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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Post-Soviet Latvia and post-apartheid South Africa are far apart geographically and yet have endured a similar history of colonial and authoritarian rule before transitioning to democracy at the end of the 20th century. This book examines these two nations in an unusual comparative study of post-authoritarian efforts to decolonize production and trade.
The book combines an analysis of political economy and ecocultural heritage to unpack alternative trade formations. It also connects world systems thinking with Indigenous knowledge to articulate a decolonial theory of development and change over the longue durée. Conclusions and insights drawn are timely and important for a planet confronted by crises such as authoritarianism, laissez-faire capitalism, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND license.
Bringing together divergent approaches to justice theorising, this volume connects normative and philosophical theories with the more empirically focused approaches emerging today in the social and political sciences and policy scholarship. The chapters overview a variety of mainstream approaches and radical critiques of justice to illustrate their value in addressing the pressing problems of climate change and economic development.
Stressing the value of assessing justice theories in light of the material conditions of our changing world, the book concludes with an in-depth synthesis of how these wide ranging approaches to justice will be useful for students, scholars and practitioners concerned with realising justice.
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.
Sixty years ago an upsurge of social movements protested the ecological harms of industrial capitalism. In subsequent decades, environmentalism consolidated into forms of management and business strategy that aimed to tackle ecological degradation while enabling development to continue. However, the increasing focus on spaces and species to be protected saw questions of human work and histories of colonialism pushed out of view.
This book traces a counter-history of modern environmentalism from the 1960s to the present day. It focuses on claims concerning land, labour and social reproduction arising at important moments in the history of environmentalism made by feminist, anti-colonial, Indigenous, workers’ and agrarian movements. Many of these movements did not consider themselves ‘environmental,’ and yet they offer vital ways forward in the face of escalating ecological damage and social injustice.
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.
The past 30 years have seen the weakening of the central state by processes of devolution, Europeanisation and globalisation, which have led to dramatic clashes between nation states and local authorities. Why do some cities feel the need to sidestep the state in their decision-making? And how can they do so?
Bridging political geography and politics, this book gives a new perspective on the central state’s weakening authority and the parallel rise of cities as political actors. The author considers the tensions between central states and European cities, giving a new perspective to students and researchers in urban studies, geography and political science.
The frequent failure of military or armed interventions to protect civilians is well known. This edited collection provides a comprehensive account of a different, effective paradigm: unarmed civilian protection (UCP).
The principles and methods of UCP have been used for many decades to protect both specific, threatened individuals as well as whole communities. Featuring contributions from around the world, this book brings together a wide range of UCP practices in order to examine their underlying theory and interrelated strategies.
The book provides an important illustration of the contributions UCP can make, while also discussing its limitations and failures.
A wave of innovation driven by the convergence of digital and molecular technologies is transforming food production and ways of eating in the US, Western Europe and Australasia. This book explores a range of contemporary agri-food issues, such as the digitalisation of farm production, aka Precision Agriculture, farmer independence, gene editing, alternative proteins and the rise of app-based home food deliveries.
This is the first book to provide a systemic analysis of technological innovation and its socio-economic consequences in modern food systems, including the ‘hollowing out’ of rural communities and pronounced industrial concentration. The food system is under growing public pressure to respond to global climate change, but this book finds little evidence of transition to sustainable low-carbon trajectories.
