This book examines why Iran carries out a high number of executions and takes positions that differ markedly from much of the Western world, where the death penalty has largely been abolished. According to the UN, at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran in 2025. Seen through Western eyes, these spectacles of punishment, along with the deadly crackdown of protesters, suppression of women and ethnic minorities, brutal prisons, mandatory wearing of the Hijab, morality policing, and cruelty to animals make Iran seem an alien and barbaric society. A common-sense assumption often relegates Iran to the sphere of oppression and brutality, blames the reign of clerics, despotic leaders, or attributes it to Islam and Shariah rules. This book's argument though is that these contemporary characteristics of Iranian society, so repulsive to most modern sensibilities, should be understood as the product of long-term cultural trends that began during the 19th century when Iran was known as Persia. They were then reinforced by Western-inspired attempts to 'civilize' and modernize the country that came to be known as Iran in the 20th century. The cumulative effects have been to bring about a central state, sensibilities, and interdependencies between citizens where there is a public tolerance of suffering and a celebration of pain - as seen most vividly in regular, public executions.

This book seeks to broaden the analytical lens through which we understand domestic violence by centering those whose experiences have been marginalized by both public discourse and academic scholarship. Domestic violence against men exists: it is violent; it is often fatal; and it is systemically silenced and ignored, particularly in the South African context. This book emerges from that silence. Drawing from qualitative research conducted in Hillbrow, Johannesburg-a city both deeply complex and violent, this book is a groundbreaking documentation of the lived experiences of African men who have been physically violated by their female partners. They are human stories-raw, painful, often shocking, told in the voices of survivors, their feelings, thoughts of sadness, their fears, and vulnerabilities. It draws attention to women's capacity and agency in willfully initiating and intentionally perpetrating severe violence against their male counterparts, which is widely underestimated in existing literature. Importantly, the focus here is solely on physical violence-burns, stabs, hits, and bites. Using a nuanced lens, this book offers not only narrative accounts but also analytical reflections on what these stories reveal about gender, power, vulnerability, and the institutional neglect of male victims in South Africa, but are placed separately from the stories. This book extends to theoretical underpinnings to understanding the dimensions of severity, motivation, and frequency of domestic violence-in this case against men. It aims to benefit the fields of gender studies, social work, psychology, and public health, while also informing policymakers, practitioners, and advocacy groups. It is both a call to action and a contribution to the global discourse on domestic violence.

We seem to be living in an unprecedented polycrisis. Multiple crises - mass forced migration, imminent climate doom, pandemics, and the rise of the far right, to name a few - intersect and amplify each other to a degree never seen before. But the fact that voices from journalists to academics can so easily label this moment unprecedented, argues anthropologist Daniel M. Knight, is a problem. With this book, Knight builds a case against the polycrisis framework as an example of toxic presentism, in which our analytical gaze is blurred by deeply engrained assumptions about historical progression and linear time.

Against Polycrisis employs diverse lines of thought from anthropology, history, philosophy, and popular culture to unpack recent fascinations with the unprecedented polycrisis trope. Knight critically examines previous historical eras of overlapping crises - from Greece's recent economic collapse to the 1600s General Crisis to the fall of the Ottoman Empire - in conversation with philosophers, historians, and the next generation of humanistic thinkers, all enriched by reflections on science fiction and popular culture. Knight concludes that the toxic presentism perpetuated in politics, academia, and the media only serves to obscure how the world could be otherwise.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of contemporary issues in consumer law. Organized by the International Association of Consumer Law (IACL) and presented at the 18th World Consumer Law Conference in Hamburg, it examines multifaceted challenges across various jurisdictions and sectors. It begins with an analysis of the integration of consumer protection into financial services, featuring insights into Brazilian over-indebtedness frameworks and South African corporate responsibility. A significant portion is devoted to trade obligations and faulty goods, including comparative studies involving Ghana, the UK, and the EU, alongside discussions on product durability.
The volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach, exploring the intersection of consumer law with competition law, gender studies, and intellectual property. It brings together international perspectives, ranging from gender protection in Argentina to trademark analysis in China. In the digital context, the book addresses evolving challenges such as Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), blockchain, and the liability of online platforms under EU and Turkish law. It also examines the impact of artificial intelligence in healthcare, deceptive design practices, and the important link between consumer protection and environmental sustainability.
Covering emerging areas such as food law and the protection of international tourists, this book is an essential resource for legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers navigating the complex landscape of modern consumer protection.

This book addresses a notable lacuna within the corpus of English-language scholarship by investigating Ham Sok Hon's philosophy of peace. Ham Sok Hon (1901-1989) is hailed as one of modern Korea's most influential figures, having been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Throughout his life, he embraced various roles, including those of activist, journalist, historian, poet, and philosopher, while consistently advocating for democratization, human rights, and labor rights. Whereas existing literature primarily offers biographical narrative, this work provides a focused and systematic analysis of Ham's fundamental doctrines concerning peace and non-violence. Central to this analysis is an in-depth exploration of Ham's key concepts, such as "ssial philosophy," "saengmyeong (life) consciousness," and the intriguing notion of "tteut (meaning)." By drawing from a wide range of philosophical and religious traditions believed to have influenced Ham's thinking, including Christianity, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, as well as works by notable figures like H.G. Wells, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Bergson, Rabindranath Tagore, and Mahatma Gandhi, the proposed text aims to provide a nuanced, syncretic understanding of his conception of peace. Furthermore, the book contributes to the overall global discourse on peace and nonviolence.

By analyzing how protest fused the politics of reading and writing in 1968 West Germany, author Peter Schweppe uncovers the vibrant history of an alternative literary form during a watershed moment of social upheaval. Out of Line interlinks the politics of reading and writing with the verve of Global Sixties' protest, where fringe books, underground newspapers, incendiary flyers, and furtive graffiti galvanized readers and writers alike. The phrase "out of line" scrutinizes the emerging performative relationship between visual and textual media in the late 1960s as it metamorphosed modes of West German literary production, channeled the agenda of the protest movement, and, in doing so, shaped new kinds of textual meaning. Through its engagement with theories of materiality and "things," Out of Line interrogates the dynamic ways that protest readers and writers pushed and broke conventional boundaries. Schweppe's exploration of form discloses how reading and writing out of line implicates a textual and material history of protest and the lessons it offers protest histories to come.

The book is a significant contribution to the body of existing migration studies study and is genuinely comprehensive in its covering. In addition to the many people in Bangladesh, the global north, and South Asia whose concern is extremely practical rather than academic because they must coexist with the system in order for it to function. The Rohingya situation is a severe humanitarian disaster that necessitates a thorough comprehension of the media's function in influencing public opinion and foreign policy. The effectiveness of media strategies in the Rohingya repatriation process is investigated in this study, which offers insightful information to help governments, media outlets, and humanitarian organizations enhance their crisis management initiatives.

This book traces the lineage and descent of ideas about populism within academic literature. Contemporary conceptions and definitions of populism are mostly, if not exclusively, pejorative, and used as an epithet for fascism, authoritarianisms of all stripes, and troubling forms of mass mobilizations. Adopting a genealogical approach, that investigates how the present arose out of the contingencies of the past, this book examines the consequential role played by American scholars of the 1950s in redefining the term away from its origins as a self-designation for a fledgling nineteenth century third party in the United States to a catch-all epithet for the very worst kinds of politics. It argues that the transmission of this pejorative definition to the European academy of the 1970s and beyond has bequeathed contemporary populism scholarship a troubling legacy that has largely gone unexamined and unquestioned. By demonstrating the lineage of contemporary ideas about populism, the book suggests that they rest on far flimsier intellectual foundations than is often assumed and that the concept of populism as a dangerous form of mass-based politics is more problematic and contestable than it appears.

Feminist ideas spread quickly while feminism remains unpopular by designIn contemporary China, feminism circulates widely across digital media, popular culture, and consumer markets, yet it remains politically precarious. Viral Dissent examines this paradox through an incisive study of feminist activism, misogyny, and gender politics in China's rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Drawing on interviews, ethnographic observation, and analysis of high-profile online controversies, Sara Liao traces the complex life of feminism in a system shaped by platform capitalism, techno-nationalism, and individual users. Feminist discourse spreads through social media campaigns, influencer culture, and viral debates, but its visibility-and survival-is carefully managed. Through case studies of #MeToo activism, anti-victim-blaming campaigns, online misogyny, and digital feminist groups, Liao conceptualizes "unpopular feminism," a feminism that operates as both a popular cultural genre and a stigmatized political project. Some forms of feminist expression are celebrated as part of the booming "sheconomy," while others-particularly those calling for collective action or structural change-face marginalization, censorship, harassment, and nationalist backlash.

Bridging media studies, gender studies, and transnational feminist theory, Viral Dissent offers a powerful account of how feminist struggle is reshaped at the intersection of capital, technology, state power, and everyday media use, illuminating the possibilities and limits of activism in an era of global platforms, commercialized visibility, and authoritarian governance.

This book explains the uses of laughter in contemporary China, and demonstrates how humour in China is put to many uses. Through the use of examples from different mediums such as film, sketch comedy, stand-up and sitcoms, this book demonstrates that Chinese comedy is not just about telling jokes or presenting funny scenarios-humour is also used to criticise social trends, to mock people in authority and to allow the public to reflect on China's dramatic economic and cultural changes. The authors bring comedy figures who are well-known in China, such as Zhao Benshan, Feng Xiaogang, and Guo Degang, to the attention of international readers, using translation and explanations to explain why Chinese people find their work both amusing and meaningful. They explore uniquely Chinese forms of comedy, like xiangsheng dialogues, and consider how international genres like stand-up and situation comedy are localised in China. They demonstrate how comedy can be used to sidestep censorship and satirise the humourless restrictiveness of the Chinese government. This book appeals readers who are interested in how humour is used as a form of political communication, how humour can cross national borders, and those interested in contemporary Chinese media and politics.

This edited book explores the evolving relationship between fintech, regulation, and sustainable development from a global perspective. It provides comparative analyses of regulatory approaches in the EU, Germany, Tuerkiye, and selected emerging markets, assessing how fintech innovations, such as digital payments, equity crowdfunding, and green finance-support financial inclusion and sustainability goals. Combining policy analysis with empirical insights, the volume serves as a practical guide for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to navigate the complex intersection of technological innovation and responsible regulation.

This book explores the portmanteau as a popular language trend. A portmanteau is a lexical blend in which at least one of the two original words is shortened in the process of combination, such as brunch (breakfast + lunch) or motel (motor + hotel). Although portmanteaus have a long history in the English language, they are experiencing a significant proliferation in online communication. The power of the portmanteau lies in its ability to bring concepts together both sonically and n writing. In doing so, portmanteaus carry the associations of their source words through multiple and shifting contexts, making them complex sites of rhetorical inquiry. This book examines the portmanteau form by analyzing a range of contemporary blend words. It theorizes a method of "critical portmanteau decomposition" that illustrates the ways the portmanteau's form contributes to its functioning by forging conceptual associations between its components. These associations become clear when the blend is "decomposed" into its constituent parts: the source words and the extra linguistic contexts surrounding both the source words and the blend as a whole. This complex blending process reflects and constructs conceptual networks that can be easily masked by the form, which is often viewed as playful and innocuous. This is particularly significant when the portmanteau transmits ideology, as the playful form is at odds with its content. Critical portmanteau decomposition takes into account the pieces of the portmanteau, the cognitive process of blending, the connections forged among elements, and the context of the complete word.

American labor unions are in crisis. Unionization rates have been in decline for decades. Hospital workers' unions, however, are growing. Today, they are among the most potent forces in the American labor movement. The Moral Economy of Care seeks to understand both the historical developments that have led to this state of affairs, and the ethical dilemmas of striking and workplace conflict in hospitals today.

The COVID pandemic laid bare the moral injury care workers suffer due to the burden of balancing patient wellbeing against market incentives. Pablo Gaston argues that these longstanding ethical tensions are linked to care workers' mass scale mobilization, with deep roots in the history of care work in the US. The notable successes of today's hospital workers' unions, Gaston argues, can be explained by their ability to leverage a rhetorical framework that reconciles the tension; care workers strike because they care, whereas capital is uncaring. Following two unions working to organize California hospital workers over the course of seven decades, this book shows how moral conceptions of caring shaped collective bargaining patterns in hospitals in the twentieth century.

Both the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine became major crises for public managers in the Visegrad 4 states of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Each of those states responded in different ways to the two crises, based on their ideologies and levels of capabilities. Of course, the two crises themselves were very different in terms of their impact on the public and the set of public managers that needed to make critical decisions. This work proposes that there are three stages in crisis management, and that theoretical perspective will lay the groundwork for analysis of the four states. Those stages include Risk Assessment, Risk Management, and Risk Communication. Taken together, they offer a portrayal of the Resilience of each state in terms of both public management and the general public.

Why has multilateral peacebuilding in conflict-ridden states emerged as a depoliticized practice that rarely engages with local actors and agendas? And why has depoliticization persisted despite continued criticisms? Claiming Impartiality offers an innovative answer to the puzzling persistence of depoliticization in post-war peacebuilding that focuses on the institutional mandates, interests, and practices of those international and bilateral organizations that design and implement most peacebuilding interventions.

Drawing on and expanding a Bourdieusian field perspective, the book examines international organizations as actors in multiple fields of global governance. Using the case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Timor-Leste, it traces the emergence and transformation of peacebuilding practices by leading international and bilateral organizations during the first two decades of the field's existence. The organizational lens highlights the tensions that exist between the objectives of simultaneously acting as a peacebuilding organization and as a peacekeeping, humanitarian, or development organization whose practices are to varying degrees committed to observing the twin principles of impartiality and neutrality. By thinking through these sometimes contradictory roles, the book offers new insights into how these organizations sideline questions of political agency in favor of expanding their influence into related fields of global governance. Claiming Impartiality discusses the future of peacebuilding and explores avenues for addressing political challenges to peace itself.

A step-by-step leadership guide to help overcome employee resistance to AI, boost innovation, and unlock AI's full business value

As leaders rush to adopt artificial intelligence (AI)-driven by its potential to revolutionize operations, boost return on investment, and drive innovation-they often encounter significant hurdles. These challenges are not simply technical but also deeply human, involving employee resistance, cognitive biases, and entrenched organizational culture, all of which undermine successful AI adoption.

Drawing on over twenty-five years of consulting experience and rigorous behavioral science research, Gleb Tsipursky shows business professionals at all levels how to harness their greatest resource while solving their biggest challenge: their anxious and resistant people. You will learn how to boost employee engagement, dismantle cultural roadblocks, and build the psychological sense of safety required for AI-powered innovation that maximizes efficiency and effectiveness. Through real-world case studies, including many from clients, readers will see how to transform AI skeptics into empowered AI champions, design upskilling programs that drive engagement and innovation, and weave ethical governance guardrails into every deployment.

The Psychology of AI Adoption at Work includes frameworks, conversation scripts, and metrics based on more than 100 consulting projects, along with over 50 interviews with leaders from Microsoft, Uber, Experian, and many other leading firms. This book delivers a practical roadmap to turn employee anxiety into energy, resistance into results, and promising pilots into scalable breakthroughs, cementing a durable competitive edge in the AI age.

Not mere biological entities, bodies are conceptual and political battlegrounds, either instruments of domination or avenues of liberation. Throughout history and across cultures, bodies have been used to express social, racial, class, and gender differences. They have also been imagined as means: means for reproducing life and labor, means understood to be inscribed within a "natural" order. This concept has run through the entire history of Western metaphysics and culture, and its persistence and development has contributed to the establishment of cultural and political dominance by Western rationality and the white men who conceived it.

This book asks us to reconsider the theoretical and political power of means in relation to bodies. Stimilli problematizes the role of means in a hypertechnological era in which politics has come to be seen merely as administration, with no pretence of elaborating higher meanings or purposes. Are means, she asks, truly instruments subordinate to purposes unrelated to them, or could they be something else?

In a philosophical investigation into the meaning of means, Stimilli elaborates the political power of bodies as means, arguing that they are never neutral and lie at the origin of collective phenomena whose potential is still to be explored. From the United States to South America and Europe, from North Africa to the Middle East and beyond, bodies are at the center of enormous transnational and intersectional movements as non-instrumental means for new forms of social reproduction. A new sexuation of the world is now the order of the day.

This open access book examines timely issues of integrated, international, and harmonized longitudinal research on child development and wellbeing. It describes the unique approach of the Growing up in Digital Europe (GUIDE) study, which is rooted in robust scientific inquiry and provides a solid evidence base for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers focused on child development in a digital world. Chapters employ a parallel structure, including background on each GUIDE topic as well as a summary of the current state of, future directions in, and recommendations for additional research. The book offers several select case studies that provide synergy and coherency across the chapters.

Key areas of coverage include:

• Holistic understanding of child wellbeing.
• Child development in the digital age.
• Child-centered research approaches.
• Cross-national harmonized questionnaire development.
• Potential for data linkage and biological data.
• Ethical considerations in an age of digital data.
• Fieldwork best practices, including translation.
• Sampling frames across diverse jurisdictions.

Growing up in Digital Europe is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as policy makers, educators, and related professionals in developmental, clinical child, and school psychology, family studies, clinical social work, migration studies, health psychology, economics, and all related disciplines.

This open access book from the Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network addresses food security, health, and wellbeing among migrants and refugees who faced heightened vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a blend of survey data, personal narratives, and compelling images, it illustrates the consequences of the pandemic for migrants and refugees from Afghanistan, the DRC, Ghana, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, living in the destination countries of Canada, South Africa, Ecuador, and Qatar. The contributors focus on four themes: the food security and health implications of public health responses to COVID-19; the impact of these measures on marginalised refugees and migrants in urban settings; gender differences in accessing food and food-related programs; and key policy lessons for vulnerable populations in times of crisis. This book will be useful to academics, students, and stakeholders engaged with migrant and refugee communities, as well as policymakers seeking actionable insights. While focused on COVID-19, its insights are relevant for future public health emergencies.

This book provides an overview of different approaches to research on language and multimodality in social interactions. The author examines five strands - multimodal discourse analysis, multimodal corpus analysis, conversation analysis, gesture studies, and human multimodal communication - providing rationales and case studies to elucidate how each approach to language and multimodality has evolved, describing its theories, methodological frameworks, and positioning them in the field. The volume foregrounds how research on multimodal social interactions contributes both to theoretical development and to social problem-solving, and it will be of interest to a range of readers with backgrounds in fields including language and multimodal research, communication in social interaction, discourse and pragmatics, and applied linguistics.