Humairah and Kamaludeen examine contemporary Malay national identity in Singapore and Malaysia through the lens of ‘primordial modernity’, taking on a comparative transnational perspective. How do Malays in Singapore and Malaysia conceptualise and negotiate their ethnic identity vis-à-vis the state’s construction of Malay national identity? Humairah and Kamaludeen employ discourse analyses of both elite and mass texts that include newspaper editorials, school textbooks, political speeches, novels, movies, and letters in local newspapers. Extending current notions of Malay identity, the authors offer a comprehensive overview of Malay identity that takes into consideration both primordial dimensions and the more modern aspects such as their cosmopolitan sensibilities and their approach to social mobility. A valuable resource for scholars of Southeast Asian culture and society, as well as Sociologists looking at wider issues of ethnic and national identity.

The face, being prominent and visible, is the foremost marker of a person’s identity as well as their major tool of communication. Facial disfigurements, congenital or acquired, not only erase these significant capacities, but since ancient times, they have been conjured up as outrageous and terrifying, often connoting evil or criminality in their associations – a dark secret being suggested "behind the mask," the disfigurement indicating punishment for sin. Complemented by an original poem by Kenneth Sherman and a plastic surgeon’s perspective on facial disfigurement, this book investigates the exploitation of these and further stereotypical tropes by literary authors, filmmakers, and showrunners, considering also the ways in which film, television, and the publishing industry have more recently tried to overcome negative codifications of facial disfigurement, in the search for an authentic self behind the veil of facial disfigurement. An exploration of fictional representations of the disfigured face, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, American studies and literary studies with interests in representations of disfigurement and the Other.

Developing a contemporary account of political friendship and synthesizing it with the radical movement of degrowth, this book provides the ethical grounding and the rationale of an alternative economy which serves human flourishing. The Aristotelian political friendship embodies active concern for the others’ well-being that contemporary societies lack; the crucial problems of ecological destruction and global poverty illustrate this friendship deficit. Arguing for the need for re-embracing a friendly civic ethos and re-aligning the economy with moral objectives, the author updates the Aristotelian idea and identifies it with democratic-autonomous political-economic praxis that ensures citizens’ self-actualization. Degrowth movement questioning economic growth and productivism, and privileging a simpler life with less material goods, favours political friendship precisely because it nourishes its unconscious substratum namely human instinctual sociality. The call for genuine democratic political praxis that political friendship implies could enable the degrowth movement to retain its radical character and accomplish the shift to an economy which serves life. The book is worthwhile studying by students and researchers across social sciences and especially by scholars in the fields of sociology, philosophy, and politics, but also a broader readership sensitive to the issues of social and environmental sustainability will find this work extremely interesting.

Governing Human Lives and Health in Pandemic Times looks into the instruments and the type of reasoning involved when large-scale social control strategies were implemented worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The repertoires of institutional and administrative governance tools used during the pandemic are studied in their unique institutional, socio-geographic, and cultural settings, in order to form an understanding of the political climates and the values inscribed in current societal contracts. The book is intended for academic audiences interested in policy research, health governance, and civil societal issues. It will be of great relevance and use for a wide audience of policymakers, public officials, and health care planners as well as students in a broad range of disciplines.

The majority of the world’s population now live in urban areas and the 21st century has been declared as the "urban age". However, closer inspection of where people live in cities, especially within so-called advanced liberal democracies such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, reveals that most people live in different types of suburban environments. Drawing together scholars from across the globe, this book provides a series of national, regional, and local case studies from Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States to exemplify the diverse and dynamic nature and importance of suburbia in 21st century urban studies, city-building, and urbanism. This book explores the evolving social, physical, and economic character of the suburbs and how structural processes, market dynamics, and government policies have shaped and transformed suburbia around the world. It highlights the continuing importance of the suburbs and the suburban dream, which lives on albeit under increasing challenges, such as the global financial crisis, structural racism, and the Covid-19 pandemic, which have given rise to various suburban nightmares.

This book examines the phenomenon of paramilitarism across Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, offering a nuanced perspective while identifying key patterns in the way paramilitary violence is implicated in processes of capital accumulation, state-building, and the reproduction of social power. Paramilitary violence, a key modality of coercion in the era of globalization, has been pursued by states and dominant classes in the Global South, to reproduce or extend their power over subaltern groups. Paramilitary groups are responsible for atrocities, including extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, rape, and forced displacement. The book integrates empirically rich investigations into an emergent theory of political violence, capturing the relationship between parastatal armed actors, capital, and the state. The analysis sheds light on globally relevant phenomena such as the end of the Cold War, the shifting role of US hegemony, and evolving nature of the nation-state. The book is suitable for academics, graduate and upper-year undergraduate students, and policy-makers in development, human rights, and violence prevention. Given its interdisciplinary subject, it appeals to scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, sociology, political anthropology, development, peace and conflict, security and terrorism, international relations, and global studies.