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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2021

        Disciplined agency

        Neoliberal precarity, generational dispossession and call centre labour in Portugal

        by Patrícia Alves de Matos

        Since the mid-2000s, the harsh reality of call centre employment for a generation of young workers in Portugal has been impossible to ignore. With its endless rows of small cubicles, where human agents endure repetitive telephone conversations with abusive clients under invasive modes of technological surveillance, discipline and control, call centre work remains a striking symbol of labour precarity, a condition particularly associated with the neoliberal generational disenchantment that 'each generation does better than its predecessor'. This book describes the emergence of a regime of disciplined agency in the Portuguese call centre sector. Examining the ascendancy of call centres as icons of precarity in contemporary Portugal, this book argues that call centre labour constitutes a new form of commodification of the labouring subject. De Matos argues that call centres represent an advanced system of non-manual labour power exploitation, due to the underestimation of human creativity that lies at the centre of the regimented structures of call centre labour. Call centres can only guarantee profit maintenance, de Matos argues, through the commodification of the human agency arising from the operators' moral, relational and social embedded agentive linguistic interventions of creative improvisation, decision-making, problem-solving and ethical evaluation.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2012

        The agency phenomenon in the European Union

        Emergence, institutionalisation and everyday decision-making

        by Madalina Busuioc, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Martijn Groenleer, Simon Bulmer, Jarle Trondal, Andrew Geddes, Peter Humphreys

        This volume offers a comprehensive analysis of the agency phenomenon in the European Union. It takes stock of the emergence and development of EU agencies, providing insight into the characteristics as well as the consequences of the ongoing EU agencification process. The volume traces the varied roots of and routes to agency emergence and institutionalisation. It also analyses everyday decision-making processes within EU-level agencies, notably the management of such agencies, their role in the creation of network structures in European executive governance and in the implementation of EU legislation at the member state level, and the varied sources of agency accountability. The ambition of this volume is to offer an even-handed assessment and explanation of agency creation, design, and evolution at the EU level. The volume is targeted to academics, post-graduate students and practitioners. Chapter authors include Deirdre Curtin, Renaud Dehousse, Morten Egeberg and Thomas Gehring. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2020

        Disciplined Agency

        by Patrícia Matos, Alexander Smith

      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        November 2022

        WAY WAY OUT THERE

        by Cat S.

        Are you going somewhere, Big Bear? Way Way Out There is where big things reside. They're so big - they cast shadows impossible to ignore. It's a long way away, but sometime big things come to shore on White Cliff to watch fascinating little things. Jules is an aspiring Big Bear born in White Cliff. He's been dreaming big from an early age, but has yet to figure it out. How does one grow Big? Where does one find directions? Who do you listen to? Can one so small really get There? To take one giant's advice--you'd have to see it for yourself. Way Way Out There.A wonderful fable told from the point of view of a small mind mapping out a path that would lead to something beautiful, good and true.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2019

        Emotional Intelligence in Tourism and Hospitality

        by Erdogan Koc

        Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability to recognize one's own emotions and those of others. The use of emotional information guides thinking and behavior, allowing adjustment of emotions to adapt to environments. As tourism and hospitality services are produced and consumed simultaneously, with a high level of contact between employees and customers, the development of EI of employees in tourism and hospitality establishments is vital. This book has a skills-based approach and explains how emotional intelligence can be developed in tourism and hospitality students and employees.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        New frontiers

        Imperialism's new communities in East Asia, 1842–1953

        by Robert Bickers, Christian Henriot

        In the new world order mapped out by Japanese and Western imperialism in East Asia after the mid-nineteenth century opium wars, communities of merchants and settlers took root in China and Korea. New identities were constructed, new modes of collaboration formed and new boundaries between the indigenous and foreign communities were literally and figuratively established. Newly available in paperback, this pioneering and comparative study of Western and Japanese imperialism examines European, American and Japanese communities in China and Korea, and challenges received notions of agency and collaboration by also looking at the roles in China of British and Japanese colonial subjects from Korea, Taiwan and India, and at Chinese Christians and White Russian refugees. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the history and anthropology of imperialism, colonialism's culture and East Asian history, as well as contemporary Asian affairs.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2025

        The politics of Unbelonging

        Understanding and challenging racialisation of Roma in Europe and beyond

        by Andreja Zevnik, Andrew Russell

        This book offers a comprehensive study of racialisation of Romani communities in Europe (and beyond). Drawing on the idea of unbelonging it demonstrates how Romani communities are placed in a position of visceral visibility by local, national and international institutions as well as public media discourses. It shows how such positionality impacts the ability of Roma to self-represent politically and build capacity for change. From the position of unbelonging the book offers an account of Romani agency which both challenges the mainstream representations of Roma but also develops an alternative none-nation-state sense of belonging. In doing so the book outlines an account of Romani alternative expressions in order to take control of their relationship with their own history, future, knowledge, and identity, and the rest of the society.

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        La faim justifie les moyens (Hunger justifies the means)

        by Gilka

        Elo the crocodile finds himself in a small dilemma: he must choose between his stomach and his heart. But hungry for several days, he will not hesitate long.

      • Trusted Partner
        Social & cultural history
        May 2014

        Women, dowries and agency

        by Dana Wessell Lightfoot

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2016

        A matter of intelligence

        by Charmian Brinson, Richard Dove

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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2013

        The Black Death

        by Rosemary Horrox

        This series provides texts central to medieval studies courses and focuses upon the diverse cultural, social and political conditions that affected the functioning of all levels of medieval society. Translations are accompanied by introductory and explanatory material and each volume includes a comprehensive guide to the sources' interpretation, including discussion of critical linguistic problems and an assessment of recent research on the topics covered. From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between a third and one half of the population dead. This source book traces, through contemporary writings, the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with a particular emphasis on its spread across England from 1348 to 1349. Rosemary Horrox surveys contemporary attempts to explain the plague, which was universally regarded as an expression of divine vengeance for the sins of humankind. Moralists all had their particular targets for criticism. However, this emphasis on divine chastisement did not preclude attempts to explain the plague in medical or scientific terms. Also, there was a widespread belief that human agencies had been involved, and such scapegoats as foreigners, the poor and Jews were all accused of poisoning wells. The final section of the book charts the social and psychological impact of the plague, and its effect on the late-medieval economy.

      • Trusted Partner
        Mind, Body, Spirit

        The Way of Inanna

        A Heroine’s Guide to Living Unapologetically

        by Seana Zelazo

        Myth Made ManifestOver 4000 years ago in ancient Sumer, some of the first mythographers inscribed the stories and myths of the Goddess Inanna on clay tablets in cuneiform. These incredible findings were unearthed, and the fragments were painstakingly pieced together and translated. What they discovered were the ways Inanna was heralded as a goddess who embodies polarities: impatient and deliberate, an attentive lover and fierce warrior, connected to fertility as well as death-making her an accessible, relatable, and inspiring representation of the Divine Feminine as she stands in her power and multidimensionality. The Way of Inanna is a field guide to heart-centered living through the wisdom of the Sumerian Goddess of Love. Each chapter deconstructs sacred narratives in which the Goddess navigates the seven gates of her soul's journey from awakening to ascension. More than a simple retelling, the book is myth made manifest in which Inanna becomes a means to accessing our own ascension and alchemical magic within our modern, contemporary context.

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