This collection of more than a dozen essays focuses on the political dynamics of race, class, and nationalism in the contemporary Caribbean. Despite the plethora of studies on nationalism in the Caribbean, few have attempted to look at the phenomenon as a political invention that does not—and cannot—serve the interests of all: how essentialist, reductive, overdetermining nationalism is a political and conceptual confusion that forever stalls the project of universal human emancipation....

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural studies, development studies, and American Indian studies, it adopts a consciously global focus, combining studies of the psychologisatio...

Re-examining C.Wright Mills’s legacy as a jumping off point, this original introduction to sociology illuminates global concepts, themes and practices that are fundamental to the discipline. It makes a case for the importance of developing a sociological imagination and provides the steps for how readers can do that. The unique text:• Offers succinct and wide-ranging coverage of many of the most important themes and concepts taught in first year sociology courses;• Has a gl...

This book builds a fresh perspective on therapeutic narratives of intimate life. Focusing on the question of how popular psychology organises everyday experiences of intimacy, its argument is grounded in qualitative research in Trinidad in the Anglophone Caribbean.Against the backdrop of Trinidad’s colonial and postcolonial history, the authors map the development of therapeutic institutions and popular therapeutic practices and explore how transnationally mobile, commercial forms ...

Self-help books aim to empower their readers and deliver happiness and personal fulfilment but do they really live up to this? This book offers a fresh perspective on self-help culture and popular psychology. Research on this subject matter has generally focused on the USA and the Global Northwest. In contrast, this book explores the production, circulation and consumption of self-help books from an innovative transnational perspective. Case studies on Trinidad, Mexico, the People's Republ...

Valuable reading for anyone concerned with contemporary dynamics of social change. â• International AffairsMargaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be international organizations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances i...

In summer 2014, a surge of unaccompanied child migrants from Central America to the United States gained mainstream visibility—yet migration from Central America has been happening for decades. U.S. Central Americans explores the shared yet distinctive experiences, histories, and cultures of 1.5-and second-generation Central Americans in the United States.While much has been written about U.S. and Central American military, economic, and political relations, this is the fi...

Security and risk have become central to how cities are planned, built, governed, and inhabited in the twenty-first century. In Endangered City, Austin Zeiderman focuses on this new political imperative to govern the present in anticipation of future harm. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Bogotá, Colombia, he examines how state actors work to protect the lives of poor and vulnerable citizens from a range of threats, including environmental hazards and urban ...

Caribbean cities are a unique yet underexposed phenomenon. Their distinctiveness results from a combination of interrelated factors including a history of slavery, development under the hemispheric hegemony of the United States and spatial limitations imposed by the setting of most Caribbean urban areas. This innovative volume presents a detailed introduction to the spatial, socio-cultural and economic characteristics of the Caribbean city, followed by case studies of selected citi...

For centuries, Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast region has been the site of regional and global interactions, with societies from different parts of the African continent and beyond engaging in economic trade, cultural exchange and various forms of conflict. This book provides a wide-ranging look at how such encounters have continued into the present day, identifying the disruptions and continuities in religion, language, economics and various other social phenomena. These accounts show a regio...

In 2009, Ignacio Walker—scholar, politician, and one of Latin America’s leading public intellectuals—published La Democracia en América Latina. Now available in English, with a new prologue, and significantly revised and updated for an English-speaking audience, Democracy in Latin America: Between Hope and Despair contributes to the necessary and urgent task of exploring both the possibilities and difficulties of establishing a stable democracy in Latin America.Wa...

Many of the nations of the Caribbean that have become independent states have maintained as a central, organizing, nationalist principle the importance in the beliefs of the ideals of sovereignty, democracy, and development. Yet in recent years, political instability, the relative size of these nations, and the increasing economic vulnerabilities of the region have generated much popular and policy discussions over the attainability of these goals. The geo-political significance of the reg...