Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing

Big Picture Perspectives on Planetary Flourishing

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  • Author: Nicholas Hedlund
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 100060828X
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 329

This book, split across two volumes, is a follow-up and companion to Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2016). All three of these volumes are the dialogical outcome of a multi-year symposia series wherein critical realists and integral theorists deeply engaged each other and their distinct but complementary approaches to integrative metatheory. Whereas Metatheory for the Twenty-First Century is primarily theoretical in its focus, Big Picture Perspectives for Planetary Flourishing: Metatheory for the Anthropocene aims to more concretely and practically address the complex planetary crises of a new era that many scholars now refer to as ‘the Anthropocene.’ In this first of two new volumes, participants of the symposia series articulate a variety of ‘big picture perspectives’ and transformative interventions in the domains of society and economics, social psychology, and education. Together, these chapters demonstrate how integrative metatheory and its application can make powerful contributions to planetary flourishing in the Anthropocene. With one of the defining characteristics of the Anthropocene being the sheer complexity and multi-valent nature of our interconnected global challenges, these volumes crucially present new forms of scholarship that can adequately weave together insights from multiple disciplines into new forms of metapraxis. As such, this book will be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in the areas of philosophy, social theory, critical realism, integral studies, metamodernism, and current affairs generally.


Urban Life and the Ambient in Smart Cities, Learning Cities, and Future Cities

Urban Life and the Ambient in Smart Cities, Learning Cities, and Future Cities

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  • Author: McKenna, H. Patricia
  • Publisher: IGI Global
  • ISBN: 1668440989
  • Category : Political Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 275

The topic of urban life and the ambient in smart cities, learning cities, and future cities is a timely one, fitting as it does in the world today by responding in an interdisciplinary way across many areas of research and practice. It is essential for researchers to think about and engage with the notion of flourishing in increasingly challenging environments in smarter ways. Urban Life and the Ambient in Smart Cities, Learning Cities, and Future Cities expands upon explorations of urban life to the ambient. As such, perspectives are offered in this work on urban life in the context of smart cities, learning cities, and future cities, enriched by understandings of the ambient, infusing the interactions of people and technologies in 21st-century environments with increased awareness, at the moment. Covering topics such as ambient learning, smart homes, and extended realities, this premier reference work is an essential resource for students and educators of higher education, architects, urban planners, instructional designers, sociologists, city officials, community leaders, librarians, researchers, and academicians.


Working with Critical Realism

Working with Critical Realism

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  • Author: Alpesh Maisuria
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000804615
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 185

This international and interdisciplinary collection gathers stories from researchers and research students about their methodological encounters with critical realism. Whether the contributors are experienced or novice researchers, they are predominantly new to critical realism. For various reasons, as the contributors’ detail, they have all been drawn to critical realism. It is well known that critical realism can be bewildering and even overwhelming to newcomers, especially to those unfamiliar with language of, and without a grounding in, philosophy. While there are now numerous and important introductory and applied critical realist texts that make critical realism more accessible to a broader audience, stories from newcomers have been absent – especially as part of a single collection. The significance and uniqueness of this collection lies in its documentation of first-hand reflective insights on the practical use and implementation of critical realism. The contributors feature critical realist inspired research journeys in Australia, England, Scotland, Belgium, Sweden, and Spain. The hope of this book is that the stories and accounts presented in it will inspire – or at least sufficiently arouse – the curiosity of others to explore critical realist possibilities, which we believe offer enormous value to serious researchers across and within all disciplines and subjects who are interested in rigorous intellectual work with a socially progressive purpose.


Crisis and the Culture of Fear and Anxiety in Contemporary Europe

Crisis and the Culture of Fear and Anxiety in Contemporary Europe

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  • Author: Carmen Zamorano Llena
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000916898
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 258

The accruement of crises over the last two decades, with their particular manifestations in the European context, has evoked the feeling of living in exceptional times, as captured in the recurrent claim that we live in the "age of anxiety." The main aim of this collection is to analyse, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the causes and consequences of the current dominance of the discourse of fear, anxiety, and crisis through the experience of distinct and often interdependent moral panics in twenty-first-century Europe. With its multidisciplinary approach, this volume sheds light on the need to view the interrelationship between different crises and their associated affects as crucial in attaining a more nuanced understanding of the aetiology and effects of the current "age of anxiety." This multidisciplinary scrutiny of the interrelationship of twenty-first-century fears, anxiety and crises signals an original engagement with these complex phenomena in order to make their emergence and profound effects on contemporary society more comprehensible. The timeliness of the thematic focus and the rigorous in-depth analyses make this collection relevant to students and academics within the fields of sociology, literary and cultural studies, political science and anthropology, as well as to those in European studies and global studies.


A Critical Realist Theory of Sport

A Critical Realist Theory of Sport

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  • Author: Graham Scambler
  • Publisher: Taylor & Francis
  • ISBN: 1000815331
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 206

This book argues that sport in the era of global or financialised capitalism has undergone a process of fracturing, which requires a re-assessment of longstanding and consensual accounts of traditional-to-modern sporting activity. Considering rival concepts of sport, it presents detailed, illustrative studies of various types of sporting or athletic activity – including soccer, cricket, rugby and track and field – to advance an alternative sociological understanding of sport rooted in the philosophies and theories of critical realism and critical theory. As such, A Critical Realist Theory of Sport will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in sport, research methods and critical realist thought.


Planetary Defense

Planetary Defense

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  • Author: Nikola Schmidt
  • Publisher: Springer
  • ISBN: 3030010007
  • Category : Political Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 475

Planetary defense from near-Earth objects such as asteroids is a far more nuanced and challenging topic than it might seem. Each day, technology is making it easier to detect asteroid impact threats in advance, but at present, there is still no easy way to design and implement any form of global defense. This book examines how various asteroid deflection methods can change global political affairs. The authors believe that the final policy for potential Earth impacts should be based on practical engineering solutions and innovative architectural structures, while at the same time reflecting the most recent political science contributions in ethical security studies and security cosmopolitanism. Their focus is not limited to effective engineering solutions, but rather extends to how such proposals resonate in possible political structures of the future. Planetary defense cannot be achieved with technology alone; the chapters in this volume highlight the issues that arise when space science and technology intersect with political science. This complex interdisciplinary project not only demands global participation and collaboration, but also proposes the way we can achieve it. The authors explore various concepts of governance and their far-reaching implications for planetary defense and vice versa—how scientific progress in Solar System observations and asteroid collision engineering influence political science and put pressure on the international legal framework. The text is intentionally written for a diverse scholarly and diplomatic audience in a style accessible to non-specialists and practitioners and can be read by those across diverse disciplinary backgrounds.


Balanced Wonder

Balanced Wonder

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  • Author: Jan B. W. Pedersen
  • Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
  • ISBN: 149858778X
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 244

In Balanced Wonder, Jan B. W. Pedersen digs deep into the alluring topic of wonder, in dialogue with Neo-Aristotelian philosophers, arguing that the experience of wonder, when balanced, serves as a strong contributor to human flourishing.


Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective

Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective

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  • Author: Steed Vernyl Davidson
  • Publisher: BRILL
  • ISBN: 900435767X
  • Category : Religion
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 105

An examination of postcolonial studies as a revolutionary discourse that presses for a vigorous postcolonializing of the Bible. With an assessment of previous work in the field, intersectional work with sexuality, terrorism, technology, and ecology are set as future tasks.


Confronting the Crisis

Confronting the Crisis

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  • Author: David Sparenberg
  • Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
  • ISBN: 1789049741
  • Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 111

If the human species has an evolutionary purpose that purpose is delight. Aren’t we constituted to experience and express conscious delight in the immensity and intimacy of creation, the diversity, abundance, and miracles of life? We have moved far from such purpose. Instead of imagination’s dreamers with the Earth, maturing into avatars of relationships, narrators of wonder, we are now a clear and present danger to all species. How do we change identity, direction, and move toward a future inclusive of Earth stability and Human responsibility?


Flourishing Within Limits to Growth

Flourishing Within Limits to Growth

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  • Author: Sven Erik Jørgensen
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1317551990
  • Category : Nature
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 239

Decades of research and discussion have shown that the human population growth and our increased consumption of natural resources cannot continue – there are limits to growth. This volume demonstrates how we might modify and revise our economic systems using nature as a model. The book describes how nature uses three growth forms: biomass, information, and networks, resulting in improved overall ecosystem functioning and co-development. As biomass growth is limited by available resources, nature uses the two other growth forms to achieve higher resource use efficiency. Through a universal application of the three ‘R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle, nature thus shows us a way forward towards better solutions. However, our current approach, dominated by short-term economic thinking, inhibits full utilization of the three ‘R’s and other successful approaches from nature. Building on ecological principles, the authors present a global model and futures scenario analyses which show that implementation of the proposed changes will lead to a win-win situation. In other words, we can learn from nature how to develop a society that can flourish within the limits to growth with better conditions for prosperity and well-being.