Political control & freedoms

This book rethinks social work’s history of both political resistance and complicity with oppressive practice. Comparing international case studies, the book uncovers the role of social workers in politically tense episodes of recent history, skilfully navigating the profession’s collective political past while considering its future.

This book explores the relationships between parents and the social workers making judgements about children involved in child protection cases. It is a powerful tool for students, practitioners and researchers to evaluate future policy and practice models, aiming for the best possible outcomes for families.

Drawing on interviews with welfare-reliant single mothers living in the South Wales Valleys, this original book charts their interactions with the labour market and welfare state. It challenges current understandings of welfare eligibility and dependency and provides valuable new policy insights for welfare reform.

This book examines how responses by the state shape a woman’s citizenship long after she has escaped from a violent partner. It investigates the effects of intimate partner violence on everyday life including housing, employment, mental health and social participation and offers critical insights for the development of social policy and practice.

This book argues that Myanmar’s resistance is deeply rooted in its university spaces. Drawing on the experiences of key actors – rectors, professors, students and activists – the book offers a compelling narrative about the life of the country following the latest coup d’état, an event that continues to puzzle the international community.

With case studies from around the world, this accessible book explores the methodological complexities of research into voluntary action, charitable behaviour and participation in voluntary organisations.

This book develops new ways of thinking beyond the nation as a form of political community by transcending ethnonational categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Drawing on scholarship and cases spanning Pacific Asia and Europe, it provides a constructive agenda for critical nationalism studies.

The word ‘refugee’ is both evocative and contested. In this essential guide for students, lawyers and non-specialists, Colin Yeo draws on his experience as an immigration barrister and key legal cases to explore international refugee law.

Thom Brooks draws on first-hand experience and interviews with key figures including past Home Secretaries to expose the UK's Citizenship test as ineffective and a barrier to citizenship. This accessible guide offers recommendations for transforming the citizenship test into a ‘bridge to citizenship’ which fosters greater inclusion and integration.

Drawing on the words and stories of queer Turkish activists, this book aims to unravel the complexities of queer lives in Turkey. In doing so, it challenges dominant conceptualizations of the queer Turkish experience within critical security discourses.

Through theories of metagovernance and case studies of mobilisations against economic and social problems, Bob Jessop explores the idea of civil society as a mode of governance. Reviewing concepts of self-emancipation and self-responsibilisation, he challenges conventional thinking and identifies lessons for future social innovation.

Through a series of interdisciplinary case studies, this topical collection is the first to focus on protest camps as unique organisational forms that transcend particular social movements’ contexts. The book offers a critical understanding of current protest events and will help better understanding of new global forms of democracy in action.