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 of over 1500 titles.
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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Following the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been a significant interest amongst scholars and activists in alternative forms of organization which operate according to a non-capitalist logic, including the Alternative Consumer Cooperatives (ACCs).
Using the example of Turkey, where neoliberal economics combined with authoritarian politics formed conditions that have profound social and economic consequences, this book investigates ACCs as spaces for prefigurative food politics.
Offering a novel perspective on alternative forms of organizing, this book challenges the easy assumptions of what it means to be a scholar working on activism in the Global North and shows how, through the foundational values of solidarity, reciprocity and responsibility, it is possible to create new and imaginative forms of politics and activism.
Escape is an enticing idea in contemporary cities across the world. Austerity, climate breakdown and spatial stigma have led to retreatist behaviours such as gated communities, enclave urbanism and white flight. By contrast, urban community growing projects are often considered by practitioners and commentators as communal havens in a stressful cityscape.
Drawing on ethnographic research in urban growing projects in Glasgow, this book explores the spatial politics and dynamics of community, asking who benefits from such projects and how they relate to the wider city. A timely consideration of localism and community empowerment, the book sheds light on key issues of urban land use, the right to the city and the value of social connection.
Auroville in Tamil Nadu, South India, is an internationally recognised endeavour in prefiguring an alternative society: the largest, most diverse, dynamic and enduring of intentional communities worldwide.
This book is a critical and insightful analysis of the utopian practice of this unique spiritual township, by a native scholar. The author explores how Auroville’s founding spiritual and societal ideals are engaged in its communal political and economic organisation, as well as various cultural practices and what enables and sustains this prefiguratively utopian practice.
This in-depth, autoethnographic case-study is an important resource for understanding prefigurative and utopian experiments – their challenges, potentialities, and significance for the advancement of human society.
A buoyant, creative economy can be seen as the saviour of many cities, but behind such ‘urban makeovers’ lie serious problems such as widening inequalities, job precarity, gentrification and environmental issues. In light of the pandemic and climate crisis, how well are city economies, based largely on culture, nightlife and tourism, meeting basic societal needs?
Blending lively case studies of alternative cultural practices and spaces with broader theoretical debates, this book explores the opportunities for a more just and sustainable urban future.
Exploring what it means to enact feminist geography, this book brings together contemporary, cutting edge cases of social justice activism and collaborative research with activists. From Black feminist organising in the American South to the stories of feminist geography collectives in Latin America, the editors present contemporary case studies from the Global North and South.
The chapters showcase the strength and vibrancy of activist-engaged scholarship taking place in the field and serve as a call to action, exploring how this work advances real-world efforts to fight injustice and re-make the world as a fairer, more equitable and more accepting place.
The past three decades have seen an international ‘turn to participation’ – letting those who will be affected by neighbourhood planning outcomes play an active role in decision-making – but there is widespread dissatisfaction with actual instances of citizen-state engagement.
This innovative analysis brings theory, research and practice together and gives insights into how and why citizen voices either become effective or get excluded. Using ethnographic data to illustrate a wide range of participatory and localist governance practices and social movements, the book concludes with recommendations to re-invigorate community involvement in planning.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
This book provides new insights into the challenges facing older people in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It draws upon novel qualitative longitudinal research which recorded the experiences of a diverse group of people aged 50+ in Greater Manchester over a 12-month period during the pandemic. The book analyses their lived experiences and those of organisations working to support them, shedding light on the isolating effects of social distancing.
Covering 21 organisations, as well as 102 people from four ethnic/identity groups, the authors argue that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities in the UK, disproportionately affecting low-income neighbourhoods and Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities.
The book outlines recommendations in relation to developing a ‘community-centred approach’ in responding to future variants of COVID-19, as well as making suggestions for how to create post-pandemic neighbourhoods.
When disaster strikes, our instinctive response is to make things better, not only as individuals but also as groups, organisations, communities and major institutions within society.
With increasing climate-related disasters and the potential for future global pandemics, philanthropy will continue to play an essential role. Yet our knowledge of how philanthropic responses to disasters are motivated, organised and received is fragmented.
This book is a step toward curating our existing knowledge in the emerging field of ‘disaster philanthropy’ and to building a robust base for future research, practice and public policy.
The authors highlight unknowns and ambiguities, extensions and unexplored spaces, and challenges and paradoxes. Above all, they recognise that philanthropic responses to disasters are complex, conditional and subject to change.
Poverty is perceived as an urban problem, yet many in rural Britain also experience hardship. This book explores how and why people in rural areas experience and negotiate poverty and social exclusion. It examines the role of societal processes, individual circumstances, sources of support (markets; state; voluntary organisations; family and friends) and the role of place.
It concludes that the UK’s welfare system is poorly adapted to rural areas, with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and cutbacks exacerbating pressures. Voluntary organisations increasingly fill gaps in support left by the state. Invaluable to those in policy and practice, the book recommends a combination of person-based and place-based approaches to tackle rural poverty.
Ten percent of the world’s population lives on islands, but until now the place and space characteristics of islands in criminological theory have not been deeply considered. This book moves beyond the question of whether islands have more, or less, crime than other places, and instead addresses issues of how, and by whom, crime is defined in island settings, which crimes are policed and visible, and who is subject to regulation. These questions are informed by ‘the politics of place and belonging’ and the distinctive social networks and normative structures of island communities.
