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
Consumerism, unsustainable growth, waste and inequalities continue to ail societies across the globe, but creative collectives have been tackling these issues at a grassroots level.
Based on an autoethnographic study about a free food store in Aotearoa New Zealand, this book presents a first-hand account of how a community is organized around surplus food to deal with food poverty, while also helping the reader to see through the complexity that brings the free food store to life.
Examining how alternative economies and relations emerge from these community solutions, the author shows it is possible to think, act and organize differently within and beyond capitalist dynamics.
This book offers a holistic view of Julio Boltvinik’s vast and important work on poverty conceptualisation and measurement. While well known to Spanish-speaking audiences, this volume brings these works together to offer access for English-speaking audiences for the first time.
The book provides the foundations, application and empirical examples of Boltvinik’s Integrated Poverty Measurement Method, which could potentially transform poverty narratives globally as it has done in Mexico.
Deeply critical of available poverty approaches, it provides a challenging and radically new way of conceiving and measuring poverty, offering the only multidimensional poverty measurement method which includes time-poverty and allows all Aggregate Poverty Measures to be fully calculated.
Drawing from an activist research project spanning Loja, Santo Domingo, New York, New Jersey, and Barcelona, this book offers a feminist intersectional analysis of the impact of migration on health and well-being.
It assesses how social inequalities and migration and health policies, in Ecuador and destination countries, shape the experiences of migrants. The author also explores how individual and collective action challenges health, geopolitical, gender, sexual, ethnoracial, and economic disparities, and empowers communities.
This is a thorough analysis of interpersonal, institutional, and structural mechanisms of marginalization and resistance. It will inform policy and research for better responses to migration’s negative effects on health, and progress towards greater equality and social justice.
Epdf and ePUB available Open Access under CC BY NC ND licence.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone – but, for some, existing social inequalities were exacerbated, and this created a vital need for research.
Researchers found themselves operating in a new and difficult context; they needed to act quickly and think collectively to embark on new research despite the constraints of the pandemic. This book presents the collaborative process of 14 research projects working together during COVID-19. It documents their findings and explains how researchers in the voluntary sector and academia responded methodologically, practically, and ethically to researching poverty and everyday life for families on low incomes during the pandemic.
This book synthesises the challenges of researching during COVID-19 to improve future policy and practice.
Also see ‘A Year Like No Other: Family Life on a Low Income in COVID-19’ to find out more about the lived experiences of low-income families during the pandemic.
It is critical that the wellbeing of society is systematically tracked by indicators that not only give an accurate picture of human life today but also provide a window into the future for all of us.
This book presents impactful findings from international longitudinal studies that respond to the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 commitment to “leave no-one behind”. Contributors explore a wide range and complexity of pressing global issues, with emphasis given to excluded and vulnerable populations and gender inequality.
Importantly, it sets out actionable strategies for policymakers and practitioners to help strengthen the global Sustainable Development Goals framework, accelerate their implementation and improve the construction of effective public policy.
Drawing on empirical research with the UK’s two largest charitable food organisations, this book explores the prolific rise of food charity over the last 15 years and its implications for overcoming food insecurity.
As the welfare state withdraws, leaving food banks to protect the most vulnerable, the author questions the sustainability of this system and asks where responsibility lies - in practice and in theory - for ensuring everyone can realise their human right to food.
The book argues that effective, policy-driven solutions require a clear rights-based framework, which enables a range of actors including the state, charities and the food industry to work together towards, and be held accountable for, the progressive realisation of the right to food for all in the UK.
