Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
You are looking at 1 - 10 of 194 items for :
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The platform economy, powered by companies like Airbnb, Uber and Deliveroo, promised to revolutionize the way we work and live. But what are the actual benefits to our society and economy?
This book interrogates the ‘sharing economy’, showing how platform capitalism is not only shaped by business decisions, but is a result of struggles involving social movements, consumer politics and state interventions. It focuses in particular on the controversial tactics used by platform giants to avoid regulation.
Drawing on cutting-edge research and analysis, this book provides a critical overview of this important topic, and imagines the different possible futures of the platform economy.
Looking at how austerity has become embedded in institutional practices, this book offers new critical insights into the uneven geographies created by austerity.
Reflecting on the spatially and socially uneven impacts of austerity on individuals and families, Julie MacLeavy shows how the ‘new normal’ of post-welfare state governance will negatively condition life chances, even in better economic times. She considers the political, economic and social developments that have led us to the present moment and shows how the rhetoric of austerity has pushed social inequality and uneven development off the political agenda.
It is vital that we decolonise community education and development – learning from the past in order to challenge current discrimination and oppression more effectively. In this book, Marjorie Mayo identifies ways of developing more inclusive policies and practices, working towards social justice for the future. She also tackles the pervasive influence of the ‘culture wars’ undermining work in communities, including the denial of problematic colonial legacies.
Inspired by movements such as Black Lives Matter and labour solidarity, the book includes case studies from the US, UK and the Global South, outlining the lessons that can be applied to community education and development training and practice.
The concept of smart cities holds environmental promises: that digital technologies will reduce carbon emissions, air pollution and waste, and help address climate change.
Drawing on academic scholarship and two case studies from Manchester and Helsinki, this timely and accessible book examines what happens when these promises are broken, as they prioritise technological innovation rather than environmental care. The book reveals that smart cities’ vision of sustainable digital future obfuscates the environmental harms and social injustices that digitisation inflicts. The framework of “broken promises”, coined by the authors, centres environmental questions in analysing imaginaries and practices of smart cities.
This is a must read for anyone interested in the connections between digital technologies and environment justice.
There has been a rebirth of interest in bringing community back into social work, but what does community social work mean when applied to practice? What are the opportunities in a landscape dominated by shrinking budgets with their attendant procedural and risk-obsessed, assessment and care management models?
In this accessibly written book, Colin Turbett explores the erratic history of community social work. He goes on to demonstrate through contemporary examples how this preventative and relationship-based model can work for the individuals and communities served, and also provide an answer to the recruitment and retention issues adversely affecting mainstream settings.
Spatial planning is at a crossroads, with government reform undermining the traditional vision of state-employed planners making decisions about urban development in a unified public interest. Nearly half of UK planners are now employed in the private sector, with complex inter-relations between the sectors including supplying outsourced services to local authorities struggling with centrally-imposed budget cuts.
Drawing on new empirical data from a major research project, ‘Working in the Public Interest’, this book reveals what it’s like to be a UK planner in the early 21st century, and how the profession can fulfil its potential for the benefit of society and the environment.
This collection presents critical and action-oriented approaches to addressing food systems challenges across places, spaces, and scales. With case studies from around the globe, Radical Food Geographies explores interconnections between power structures and the social and ecological dynamics that bring food from the land and water to our plates. Through themes of scale, spatial imaginaries, and human and more-than-human relationships, the authors explore ongoing efforts to co-construct more equitable and sustainable food systems for all.
Advancing a radical food geographies praxis, the book reveals multiple forms of resistance and resurgence, and offers examples of co-creating food systems transformation through scholarship, action, and geography.
Understanding justice, for many, begins with questions of injustice. This volume pushes us to consider the extent to which our scholarly and everyday practices are, or can become, socially just. In this edited collection, international contributors reflect on what the practice of ‘justice’ means to them, and discuss how it animates and shapes their research across diverse fields from international relations to food systems, political economy, migration studies and criminology.
Giving insights into real life research practices for scholars at all levels, this book aids our understanding of how to employ and live justice through our work and daily lives.
Over recent decades, LGBTQ people have successfully fought for civil and reproductive rights across Western states, including the right to marry, have children and serve openly as public servants and in the armed forces. Internationally, states have started to use their stance on homonormativity to position themselves as progressive.
This book provides new insights into the role played by race, sexuality, and gender by analysing contemporary constructions of Swedishness through LGBTQ rights by using three specific case studies:
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A ‘pride parade’ organised by the Swedish populist right
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Swedish Armed Forces’ marketing material
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A social media account by and for racialised LGBTQ people.
The sixth, fully updated edition of this bestselling guide links the theory and practice of community work in an insightful and relatable read for students and practitioners alike. With an accessible style, experienced author Alan Twelvetrees sets out the realities of practice in everyday community development (CD) work.
With a much-expanded section on specialist community work, the guide also features brand new sections on work in health, housing, with children, young people and those with disabilities and the changing role of IT, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition features:
• clear ‘how to’ guides for a variety of CD-related practice;
• case studies;
• end of chapter discussion points;
• signposts to digital resources;
• glossary.
This classic text provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge required to work in community practice in the UK and is essential for anyone studying or working in the field.
