This book provides refreshing and critical conceptualizations of the Anthropocene from Latin American perspectives, addressing questions of coloniality and capitalism. Researchers from different disciplines introduce a variety of new concepts and approaches to explore the social, political, and epistemological causes of the multiple socio-ecological crises and showcase alternative foci to cope with them.

The first key issue at the heart of the crisis of the Anthropocene is a reflection on life on Earth. This dimension includes biodiversity, the web of life, bio-centered cosmovisions, and the politics and ethics of care. Then, the focus shifts to mining and related extractivist development schemes. These perspectives place significant emphasis on Latin America's colonial history and its enduring legacies as well on the fundamental metabolic rupture. Technology, science, and infrastructure are also crucial to the Anthropocene. The contributions examine the question of agency related to infrastructure arguing that ideas of development and growth manifest in infrastructure and alternatives or change and that they must always be considered in relation to existing structures. The volume concludes with a discussion on urban spaces.

By offering a rich array of contributors from Latin America, the book provides students and researchers with new perspectives from the Global South on the new era of the Anthropocene.

This book, with a focus on the East African coast and especially on the Kenyan coast, puts into conversation cross-generic texts - the historical novel, the Indian Ocean novel, oral history, oral testimony, and oral poetry - in two main languages - English and Kiswahili - with the aim of challenging, expanding and complementing the existing knowledge archive on Indian Ocean histories and its ideations on the Kenyan coast. It especially pays attention to the local forms of expression that articulate the Indian Ocean world from personal, local, and intimate perspectives. The intimate, personal, and local maps of the sea that emerge from this set of texts are derived from local articulations of the sea, informed by musings by seafarers who include divers, sailors, fishers, and beach operators.

The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literary and cultural studies, African studies, and Indian Ocean studies.

This book provides theoretical foundations for circular economy concepts, principles, and models while analysing their applications across agriculture, industry, and energy sectors. It systematically evaluates measurement frameworks and indicators that track circular economy progress among countries, with particular focus on EU member states. The authors develop and test indicator frameworks through case studies that reveal patterns of progress, convergence, or divergence in circular economy implementation. By examining policies that promote circular economic development, the book identifies the best practices for EU nations and gives recommendations based on tested frameworks.

Features:

• Provides comprehensive analysis of the theoretical and practical implementation of circular economy principles in agriculture, energy, and other industries
• Discusses the frameworks for the assessment of circular economy developments based on practical, tested applications
• Presents policies and measures to promote circular economy development which are examined, critically assessed, and systematized
• Provides policy recommendations to promote circular economy development in EU countries based on the results of practical applications of circular economy frameworks
• Includes case studies on the assessment of circular economy development, convergence, clustering, and ranking of EU countries

Circular Economy Assessment: Indicators and Applications is for academics, researchers, students, professionals, entrepreneurs, and policymakers interested in sustainability.

Street vendors often face disproportionate state violence not simply for their use of public space, but because of who they are as users of public space. Through a multicity comparison, Street Vending and the Right to the City demonstrates how vendors blur the lines of in/formality through their resistance tactics, and fight for their rights to the city not only as economic agents, but as residents seeking urban belonging. Given the state violence that people living and working informally face, claiming the right to exist in urban space is indeed a radical act. Cities and states, from New York City to Uruguay, have begun to formalize street vending, with many advocates arguing for this approach, but this book highlights why formalization is not a cure. With international examples and an in-depth case study featuring a comparison of Chicago and Mumbai, the chapters explore how urban informalities are produced and offer perspectives on roadblocks and pathways to gaining legitimacy. This book is essential for academics and students in urban planning, urban studies, anthropology, sociology, urban design, geography, and political science, as well as practitioners and policymakers.

We use avatars to play videogames. We use pseudonyms on social media. We use VPNs to mask our identities and activities. In the digital realm, anonymity is everywhere, a persistent option for those who wish to hide, experiment, and deceive. But we are anonymous in more contexts than the digital. In urban settings, we routinely experience the anonymity of the crowd, and routinely use anonymity to participate in political life and social protests. Anonymity matters. This book is a wager that we can learn much about society, humanity, and power by analyzing the structural tensions and possibilities of anonymity, and by analyzing how the economy of anonymity is changing in a modernity defined by computation.

While many have explored the connections between surveillance, datafication, and privacy, relatively little has been done to theorize anonymity and its critical role in our lives. This book rebalances our intellectual investments by expanding our understandings of anonymity. Putting the work of Gloria Anzaldua and Bernhard Siegert into conversation, Hector Amaya examines the contours of anonymity in different social domains-in relationship to individuals, institutions, and contexts; to epistemology and ontology; and to history and society. As the book shows, anonymity entails paradoxical possibilities-sometimes anonymity is experienced as freedom and other times as powerlessness, or subjugation.

Chapters analyse the potential developments that may impact Russia's future activities in the Arctic. Key topics include scientific progress, the role of climate policy and public concerns, the economic foundation of mega-projects in the Arctic, and the repercussions of sanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Moe and Korppoo offer key insights, arguing that geopolitics and the energy transition away from fossil fuels will be pressures Russia must eventually confront.

Climate, Hydrocarbons, Sanctions is a valuable resource for scholars and students of Russian politics, the environment, and politics and public policy more broadly. It is also beneficial for analysts working in the oil and gas industry and foreign policy, alongside diplomats looking to better understand the Russian economy.

Self-organization plays an essential yet often overlooked role in the everyday lives of refugees in exile. By self-organizing, they challenge restrictions, claim political representation, foster social relations and belonging, and create ongoing economic opportunities.

While government authorities and aid organizations are supposed to provide protection and assistance, refugees often continue to face adversities, restrictions, and risks, prompting them to establish and maintain their own support systems. Refugee-Led Organizations in Uganda offers nuanced insight into the problems arising from the aid system and especially the significance of the spectrum of informal and formalized self-organizations. Ulrike Krause, Gato Ndabaramiye Joshua, and Hannah Schmidt draw on a gender-sensitive understanding of relational agency and situated knowledge and use empirical research in Uganda's camp Kyaka II and the capital, Kampala, to reveal how individuals collectively contribute to their own support in times of emergency and in everyday life.

Interwoven with reflections written by refugees in Uganda - Bengekya Mugay Gedeon, Noella Kabale, Paul, Janvier Hafasha, and Isreal Katembo, as well as the director of an LGBTQ refugee-led organization - the book centres on individuals' lived experiences of self-organization in exile.

This book delivers a fresh approach to understanding cultural heritage amid an under-explored yet dynamic global force: the uncertainty of political transition.

Since the turn of the 21st century, transition has defined geopolitics across the globe - from a sharp rise in hybrid authoritarian-democratic regimes and an unsettling shift toward post-truth politics to the accelerating threat of technological warfare. As the past is constantly renegotiated to suit the ever-changing needs of the present, cultural heritage emerges as both beacon and battleground. Employing the versatile concept of contemporary liminality from political anthropology, this book provides critical heritage studies with a novel approach to understanding the interplay between heritage and transition. It illuminates how different political groups use cultural heritage as a tool for navigating the uncertainty of transitional crisis in their quests to legitimise power or to resist it. Drawing on a synthesis of two centuries of political transitions in Myanmar and interviews with military officials, pro-democracy leaders, cultural experts, and everyday people, an innovative critique which ventures into the backstage spaces of cultural production emerges.

The book makes a unique contribution by theorising a modality of 'liminal heritage', cultural expression that takes on qualities of its transitional-liminal context, such as absurdity, ambiguity, imitation, violence, and inversion, particularly potent in authoritarian contexts. It will appeal to scholars and researchers with interests in sociology, political anthropology, heritage studies, museum studies, and Asian studies.

Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future world power, gas became an avenue for the country's developmentalist ambitions. The ability to build technologically sophisticated infrastructures served as a powerful tool of state legitimation, both before and after the 1979 Revolution, and tied top-down politics of modernization to bottom-up feelings of national belonging.

Accelerant analyzes the interwoven histories of energy, development, and the environment in Iran. Following the movement of natural gas from underground deposits, through infrastructures of refining and distribution, and into everyday life, Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani explores the roles of development planners, oil firms, industrialists, engineers, and consumers-as well as the mountain ranges, sedimentary rock, and natural gas itself-to show how natural gas emerged as a crucial enabler of industrialization and a strong impetus for resource nationalism. Tracing the transformation of gas from a waste product into a vital resource, this book offers a history of anticolonial developmentalism in Iran-revealing a key driver toward intensified energy use that suggests why and how societies in the Global South became voracious consumers of fossil fuel energy.

With this book, Amy Motlagh considers how racial thinking underpins cultural practices in Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Despite cultural traditions depicting black people and the documented presence of black Iranians, many have insisted that race is not an important aspect of Iranian culture, that "blackness" does not exist in Iran. Instead, it is the notion of being "Persian" that binds all Iranians together. But, as Motlagh argues, the word "Persian" masks a long racial history that depends on the specter of blackness to define what is truly Iranian.

Colorblind critically examines how these concepts express themselves in folklore, ethnography, literature, and films to show how understandings of race and slavery have moved from home country to host, and from host to home. In particular, ambivalence surrounding the concepts of "race" and "blackness" prevents Iranians from fully interrogating their own racial thinking, even while some diasporic Iranians position themselves as racially liminal and non-white. By closely examining these efforts, as well as the cultural and historical foundations they were built on, this book reveals how ideas about race and slavery in Iran have forged a specific conception of modern Iranian cultural identity.

This book addresses critical issues for contemporary cities building their future, presenting a cohesive narrative rooted in the diverse experiences of its authors and reflecting the systemic nature of urban environments. The authors attribute the success of programming and implementing the development of future cities to the deliberate creation of stakeholder competencies, primarily through the use of smart city tools. It is assumed that, over time, these competencies will evolve both qualitatively and diversely, with their co-creation remaining a dynamic process due to shifts among stakeholders driven by migration, natural population growth or decline, and changes in stakeholder structures.

While urban communities differ significantly in various locations, conditioned culturally, politically, economically, etc., the book argues that the mechanisms of smart cities can be unified due to available technological tools and methods of filtering big data for the needs of cognitive and decision-making processes. In this area, international experiences of both cities and technology companies indicate the universality of solving problems of city functioning and the great ability to disseminate knowledge in this area. The identified trends and applied conceptual approaches can serve as a benchmark for searching for smart city competences that serve the constant increase in the inclusiveness of cities. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and advanced students, as well as policymakers and practitioners.

This book provides concise insights from a diverse range of leading scholars, reflecting on how they became geographers-representative of the field's diversity. It explores the trajectory of their academic career, their formative influences, interpretive frameworks and divisions within geography, and what it means to have a geographic sensibility. It asks how geographers came to acquire an interest and how they developed that interest. It interrogates the various influences and conditions that helped make them geographers; the interpretive frameworks that guided them; the role of the serendipitous; and how their ideas shifted. The various trajectories cover a period of dramatic change in the field, and this is registered in the stories told. Within that frame, and despite the particularity of each contribution, there are both similarities and contrasts.

In these ways, the book offers insightful contributions on how geographies and the history of the field get made, and for those considering embarking on a career in geography, just what to expect.

This book explores the ethical dimensions of nature conservation, discussing how we value the natural world and how it can be protected in a complex context where many ethically significant interests must be carefully weighed and balanced.

Beginning with foundational concepts of nature and humanity's unique ecological role, the book examines how conservation aims to harmonize human impact with the natural world. It analyzes the complex distinction between the natural and the artificial, reveals the pluralism of values underpinning conservation, and delves into challenging practical issues, from the ethical treatment of wild animals and the role of biotechnology to the influence of human preferences in conservation and the pursuit of a virtuous relationship with nature. By integrating diverse ethical perspectives and stakeholder concerns, this work argues for a pluralistic, thoughtful approach to conservation ethics, one that moves beyond instrumental views toward relationship and care, embraces complexity in evaluation and deliberation, and fosters long-term success amid urgent global challenges.

This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of nature conservation, environmental management, environmental ethics and environmental philosophy.

In its second edition, this book provides a comprehensive Indigenous perspective on Latin American political, social, and economic changes from pre-colonization to the present.

Set within a postcolonial framework and enhanced by interdisciplinary insights from anthropology, economics, sociology, and religion, the book delivers a unique understanding of Indigenous histories, resistance movements, transculturation, labor, and political organizations. Its innovative organization into 50-year historical periods facilitates semester-long classroom discussion, while images, maps, textboxes, and linked documents in every chapter support active learning. A new final chapter brings the work up to the present. This approach enables readers to contextualize major historical events and cultural changes within manageable timeframes, providing fresh perspectives that broaden traditional Latin American historical narratives.

This textbook is designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Latin American history, Indigenous studies, postcolonial studies, and related fields. It provides an ideal introduction for students.

The sources in this volume concentrate on British investments in Latin America-both material and imaginative-including new post-independence opportunities for tourism. Excerpts from the narratives of British entrepreneurs such as Francis Bond Head, John Beaumont, and Joseph Andrews provide insight into the heady speculative and exploratory enthusiasm of those whom Mary Louise Pratt has dubbed the "capitalist vanguard" and the ensuing disappointments of many of their commercial schemes, as well as testimonies of more successful (and often exploitative) later British ventures including mining. Accounts of expeditions in pursuit of the "El Dorado" legend overlap with examples from the genre of travel narratives, including writings from the "wild women travellers" in Latin America who were able to capitalize on their tourist experiences in the literary marketplace.

In Rebellious Citizens Ulices Pina shows that democracy in Mexico has never been the exclusive domain of elites, nor confined to the ballot box. Focusing on the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20, Pina explores how citizens forged a substantive democratic culture in the crucible of three successive social upheavals that shook the established social order in the central western state of Jalisco during the 1920s and 1930s-a formative period in the nation's political history.

Pina examines how ordinary Mexicans actively shaped the political process, made their own history, and fought for equality in the country's long fight for democracy. The long-term effects of the recurring uprisings in Jalisco were central to the new political system produced by the postrevolutionary state: After each rebellion, authorities consolidated institutional power, elected officials debated the strictures of government, and ordinary people grappled with the promise and limits of political emancipation. Because of the contradictions that arose from the creation of this modern political system, especially those that emerged at the nexus of democratic inclusion and authoritarian rule, seemingly powerless populations claimed equality, exercised participation rights, and demanded respect, even amid the violence and surveillance the state deployed against marginal groups to achieve its goals. Rebellious Citizens brings into focus the struggles of ordinary people to experiment with new ways of doing politics to remake the nation.

When saving wetlands imperils Black futures, restoration demands reimaginationCoastal Louisiana is losing land at an unprecedented rate, and in response, scientists and policymakers have turned to massive restoration projects to slow the erosion. Good Sediment enters this charged landscape, where the promise of ecological renewal collides with the lived realities of Black coastal communities in Plaquemines Parish.

At the center of the book is the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, the state's most ambitious and controversial project: a $2 billion engineering feat that would redirect the Mississippi River's mud and silt into disappearing wetlands. For policymakers, the river's sediment is salvation. For the Parish's multigenerational Black communities, however, this "good sediment" carries profound risks, including flooding homes and undermining fishing livelihoods.

Through ethnographic research, Monica Patrice Barra traces the multiple meanings of restoration as scientists, engineers, and Afro-descendant communities wrestle with what it means to "work with nature" in the shadow of climate change. She reveals how technical claims of environmental progress often sidestep questions of environmental racism, and how Black communities press instead for restoration that sustains culture, dignity, and intergenerational survival.

Unsettling the assumption that restoration is inherently benevolent, Good Sediment reframes ecological repair as a political and cultural practice-one that must grapple with the racial histories embedded in the land. This vital work bridges environmental anthropology, political ecology, and Black studies to imagine restoration otherwise: as a project oriented toward protecting Black life.

We are living through the sixth mass extinction. Capitalism, the essential driver of carbon emissions, is reaching its inevitably brutal endgame: techno-feudalism. Not only are we facing a climate emergency - we need to prepare for climate revolution.

In a series of reports from the front lines, philosopher-journalist Todd Dufresne provides an urgent analysis of the knowledge and morals that are fuelling this revolution. His manifesto outlines the links between Western values, capitalism, and climate change, rejecting the "pathology of politeness" afflicting mainstream climate activism and warning that the systemic violence of post-capitalist society will be met with violence. Dufresne champions the radical critics of capitalism whose ideas, courage, and exuberant energy have the power to forestall the social murder of humanity in service of short-term profits for a tiny, irredeemable elite.

A fearless - and fearsome - account of the world-historical social and material conditions confronting us, The Future Belongs to Those Who Fight is a call to support utopic realism: a vision that embraces empathy, freedom, community, and universal human rights. It lays out what may be the only path to a world worth living in: left populism.

The Routledge International Handbook of Ecological Psychology provides the definitive international reference for understanding how humans perceive and control goal-directed behavior in everyday environments. This authoritative volume examines the rapidly expanding field that bridges perception, action, and environmental interaction across diverse real-world contexts.

The handbook comprehensively surveys theoretical developments, empirical evidence, and practical applications spanning laboratory research and real-world practice. It explores behavioral dynamics across multiple scales, examining both affordances that create behavioral opportunities and the perceptual information that guides behavioral control. Key domains include child development, rehabilitation, sports performance, artistic expression, diversity studies, and technological innovation. The volume establishes fundamental ecological psychology concepts while showcasing cutting-edge research on lawful perceptual control of everyday actions. Additionally, it maps emerging trends and contemporary debates, positioning new developments against established findings and theories to demonstrate how innovative ideas are challenging traditional viewpoints and advancing the field's theoretical landscape.

This handbook serves researchers, graduate students, and academics working in ecological psychology, cognitive science, and related disciplines. It provides essential reference material for those seeking comprehensive understanding of current scholarship and emerging developments in this rapidly evolving field.

This book serves as a scholarly work examining Karbi philosophy, oral traditions, and cultural practices through comprehensive analysis. It explores themes in indigenous philosophy, folklore, eco-philosophy, historical memory, and collective identity formation including:

• Critical examination of colonial constructions and decolonizing methodologies in ethnographic studies
• In-depth study of Karbi eco-philosophy and environmental worldview
• Historical memory analysis and trauma interpretation in indigenous contexts
• Examination of collective identity formation through memory and metaphor
• Scholarly investigation of evolving belief systems and religious transformations

The book includes detailed studies of belief systems, decolonizing methodologies, and ethnographic approaches. Ideal for researchers, anthropologists, and students interested in cultural studies and indigenous research.

This title has been co-published with Manohar Publishers & Distributors. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print edition in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Bhutan.

The construction of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the modernization of society have historically been defined as masculine endeavors, with women on the sidelines. This biography of Juana Catarina Romero (1837-1915) shatters many of the stereotypes of nineteenth-century women and provides a new perspective of women's national agency during a time in which women could neither vote nor hold political office. Romero's breathtaking climb from illiterate cigarette peddler and Liberal spy to wealthy entrepreneur, philanthropist, and, finally, cacica (political boss) of the city of Tehuantepec, despite the opposition of male elites, reveals the growing fluidity of class, race, and ethnicity.

Francie Chassen-Lopez's fascinating biography of Romero offers rich insight into the complexities of modernization as it developed on the periphery of Mexico. Romero sought a Tehuantepec-style modernity, a modus vivendi between modernization, Catholicism, and isthmian Zapotec culture. Like her friend President Porfirio Diaz, Romero formed part of a group of ambitious Mexicans of modest origins, forged in civil war, who would build the Mexican nation-state.

Containing Latin America provides a fresh interpretive history of the making and remaking of Latin America and the United States from the Long Cold War to the Global Cold War (1910-1991), exploring how geopolitics created enduring patterns in inter-American relations.

Berger argues that while each Latin American nation-state followed diverse historical trajectories-contrasting Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina-these differences unfolded within broader Cold War frameworks that shaped the entire hemisphere. Central to this analysis is an examination of how the state was understood during this period as a contested historical institution that provided the major arena for national and international politics, consistently determining which ideological, social, and cultural groups gained political access. The volume discusses pivotal moments including the Guatemalan Revolution, the Alliance for Progress, and the Cuban Revolution, and a compelling epilogue takes readers to the present day, examining the continued tension between visions of a common hemispheric future in a globalized world on the one hand and actual inter-American power relations on the other.

This concise yet informative history provides an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and general readers interested in Latin American history, global history, international relations, and development studies.

The volume explores how grassroots mobilization and resistance confront democratic backsliding, how institutional design and accountability shape resilience or decay, and how pressing policy challenges-from inequality and migration to social conflict and environmental governance-reshape political dynamics. Special attention is given to public administration, highlighting bureaucratic autonomy, civil service reform, decentralization, corruption, and transparency as crucial dimensions of state capacity and citizen trust. In addition, the Handbook situates regional politics within broader global influences, including international organizations, financial institutions, and social media, and provides detailed case studies of 20 countries.

An essential reference for scholars, students, and practitioners, this Handbook will appeal to those interested in Latin American politics, democratization, public administration, political economy, and global governance.

Key Features:

• 73 entries written by expert scholars
• Coverage of the last two decades of Latin American politics, including post-pandemic developments
• Analysis of six core dimensions: social actors, institutions, democracy, international actors, policy challenges, and public administration
• 20 country case studies