Sociology, Social Policy and Social Theory publications

Barnwell, Ashley. Critical Affect: The Politics of Method. Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

Critical Affect explores the emotional complexity of critique and maps out its enduring value for the turn to affect and ontology. Through a series of vivid close readings, Ashley Barnwell shows how suspicion and methods of decoding remain vital to both civic and academic spaces, where concerns about precarity, transparency, and security are commonplace and the question of how we verify the truth is one of the most polarising of our age. Weaving together both the critical and affective dimensions of ‘paranoid reading’, Critical Affect opens crucial questions about the ethics of practicing theory and offers a new route into the critical study of affect. More information...

Dean, Elizabeth and Knox, Roger. “Roger Knox & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, Stranger in My Land (2013); Roger Knox, Give It a Go (1983),” in Dale, Jon; Stratton, Jon and Mitchell, Tony (eds.,). An Anthology of Australian Albums Critical Engagements. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

An Anthology of Australian Albums offers an overview of Australian popular music through the lens of significant, yet sometimes overlooked, Australian albums. Chapters explore the unique qualities of each album within a broader history of Australian popular music. Artists covered range from the older and non-mainstream yet influential, such as the Missing Links, Wendy Saddington and the Coloured Balls, to those who have achieved very recent success (Courtney Barnett, Dami Im and Flume) and whose work contributes to international pop music (Sia), to the more exploratory or experimental (Curse ov Dialect and A.B. Original). More information...

Demant, Jakob and Ravn, Signe. “Actor-network theory and qualitative interviews,” in Järvinen, Margaretha and Mik-Meyer, Nanna (eds.,). Qualitative analysis – eight approaches for the social sciences. Sage Publications, 2020.

Introducing eight analytical approaches that are key to successful social science research, this book helps you get to grips with theory and apply it to qualitative analysis. With two ‘matched chapters’ dedicated to each approach, it provides a balance between theory and analytical method. The first chapter grounds the approach in theory and the second uses real-world examples to show how to conduct your own analysis using the approach. More information...

Laragy, Carmel and Fisher, Karen R. “Choice, Control and Individual Funding: The Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme,” in Stancliffe, R.J., Wehmeyer, M., Shogren, K., Abery, B.H. (eds.,). Choice, Preference, and Disability Promoting Self-Determination Across the Lifespan. Springer, 2020.

This book examines choice and preference in the lives of people with disability, focusing on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides an overview of choice and examines foundational concepts related to choice and preference, including self-determination and supported decision making. Chapters examine a range of critical service and policy issues, such as guardianship, individualised funding, the health care system, and the situation regarding choices for people with disability in international contexts. More information...

Ravn, Signe and Roberts, Steven. “Young masculinities Masculinities in youth studies,” in Gottzén, Lucas; Mellström, Ulf and Shefer, Tamara (eds.,). Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies. Routledge, 2020.

The Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies provides a contemporary critical and scholarly overview of theorising and research on masculinities as well as emerging ideas and areas of study that are likely to shape research and understanding of gender and men in the future. The forty-eight chapters of the handbook take an interdisciplinary approach to a range of topics on men and masculinities related to identity, sex, sexuality, culture, aesthetics, technology and pressing social issues. The handbook’s transnational lens acknowledges both the localities and global character of masculinity. A clear message in the book is the need for intersectional theorising in dialogue with feminist, queer and sexuality studies in making sense of men and masculinities. More information...

Woodman, Daniel et al (eds.,). Youth and the New Adulthood Generations of Change. Springer, 2020
Woodman, Daniel. “Social Change and Generation,” in Youth and the New Adulthood Generations of Change. Springer, 2020
Cook, Julia and Woodman, Dan. “Conceptualising Youth and Future Holistically,” in Youth and the New Adulthood Generations of Change. Springer, 2020.

This book investigates the life trajectories of Generation X and Y Australians through the 1990s and 2000s. The book defies popular characterisations of members of the ‘precarious generations’ as greedy, narcissistic and self-obsessed, revealing instead that many of the members of these generations struggle to reach the standard of living enjoyed by their parents, value learning highly and are increasingly concerned about the environment and the legacy current generations are leaving for their children and remain optimistic in the face of considerable challenges.More information...

Zinn, Jens O. Understanding Risk Taking. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

This book outlines and systematises findings from a growing body of research that examines the different rationales, dimensions and dynamics of risk-taking in current societies; providing insight into the different motivations and social roots of risk-taking to advance scholarly debates and improve social regulation. Conceptually, the book goes beyond common approaches which problematise socially undesirable risk-taking, or highlight the alluring character of risk-taking. Instead, it follows a broadly interpretivist approach and engages in examining motives, control, routinisation, reflexivity, skills, resources, the role of identity in risk-taking and how these are rooted in and framed by different social forces. More information...

Barnwell, Ashley and Cummins, Joseph. Reckoning with the Past: Family Historiographies in Postcolonial Australian Literature. Routledge, 2019.

This is the first book to examine how Australian fiction writers draw on family histories to reckon with the nation’s colonial past. Located at the intersection of literature, history, and sociology, it explores the relationships between family storytelling, memory, and postcolonial identity. With attention to the political potential of family histories, Reckoning with the Past argues that authors’ often autobiographical works enable us to uncover, confront, and revise national mythologies. More information...

Bengtsson, Tea Torbenfeldt and Ravn, Signe. Youth, Risk, Routine: A New Perspective on Risk-Taking in Young Lives. Routledge, 2019.

Youth, Risk, Routine introduces a new approach to risk-taking activities as being an integral and routinised part of young people's everyday life. By applying social theories of practice, this insightful volume presents a framework for understanding the routinised dimensions of young people's engagement in risk-taking and how this is embedded in, intertwined with, and held in place by other everyday practices. More information…

Bowman, Dina; Mallett, Shelley and Cooney-O’Donoghue, Diarmuid. “Diversion Ahead? Change Is Needed but That Doesn’t Mean That Basic Income Is the Answer,” in Klein, Elise; Mays, Jennifer and Dunlop, Tim (eds.,). Implementing a Basic Income in Australia Pathways Forward. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

This book brings together scholars from the fields of politics, philosophy, sociology, anthropology and economics, to explore pathways towards implementing a Basic Income in Australia. It is the first book of its kind to outline avenues for implementation of a basic income specifically for Australia and responds to a gap in the existing basic income literature and published titles to provide a distinct standpoint in the exploration of basic income within the Australian contemporary policy landscape. More information…

Craig, Lyn. "The Composition of Grandparent Childcare: Gendered Patterns in Cross-national Perspective," in Timonen, Virpi (ed.,). Grandparenting practices around the world: Reshaping family. University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Grandparenting Practices Around the World presents an in-depth and up-to-date analysis of the increasing numbers of grandparents worldwide who co-exist and interact for longer periods of time with their grandchildren. The book contains analyses of topics that have so far received relatively little attention, such as transnational grandparenting and gender differences in grandparenting practices. More information...

Douglas, Kate and Barnwell, Ashley (eds.,). Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies. Routledge, 2019.

The essays in this collection position auto/biography as a key discipline for modelling interdisciplinary approaches to methodology and ask: what original and important thinking can auto/biography studies bring to discussions of methodology for literary studies and beyond? And how does the diversity of methodological interventions in auto/biography studies build a strong and diverse research discipline? More information...

Essed, P., Farquharson, K., Pillay, K. and White, E.J. (eds.,). Relating Worlds of Racism: Dehumanisation, Belonging, and the Normativity of European Whiteness. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

This international edited collection examines how racism trajectories and manifestations in different locations relate and influence each other. The book unmasks and foregrounds the ways in which notions of European Whiteness have found form in a variety of global contexts that continue to sustain racism as an operational norm resulting in exclusion, violence, human rights violations, isolation and limited full citizenship for individuals who are not racialised as White. More information...

Holleran, Max. “How Gentrifiers Gentrify,” in Marcus, Sharon and Zaloom, Caitlin (eds.,). Think in Public: A Public Books Reader. Columbia University Press, 2019.

Since 2012, Public Books has championed a new kind of community for intellectual engagement, discussion, and action. An online magazine that unites the best of the university with the openness of the internet, Public Books is where new ideas are debuted, old facts revived, and dangerous illusions dismantled. Here, young scholars present fresh thinking to audiences outside the academy, accomplished authors weigh in on timely issues, and a wide range of readers encounter the most vital academic insights and explore what they mean for the world at large. More information...

Ravn, Signe. “Participation, Positionality and Power: Critical Moments in Research with Service-Engaged Youth,” in Billett, Paulina; Hart, Matt and Martin, Dona (eds.,). Complexities of researching with young people. Routledge, 2019.
Cook, Julia and Woodman, Dan. “Digital modes of data collection in mixed-methods longitudinal youth research,” in Billett, Paulina; Hart, Matt and Martin, Dona (eds.,). Complexities of Researching with Young People. Routledge, 2019.

Currently, most books on youth research available on the market focus on ‘how to’ conduct youth research or the research process itself. This edited collection proposes to take this process a step further and discuss the complexities of youth research from a practical and theoretical context. In total, five themes are examined – conceptualising young people, ethics and consent, the digital, voice, participation and unexpected tensions. In this book, authors from six countries explore the complexities of researching with young people across disciplines and national contexts. More information...

Yerkes, M. And Hewitt, B. "Part-time strategies of women and men of childbearing age in the Netherlands and Australia," in Nicolaisen, Heidi; Kavli, Hanne and Jensen, Ragnhild Steen (eds.,). Dualisation of Part-Time Work: The Development of Labour Market Insiders and Outsiders. Policy Press, 2019.

This book brings together leading international authors from a number of fields to provide an up-to-date understanding of part-time work at national, sector, industry and workplace levels. The contributors critically examine part-time employment in different institutional settings across Europe, the USA, Australia and Korea. More information…

Zinn, Jens O. The UK ‘at Risk’ A Corpus Approach to Historical Social Change 1785–2009. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This book presents a case study of the proliferation of at risk-language in The Times news coverage from 1785 to 2009, illuminating the changing social experience of risk. Zinn presents an historical examination of the forces which have shaped the language of risk over time, and considers how linguistic developments in recent decades are underpinned by issues such as cultural and structural transformations, the management of infectious and chronic diseases and climate change. He also explores changes in the public sphere, including the production of the news. More information…

Craig, Lyn and Habgood, Ruth. "Cultural Considerations in the Division of Labor," in Shockley, Kirsten; Shen, Winny and Johnson, Ryan (eds.,). The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work-Family Interface. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

The Cambridge Handbook of the Global Work-Family Interface is a response to growing interest in understanding how people manage their work and family lives across the globe. Given global and regional differences in cultural values, economies, and policies and practices, research on work-family management is not always easily transportable to different contexts. More information…

Hewitt, Belinda and Brady, M. "Making and Unmaking Families," in Shaver, Sheila (ed.,). Handbook on Gender and Social Policy. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018.

After two decades of feminist challenges to mainstream theorising, gender has become a central element of social policy and the welfare state. A new literature has widened the focus of social policy from state and economy to a three-sided discourse encompassing the state, the market and the family. The Handbook on Gender and Social Policy provides a comprehensive introduction to this field with up-to-date accounts of debates and innovative original research by leading international authors. More information...

Nolan, David, Farquharson, Karen and Marjoribanks, Timothy (eds.,). Australian media and the politics of belonging. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Australian Media and the Politics of Belonging explores mediated debates about belonging in contemporary Australia by combining research that proposes conceptual and historical frameworks for understanding the concept in the Australian context. A range of themes and case studies make the book a significant conceptual resource as well as a much-needed update on work in this area. More information…

Mooi, Erik; Sarstedt, Marko and Mooi-Reci, Irma. Market Research: The Process, Data, and Methods Using Stata. Springer-Verlag, 2018.

This book is an easily accessible and comprehensive guide which helps make sound statistical decisions, perform analyses, and interpret the results quickly using Stata. It includes advanced coverage of ANOVA, factor, and cluster analyses in Stata, as well as essential regression and descriptive statistics. It is aimed at those wishing to know more about the process, data management, and most commonly used methods in market research using Stata. More information…

Pocius, Joshua . "Of Bodies, Borders and Barebacking: The Geocorpographies of HIV," in Randell-Moon, Holly and Tippet, Ryan (eds.,). Security, Race, Biopower: Essays on Technology and Corporeality. Palsgrave Macmillan, 2016.

This book explores how technologies of media, medicine, law and governance enable and constrain the mobility of bodies within geographies of space and race. Each chapter describes and critiques the ways in which contemporary technologies produce citizens according to their statistical risk or value in an atmosphere of generalised security, both in relation to categories of race, and within the new possibilities for locating and managing bodies in space. More information…

Barnwell, Ashley. "Method Matters: The Ethics of Exclusion," in Kirby, Vicki (ed.,). What if Culture was Nature all Along? Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

New materialisms argue for a more science friendly humanities, ventilating questions about methodology and subject matter and the importance of the non-human. However, these new sites of attention – climate, biology, affect, geology, animals and objects - tend to leverage their difference against language and the discursive... While this collection of essays is in kinship with this radical shake-up of how and what we study, the aim is to re-navigate what constitutes materiality. More information...

Biggs, Simon. Negotiating Ageing: Cultural Adaptation to the Prospect of a Long Life. Routledge, 2017.

The world is growing older and this is a historically unprecedented phenomenon. Negotiating such change, personally, socially and for governments and international organisations requires an act of cultural adaptation. Two key questions arise: What is the purpose of a long life? and How do we adapt to societies where generations are of approximately the same size? In this book Simon Biggs discusses ways of interrogating these questions and the adaptations we make to them. More information…

Craig, Lyn et al. "Is it just too hard? Gender time symmetry in market and nonmarket work and subjective time pressure in Australia, Finland, and Korea," in Connelly, Rachel and Kongar, Ebru (eds.,). Gender and Time Use in a Global Context: The Economics of Employment and Unpaid Labor. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

This edited volume uses a feminist approach to explore the economic implications of the complex interrelationship between gender and time use. Household composition, sexuality, migration patterns, income levels, and race/ethnicity are all considered as important factors that interact with gender and time use patterns. More information…

Farquharson, Karen, Nolan, David and Marjoribanks, Timothy. "'Race' and the lived experiences of Australians of Sudanese background," in Boese, Martina and Marotta, Vince (eds.,). Critical Reflections on Migration, 'Race' and Multiculturalism: Australia in a Global Context. Routledge, 2017.

Migration and its associated social practices and consequences have been studied within a multitude of academic disciplines and in the context of policies at local, national and regional level. This edited collection provides an introduction and critical review of conceptual developments and policy contexts of migration scholarship within an Australian and global context. More information...

Holleran, Max and Holleran, S. "Pop-up Engagement: Design Thinking, Museum 'Labs,' and Urban Problem-Solving," in Iannelli, Laura and Musarò, Pierluigi (eds.,). Performative Citizenship Public Art, Urban Design, and Political Participation. Mimesis International, 2017.

The book moves from the first outcomes of a two-years interdisciplinary research programme on the Italian contemporary Public Art, funded by the Sardinia Region (Italy). Moving beyond the traditional ladders of formal citizen participation to territory governance, the research investigates how public artists have involved citizens in creative performances that aim to modify citizens’ perceptions of the places where they live, to create new relations within and toward the territory, and to transform (often temporarily) the physical spaces. More information...