Software has become a key component of contemporary life and algorithmic techniques that rank, classify, or recommend anything that fits into digital form are everywhere. This book approaches the field of information ordering conceptually as well as historically. Building on the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon and the cultural techniques tradition, ...
A refreshing intervention in dance studies, this book brings together elements of historiography, cultural memory, folklore, and dance across comparatively narrow but markedly heterogeneous localities. Rooted in investigations of often newly discovered primary sources, the essays afford many opportunities to compare sociocultural and political reac...
"Narratives of Memory, Migration, and Xenophobia in the European Union and Canada" explores the role of memory and narratives of the past political tools and opportunities for cultural reconciliation. This is an edited volume that compiles the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference and graduate field school that took place in the ...
This open book addresses a variety of issues relating to bioethics, in order to initiate cross-cultural dialogue. Beginning with the history, it introduces various views on bioethics, based on specific experiences from Japan. It describes how Japan has been confronted with Western bioethics and the ethical issues new to this modern age, and how it ...
This open book presents religious literacy as the main explanatory factor when dealing with certain ethnic groups that attract stereotypes which gloss over other personal factors such as age, class, gender and cultural differences. It discusses freedom of religion, and the Christian revival movement. It examines religious literacy and religious div...
This open book brings together the latest research from a wide range of internationally influential scholars to analyze educational policy research from international, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By effectively breaking through the boundaries between countries and disciplines, it presents new theories, techniques and methods for ...
How do you write truly elegant code with Ruby? Ruby Best Practices is for programmers who want to use Ruby as experienced Rubyists do. Written by the developer of the Ruby project Prawn, this concise book explains how to design beautiful APIs and domain-specific languages with Ruby, as well as how to work with functional programming ideas and techn...
Asking and answering questions about what culture entails and examines the fundamental properties and intertwining nature of language and culture. This text explores linguistic relativity, lexical differences among languages and intercultural communication, including high and low contexts.
Changes to a variety of OER works were made by Manon Allar...
Effective Research Data Management (RDM) is a key component of research integrity and reproducible research, and its importance is increasingly emphasised by funding bodies, governments, and research institutions around the world. However, many researchers are unfamiliar with RDM best practices, and research support staff are faced with the difficu...
Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of an animal and felt entirely known? Often, the connections we share with non-human animals represent our safest and most reliable relationships, offering unique and profound opportunities for healing in periods of hardship. This book focuses on research developments, models, and practical applications of hu...
In 2003, Wendy Luttrell posed an important question: what might result if we were able to turn questions of judgement about pregnant and parenting teenagers into questions of interest about their sense of self and identity-making? This book takes up the challenge, offering a re/assemblage of what is, can be and perhaps should be known about teenage...
This lucid and comprehensive collection of essays by an international group of scholars constitutes a photo-historical survey of select photographers who embraced National Socialism during the Third Reich. These photographers developed and implemented physiognomic and ethnographic photography, and, through a Selbstgleichschaltung (a self-co-ordinat...
Modern science communication has emerged in the twentieth century as a field of study, a body of practice and a profession - and it is a practice with deep historical roots. We have seen the birth of interactive science centres, the first university actions in teaching and conducting research, and a sharp growth in employment of science communicato...
This open book provides an updated and fully revised 4th edition of this authoritative analysis of Swiss democracy. It particularly explains the institutions of federalism and consensus government through political power sharing. In this new edition, the authors also address several important changes and challenges that have affected Swiss democrac...
This open book offers essential information on values-based practice (VBP): the clinical skills involved, teamwork and person-centered care, links between values and evidence, and the importance of partnerships in shared decision-making. Different cultures have different values; for example, partnership in decision-making looks very different, from...
This open book introduces the legacy of Piotr Galperin to a wider audience of researchers, educators and psychologists. Previous translations of Galperin’s work present only some aspects of his conceptual thinking; however, his main contribution to the general, genetic and pedagogical psychology as a unique holistic and systemic approach to stud...
This open handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the 'digital' is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accou...
The open book provides a critical account of parenthood in Polish society. It uses a qualitative perspective to show how mothers and fathers engage with parenthood and also function in the labour market. Parenting in contemporary Poland is not only affected by individual preferences and choices, but significantly by the institutional context, in pa...
This book is arranged and developed around the theme of "2050 China," it analyzes the factors and advantages of the Chinese road to socialist modernization, explores and summarizes the development goal and the basic logic of the socialist modernization of China, and further shows the general basis of the primary stage of socialism. Accord...
This edited volume is an open title and assembles both the historical consciousness and transformation of the MENA region in various disciplinary and topical facets. At the same time, it aims to go beyond the MENA region, contributing to critical debates on area studies while pointing out transregional and cultural references in a broad and compara...
This open volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the "Script Relativity Hypothesis" (i.e., the idea that the script in whi...
This open handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: "what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attent...
This open book provides a valuable restatement of the current law of armed conflict regarding hostilities in a diverse range of contexts: outer space, cyber operations, remote and autonomous weapons, undersea systems and devices, submarine cables, civilians participating in unmanned operations, military objectives by nature, civilian airliners, des...
Media industry research and EU policymaking are predominantly tailored to large (and, in the latter case, Western) European markets. This open access book addresses the specific qualities of smaller media markets, highlighting their vulnerability to global digital competition and outlining survival strategies for them. New online distribution model...
This open book provides a multi-perspective approach to the caravan trade in the Sahara during the 19th century. Based on travelogues from European travelers, recently found Arab sources, historical maps and results from several expeditions, the book gives an overview of the historical periods of the caravan trade as well as detailed information ab...
This open book provides an empirical account of the psychological and social experiences of 3500 African migrants to 6 European countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, France, and the UK. It discusses the psychosocial motivations for migration from Africa, who migrates where, and stressful pre- and post-migration factors affecting the so...
Tracing the shift from liberal to neoliberal education from the nineteenth century to the present day, this open access book provides a rich and previously underdeveloped narrative of value in higher education in England. Value and the Humanities draws upon historical, financial, and critical debates concerning educational and cultural policy. Rath...
How do cultural planners and policymakers work through the arts to create communities? What do artists need to build a sense of place in their community? To discuss these issues, Developing a Sense of Place brings together new models and case studies, each drawn from a specific geographical or socio-cultural context.
Selected for their lasting ...
The histories of East and West Germany traditionally emphasize the Cold War rivalries between the communist and capitalist nations. Yet, even as the countries diverged in their political directions, they had to create new ways of working together economically.
In Designing One Nation, Katrin Schreiter examines the material culture of increasing ...
It is often assumed that creative people are prone to psychological instability, and that this explains apparent associations between cultural production and mental health problems. In their detailed study of recording and performing artists in the British music industry, Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave turn this view on its head.
By liste...
There is virtually nowhere on Earth today that remains untouched by plastic and ecosystems are evolving to adapt to this new context. While plastics have revolutionized our modern world, new and often unforeseen effects of plastic and its production are continually being discovered. Plastics are entangled in multiple ecological and social crises, f...
What does it mean to be a scientist working today; specifically, a scientist whose subject matter is human life? Scientists often overstate their claim to certainty, sorting the world into categorical distinctions that obstruct rather than clarify its complexities. In this book Daniel Nettle urges the reader to unpick such distinctions - biological...