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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This chapter presents a comparative history of development and change over the longue durée. It weaves between Latvian and South African history at pivotal moments in spacetime, with particular focus given to the historical processes of colonization, imperialism, and resistance. The chapter concludes with coverage of national independence and social transitions to democracy.
This chapter provides insight into the current context and landscape surrounding pregnancy, new motherhood and criminal justice. It highlights the dangers and consequences of incarcerated pregnancy and forced separation from newborn babies as an imprisoned mother.
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.
This culminating chapter returns to various strands presented in earlier chapters of the book to articulate a decolonial theory of development. It begins with a decolonial critique of modern rationalism. Next, it draws from research findings to lay out the three features of authoritarian monocultures as an imperial mode of existence. It then identifies the features of egalitarian ecocultures, showing how this Indigenous and counterhegemonic mode of existence works to establish regenerative food, heritage and trade cultures at the fringes of the hegemonic world-system. These heterotopias of resistance offer critical insight into the relational knowledges, values and practices that support decolonization from within and without.
This chapter shares research findings from a participatory action research study conducted with Rooibos tea farmers at a time of market crisis and against a backdrop of systemic scarcity. It weaves a broader analysis of the racialized political economy informing the Rooibos tea sector with a cultural history of a marginalized yet heritage rich people who are producing Rooibos tea in the Indigenous way of their ancestors at the geographic origin of this culturally important product.
This chapter explores incarcerated and criminalised motherhood over the last century. This chapter will provide an overview of historical developments in relation to pregnancy and prison over the last century or so. It will reveal the extent to which pregnancy and motherhood in criminalised women has been influenced by patriarchy, inequality and discrimination. It will also make links between past attitudes and responses to women in the criminal justice system, and contemporary views and responses. In doing so it will explore the legacy of motherhood ideology and its relationship to patriarchy, how this intersects with judgement and attitudes towards criminalised mothers, and, importantly, how this additional layer of judgement affects mothers themselves.
This chapter documents a multiracial body of Ubuntu philosophy and interprets key lessons for an international readership. It joins a textual analysis of the apartheid resistance literature with autoethnographic reflection to show how South Africans are engaging the Ubuntu ethic to organize communities and heal collective trauma. The chapter concludes by situating Ubuntu in sustainable development context.
This chapter documents and interprets Indigenous Latvian philosophy for an international readership. It joins a textual analysis of Latvian Dainas with autoethnographic reflections, showing how one of the largest cultural bodies of recorded folk songs in the world transmit intergenerational wisdom and ecocultural values grounded in an agrarian way of life. The chapter concludes by situating the Dainas in sustainable development context.
This chapter brings the previous chapters into context and discusses the women in our research and their pre-prison experiences with reference to current policy, guidelines and practice in relation to pregnancy and criminalised women. The chapter, reflecting on the experiences of mothers in our research, will outline the context and processes mothers go through in terms of their arrest, sentencing and imprisonment, and will contrast the ideals of good practice and effective policy with the reality of what mothers in our studies described.
This chapter will reflect on the book chapters to provide a summary alongside the authors’ concluding thoughts and recommendations going forwards. The final word will be given over to Louise Powell who wishes to end this book with her own comment and wishes for the future.
