This research focuses on Punjab, across the India-Pakistan border, specifically on the cities of Amritsar and Lahore. Their proximity, shared colonial past, socio-cultural ties, and entangled urban heritage offer a unique setting for comparative research on postcolonial urban governance and transformation. The book examines how governance practices shape urban dwellers' access to housing and services in specific neighbourhoods and contribute to the (re)production of socio-spatial in/exclusion. Rather than relying on a property rights lens, it adopts and expands Access Theory, conceptualising access as the ability to derive benefits from material, institutional, and symbolic resources. This lens foregrounds governance mechanisms and power relations that enable, control, and maintain access over time. Case studies in Amritsar and Lahore engage with theoretical mergers-such as access assemblages, evolutionary governance, and city\scapes-to explore neglected dimensions of urban processes, including human/non-human interfaces and socio-material infrastructures. By unraveling contestations over access, the research traces evolving governance arrangements and dependencies. While grounded in these two cities, the findings contribute to broader debates on postcolonial and South(east)ern urbanism, especially in border regions.

Tracing how a notorious checkpoint shapes power, resistance, and lives in Palestine

Checkpoint 300, the highly securitized border facility between occupied Bethlehem and Jerusalem, is a central feature of Israeli control of Palestinian land and life. An apparatus of turnstiles, overcrowded corridors, and invasive inspections, the checkpoint regulates the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, granting access to some while excluding most. Offering a nuanced exploration of space, Mark Griffiths reveals Checkpoint 300 as a stark symbol of Israeli colonialism that embodies larger systems of control and violence.

Griffiths's sensitive and timely work highlights the myriad ways Palestinians are affected by Israel's spatial control-whether they travel through the checkpoint or not-demonstrating how colonial infrastructures of inequity extend far beyond their physical boundaries to shape daily life. Drawing on nearly a decade of fieldwork, Griffiths examines how colonial power infiltrates family dynamics, enforces gendered mobility restrictions, shapes local economies, and extends into the global exchange of capital and security technologies. He also underscores how Palestinians endure and resist under oppressive conditions and how indigenous forms of life and living are sustained, illuminating how colonial space is contested and countered, unmade and remade.

Blending meticulous research with vivid human stories to show the lived realities of borders, power, and resistance in the West Bank, Checkpoint 300 portrays the checkpoint as an entry into the ways that colonial space is formed through security infrastructure that is both the product and producer of wider geographies of oppression, complicity, and control.

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This open access book examines the life and work of Koki Hirota, who served as Japan's foreign minister and prime minister from 1933 to 1938 - the period that saw the final Japanese diplomatic attempts at achieving a modus vivendi with China before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It looks at the failed attempts to prevent that war from evolving into a protracted conflict. Hirota's actions and inactions during this time resulted in a death sentence at the Tokyo Trials following the end of the Second World War, making him the only civilian official to meet such a fate. Hirota is seen as a martyr-like figure in Japan, but this book counters this public image by showing how, despite initially championing a cooperative relationship with China as foreign and prime minister, he continually acquiesced to the military's demands before being swept away by the rise of populist politics that followed early Japanese success in the Second Sino-Japanese War. As the first biography of Hirota to be published in English, this book provides an in-depth account of Sino-Japanese relations and Japanese diplomacy during this critical period and examines the ultimate failure of the civilian government to check the adventurism of the Japanese army. It is relevant to historians of Japan, and to those interested in diplomatic history, and the Second World War - as well as scholars working in various areas of contemporary East Asian politics.

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the profound transformations in the cultural and physical landscapes of South Korea, with an interdisciplinary approach that draws from anthropology, sociology, and human geography. The authors delve into the dynamic interplay between tradition and modernity in a nation that has experienced rapid development, technological innovation, and significant socio-cultural changes.

With contributions from experts across various fields, this book examines how South Korea's distinctive path of modernisation is reshaping both the tangible and intangible aspects of its society. Organised around four key themes-Gender and the Media Landscape, Religion and Social Movements, the Ethno-racial Landscape, and the Traditional Landscape-it presents diverse perspectives on the interconnected forces driving rapid societal change. Together, these insights offer a nuanced understanding of one of the world's most dynamic societies. This book is an essential resource for scholars, students, and practitioners in South Korean and East Asian studies, as well as the broader disciplines of cultural geography, anthropology, and sociology.

This book serves as a comprehensive examination of the challenges and best practices encompassing access to adequate housing in BRICS+ nations. It provides insights into the initiatives that can empower BRICS+ countries to build resilient, inclusive, sustainable cities and communities for the future, relevant to the UN SDG 11.

The book is written in a non-technical style in order to be accessible to various actors including non-specialists. In addition, it takes into account perspectives from various stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, academic institutions, financial institutions and citizens. It consults international frameworks and standards for housing, including treaties, declarations, and conventions on the right to housing. With this, it also provides solutions to creating sustainable cities to realise SDG11 and thereby dignify communities with adequate housing.

The performative arts of political communication and representation in Mumbai

In an era of global political passions, many have wondered whether some sort of natural affinity exists between political style and substance. Does liberal democracy speak the language of rationality and sincerity while political emotion, imagery, and embodiment properly belong to authoritarianism? Taking an ethnographic approach to the relationship between political form and political content, Drama of Democracy explores the material substance of representations (things like heady crowds and rousing images) together with language-based forms of political communication, such as public oration and community meetings.

Drawing on a decade of research in the city of Mumbai, Lisa BjOErkman shows that embodied performance is the very site and substance of representation and demonstrates how Mumbaikars evaluate performative bids to represent. The ethnographic accounts demonstrate the extraordinary fluency in this evaluative work in Mumbai, where people from all walks of life are remarkably astute at navigating and assessing political signs and representations, endlessly discussing and debating possible meanings of the city's dense material-semiotic ecologies-whether words or images, cash or crowds, flyers or flowers.

In Mumbai, BjOErkman argues, the evaluative criterion of representation is not whether something is sign or substance, or even whether people are deemed to utter truths or falsehoods. Rather, what matters is whether and how a performance activates and actuates the social relations and political subjectivities that it professes to display. Drama of Democracy highlights Mumbaikars' communicative fluency and theatrical acumen to offer a conceptual toolbox through which contemporary political churnings around the globe might be understood.

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This book is a systematic exposition of Argument Dialectics (AD). Despite its name, argument dialectics is a logical approach to argumentation theory. AD stands out among theories of argument because of three unusual features: it is reasons-based, holistic and particularistic. This implies that AD conceives of logic as a theory of the dialectical construction of reasons, not as a theory of inferences. Consequently, contrary to other logical approaches, AD focuses on the study of inter-argumentative relations, especially those of opposition and weighing. The book makes an extensive use of the theory of reasons, a branch of metaethics that has been a very valuable quarry of intuitions and concepts for the elaboration of a reason-based theory of argument. The oppositions generalism-particularism and atomism-holism, proposed by Jonathan Dancy, which play a central role in the book and in the development of AD, have been adapted from the theory of reasons, and the same can be said of the distinction between different statuses of reasons that AD associates with different kinds of counterarguments. Conceiving of the theory of argument in terms of reasons has the effect of situating the paradigm of argumentation in practical argumentation/reasoning "about what to do" rather than in theoretical argumentation "about what to believe", as inference-based theories do. Hence, this book is of interest to argumentation theorists, communication theorists, epistemologists, linguists, moral philosophers, and philosophers of law.

Provides the tools to understand the impact, challenges, and opportunities of the esports industry

Esports has transformed from a niche hobby into a global industry, influencing entertainment, economics, and social structures. Yet it remains a topic of intense debate. Critics argue that competitive gaming promotes unhealthy behaviors, fosters addiction, and fails to cultivate essential life skills. On the other hand, supporters see esports as a rapidly growing sector that provides career opportunities, fosters inclusivity, and redefines modern sports culture.

Esports and Society: An Introduction provides a balanced and research-backed examination of this phenomenon, unpacking both the benefits and concerns surrounding esports. In this student-friendly textbook, author Cornel Nesseler moves beyond common misconceptions to provide a nuanced analysis of the industry's real-world impact. Concise chapters explore the intersection of competitive and non-competitive gaming and broader societal trends while offering real-world insights into esports career opportunities, connections to traditional sports, and the games at the core of the industry. Equipping readers with the critical tools to assess the role of an industry that continues to redefine modern sports and digital culture, Esports and Society: An Introduction:

• Discusses the global reach of esports and the diversity of games and player communities
• Explores key issues such as player well-being, gender representation, industry ethics, and economic impact
• Focuses on professional competitive gaming and casual gaming culture
• Examines the role of data analytics in esports, supported by empirical exercises and data-driven insights
• Includes discussion questions designed to encourage critical thinking and classroom engagement

Integrating academic research with real-world examples and data, Esports and Society: An Introduction is essential reading for students and educators in sports sciences, business, data analytics, and digital media. It is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on esports, sports and society, and gaming culture.

This book traces the development of the OSCE from the opening of negotiations in 1973 of the Helsinki Final Act up to its 50th anniversary in 2025, focusing on the transition from a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe (and the US and Canada) during the final 15 years of the Cold War to its post-Cold war focus on managing conflicts in the post-communist regions of Europe after the Cold War. It analyzes developments in this region as a competition between realist and liberal/institutionalist ideas, arguing that the OSCE was constructed by its participating states as a liberal international institution that has succumbed to a renewal of "realist" ideas and actions that have reappeared in the first 25 years of the 21st century and have thereby threatened its effectiveness in enhancing security, cooperation and peace in Europe, culminating with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Palgrave Handbook of Peace, Conflict and Security in Africa is a groundbreaking reference resource that offers an interdisciplinary and decolonial exploration of peace, conflict, and security across the African continent. It features theoretical articulations that explore new approaches to peacebuilding in Africa, rethinking peacebuilding strategies and decolonized approaches to governance and peace sustainability. The volume is organized into three thematic sections-Peace, Conflict, and Security-each addressing the theoretical foundations, methodological innovations, and emerging challenges that shape Africa's unique peace and security landscape. The chapters provide both theoretical and methodological insights while highlighting locally grounded strategies and alternatives to dominant Western frameworks.

Why are some violent crises more likely to prompt humanitarian military interventions than others? Conventional wisdom says that humanitarian military interventions occur due to national interests, shared values and norms, or economic benefits for the interveners. Yet neither of these factors can fully explain the selectivity of such interventions. The international community continues to ignore the decades-long suffering in Darfur, often dismisses the genocidal policies within Myanmar, and even perpetuates the suffering in contemporary Yemen, while undertaking humanitarian-laden missions in Libya, Syria, and the Balkans.

Using in-depth case studies and new data on all post-Cold War internal armed conflicts matched to third-party responses, From Kosovo to Darfur offers the first regionally sensitive analysis of humanitarian military intervention since the end of the Cold War. It shows that international military interventions in the context of acute humanitarian crises are driven by different pathways within the Western versus the non-Western world and fueled by elite perceptions of the crisis, making interventions closer to the geographic and cultural West most probable and most intense. As our international community becomes increasingly interdependent and aware of human suffering across borders, From Kosovo to Darfur points to new pathways of conflict trajectories and reveals vital implications for leaders, scholars, and nongovernmental actors advocating for or against international military intervention as a policy choice.

This book examines peace and conflict processes in Madagascar from the royal period (c. 1540-1897) to 2022, offering a detailed narrative of conflict recurrence and peacebuilding in the country. Through the lens of trans-,multi-, cross-scalar and hybrid governance frameworks, the author explores the dynamics of indigenous peacebuilding while critically assessing the impact of liberal peacebuilding interventions in Madagascar. The book bridges theoretical gaps in peace and conflict studies introducing the concept of multi-leveled peace by analyzing transformative processes of conflict, both destructive and constructive, to uncover the multi-layered nature of peace. Spanning historical, ideological, and socio-political dimensions, it delivers insights into how Madagascar's unique hybrid governance system interweaves various actors including state institutions, traditional authorities, grassroots organizations, and international actors. The book highlights the coexistence of peace-promoting practices and conflict-generating forces across multiple scales.

In 2015, Mexico City declared itself a "gay-friendly" city and followed up with a gay tourist guide and new laws permitting changes to gender markers on legal documents, sanctioning same-sex marriage, and allowing joint adoption of children. At the same time, patterns of violence and discrimination against women, trans, and queer people have continued throughout the country. In Queer Relajo, David Tenorio argues that while Mexico City aims to bring visibility to queer sociality, the benefits of legitimizing queer space remain unclear.

Combining readings of film, digital media, and performance with drag autoethnography, Queer Relajo quite literally plays with how relajo (or playfulness) structures the spaces of queer nightlife in urban contexts by revealing how nighttime intimacy can minimize the paralyzing effects of violence and precarity in a neoliberal Mexico. Considering the political implications of when a queer/trans person is present at night, Tenorio argues that queer feelings of play are not only essential to sexual liberation, but also resist neoliberal commodification and heteronormative extraction.

This book is a collection of context-specific ICT-based interventions to achieve sustainability from various perspectives or dimensions. The book is based on case study examples in the strategic context of Hainan, South China. Five ICT-based pilot studies were conducted, surveyed, and analysed in 2021 and 2022. The studies explore impacts on four main sustainability dimensions of environmental, social, economic, and institutional. Several ICT-based interventions are suggested to enhance environmental protection, promote health and support in elderly communities, augment social media for place promotion, create online opportunities for local markets, and help boost local tourism industries.

Urban Innovation and Sustainability is an attempt to highlight the positive side of ICT-based interventions in cities and communities. We also need to note the negative side of ICTs, which are partly covered in the case study examples. However, this book focuses on case study pilot examples to promote the nexus between innovation and sustainability. It is essential to explore opportunities that could later be scaled up, transform practices, and help develop context-specific policies. In essence, paradigm shifts, infrastructural development, and human-centric development are necessary. This book's findings interest scholars/researchers, practitioners, and authorities in various disciplines of urbanism, urban/human geography, urban studies, planning, innovation, and sustainability.

This book examines what constitutes power in rural China, its structure, how it is exercised, and its practical consequences. The author's explorations are motivated by two key concerns. On one hand, theoretical questions about what rural political reforms in the first half of the 20th century did or did not accomplish continue to demand an adequate answer. On the other hand, any reasonable explanation for the recent surge in social conflicts in rural areas must begin with a sound understanding of how the rural power apparatus shapes both perception and behavior. The ten chapters present in-depth discussions of key issues such as where power comes from, how it is distributed and transmitted, the role of the state, the mechanics of how power is wielded, and what rural social conflicts reveal about both the inertia in politics and where opportunities for change might arise. The author argues that the historical trajectory of change in rural political institutions in the modern era is importantly a legacy of China's imperial past and more recent traumas. The state-building framework often used to analyze the modernization process in Europe is poorly applicable in the Chinese context, and economic analysis has but limited explanatory power. The book not only contributes to a deeper understanding of contemporary rural politics and governance in China but also sheds light on how the transition from tradition to modernity unfolds within particular historical, sociological and political contexts.

The authoritarian regime in China is a prime target of the US-led war on autocracy; however, the regime claims a majority of the Chinese people trust the government, with national surveys since the 1990s supporting this assertion. How much do Chinese citizens actually trust the one-party regime? Instead of dismissing survey results, Li examines the contexts in which Chinese citizens are predisposed to say they trust the government. He argues that political trust in China is a power-accommodating and nonbinding hope rather than a rights-based and binding expectation as Chinese citizens do not have the right to grant and retract trust through free and fair elections.

This book investigates the role of Sir Robert Hart in China's early engagement with Western international law, covering the period from Hart's earliest days as Inspector General of the foreign-dominated Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs (CIMC) to his final years in China (1863-1908). Drawing on Hart's personal records, particularly his diaries and correspondence with CIMC officials and various political figures, as well as Customs Service official publications, records of the British Foreign Office, Chinese official papers, newspapers, and other contemporary publications, the book focuses on Sino-foreign jurisdictional disputes in which Hart was involved. They are used as case studies to examine his role - and more broadly, that of the CIMC - in influencing contemporary perceptions in the West about China's status vis-a-vis Western nation-states.

Going beyond portraying Hart as a mere broker, the book delves into his complex and multi-faceted character. It examines his idiosyncratic approach to Qing engagement with the West, particularly focusing on his proposals for dealing with international institutions. While these proposals had the potential to strengthen China, they sought to do so largely on Western terms, ultimately undermining China's ability to function as an independent state. By analysing Hart's character and his engagement with Western international law, the author aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding Qing China's interaction with the West. It highlights the ambivalence exhibited by both Qing and Western officials, emphasising the challenges and opportunities in negotiations based on Western legal principles. Contributing to discussion on whether international structures could be utilised to bolster Qing sovereignty, this book will provide insights for those researching Chinese history, diplomatic history and international relations, and international law.