New Books By ICS Researchers
ICS has started off the new year with the release of four new books. These books cover the diverse topics of masculinities in sport, youth citizenship and participation, urban sustainability, and climate change.
Embodied Masculinities in Global Sport
Edited by Dr Jorge Knijnik and Associate Professor Daryl Adair (UTS)
Though an integral element of sport sociology, the study of masculinities in sport has been largely confined to Western sports such as American football. This book provides a more expanded view, offering insights into sport and manliness from culturally and geographically distinct perspectives. The editors, along with a group of international researchers, articulate how various types of masculinities can be played out in different sports by drawing from personal experiences of athletes, investigating the cultural – and even global – impact of male achievements in sport, and comparing men's experiences in sport with women's. The book provides an innovative and truly global perspective on what it means to "be a man", whether on the field, on the court, or in the saddle.
Young Citizens and Political Participation in a Digital Society: Addressing the Democratic Disconnect
Dr Collin's first book looks at the gap between between institutional understandings and expectations of young citizens and the nature and substance of youthful forms of political action in this era of democratic disconnect. Drawing on the accounts of young people in Australia and the United Kingdom, the book examines questions of youth citizenship and participation by exploring their meanings in policy, practice and youth experience. It examines young people's perspectives on participation in non-government and youth-led organisations, focusing on what young people think and do – and what can be done to bridge the democratic disconnect.
Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of Sustainability
Cities are home to the most consequential current attempts at human adaptation and they provide one possible focus for the flourishing of life on this planet. However, a substantial rethinking of current approaches and practices is needed. This book responds to the crises of sustainability by providing a means of reflexivity learning about urban sustainability in the process of working practically for positive social development and projected change; challenging the usually taken-for-granted nature of sustainability practices while providing tools for modifying those practices; emphasising the necessity of a holistic and integrated understanding of urban life; and rewriting existing dominant understandings of the social whole that reduce environmental questions to externalities and social questions to background issues.
Climate Change and Museum Futures
Edited by Dr Fiona Cameron and Professor Brett Neilson
Climate change is a complex and dynamic environmental, cultural and political phenomenon that is reshaping our relationship to nature. This book addresses the gaps and inadequacies in current approaches to climate change. Drawing on leading-edge research and creative programming initiatives, it details the important roles and agencies that cultural institutions (in particular, natural history and science museums and science centres) can play as resources, catalysts and change agents in climate change debates and decision-making processes; as unique public and trans-national spaces where diverse stakeholders, government and communities can meet; where knowledge can be mediated, competing discourses and agendas tabled and debated; and where both individual and collective action might be activated.
3 February 2015
