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Beyond Sociology: Trans-Civilizational Dialogues and Planetary Conversations
by Ananta Kumar GiriThis book explores the contours of a transformational sociology which seeks to reconsider the horizons of sociological imagination. It questions accepted modernist assumptions such as the equation of society and nation-state, the dualism of individual and society and that of ontology and epistemology. Arguing that contemporary sociology suffers from what Ulrich Beck calls the Nato-like fire power of western sociology, it argues that sociology has to open itself to transcivilizational dialogues and planetary conversations about self, culture and society. The book also challenges scholars to go beyond a privileging of the post-traditional telos of modernist sociology and puts forward a foundational interrogation of modernist sociology. It underscores the limitations of established conventions of sociology and considering an alternative sociology based upon Confucian vision and practice of self-transformation. This collection offers a way to go beyond dominant structures of modern sociology and contemporary dominant ways of thinking about and doing sociology helping us cultivate a transdisciplinary sociology.
Beyond Sport for Development and Peace: Transnational Perspectives on Theory, Policy and Practice (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Tess Kay Megan Chawansky Lyndsay M. C. HayhurstDebates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals gives way to a new agenda for sustainable development, this book considers the position of SDP. The book brings together contributors from 15 different countries across the developed and developing worlds, including academic researchers and ‘on the ground’ experts, practitioners and policy-makers, to provide one of the most diverse set of perspectives assembled in SDP scholarship. Looking to the renewed development agenda, its authors explore theoretical, policy and practical dimensions that address the broadening geographical and cultural spread of SDP, the emergence of issues such as child protection within it, its increased capacity for critical reflection on practice, and its potential for new collaborative approaches to knowledge production. Through its combination of academically-led chapters paired with practice-oriented ‘responses’ it offers an important reconceptualization of SDP as a contributor to development policy, and opens up important new avenues for studying and ‘practising’ SDP. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace is therefore essential reading for all researchers, advanced students, policy-makers and practitioners working in sport development or international development.
Beyond Sport for Development and Peace: Transnational Perspectives on Theory, Policy and Practice (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Tess Kay Megan Chawansky Lyndsay M. C. HayhurstDebates around the ‘sport for development and peace’ (SDP) movement have entered a new phase, moving on from simple questions surrounding the utility of sport as a tool of international development. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace argues that critical research and new perspectives and methodologies are necessary to balance the local aspects and global influences of sport and to better understand the power relations embedded in SDP on a transnational scale. As the era of the Millennium Development Goals gives way to a new agenda for sustainable development, this book considers the position of SDP. The book brings together contributors from 15 different countries across the developed and developing worlds, including academic researchers and ‘on the ground’ experts, practitioners and policy-makers, to provide one of the most diverse set of perspectives assembled in SDP scholarship. Looking to the renewed development agenda, its authors explore theoretical, policy and practical dimensions that address the broadening geographical and cultural spread of SDP, the emergence of issues such as child protection within it, its increased capacity for critical reflection on practice, and its potential for new collaborative approaches to knowledge production. Through its combination of academically-led chapters paired with practice-oriented ‘responses’ it offers an important reconceptualization of SDP as a contributor to development policy, and opens up important new avenues for studying and ‘practising’ SDP. Beyond Sport for Development and Peace is therefore essential reading for all researchers, advanced students, policy-makers and practitioners working in sport development or international development.
Beyond Stereotypes in Black and White: How Everyday Leaders Can Build Healthier Opportunities for African American Boys and Men
by Henrie M. TreadwellThis book spotlights the plight of African American boys and men, examining multiple systems beyond education, incarceration, and employment to assess their impact on the mental and physical health of African American boys and men—and challenges everyday citizens to help start a social transformation.Beyond Stereotypes in Black and White: How Everyday Leaders Can Build Healthier Opportunities for African American Boys and Men exposes the daily plight of African American boys and men, identifying the social and policy infrastructure that ensnares them in a downward spiral that worsens with each exposure to our system that offers unemployment, low-wage work, marginalization, and incarceration.The book examines why African American boys and men are more sickly and die younger than any other racial group in the United States, have very few health coverage options, and are consistently incarcerated at rates that are wildly disproportionate to their representation of the U.S. population; and it documents how this tremendous injustice comes with a cost that burdens all groups in American society, not just African Americans. Additionally, the author challenges readers to see that all of us must act individually and collectively to right this social wrong.
Beyond Stereotypes in Black and White: How Everyday Leaders Can Build Healthier Opportunities for African American Boys and Men
by Henrie M. TreadwellThis book spotlights the plight of African American boys and men, examining multiple systems beyond education, incarceration, and employment to assess their impact on the mental and physical health of African American boys and men—and challenges everyday citizens to help start a social transformation.Beyond Stereotypes in Black and White: How Everyday Leaders Can Build Healthier Opportunities for African American Boys and Men exposes the daily plight of African American boys and men, identifying the social and policy infrastructure that ensnares them in a downward spiral that worsens with each exposure to our system that offers unemployment, low-wage work, marginalization, and incarceration.The book examines why African American boys and men are more sickly and die younger than any other racial group in the United States, have very few health coverage options, and are consistently incarcerated at rates that are wildly disproportionate to their representation of the U.S. population; and it documents how this tremendous injustice comes with a cost that burdens all groups in American society, not just African Americans. Additionally, the author challenges readers to see that all of us must act individually and collectively to right this social wrong.
Beyond Storytelling: Narrative Ansätze und die Arbeit mit Geschichten in Organisationen
by Jacques ChlopczykBeyond Storytelling stellt unterschiedliche Ansätze, Methoden, Werkzeuge und konkrete Beispiele für die Arbeit mit Geschichten in Organisationen vor. Dabei hat das Buch zum Ziel, sowohl grundlegende Aspekte und Konzepte narrativer Ansätze in Organisationen zu beleuchten, als auch anhand von konkreten Praxisbeispielen das Potential dieser Ansätze für Marketing, Kommunikation, Organisationsentwicklung, Coaching, Wissensmanagement und Lernen in Organisationen aufzuzeigen. Dieses Buch ist eine Einladung dazu, die Arbeit mit Geschichten weiter zu fassen als das Erzählen attraktiver „Stories“. Im Buch wird in den verschiedenen Beiträgen ein transdisziplinärer Ansatz entwickelt, der Geschichten als grundlegendes Prinzip menschlichen Denkens, Fühlens und Handeln begreift. Die vorgestellten narrativen Methoden und Ansätze ermöglichen es für Organisationen neue Denk- und Handlungsräume zu erschließen. Das Buch ist dabei nicht als Endpunkt einer Geschichte gedacht, sondern als Auftakt fur eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit dem Potential dieses Ansatzes für Organisationen und Unternehmen.
Beyond Strategic Kaizen: Performing Synchronous Profitable Operations
by Alin PosteucăCurrently, the challenge for manufacturing organizations is how to achieve their expected profit by continuously improving productivity or reducing costs. Manufacturing organizations have been using different improvement approaches to achieving cost reduction and productivity improvement for years by eliminating various losses and waste structures, such as excess inventory, excessive workforce, excessive capacity, excessive utility consumption, and so on. But is the problem solved? Unfortunately, no! Often manufacturing companies focus on maximizing the flow and meeting customer needs but forget their real aim – to make a profit for their stakeholders. Too many organizations meet customer expectations by seeking to continuously synchronize the flow to market demand but forget to check that they are doing it profitably enough to ensure business continuity and prosperity. When the financial results show that they are not so profitable, it is already too late. Moreover, the strategic direction of systematic improvements according to the sales trend – depending on the current degree of production capacity utilization and its dynamic effects on cost structures – is deficient in many manufacturing companies. So, would the failure of strategic and profitable systematic improvements be an option? Of course not! If the ultimate goal of the organization is to create target profit for stakeholders, then the behavior and strategic systematic improvements must be directed to those scenarios, strategies, tasks, problems, and “production levers” that are best based on creating the target profit. That’s what Strategic Kaizen thinking does – the simultaneous and consistent achievement of systematic operational and financial improvements in a strategic and operational manner. It achieves both synchronous operations at market demand by fulfilling takt time and profitable operations in accordance with profit demand by fulfilling takt profit. In short, the Strategic Kaizen mission is striving for the fulfillment of the ideal state of operations called synchronous profitable operations. In this book, the author, while presenting in detail the seven processes of Strategic Kaizen methodology, exposes the answer to historically incomplete thinking of productivity improvements for target profitability. The uniqueness of the book is reinforced by the detailed presentation of the successful application of the Strategic Kaizen thinking over the years in two multinational manufacturing organizations operating in highly competitive markets, addressing the synchronous profitable operations for both the sales increase scenario and the sales decrease scenario. Moreover, it presents examples of the practical application of the “white-collar” Strategic Kaizen. Essentially, by adopting the Strategic Kaizen methodology presented in detail in this book to consistently achieve the ideal state of a manufacturing organization, organizations will enter a new paradigm of thinking of strategic improvements – Strategic Kaizen thinking – to meet annual and multiannual target profits in a unique and effective way that operates according to its own strategic and operational management system.
Beyond Strategic Kaizen: Performing Synchronous Profitable Operations
by Alin PosteucăCurrently, the challenge for manufacturing organizations is how to achieve their expected profit by continuously improving productivity or reducing costs. Manufacturing organizations have been using different improvement approaches to achieving cost reduction and productivity improvement for years by eliminating various losses and waste structures, such as excess inventory, excessive workforce, excessive capacity, excessive utility consumption, and so on. But is the problem solved? Unfortunately, no! Often manufacturing companies focus on maximizing the flow and meeting customer needs but forget their real aim – to make a profit for their stakeholders. Too many organizations meet customer expectations by seeking to continuously synchronize the flow to market demand but forget to check that they are doing it profitably enough to ensure business continuity and prosperity. When the financial results show that they are not so profitable, it is already too late. Moreover, the strategic direction of systematic improvements according to the sales trend – depending on the current degree of production capacity utilization and its dynamic effects on cost structures – is deficient in many manufacturing companies. So, would the failure of strategic and profitable systematic improvements be an option? Of course not! If the ultimate goal of the organization is to create target profit for stakeholders, then the behavior and strategic systematic improvements must be directed to those scenarios, strategies, tasks, problems, and “production levers” that are best based on creating the target profit. That’s what Strategic Kaizen thinking does – the simultaneous and consistent achievement of systematic operational and financial improvements in a strategic and operational manner. It achieves both synchronous operations at market demand by fulfilling takt time and profitable operations in accordance with profit demand by fulfilling takt profit. In short, the Strategic Kaizen mission is striving for the fulfillment of the ideal state of operations called synchronous profitable operations. In this book, the author, while presenting in detail the seven processes of Strategic Kaizen methodology, exposes the answer to historically incomplete thinking of productivity improvements for target profitability. The uniqueness of the book is reinforced by the detailed presentation of the successful application of the Strategic Kaizen thinking over the years in two multinational manufacturing organizations operating in highly competitive markets, addressing the synchronous profitable operations for both the sales increase scenario and the sales decrease scenario. Moreover, it presents examples of the practical application of the “white-collar” Strategic Kaizen. Essentially, by adopting the Strategic Kaizen methodology presented in detail in this book to consistently achieve the ideal state of a manufacturing organization, organizations will enter a new paradigm of thinking of strategic improvements – Strategic Kaizen thinking – to meet annual and multiannual target profits in a unique and effective way that operates according to its own strategic and operational management system.
Beyond Suffering and Reparation
by Timothy James BowyerThis book presents the key issues, debates, concepts, approaches, and questions that together define the lives of rural people living in extreme poverty in the aftermath of political violence in a developing country context. Divided into nine chapters, the book addresses issues such as the complexities of human suffering, losing trust, psychic wounds, dealing with post-traumatic stress situations, and disillusionment after change. By building knowledge about human and social suffering in a post-conflict environment, the book counters the objectification of human and social suffering and the moral detachment with which it is associated. In addition, it presents practical ways to help make things better. It discusses new methodological concepts based around empathy and participation to show how the subjective reality of human and social suffering matter. Finally, the book maps a burgeoning field of enquiry based around the need for linking psychosocial approaches with the actual lived experience of individuals and groups.
Beyond Survival: Wage Labour and Capital in the Late Twentieth Century
by Cyrus Bina Laurie M. Clements Chuck DavisThis text uses an innovative approach to the dynamics of labour's decline and proposes policy initiatives necessary for its revitalization. The book emphasises the need for restructuring of capitalism on a global scale and challenges traditional economic and industrial relations wisdom.
Beyond Survival: Wage Labour and Capital in the Late Twentieth Century (Labor And Human Resources Ser.)
by Cyrus Bina Laurie M. Clements Chuck DavisThis text uses an innovative approach to the dynamics of labour's decline and proposes policy initiatives necessary for its revitalization. The book emphasises the need for restructuring of capitalism on a global scale and challenges traditional economic and industrial relations wisdom.
Beyond Symbolic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Creating a Culture of Enduring Organizational Social Impact
by William J. Rothwell Phillip L. Ealy Jamie CampbellThis book extends strategic diversity work beyond internal organization efforts toward social engagement and accountability and supports organizations to ground social impact across both business and employee interests, the first of which is ethics, covered in the initial chapter. Organizations around the world are committed to increasing the racial diversity of their employees. Simultaneously, there is also greater interest in creating more welcoming and psychologically safe environments for people of color within organizations.As the workforce demographics shift because of these initiatives, the interests and needs of the employee population have also shifted. This shift presents a challenge for organizations to move beyond symbolic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) work, of which increasing racial representation is chief, to helping organizations understand how to determine which issues to support of concern, value, and importance to their employees and society.Essentially, this book, a venture into the field called transorganization development, also moves beyond the traditional view of corporate social responsibility to take the position that businesses have a responsibility to make the world a better place by taking proactive stances on the many challenges facing the world today, including DE&I and accessibility. Many employees today expect their employers to take positions that will lead to making the world a better place.
Beyond Symbolic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Creating a Culture of Enduring Organizational Social Impact
This book extends strategic diversity work beyond internal organization efforts toward social engagement and accountability and supports organizations to ground social impact across both business and employee interests, the first of which is ethics, covered in the initial chapter. Organizations around the world are committed to increasing the racial diversity of their employees. Simultaneously, there is also greater interest in creating more welcoming and psychologically safe environments for people of color within organizations.As the workforce demographics shift because of these initiatives, the interests and needs of the employee population have also shifted. This shift presents a challenge for organizations to move beyond symbolic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) work, of which increasing racial representation is chief, to helping organizations understand how to determine which issues to support of concern, value, and importance to their employees and society.Essentially, this book, a venture into the field called transorganization development, also moves beyond the traditional view of corporate social responsibility to take the position that businesses have a responsibility to make the world a better place by taking proactive stances on the many challenges facing the world today, including DE&I and accessibility. Many employees today expect their employers to take positions that will lead to making the world a better place.
Beyond Taylorism: Computerization and the New Industrial Relations
by Lorraine GiordanoThis book explores two major contemporary changes in the workplace: the impact of computerization on skills and the organization of production; and the role of quality circles in the 'democratization' of the workplace and the reorganization of bureaucratic decision-making. It is concerned with the labour processes which experience deskilling, reskilling and shifts in the lines of demarcation between occupations. Participation in quality circles raises issues of conflict rather than labour-management cooperation and management's attempt to undermine collective bargaining agreements.
Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens
by Massimiano Bucchi"Will the ordinary man become a scientist?...Bucchi exposes the inadequacy of the ‘technochratic model’ but also the weaknesses of contemporary bioethics when facing the increasing dilemmas posed by science and technology to contemporary society." -Il Corriere della Sera [Italian leading newspaper] "Bucchi provides a clear, rigorous and accessible discussion – often enriched by a subtle irony – of complex and ambiguous issues, showing that science and innovation are not neutral terrains, but rather among the key conflictual contexts in which contemporary social and political changes take place." -Italian Review of Sociology "A dense but accessible book...Bucchi acutely describes the shortcomings of the technocratic and ethical responses to the contemporary dilemmas of science and technology." -Italian Edition of the New York Review of Books Nuclear energy, stem cell technology, GMOs: the more science advances, the more society seems to resist. But are we really watching a death struggle between opposing forces, as so many would have it? Can today’s complex technical policy decisions coincide with the needs of a participatory democracy? Are the two sides even equipped to talk to each other? Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens answers these questions with clarity and vision. Drawing upon a broad range of data and events from the United States and Europe, and noting the blurring of the expert/lay divide in the knowledge base, the book argues that these conflicts should not be dismissed as episodic, or the outbursts of irrationality and ignorance, but recognized as a critical opportunity to discuss the future in which we want to live. Massimiano Bucchi’s analysis covers the complex realities of post-academic science as he: Explores the widely debated theme of science and democracy across a broad range of technological controversies. Overviews issues raised by the current relationship among scientists, policymakers, business interests, and the public. Dispels stereotypes of the detached scientific community versus the uninformed general public. Examines the role of the media in framing scientific debate. Addresses the question of how to move beyond technocracy to a more fruitful collaboration between scientists and citizens. Offers a bold vision for a future in which the scientific and public spheres regard each other as partners working toward a shared purpose. Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens has great value as a postgraduate text for courses in technology and society, political science, and science policy. It will also find an interested audience among scientists, policymakers, managers in the technological sector, and concerned lay readers. "In his brilliant new book, Beyond Technocracy: Science, Politics and Citizens, Massimiano Bucchi opens for the reader the Pandora’s box of the complex relationship between scientists and citizens in contemporary, democratic societies. With major corporations owning university labs and academic researchers (and their institutions) pocketing millions (literally) from the proceedings of patents resulting from their scientific work, Bucchi analyzes the implications of contrasting drives toward for-profit and open science, private and public science. Without pulling his punches, and without hiding behind easy, popular solutions, Bucchi clearly lays out the choices we face when confronted with a science whose potential societal impact – positive and negative – is becoming ever greater (e.g., nuclear energy, genetically modified foods, genetic engineering). Based on a wealth of empirical evidence and case studies, the book is extremely accessible and well written, making it an ideal introduction to the issues. I would highly recommend it to specialists and non-specialists alike!" -Roberto Franzosi, Professor in Department of Sociology at Emory University
Beyond Test Scores: A Better Way to Measure School Quality
by Jack SchneiderTest scores are the go-to metric of policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the best schools. Yet standardized tests are a poor way to measure school performance. Using the diverse urban school district of Somerville MA as a case study, Jack Schneider’s team developed a new framework to assess educational effectiveness.
Beyond the 2026 Winter Olympic Games: Sustainable Scenarios for the Valtellina Mountain Region (Mega Event Planning)
by Stefano Di Vita Andrea ArcidiaconoThis volume offers a novel study of the Milan-Cortina's Winter Olympics 2026, with a focus on the mountainous region of Valtellina. It brings an up-to-date analysis of the complex interactions between mega-events and remote areas, both in terms of potentials for regeneration and risks for further segregation. Remote areas are traditionally characterized by socio-economic and spatial disparities. On the one hand, they benefit from attractive features, such as environmental and landscape resources, food and wine production, and energy production. On the other, they are by definition fragile environments, disrupted by the contradictions of international tourism, climate change, limited infrastructures and services, rural abandonment, and demographic decline.This book offers credible solutions for the sustainable development of mountainous regions as a legacy of Winter Olympics. It is an essential resource for scholars, professionals, and policy-makers in the fieldsof urban planning and design, architecture design, geography, sociology, and economics.
Beyond the Barricades: Women, Civil Society, and Participation After Democratization in Latin America (Comparative Studies in Democratization)
by Tracy FitzsimmonsFirst published in 2000. Beyond the Barricades explores how a transition to democracy affects civil society by tracing the levels and arenas of organized participation both before and after democratization. The group hardest hit by this transition to democracy is women who are often surprise to discover that democracies do not necessarily yield more gender equality or more opportunities for participation than dictatorships.
Beyond the Barricades: Women, Civil Society, and Participation After Democratization in Latin America (Comparative Studies in Democratization)
by Tracy FitzsimmonsFirst published in 2000. Beyond the Barricades explores how a transition to democracy affects civil society by tracing the levels and arenas of organized participation both before and after democratization. The group hardest hit by this transition to democracy is women who are often surprise to discover that democracies do not necessarily yield more gender equality or more opportunities for participation than dictatorships.
Beyond the Beat: Musicians Building Community in Nashville
by Daniel B. CornfieldAt a time when the bulwarks of the music industry are collapsing, what does it mean to be a successful musician and artist? How might contemporary musicians sustain their artistic communities? Based on interviews with over seventy-five popular-music professionals in Nashville, Beyond the Beat looks at artist activists—those visionaries who create inclusive artist communities in today's individualistic and entrepreneurial art world. Using Nashville as a model, Daniel Cornfield develops a theory of artist activism—the ways that artist peers strengthen and build diverse artist communities.Cornfield discusses how genre-diversifying artist activists have arisen throughout the late twentieth-century musician migration to Nashville, a city that boasts the highest concentration of music jobs in the United States. Music City is now home to diverse recording artists—including Jack White, El Movimiento, the Black Keys, and Paramore. Cornfield identifies three types of artist activists: the artist-producer who produces and distributes his or her own and others' work while mentoring early-career artists, the social entrepreneur who maintains social spaces for artist networking, and arts trade union reformers who are revamping collective bargaining and union functions. Throughout, Cornfield examines enterprising musicians both known and less recognized. He links individual and collective actions taken by artist activists to their orientations toward success, audience, and risk and to their original inspirations for embarking on music careers.Beyond the Beat offers a new model of artistic success based on innovating creative institutions to benefit the society at large.
Beyond the Beat: Musicians Building Community in Nashville (PDF)
by Daniel B. CornfieldAt a time when the bulwarks of the music industry are collapsing, what does it mean to be a successful musician and artist? How might contemporary musicians sustain their artistic communities? Based on interviews with over seventy-five popular-music professionals in Nashville, Beyond the Beat looks at artist activists—those visionaries who create inclusive artist communities in today's individualistic and entrepreneurial art world. Using Nashville as a model, Daniel Cornfield develops a theory of artist activism—the ways that artist peers strengthen and build diverse artist communities.Cornfield discusses how genre-diversifying artist activists have arisen throughout the late twentieth-century musician migration to Nashville, a city that boasts the highest concentration of music jobs in the United States. Music City is now home to diverse recording artists—including Jack White, El Movimiento, the Black Keys, and Paramore. Cornfield identifies three types of artist activists: the artist-producer who produces and distributes his or her own and others' work while mentoring early-career artists, the social entrepreneur who maintains social spaces for artist networking, and arts trade union reformers who are revamping collective bargaining and union functions. Throughout, Cornfield examines enterprising musicians both known and less recognized. He links individual and collective actions taken by artist activists to their orientations toward success, audience, and risk and to their original inspirations for embarking on music careers.Beyond the Beat offers a new model of artistic success based on innovating creative institutions to benefit the society at large.
Beyond the Biophysical: Knowledge, Culture, and Power in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management
by Laura A. German Joshua J. Ramisch Ritu VermaBeyond the Biophysical provides a broad overview of agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) scholarship and practice that lies beyond the biophysical, emphasizing instead epistemological, cultural, and political foundations of NRM. The volume is oriented toward professionals with expertise in agriculture and natural resource management scholarship and practice, but who lack exposure to the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of critical theory, the anthropology of development, ecological anthropology, and other relevant scholarship. It therefore follows common standards of academic rigour, but minimizes the use of jargon, integrates detailed case studies with conceptual syntheses, and attempts to move from critique to concrete recommendations for scholarship and practice. The volume seeks to foster a more nuanced and responsible engagement with local communities and the natural world among NRM scholars and practitioners.
Beyond the Black Swan: How the Pandemic and Digital Innovations Intensified the Sustainability Imperative – Everywhere
by Rika NakazawaOf course, anyone would want to wake up from a really bad dream - especially one that seemed like it may never end, while successively stripping away joys and conveniences of our modern living. The COVID-19 pandemic bestowed on us a collective nightmare experience of varying intensity, akin to a "Black Swan" event, as author and mathematical philosopher Nassim Taleb might describe—given its universal rarity and devastating effects and seeming predictability in hindsight. However, we may remember this remarkable time in our history rather as a "White Swan" event—one that catalyzed a more common occurrence of evolving Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, a mainstreaming of sustainability—fueled by the digital innovations that designed ways to survive and thrive into a new, and more holistic, world order. Now, as we emerge from the remnants of the pandemic’s aftermath, we find ourselves at the late dawn of a new geologic epoch—the "Anthropocene"—where the impact of humans on the planet’s geology and ecosystems looms so monumentally that the gravest threat to our existence stems from our own actions. Contained within these pages, you will discover insights from leaders across diverse domains—community, industry, public administration, and the investment community. Through their own experiences, we unfurl "White Swan sightings"— moments when sustainability flourished in response to reverberations of the COVID-19 virus. More poignantly, the journey ahead carries us beyond the realm of the Black Swan, while the acceleration of digital innovations equips us to herald a new era out of the Anthropocene and into a new one, with sustainability innovations as a critical placemat. The humanistic seismic shifts caused by the Pandemic will generate a future of holistic interoperability between digital and organic matters. We are on the brink of designing unprecedented harmony with each other and equilibrium of regenerative growth with the world around us. The urgency has never been greater, nor the possibilities so profound.
Beyond the Black Swan: How the Pandemic and Digital Innovations Intensified the Sustainability Imperative – Everywhere
by Rika NakazawaOf course, anyone would want to wake up from a really bad dream - especially one that seemed like it may never end, while successively stripping away joys and conveniences of our modern living. The COVID-19 pandemic bestowed on us a collective nightmare experience of varying intensity, akin to a "Black Swan" event, as author and mathematical philosopher Nassim Taleb might describe—given its universal rarity and devastating effects and seeming predictability in hindsight. However, we may remember this remarkable time in our history rather as a "White Swan" event—one that catalyzed a more common occurrence of evolving Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, a mainstreaming of sustainability—fueled by the digital innovations that designed ways to survive and thrive into a new, and more holistic, world order. Now, as we emerge from the remnants of the pandemic’s aftermath, we find ourselves at the late dawn of a new geologic epoch—the "Anthropocene"—where the impact of humans on the planet’s geology and ecosystems looms so monumentally that the gravest threat to our existence stems from our own actions. Contained within these pages, you will discover insights from leaders across diverse domains—community, industry, public administration, and the investment community. Through their own experiences, we unfurl "White Swan sightings"— moments when sustainability flourished in response to reverberations of the COVID-19 virus. More poignantly, the journey ahead carries us beyond the realm of the Black Swan, while the acceleration of digital innovations equips us to herald a new era out of the Anthropocene and into a new one, with sustainability innovations as a critical placemat. The humanistic seismic shifts caused by the Pandemic will generate a future of holistic interoperability between digital and organic matters. We are on the brink of designing unprecedented harmony with each other and equilibrium of regenerative growth with the world around us. The urgency has never been greater, nor the possibilities so profound.
Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity
by Elizabeth Hallam Jenny Hockey Glennys HowarthBeyond the Body presents a new and sophisticated approach to death, dying and bereavement, and the sociology of the body. The authors challenge existing theories that put the body at the centre of identity. They go 'beyond the body' to highlight the persistence of self-identity even when the body itself has been disposed of or is missing. Chapters draw together a wide range of empirical data, including cross-cultural case studies and fieldwork to examine both the management of the corpse and the construction of the 'soul' or 'spirit' by focusing on the work of: *undertakers *embalmers *coroners *clergy *clairvoyants *exorcists *bereavement counsellors.