Collection: Bristol University Press and Policy Press comprehensive eBook and Journals collection
If you are an institution that prides itself on having a comprehensive bank of the latest social science research, then access our entire eBook and journals list. It is a wonderful opportunity to provide a truly unique collection of award-winning research from one of the UK's leading social science publishers.
You can have instant access to over 2,000 eBooks and 8,000 journal articles from our incredible range of 22 journals including 50 years of Policy & Politics. This collection gives you full DRM-free access to a vast range of the research we have been publishing since 1996 and is a truly premium collection with access to the full Policy & Politics archive (1972–present).
Journals included in this collection include: Consumption and Society; Critical and Radical Social Work; Emotions and Society; European Journal of Politics and Gender; European Social Work Research; Evidence & Policy; Families, Relationships and Societies; Gender and Justice; Global Discourse; Global Political Economy; International Journal of Care and Caring; Journal of Gender-Based Violence; Journal of Global Ageing; Journal of Poverty & Social Justice (2002–present); Journal of Psychosocial Studies; Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice (2018–present); Justice, Power and Resistance; Longitudinal and Life Course Studies; Policy & Politics (2000–present); Voluntary Sector Review; Work in the Global Economy.
Within our eBook collection, 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 2,000 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 and accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This collection also means you will never miss a journal article, eBook or Open Access publication because your content will be refreshed as part of an ongoing renewal process. We will update the collection on an annual basis which includes over 220 new books and 450 new journal articles a year.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press Complete eBooks and Journals Collection
As the cost of living rises, British households face unprecedented levels of debt. But many commentators characterise those who stash away envelopes, leave telephones ringing, or hide from debt collectors as irresponsible.
The first full-length ethnography of debt problems in Britain, this book uses long-term fieldwork on a southern English housing estate to give a sensitive retelling of the everyday lives of indebted people.
It argues that the inequalities of debt go beyond economic questions to include the way state coercion hinders people’s efforts to define what they truly value. Indeed, from finance to housing and even parenthood, the potential for dispossession has become a pervasive method of power that strikes at the heart of personal life.
The beauty industry thrives on creating a sense of dissatisfaction with appearance, with social media adding pressure to conform to idealized images of beauty. One solution to remedy this dissatisfaction has been found in the normalization and growing use of products for bodily improvement such as facial injectables and weight loss drugs.
The Harms of Beauty investigates the toxicity of consumer culture driving individuals’ willingness to harm themselves, others and the environment in their pursuit of image and body perfection. The data presented in this book is a product of an ethnographic study that, in part, responds to the lack of work offering a lived-experience perspective of the ways in which macro-level socio-economic changes and pressures exert themselves on young people.
This ethnographic study provides insight into the wider life-worlds of consumers and sellers, following them not only as they engage with licit and illicit beauty markets, but also through their attempts to navigate contemporary society. It provides an insight into one facet of the harmful beauty industry, highlighting the nature of counterfeit consumption and supply, and the interconnection between the various spheres of consumers and sellers, supply and demand, online and offline and work and leisure. The empirical data uncovers the ways in which the pervasiveness of hyper-comparison in contemporary society is a key catalyst behind beauty use and its widespread harm, one that is further intensified in virtual spaces.
In today’s digital world, platforms are everywhere, shaping our social and cultural landscapes. This groundbreaking book shows how platforms are not just technical systems, but complex networks involving diverse people, practices and values. It explores a wide range of digital platforms, using insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural theories to offer fresh perspectives on how platforms, media and devices function and evolve.
Blending ethnographic work with technical analysis, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the digital age.
Being ‘REF-able’. The impact agenda. The student experience. University audit culture has infiltrated academic life, but how should we respond?
Drawing on a five-year Institutional Ethnography of UK universities, the author provides a feminist take on the neoliberal university and abolitionist reflections on audit culture.
For feminist and other critical academics, the interpretative power involved in audit processes provides an opportunity to collectively challenge and subvert, re-read and re-write institutions. This book challenges the myths and misinterpretations around how academic audit processes work, arguing that if we are complicit then we have agency to do them differently.
This book explores data science in practice through an ethnographic study at a global marketing technology and research firm.
The book shows that, while businesses have embraced data science methods to understand markets and consumers, in practice they produce too much information. Consequently, they must be combined with creative practices that simplify and make sense of analytics. Cluley shows that in the age of data science, business is increasingly artistic. In this case, marketing science is more like marketing science fiction.
This is essential reading for understanding contemporary data-driven business and marketing as well as social and economic relations in the age of surveillance capitalism, with lessons for academics and students of marketing, technology and data science.
Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Some of the largest quantities of data produced today occur as the result of experiments taking place at Big Science facilities.
This book tells the story of a unique research journey following the people responsible for designing and implementing data management at a new Big Science facility, the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden. It critically examines the idea of data as an absolute ‘truth’ and sheds light on the often underestimated, yet essential, contributions of these data experts.
Providing a unique glimpse into the inner workings of Big Science, this book fills an important gap in science and technology studies and critical data studies.
Moomins, beloved troll creatures of Moominvalley, have captivated hearts worldwide since the 1940s.
This book unveils the Moomin business management journey, from Tove Jansson’s creations to a global art-based brand and a growing ecosystem of companies. Emphasising generosity as a key management principle, it champions caring for people as vital for a thriving organisation.
Generosity, rooted in love, courage and belief in equality, shapes the Moomin ethos, underpinning not just the brand, but also strategic partnerships, engagement with technologies and the virtual world.
Offering rare insights from the Moomin inner circle, this management guide advocates sustainable practices. It unveils the keys to a business devoted to comforting people and fostering good, inspiring a blueprint for lasting success.
How do young people participate in democratic societies? This book introduces the concept of ‘doing society’ as a new theory of political action. Focused on Finnish youth, it innovatively blends cutting-edge empirical research with agenda-setting theoretical development. Redefining political action, the authors expand beyond traditional public-sphere, scaling from formal to informal and unconventional modes of engaging.
The book captures diverse engagement from memes to social movements, from participatory budgeting to street parties and from sleek politicians to detached people in the margins. In doing so, it provides a holistic view of the ways in which young people participate (or do not participate) in society, and their role in cultural change.
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 an in-depth exploration of the lives of EU migrant workers in the UK following Brexit and COVID-19.
Drawing on a longitudinal study, the book delves into the legal problems migrant workers face and sheds much-needed light on the hidden interactions between the law and communities around issues such as employment, housing, welfare and health. Through personal narratives and insights gathered from interviews, it reveals how (clustered) legal problems arise, are resolved and often bypass formal legal resolution pathways.
This is an invaluable resource that provides a rich picture of everyday life for migrant workers in the UK and highlights the vital role of NGOs working to support them.