Alternative ways of thinking, analysing and performing economic geographies have become increasingly significant in recent years, partly due to the recent financial crisis, which has had social and political consequences throughout the world. Yet there is a danger that the debate about alternatives may become simply a way of fixing global capitalism in its present crisis-ridden form. Instead, the analysis of alternative economic spaces must continue to offer a critique of the very notion of capitalism as a universal, if variable, set of social relations. This important book brings together critical analyses of alterity from across the social sciences and humanities, refining and advancing what alternative economies and polities are, how they are formed, what difficulties and problems they face, and how they might be sustained. A central theme is the need to examine critically both the material contexts and the conceptual categories deployed in the making of alternative economies.

Offering a rare glimpse of rural life in modern-day Cuba, this book examines how ordinary Cubans carve out their own spaces for ‘appropriate’ acts of consumption, exchange, and production within the contradictory normative and material spaces of everyday economic life. Discusses the conflict between the socialist-welfare ideal of food as an entitlement and the market value of food as a commodity Bridges the fields of human geography and anthropology Approaches food networks and the scale of food systems in a novel way Provides a comprehensive look at Cuba today, with coverage of history, politics, economics, and social and environmental justice Enhanced by vivid photos from the field

In this collection, contributors reflect on scholarly, artistic, activist, educational, and practical endeavor known as Appalachian Studies. Following an introduction to the field, the writers discuss how Appalachian Studies illustrates the ways interdisciplinary studies emerge, organize, and institutionalize themselves, and how they engage with intellectual, political, and economic forces both locally and around the world. Essayists argue for Appalachian Studies' integration with kindred fields like African American studies, women's studies, and Southern studies, and they urge those involved in the field to globalize the perspective of Appalachian Studies; to commit to continued applied, participatory action, and community-based research; to embrace more fully the field's capacity for bringing about social justice; to advocate for a more accurate understanding of Appalachia and its people; and to understand and overcome the obstacles interdisciplinary studies face in the social and institutional construction of knowledge. Contributors: Chris Baker, Chad Berry, Donald Edward Davis, Amanda Fickey, Chris Green, Erica Abrams Locklear, Phillip J. Obermiller, Douglas Reichert Powell, Michael Samers, Shaunna L. Scott, and Barbara Ellen Smith.

Neoliberalism is easily one of the most powerful discourses toemerge within the social sciences in the last two decades, and the number of scholars who write about this dynamic and unfolding process of socio-spatial transformation is astonishing. Even more surprising though is that there has, until now, not been an attempt to provide a wide-ranging volume that engages with the multiple registers in which neoliberalism has evolved. The Routledge Handbook of Neoliberalism seeks to offer a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon of neoliberalism by examining the range of ways that it has been theorized, promoted, critiqued, and put into practice in a variety of geographical locations and institutional frameworks. With contributions from over 50 leading authors working at institutions around the world the volumes seven sections will offer a systematic overview of neoliberalism’s origins, political implications, social tensions, spaces, natures and environments, and aftermaths in addressing ongoing and emerging debates. The volume aims to provide the first comprehensive overview of the field and to advance the established and emergent debates in a field that has grown exponentially over the past two decades, coinciding with the meteoric rise of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology, state form, policy and program, and governmentality. It includes a substantive introductory chapter and will serve as an invaluable resource for undergraduates, graduate students, and professional scholars alike.

Nadine Gordimer and the Rhetoric of Otherness in Post-Apartheid South Africa observes and examines several issues that are central to the South African writer’s works: the uniqueness of terror in a difficult historical period, the desire to annihilate racial oppression, and, above all, the psychological alienation provoked by racism. The analysis also focuses on literary topics that are specific to Gordimer’s post-Apartheid writings, such as the significance of multiculturalism, the status of writers, the banalisation of violence due to mass-media coverage, the reconciliation with a violent past, globalization and loss of cultural and national identity, economic exile, and migration. The book proposes in five chapters a journey into Nadine Gordimer’s novels, short stories and non-fiction that presents the reader with a multifaceted Other who is no longer specific to postcolonial and multicultural South Africa but can be identified across the globe as alterity is redefined by globalization.

Reconstructing Public Housing unearths Liverpool's hidden history of radical alternatives to municipal housing development and builds a vision of how we might reconstruct public housing on more democratic and cooperative foundations. In this critical social history, Matthew Thompson brings to light how and why this remarkable city became host to two pioneering social movements in collective housing and urban regeneration experimentation. In the 1970s, Liverpool produced one of Britain's largest, most democratic and socially innovative housing co-op movements, including the country's first new-build co-op to be designed, developed and owned by its member-residents. Four decades later, in some of the very same neighbourhoods, several campaigns for urban community land trusts are growing from the grassroots - including the first ever architectural or housing project to be nominated for and win, in 2015, the artworld's coveted Turner Prize. Thompson traces the connections between these movements; how they were shaped by, and in turn transformed, the politics, economics, culture and urbanism of Liverpool. Drawing on theories of capitalism and cooperativism, property and commons, institutional change and urban transformation, Thompson reconsiders Engels' housing question, reflecting on how collective alternatives work in, against and beyond the state and capital, in often surprising and contradictory ways.

Alternative ways of thinking, analysing and performing economic geographies have become increasingly significant in recent years, partly due to the recent financial crisis, which has had social and political consequences throughout the world. Yet there is a danger that the debate about alternatives may become simply a way of fixing global capitalism in its present crisis-ridden form. Instead, the analysis of alternative economic spaces must continue to offer a critique of the very notion of capitalism as a universal, if variable, set of social relations. This important book brings together critical analyses of alterity from across the social sciences and humanities, refining and advancing what alternative economies and polities are, how they are formed, what difficulties and problems they face, and how they might be sustained. A central theme is the need to examine critically both the material contexts and the conceptual categories deployed in the making of alternative economies.

Farmers’ markets, veggie boxes, local foods, organic products and Fair Trade goods – how have these once novel, "alternative" foods, and the people and networks supporting them, become increasingly familiar features of everyday consumption? Are the visions of "alternative worlds" built on ethics of sustainability, social justice, animal welfare and the aesthetic values of local food cultures and traditional crafts still credible now that these foods crowd supermarket shelves and other "mainstream" shopping outlets? This timely book provides a critical review of the growth of alternative food networks and their struggle to defend their ethical and aesthetic values against the standardizing pressures of the corporate mainstream with its "placeless and nameless" global supply networks. It explores how these alternative movements are "making a difference" and their possible role as fears of global climate change and food insecurity intensify. It assesses the different experiences of these networks in three major arenas of food activism and politics: Britain and Western Europe, the United States, and the global Fair Trade economy. This comparative perspective runs throughout the book to fully explore the progressive erosion of the interface between alternative and mainstream food provisioning. As the era of "cheap food" draws to a close, analysis of the limitations of market-based social change and the future of alternative food economies and localist food politics place this book at the cutting-edge of the field. The book is thoroughly informed by contemporary social theory and interdisciplinary social scientific scholarship, formulates an integrative social practice framework to understand alternative food production-consumption, and offers a unique geographical reach in its case studies.

This insightful book explores smaller towns and cities, places in which the majority of people live, highlighting that these more ordinary places have extraordinary geographies. It focuses on the development of an alternative approach to urban studies and theory that foregrounds smaller cities and towns rather than much larger cities and conurbations.

Basic Income in Japan is the first collective volume in English entirely devoted to the discussion of Japan's potential for a basic income program in the context of the country's changing welfare state. Vanderborght and Yamamori bring together over a dozen contributors to provide a general overview of the scholarly debate on universal and unconditional basic income, including a foreword by Ronald Dore. Drawing on empirical data on poverty and inequality as well as normative arguments, this balanced approach to a radical idea is essential reading for the study of contemporary Japan.