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

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Feminist, Cultural and Sociological Perspectives
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This book offers a comprehensive overview of the field of the Sociology of Emotions, incorporating sociological, feminist and cultural perspectives.

Structured around three dimensions - conceptualisation, theory and analysis of emotions - it provides new insights into the field, with a particular focus on contemporary social issues such as loneliness, depression, confidence, consumption, class, intimacy and sexuality.

The book examines the language of emotions, looking at macro and micro framing of emotions in modernity, emotional labour, public emotions, passionate emotions, melancholic emotions, masculinity and emotions, love, intimacy and emotions. It delves into both positive and negative emotions such as happiness, anger, fear and sadness.

The book will be essential reading for researchers and students seeking a current and interdisciplinary resource covering a wide range of international material in the field of Sociology of Emotions.

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Theory, Policy and Practice in European Perspective

This innovative interdisciplinary collection confronts the worldwide challenge of women's under-representation in science through an interrogation of the field of physics and its gender imbalance.

Leading physicists and sociologists from across Europe collaborate to adopt a comparative approach. They draw on theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence to explore the reasons behind low participation levels, from entering the field to sustaining a career, emphasising the importance of social perspectives over biological explanations.

Evaluating policy solutions implemented in various European contexts, this book offers key insights into the world of women physicists and sheds light on their life stories.

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Bodies, Emotions, and Feminist Activism

Offering a unique perspective, this book explores the lived, embodied and affective experiences of reproductive rights activists living under, and mobilizing against, Ireland’s constitutional abortion ban.

Through qualitative research and in-depth interviews with activists, the author exposes the subtle influence of the 8th Amendment on Irish women and their (reproductive) bodies, whether or not they have ever attempted to access a clandestine abortion.

It explains how the everyday embodied practices, bodily labours and affective experiences of women and gestating people were shaped by the 8th amendment and through the need to ‘prepare’ for crisis pregnancies. In addition, it reveals the integral role of women’s bodies and emotions in changing the political and social landscape in Ireland, through the historical transformation of the country’s abortion laws.

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Attachment, Disruption and Belonging

Drawing on affect theory and the key themes of attachment, disruption and belonging, this book examines the ways in which our placed surroundings – whether urban design, border management or organisations – shape and form experiences of gender.

Bringing together key debates across the fields of sociology, geography and organisation studies, the book sets out new theoretical ground to examine and consolidate shared experiences of what it means to be in or out of place.

Contributors explore how our gendered selves encounter place, and critically examine the way in which experiences of gender shape meanings and attachments, as well as how place produces gendered modes of identity, inclusion and belonging. Emphasizing the intertwined dynamics of affect and being affected, the book examines the gendering of place and the placing of gender.

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The Home and Public Health, 1880–1940
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In an era of pandemic infection, the importance of hygiene at home and in public spaces has never been greater. This book recaptures the buried history of the household science movement, including domestic science teaching, public health, higher education for women and the scientific content and aims of domestic science courses. It explores how it was viewed in the context of new public health concerns and as a driver to opening higher education to women, raising questions about the legacy and modern relevance of the household science movement.

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Homonationalism and Racial Politics in Sweden
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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:

  • A ‘pride parade’ organised by the Swedish populist right

  • Swedish Armed Forces’ marketing material

  • A social media account by and for racialised LGBTQ people.

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Experiences of Ethnic Performers in Southwest China
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This book explores the experiences of ethnic performers in a small Chinese city, aiming to better understand their work and migration journeys. Their unique position as service workers who have migrated within the same province provides valuable insights into the intersection of social inequalities related to the rural-urban divide, ethnicity and gender in contemporary China. Introducing the concept of ‘intimacy as a lens’, the author examines intimate negotiations involving emotions, sense of self and relationships as a way of understanding wider social inequalities.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the book reveals the bordering mechanisms encountered by performers in their work as they navigate between rural and urban environments, as well as between ethnic minority and Han identities. Emphasising the intimate and personal nature of these encounters, the book argues that they can help inform understanding of broader social issues.

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Embodied Democracy in the Global South
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This book centres on women living with HIV in South Africa who have navigated affective relationships, activist networks, government institutions and global coalitions to transform health policies that govern access to HIV medicines. Drawing on 20 years of ethnographic and policy research in South Africa, Brazil and India, it highlights the value of understanding the embodied and political dimensions of health policy and reveals the networked threads that weave women’s precarity into the governance of technologies and the technologies of governance. It illuminates the entwined histories of health policy evolution, systemic inequality and everyday life and calls for a recognition of the embodied ramifications of democratic politics and global health governance.

By integrating medical anthropology with science studies and political theory, this book traces the history of the struggle to access HIV medicines in the Global South and brings it into the present by articulating the lessons learned by activists and policy makers engaged in shaping these vital health policies.

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Modern Slavery in Society

Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book offers a theory of trafficking and modern slavery with implications for policy. Despite economic development, modern slavery persists all around the world. The issue is not only one of crime but the regulation of the economy, better welfare and social protections.

Going beyond polarised debates on the sex trade, an original empirical analysis shows the importance of profit-taking. Although individual experience matters, the root causes lie in intersecting regimes of inequality of gender regimes, capitalism, and the legacies of colonialism. This book shows the importance of coercion and the societal complexities that perpetuate modern slavery.

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Changing Relationships, Personal Life and Inequality
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This book offers an innovative perspective on Muslim family life in British society. Drawing on recent debates, the book considers how theories of family have overlooked Muslim families and offers a comprehensive framework to address this oversight.

Informed by decolonising approaches, the book sheds light on the impact of narrow and stigmatising perspectives that shape our understanding of Muslim families. The author pays close attention to the increasing diversity of family forms and to the role of gender and generation, whilst also considering race, ethnicity and class. In doing so, she demonstrates how a better understanding of Muslim family life can inform policies to address inequalities, and advocates for placing Muslim families at the heart of policy solutions.

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