While the impacts of climate change become increasingly severe, efforts to prevent them suffer one blow after the other, as seen in the rise of far-right populist parties in Western democracies. Why does denialism thrive when blatantly contradicted by the realities before our very eyes, be it wild-fires, floods, drought, and melting glaciers? Should we abandon the assumption that the more solid the knowledge about climate change, the more eager will ordinary people as well as political leaders be to take action?

This book sets out to explain the contradiction witnessed between knowledge and action. Inspired by Clive Hamilton's claim that "denial is due to a surplus of culture rather than a deficit of information", the book critiques the focus on "cognitive disso-nance" in individual agents advocated by climate psychology as well as the individualistic bias in liberal political theory. To get out of the current theoretical as well as political impasse, the author suggests three moves are necessary: from knowledge to first-hand experience, and so to feelings; from the tension within the individual to the social organization of denial; and from the obsession with personal responsibility - nowadays in the guise of building resilience - to exposing the complicity of the culture of neoliberalism in the intimately intertwined crisis of politics and the climate alike.

A highly timely and sharp analysis of the roots of inaction and denial and possible strategies for resistance, the book will appeal to scholars and upper-level students with interests in social, political, and environmental philosophy and psychology; political theory; and environmental studies.

Environmental Hermeneutics in the Anthropocene is a diverse collection of essays that approach contemporary environmental problems with the tools and perspectives provided by the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, advanced by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur.
Engaging both established and new voices, this book presents a significant contribution to the field by expanding the scope of philosophical hermeneutics to environmental issues. It addresses a broad scope of environmental topics such as the Anthropocene, climate change, degrowth, environmental justice, the limits of language in understanding nature, and environmental aesthetics in environmental practice. Together, the chapters show the crisis of regional and global environmental problems to be in part a crisis of interpretation. The ways that human beings understand their relationship to environments shape and determine how to act and live within places. Yet the values and ideals that different people have about their lived environments often come into conflict. Thus hermeneutics plays an important role in environmental discourse: it helps adjudicate these conflicting understandings.
This collection of essays demonstrates the unique way that environmental hermeneutics can be employed to understand environments in this age of the Anthropocene. It will appeal to researchers and upper-level students in environmental humanities, environmental studies, ethics and philosophy.

This book is an accessible reference guide to the key concepts associated with argumentation theory, criticism, and pedagogy.

Providing an encyclopedic-style synthesis, the book defines and describes 175 essential concepts of argumentation, and provides discussion of the meaning, application, and impact, as well as offering suggestions for further reading. Readers are introduced to foundational reasoning methods-deductive, inductive, and abductive-as well as key argumentative models such as the Toulmin Model and Pragma-Dialectics. The text delves into the identification and analysis of fallacies, the evaluation of evidence, and the crucial roles of context, audience adaptation, and argumentative style. It explores the ethical dimensions of argument, the impact of cognitive bias, and the influence of cultural and discourse communities.

The first of its kind and a key entry point to understanding the fundamental principles of the field, this guidebook is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in argumentation, debate, rhetoric, and communication studies as well as other related disciplines. It will also be of interest to the general reader looking to improve their analytical and decision-making abilities.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

How do we hold onto friends and communities in a world that feels increasingly fragmented?

This timely collection explores how social connection unfolds across personal, physical, community and digital spaces. From loneliness to belonging, the collection explores the broader social forces that shape our interactions. Packed with fresh insights and accessible research, the contributors bridge theory and practice.

Offering practical strategies for policy and practice, this book charts paths to meaningful connection. An essential guide for policy makers, academics and anyone seeking deeper connections, it provides hope - and action - for a more connected future.

Transcultural Exchange through Art provides an exploration of two countries and their capital cities, two regions and their growing cultural engagement with one another, soft and hard power and their impact on the arts, multiculturalism, museums, globalization, cosmopolitanism and postcoloniality.

Drawing on the author's experiences of working in Kenya and living in South Korea, as well as interviews with artists, curators and other practitioners, the book demonstrates that experiencing "otherness" through the imaginative engagement of art can cultivate appreciation of cultural diversity. Various case studies from Nairobi and Seoul are analyzed to unpack narratives about nation, self and other through the cultural and creative industries. By focusing on two non-Western regional capitals whose urban contemporary development is affected by their colonial pasts, the book explores the larger dynamics of postcolonial nation building and the formulation of cultural identities in the face of rapid economic development and demographic changes. The issues identified in the study are linked to wider debates concerning the role of the arts and art museums in relation to migration, globalization and multiculturalism.

Transcultural Exchange through Art will be of great interest to academics and practitioners working in the cultural and creative industries, museum and curatorial studies, visual culture studies, African studies and Asian studies. The book transcends disciplinary boundaries and relates academic research to pragmatic issues such as diversity and inclusion in public cultural spaces.

In the last decade, the popularity of 'romance' in the AAA game has exploded. It has become an expectation for major releases and a regular object of fan obsession. High-profile games such as Baldur's Gate III (2023), Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and Starfield (2023) prominently feature in-game romance in their multimillion-dollar promotional campaigns. Moreover, rampant speculation by gaming journalists and fans about who is 'romanceable' will regularly accompany the announcement of a new title. However, representations of romance have long been under-examined and vaguely defined by scholars. This leaves important questions unanswered. How does the digital game mediate cultural attitudes towards love and sex? How can we classify representations of romance in the digital game? Does romance simply replicate existing hegemonies surrounding gender and sexuality, or does it offer a space for transgressive play?

This book positions optional romance in the AAA game as a central object of analysis. Based on the close analysis of some of the most commercially and culturally significant games of the last 30 years like Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), the Mass Effect series (2007-21) and the Elder Scrolls series (1994-2024), it is the first full-length monograph to effectively and comprehensively categorise how mainstream gaming asks its audience to engage with romance. It interrogates the idiosyncrasies of romance in the popular games to provide fresh insights into messaging surrounding normative social understandings of love, sex and intimacy.

By theorising four representational categories of romance-Limerent, Physical, Domestic and Ludic-Automatic Love introduces a new theoretical framework for scholars to understand romance, gender and sexuality in gaming.

This book features methodological and theoretical perspectives that embody fundamental questions concerning the historical paradigm of Atlantic Studies and beyond to explore, cultural theory, visual culture, literature, and the narratives and iconography of popular culture (among others).

Embracing a transdisciplinary and forward-looking approach, the volume charts new directions for understanding the Atlantic world through contributions that examine river networks, transatlantic Indigenous travel, the circulation of letters and "exotic" animals, the French Atlantic slave trade, and museum spaces as sites of decolonizing processes. It also proposes expanded geographies-such as viewing the Atlantic from the Arctic-and reconsiders the cultural currents that continue to shape global imaginaries.

This collection marks the twentieth anniversary of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, offering a timely reflection on the journal's legacy while pointing to the future of the field. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students in Atlantic Studies, history, literary and cultural studies, art history, postcolonial studies, and global and transoceanic studies.

In the current sociopolitical landscape, hyperandrogenism has become a lightning rod for collective anxieties about transgender identities and "preserving" women's sports, as well as misunderstandings about the inherent fairness of sport and the biological mechanisms that quantify athletic advantage. Perched behind this discourse, people living with hyperandrogenism face ongoing destabilization of healthcare access and find their experiences are often silenced and marginalized.

This book offers a novel therapeutic method for individuals with hyperandrogenism to share their experiences using literary hypertext-a form of digital storytelling that invites readers to participate by selecting hyperlinks. Focusing on a case study of women and nonbinary individuals with hyperandrogenism, ten hypertext authors' narratives are explored. Their experiences highlight the therapeutic value of writing a hypertext illness narrative by mapping reflective experiences through hyperlinks and sharing their narrative with the broader community.

Providing interdisciplinary insights into the lived experience of hyperandrogenism, as well as practical guidance on the clinical use of literary text, this book will appeal to researchers and clinicians interested in hyperandrogenism, gender studies, health humanities, narrative therapy, electronic media, game design and feminist media studies.

Chapter 4 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.

This book offers a comprehensive account of social media as a tool for connecting the world, and how its amoeboid growth pattern has led it to where it is today. Fuelled by rapid advances in communication technologies, social media platforms are gradually revolutionising the way billions of users communicate and share content worldwide on the web. They have become the fulcrum of the interconnected world in the present century. The book articulates a specific theme, beginning with foundational concepts, followed by an in-depth analysis of the current scenario and its associated challenges.

This book explores both the promise and the pitfalls of social media. From its role in participatory politics, crowd-sourced crisis response, and cultural promotion to its misuse in everyday life, it examines the expanding impact of social platforms. Through a thought-provoking analysis, it asks: How do we channel this power meaningfully in the age of relentless digital integration? It suggests that the solution is not to disconnect, but to reimagine connection - with responsibility, awareness, and purpose.

The book will be specifically valuable for students teachers and practitioners of Communication and Media, Public Policy, Public Administration, Sociology, and General Management.

An Introduction to AI and Intercultural Communication Education is the first, historic volume to explore the intersection of AI and intercultural communication education, interrogating both the transformative possibilities and ethical dilemmas posed by emerging technologies.

Through diverse scholarly perspectives, the book examines how AI tools, ranging from language models such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek to generative image systems, could reshape the way we teach, research and conceptualise interculturality. While AI offers innovative opportunities for virtual exchanges, automated translation and accessible learning, it also risks reinforcing stereotypes, Western-centric epistemologies and reductive narratives if used uncritically. The contributors address pressing questions: Can AI facilitate decolonial and reflexive approaches to intercultural communication education, or does it inevitably reproduce dominant paradigms? How can educators harness the potential of AI while safeguarding against its pitfalls, such as algorithmic bias and the erasure of indigenous knowledge systems? Combining theoretical critique with case studies, the volume highlights the need for ethical frameworks that prioritise epistemic justice, pluralistic perspectives and human agency in AI-assisted intercultural communication and education.

This book is an indispensable resource for students, researchers and educators interested in the complexities of technology-mediated learning, as well as the broader fields of higher education, intercultural studies and internationalisation and globalisation.

This global, critical, and interdisciplinary handbook rethinks home as a material, emotional, and geopolitical site. It examines housing, displacement, domesticity, climate, care and the intimate labours, subjectivities, and practices of home. Across diverse contexts and with varied perspectives, including feminist, queer, and decolonial apprachers, the handbook chapters challenge romanticised ideals and illuminate home's inequalities, exclusions, and possibilities.

Spanning 46 chapters across four parts ("Theorising Home," "Housing and Home," "Domesticities and Everyday Life," and "Global Challenges and Home Futures"), this handbook blends conceptual innovation with grounded research. It offers global case studies, theoretical depth, and pedagogical tools on home's entanglements with law, human rights, ecology, technology, violence, and more-making it indispensable for critical scholarship, teaching, and practice.

Designed for a broad audience, this handbook supports undergraduate learning, graduate teaching, and advanced research. It equips scholars, educators, activists, policymakers, and practitioners with essential insights and resources to engage with home as a site of power, identity, and struggle in a rapidly changing world.

Parklets are innovative, dynamic public spaces that are installed onto on-street car-parking spots. These very small spaces have had a very large and lasting impact on city streets. How Good Are Parklets? is the first book to critically examine the parklet's purposes, formats and impacts. It traces the parklet's history, from its invention in 2005 as an experiment that tactically reclaimed street space for broader public use, to its surge in popularity worldwide after the COVID-19 pandemic for outdoor dining, community gathering and play. Drawing together archival research, expert interviews, typological analysis, mapping, field observation and design research, this book examines parklets' design, production and implementation across varying urban contexts. By examining a wide range of contemporary practices, this book identifies parklets' potentials to reshape streets, meet diverse social needs and foster community engagement. This book situates parklets within the wider push towards deploying temporary and tactical strategies in the planning and management of cities. Its deep enquiry into one question about one type of spatial intervention contributes new insights into the complex interplays of actors, interests, processes and materials that are currently transforming the urban landscape - one parking space at a time.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the ways in which research and perspectives from the social sciences and humanities can be combined for a more effective understanding of climate change and its impacts. Climate change affects all aspects of life, influencing personal lifestyle choices and political perceptions. Beyond legal and political measures, the engagement of individuals and local communities has become essential for necessary systemic change. Understanding the complex human and social dynamics is key to achieving real change, in favour of a resilient and low-carbon future.

This book highlights the theoretical and practical contributions of the social sciences and humanities in understanding how humans perceive and respond to climate change, and the ways in which they can be combined to fight climate disruption and its effects. These interdisciplinary approaches draw upon fields such as communication sciences, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, educational sciences, management studies, and philosophy, to explore the nexus between climate change and human and social dynamics in individual, collective, and political actions.

Drawing on a wide range of interesting case studies, the book highlights opportunities for collaboration between disciplines by combining methodological and theoretical components and synthesizing the research results. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that a more effective collaboration between the social sciences and humanities is required to fully understand the complexities of our relationship with climate change, and to pave the way to a real ecological transition. The book will be of use to scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners interested in communication studies, psychology, linguistics, sociology, philosophy, management, educational studies, transition studies, and connected fields.

The green digital transition is underway. But what does this transition look like when dictated by the energy and resource demands of monopoly tech? How has this situation come to be? And where is it being resisted?

This provocative book uncovers the hidden intersections of land, resource extraction and climate policy in the transition to "greener" and "smarter" economies. Challenging eco-modern and techno-solutionist approaches, the book links narratives of sustainability with colonial histories and uneven development, arguing that tech-driven transitions replicate exploitative patterns of imperial capitalism. Using Ireland as a focal point, the authors show how the history and depth of the country's postcolonial dependency on multinational investment, especially US technology companies, comes into friction with disparate land-based struggles.

Thinking with these movements, the book offers a critique of dependent models of development and proposes an anti-imperialist approach to environmental politics.

This is the first book to offer in-depth analysis of the use of digital technologies in sport, exercise and physical education; their significance for the relationship between sport, exercise and wider society; and their impact on research in sport, exercise and physical education.

Featuring the work of leading researchers from around the world, and drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives including from sociology, pedagogy, psychology and related disciplines, with a strong focus on qualitative, social scientific approaches, this book examines how individuals experience and engage with technology in the context of their physical practices. Exploring key concepts and methodologies, as well looking at how digital technologies are used in practice, this book covers diverse topics including social media, wearables, apps, video software, AI and in the context of teaching, coaching, learning, athlete safeguarding and more.

This book is essential reading for any student, researcher, teacher, instructor or coach with an interest in sport, exercise, physical education, psychology, health and the relationships between technology and society.

Chapters 21 and 30 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Participatory Action Research in Post-Colonial Contexts provides a comprehensive exploration of Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a transformative methodology uniquely suited to post-colonial contexts, explicitly addressing the ongoing impact of colonial legacies and systemic inequalities in knowledge production and social change.

Integrating critical theory, methodological insights, and vivid case studies, this book highlights how PAR empowers marginalised communities, advances social justice, and promotes sustainable development. Readers will benefit from practical strategies for navigating ethical complexities, addressing power imbalances, and ensuring the enduring impact of participatory research. Key features include an in-depth examination of decolonial frameworks, guidance on measuring and sustaining social change, and innovative methods integrating digital technology to scale participatory initiatives.

Ideal for graduate students, researchers, lecturers, and practitioners in sociology, anthropology, education, development studies, and environmental justice, this text also serves as essential reading for policymakers and activists committed to equity-driven research and community empowerment.

Challenging anthropocentric perspectives by highlighting cultural representations of plants and animals across Latin American history

The first book to integrate both critical plant studies and critical animal studies within the context of Latin American culture, this collection explores the relationships between plants, animals, and humans across various countries and historical periods and through various kinds of media. Acknowledging nonhuman species as coproducers of culture, this volume offers a deeper understanding of the region's natural environment and humanity's place in it.

Contributors analyze a wide range of cultural production, including recent science films on monarch butterfly migration, nineteenth-century photographs of Panama, the eighteenth-century diary of a nun in New Granada, 1920s Brazilian landscape paintings, contemporary Zapotec poetry, and twentieth-century vegetarian cookbooks from Uruguay and Mexico. By focusing on plants and animals, these essays uncover the entanglements of nonhuman lives with issues such as race, gender, labor, and coloniality, while highlighting other-than-human ways of living, knowing, and communicating.

Plants and Animals in Latin American Cultural Production promotes a deeper understanding of cultural forms in Latin America and breaks down disciplinary divides-both between critical animal studies and critical plant studies and among fields such as literary studies, film studies, and art history. Ultimately, this collection challenges anthropocentric perspectives as it offers new pathways to think about and with plants and animals.

Contributors: Patricia Isabel Lontro Marder Vieira Jorge Quintana Navarrete Beatriz Rivera-Barnes Brian T. Chandler Oscar A. Perez Niall A. Peach Pilar Espitia Jonathan Mulki Cristina E. Pardo Porto Thomaz Amancio Micah McKay Ana Carolina Carmona-Ribeiro Vanesa Miseres Victor Sierra Matute Kate Ostrom Emily Celeste Vazquez Enriquez Dr. Mauricio Espinoza

This book provides a critique of naturalistic views of subjects and agency, arguing that these are conditioned ways of conceiving of the mind and the cosmos. It draws on the relevant literature on substance dualism, idealism, and theism to draw out the implications for a theistic view of the world.

In contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, naturalism is the default position for thinking about the mind in relation to the world. This book argues that we should reconsider naturalistic paradigms in favor of a more holistic and bigger picture of the mind. It defends a form of theistic dualism in light of varying naturalistic trends that, arguably, place limiting pressures on our constructive views of humans as ensouled beings. The book takes seriously the notion of first-person phenomenological perspectives as the starting point for constructing a metaphysical view of the world. The author's arguments touch on the topics of consciousness, dualism, cosmic purpose, science and religion, and the meaning of life. He proceeds to explore the implications of deconditioning on the philosophy of mind, theism, science, and the social sciences.

God, Souls, and Consciousness will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, religion and science, and analytic theology.