Cases of ex-Muslims in Europe being punished by their former fellow Muslims constitute an unacceptable practice from the standpoint of democratic societies in which human rights are respected and individuals have the freedom to choose their religion, or none at all. Ex-Muslims’ fear of punishment by their former community should prompt an open, candid, and measured discussion of the issue. Leaving Islam, Ex-Muslims and Zemiology presents the reasons for and consequences of consciously leaving Islam, based on interviews with 80 ex-Muslims currently living in Germany and Sweden. In their view, many of the practices and beliefs of Islam are harmful and unfair. Many parts of the Islamic world regard apostasy as treason or a crime. As a result, emphasis in the book is shifted from “crime” to “harm” and a thesis is put forward concerning the “decriminalization” of apostasy from the perspective of zemiology. The book highlights how a broader shift of interest in the democratic structures of Europe could allow ex-Muslims to join the discussion on the guaranteed right to religious liberties and freedom of speech in the context of the apostasy law in Islam. This should happen without fear for their own security and without facing potential suppression or social exclusion. It will appeal to scholars with interest in Islam and the conflict between religious values and an individual’s aspirations and needs.

The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so politicized-with protagonists on either side of the debate selectively invoking Islamic theology to make claims about the 'true' face of Islam. The Apostates charts a different course by examining the social situation and experiences of ex-Muslims. Cottee suggests that Islamic apostasy in the West is best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities. Outside of Muslim-majority societies, ex-Muslims are not living in fear for their lives. But they face and must manage the stigma attached to leaving the faith from among their own families and the wider Muslim community.

This book outlines key developments in understanding social harm by setting out its historical foundations and the discussions which have proliferated since. It examines various attempts to conceptualise social harm and highlights key sites of contestation in its relationship to criminology to argue that these act as the basis for an activist zemiology, one directed towards social change for social justice. The past two decades have seen a proliferation of debate related to social harm in and around criminology. From climate catastrophe and a focus on environmental harms, unprecedented deaths generating focus on border harms and the coronavirus pandemic revealing the horror of mass and arguably avoidable deaths across the globe, critical studies in social harm appear ever more pressing. Drawing on a range of international case studies of cultural, emotional, physical and economic harms, From Social Harm to Zemiology locates the study of social harm in an accessible fashion. In doing so it sets out how a zemiological lens can moves us beyond many of the problematic legacies of criminology. This book rejects criminologies which have disproportionately served to regulate intersectional groups, and which have arguably inflicted as much or more harm by bolstering the very ideologies of control in offering minor reforms that inadvertently expand and strengthen states and corporations. It does this by sketching out the contours, objects, methods and ontologies of a disciplinary framework which rejects commonplace assumptions of ‘value freedom’. From Social Harm to Zemiology advocates social change in accordance with groups who are most disenfranchised, and thus often most socially harmed. An accessible and compelling read, this book is essential reading for all zemiologists, critical criminologists, and those engaged with criminological and social theory.

A revindication of the concept of humanity and the primacy of practice over language.

Criminal obsessions is a critique of conventional criminological approaches to social issues. The contributors show how social harm relates to social and economic inequalities that are at the heart of the liberal state. This second edition of Criminal obsessions includes an additional essay by Simon Pemberton in which he develops theoretically the concept of social harm and discusses the future of the social harm perspective.

Examines the powers and effects of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (PTA) which was introduced in 1974, following the Birmingham pub bombings. Includes factual information about the operation of the Act, plus accounts of personal experiences of the trauma of examination, arrest and detention under this legislation.

A renowned scholar of Islamic studies interviews ex-Muslims, who feel it is their duty to speak up against their former faith to tell the truth about the fastest growing religion in the world.

This book draws together empirical contributions which focus on conceptualising the lived realities of time and temporality in migrant lives and journeys. This book uncovers the ways in which human existence is often overshadowed by legislative interpretations of legal and illegalised. It unearths the consequences of uncertainty and unknowing for people whose futures often lay in the hands of states, smugglers, traffickers and employers that pay little attention to the significance of individuals’ time and thus, by default, their very human existence. Overall, the collection draws perspectives from several disciplines and locations to advance knowledge on how temporal exclusion relates to social and personal processes of exclusion. It begins by conceptualising what we understand by ‘time’ and looks at how temporality and lived realities of time combine for people during and after processes of migration. As the book develops, focus is trained on temporality and survival during encampment, border transgression, everyday borders and hostility, detention, deportation and the temporal impacts of border deaths. This book both conceptualises and realises the lived experiences of time with regard to those who are afforded minimal autonomy over their own time: people living in and between borders.

Contemporary Criminological Issues tackles some of today’s most pressing social issues, from the criminalization of Indigenous peoples to interpersonal violence, border control, and armed conflicts. This book advances cutting-edge theories and methods, with the aim of moving beyond the scholarship that reproduces insecurity and exclusion. The breadth of approaches encompasses much of the current critical criminological scholarship, serving as a counterpoint to the growth of managerial and administrative criminologies and the rise of explicitly exclusionary and punitive state policies and practices with respect to ‘crime’ and ‘security.’ This edited collection featuring two books, one in English and one in French, includes important contributions to knowledge and public policy by eminent experts and emerging scholars. This book is published in English.

The Sociology of Religious Movements represents the culmination of the work begun in the award-winning The Future of Religion and A Theory of Religion, and explains religious movements in the context of political, cultural and social movements.