Right Livelihoods begins with a cataclysmic vision of New York City after the leveling of 50 square blocks of Manhattan. Four million have died. Albertine, the "street name for the buzz of a lifetime," is a mind-altering drug that sets The Albertine Notes in motion. The collection's second novella, K & K, concerns a lonely young office manager at an insurance agency, where the office suggestion box is yielding unpleasant messages that escalate to a scary pitch. Ellie Knight-Cameron's responses to these random diatribes illuminate the toll that a lack of self-awareness can take. At the center of The Omega Force is a buffoonish former government official in rocky recovery. Dr. "Jamie" Van Deusen is determined to protect his habitat -- its golf courses (and Bloody Marys), pizza places (and beers) from "dark-complected" foreign nationals. His patriotism and wild imagination are mainly fueled by a fall off the wagon. Only Rick Moody could lead us to feel affection for this man and the other misguided, earnestly striving characters in these alternately unsettling, warm, trio of stories.

Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Development looks at the role of social institutions and the politics of policy, as well as issues of identity, gender and generation. The relationships between sustainability and livelihoods are examined, and livelihoods analysis situated within a wider political economy of environmental and agrarian change.

The Routledge Handbook on Livelihoods in the Global South presents a unique, timely, comprehensive overview of livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries. Since their widespread adoption in the 1990s, livelihoods perspectives, frameworks and methods have influenced diverse areas of research, policy and practice. The concept of livelihoods reflects the complexity of strategies and practices used by individuals, households and communities to meet their needs and live their lives. The Handbook brings together insights and critical analysis from diverse approaches and experiences, learning from research and practice over the last 30 years. The Handbook comprises an introductory section on key concepts and frameworks, followed by five parts, on researching livelihoods, negotiating livelihoods, generating livelihoods, enabling livelihoods and contextualising livelihoods. The introduction provides readers with an appreciation of concepts researched and applied in the five parts, including chapters on vulnerability and resilience, social capital and networks, and institutions. Each part reflects the diversity of approaches taken to understanding livelihoods, whilst recognising commonalities, including the centrality of power in shaping, enabling and constraining livelihoods. The book also reflects diversity of context, including conflict, climate change and religion, as well as in generating livelihoods, through agriculture, small-scale mining and pastoralism. The aim of each chapter is to provide a critically informed introduction and overview of key concepts, issues and debates of relevance to the topic, with each chapter concluding with suggestions for further reading. It will be an essential resource to students, researchers and practitioners of international development and related fields. Researchers and practitioners will also benefit from the book's diverse disciplinary contributions and by the wide and contemporary coverage.

What does the right to the continuous improvement of living conditions in Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights really mean and how can it contribute to social change? The book explores how this underdeveloped right can have valuable application in response to global problems of poverty, inequality and climate destruction, through an in-depth consideration of its meaning. The book seeks to interpret and give meaning to the right as a legal standard, giving it practical value for those whose living conditions are inadequate. It locates the right within broader philosophical and political debates, whilst also assessing the challenges to its realisation. It also explores how the right relates to human rights more generally and considers its application to issues of gender, care and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The contributors deeply probe the meaning of 'living conditions', suggesting that these encompass more than the basic rights to housing, water, food, and clothing. The chapters provide a range of doctrinal, historical and philosophical engagements through grounded analysis and imaginative interpretation. With a foreword by Sandra Liebenberg (former Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the book includes chapters from renowned and emerging scholars working across disciplines from around the world.

The 11 discourses in this volume provide a broad overview of the teachings of Buddha to help meditators understand what to do and why, so they work in the proper way and achieve the proper results.

A human right to housing represents the law's most direct and overt protection of housing and home. Unlike other human rights, through which the home incidentally receives protection and attention, the right to housing raises housing itself to the position of primary importance. However, the meaning, content, scope and even existence of a right to housing raise vexed questions. Drawing on insights from disciplines including law, anthropology, political theory, philosophy and geography, this book is both a contribution to the state of knowledge on the right to housing, and an entry into the broader human rights debate. It addresses profound questions on the role of human rights in belonging and citizenship, the formation of identity, the perpetuation of forms of social organisation and, ultimately, of the relationship between the individual and the state. The book addresses the legal, theoretical and conceptual issues, providing a deep analysis of the right to housing within and beyond human rights law. Structured in three parts, the book outlines the right to housing in international law and in key national legal systems; examines the most important concepts of housing: space, privacy and identity and, finally, looks at the potential of the right to alleviate human misery, marginalisation and deprivation. The book represents a major contribution to the scholarship on an under-studied and ill-defined right. In terms of content, it provides a much needed exploration of the right to housing. In approach it offers a new framework for argument within which the right to housing, as well as other under-theorised and contested rights, can be reconsidered, reconnecting human rights with the social conditions of their violation, and hence with the reasons for their existence. Shortlisted for The Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2013.

Walking the Tightrope contains the teachings of Venerable Pemasiri Thera, a popular and talented Sri Lankan meditation teacher. The teachings, dealing with various important aspects of Buddhist meditation and philosphy, are practical and clear, yet profound. On one hand, Premasiri Thera teaches from his broad practical experience based on many years of meditation practice. On the other hand, he often refers to the teachings of the Buddha found in the Pali texts making up the Theravada Canon.

Winner of the Society for the Anthropology of Work book prize 2017 This volume presents a global range of ethnographic case studies to explore the ways in which - in the context of the restructuring of industrial work, the ongoing financial crisis, and the surge in unemployment and precarious employment - local and global actors engage with complex social processes and devise ideological, political, and economic responses to them. It shows how the reorganization and re-signification of work, notably shifts in the perception and valorization of work, affect domestic and community arrangements and shape the conditions of life of workers and their families.

The aim of Valuing Water, Valuing Livelihoods is to give decision-makers, health professionals and analysts a comprehensive view of the arguments and challenges associated with establishing the value of drinking-water interventions. The experts who have contributed to this publication provide guidance on assessing the benefits from improving access to safe drinking-water and from reducing the burden of water-related diseases. They show how to compare the value of these benefits to the costs of interventions, with special reference to small-scale drinking-water systems. Valuing Water, Valuing Livelihoods provides decision-makers, health professionals and analysts with the tools to promote improved access to safe drinking-water, especially for small and vulnerable communities in developing countries, by presenting comprehensive coverage of principles and practice, technology and economics, health, livelihoods and ethics.

As both a physical living space and emotional environment, cities impact human beings in a number of ways. These ways include but are not limited to the kinds of relationship that may exist among the varying categories of inhabitants of the city, the organization of and accessibility to leaning resources and facilities, the types and rates of migration impacting the city, the security level of the city, and the livelihood networks existing within the city. Learning Cities, Town Planning, and the Creation of Livelihoods is an essential research publication that explores livelihood types and lifelong learning typologies required by cities as well as the relationship between higher education and improved livelihood outcomes. Featuring a broad range of topics such as learning needs, economy, and technologically advanced societies, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, academicians, researchers, students, social workers, educators, politicians, and environmentalists.