This volume stems from the Third Global Conference on Strangers, Aliens and Foreigners, 2011, and is a unique collection of differing perspectives on the notion of Strangeness. Within fourteen chapters the authors, coming from all over the world, reach over the boundaries of academic disciplines to unveil and explore.

This collection examines the presence of minority communities and dissident voices in Ireland both historically and in a contemporary framework. Accordingly, the contributions explore different facets of what we term “Irish minority and dissident identities,” ranging from political agitators drowned out by mainstream narratives of nationhood, to identities differentiated from the majority in terms of ethnicity, religion, class and health; and sexual minorities that challenge heteronormative perspectives on marriage, contraception, abortion, and divorce. At a moment when transnational democracy and the rights of minorities seem to be at risk, a book of this nature seems more pressing than ever. In different ways, the essays gathered here remind us of the importance of ‘rethinking’ nationhood, by a process of denaturalisation of the supremacy of white heterosexual structures.

Being mobile in today's world is influenced by many aspects including transnational ties, increased ease of access to transport, growing accessibility to technology, knowledge and information and changing socio-cultural outlooks and values. These factors can all engender a (re)formation of our everyday life and moving - as and for lifestyle - has, in many ways, become both easier and much more complex. This book highlights the crossroads between concepts of lifestyle and the growing body of work on 'mobilities'. The study of lifestyle offers a lens through which to study the kinds of moorings, dwellings, repetitions and routines around which mobilities become socially, culturally and politically meaningful. Bringing together scholars from geography, sociology, tourism, history and beyond, the authors illustrate the breadth and richness of mobilities research through the concept of lifestyle. Organised into four sections, the book begins by dealing with aspects of bodily performance through lifestyle mobility. Section two then looks at how we can use mobile methods within social research, whilst section three explores issues surrounding ideas of mobility, immobility and belonging. Finally, section four draws together a number of chapters that focus on the complexities of identity within mobility. Often drawing on ethnographic research, contributors all share one common feature: they are at the forefront of research into lifestyle mobilities.

Because all wars in the twenty-first century are potentially global wars, the centenary of the first global war is the occasion for reflection. This volume offers an unprecedented account of the lives, stories, letters, games, schools, institutions (such as the Boy Scouts and YMCA), and toys of children in Europe, North America, and the Global South during the First World War and surrounding years. By engaging with developments in Children’s Literature, War Studies, and Education, and mining newly available archival resources (including letters written by children), the contributors to this volume demonstrate how perceptions of childhood changed in the period. Children who had been constructed as Romantic innocents playing safely in secure gardens were transformed into socially responsible children actively committing themselves to the war effort. In order to foreground cross-cultural connections across what had been perceived as ‘enemy’ lines, perspectives on German, American, British, Australian, and Canadian children’s literature and culture are situated so that they work in conversation with each other. The multidisciplinary, multinational range of contributors to this volume make it distinctive and a particularly valuable contribution to emerging studies on the impact of war on the lives of children.

This book is a critical exploration of the philosophical underpinnings and implications of Cornelius Castoriadis reflections on Being, society and the self. The book introduces the reader to the main concepts of Castoriadis work, but goes further to uncover the fundamental philosophical issues addressed by Castoriadis, and to critically examine the issues his work opens up, assessing and, where necessary, offering suggested amendments to the answers Castoriadis himself puts forward. Key conceptual problems addressed include the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy, the nature of the self and self-creation, and the nature of determination in a fundamentally indeterminate universe.

This book is a collection of notable papers from the first six volumes of the journal "Comparative Sociology." Its content represents leading-edge and contemporarily astute analyses in the burgeoning science of comparative sociology, especially relevant to a globalizing world in transition. Given that not everyone is acquainted with comparative sociology, this book offers an opportunity to enlighten readers unfamiliar with the discipline about the importance of comparative sociology to the new world order. Taken together, the articles illuminate various aspects of comparative sociologya "theoretical, methodological, substantive. Some compare social entities in subjective, case-study fashion, while others report on rigorous social research. All contribute in one form or another to describing the many and varied facets of the exciting a oenewa science of comparative sociology. The content of this volume has previously been published in "Comparative Sociology" volumes 1 a " 6.3.

"We have come a long way from Evans-Pritchard's famous dictum that "there is only one method in social anthropology, the comparative method - and that is impossible." Yet a good 40 years later, qualitative social inquiry still has an uneasy relationship with comparison. This volume sets out "thick comparison" as a means to revive "comparing" as a productive process in ethnographic work: a process that helps to revitalise the articulation work inherent in analytical ethnographies; to vary observer perspectives and point towards "blind spots;" to name and create "new things" and modes of empirical work and to give way to intensified dialogues between data analysis and theorizing. Contributors are Katrin Amelang, Stefan Beck, Kati Hannken-Illjes, Alexander Kozin, Henriette Langstrup, Jèorg Niewèohner, Thomas Scheffer, Robert Schmidt, Estrid S²rensen, and Britt Ross Winthereik."--Publisher's website.