Our Books - Ideas That Shape Scholarship

Looking at COVID-19 infection through a gendered lens reveals its deep impact on individuals in vulnerable positions, especially women. It raised new concerns about gender equity and inclusion, particularly when gender intersects with other identity markers such as religious affiliation. This intersection creates a “double vulnerability,” heightening the risk of discrimination, violence, hate speech, and harassment against women. In various legal contexts, women bear multiple roles and responsibilities. The interaction between gender, law, religion, and the pandemic has often resulted in disempowerment in shaping female identity. This is evident both in Western countries—where migrant women struggle for full integration—and in their countries of origin, where they often face the consequences of normative pluralism and insufficient state legal responses. The pandemic has generated not only a health crisis but also exacerbated social and economic issues, including increased gender-based violence in family settings and growing inequalities in access to fundamental rights such as healthcare, education, employment, and justice. In this complex framework, religious leaders face new challenges and must provide effective responses. Female leadership within religious contexts can play a crucial role in advocating for new paradigms that address evolving social, cultural, and legal needs. Religious actors are thus called upon to offer both guidance and support to vulnerable and marginalized members of their communities and to collaborate with governments in shaping a future where religious freedom, gender equality, gender justice, and freedom from discrimination are upheld. This volume aims to investigate the pandemic’s impact on women within faith communities, examine emerging balances between female religious/cultural claims and public welfare imperatives, and develop gendered, intersectional perspectives that promote women’s full integration, equality, and participation in civil society.

'The Digital Shift and the Social Research: Methods and Practices' offers a comprehensive exploration of how the digital era, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has transformed the field of social research. Drawing on both theoretical discussions and empirical studies, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of digital tools on research methods, behaviour, and interactions, while addressing the ethical challenges that arise in online contexts. The first part of the book examines the expansion of traditional research methods through digital platforms, with a focus on how these innovations shape social norms and practices. The second part shifts attention to education, presenting strategies to improve student engagement and foster collaborative learning in the virtual classroom. The third part highlights groundbreaking case studies from the University of Salerno, illustrating innovative pedagogical approaches in teaching social research methodology. By integrating insights from across the fields of digital research, pedagogy, and ethics, this work challenges researchers and educators alike to rethink conventional approaches and adapt to the rapidly changing digital environment. Ideal for students, educators, and professionals, it serves as both a reference and a practical guide for navigating the evolving landscape of social research. Original and timely, this book will appeal to academics, practitioners, and researchers in social sciences, providing not only theoretical perspectives but also hands-on solutions for digital research and learning environments.

'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' provides in-depth research studies, literature reviews, and step-by-step instructions for a variety of health communication contexts to help improve overall satisfaction and the empowerment of others. 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' is intended to be used in many health-related contexts including, but not limited to, the classroom, further research, and health care professionals. While some texts focus on narratives in public communication or on a specific population (such as women’s health), this volume applies narratives in a variety of health communication contexts. 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' opens with a chapter about the different types of narrative research, entertainment education, and narrative persuasion. Next, the first section includes chapters on the “human experience” and narratives. These chapters include powerful and emotional topics relating to the use of narratives in critical care, reproductive loss, video gaming and cancer narratives, and the impacts of the infant formula shortages. The second section highlights how narratives can be used in university/college-aged participants. The two chapters analyze how narratives can be applied to both the mental health of college students and those partaking in risky behaviors. The third and final section comprises chapters discussing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of narratives. The section begins with a chapter highlighting the “Coming age” during the pandemic and relevant research relating to narratives. The following chapters will include a discussion of the impacts of COVID-19 on black communities, and the importance of narratives with frontline workers. All of these chapters provide unique applications and examples that use narratives in current and important research. Overall, 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' aims to provide a diverse audience with unique tools and perspectives to broaden our understanding and applicability of narratives in health communication contexts.

This study explores the intricate arrangements that serve the power and profit interests of the ruling classes. It examines how capital-driven approaches and life-colonizing construction goals form the backdrop to the events and analyses presented in these articles. Each contribution, regardless of its conclusion, begins with real-life experiences, interpreting specific theories and data through the lens of historical context. At the heart of the book lies the notion that all practices and elements of life are subject to colonization. Whether in the form of a nation-state or a party-state, the state functions as a power center shaping migration policies to serve ruling-class interests. The articles included were carefully selected by the editor. While some emphasize the concept of identity—an approach the editor may not fully endorse—these pieces were chosen to reflect a diversity of thought and to model the kind of genuine democracy that remains absent in today’s world. It is important to note that the book rejects any ideologies that violate human rights, such as fascism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia. This collection offers a compelling examination of themes including immigration, capitalism, and the media.

'Udbhēda: Details of Bangladesh Life & Adda' recounts the lived experiences of three diverse individuals—Sampurna, Afreen and Nusrat—as related in conversation with the author. Framed by the methodology and methods of narrative ethnography, 'Udbhēda' describes the details that comment on or even challenge broad definitions and portrayals of Bangladesh and its people, particularly women and hijra. Beneath these narratives runs the author’s subjective account as a researcher, writer, cisgender woman and foreign visitor to Bangladesh. Evoking the everchanging scenes and moods of Dhaka, this multi-genre work combines prose, prose poetry and critical reflection to explore themes including gender, sexuality, class, family, education, work and postcolonial identity. This innovative approach to ethnographic writing embraces the cultural practice of adda—unbounded, often revelatory conversation—as both subject and method. 'Udbhēda' employs a considered, intersectional approach, relating perspectives frequently marginalised in discipline- and industry-specific discourse on Bangladesh, adding depth to the exploration of culture and identity beyond binaries. Balancing vivid storytelling with contemplative academic analysis, this book offers valuable insights for anthropologists, gender studies scholars and development practitioners. Hummel’s self-reflexive stance and exploration of the ‘illegitimate’ side of ethnography, in the tradition of Ruth Behar’s 'Translated Woman', make 'Udbhēda' an exemplary text for teaching qualitative research methods. The accompanying exegesis provides a transparent account of the author’s research process, engaging with crucial concepts in postcolonial theory, feminist ethnography and ethnographic representation. Accessible to both academic and general readers interested in innovative approaches to cross-cultural research and writing, 'Udbhēda: Details of Bangladesh Life & Adda' offers a layered interpretation of the testimonies of three remarkable people. It is a vital text for anyone seeking to look deeper at the complexities of gender, identity, culture and everyday life in contemporary Bangladesh.

The ancient Roman poet and satirist Juvenal stated that people were distracted by “bread and circuses” rather than engaged in their civic duty. Juvenal argued these bread and circuses, or basic needs and entertainment, consumed the thoughts and lives of the average Roman no matter what was happening in the Republic around them. The powerful political forces in society used many different forms of distraction to enable them to do what they wanted unimpeded by the masses. 'False Idols: How Diversion Is Destroying Democracy' picks up where Juvenal left off. The book is a journey through contemporary America and it illustrates how the concept of “bread and circuses” is as powerful and as relevant now as it was in the days of ancient Rome. It examines the deliberate distractions that are created by the cultivation of false idols. The distractions include the adoration of celebrities and parasocial interactions, the economic culture and the implicit belief systems contained within it, sports and the adoration of athletes, the political system and structure, the art, music, and literature we spend our time listening to and watching, the internet and social media that occupies so much of our time, and the video games that occupy the minds and much of the lives of so many people. As long as everybody is chasing and distracted by these bread and circuses, they are willfully negligent to the goings-on in the very fabric of the social network that is of our society, government, and country. The more negligent they become, the more the democracy continues withering and dying. This book systemically deconstructs a modern society that seems designed to consistently pull us away from rather than draw us toward the creation of a better existence for all.

This book provides the first sustained account of intense debates in China over the ban on single women’s access to assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Drawing on the author’s fieldwork in clinics and government agencies in Beijing, it mainly explains Chinese policymakers’ and clinicians’ rationale for restricting single women’s use of ARTs even if they celebrate ARTs as a success of Chinese modernization strategies. The main concept explored in this book is uncertainty. ARTs become a source of discomfort for the Chinese government and clinics because they reveal the uncontrollability of human destiny; they introduce ambiguities into genetic and legal paternity; and they undermine clinical and bureaucratic authority. This book uses ARTs as a lens on broader social changes in China. The uncertainty of ARTs reflects the limits of Chairman Deng Xiaoping’s reform. It also informs that the Chinese government has reversed policies by repackaging tradition and tightening party control. The book’s interpretation of uncertainty challenges the linear and progressive paradigm of modernization. China’s development path is distinct from the sequential logic of Western, modernist conceptions of history.

Since the first contact with Europeans, the Americas have been a continent of immigrants as much as a continent of continuous migrations. Black migrations represent more than the transit of people between countries and regions and from rural areas to urban centers. It contributed to constructing networks that made survival possible, creating neighborhoods and cultural expression, impacting dietary habits, exchanging crops and agricultural techniques, and uplifting families from slavery and misery to ownership, education, and political representation. The most dangerous elements that moved from place to place with blacks were the ideas of freedom and citizenship. This book brings together articles from authors dedicated to the study of black migrations in diverse countries as well as in diverse historical periods to highlight that the movement of black people has been continuous over the centuries. Sometimes voluntarily, others coerced, people have moved from one place to another, carrying with them history and important cultural traditions such as language, music, and religion. Moreover, dangerous ideas of liberty and equality would spread through the African Diaspora. Ten authors from renowned universities contributed with their works on black migrations from a transnational perspective, exploring how people have transited between regions, countries, and continents, carrying their ideas, costumes, beliefs, and strategies for survival. In their trajectories, migrants built communities, created religions, musical traditions, languages, and much more. They influenced politics, contributed to revolutions and wars, to the economy, and shaped societies. For centuries, Latin America's official history has pushed black immigrants' histories to the margins, keeping them in the shadows and denying their importance in the construction of the modern world. The works brought together in this book aim to contribute to breaking this pattern, bringing the experiences of black migrants from the margins to the center.

Seventies “Hispanics,” identifying with Latin American emergence and increasing immigration to the U.S., adopted the epithet 'latino', soon written as Latino. Media fast-tracked, English Latino would eventually tilt presidential elections, advocate national programs, and protest policies, with native and immigrant subgroups presumed homogenous. Enunciated identically as 'latino' and presumed to be 'latino' or its exact translation, “Latino” proved to be a transliteration that since its coining started diverging from 'latino'. Latino became the political mask of unity over discrete subgroups; its primary agenda identity politics as a racialized, brown consciousness divested of its Hispanic cultural history. In contrast, 'latino' retains its Spanish transracial semantics, invoking an 'hispano' cultural history. Nationally Latino represents the entire Hispanic demographic while internecinely not all subgroups identify as Latinos. Latino is defined by immediate sociopolitical issues yet when needed invokes the 'latino' cultural history it presumably disowns. Intellectual inconsistency and semantic amorphousness make Latino a confusing epithet that subverts both speech and scholarship. Collective critical thinking on its semantic dysfunction, deferring to solidarity, is displaced with politically correct but circumventing tweaks, creating Latino/a, Latin@, Latinx. On the other hand, Latino exists because its time had come, expressing an aspiration for a more participatory identity in a multicultural America. Julio Marzán, author of 'The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams', suspends solidarity to articulate the intellectual challenges of his Latino identity. Writing to academic standards in a style accessible to the general reader, Marzán argues that from 'latino' roots Latino evolved into an American identity as a demographic summation implying a culture that actually origin cultures provide, ambiguously an ethnicity and a nostalgic assimilation. “Latino” are American-germane sociopolitical extrapolations of 'latino' experiential details, the often-conflicted distinction illustrated in Marzán’s equally engaging essays that revisit iconic personages and personal events with more nuance than seen as Latino.