Böcker av Graeme (University of Bradford Chesters

This book describes the emergence of a new materialist orientation in social theory, driven by acknowledgement of the centrality and irreducibility of difference as a key concept in both the social and natural sciences and the problems this poses for scientific enquiry, political decision-making and collective action. Using examples from climate change to genomics to social justice movements, it examines how feedback processes between the organic, material and social realms are increasingly being revealed as determinants of our capacity to sustain planetary diversity and to shape the form and quality of human life. It argues that, as we confront the complexity and contingency of such processes, there is an ever-greater need for an ontology that re-admits the non-discursive to social theory.

Suitable for a range of disciplines, such as healthcare, development studies, anthropology and globalization, this title covers the Civil Rights Movement, direct action, hactyvism, indymedia, feminism and the Anti-Globalization Movement. It includes an A-Z Index and bibliography that provides tips for further exploration of this field.

Fusing two key concerns of contemporary sociology: globalization and its discontents, and the complexity turn in social theory, this book utilizes complexity theory to analyze the shifting constellation of social movement networks that constitute opposition to neo-liberal globalization. It also suggests a framework for understanding mobilization.