This path-breaking text constructs a new way of thinking about social work based on contemporary social theory. Working in a counter-tradition that is suspicious of a number of governing ideas and practices in social work, it draws on themes from Beck, Giddens, Rose to explore the impact of risk society and neo liberalism on social work.
This path-breaking text constructs a new way of thinking about social work based on contemporary social theory. Working in a counter-tradition that is suspicious of a number of governing ideas and practices in social work, it draws on themes from Beck, Giddens, Rose to explore the impact of risk society and neo liberalism on social work.
Risk society and beyond traces the evolution of Ulrich Beck's ideas as expressed in Risk Society (1992) and expands into previously unforeseen risk areas, such as genetics and cyberspace.
`As the study of social policy comes increasingly to address issues of theorising welfare in a period of fundamental social change, Culpitt′s book is especially welcome in helping to update the reader in many of the debates and explorations surrounding social change, in particular those instigated by Foucault some two decades ago - his work on "governmentality" is central to Culpitt′s book - and by Beck on risk more recently. The book also serves as a useful introduction to other key thinkers influencing social theory today whose work also addresses issues central to social policy, such as Giddens, Honneth and Turner′ - Martin Hewitt, University of Hertfordshire This book examines the notion of risk in relation to social policy. It takes ideas about risk (as expressed by sociologists such as Ulrich Beck in Risk Society), and applies them to recent changes in welfare. The author shows neo-liberals have used various aspects of risk to attack welfare dependency, and how various rhetoric′s of risk have been used to reshape contemporary politics. Social Policy and Risk makes a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary welfare politics.
An analysis of the condition of Western societies that will take its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial, and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern
This panoramic analysis of the condition of Western societies has been hailed as a classic. This first English edition has taken its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern. Underpinning the analysis is the notion of the `risk society'. The changing nature of society's relation to production and distribution is related to the environmental impact as a totalizing, globalizing economy based on scientific and technical knowledge becomes more central to social organization and social conflict.
Risk, Power, and Inequality in the 21st Century provides a groundbreaking new analysis of the increasingly important relationship between risk and widening inequalities. The massive, and often unequal, impacts of contemporary risks are recognized widely in popular discussions – be it the fall-out from the 2008 financial crisis or Hurricane Katrina – yet there is a distinct neglect in social science of the overall systemic impacts of these risks for increasing inequalities. This book moves beyond this lacuna to identify novel intersections of risk and inequalities. It shows how key processes associated with risk society – the social production and distribution of risks as side-effects – are intensifying inequalities in fundamental ways. In articulating how risk is intensifying both the social sources of suffering of the least advantaged and the power of the most advantaged, this book realizes a significant rethinking of risk, power, and inequalities in contemporary society.
Twenty years ago Ulrich Beck published Risk Society, a book that called our attention to the dangers of environmental catastrophes and changed the way we think about contemporary societies. During the last two decades, the dangers highlighted by Beck have taken on new forms and assumed ever greater significance. Terrorism has shifted to a global arena, financial crises have produced worldwide consequences that are difficult to control and politicians have been forced to accept that climate change is not idle speculation. In short, we have come to see that today we live in a world at risk. A new feature of our world risk society is that risk is produced for political gain. This political use of risk means that fear creeps into modern life. A need for security encroaches on our liberty and our view of equality. However, Beck is anything but an alarmist and believes that the anticipation of catastrophe can fundamentally change global politics. We have the opportunity today to reconfigure power in terms of what Beck calls a 'cosmopolitan material politics’. World at Risk is a timely and far-reaching analysis of the structural dynamics of the modern world, the global nature of risk and the future of global politics by one of the most original and exciting social thinkers writing today.
This book offers a sociological conception of the problem of anxiety, and dwells upon its significance for the ways we make sense of our current age of risk and uncertaintly.
Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work has two inter-related themes. First to account for and analyse current changes in social work and secondly, to assess how far recent developments in social theory can contribute to their interpretation. Representing the work of a range of academics all involved in research and teaching in relation to social work, it considers issues of central significance to everyone interested in the theory, policy, and practice of social work.
