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
What does it mean to be a feminist? What can feminism say about ourselves, the work we do, and our ways of living together?
This book draws on the work of Fraser, Butler, and Braidotti to examine how societal and organizational processes shape and are shaped by our perception of work, value, and identity. Disrupting the long-established mind-body dualism, the book reveals its impact on our understanding of value, raising critical questions about how different forms of feminism influence work practices and recognition.
This is a unique and insightful analysis that sparks critical reflection, offering a foundation for corporeal ethics to drive meaningful change in organizations and society.
This book offers a unique perspective on Sweden’s COVID-19 response in its publicly funded welfare sector, which was initially highly criticised but later recognised as exemplary on the global stage in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Using diaries, stories and interviews from 73 workers across 30 professions, it reveals the everyday experiences of those maintaining welfare services, both on the front lines and behind the scenes. Covering 2020 to 2022, it spans major cities and smaller municipalities across Gothenburg, Uppsala and Stockholm and introduces 'pandemicracy,' a concept exploring pandemic-era governance and organisation of the public sector.
This insightful analysis sparks a wider discussion on adapting to unforeseen challenges in public welfare.
It is impossible to view the news at present without hearing talk of crisis.
This timely book looks at how three major crises – the economy, pandemic and climate – are related to the crisis of work, making it more precarious, intense and unequal.
Providing an original and critical synthesis of recent trends in the field, expert scholars offer a programme for transcending the crisis of work.
Offering a timely contribution to understanding the important issues facing the world, this book presents an important new way of thinking about work in contemporary societies.
The relationship between unstable work careers and family transitions into adult life can vary according to the personal circumstances of individuals, as well as the welfare state system of the country.
Drawing from interviews and survey data across the EU and the UK, this in-depth study explores how worker instability is perceived and experienced, and how this ‘perception’ in turn affects individuals’ economic and social situation. Using intersectional analysis and a unique focus on different life stages, the authors identify groups who are more prone to labour market risks and describe their relative disadvantage.
This powerful study will inform policy measures internationally in several social domains related to work, employment and society.
The turnover of labour and its significance for workers and employers has usually been considered at the organizational level as individual exit behaviour, and seldom in relation to the cross-border mobility practices of migrant workers within and without the workplace.
Drawing from labour process theory, the autonomy of migration, social reproduction and industrial relations, this book explores the relationship between labour mobility and international migration under a global and historical perspective.
Uncovering both the individual and collective actions by migrants inside and outside worker organizations, the authors develop a new understanding of migrants’ everyday mobilities as creative and life-sustaining strategies of social reproduction and labour conflict.
Published in collaboration with BUIRA, this book provides a critical review of the field of industrial relations (IR) and evaluates its future in the rapidly evolving world of work.
Written by key names in IR, the book captures the significant transformations that have taken place within the field over the past decade. It traces the historical development of IR, exploring its ongoing impact on our lives. The chapters delve into various aspects, including union organization and mobilization, the influence of new technology, and the examination of intersectionality in the context of work and employment.
This is an invaluable resource for academics and students of employment and industrial relations, as well as HR professionals, trade union organizations and representatives.
The symptoms of menopause transitions have profound implications for work and are, in turn, affected by work. Despite this, the topic is rarely discussed in management and organization studies.
Providing an overview of existing knowledge in the field of menopause in the workplace, this collection re-theorises the management of human resources as it relates to the connections between gender, age and the body in the workplace environment with an intersectional analysis.
Offering theoretical frameworks from experts as well as possible practical approaches that can be implemented in workplaces to support women transitioning through menopause, this is a go-to reference for academics and policy makers working in the field.
Marx argued that capitalist society acts against the core capacities, skills and talents of human beings, and that it also limits their realisation or channels them into activities related to profit rather than need.
Bringing Marx’s theory of alienation forward to the present day, this book uniquely links it to health and well-being. Using case studies and vignettes of workers across different industries, it reveals their lived experiences, offering crucial insights into the insidious ways in which capitalism continues to damage human well-being.
This is a resounding call for how society can change for the better.
Does flexible working really provide a better work-life balance?
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume offers an original examination of flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India. Rather than providing a better work-life balance, the book reveals how flexible working can lead to exploitation, which manifests differently for women and men, such as more care responsibilities or increased working hours.
Taking a critical stance, this book investigates the potential risks and benefits of flexible working and provides crucial policy recommendations for overcoming the negative consequences.
Spanning the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender.
The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities.
Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross-sectoral, intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times.
