Thoth distribution@thoth.pub 20260401T160033

urn:uuid:fecbc7a9-15db-422d-82ff-c0aae8abed8b 03 01 01 urn:uuid:fecbc7a9-15db-422d-82ff-c0aae8abed8b 15 9781914386336 06 10.16997/book61 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement In Search of the Opt-Out Button 1 A01 21 0000-0002-9970-9866 Adi Kuntsman 2 A01 21 0000-0001-5504-7648 Esperanza Miyake First edition. 01 eng 00 182 03 B2 Cultural Studies 10 SOC041000 04 TK5103.7.K86 B2 Digital Politics 10 SOC052000 B2 Digital Sociology 10 SOC063000 B2 Internet Studies B2 Media and Communication Studies B2 Science and Technology Studies 01 06 03 00 Listen to authors Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake discuss collective data justice, the rights, refusals and ethics of digital (dis)engagement in this latest podcast from Lateral, the Journal of the Cultural Studies Association.<break/><a href="https://csalateral.org/podcasts/positions/for-the-moment-i-am-not-scrolling-culp-skinner-kuntsman-miyake-karppi/">https://csalateral.org/podcasts/positions/for-the-moment-i-am-not-scrolling-culp-skinner-kuntsman-miyake-karppi/</ext-link><break/>“The digital now thoroughly saturates our everyday lives to the point where it seems we are drowning. But is it possible to swim on our terms? This book thoughtfully examines this question, critically teasing apart the structures of power that permeate digital relations and charting pathways to a more just digital world. Essential reading for those who want to move beyond personal digital detoxes to challenge and transform our digital society and economy.” - Professor Rob Kitchin, author of The Data Revolution and Data Lives</italic></bold>“The seductions of tech have ushered in the encroachment of technological solutions into policing, law enforcement and ever-widening systems of social regulation across the UK and Europe. This book marks a critical intervention – by conceptualising our understanding of the ways in which data and digital harms are systemically expended against the powerless. It is a must read for those of us who are concerned to resist the (digital) exclusion of the marginalised, and the (digital) banishment of the vulnerable.” - Dr Patrick Williams, author of Data-Driven Policing: The Hardwiring of Discriminatory Policing Practices Across Europe</italic></bold>“While imaginaries of techno futures constructed by the Digital Lords of contemporary societies become self-fulfilling prophecies, we struggle to imagine a present and future free from digital coercion and exclusion. In their powerful interdisciplinary analysis, Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake delve into the personal, social, political and environmental costs of compulsory digitality. Rejecting a self-defeating naturalisation of digitality and digital inevitability Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement</italic> compellingly shows how collective digital justice is imperative in this future/present where the machine rules and people can become marginalized and excluded. A much-needed scholarly intervention that can inspire our collective thinking, research and praxis.” - Dr Benedetta Brevini, author of Is AI Good for the Planet?</italic></bold>“Kuntsman and Miyake have written an engaging book. It offers a readable critique of enforced digitality and broadens the scope of disconnection studies. The detailed analyses of complicated documents are elegantly structured and thought-provoking.” - <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2022/11/16/book-review-paradoxes-of-digital-disengagement-in-search-of-the-opt-out-button-by-adi-kuntsman-and-esperanza-miyake/">https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2022/11/16/book-review-paradoxes-of-digital-disengagement-in-search-of-the-opt-out-button-by-adi-kuntsman-and-esperanza-miyake/</ext-link>Life is increasingly governed and mediated through digital and smart technologies, platforms, big data and algorithms. However, the reasons, practices and impact of how the digital is used by different institutions are often deeply linked to social oppression and injustice. Similarly, the ability to resist these digital impositions is based on inequality and privilege. Challenging the ways in which we are increasingly dependent on the digital, this book raises a set of provocative and urgent questions: in a world of compulsory digitality is there an opt out button? Where, when, how, why and to whom is it available? Answering these questions has become even more relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the book puts forward the concept of ‘digital disengagement’ which is explored across six key areas of digitisation: health; citizenship; education; consumer culture; labour; and the environment. Part I examines the difficulty of opting out of compulsory digitality in a world where most things are digital by default. From health apps, algorithmic decision-making to learning analytics, opting out comes with a set of troubling consequences. Part II turns to several examples of disconnection and disengagement. The chapters reveal how phenomena like digital detoxes, time-management apps and online ‘green’ spaces are co-opted by the very digital systems one is trying to resist. The book critiques issues relating to digital surveillance, algorithmic discrimination and biased tech, corporatisation and monetisation of data, exploitative digital labour, digitalised self-discipline and destruction of the environment. As an interdisciplinary piece of work, the book will be useful to any scholar and activist in Digital, Internet and Social Media Studies; Digital Sociology and Social Policy; Digital Health; Media, Popular and Communication Studies; Consumer culture; and Environment Studies. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20221004 2022 06 15 9781914386329 06 15 9781914386336 06 15 9781914386343 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book61/download/8809 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book61 99 01 urn:uuid:33eec098-2c69-4948-9915-a64a8d93f539 03 01 01 urn:uuid:33eec098-2c69-4948-9915-a64a8d93f539 15 9781914386220 06 10.16997/book58 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Cultural China 2020 The Contemporary China Centre Review 1 B01 21 0000-0003-2920-5619 Séagh Kehoe 2 B01 21 0000-0001-7478-4838 Gerda Wielander First edition. 01 eng 00 182 03 B2 Anthropology 04 DS779.44.C85 10 SOC053000 B2 Chinese Studies 10 LAN000000 B2 Cultural Studies 10 SOC022000 B2 Modern Languages B2 Sinophone Studies B2 Sociology 01 06 03 00 Cultural China</italic> is a unique annual publication for up-to-date, informed, and accessible commentary about Chinese and Sinophone languages, cultural practices, politics and production, and their critical analysis. It builds on the University of Westminster’s Contemporary China Centre Blog, providing additional reflective introductory pieces to contextualise each of the eight chapters.The articles in this Review</italic> speak to the turbulent year that was 2020 as it unfolded across cultural China. Thematically, they range from celebrity culture, fashion and beauty, to religion and spirituality, via language politics, heritage, and music. Pieces on representations of China in Britain and the Westminster Chinese Visual Arts Project reflect our particular location and home. Many of the articles in this book focus on the People’s Republic of China, but they also draw attention to the multiple Chinese and Sinophone cultural practices that exist within, across, and beyond national borders.The Review</italic> is distinctive in its cultural studies-based approach and contributes a much-needed critical perspective from the Humanities to the study of cultural China. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and debate about the social, cultural, political, and historical dynamics that inform life in cultural China today, offering academics, activists, practitioners, and politicians a key reference with which to situate current events in and relating to cultural China in a wider context. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20211129 2021 06 15 9781914386213 06 15 9781914386220 06 15 9781914386237 06 15 9781914386244 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book58/download/8255 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book58 99 01 urn:uuid:bc9b9cb1-b767-4091-9945-3545cde859e9 03 01 01 urn:uuid:bc9b9cb1-b767-4091-9945-3545cde859e9 15 9781915445179 06 10.16997/book69 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Cultural China 2021 The Contemporary China Centre Review 1 B01 21 0000-0003-2920-5619 Séagh Kehoe 2 B01 21 0000-0001-7478-4838 Gerda Wielander First edition. 01 eng 00 132 03 B2 Anthropology 04 DS721.C85 10 SOC053000 B2 Chinese Studies 10 LAN000000 B2 Cultural Studies 10 SOC022000 B2 Modern Languages B2 Sinophone Studies B2 Sociology 01 06 03 00 Cultural China</italic> is a unique annual publication for up-to-date, informed and accessible commentary about Chinese and Sinophone languages, cultural practices, politics and production, and their critical analysis. It builds on research and perspectives central to the Contemporary China Centre, based at the University of Westminster, and the Contemporary China Centre Blog.The chapters in this Review</italic> speak to the challenging and eventful year that was 2021 as it unfolded across cultural China. Thematically, they range from health and medicine, environment, food, children and parenting via film, red culture and calls to action. Many of the contributions in this edited collection focus on the People’s Republic of China, but they also draw attention to the multiple Chinese and Sinophone cultural practices that exist within, across and beyond national borders.The Review</italic> is distinctive in its cultural studies-based approach and contributes a much-needed critical perspective from the humanities to the study of cultural China. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and debate about the social, cultural, political and historical dynamics that inform life in cultural China today offering academics, activists, practitioners and politicians a key reference with which to situate current events in and relating to cultural China in a wider context. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20221215 2022 06 15 9781915445209 06 15 9781915445179 06 15 9781915445186 06 15 9781915445193 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book69/download/9028 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book69 99 01 urn:uuid:02c3de5b-64e7-49e9-a58e-58057ac1c45d 03 01 01 urn:uuid:02c3de5b-64e7-49e9-a58e-58057ac1c45d 15 9781914386183 06 10.16997/book57 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Democracy in a Pandemic Participation in Response to Crisis 1 B01 21 0000-0002-3758-9221 Graham Smith 2 B01 21 0000-0002-0923-9937 Tim Hughes 3 B01 Lizzie Adams 4 B01 Charlotte Obijiaku First edition. 01 eng 00 200 03 B2 Democracy Studies 04 JF799.D46 10 POL007000 10 POL017000 B2 Policy Studies B2 Political Sociology 10 SOC057000 B2 Political Theory B2 Politics B2 Social Studies 01 06 03 00 Covid-19 has highlighted limitations in our democratic politics – but also lessons for how to deepen our democracy and more effectively respond to future crises. In the face of an emergency, the working assumption all too often is that only a centralised, top-down response is possible. This book exposes the weakness of this assumption, making the case for deeper participation and deliberation in times of crises. During the pandemic, mutual aid and self-help groups have realised unmet needs. And forward-thinking organisations have shown that listening to and working with diverse social groups leads to more inclusive outcomes. Participation and deliberation are not just possible in an emergency. They are valuable, perhaps even indispensable. This book draws together a diverse range of voices of activists, practitioners, policy makers, researchers and writers. Together they make visible the critical role played by participation and deliberation during the pandemic and make the case for enhanced engagement during and beyond emergency contexts.Another, more democratic world can be realised in the face of a crisis. The contributors to this book offer us meaningful insights into what this could look like. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210712 2021 06 15 9781914386176 06 15 9781914386183 06 15 9781914386190 06 15 9781914386206 06 15 9781914386206 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book57/download/8004 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book57 99 01 urn:uuid:2978665e-5822-4e1e-9d87-ae4b7f0e80d7 03 01 01 urn:uuid:2978665e-5822-4e1e-9d87-ae4b7f0e80d7 15 9781914386084 06 10.16997/book54 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities 1 B01 21 0000-0002-1280-9494 Emiliana Armano 2 B01 21 0000-0002-4311-2534 Marco Briziarelli 3 B01 21 0000-0002-0237-217X Elisabetta Risi First edition. 01 eng 00 268 03 B2 Communication Studies 10 LAN004000 04 QA9.58.D54 B2 Digital Media Studies 10 SOC052000 B2 Internet Studies 10 SOC026040 B2 Media Studies B2 Social Theory B2 Sociology 01 06 03 00 Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20221101 2022 06 15 9781914386121 06 15 9781914386114 06 15 9781914386084 06 15 9781914386091 06 15 9781914386107 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book54/download/8894 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book54 99 01 urn:uuid:3ab1a2cd-3577-4126-81b5-2e6ed49d5407 03 01 01 urn:uuid:3ab1a2cd-3577-4126-81b5-2e6ed49d5407 15 9781912656912 06 10.16997/book50 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Fashion Media and Sustainability Encouraging Ethical Consumption via Journalism and Influencers 1 A01 21 0000-0002-8832-6261 Anastasia Denisova First edition. 01 eng 00 38 03 B2 Advertising 10 SOC052000 10 BUS070090 B2 Communication Studies 10 BUS016000 B2 Consumer Behaviour B2 Cultural studies B2 Journalism B2 Media studies 01 06 03 00 Fashion is among the biggest polluters, yet the media still promote throwaway fast fashion. The growing fashion public relations industry encourages and enables this media coverage. This policy brief identifies patterns in the way journalists and influencers cover fashion which contribute to unsustainable buying behaviours. Recent research recommends practical steps to improve media coverage to make consumption sustainable, by changing consumers’ understanding and reducing the pressure on them to buy ‘fast’ satisfaction. Policy recommendations here suggested are based on original analysis of 1,000+ media artefacts in the UK – from magazines to newspapers, gossip weeklies to Instagram influencers.Researcher Anastasia Denisova proposes regulation of vocabulary and of affiliated links in journalism and social media, greater discussion of the psychology of buying and a ‘paid advertisement label’. Also recommended is a more proactive approach to be taken by magazines and other media with the aim of promoting restyling advice and more sustainable coverage for readers of differing financial means. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210226 2021 06 15 9781912656912 06 15 9781912656929 06 15 9781912656936 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book50 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book50/download/7656 99 01 urn:uuid:3ca77d9b-3129-4335-a8d7-1f2de34538fc 03 01 01 urn:uuid:3ca77d9b-3129-4335-a8d7-1f2de34538fc 15 9781914386459 06 10.16997/book64 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Festivals and the City The Contested Geographies of Urban Events 1 A01 21 0000-0002-0708-154X Guy Osborn 2 A01 21 0000-0002-0807-8465 Bernadette Quinn 3 B01 21 0000-0002-5172-3984 Andrew Smith 4 B01 21 0000-0002-0708-154X Guy Osborn 5 B01 21 0000-0002-0807-8465 Bernadette Quinn 6 A01 21 0000-0002-5172-3984 Andrew Smith First edition. 01 eng 00 308 03 B2 Human Geography 10 SOC026030 10 SOC015000 B2 Sociology 10 BUS081000 B2 Tourism and Event Management B2 Urban and Cultural Policy B2 Urban Studies 01 06 03 00 This book explores how festivals and events affect urban places and public spaces, with a particular focus on their role in fostering inclusion. The ‘festivalisation’ of culture, politics and space in cities is often regarded as problematic, but this book examines the positive and negative ways that festivals affect cities by examining festive spaces as contested spaces. The book focuses on Western European cities, a particularly interesting context given the social and cultural pressures associated with high levels of in-migration and concerns over the commercialisation and privatisation of public spaces.The key themes of this book are the quest for more inclusive urban spaces and the contested geographies of festival spaces and places. Festivals are often used by municipal authorities to break down symbolic barriers that restrict who uses public spaces and what those spaces are used for. However, the rise of commercial festivals and ticketed events means that they are also responsible for imposing physical and financial obstacles that reduce the accessibility of city parks, streets and squares.Alongside addressing the contested effects of urban festivals on the character and inclusivity of public spaces, the book addresses more general themes including the role of festivals in culture-led regeneration. Several chapters analyse festivals and events as economic development tools, and the book also covers contested representations of festival cities and the ways related images and stories are used in place marketing.A range of cases from Western Europe are used to explore these issues, including chapters on some of the world’s most significant and contested festival cities: Venice, Edinburgh, London and Barcelona. The book covers a wide range of festivals, including those dedicated to music and the arts, but also events celebrating particular histories, identities and pastimes. A series of fascinating cases are discussed - from the Venice Biennale and Dublin Festival of History, to Rotterdam’s music festivals and craft beer festivals in Manchester. The diverse and innovative qualities of the book are also evident in the range of urban spaces covered: obvious examples of public spaces – such as parks, streets, squares and piazzas – are addressed, but the book includes chapters on enclosed public spaces (e.g., libraries) and urban blue spaces (waterways) too. This reflects the interpretation of public spaces as socio-material entities: they are produced informally through their use (including for festivals and events), as well as through their formal design and management. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20220823 2022 06 15 9781914386442 06 15 9781915445018 06 15 9781914386459 06 15 9781914386466 06 15 9781914386473 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book64 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book64/download/8735 99 01 urn:uuid:6b24b7d6-a69b-493b-b937-b1551eacfdbe 03 01 01 urn:uuid:6b24b7d6-a69b-493b-b937-b1551eacfdbe 15 9781914386374 06 10.16997/book62 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 HEAR 1 B01 21 0000-0002-8503-9208 Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos 2 B01 21 0000-0001-9149-447X Danilo Mandic 3 B01 21 0000-0001-7870-5914 Caterina Nirta 4 B01 21 0000-0002-8797-9981 Andrea Pavoni First edition. 01 eng 00 329 03 B2 Interdisciplinarity 10 LAW000000 B2 Law 10 PHI004000 10 PHI000000 B2 Philosophy B2 Posthumanism B2 Sensory studies B2 Sound studies 01 06 03 00 Hearing is an intricate but delicate modality of sensory perception, continuously enfolded in the surroundings in which it takes place. While passive in its disposition, it is integral to the movement and fluctuations of one’s environment. Always attuned to the present and immersed in the murmur of its background, hearing remains a situated perception but fundamentally overarching and extended into the open. It is an immanent modality of being in and with the world. It is also the ultimate juridical act, a sense-making activity that adjudicates and informs the spatio-temporal acoustics of law and justice. This collection gathers multidisciplinary contributions on the relationship between law and hearing, the human vocalisations and non-human echolocations, the spatial and temporal conditions in which hearing takes place, as well as the forms of order and control that listening entails. Contributors explore, challenge and expand the structural and sensorial qualities of law, and recognise how hearing directs us to perceiving and understanding the intrinsic acoustic sphere of simultaneous relations, which challenge and break the normative distinctions that law informs and maintains. In exploring the ambiguous, indefinable and unembodied nature of hearing, as well as its objects – sound and silence – this volume approaches it as both an ontological and epistemological device to think with and about law. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20230214 2023 06 15 9781914386367 06 15 9781914386374 06 15 9781914386381 06 15 9781914386398 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book62/download/9166 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book62 99 01 urn:uuid:26e1643b-318c-480a-9d55-72baefc18f0c 03 01 01 urn:uuid:26e1643b-318c-480a-9d55-72baefc18f0c 15 9781912656882 06 10.16997/book49 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Intellectual Commons and the Law A Normative Theory for Commons-Based Peer Production 1 A01 Antonios Broumas First edition. 01 eng 00 223 03 B2 Economic systems and structures 04 K1401.B76 10 LAW050000 B2 Economic theory and philosophy 10 LAW050000 10 BUS072000 B2 Law and Society 10 POL024000 B2 Political Economy 10 BUS069000 B2 Social issues and processes 10 SOC071000 B2 Social Theory 01 06 03 00 ‘With clarity and sophistication, Antonios Broumas presents a bold new theory of intellectual commons and powerful arguments for a new body of supportive law. This book not only reveals the misleading logic of intellectual property law in our time; it reveals the rich possibilities for constructive change that legally protected commoning can bring. Highly recommended!’ — David Bollier, Director, Reinventing the Commons Program, Schumacher Center for a New Economics. ‘Liberating the Intellectual Commons from the fetters of capital accumulation and appropriation, would give us a renaissance of creative energies and empowered communities: exactly what the world needs to move away from the social and ecological devastations of our times. This book is a thoughtful and compelling argument for making this possible through the works of the law and the redesign of public domain as a common space.’ — Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy and Social Change, Co-director of the Centre for Social Justice and Change, University of East London.‘In this pioneering book, Antonios Broumas argues that philosophically, morally, politically and economically we are in urgent need of a new legal regime that recognizes the intellectual commons, peer production and sharing as the primary practices of intellectual production, distribution and consumption. I cannot imagine a more urgent task today. A legally protected intellectual commons will lead to greater scientific and cultural innovation and creativity and will lead to an urgently needed second Enlightenment. This book should be read by lawyers, critical theorists, economists and the many professionals of science, culture and the academy.’ — Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London.‘Antonios Broumas’ book is an excellent critical analysis of the cultural commons and a must-read for everyone interested in understanding what the commons, the cultural commons, and the digital commons are all about. This work brilliantly outlines the foundations of an empirically grounded critical theory of the commons and the cultural commons in the context of the interactions of law and society.’ — Christian Fuchs, Professor of Media and Communication Studies, author of Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory</italic> (2020). ‘Broumas takes us on a spellbinding tour of how and why the law could and should change to accommodate the creative multitude, which engages into an emerging mode of production. He tells a vibrant story that makes us shout: “Lawmakers of the world, unite!”’ — Vasilis Kostakis, Professor of P2P Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Faculty Associate at Harvard Law School. At the cutting edge of contemporary wealth creation people form self-governed communities of collaborative innovation in conditions of relative equipotency and produce resources with free access to all. The emergent intellectual commons have the potential to commonify intellectual production and distribution, unleash human creativity through collaboration and democratise innovation with wider positive effects for our societies. Contemporary intellectual property laws fail to address this potential. We are, therefore, in pressing need of an institutional alternative beyond the inherent limitations of intellectual property law. This book offers an overall analysis of the moral significance of the intellectual commons and outlines appropriate modes for their regulation. Its principal thesis is that our legal systems are in need of an independent body of law for the protection and promotion of the intellectual commons, in parallel to intellectual property law. In this context, the author of the book proposes the reconstruction of the doctrine of the public domain and the exceptions and limitations of exclusive intellectual property rights into an intellectual commons law, which will underpin a vibrant non-commercial zone of creativity and innovation in intellectual production, distribution and consumption alongside commodity markets enabled by intellectual property law. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20201125 2020 06 15 9781912656875 06 15 9781912656882 06 15 9781912656899 06 15 9781912656905 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book49/download/3422 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book49 99 01 urn:uuid:38e88fac-4b62-4e2e-a7e1-b34133b3da08 03 01 01 urn:uuid:38e88fac-4b62-4e2e-a7e1-b34133b3da08 15 9781912656806 06 10.16997/book47 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Marx and Digital Machines Alienation, Technology, Capitalism 1 A01 Mike Healy First edition. 01 eng 00 172 03 B2 Ethical and social aspects of IT 10 SOC071000 04 T58.5.H43 10 COM079000 B2 Marxism and Communism 10 BUS097000 B2 Research Methods 10 SOC026000 B2 Social issues and processes 10 POL013000 B2 Sociology: work and labour 10 BUS070030 B2 Technology 01 06 03 00 “Healy closes his marvellous book by saying that ‘alienation is a constant feature and is experienced as a norm rather than as an aberration’.” - <a href="https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19718_marx-and-digital-machines-alienation-technology-capitalism-by-mike-healy-reviewed-by-thomas-klikauer/">https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19718_marx-and-digital-machines-alienation-technology-capitalism-by-mike-healy-reviewed-by-thomas-klikauer/</ext-link>This book explores the fundamental contradiction at the heart of the digital environment: technology offers all manner of promises, yet habitually fails to deliver. This failure often arises from numerous problems: the proficiency of the technology or end-user, policy failure at various levels, or a combination of these. Solutions such as better technology and more effective end-user education are often put into place to solve these failures. Mike Healy argues that such approaches are inherently faulty drawing upon qualitative research informed by Marx’s theory of alienation. Using Marx’s theory, he considers participants in three distinct settings: the workplace of information and communications technology (ICT) professionals; university scholars researching the ethical and societal implications of our digital environment; and a group of pensioners living in South London, UK, undertaking ICT training. By delving beneath the surface of how digital technologies are created, researched and experienced, this study illustrates the contradictory nature of our digital lives, as they directly arise from the needs of capitalism. The book also places Marx’s theory in contrast to the mainstream approaches derived from Seaman and Blauner. In researching and comprehending ICT, this book reaffirms the superior explanatory power of Marx’s theory of alienation. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20201016 2020 06 15 9781912656790 06 15 9781912656806 06 15 9781912656813 06 15 9781912656820 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book47/download/3344 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book47 99 01 urn:uuid:f42790f9-cdfa-454c-9b76-23fdd8ff6437 03 01 01 urn:uuid:f42790f9-cdfa-454c-9b76-23fdd8ff6437 15 9781914386053 06 10.16997/book53 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Misinformation Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa From Laws and Regulations to Media Literacy 1 A01 21 0000-0003-3023-7386 Peter Cunliffe-Jones 2 B01 Sahite Gaye 3 B01 Alan Finlay 4 B01 Wallace Gichunge 5 B01 21 0000-0002-1103-1801 Anya Schiffrin 6 B01 21 0000-0001-9325-6539 Cornia Pretorius 7 B01 21 0000-0001-9734-3568 Chido Onumah 8 B01 21 0000-0002-0046-5524 Assane Diagne First edition. 01 eng 00 224 03 B2 African Studies 04 LB1033.5.C86 10 POL050000 B2 Communication Studies 10 POL065000 B2 Journalism 10 LAN004000 B2 Media Literacy B2 Media Policy B2 Media Regulation 01 06 03 00 Misinformation Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa</italic> is a single volume containing two research reports by eight authors examining policy towards misinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The volume first examines the teaching of ‘media literacy’ in state-run schools in seven Sub-Saharan African countries as of mid-2020, as relates to misinformation. It explains the limited elements of media and information literacy (MIL) that are included in the curricula in the seven countries studied and the elements of media literacy related to misinformation taught in schools in one province of South Africa since January 2020. The authors propose six fields of knowledge and skills specific to misinformation that are required in order to reduce students’ susceptibility to false and misleading claims. Identifying obstacles to the introduction and effective teaching of misinformation literacy, the authors make five recommendations for the promotion of misinformation literacy in schools, to reduce the harm misinformation causes.The second report in the volume examines changes made to laws and regulations related to ‘false information’ in eleven countries across Sub-Saharan Africa 2016-2020 from Ethiopia to South Africa. By examining the terms of such laws against what is known of misinformation types, drivers and effects, it assesses the likely effects of punitive policies and those of more positive approaches that provide accountability in political debate by promoting access to accurate information and corrective speech. In contrast to the effects described for most recent regulations relating to misinformation, the report identifies ways in which legal and regulatory frameworks can be used to promote a healthier information environment. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210601 2021 06 15 9781914386053 06 15 9781914386060 06 15 9781914386077 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book53/download/7838 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book53 99 01 urn:uuid:6a177c9e-2bbf-4a74-9f1c-b3c1e9cc1d87 03 01 01 urn:uuid:6a177c9e-2bbf-4a74-9f1c-b3c1e9cc1d87 15 9781914386138 06 10.16997/book55 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives 1 B01 21 0000-0001-7906-002X Pieter Verdegem First edition. 01 eng 00 310 03 B2 Artifical Intelligence 10 POL017000 04 Q335.A4 B2 Cybernetics 10 SOC057000 B2 Digital Media Studies 10 POL063000 B2 Internet Studies B2 Science B2 Sociology B2 Technology and Society Studies 01 06 03 00 Editor Pieter Verdegem was shortlisted for best edited collection in the 2022 <a href="https://www.meccsa.org.uk/meccsa-outstanding-achievement-awards-2022/#:~:text=The%20MeCCSA%20Awards%20recognise%20outstanding,2021%20and%20nominated%20by%20peers.">MeCCSA outstanding achievement awards.</ext-link> See <a href="https://uwestminsterpress.blog/2022/08/18/original-and-timely-uwp-title-shortlisted-for-major-academic-book-prize/">https://uwestminsterpress.blog/2022/08/18/original-and-timely-uwp-title-shortlisted-for-major-academic-book-prize/</ext-link> for more details.We are entering a new era of technological determinism and solutionism in which governments and business actors are seeking data-driven change, assuming that Artificial Intelligence is now inevitable and ubiquitous. But we have not even started asking the right questions, let alone developed an understanding of the consequences. Urgently needed is debate that asks and answers fundamental questions about power. This book brings together critical interrogations of what constitutes AI, its impact and its inequalities in order to offer an analysis of what it means for AI to deliver benefits for everyone. The book is structured in three parts: Part 1, AI: Humans vs. Machines, presents critical perspectives on human-machine dualism. Part 2, Discourses and Myths About AI, excavates metaphors and policies to ask normative questions about what is ‘desirable’ AI and what conditions make this possible. Part 3, AI Power and Inequalities, discusses how the implementation of AI creates important challenges that urgently need to be addressed. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and regional contexts, this book offers a vital intervention on one of the most hyped concepts of our times. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210920 2021 06 15 9781914386169 06 15 9781914386138 06 15 9781914386145 06 15 9781914386152 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book55/download/8132 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book55 99 01 urn:uuid:41564265-2284-4c1b-ba39-dea1776b22bd 03 01 01 urn:uuid:41564265-2284-4c1b-ba39-dea1776b22bd 15 9781914386015 06 10.16997/book52 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 Anthropocene Islands Entangled Worlds 1 A01 21 0000-0001-5308-6379 Jonathan Pugh 2 A01 21 0000-0002-2766-7169 David Chandler First edition. 01 eng 00 261 03 B2 Anthropocene Studies 04 GF61.P84 10 PHI040000 B2 Critical Theory 10 NAT000000 B2 Environmental Philosophy 10 SOC000000 B2 Human Geography B2 Island Studies B2 Posthumanism 01 06 03 00 ‘Ambitious, sophisticated, timely and downright inspirational.’ – Philip Hayward, University of Technology Sydney, Okinawan Journal of Island Studies</italic></bold>'A must read … a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.' – Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University</bold>‘This is an essential book. [The] analytics they propose … offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.’ – Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai’i, Manoa</bold>‘All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary - if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.’ – Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg</bold>‘ … a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling’. — Nigel Clark, Lancaster University</bold>The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time, islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity’s capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island’s liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit.Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds</italic> explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as ‘entangled worlds’, which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that engaging with islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210609 2021 06 15 9781914386008 06 15 9781914386015 06 15 9781914386022 06 15 9781914386039 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book52/download/7873 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book52 99 01 urn:uuid:887123b0-a7e3-4b4e-b639-0648e3baac5e 03 01 01 urn:uuid:887123b0-a7e3-4b4e-b639-0648e3baac5e 15 9781912656844 06 10.16997/book46 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 The Commons Economic Alternatives in the Digital Age 1 A01 21 0000-0003-1045-9416 Vangelis Papadimitropoulos First edition. 01 eng 00 272 03 B2 Economic systems and structures 04 HD2963.P37 10 SOC026040 B2 Economic theory and philosophy 10 POL023000 10 BUS072000 B2 Political Economy 10 POL007000 B2 Political structures: democracy 10 BUS069000 B2 Social issues and processes 10 SOC071000 B2 Social Theory 01 06 03 00 This book explores the potential creation of a broader collaborative economy through commons-based peer production (P2P) and the emergent role of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The book seeks to critically engage in the political discussion of commons-based peer production, which can be classified into three basic arguments: the liberal, the reformist and the anti-capitalist. This book categorises the liberal argument as being in favour of the coexistence of the commons with the market and the state. Reformists, on the other hand, advocate for the gradual adjustment of the state and of capitalism to the commons, while anti-capitalists situate the commons against capitalism and the state. By discussing these three viewpoints, the book contributes to contemporary debates concerning the future of commons-based peer production. Further, the author argues that for the commons to become a fully operational mode of peer production, it needs to reach critical mass arguing that the liberal argument underestimates the reformist insight that technology has the potential to decentralise production, thereby forcing capitalism to transition to post-capitalism. Surveying the three main strands of commons-based peer production, this book makes the case for a post-capitalist commons-orientated transition that moves beyond neoliberalism. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20201020 2020 06 15 9781912656837 06 15 9781912656844 06 15 9781912656851 06 15 9781912656868 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book46/download/3350 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book46 99 01 urn:uuid:e4b690a8-2d78-4ca6-b6c5-75b671e09f5b 03 01 01 urn:uuid:e4b690a8-2d78-4ca6-b6c5-75b671e09f5b 15 9781912656950 06 10.16997/book51 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 The Fight Against Platform Capitalism An Inquiry into the Global Struggles of the Gig Economy 1 A01 21 0000-0001-7097-305X Jamie Woodcock First edition. 01 eng 00 127 03 B2 Communication Studies 10 POL013000 10 BUS038010 B2 Digital Sociology B2 Industrial Relations 10 SOC024000 B2 Internet Studies B2 Politics of Work B2 Sociology of Work 01 06 03 00 “The book rewards readers with interesting first-hand accounts of protests and pickets that are typically absent from academic discussions of the digital economy.” - <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2021/03/17/book-review-the-fight-against-platform-capitalism-an-inquiry-into-the-global-struggles-of-the-gig-economy-by-jamie-woodcock/">https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2021/03/17/book-review-the-fight-against-platform-capitalism-an-inquiry-into-the-global-struggles-of-the-gig-economy-by-jamie-woodcock/</ext-link>So far, platform work has been an important laboratory for capital. Management techniques, like the use of algorithms, are being tested with a view to exporting across the global economy and it is argued that automation is undermining workers’ agency. Although the contractual trick of self-employment has allowed platforms to grow quickly and keep their costs down, yet it has also been the case also that workers have also found they can strike without following the existing regulations.This book develops a critique of platforms and platform capitalism from the perspective of workers and contributes to the ongoing debates about the future of work and worker organising. It presents an alternative portrait returning to a focus on workers’ experience, focusing on solidarity, drawing out a global picture of new forms of agency. In particular, the book focuses on three dynamics that are driving struggles in the platform economy: the increasing connections between workers who are no longer isolated; the lack of communication and negotiation from platforms, leading to escalating worker action around shared issues; and the internationalisation of platforms, which has laid the basis for new transnational solidarity.Focusing on transport and courier workers, online workers and freelancers author Jamie Woodcock concludes by considering how workers build power in different situations. Rather than undermining worker agency, platforms have instead provided the technical basis for the emergence of new global struggles against capitalism. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210302 2021 06 15 9781912656943 06 15 9781912656950 06 15 9781912656967 06 15 9781912656974 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book51 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book51/download/7669 99 01 urn:uuid:fb624bac-8e8c-4f8c-a626-fb532f9a4f6a 03 01 01 urn:uuid:fb624bac-8e8c-4f8c-a626-fb532f9a4f6a 15 9781914386299 06 10.16997/book60 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto 1 B01 21 0000-0003-0589-4579 Christian Fuchs 2 B01 Klaus Unterberger First edition. 01 eng 00 135 03 B2 Communication Studies 10 POL050000 04 TK5105.8854.P83 B2 Digital Media Studies 10 POL065000 B2 Internet Studies 10 LAN004000 B2 Journalism B2 Media Policy B2 Media Regulation 01 06 03 00 This book presents the collectively authored Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto and accompanying materials.The Internet and the media landscape are broken. The dominant commercial Internet platforms endanger democracy. They have created a communications landscape overwhelmed by surveillance, advertising, fake news, hate speech, conspiracy theories, and algorithmic politics. Commercial Internet platforms have harmed citizens, users, everyday life, and society. Democracy and digital democracy require Public Service Media. A democracy-enhancing Internet requires Public Service Media becoming Public Service Internet platforms – an Internet of the public, by the public, and for the public; an Internet that advances instead of threatens democracy and the public sphere. The Public Service Internet is based on Internet platforms operated by a variety of Public Service Media, taking the public service remit into the digital age. The Public Service Internet provides opportunities for public debate, participation, and the advancement of social cohesion.Accompanying the Manifesto are materials that informed its creation: Christian Fuchs’ report of the results of the Public Service Media/Internet Survey, the written version of Graham Murdock’s online talk on public service media today, and a summary of an ecomitee.com discussion of the Manifesto’s foundations.The Manifesto can be signed by visiting <a href="https://bit.ly/signPSManifesto">http://bit.ly/signPSManifesto</ext-link></bold> 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20210907 2021 06 15 9781914386299 06 15 9781914386305 06 15 9781914386312 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book60/download/8109 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book60 99 01 urn:uuid:d2f23bb0-9bfa-49e8-8df8-04e23396957a 03 01 01 urn:uuid:d2f23bb0-9bfa-49e8-8df8-04e23396957a 15 9781914386268 06 10.16997/book59 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 The Society of the Selfie Social Media and the Crisis of Liberal Democracy 1 A01 21 0000-0002-6506-4940 Jeremiah Morelock 2 A01 21 0000-0002-3139-1919 Felipe Ziotti Narita First edition. 01 eng 00 190 03 B2 Anthropology 04 HM741.M67 10 SOC026040 B2 Communication 10 POL033000 B2 Democracy Studies 10 PHI040000 B2 Policy Studies B2 Political Science B2 Sociology 01 06 03 00 This book explores how the Internet is connected to the global crisis of liberal democracy. Today, self-promotion is at the heart of many human relationships. The selfie is not just a social media gesture people love to hate. It is also a symbol of social reality in the age of the Internet. Through social media people have new ways of rating and judging themselves and one another, via metrics such as likes, shares, followers and friends. There are new thirsts for authenticity, outlets for verbal aggression, and social problems. Social media culture and neoliberalism dovetail and amplify one another, feeding social estrangement. With neoliberalism, psychosocial wounds are agitated and authoritarianism is provoked. Yet this new sociality also inspires resistance and political mobilisation. Illustrating ideas and trends with examples from news and popular culture, the book outlines and applies theories from Debord, Foucault, Fromm, Goffman, and Giddens, among others. Topics covered include the global history of communication technologies, personal branding, echo chamber effects, alienation and fear of abnormality. Information technologies provide channels for public engagement where extreme ideas reach farther and faster than ever before, and political differences are widened and inflamed. They also provide new opportunities for protest and resistance. 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20211214 2021 06 15 9781914386251 06 15 9781914386268 06 15 9781914386275 06 15 9781914386282 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book59/download/8281 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book59 99 01 urn:uuid:488b5981-40ad-4aef-9668-a31947045139 03 01 01 urn:uuid:488b5981-40ad-4aef-9668-a31947045139 15 9781915445315 06 10.16997/book72 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 01 01 The World as Abyss The Caribbean and Critical Thought in the Anthropocene 1 A01 21 0000-0002-2766-7169 David Chandler 2 A01 21 0000-0001-5308-6379 Jonathan Pugh First edition. 01 eng 00 122 03 B2 Anthropology 10 PHI040000 B2 Geography 10 SOC015000 B2 Law 10 SOC008000 B2 Politics 01 06 03 00 This book is about a distinctive ‘abyssal’ approach to the crisis of modernity. In this framing, influenced by contemporary critical Black studies, another understanding of the world of modernity is foregrounded – a world violently forged through the projects of Indigenous dispossession, chattel slavery and colonial world-making. Modern and colonial world-making violently forged the ‘human’ by dividing those with ontological security from those without, and by carving out the ‘world’ in a fixed grid of space and time, delineating a linear temporality of ‘progress’ and ‘development’. The distinctiveness of abyssal thought is that it inverts the stakes of critique and brings indeterminacy into the heart of ontological assumptions of a world of entities, essences, and universal determination. This is an approach that does not focus upon tropes of rescue and salvation but upon the generative power of negation. In doing so, it highlights how Caribbean experiences and writings have been drawn upon to provide an important and distinct perspective for critical thought."How is it that ontology has come to be seen as the antidote for modernity? While Foucault denigrated ontology as a mistaken and parochial exercise, contemporary social theory holds out the promise that new modes of planetary knowledge will save us from our own excesses. Drawing together long traditions in Caribbean scholarship with Afro-pessimist thought, Pugh and Chandler illustrate how the search for more emancipatory ontologies - relational ontologies, indigenous ontologies, non-human ontologies, etc. – not only misunderstands the problem of modernity but (more importantly) works to veil the negative force that marks both the limit and cause of all such knowledge practices: what they term the abyss. To engage in abyssal thought – as they lay out – is to inhabit a site of refusal: a determination not</italic> to be drawn into the lure of ontological ‘correction’ and to recognise that the practice of world making cannot not bear the imprint of colonial violence. Articulated in passionate declarative prose, these authors powerfully illuminate the trap of the emancipatory instinct and the promise of a deconstructive ethic." — Mitch Rose, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Aberystwyth University, UK</bold>“A much-needed intellectual effort in the non-reductionist and non-essentialising style of Pugh and Chandler's previous book. The World as Abyss</italic> gives Caribbean thought and culture the place they deserve within critical theory and materialist studies.” — Mónica Fernández Jiménez, Valladolid University, Spain</bold>“For some time now scholars have questioned the overly general assumptions about the ‘anthropos’ of the Anthropocene, but much work needs to be done to flesh out what a decolonized Anthropocene might be. Pugh and Chandler’s The World as Abyss </italic>provides an original, intriguing and compelling counterpoint to bland Anthropocene humanism (and posthumanism). This timely work explores the poetics of the Caribbean and provides a way to think about the Anthropocene and the future beyond the managerialism of the present. This book is essential reading for those working in the environmental humanities or Anthropocene studies.” — Claire Colebrook, Professor, Penn State University, USA</bold>“This book names an apocalypse that began long ago. Pugh and Chandler patiently follow the journey of thought as it travels from the Middle Passage to the Caribbean. This brings them face-to-face with the horror of anti-Black violence, not as just another resource to strip-mine, but as an unavoidable abyss that confines all thought. Its reminder: that we have still not yet begun to think a truly Black world.” — Andrew Culp, Professor, California Institute of the Arts, USA </bold>"With the force of a manifesto, the intensity of a polemic, and the nuance of a treatise, this<break/>book sets out to disavow the disavowal of Colonial violence in the making of the<break/>contemporary world and thought. Learning from Caribbean thinkers, writers, and poets, it<break/>sets to work unworking, desedimenting and deconstructing, the violent ontological<break/>foundations by which anti-Black worlds maintain and reproduce their innocence and<break/>ignorance. Replaying and reiterating, extending and multiplying, gestures of refusal –<break/>refusals of subjection, of History, of Geography, of meaning, of Being – there is the refusal<break/>of the World as it is and of the World as it could be. The World as Abyss artfully combines a<break/>critique of the historical forces which make and unmake the contemporary moment with<break/>the suspension of horizons, of ends, of grounds. What emerges in the wake is an<break/>intensification of the generative capacity of this refusal; voids, arrhythmia, counter-times,<break/>displacements, dislocations, the abyssal. First as threat and then as promise" — Paul<break/>Harrison, Associate Professor of Human Geography, Durham University, UK</bold><break/> 20 00 Open Access University of Westminster Press 01 University of Westminster Press London 04 01 20230505 2023 06 15 9781915445308 06 15 9781915445315 06 15 9781915445322 06 15 9781915445339 09 University of Westminster Press 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book72/download/9320 99 01 09 University of Westminster Press 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/10.16997/book72 99 01