Your Search Results

      • Trusted Partner
        September 2022

        Identity or Not?

        by Jean-Pierre Wils (ed.)

        Questions of identity trigger controversial and highly emotional discussions in the political and social debate. The positions range from radically emancipatory perspectives to authoritarian and restorative efforts on the far right wing of politics. Liberal democracies are now opening up – slowly – as identity- and gender-sensitive forums. Opposite them are the 'new ethics' of illiberal democracies and totalitarian states that are aimed at ethnic homogeneity and gender uniformity. But that's not to say that there is unity in the liberal settings on the necessary degree of identity politics. Both language and gender politics are deeply controversial. Do we need an 'identity' and, if so, which one or how many? Can the identity debate be extended by means of other concepts?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2008

        The politics of identity and civil society in Britain and Germany

        Miners in the Ruhr and South Wales 1890–1926

        by Leighton James, Steven Fielding, John Callaghan, Steve Ludlam

        This study compares the making and remaking of the political identities of the miners' movements in Britain and Germany. Taking the south Wales and Ruhr coalfields as case studies, it focuses on the public discourse of the trade unions and political parties as it was disseminated in local newspapers, trade union publications, pamphlets and election leaflets. It reveals how the miners' movements used ideas such as class, religion, the 'people' or Volk, socialization and nationalization to construct organizational identities during the turbulent period between 1890 and 1926. These concepts were crucial not only in the formation and self-identity of the miners' trade unions, but also in the way they interacted with employers and the state. They adapted and changed over time as the miners' movements reacted to war, economic depression and increasing industrial conflict. The book contends that these identities were not simply the result of structural factors, but were formed at the juncture where cultural, political and sociological forces intersect. Examining this intersection through discourse analysis and the concept of the 'lifeworld', the book brings together the social world of the miners and the realm of organized politics to advance historical understanding of two of the most important elements in the most powerful labour movements in Europe. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2022

        Civic identity and public space

        Belfast since 1780

        by Dominic Bryan, Sean J. Connolly, John Nagle

        Civic identity and public space, focussing on Belfast, and bringing together the work of a historian and two social scientists, offers a new perspective on the sometimes lethal conflicts over parades, flags and other issues that continue to disrupt political life in Northern Ireland. It examines the emergence during the nineteenth century of the concept of public space and the development of new strategies for its regulation, the establishment, the new conditions created by the emergence in 1920 of a Northern Ireland state, of a near monopoly of public space enjoyed by Protestants and unionists, and the break down of that monopoly in more recent decades. Today policy makers and politicians struggle to devise a strategy for the management of public space in a divided city, while endeavouring to promote a new sense of civic identity that will transcend long-standing sectarian and political divisions.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2008

        National Missile Defence and the politics of US identity

        A poststructural critique

        by Natalie Bormann

        Why adopt a poststructural lens for the reading of the military strategy of national missile defence (NMD)? No doubt, when contemplating an attack on US territory by intercontinental ballistic missiles, consulting Michel Foucault and critical international relations theory scholars may not seem the obvious route to take. The answer to this lies in another question: why has there been so much interest and continuous investment in NMD deployment when there is such ambiguity surrounding the status of threat to which it responds, controversy over its technological feasibility and concern about its cost? Posed in this manner, the question cannot be answered on its own terms - the terms given in official accounts of NMD that justify the system's significance on the basis of strategic feasibility studies and conventional threat predictions guided by worst-case scenarios. Instead, this book argues that the preferences leading to NMD deployment must be understood as satisfying requirements beyond strategic approaches and issues. In turning towards the interpretative modes of inquiry provided by critical social theory and poststructuralism, this book contests the conventional wisdom about NMD and suggests reading the strategy in terms of US identity. Presented as an analysis of discourses on threats to national security, around which the need for NMD deployment is predominantly framed, this book is an effort to let the two fields of critical international relations theory and US foreign policy speak directly to each other. It seeks to do so by showing how the concept of identity can be harnessed to an analysis of a contemporary military-strategic practice. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2021

        Insanity, identity and empire

        Immigrants and institutional confinement in Australia and New Zealand, 1873–1910

        by Catharine Coleborne

        Insanity, identity and empire examines the formation of colonial social identities inside the institutions for the insane in Australia and New Zealand. Taking a large sample of patient records, it pays particular attention to gender, ethnicity and class as categories of analysis, reminding us of the varied journeys of immigrants to the colonies and of how and where they stopped, for different reasons, inside the social institutions of the period. It is about their stories of mobility, how these were told and produced inside institutions for the insane, and how, in the telling, colonial identities were asserted and formed. Having engaged with the structural imperatives of empire and with the varied imperial meanings of gender, sexuality and medicine, historians have considered the movements of travellers, migrants, military bodies and medical personnel, and 'transnational lives'. This book examines an empire-wide discourse of 'madness' as part of this inquiry.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2017

        Cultivating political and public identity

        by Rodney Barker

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2023

        Politics, performance and popular culture

        Theatre and society in nineteenth-century Britain

        by Peter Yeandle, Katherine Newey, Jeffrey Richards

        This collection brings together studies of popular performance and politics across the nineteenth century, offering a fresh perspective from an archivally grounded research base. It works with the concept that politics is performative and performance is political. The book is organised into three parts in dialogue regarding specific approaches to popular performance and politics. Part I offers a series of conceptual studies using popular culture as an analytical category for social and political history. Part II explores the ways that performance represents and constructs contemporary ideologies of race, nation and empire. Part III investigates the performance techniques of specific politicians - including Robert Peel, Keir Hardie and Henry Hyndman - and analyses the performative elements of collective movements.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        February 2025

        The political economy of Turkey’s integration to Europe

        Uneven development and hegemony

        by Elif Uzgören

        This book examines Turkey's integration with Europe within structural dynamics of globalisation from a critical political economy perspective. Critical approaches have been sidelined within European Studies. Turkish enlargement is not an exemption. The analyses are based on original data generated by 109 interviews conducted in 2010, 2017 and 2023 with five categories of actors: representatives of capital and labour, political parties, state officials, and struggles around ecology, patriarchy and migration. It argues that the pro-membership was hegemonic in the 2000s which was contested by two rival class strategies, Ha-vet and neo-mercantilism. In the 2010s, pro-membership is no longer hegemonic within rising critical tone of social forces supporting rival class strategies. Unevenness of Turkey's trajectory of integration to Europe is likely to be consolidated through market integration and management of migration through transactional approach.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2018

        The politics of identity

        by Christine Agius, Dean Keep

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2017

        Cultural identities and the aesthetics of Britishness

        by Dana Arnold

        Considers how notions of Britishness were constructed and promoted through architecture, landscape, painting, sculpture and literature. Maps important moments in the self-conscious evolution of the idea of 'nation' against a broad cultural historical framework. An important addition to the field of postcolonial studies as it looks at how British identity creation affected those living in England - most study in this area has thus far focused on the effect of such identity creation upon the colonial subject. Broad appeal due to wide subject matter covered. Examines just how 'constructed' a national identity is - past and present.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2023

        Socialist republic

        Remaking the British left in 1980s Sheffield

        by Daisy Payling

        Socialist republic is a timely account of 1980s left-wing politics in South Yorkshire. It explores how Sheffield City Council set out to renew the British Left. Through careful analysis of the Council's agenda and how it interacted with trade unions, women's groups, lesbian and gay rights groups and acted on issues such as peace, environmentalism, anti-apartheid and anti-racism, the book draws out the complexities involved in building a broad-based politics which aimed unite class and identity politics. Running counter to 1980s narratives dominated by Thatcherism, the book examines the persistence of social democracy locally, demonstrating how grassroots local histories can enrich our understanding of political developments on a national and international level. The book is essential reading for students, scholars, and activists with an interest in left-wing politics and history.

      • Trusted Partner
        International relations
        September 2005

        Naming security - constructing identity

        ‘Mayan-women’ in Guatemala on the eve of ‘peace’

        by Maria Stern

        How do people seek security in relation to their sense of 'who they are'? How can one make sense of insecurity at the intersection of competing identity claims? Based on the voices of Mayan women, Stern critically re-considers the connections between security, subjectivity and identity. By engaging in a careful reading of how Mayan women 'speak' security in relation to the different contexts that inform their lives, she explores the multiplicity of both identity and security, and questions the main story of security imbedded in the modern 'paradox of sovereignty.' Her provocative analysis thus raises vital questions about what might constitute 'security', and the 'insecurity' that is its inevitable supplement. Her study also offers an innovative methodology that bridges many different disciplines and substantively develops the method of 'reading' politics as a 'textual practice'. It will be essential reading for students of security, identity politics, feminism, and Latin American studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2024

        Peace and the politics of memory

        by Annika Björkdahl, Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Stefanie Kappler, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, Timothy Williams

        This important book provides new understandings of how the politics of memory impacts peace in societies transitioning from a violent past. It does so by developing a theoretical approach focusing on the intersection of sites, agency, narratives, and events in memory-making. Drawing on rich empirical studies of mnemonic formations in Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, South Africa and Cambodia, the book speaks to a broad audience. The in-depth, cross-case analysis shows that inclusivity, pluralism, and dignity in memory politics are key to the construction of a just peace. The book contributes crucial and timely knowledge about societies that grapple with the painful legacies of the past and advances the study of memory and peace.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2020

        US politics today

        by Edward Ashbee, Bill Jones

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        December 2020

        Living politics after war

        by Johanna Söderström, Emmanuel Pierre Guittet

      • Trusted Partner
        Biography & True Stories
        November 2024

        Walking in the dark

        James Baldwin, my father and I

        by Douglas Field

        A moving exploration of the life and work of the celebrated American writer, blending biography and memoir with literary criticism. Since James Baldwin's death in 1987, his writing - including The Fire Next Time, one of the manifestoes of the Civil Rights Movement, and Giovanni's Room, a pioneering work of gay fiction - has only grown in relevance. Douglas Field was introduced to Baldwin's essays and novels by his father, who witnessed the writer's debate with William F. Buckley at Cambridge University in 1965. In Walking in the dark, he embarks on a journey to unravel his life-long fascination and to understand why Baldwin continues to enthral us decades after his death. Tracing Baldwin's footsteps in France, the US and Switzerland, and digging into archives, Field paints an intimate portrait of the writer's life and influence. At the same time, he offers a poignant account of coming to terms with his father's Alzheimer's disease. Interweaving Baldwin's writings on family, illness, memory and place, Walking in the dark is an eloquent testament to the enduring power of great literature to illuminate our paths.

      Subscribe to our

      newsletter