The first book to assess the impact of feminist criticism on comparative literature, Borderwork recharts the intellectual and institutional boundaries on that discipline and calls for the contextualization of the study of comparative literature within the areas of discourse, culture, ideology, race, and gender.

Refugees. Border protection. Ethnic gangs. Terrorism. History wars. Pauline Hanson. Australia's faith in multiculturalism has been shaken by fierce attacks from its enemies and a sense of crisis among its friends. Multiculturalism has become a political tool to win votes and generate community anxiety. What is left of the multicultural ideal? Bob Hodge and John O'Carroll take the pulse of multicultural Australia in the wake of September 11. They investigate the hot spots' of multiculturalism, showing how they cluster around fiercely defended boundaries and borders, both literal and symbolic. They tackle the issues of racism past and present, and show how injustice impacts on many communities in Australia, including Aboriginals as well as more recent migrant groups. The authors argue that despite appearances, multiculturalism is alive and well in Australia, and a commitment to tolerance and diversity characterises daily life. In fact, Australia's multiculture is the best kind of borderwork against terrorism, racism and injustice. A timely, original and optimistic discussion of Australia's multicultural past and our possible futures.' Graeme Turner, Director, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland This clearly written book shines a welcome light on the fog of critique of Australian multiculturalism from both the Right and the Left.' Jock Collins, Professor of Economics, University of Technology Sydney

The extent to which ordinary people can construct, shift, and dismantle borders is seriously neglected in the existing literature. The book explores the ability of citizens to participate in the making of borders, and the empowerment that can result from this bordering and debordering activity. ‘Borderwork’ is the name given to the ways in which ordinary people can make and unmake borders. Borderwork is no longer only the business of nation-states, it is also the business of citizens (and indeed non-citizens). This study of ‘borderwork’ extends the recent interest in forms of bordering which do not necessarily occur at the state’s external borders. However, the changing nature of borders cannot be reduced to a shift from the edges to the interior of a polity. To date little research has been conducted on the role of ordinary people in envisioning, constructing, maintaining, shifting, and erasing borders; creating borders which facilitate mobility for some while creating barriers to mobility for others; appropriating the political resources which bordering offers; contesting the legitimacy of or undermining the borders imposed by others. This book makes an original contribution to the literature and stands to set the agenda for a new dimension of border studies. This book was published as a special issue of Space and Polity.

Drawing on extensive and carefully designed ethnographic fieldwork in the Ferghana Valley region, where the state borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikizstan and Uzbekistan intersect, Madeleine Reeves develops new ways of conceiving the state as a complex of relationships, and of state borders as socially constructed and in a constant state of flux. She explores the processes and relationships through which state borders are made, remade, interpreted and contested by a range of actors including politicians, state officials, border guards, farmers and people whose lives involve the crossing of the borders. In territory where international borders are not always clearly demarcated or consistently enforced, Reeves traces the ways in which states' attempts to establish their rule create new sources of conflict or insecurity for people pursuing their livelihoods in the area on the basis of older and less formal understandings of norms of access. As a result the book makes a major new and original contribution to scholarly work on Central Asia and more generally on the anthropology of border regions and the state as a social process. Moreover, the work as a whole is presented in a lively and accessible style. The individual lives whose tribulations and small triumphs Reeves so vividly documents, and the relationships she establishes with her subjects, are as revealing as they are engaging. Border Work is a well-deserved winner of this year’s Alexander Nove Prize.

You see it in every schoolyard: the girls play only with the girls, the boys play only with the boys. Why? And what do the kids think about this? Breaking with familiar conventions for thinking about children and gender, Gender Play develops fresh insights into the everyday social worlds of kids in elementary schools in the United States. Barrie Thorne draws on her daily observations in the classroom and on the playground to show how children construct and experience gender in school. With rich detail, she looks at the "play of gender" in the organization of groups of kids and activities - activities such as "chase-and-kiss," "cooties," "goin' with" and teasing. Thorne observes children in schools in working-class communities, emphasizing the experiences of fourth and fifth graders. Most of the children she observed were white, but a sizable minority were Latino, Chicano, or African American. Thorne argues that the organization and meaning of gender are influenced by age, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and social class, and that they shift with social context. She sees gender identity not through the lens of individual socialization or difference, but rather as a social process involving groups of children. Thorne takes us on a fascinating journey of discovery, provides new insights about children, and offers teachers practical suggestions for increasing cooperative mixed-gender interaction.

′The provision of many amusing examples from Corsaro′s own research experience with children make his book a thoroughly enjoyable read as well as a valuable critical sociological analysis of childhood′ - Sociology The Sociology of Childhood is the Second Edition of a text that has been universally acclaimed as the best book on the subject available today. It is the only text that thoroughly covers children and childhood from a sociological perspective. The second edition retains the same quality coverage of social theories of childhood, the consideration of children and childhood in historical and cultural perspective, children′s peer cultures from preschool through preadolescence, and the social problems of children. The book has been updated to include new research, information, and discussions on the latest social indicators regarding children in the United States and around the world. Key Features New chapter on up-to-date methods of research for studying children. New chapters on theory, cultural change, and children′s peer cultures. New section on children′s rights including a description and discussion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Updated chapter on the Future of Childhood addresses current policy debates and changing demographics related to children in today′s societies. Contains many examples of children′s actual play and behavior. Provides photographs and charts that capture the complexity and diversity of children′s lives. The Sociology of Childhood is highly recommended for use as the core text in courses on the sociology of children and childhood, as well as for parents, teachers, and other adults interested in the social lives and development of children. It can also be used in early education, child development, and child psychology courses, and as a supplemental text in the area of family studies. William A. Corsaro is the Robert H. Shaffer Class of 1967 Endowed Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he teaches courses on the sociology of childhood, childhood in contemporary society, and ethnographic research methods. Corsaro is the author of Friendship and Peer Culture in the Early Years (1985) and "We′re Friends, Right": Inside Kids′ Culture (2003). He was a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow in Bologna, Italy, in 1983-84 and a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow in Trondheim, Norway, in 2003. His research has been featured on NPR, the BBC in London, and in the New Yorker.

Philippe M. Frowd shows how tightening border security in West Africa is a statebuilding practice, underpinned by international and local security officials and technologies.