This book provides the first in-depth look at male and female elected officials of color using survey and other empirical data.

Water acquisition, storage, allocation and distribution are intensely contested in our society, whether, for instance, such issues pertain to a conflict between upstream and downstream farmers located on a small stream or to a large dam located on the border of two nations. Water conflicts are mostly studied as disputes around access to water resources or the formulation of water laws and governance rules. However, explicitly or not, water conflicts nearly always also involve disputes among different philosophical views. The contributions to this edited volume have looked at the politics of contested knowledge as manifested in the conceptualisation, design, development, implementation and governance of large dams and mega-hydraulic infrastructure projects in various parts of the world. The special issue has explored the following core questions: Which philosophies and claims on mega-hydraulic projects are encountered, and how are they shaped, validated, negotiated and contested in concrete contexts? Whose knowledge counts and whose knowledge is downplayed in water development conflict situations, and how have different epistemic communities and cultural-political identities shaped practices of design, planning and construction of dams and mega-hydraulic projects? The contributions have also scrutinised how these epistemic communities interactively shape norms, rules, beliefs and values about water problems and solutions, including notions of justice, citizenship and progress that are subsequently to become embedded in material artefacts.

Contested Worlds provides an introduction both to a multitude of geographical worlds which are currently being actively constructed and contested, and to a range of different perspectives on these worlds being adopted and contested by geographers. It is unique in its focus on the role of contestation in both the construction of geographical studies and in the geographies these studies seek to address. These issues are explored through a combination of general theoretical discussion and detailed international case studies. The areas discussed range in scale from the global, through the regional and national to the local worlds of the inner city, the neighbourhood and the village, with connections drawn between these scales. The book concludes that geography is being made in quite different ways. It asserts that geography is intrinsically a contested enterprise, and that this should be embraced as part of geographers becoming more critically involved in the making, and studying, of new contemporary human geographies.

This book is aimed both at researchers and advanced students of Central Asia, the space of the former USSR, and the foreign policy of Russia and China. The authors adopt a sociological approach in understanding how power structures emerged in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The independencies in Central Asia did not happen as a consequence of a nationalist struggle, but because the USSR imploded. Thus, instead of the elites being replaced, the same Soviet elites who had competed for power in the previous system continued to do so in the new one, which they had to build, adapting themselves and the system to their needs. Additionally, unlike in the immense majority of the independent states that emerged from decolonization, the social movements and capacity to mobilize the people were very weak in the new Central Asian states. For this reason, the configuration of the new systems was the product of a competition for power between a very small number of elites who did not have to answer to the people and their demands. Thus, the new power regimes acquired a strong neopatrimonial component. Analyzing the structure of societies, economies and polities of post-socialist states, this book will be of great interest to scholars of Central Asia, to sociologists, and to scholars of China's rise.

Outlines how the social dimensions of medical diagnosis can deepen our understanding of health. Diagnosis is central to medicine. It creates order, explains illness, identifies treatments, and predicts outcomes. In Putting a Name to It, Annemarie Jutel presents medical diagnosis as more than a mere clinical tool, but as a social phenomenon with the potential to deepen our understanding of health, illness, and disease. Jutel outlines how the sociology of diagnosis should function by situating it within the broader discipline, laying out the directions it should explore, and discussing how the classification of illness and the framing of diagnosis relate to social status and order. This second edition provides important updates to the groundbreaking first edition by incorporating new research that demonstrates how the social nature of diagnosis is just as important as the clinical. It includes new perspectives on diagnostic recognition, diagnostic coding, lay diagnosis, crowdsourced diagnosis, algorithmic diagnosis, diagnostic exploitation, diagnostic systems, stigmatizing diagnosis, and contested diagnosis. The new edition also features a case study of COVID-19 from a critical sociological perspective and a new conclusion. Both a challenge and a call to arms, Putting a Name to It is a lucid, persuasive argument for formalizing, professionalizing, and advancing long-standing practice. Jutel's innovative, open approach and engaging arguments illustrate how diagnoses have the power to legitimize our medical ailments—and stigmatize them.

Gender, Activism, and International Development Intervention in Kyrgyzstan draws on feminist critiques and ethnographic data to interrogate how development has been implemented in Kyrgyzstan since 1991.

Religion is a hot topic on the public stages of ‘secular’ societies, not in its individualized liberal or orthodox form, but rather as a public statement, challenging the divide between the secular neutral space and the religious. In this new challenging modus, religion raises questions about identity, power, rationality, subjectivity, law and safety, but above all: religion questions, contests and even blurs the borders between the public and the private. These phenomena urge to rethink what are often considered to be clear differences between religions, between the public and the private and between the religious and the secular. In this volume scholars from a range of different disciplines map the different aspects of the dynamics of changing, contesting and contested religious identities.

Since gaining independence in 1956, Sudan has endured a troubled history, including the longest civil war in African history in Southern Sudan and more recent conflicts including the crisis in Darfur. This book explores this history of ensuing conflict and analyses the different attempts to achieve political and economic reconstruction.

While much of the current research on the extractive industries and their socio-environmental impacts is region specific, Resource Extraction, Space and Resilience: International Perspectives critically explores the current state of the extractive industries sector from a uniquely global perspective. The book introduces a more dynamic idea of sustainability in evaluating mineral extraction and its impacts, and provides a spatialized understanding of the evolution of the extractive industries to help visualise the interlinkages across space, regions and scales. Professor Kotilainen responds to these theoretical challenges by analysing the potential for resilience of mining activities from multiple perspectives across scales, exploring why it is only possible to achieve temporary balance and stability for the whole resource extraction system. Taking a global perspective, the book explores the interlinkages of the industry, investigates the similarities and differences in how the industry operates and examines the social and environmental impacts it has. By providing an explicitly theoretically informed analysis of the state of the extractive industries, this text will appeal to a wide range of scholars with an interdisciplinary interest in the extractive industries and natural resource management, including human geographers and social scientists with a focus on the relations of humans and societies with their physical environments.

The most significant political development of the post-Cold War era was, arguably, the diffusion of neoliberalism across the globe. Yet behind the illusion of abundance and development, the 'rule of the market' can be violent and destructive, exploiting the environment, dismissing cultural or historical conservation and ignoring individual rights. This book now examines the emergence and consequences of neoliberalism in Turkey. Of particular importance to the study are the contested spaces - those sites of struggle and protest - where the impact of this economic system is challenged or negotiated. The contributors look beyond the neoliberal cities of the West - Istanbul and Ankara - to take into account the rest of the country and the groups that are most negatively affected: such as the Kurds, women and migrants. Chapters consider the complexity of neoliberalism in Turkey, where the power of the market, the agenda of the state, and significantly, the country's past, are shown to have shaped current economic practices and policies. Contested Spaces in Contemporary Turkey sheds new light on the societal processes that are re-shaping modern Turkey, a subject which is of increasing importance considering Erdogan's new model for an Islam-based state and in the aftermath of the July 2016 military coup attempt. It is at the cutting edge of research on urban history and social space and will be a significant resource for scholars of Turkish Studies and Kurdish Studies.