Sociology

This book offers insights into the argument that capitalist society damages human health and well-being. Drawing on and bringing Marx’s theory of alienation forward to the present day, it uniquely links it to well-being.

Exploring the relationship between humour and offensiveness, this book delves into offensive jokes, their impact, and the dark side of laughter. It blends cultural analysis, politics, and philosophy to offer an antidote to positive thinking and guide readers through offensive humour.

Based on decades of research, this book explores global social change processes through the concepts of social change organisations (SCOs) and social change makers (SCMs) – the individuals working within and alongside SCOs.

In recent years, UN agencies, global tech corporations, states and humanitarian NGOs have invested in surveillance technologies to support migrant communities and streamline their management.

This book reveals the way in which they grant extensive powers to states and big tech corporations to control communities.

How do we engage with the threat of social and environmental degradation while creating and maintaining liveable and just worlds? Researchers from diverse backgrounds unpack this question through a series of original and committed contributions to this wide-ranging volume.

Supported by the editors’ popular podcast Narrative Now, this interdisciplinary volume explores the capacities and limitations of narrative research. It maps out new directions for the field while honouring its legacy.

This timely book addresses an overlooked area of criminal justice by focusing on the reality of pregnancy and new motherhood in prison. Based on the experiences of women in mother and baby units, it passionately argues the case for minimising harm, making key reading for criminology and midwifery students and researchers.

Presenting in-depth accounts of North Korean women defectors living in the UK, this book examines how the harrowing experiences they endured and their utopian dream of a better future for fellow North Korean women have become an impetus for their activism.

Exploring the creative and destructive ways individuals and groups make use of new digital and social media in democratic societies across the world, this book presents a much-needed critical theory of the public sphere as we enter the new digital age.

ePDFs of chapters 4, 5 and 7 are available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence

This book illustrates the ways in which contestations in Myanmar society are reflected in civil society. It provides an up-to-date overview of the main identities and contestations in Myanmar society as a whole.

Considering food consumption in a wider social context, this book offers an alternative understanding of class relations, which extends academic, political and public debates about privilege.

The health and fitness industry has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, yet its slick exterior conceals a darker side. Using ethnographic data from gyms, interviews and social media platforms, this book investigates the growing use of image and performance-enhancing drugs (IPEDs) and their role in masculine body image.