview of public budgeting for students who may not have previous experience with economics or statistics. This new textbook contains several outstanding features:

• A focus on all levels of government-federal, state, and local
• An approach that assumes no previous knowledge of economics, statistics, or mathematics
• Applied exercises in each chapter using current, real-world scenarios
• A conversational, engaging, jargon-free writing style.

Authors Nancy Hudspeth and Andrew Crosby examine important case studies, including the lingering financial effects of COVID-19 on communities across the United States and the ways in which Detroit's bankruptcy more than a decade ago continues to impact local, regional, and state finances. This book is accompanied by online instructor and student resources, including sample municipal budgets for students and quizzes with an answer key for instructors. More advanced readers will benefit from the authors' thorough introduction to financial functions. This comprehensive and innovative new textbook will be required reading for all undergraduate and graduate courses in public budgeting and financial management, and it offers a unique one-stop shop for traditional one-semester budgeting courses in Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs.

This book explores the relationship between monetary policy and income (and wealth) distribution, a growing area of research in post-Keynesian and heterodox economics today. The interest actually goes back at least to Keynes, who, in his A Tract on Monetary Reform, discusses the effects of interest rates on income distribution-what has been called a 'rentier-first' monetary policy. This led Keynes, in the General Theory, to advocate for what he calls 'the euthanasia of the rentier.' For Keynes, monetary policy should be set at a low enough rate of interest as to maximize our collective ability to attain full employment. Joan Robinson further developed these ideas in her Accumulation of Capital (1956), examining the distributive nature of interest rates.

Within contemporary heterodox economics, this topic gained renewed attention in the late 1980s through influential papers by prominent post-Keynesians who highlighted concerns about how interest rate changes affect functional income distribution. This perspective places social class dynamics and class conflict at the center of monetary policy debates, challenging mainstream approaches that often overlook distributional consequences.

This book is an invaluable read for economics researchers, graduate students, and policy analysts of monetary theory, macroeconomics, political economy, income inequality, financial economics, and heterodox economic approaches.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Review of Political Economy.

War Economy: Gendered Circuits of Violence and Capital examines the war economy from feminist perspectives, bringing fresh thinking in the context of heightened geopolitical tensions.

This book challenges the common understanding of war economy as a state-driven, top-down project necessitated by a conflictual international order. It introduces the concept of gendered circuits of violence - different types of violence across space and time - to conceptually and empirically link crises and wars through flows of capital, bodies, weapons, and militarised technologies. It deals with real-world conflicts, including in Gaza and Russia/Ukraine as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Liberia, and Mexico. With increasing calls for the development of a war economy, especially in Europe, and broad acceptance that the global political economy is rapidly being primed for war, this book's feminist political economy analysis and alternatives are vital and urgent.

War Economy will appeal to students, scholars, and policymakers in the areas of International Political Economy, Politics and International Relations, Gender Studies, Security Studies, and War, Peace, and Conflict Studies.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Freud Against God traces the development of Freud's atheism, from his youth through to Moses and Monotheism, published in 1939.

Christfried Toegel takes a largely chronological approach, tracing how biographical developments in Freud's life and political events gradually led to his conviction that it is "a greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than if we give it up." The book considers Freud's life, his writing, and the influence of politics and society. Chapter 1 covers the genesis of Freud's critical attitude towards religion and the influence of Ludwig Boerne, Charles Darwin, and John Stuart Mill. Chapter 2 focuses on Freud's critiques of religion in his writing between 1907 and 1939. Chapter 3 describes how Freud dealt with the deaths of his daughter and his grandson, and with cancer and death. Chapter 4 focuses on religion, politics, and society, particularly the role of the Catholic Church in relation to Freud and psychoanalysis.

Written by a leading Freud scholar, this book provides a compact overview of Freud's atheism. Freud Against God will be of great interest to academics and scholars of Freud and religion.

The greatest challenge humanity faces in the 21st century is the climate crisis. A successful green transition towards a sustainable economy requires various policy initiatives, including promoting innovation, financing, and tax incentives for selected activities, cheap credit, and subsidies. To achieve these aims, a massive redistribution of capital will be necessary, requiring cooperation between public and private sectors, the States, and civil society.

This book introduces the idea of a "Sustainable Development Convention". A convention is a form of social production and shared knowledge that establishes collective reality. The Sustainable Development Convention is proposed in opposition to the neoliberal convention, according to which pure market coordination is superior to State coordination. The Sustainable Development Convention intends to effect a radical change in both the mission and actions of the State, developing new economic policy tools and institutions focusing on the green transition. In particular, the transition calls for a complete reordering of financial systems and capital flows, making the actions of development banks ever more critical. Development banks have been essential institutions in promoting public policies worldwide - their credit and other forms of finance and cooperation have been central tools in catching-up processes for developing and emerging economies. In times of structural change, such as the green transition, development banks are required to play a central role.

This book marks a significant addition to the literature on development banks, the green transition, the political economy of climate change, and economic and monetary policy.

This handbook delves into the innovative intersection of health and environmental humanities, capturing its multidisciplinary creative spirit by showcasing key concepts and tools, on-the-ground applications, and conversations.

The handbook captures the dynamism of the cross-disciplinary dialogue between these fields through a unique approach. It blends the elements of a traditional handbook with novel interventions. The collection features academic pieces across three sections - Concepts; Methods; and Case studies. Each of these sections also includes short provocations and contributions from artists, practitioners, and activists in these fields, interspersed with "conversation" pieces.

The handbook will be a valuable resource for scholars in health humanities, medical humanities, and environmental humanities, as well as related disciplines such as history, literary studies, philosophy, anthropology, and geography.

Chapter 17, 18, 30 and 34 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at Home Taylor & Francis eBooks, Reference Works and Collections under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International license.

In the disability community, which can have multiple meanings in itself, we often experience poignant moments in sociocultural discourse. Our pathways to knowledge and understanding of identity are defined by life's landmarks, many of which resonate with what thereby become formative figures or artefacts. This mapping of key moments involves recognising, and reflecting upon, cultural stations of disability.

More than being demarcations of disruption to the normative social order, cultural stations of disability sometimes pertain to its very epitome. They hold something of a moment in discourse with which identification is paramount but variously emotive. They may capture feelings of liberation to which we joyfully return, difficult memories that we revisit to ponder, or the nadir of modernity from which we can only hope to learn.

In this edited volume, an international gathering of contributors finds and defines dozens of cultural stations of disability in music, art, film, television programmes, literature, sitcom, activism, sport, performance, organisations, places, and events.

Cultural Stations of Disability: A Moment in Discourse will be of interest to interdisciplinary readers in disability studies, humour studies, media studies, film studies, television studies, literary studies, gender studies, cultural studies, popular music studies, and related disciplines in the humanities, education, and social sciences.

A Social Work Survival Guide to Avoiding Burnout is a transformative book designed to reshape how social workers and those in related fields approach self-care and well-being.

Based on the author's fourteen years of experience and personal journey through severe burnout, this book offers a blend of practical advice and actionable strategies to help professionals safeguard their mental health while maintaining their commitment to the communities they serve. The book provides evidence-based insights, including data from a comprehensive survey, "The Prevalence of Burnout Among Social Workers," which uncovered that 81.58% of social workers experience burnout. This startling statistic highlights the urgency of addressing this widespread issue.

This title not only delves into real-life accounts and challenges but also equips readers with the tools they need to prevent and overcome burnout, ensuring long-term resilience and effectiveness in their careers. It is a call to action for social workers in the United Kingdom and globally, aiming to create a profession where personal well-being and professional passion can coexist harmoniously.

In a world gripped by intersecting crises and deepening inequalities, can social work break free from its colonial entanglements to imagine a more just and compassionate future?

Decolonising Social Work Education: Memory, Haunting and Critical Hope in the Nordics confronts the enduring legacies of colonialism that continue to shape the foundations of social work education. Through the lenses of haunting, memory, and critical hope, it challenges the discipline's historical complicity with systems of domination and calls for a radical reimagining of its pedagogical core. Grounded in pluriversal knowledges and informed by decolonial thought, this book advocates for a transformative, relational curriculum-one that resists neoliberalism, carceral logics, and epistemic injustice.

Drawing on examples from the Nordic context, it offers a bold vision for social work rooted in justice, equity, and ecological interconnectedness. With humility, reflection, and collective imagination, it charts a path towards a liberatory future where social work becomes a force for healing and transformation.

In an era of rapid transformation in the world of work, Generation Z emerges as a transformative force, reshaping traditional employment models with their distinct preferences and values. As the first fully digital-native generation, they seek flexibility, remote work opportunities, and a healthy work-life balance. This book examines these transformative trends in the context of Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on three diverse and representative countries - Poland, Czechia, and Estonia. Together, these nations illustrate the region's economic diversity and innovation, offering insights into how local labour markets are responding to the expectations of this new workforce. Grounded in original research, including interviews and case studies, the book presents quantitative analysis to explore Gen Z's preferences, attitudes, and aspirations. The findings shed light on demographic variations, such as gender and place of residence, and examine how these factors influence work preferences across the three countries. Beyond identifying trends, the book offers practical recommendations, addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by generational change. The narrative unfolds through three interconnected themes - the socio-economic dynamics of Poland, Czechia, and Estonia, the comparative analysis of survey findings highlighting generational similarities and differences, and broader implications for industries, organizational strategies, and regional economies. Special attention is given to emerging work models such as work-from-anywhere (WFA) and workation hubs in Europe, emphasizing their role in shaping regional development and economic policy. The book bridges the gap between academic research and real-world application, making it an essential resource for scholars, researchers, advanced students, and policymakers.

Chapters 6 and 7 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license, funded by the Minister of Science and Higher Education under the "Regional Excellence Initiative" Programme.

This book explores the topic of interspecies emotional labour through the work of guide dogs and their instructors. The skill of managing emotions to present oneself with the professionalism required is referred to as emotional labour. Extending practitioner knowledge and emotional labour theory to Anthrozoology and Animal Organization Studies discourse, this multispecies ethnography draws on the author's work with guide dogs, and those of the professionals she interviewed, to introduce multiple case studies that explore the enmeshed dynamics and practices involved in emotional labour within multispecies workplaces. It presents new insights into why the emotional labour strategies a human or dog worker utilises are important, and how these can directly impact an individual's working success and well-being. Despite the centrality of emotional labour performances in multispecies workplaces, it has fallen under the radar of academic and practitioner attention until recent years, making this an innovative, timely addition to existing discourse. This book will appeal to practitioners and academics interested in understanding and improving emotional labour education and practices to support more sustainable interspecies work.

This moving book examines the HIV epidemic in the UK through the lives of a range of individuals who worked tirelessly, but often quietly, to make a difference to those living and dying with HIV.

From LGBTQ+ activists to healthcare researchers, from charity volunteers to writers and campaigners, the book shines a spotlight on a range of people who played crucial but unsung roles. From the first recorded death in 1981 through to the present day, these compelling stories illustrate the trajectory of the epidemic. Some were involved in the early stages when stigma and discrimination compounded the lack of treatment; others have helped to reach a place where, although HIV is still with us, it is no longer the existential threat it once was.

Combining the personal narratives with an overarching historical context, this book will be of interest to social historians and medical sociologists, as well as professionals working in services dealing with HIV.

The purpose of this book is to explore the fundamentals and implementation strategies of smart agriculture through the integration of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies. It examines critical aspects of planning and decision-making while providing recommendations for implementing efficient and effective intelligent agriculture solutions. Readers will gain valuable insights into how these smart technologies enhance productivity, sustainability, and precision in contemporary technology-driven farming systems.

This book:

• Discusses artificial intelligence-based 3D mapping of soil, smart weeding systems, and crop visualization in smart agriculture
• Covers data analytics-based decision-making, improving crop quality based on precise prediction, minimizing the use of pesticides for better soil quality, and precision farming systems
• Examines problems like weather forecasting, crop prediction, calculation of pesticide quantity, irrigation requirement, and prediction of the right time for seeding
• Highlights the role and importance of data visualization techniques in smart agriculture implementation
• Presents the internet of things and artificial intelligence-based solutions for smart agriculture

It is primarily written for senior undergraduate, graduate students, and academic researchers in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics, and communications engineering, computer science and engineering, and agricultural science and engineering.

Social Justice in Public Health is the first edited volume to critically assess the foundational concepts underpinning the social determinants of health (SDoH), charting paradigmatic shifts in public health as well as critiquing the depoliticization of the SDoH concept itself.

Featuring chapters from scholars across public health and the social and political sciences, as well as health professionals and policy experts, each section draws on theoretical and empirical examples of social justice in relation to health issues. Split into three parts to provide a holistic framework, Part I looks at the theoretical complexities of key issues such as race, culture, gender and class, while Part II assesses the role of social movements that have challenged long-held assumptions about the SDoH, including chapters on reproductive health, LGBTQ+ rights and mental health. Part III examines the advocacy and activism that has been used so far to create positive social change, including case studies across a range of policy areas.

Shining a critical public health spotlight on the social determinants of health, this important and insightful volume will prove fascinating reading for students and researchers across Public Health, Sociology and Political Science.

The real estate industry is undergoing unprecedented transformations driven by emerging technologies and sustainability practices. This textbook explores the intersection of PropTech, blockchain, and sustainability, shaping the future landscape of real estate investment and finance. The book is a straightforward guide to understanding how new technologies are changing the real estate industry. It explains in clear, everyday language the key digital innovations like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and blockchain transforming how homes and buildings are designed, constructed, bought, sold, financed, and managed.

The book shows how these new PropTech tools make real estate transactions faster, easier, and more efficient for buyers, sellers, agents, investors, developers, and property managers through real-world examples and case studies. Readers will learn how smart sensors and automated systems make buildings and homes smarter, greener, and more sustainable. They will discover how innovations like digital listing platforms and virtual tours are improving marketing and connectivity between agents and clients.

The book covers property search, online transactions, crowdfunding, blockchain for fractional ownership, automated valuations, and sustainability in real estate. In a simple, modular format, readers can focus on the real estate tech topics most relevant to their needs and test their knowledge and understanding using the end-of-chapter engagement exercises. Whether you are a real estate professional, student, investor, or just a technology enthusiast, this book provides the essential knowledge you need to understand the digital transformation of the real estate sector in simple language anyone can understand.

The book equips readers with the necessary information to leverage these PropTech tools and innovations for smarter, more efficient, future-oriented real estate.

Health Anxiety and the Quest for Safety critically examines how psychological and sociocultural processes influence anxiety and safety-seeking behaviour concerning perceived health risks in globalised information societies. It provides insights into how people respond to uncertainty and perceived threats to their body and health in the 'age of anxiety'.

In examining the history of health anxiety, the author explores fluctuations in concepts, highlighting the power dynamics, uncertainties, and biased social and scientific attitudes in the background. The chapters offer a critical analysis of contemporary safety-seeking strategies, including online health information searches, fad diets, self-tracking, body image interventions, and the pursuit of personal meaning and well-being. Additionally, the book investigates how sociocultural influences can induce guilt about one's body and health, promote self-blame, or foster stigmatising attitudes, while emphasising how the emergence of 'psy-culture', pop psychology, and digital tools may enhance health empowerment but also generate health-related anxieties and deepen inequalities. As a critical reflection on prevailing individualistic paradigms, the work also considers concepts that emphasise resonance and connectedness.

This book is valuable reading for clinical and health psychologists, critical social scientists, researchers, and students in the health sciences, as well as practitioners in all healthcare settings, psychotherapists, and communication specialists.

This practical book equips nurses and healthcare practitioners with essential knowledge and skills for understanding and supporting people who are experiencing mental and emotional distress as a result of the unresolved effects of past trauma.

The book explores why people experiencing stress or distress due to adverse events in the distant or recent past, may use what are sometimes called 'maladaptive' coping mechanisms to relieve the intensity of their feelings. The skills-based approach of the book addresses key topics around adverse childhood events and trauma in ways which demonstrate the humanity of people living with mental health diagnoses or mental and emotional distress. Supporting readers to respond effectively and compassionately to people experiencing this type of distress, this book is informed throughout by anonymised service user perspectives and includes examples of good practice, suggestions for small changes that make meaningful differences, and reflective activities.

Promoting practice that enables people who have experienced trauma to feel safer, more hopeful, and function at their best, this guide is an essential read for all health professionals.

This volume engages with the question of how labour is transforming under late capitalism, and what insights the study of sex work offers into these transformations.

Presenting case studies from the Global North, this book situates sex work within the frameworks of neoliberal governance, digitalization, platformization, and gig economy to examine how economic relations, labour practices, and activism are changing under these conditions. It demonstrates that sex work offers a powerful lens through which to understand the contradictions of contemporary labour regimes: autonomy bound up with precarity, visibility with surveillance, and agency with algorithmic control. The book highlights the mobility and agency of labouring subjectivities, showing how resistance often emerges through strategic engagement with the very structures produced by neoliberalism. While affirming the importance of legal recognition of sex work, the book contends that this alone is insufficient to disrupt the broader systems of exclusion and inequality experienced by sex workers and embedded in late capitalist economies.

This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced readers engaged in debates on labour, sexuality, and political economy. It is particularly relevant to those working in critical labour studies, feminist theory, sociology, and socio-legal research, as well as to policymakers and activists concerned with labour rights and social justice.

Chapter 5 and the Introduction chapter of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Transboundary water negotiations are complex as they are driven by diverse national interests, multiple legal and policy frameworks, historical, and asymmetric power relations. To induce the states to move from a national unilateral agenda to a shared cooperative agenda requires several rounds of dialogues and negotiations.

This book shows that the strategic interaction between the parties in these negotiations can be fruitfully analysed using the tools and techniques of game theory. After an introduction to game theory and the relevant models, the book explores three key cases from South Asian river basins - Indus, Brahmaputra, and Ganges. Every river basin is unique; options and choices available for negotiations are context specific. Therefore, there is no single path or 'one size fits all' transboundary interaction. The choice and the strategies a nation state adopts to gain the most preferred outcome depend on the choices and the strategies the other state is making. Thus, the book examines the specifics of each case - including the role of geographical position, power relation, policies (internal and external), access to information, rationality, as well as third-party intervention in a negotiating state's position during transboundary interaction - and explores what the application of game theory can reveal about each of the parties, their positions, and the strategies for achieving their goals.

This book is essential reading for researchers in water economics, water diplomacy and conflict, water security, and South Asian studies.