247 Migrant labour, urban exclusion and social harmony in China1 Kinglun Ngok Focusing on peasant workers, or domestic migrant labour – this article aims to address the issue of social exclusion in urban China. The first section provides, an overview of migration from rural to urban areas in China. This is followed by a section on the social exclusion experienced by migrant workers in cities. The third section is about the recent efforts by the Chinese government to use social policy to increase social inclusion and achieve social harmony. It argues that it
77 FIVE Religious literacy as lokahi: social harmony through diversity Michael Barnes SJ and Jonathan D. Smith Introduction The concept of literacy has become a well-used term of late, applied to over 30 areas of study and practice, ranging from the functional (financial, digital) to the description of current trends (emotional, environmental) and the more abstract (philosophical, critical). Like many of these, religious literacy is an attempt to define and modernise a pursuit for understanding our world that is as ancient as creation stories. In this
European and North American notions of helping - or managing - poor and marginalised people have deep roots in religious texts and traditions which continue to influence contemporary social policy and social work practice in ways which many do not realise.
Bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship, Mark Henrickson argues that it is essential to understand and critique social work’s origins in order to work out what to retain and what must change if we are to achieve the vision of a truly global profession.
Addressing current debates in international social work about social justice, professionalisation, and the legacy of colonisation, this thought-provoking book will allow practitioners and scholars to consider and create a global future for social work.
In 1915 Robert Park penned his seminal paper “The City: Suggestions for the investigation of human behaviour in the city environment”. This essay provided an agenda for the Chicago School of Urban Sociology, which formed the basis of urban research for decades.
Given that China’s urban centres now occupy the spotlight that once belonged to American cities, Park’s essay is a platform and point of departure for this volume, which gathers together reflections from a broad range of urban China specialists to consider Park’s (ir)relevance today – for cities in China, for questions about the social life of the city and for urban research more generally.
Essential for a broad range of urban studies scholars, this book is an invaluable teaching resource and a useful tool for policy-makers and planners.
China’s vision for international order is a matter of great global interest. This book analyses China’s vision for foreign policy and how it is seeking to achieve its goals with its immediate neighbours.
The book provides a historically informed account by examining the legacy of China’s imperial past and traditional political philosophy for insights on the country’s view of its place in today’s world. It argues that China today sees the maintenance of order as its own responsibility and that it believes this order needs to attribute different positions and roles to ‘small’ and ‘big’ states to achieve stability. Furthermore, it explores the different tools which China employs to achieve its vision, including a proactive diplomacy, the control of international discourse, threat of punishment for ‘misbehaviour’ and the promise of economic benefits in return for compliance.
Setting a new benchmark for studies of technocracy, this book shows that a solution to the challenge of populism will depend as much on a technocratic retreat as democratic innovation. Esmark examines the development since the 1980s of a new 'post-industrial' technocratic regime and its complicity in the populist backlash against politics and political elites that is visible today.
The new technocracy – a combination of network governance, risk management and performance management – has, the author argues, abandoned the overtly anti-democratic sentiments of its industrial predecessor and proclaimed a new partnership with democracy. The rise of populism, however, is a clear sign that the inherent problems of this partnership have been exposed and that technocracy posing as democracy will only serve to exacerbate existing problems.
This valuable book is the first to bring together theory and policy with analysis and expertise on practices in key areas of the public realm to explore what religious literacy is, why it is needed and what might be done about it. It makes the case for a public realm which is well equipped to engage with the plurality and pervasiveness of religion and belief, whatever the individual’s own stance. It is aimed at academics, policy-makers and practitioners interested in the policy and practice implications of the continuing presence of religion and belief in the public sphere.
Spanning the complete era of the Conservative governments and the first term of New Labour, this book looks at mechanisms of corporate power and influence; corporate opinion and influence in a range of social policy areas including: education, training, health and social security; changing business influence on social policy in recent years in an international context and business involvement in social policy initiatives and welfare delivery.
By exploring business views and opinions, power, influence and involvement in social provision, this book helps to address important questions in social policy and, in so doing, goes some way towards closing a gaping hole in the current literature.
The book’s breadth and multidisciplinary approach will appeal not only to students of social policy, but also to students of business, public sector management and politics, their teachers and policy makers in the field.
This original book makes a timely and potentially controversial contribution both to the teaching of social policy and the wider debates surrounding it in Britain today. It offers a critical and theoretically sensitive overview of the role of religious values, actors and institutions in the development of state and non-state social welfare provision in Britain, combining historical discussion of the relationship between religion and social policy in Britain with a comparative theoretical discussion that covers continental Europe and North America.
Grounded in new empirical research on religious welfare organisations from the nine major faiths in the UK, the book brings together all of these perspectives to argue for an analytical shift in the definition of wellbeing through a new concept called ‘ways of being’. This reflects the moral, ideational and cultural underpinnings of social welfare. Written in a readable style, the book will appeal to students and tutors of social policy, as well as policy-makers seeking to inform themselves about the key issues surrounding faith-based welfare in modern Britain.
Criminology has been reluctant to embrace fictional narratives as a tool for understanding, explaining and reducing crime and social harm.
In this philosophical enquiry, McGregor uses examples from films, television, novels and graphic novels to demonstrate the extensive criminological potential of fiction around the world. Building on previous studies of non-fiction narratives, the book is the first to explore the ways criminological fiction provides knowledge of the causes of crime and social harm.
For academics, practitioners and students, this is an engaging and thought-provoking critical analysis that establishes a bold new theory of criminological fiction.
