This book is a study of the UK-based Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the context of the twentieth-century South Asian diaspora. Originating in late nineteenth-century Punjab, the Ahmadis are today a vibrant international religious movement; they are also a group that has been declared heretic by other Muslims and one that continues to face persecution in Pakistan, the country the Ahmadis made the…
This book examines the semiotic effects of protocols and algorithms at work in popular social media systems, bridging philosophical conversations in human-computer interaction (HCI) and information systems (IS) design with contemporary work in critical media, technology and software studies. Where most research into social media is sociological in scope, Neal Thomas shows how the underlying mat…
As Africa urbanises and the focus of poverty shifts to urban centres, there is an imperative to address poverty in African cities. This is particularly the case in smaller cities, which are often the most rapidly urbanising, but the least able to cope with this growth. This book argues that an examination of the food system and food security provides a valuable lens to interrogate urban poverty…
Presenting an ethnographic account of the emergence and application of critical political alternatives in the Global South, this book analyses the opportunities and challenges of decolonizing and transforming a modern, hierarchical and globally-immersed nation-state on the basis of indigenous terminologies. Alternative development paradigms that represent values including justice, pluralism,…
Adolescence is a pivotal time in a girl's life. The development of educational, physical, psychosocial, familial, political and economic capabilities enable girls to reach their full potential and contribute to the wellbeing of their families and society. However, progress is still significantly constrained by discriminatory gender norms and the related attitudes and practices which restrict gi…
Much of framing scholarship focuses either exclusively on the analysis of words or of visuals. This book aims to address this gap by proposing a six-step approach to the analysis of verbal frames, visual frames and the interplay between them—an integrative framing analysis. This approach is then demonstrated through a study investigating the way words and visuals are used to frame people livi…
COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges in the care of older adults. During the first surge of the pandemic, governments all over the world struggled with high disease severity and increased mortality among older adults. This work documents the impact of the pandemic by collating information from different countries and by synthesizing inputs from several knowledge domains—Sociology,…
Noncitizens have always been present in liberal political philosophy. Often hard to situate within traditional frameworks that prioritise citizenship, noncitizens can appear voiceless and rightsless, which has implications for efforts towards global justice and justice in migration. This book proposes an alternative. Noncitizenism identifies an analytical category of noncitizenship. While main…
Since the end of the Cold War, the monopoly of legitimate organized force of many African states has been eroded by a mix of rebel groups, violent extremist organizations, and self-defence militias created in response to the rise in organized violence on the continent. African Border Disorders explores the complex relationships that bind states, transnational rebels and extremist organizations…
From Mind to Text: Continuities and Breaks Between Cognitive, Aesthetic and Textualist Approaches to Literature explores the historical context of theory formation and of its contemporary status, including an overview of debates about theory’s role in literary studies provided both by representatives of theory itself, as well as by those who distance themselves from it.