It is over 40 years since we began to reflect upon risk in a more social than technological and economic fashion, firstly making sense of the gap between expert and public assessment of risks, such as to our health and environment. With fixed certainties of the past eroded and the technological leaps of ‘big data’, ours is truly an age of risk, uncertainty and probability - from Google’s algorithms to the daily management of personal lifestyle risks. Academic reflection and research has kept pace with these dizzying developments but remains an intellectually fragmented field, shaped by professional imperatives and disciplinary boundaries, from risk analysis to regulation and social research. This is the first attempt to draw together and define risk studies, through a definitive collection written by the leading scholars in the field. It will be an indispensable resource for the many scholars, students and professionals engaging with risk but lacking a resource to draw it all together.

It is over 40 years since we began to reflect upon risk in a more social than technological and economic fashion, firstly making sense of the gap between expert and public assessment of risks, such as to our health and environment. With fixed certainties of the past eroded and the technological leaps of ‘big data’, ours is truly an age of risk, uncertainty and probability - from Google’s algorithms to the daily management of personal lifestyle risks. Academic reflection and research has kept pace with these dizzying developments but remains an intellectually fragmented field, shaped by professional imperatives and disciplinary boundaries, from risk analysis to regulation and social research. This is the first attempt to draw together and define risk studies, through a definitive collection written by the leading scholars in the field. It will be an indispensable resource for the many scholars, students and professionals engaging with risk but lacking a resource to draw it all together.

There has been an increasing interest in financial markets across sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, and related disciplines over the past decades, with particular intensity since the 2007–2008 crisis which prompted new analyses of the workings of financial markets and how “scandals of Wall Street” might have huge societal ramifications. The sociologically inclined landscape of finance studies is characterized by different more or less well- established homogeneous camps, with more micro-empirical, social studies of finance approaches on the one end of the spectrum and more theoretical, often neo-Marxist approaches, on the other. Yet alternative approaches are also gaining traction, including work that emphasizes the cultural homologies and interconnections with finance as well as work that, more broadly, is both empirically rigorous and theoretically ambitious. Importantly, across these various approaches to finance, a growing body of literature is taking shape which engages finance in a critical manner. The term “critical finance studies” nonetheless remains largely unfocused and undefined. Against this backdrop, the key rationales of The Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies are firstly to provide a coherent notion of this emergent field and secondly to demonstrate its analytical usefulness across a wide range of central aspects of contemporary finance. As such, the volume will offer a comprehensive guide to students and academics on the field of Finance and Critical Finance Studies, Heterodox Economics, Accounting, and related Management disciplines. Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Pt. 1. Theoretical approaches to security and different 'securities' -- pt. 2. Contemporary security challenges -- pt. 3. Regional security challenges -- pt. 4. Confronting security challenges.

This new Handbook gathers together state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research by a group of leading international scholars in the subdiscipline of Critical Security Studies. In today’s globalised setting, the challenge of maintaining security is no longer limited to the traditional foreign-policy and military tools of the nation-state, and security and insecurity are no longer considered as dependent only upon geopolitics and military strength, but rather are also seen to depend upon social, economic, environmental, ethical models of analysis and tools of action. The contributors discuss and evaluate this fundamental shift in four key areas: New security concepts New security subjects New security objects New security practices Offering a comprehensive theoretical and empirical overview of this evolving field, this book will be essential reading for all students of critical security studies, human security, international/global security, political theory and IR in general. J. Peter Burgess is Research Professor at PRIO, the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, where he leads the Security Programme and edits the interdisciplinary journal Security Dialogue. In addition, he is Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim (NTNU), and Research Fellow at the Institute for European Studies, Brussels.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Obesity Studies is an authoritative and challenging guide to the breadth and depth of critical thinking and theory on obesity. Rather than focusing on obesity as a public health crisis to be solved, this reference work offers divergent and radical strategies alongside biomedical and positivist discourses. Comprised of thirty nine original chapters from internationally recognised academics, as well as emerging scholars, the Handbook engages students, academics, researchers and practitioners in contemporary critical scholarship on obesity; encourages engagement of social science and related disciplines in critical thinking and theorising on obesity; enhances critical theoretical and methodological work in the area, highlighting potential gaps as well as strengths; relates critical scholarship to new and evolving areas of obesity-related practices, policies and research. This multidisciplinary and international collection is designed for a broad audience of academics, researchers, students and practitioners within the social and health sciences, including sociology, obesity science, public health, medicine, sports studies, fat studies, psychology, nutrition science, education and disability studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Media Use and Well-Being serves as the first international review of the current state of this fast-developing area of research. The volume provides a multifaceted perspective on the beneficial as well as the detrimental effects of media exposure on psychological health and well-being. As a "first-mover," it will define the field of media use and well-being and provide an essential resource for research and teaching in this area. The volume is structured along four central considerations: Processes presents concepts that provide a theoretical bridge between media use and well-being, such as psychological need satisfaction, recovery from stress and strain, self-presentation and self-enhancement, or parasocial interactions with media characters, providing a comprehensive understanding of the underlying processes that drive psychological health and well-being through media. Moderators examines both risk factors that promote negative effects on well-being and protective factors that foster positive media effects. Contexts bridges the gap between theory and "real life" by illustrating how media use can influence well-being and satisfaction in very different life domains, covering the full spectrum of everyday life by addressing the public, private, and work spheres. Audiences takes a look at the influence of life phases and life situations on the interplay of media use and well-being, questioning whether various user groups differ with regard to the effects of media exposure. Bringing together the expertise of outstanding international scholars from multiple disciplines, including communication, media psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, and media education, this handbook sheds new light on the role of media in influencing and affecting emotions.