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Higher Degree by Research: Factors for Indigenous Student Success (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Peter Anderson Levon Blue Thu Pham Melanie SawardThis open access book provides insights from Indigenous higher degree research (HDR) students on supervision practices in an Australian context. It examines findings from qualitative studies conducted with Indigenous HDR students from different academic disciplines, enrolled higher education institutions across Australia, and supervisors of Indigenous HDR students. Six types of data and their thematic analyses are presented, to understand the needs and experiences of both Indigenous HDR students and supervisors of Indigenous HDR students. This book also unpacks assumptions and commonly held beliefs about Indigenous HDR students, and shares what Indigenous HDRs report they need to experience success in higher education. It reports the experiences of supervisors of Indigenous HDR students, and explore further opportunities which enhance the higher education experiences of Indigenous HDR students. This book also suggests how successful relationships between Indigenous HDR students, and their supervisors may be fostered, and aims to be a useful resource for Indigenous peoples wishing to pursue higher education, and HDR supervisors in countries with Indigenous populations.
Frontiers of ICT in Healthcare: Proceedings of EAIT 2022 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #519)
by Jyotsna Kumar Mandal Debashis DeThe book includes original unpublished contributions presented at the Seventh International Conference on Emerging Applications of Information Technology (EAIT 2022), organized by Computer Society of India, Kolkata, Chapter during March 30–31, 2022. The book covers the topics such as image processing for smart healthcare applications, computer vision and pattern recognition for health care, Internet of Health Things, 5G and beyond in smart health care for sustainable cities.
ICT Systems and Sustainability: Proceedings of ICT4SD 2022 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #516)
by Milan Tuba Shyam Akashe Amit JoshiThis book proposes new technologies and discusses future solutions for ICT design infrastructures, as reflected in high-quality papers presented at the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development (ICT4SD 2022), held in Goa, India, on 29–30 July 2022. The book covers the topics such as big data and data mining, data fusion, IoT programming toolkits and frameworks, green communication systems and network, use of ICT in smart cities, sensor networks and embedded system, network and information security, wireless and optical networks, security, trust, and privacy, routing and control protocols, cognitive radio and networks, and natural language processing. Bringing together experts from different countries, the book explores a range of central issues from an international perspective.
ICT Analysis and Applications: Proceedings of ICT4SD 2022 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #517)
by Simon Fong Nilanjan Dey Amit JoshiThis book proposes new technologies and discusses future solutions for ICT design infrastructures, as reflected in high-quality papers presented at the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development (ICT4SD 2022), held in Goa, India, on July 29–30, 2022. The book covers the topics such as big data and data mining, data fusion, IoT programming toolkits and frameworks, green communication systems and network, use of ICT in smart cities, sensor networks and embedded system, network and information security, wireless and optical networks, security, trust, and privacy, routing and control protocols, cognitive radio and networks, and natural language processing. Bringing together experts from different countries, the book explores a range of central issues from an international perspective.
Polyphonic Construction of Smart Learning Ecosystems: Proceedings of the 7th Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies #908)
by Mihai Dascalu Patrizia Marti Francesca PozziThe book brings together the contributions of the 7th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystems and Regional Development (SLERD 2022), which aims at promoting reflection and discussion concerning R&D work, policies, case studies, and entrepreneur experiences with a special focus on understanding the relevance of smart learning ecosystems (e.g., schools, campus, working places, informal learning contexts, etc.) for regional development and social innovation and how the effectiveness of the relation of citizens and smart ecosystems can be boosted. This forum has a special interest in understanding how technology mediated instruments can foster the citizen’s engagement with learning ecosystems and territories, namely by understanding innovative human-centric design and development models/techniques, education/training practices, informal social learning, innovative citizen-driven policies, technology mediated experiences, and their impact. This set of concerns will contribute to foster the social innovation sectors and ICT and economic development and deployment strategies alongside new policies for smarter proactive citizens.
ICT Infrastructure and Computing: Proceedings of ICT4SD 2022 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #520)
by Milan Tuba Shyam Akashe Amit JoshiThis book proposes new technologies and discusses future solutions for ICT design infrastructures, as reflected in high-quality papers presented at the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainable Development (ICT4SD 2022), held in Goa, India, on 29–30 July 2022. The book covers the topics such as big data and data mining, data fusion, IoT programming toolkits and frameworks, green communication systems and network, use of ICT in smart cities, sensor networks and embedded system, network and information security, wireless and optical networks, security, trust, and privacy, routing and control protocols, cognitive radio and networks, and natural language processing. Bringing together experts from different countries, the book explores a range of central issues from an international perspective.
Interculturality in Fragments: A Reflexive Approach (Encounters between East and West)
by Fred DervinThis book continues the author’s long-term reflections (over 20 years of scholarship and experience in intercultural communication education) around the fascinating and yet contestable notion of interculturality in education. As an unstable and polysemic notion, interculturality deserves to be opened up again and again and there is a need to engage with it continuously, observing, critiquing and problematizing its complexities. This book urges researchers, students and interculturalists to take the time to think carefully and deeply about interculturality and to find inspiration beyond the dominating ‘Western’ ideological world of intercultural research and education. This book starts from short fragments written by the author for himself over a period of one year. In these short statements and notes about interculturality, the author reflects creatively on the questions he had in mind at the time of writing and offers some (temporary) answers, which, in turn, are questioned and revised. Over the 1000 fragments that the author wrote, he selected about 100, for which he wrote commentaries, referring to and reviewing current research and debates on interculturality in the process. One of the specificities of the book is to be highly multidisciplinary to help us get used to looking for inspiration in other fields of research and creativity. The fragments can be read randomly – the reader may open the book at any page and pick any fragment. The author suggests reading each individual fragment first and then the accompanying explanatory texts. While reading them, the reader is also invited to reflect on any potential addition to what the author wrote – anything they might dis-/agree with, anything they would have wanted to discuss with the author. Questions have been added at the end of each chapter for readers to reflect on and to enrich their own criticality and reflexivity. The book serves as continuous guidance for engaging with interculturality.
International Planning Studies: An Introduction (Planning, Environment, Cities)
by Brian Webb David Shaw Olivier SykesThis book provides a comprehensive introduction to the evolving field of international planning studies. It is an essential resource that situates planning as an international discipline and practice with an important role to play in delivering sustainable development across different scales in diverse global contexts. A series of chapters covers past episodes of international influence and exchange in planning, key concepts, research strategies, methods in contemporary international planning studies, as well as ways of characterising and comparing planning systems. The authors explore the emergence of a global agenda for planning, through the activities and goal setting of international organisations, and professional and civil society networks. Transnational and cross-border contexts and initiatives in different global regions, and their relevance to planning, are investigated. An invaluable resource for students and researchers in planning studies, this book offers an important reflection on the internationalisation of planning practice, education, and scholarship, and the future prospects for planning and planning studies from an international perspective.
Urban Forestry and Arboriculture in Malaysia: An Interdisciplinary Research Perspective
by Sreetheran Maruthaveeran Wendy Y. Chen Justin MorgenrothThis book represents the latest research on urban forestry in a Malaysian context. It demonstrates that urban forestry is concerned not only with environmental enhancement, but also other aspects, such as recreation, health and well-being, and government policies. This edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of urban forestry studies from various researchers in Malaysia, and includes rich historical perspectives of urban forestry in the country. It also tackles related issues in policy. The greening of urban Malaysia in the 1970s focused primarily on beautification and was primarily the province of horticulturists, landscapers, nursery workers, town planners, and architects, with negligible inputs from foresters, particularly urban foresters. Perhaps for that reason, the term “landscaping” has been used more widely than “urban forestry” by government and private institutions, politicians, stakeholders, academicians, and the public. Nevertheless, the authors show that the concept of urban forestry is not new for developing countries such as Malaysia, where urbanization is increasing at a rapid rate. The book unpacks this demographic shift from a predominantly rural to a principally urban society. As the only unified body of work on urban forestry and arboricultural studies in Malaysia, this volume presents an important interdisciplinary reference for students, researchers, and scholars in physical geography, forestry and urban forestry, arboriculture and landscape architecture, both in Malaysia, and in other developing urbanizing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. It is also an important resource for those working in environmental policy and practice, excavating the vital connection between the environment and well-being.
Self-Studies in Urban Teacher Education: Preparing U.S. Teachers to Advance Equity and Social Justice (Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices #25)
by Adrian D. MartinThis book critically explores pedagogical activities, policies, and coursework that teacher education programs can provide to more fully prepare teacher candidates and in-service educators for professional practice in urban schools. It illustrates how teacher educators from across the United States are supporting teacher candidates and in-service teachers to possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for equity-oriented instructional practices and advocacy for professional engagement in the urban context. Chapters share insider perspectives of urban teacher education on preparing teachers to teach in culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse classrooms. They discuss teacher educators’ learning about their own practice in the preparation of teachers for city schools, preparing teacher candidates from rural and suburban contexts to teach in urban settings, and supervising practicing teachers in city classrooms. The volume also focuses on the interplay of cultural and linguistic parity between teacher educators and their preservice/in-service teacher students, implementing learning activities or coursework about teaching in urban schools, and enacting critical pedagogical practices. This book will be beneficial to teacher educators focused on teacher preparation for city classrooms and urban school districts, and researchers seeking to adopt self-study methodology in their own research endeavors.
”Nomadity of Being” in Central Asia: Narratives of Kyrgyzstani Women’s Rights Activists (Politics and History in Central Asia)
by Syinat SultanalievaThis book offers a new framework for understanding feminism and political activiism in Kyrgyzstan, “nomadity of being. ” Here, foreign information and requirements, even forced ones, are transformed into an amalgamation of the new and the old, alien and native—like kurak, a quilted patchwork blanket, made from scraps. Conceptualizing feminist narratives in Kyrgyzstan, while keeping in mind, the complex relationship between ideological borrowing, actualization, appropriation or self-colonization of “feminist” concepts can expand both scholarly and activist understanding of specificities of post-Soviet feminisms from a historiographic point of view. Kurak-feminism is feminism that is half-donor-commissioned, half-learned through interactions (personal, media, academic, professional), unashamed of its borrowed nature and working toward its own purpose that is being developed as the blanket is being quilted. Weaving in elements from completely different and, to a Western eye, incompatible approaches nomadity of being might pave the way toward a Central Asian reframing of non-Western feminisms. This provocative text will interest scholars of European politics, the post-Soviet sphere, and feminists.
Typology of Asian Societies: Bottom-Up Perspective and Evidence-Based Approach
by Takashi InoguchiThis book is about generating types of societies by the degree of individuals’ satisfaction with life domains, aspects, and styles via factor analysis. It adopts an evidence-based approach in typologizing and a bottom-up rather than a top-down perspective. Thus, the book’s position is against Hegel (freedom for one person), Marx (the Asiatic mode of production), Weber (Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism), Wittfogel (Asiatic autocracy), and Rostow (Western-led modernization). These classical and modern authors tend to see Asian societies with somewhat fixated eyes and categorize Asian societies in a top-down manner.When random-sampled respondents are questioned about their satisfaction with daily life in terms of life domains, aspects, and styles, public policy and institutions as well as survival and social relations are inevitably touched upon—the latter two being the key dimensions common to the World Values Survey and other cultural surveys. This book proposes a new mode of typologizing societies, Asian or non-Asian, not immediately familiar to human geographers, cultural anthropologists, or sociologists, but revealing many complex unknowns with the easy-to-learn typologizing method.
Disagreement Behavior Analysis of Signed Networks (Intelligent Control and Learning Systems #5)
by Deyuan Meng Mingjun Du Yuxin WuThis book investigates the disagreement behavior analysis problems for signed networks in the presence of both cooperative and antagonistic interactions among agents. Owing to the existing antagonistic interactions, signed networks exhibit a variety of disagreement behaviors subject to different topology conditions, especially in comparison with commonly considered unsigned networks involving only cooperative interactions among agents. Since signed networks are generally adopted to describe the dynamics of some practical network systems, they have attracted much attention in many areas, such as biology, sociology, economics, and politics. By focusing on agents with the first-order linear dynamics, the book establishes the systematic behavior analysis frameworks for signed networks, under which diverse disagreement behaviors have been disclosed, including both convergence and fluctuation behaviors, regardless of static or dynamic network topologies. In particular, a class of dynamic signed networks has been introduced, together with the associated dynamic distributed controller design and disagreement behavior analysis of agents. This book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students, engineers, and researchers who are interested in control of network systems, multi-agent systems, social networks, and so on.
Behavioural Business: The Psychology of Decisions in Economy, Business and Policy Contexts
by Janneke Blijlevens Meg Elkins Ananta NeelimThis book explores all aspects of the new and emerging area of behavioural business. This book identifies behavioural business as a powerful application of the latest insights and tools from psychology and behavioural science to decision-making in business, management and policy. This book uniquely positions behavioural business as different from both behavioural economics and psychology. This book instead applies a fresh focus on behavioural interventions in policy and business. This book introduces this new area and showcases what it contributes to a number of important contemporary business and policy issues. These include behavioural insights for managers in diverse and multi-cultural workplaces, designers of organisations, interventions, products and services, financial advisors, public policy makers, business creatives and entrepreneurs as well as charity and NGO practitioners. This book summarises state-of-the-art knowledge in the areas of expertise of the authors, who are members of the Behavioural Business Lab at RMIT University in Australia. This book will interest advanced students in related subjects as well as academics and policy makers hoping to learn and apply behavioural insights to their areas of expertise.
Data for Social Good: Non-Profit Sector Data Projects
by Jane Farmer Anthony McCosker Kath Albury Amir AryaniThis open access book provides practical guidance for non-profits and community sector organisations about how to get started with data analytics projects using their own organisations’ datasets and open public data. The book shares best practices on collaborative social data projects and methodology. For researchers, the work offers a playbook for partnering with community organisations in data projects for public good and gives worked examples of projects of various sizes and complexity.
Proceedings of the 4th Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction: Increasing the Effectiveness and Relevance of Our Institutes (Disaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series)
by Hirokazu Tatano Andrew CollinsThis book presents selected papers by the keynote speakers and other presenters from various disciplines and includes their opinions and evaluations. The Fourth Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction (4th GSRIDRR, 2019): Increasing the Effectiveness and Relevance of our Institutes, sponsored by the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) and Kyoto University, was hosted by and held at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Kyoto, Japan, 13–15 March 2019..The Global Summit series provided a platform for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and other stakeholders in both government and non-governmental institutes involved in disaster risk reduction and resilience to come together to discuss, share, and exchange ideas. It focuses specifically on contributing input to the contextualization and revision of the goals of the 2016 Science and Technology Roadmap to implementation of the Priority Areas of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction Agenda 2015–2030, with input for GADRI to move forward in its contributions to the worldwide science community. The conference comprised an impressive array of global stakeholders whose expertise and experience encompassed the management of knowledge and its application for governments and industries, with shared outcomes to bridge science and decision making. It enhanced a process to confront new scientific challenges in disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management.The conference accomplished the following major goals, among others: (1) engagement in dialogue on issues related to disaster prevention and contributions to the Science and Technology Roadmap adopted to support the implementation of the Sendai Framework Agenda 2015–2030; (2) evaluation of current efforts on global and national involvement in the field of disaster prevention research in relation to the implementation of the Priority Areas of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030; (3) assessment of the status of current research knowledge and efforts, and research results at the institutional level in each country.
Graduate Employability and Workplace-Based Learning Development: Insights from Sociocultural Perspectives
by Betsy NgThis book presents a comprehensive discussion of sociocultural perspectives on graduate employability and workplace-based learning development. It draws on Vygotsky’s theories such as situated learning and sociocultural perspectives, as well as the constructivist learning theory. This book showcases theoretical and empirical analyses that show how institutions, decision-makers or academics can work together to enhance job employability in this age of uncertainty. It discusses issues such as the development of emerging and employability skills, examines research in higher education and workplace-based learning development, and proposes directions for the changing nature in real-world settings. This book details empirical research in the field using quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches, and summarizes the key conclusions pertaining to graduate employability skills as well as workplace learning culture and technology-mediated environment. It includes contributions from experienced international scholars, and offers detailed insights for readers who want a timely understanding of research trends in graduate employability and workplace-based learning development.
Society 5.0, Digital Transformation and Disasters: Past, Present and Future (Disaster Risk Reduction)
by Sakiko Kanbara Rajib Shaw Naonori Kato Hiroyuki Miyazaki Akira MoritaThis book presents the evolution of the science technology paradigm in Japan and analyzes the critical community and local governance issues from the perspectives of the changing risk landscape, Society 5.0, and digital transformation. It also provides suggestions for the future development of a resilient society and community, by drawing lessons from other countries.Advancements in science technology in recent decades in Japan and the world might have increased our capacity to tackle the adverse human consequences of various kinds of disasters and environmental issues. However, the accompanied and interlinking phenomena of urbanization, climate change, rural to urban migration, population decreases, and aged population have posed new challenges, especially in the small, medium-sized cities, and in rural areas of Japan. This is also enhanced by the risk of cascading, complex and systemic risk, which is defining a new normal as “living with uncertainties”.Society 5.0 is defined as "A human-centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space." Society 5.0 was proposed in the 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan as a future society that Japan should aspire to. Society 5.0 achieves a high degree of convergence between cyberspace (virtual space) and physical space (real space), compared with the past information society (Society 4.0) that people would access a cloud service (databases) in cyberspace via the Internet and search for, retrieve, and analyze information or data.In Japan, in the initial stage, a great deal of confusion about the number of people infected with coronavirus occurred. Not only made it inefficient, but it did not produce the accurate data needed for critical decisions.Japan may have unique disadvantages compared with other countries. Trying to drive digitization without thoroughly understanding these disadvantages and addressing them head-on will only lead to failed digital transformations.With these three pillars of changing risk landscape, Society 5.0, and Digital transformation drive, the book will analyze the evolution of the science technology paradigm in Japan, will go deeper into the critical community and local governance issues, and will provide suggestions for future development of resilient society and community, by drawing lessons from overseas disaster risk reduction.
Saint Paul and the Education Encounter: Lessons on Love, Event and Change
by Michael VictoryThis book connects the Biblical Paul’s work as an educator with the revival of interest in Paul’s impact on contemporary social and cultural experience, sometimes referred to as ‘Paul’s new moment’. It presents Paul's letters as being the testament of an educator who brought a radical emancipatory approach to the communities with whom he lived and worked. The book draws on history, philosophy, New Testament studies, and social theory to present the case for Paul as the initiator of a pedagogy of the event. This book explores the concept of a pedagogy of the event, and provides a case study of success in its implementation.
‘Pre-Islamic Survivals’ in Muslim Central Asia: Tsarist, Soviet and Post-Soviet Ethnography in World Historical Perspective (Islam and Global Studies)
by R. Charles WellerThe book traces the conceptual lens of historical-cultural ‘survivals’ from the late 19th-century theories of E.B. Tylor, James Frazer, and others, in debate with monotheistic ‘degenerationists’ and Protestant anti-Catholic polemicists, back to its origins in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions as well as later more secularized forms in the German Enlightenment and Romanticist movements. These historical sources, particularly the ‘dual faith’ tradition of Russian Orthodoxy, significantly shaped both Tsarist and later Soviet ethnography of Muslim Central Asia, helping guide and justify their respective religious missionary, social-legal, political and other imperial agendas. They continue impacting post-Soviet historiography in complex and debated ways. Drawing from European, Central Asian, Middle Eastern and world history, the fields of ethnography and anthropology, as well as Christian and Islamic studies, the volume contributes to scholarship on ‘syncretism’ and ‘conversion’, definitions of Islam, history as identity and heritage, and more. It is situated within a broader global historical frame, addressing debates over ‘pre-Islamic Survivals’ among Turkish and Iranian as well as Egyptian, North African Berber, Black African and South Asian Muslim Peoples while critiquing the legacy of the Geertzian ‘cultural turn’ within Western post-colonialist scholarship in relation to diverging trends of historiography in the post-World War Two era.
A Study of Suicide in Rural China
by Yanwu LiuThis book identifies and analyzes the significant regional differences in suicide rates of various age groups and different sexes among Chinese rural residents. It goes beyond the analytic dichotomy in traditional Western suicide studies and argues that the phenomena of suicide among Chinese farmers are the result of a combination of social structure and social action, rather than being determined by either of these two factors alone. This study analyses suicide rates among young married women in rural areas as well as those of elderly people in rural areas. The responsive trend for the near future is also projected. The underlying dynamics and causal mechanisms of these phenomena are carefully analyzed using an innovative “structure – action theory” framework.
Multilingualism, Identity and Interculturality in Education
by Ruth FieldingThis book brings together research on multilingualism, identity and intercultural understanding from a range of locations across the globe to explore the intersection of these key ideas in education. It addresses the need to better understand how multilingual, identity, and intercultural approaches intersect for multilingual learners in complex and varied settings. Through global examples, it explores how identities and multilingualism are situated within, and surrounding intercultural experiences. This book examines the different theoretical interpretations as encountered and used in different contexts. By doing so, it helps readers better understand how teachers approach multilingualism and diversity in a range of contexts.
Machine Learning, Image Processing, Network Security and Data Sciences: Select Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on MIND 2021 (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #946)
by Rajesh Doriya Badal Soni Anupam Shukla Xiao-Zhi GaoThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Machine Learning, Image Processing, Network Security and Data Sciences, MIND 2021. The papers are organized according to the following topical sections: data science and big data; image processing and computer vision; machine learning and computational intelligence; network and cybersecurity. This book aims to develop an understanding of image processing, networks, and data modeling by using various machine learning algorithms for a wide range of real-world applications. In addition to providing basic principles of data processing, this book teaches standard models and algorithms for data and image analysis.
A Kaleidoscope of Malaysian Indian Women’s Lived Experiences: Gender‐Ethnic Intersectionality and Cultural Socialisation
by Premalatha Karupiah Jacqueline Liza FernandezThis book presents a compilation of chapters relating to the socio-cultural experiences of Malaysian Indian women. It includes a historical background covering Indian women’s migration to Malaya, and explores the lived realities of contemporary Indian women who are members of this minority ethnic group in the country. The authors cover a wide range of issues such as gender inequality, poverty, the involvement of women in performing arts, work, inter‐personal relationships, and well-being and happiness, drawing on substantial empirical data through a gendered lens. This book addresses the gap in the intersectional gender studies literature on minority groups of women in Malaysia, while simultaneously highlighting the multiple forms of subordination minority women - particularly Indian women - experience in society, including those that arise from gender‐ethnic intersectionality. In examining the case of Indian women in Malaysia, it also speaks to and enriches existing literature on the lives of minority groups of women in the Global South more broadly This anthology is beneficial to researchers and students in the social sciences, particularly in disciplines related to gender studies and minority studies. In addition, it is also useful for policy makers and social activists working with minority women in the Global South.
Handling of Unyielding Complaints in China: Process Dynamics and Outcomes
by Xiaowei GuiThis book provides a framework of protest handling which redirects our attention away from the strength of protesters and towards the constraints of state power, drawing on detailed case studies randomly collected in 7 provinces in China over the last decade. It finds that the challenges of retaining legitimacy, the propensity for responsiveness, the contradictions of the petition system, and the dynamics of elite alignments are key elements shaping the fate of nail-like petitions. A nail-like person refers to the individual who looks like a stubborn nail on a plank of wood that cannot be easily hammered down. His persistent protest thus is theoretically puzzling, since such individual-based protest is assumed to be too weak to effectively challenge a powerful authoritarian regime. Although this phenomenon is widely observed in China, it is ignored by current studies on collective action. Meanwhile, this book delves into the life politics of nail-like persons and reveals that their escalation of grievance, marginalized social status, inability of pursuing desirable lives through legitimate means, and communication with fellow petitioners also reinforce their determination of contention. This book describes deeply the fate of individual-based protests in China. It scrutinizes the state’s role in shaping contention at its macro, intermediate, and micro levels, and meanwhile pay more attention to local specifics that are crucial to uncovering the logic of petitioners' actions and consciousness. This book has implications for scholars and graduates who are interested in contentious politics and state-society interactions in China.