Paul O'Connor – författare

Questions of home and belonging have never been more topical. Populist politicians in both Europe and America play on anxieties over globalisation by promising to reconstitute the national home, through cutting immigration and ‘taking back control’. Increasing numbers of young people are unable to afford home-ownership, a trend with implications for the future shape of families and communities. The dominant conceptualisations of home in the twentieth century – the nation-state and the suburban nuclear household – are in crisis, yet they continue to shape our personal and political aspirations. Home: The Foundations of Belonging puts these issues into context by drawing on a range of disciplines to offer a deep anthropological and historical perspective on home. Beginning with a vision of modernity as characterised by both spiralling liminality and an ongoing quest for belonging, it plumbs the archaic roots of Western civilisation and assembles a wide body of comparative anthropological evidence to illuminate the foundations of a sense of home. Home is theorised as a stable centre around which we organise both everyday routines and perspectives on reality, bringing order to a chaotic world and overcoming liminality. Constituted by a set of ongoing processes which concentrate and embody meaning in intimate relationships, everyday rituals and familiar places, a shared home becomes the foundation for community and society. The Foundations of Belonging thus elevates ‘home’ to the position of a foundational sociological and anthropological concept at a moment when the crisis of globalisation has opened the way to a revaluation of the local.

In an era of digital revolution, artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, technology has shifted from being a tool of communication to a primary medium of experience and sociality. Some of the most basic human capacities are increasingly being outsourced to machines and we increasingly experience and interpret the world through digital interfaces, with machines becoming ever more ‘social’ beings. Social interaction and human perception are being reshaped in unprecedented ways. This book explores this technologisation of the social and the attendant penetration of permanent liminality into those aspects of the lifeworld where individuals had previously sought some kind of stability and meaning. Through a historical and anthropological examination of this phenomenon, it problematises the underlying logic of limitless technological expansion and our increasing inability to imagine either ourselves or our world in other than technological terms. Drawing on a variety of concepts from political anthropology, including liminality, the trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and the void, it interrogates the contemporary technological revolution in a manner that will be of interest to sociologists, social and anthropological theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the digital transformation of social life.

In an era of digital revolution, artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, technology has shifted from being a tool of communication to a primary medium of experience and sociality. Some of the most basic human capacities are increasingly being outsourced to machines and we increasingly experience and interpret the world through digital interfaces, with machines becoming ever more ‘social’ beings. Social interaction and human perception are being reshaped in unprecedented ways. This book explores this technologisation of the social and the attendant penetration of permanent liminality into those aspects of the lifeworld where individuals had previously sought some kind of stability and meaning. Through a historical and anthropological examination of this phenomenon, it problematises the underlying logic of limitless technological expansion and our increasing inability to imagine either ourselves or our world in other than technological terms. Drawing on a variety of concepts from political anthropology, including liminality, the trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and the void, it interrogates the contemporary technological revolution in a manner that will be of interest to sociologists, social and anthropological theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the digital transformation of social life.

Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease explores the phenomenon of ‘liminal politics’: an open-ended ‘state of exception’ in which normal rules no longer apply, and things which were previously unimaginable become possible – even appearing remarkably quickly to represent a ‘new normal’. With attention to the emergency measures introduced to counter the spread of Covid-19, it shows how the emergency suspension of democratic accountability, ordinary life and civil liberties, while accidental, can lend itself to orchestration and exploitation for the purpose of political gain by ‘trickster’ or ‘parasitic’ figures. An examination of the cloning of political responses from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with little consideration of their rational justification or local context, this volume interrogates the underlying dynamics of a global technological mimetism, as novel technocratic interventions are repeated and the way is opened for new technologies to reorganise social life in a manner that threatens the disintegration of its existing patterns. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and anthropological theory with interests in political expediency and the transformation of social life.

Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease explores the phenomenon of ‘liminal politics’: an open-ended ‘state of exception’ in which normal rules no longer apply, and things which were previously unimaginable become possible – even appearing remarkably quickly to represent a ‘new normal’. With attention to the emergency measures introduced to counter the spread of Covid-19, it shows how the emergency suspension of democratic accountability, ordinary life and civil liberties, while accidental, can lend itself to orchestration and exploitation for the purpose of political gain by ‘trickster’ or ‘parasitic’ figures. An examination of the cloning of political responses from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with little consideration of their rational justification or local context, this volume interrogates the underlying dynamics of a global technological mimetism, as novel technocratic interventions are repeated and the way is opened for new technologies to reorganise social life in a manner that threatens the disintegration of its existing patterns. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and anthropological theory with interests in political expediency and the transformation of social life.

Healthcare simulation is the modern way to educate healthcare providers to achieve high performance and to improve patient safety. It encompasses mannikin based training for teamwork and nontechnical skills, task trainers for procedural skills, simulated participants for communication skills, and virtual/augmented reality simulation. Based on an award-winning postgraduate course, this text provides the background knowledge required to: run a healthcare simulation centre; use simulation for training and education; and support simulation-based quality improvement and research activities.*Presents a focused and highly practical approach to course material *Offers a detailed guide for anyone who uses healthcare simulation for education, quality improvement, or research *Shows a practical focus for teaching, quality improvement, and research

Healthcare simulation is the modern way to educate healthcare providers to achieve high performance and to improve patient safety. It encompasses mannikin based training for teamwork and nontechnical skills, task trainers for procedural skills, simulated participants for communication skills, and virtual/augmented reality simulation. Based on an award-winning postgraduate course, this text provides the background knowledge required to: run a healthcare simulation centre; use simulation for training and education; and support simulation-based quality improvement and research activities.*Presents a focused and highly practical approach to course material *Offers a detailed guide for anyone who uses healthcare simulation for education, quality improvement, or research *Shows a practical focus for teaching, quality improvement, and research

In what is routinely described as a ‘knowledge society’, this book argues that contemporary knowledge is systematically filtered and distorted by the requirements of the bureaucratic-managerial organisations that constitute the structural core of hypermodernity. As knowledge becomes increasingly politicised, almost every ‘fact’ with which we are presented serves an agenda.This book traces the historical and conceptual foundations of ‘governmental knowledge’. It examines how problematisation, mediation, informationalisation, and substitution translate human life into abstract representations that can be managed, manipulated, and retrojected back onto social reality. The proliferation of experts and managerial intermediaries institutionalises these processes across domains as diverse as public health, education, corporate management, and everyday digital interactions. It argues that, far from being neutral, expert knowledge instrumentalises liminality and subordinates social life and individual conduct to the algorithmic logic of managerialism. Technocracy thus systematically filters out the dimensions of meaning, participation, and embodied existence, constructing a ‘second reality’ that blinds us to whole ranges of human experience.A compelling study of the politics of knowledge, Technocracy: Knowledge and Power in the Information Age sheds light on the way a certain type of knowledge is used to lay claim to authority, status and resources, and how the endless expansion of such knowledge reshapes society. It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and social theory with interests in the sociology of knowledge.

In what is routinely described as a ‘knowledge society’, this book argues that contemporary knowledge is systematically filtered and distorted by the requirements of the bureaucratic-managerial organisations that constitute the structural core of hypermodernity. As knowledge becomes increasingly politicised, almost every ‘fact’ with which we are presented serves an agenda.This book traces the historical and conceptual foundations of ‘governmental knowledge’. It examines how problematisation, mediation, informationalisation, and substitution translate human life into abstract representations that can be managed, manipulated, and retrojected back onto social reality. The proliferation of experts and managerial intermediaries institutionalises these processes across domains as diverse as public health, education, corporate management, and everyday digital interactions. It argues that, far from being neutral, expert knowledge instrumentalises liminality and subordinates social life and individual conduct to the algorithmic logic of managerialism. Technocracy thus systematically filters out the dimensions of meaning, participation, and embodied existence, constructing a ‘second reality’ that blinds us to whole ranges of human experience.A compelling study of the politics of knowledge, Technocracy: Knowledge and Power in the Information Age sheds light on the way a certain type of knowledge is used to lay claim to authority, status and resources, and how the endless expansion of such knowledge reshapes society. It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and social theory with interests in the sociology of knowledge.

Many 21st-century operations are characterized by teams of workers dealing with significant risks and complex technology, in competitive, commercially driven environments. Informed managers have realized the necessity of understanding the human dimension of their operations if they hope to improve production and safety performance. A key aspect is the non-technical skills of the system operators based at the ‘sharp end’ of the organization. These include the cognitive and social skills required for safe and efficient performance, often termed ‘Crew Resource Management (CRM) skills’.This book is a general guide to the theory and practice of non-technical skills (NTS) for safety. Now fully updated in this new edition, Safety at the Sharp End: A Guide to Non-Technical Skills considers the growth of interest in Crew Resource Management (CRM) approaches to identifying, training and assessing CRM/NTS skills. It covers the identification, training and evaluation of NTS and has been written for use by individuals who are studying or training these skills in CRM and other safety or human factors courses. It outlines the underlying principles, as well as practical techniques and advice and has been revised to cover the latest developments by drawing on a wider sample of work settings where an NTS approach is being adopted. A full literature review is offered, and the authors have drawn upon an international network of contacts across industry, military and healthcare occupations and academic sources to deliver current practice and emerging issues. The reader will develop a thorough understanding of the theory and practice of non-technical skills for safety from this title.This book is an ideal read for professionals and those practising or studying human factors or industrial safety programmes. Its appeal will extend to those in safety-critical industries including healthcare, aviation, rail, maritime, energy production and the military. This book:• Delivers a comprehensive and accessible guide on non-technical skills (NTS) for practitioners.• Focuses on the latest scientific evidence for each skill category written in an accessible manner.• Explains the application of an NTS approach across a wide range of occupations.• Covers the authors’ extensive research and experience of collaborating with practitioners across a range of higher risk work settings resulting in practical examples throughout the text.• Details a good range of sources provided for further reading and additional information.

Many 21st-century operations are characterized by teams of workers dealing with significant risks and complex technology, in competitive, commercially driven environments. Informed managers have realized the necessity of understanding the human dimension of their operations if they hope to improve production and safety performance. A key aspect is the non-technical skills of the system operators based at the ‘sharp end’ of the organization. These include the cognitive and social skills required for safe and efficient performance, often termed ‘Crew Resource Management (CRM) skills’.This book is a general guide to the theory and practice of non-technical skills (NTS) for safety. Now fully updated in this new edition, Safety at the Sharp End: A Guide to Non-Technical Skills considers the growth of interest in Crew Resource Management (CRM) approaches to identifying, training and assessing CRM/NTS skills. It covers the identification, training and evaluation of NTS and has been written for use by individuals who are studying or training these skills in CRM and other safety or human factors courses. It outlines the underlying principles, as well as practical techniques and advice and has been revised to cover the latest developments by drawing on a wider sample of work settings where an NTS approach is being adopted. A full literature review is offered, and the authors have drawn upon an international network of contacts across industry, military and healthcare occupations and academic sources to deliver current practice and emerging issues. The reader will develop a thorough understanding of the theory and practice of non-technical skills for safety from this title.This book is an ideal read for professionals and those practising or studying human factors or industrial safety programmes. Its appeal will extend to those in safety-critical industries including healthcare, aviation, rail, maritime, energy production and the military. This book:• Delivers a comprehensive and accessible guide on non-technical skills (NTS) for practitioners.• Focuses on the latest scientific evidence for each skill category written in an accessible manner.• Explains the application of an NTS approach across a wide range of occupations.• Covers the authors’ extensive research and experience of collaborating with practitioners across a range of higher risk work settings resulting in practical examples throughout the text.• Details a good range of sources provided for further reading and additional information.

This Encyclopedia explores the anthropological underpinnings of politics. Featuring biographical entries that reconstruct the life-works of key theorists from across the globe alongside topical entries on a range of issues in political anthropology, it poses the question: what does it mean to be human in contemporary times?Entries examine classic and modern perspectives in philosophical anthropology, and analyse themes such as the human capacity for meaning-making and how it is impacted by modernity, the dynamics of socio-political transformations and how varying perceptions of human nature have shaped political theory and practice. The Encyclopedia provides thought-provoking insight into the anthropological foundations of contemporary political and cultural phenomena, drawing from work in a wide range of connected fields including comparative historical sociology, classical philosophical anthropology, mythology, art history and beyond.Students and academics in political science and public policy, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and historiography will greatly benefit from this Encyclopedia’s comprehensive overview of political anthropology. It is also a valuable reference tool for political practitioners.Key Features:Over 130 entries written by leading international scholarsDemonstrates how hyper-modern society systematically disconnects humanity from many aspects of realityConsiders anthropology in a broad, multidisciplinary sense, tracing the meaning back to the Enlightenment and classical timesIncorporates relevant perspectives from classical philosophical anthropology, archaeology, comparative historical sociology, mythology, and civilisational analysis

This book explores the concept of leisure through the lens of colour, offering a fresh and innovative perspective on how chromatic elements shape our understanding of health, wellbeing, and environmental ethics. By focusing on the material and symbolic significance of hues, particularly blue, green, and grey, the book delves into the ways these colours influence leisure spaces and activities. From children’s play to surfing in artificial wave pools and skateboarding, the chapters examine diverse leisure practices across locations such as the UK, Russia, Turkey, East Asia, and North America. The book also challenges the traditional focus on blue and green spaces by highlighting the potential of grey spaces—urban environments like city streets, rooftops, and industrial landscapes—as sites of healthy and meaningful leisure.Through 15 chapters based on original empirical research, this book introduces the nascent field of chromatic leisure, offering new conceptual frameworks that add depth and nuance to leisure scholarship. It critically examines how grey spaces, often overlooked in health and well-being discourse, provide alternative ways to frame leisure, embracing ambiguity, hybridity, and complexity. This book is essential reading for students, scholars and policymakers in leisure studies, social geography, urbanism, and health and well-being research.The chapters in this book were originally published in Leisure Studies and are now accompanied by three new chapters and an updated introduction.

Questions of home and belonging have never been more topical. Populist politicians in both Europe and America play on anxieties over globalisation by promising to reconstitute the national home, through cutting immigration and ‘taking back control’. Increasing numbers of young people are unable to afford home-ownership, a trend with implications for the future shape of families and communities. The dominant conceptualisations of home in the twentieth century – the nation-state and the suburban nuclear household – are in crisis, yet they continue to shape our personal and political aspirations. Home: The Foundations of Belonging puts these issues into context by drawing on a range of disciplines to offer a deep anthropological and historical perspective on home. Beginning with a vision of modernity as characterised by both spiralling liminality and an ongoing quest for belonging, it plumbs the archaic roots of Western civilisation and assembles a wide body of comparative anthropological evidence to illuminate the foundations of a sense of home. Home is theorised as a stable centre around which we organise both everyday routines and perspectives on reality, bringing order to a chaotic world and overcoming liminality. Constituted by a set of ongoing processes which concentrate and embody meaning in intimate relationships, everyday rituals and familiar places, a shared home becomes the foundation for community and society. The Foundations of Belonging thus elevates ‘home’ to the position of a foundational sociological and anthropological concept at a moment when the crisis of globalisation has opened the way to a revaluation of the local.

This book explores the ways in which religion is observed, performed, and organised in skateboard culture.Drawing on scholarship from the sociology of religion and the cultural politics of lifestyle sports, this work combines ethnographic research with media analysis to argue that the rituals of skateboarding provide participants with a rich cultural canvas for emotional and spiritual engagement. Paul O’Connor contends that religious identification in skateboarding is set to increase as participants pursue ways to both control and engage meaningfully with an activity that has become an increasingly mainstream and institutionalised sport. Religion is explored through the themes of myth, celebrity, iconography, pilgrimage, evangelism, cults, and self-help.

This book explores the ways in which religion is observed, performed, and organised in skateboard culture.Drawing on scholarship from the sociology of religion and the cultural politics of lifestyle sports, this work combines ethnographic research with media analysis to argue that the rituals of skateboarding provide participants with a rich cultural canvas for emotional and spiritual engagement. Paul O’Connor contends that religious identification in skateboarding is set to increase as participants pursue ways to both control and engage meaningfully with an activity that has become an increasingly mainstream and institutionalised sport. Religion is explored through the themes of myth, celebrity, iconography, pilgrimage, evangelism, cults, and self-help.

More than a quarter of a million Muslims live and work in Hong Kong. Among them are descendants of families who have been in the city for generations, recent immigrants from around the world, and growing numbers of migrant workers. Islam in Hong Kong explores the lives of Muslims as ethnic and religious minorities in this unique postcolonial Chinese city. Drawing on interviews with Muslims of different origins, O'Connor builds a detailed picture of daily life through topical chapters on language, space, religious education, daily prayers, maintaining a halal diet in a Chinese environment, racism, and other subjects. Although the picture that emerges is complex and ambiguous, one striking conclusion is that Muslims in Hong Kong generally find acceptance as a community and do not consider themselves to be victimised because of their religion.

More than a quarter of a million Muslims live and work in Hong Kong. Among them are descendants of families who have been in the city for generations, recent immigrants from around the world, and growing numbers of migrant workers. Islam in Hong Kong explores the lives of Muslims as ethnic and religious minorities in this unique postcolonial Chinese city. Drawing on interviews with Muslims of different origins, O'Connor builds a detailed picture of daily life through topical chapters on language, space, religious education, daily prayers, maintaining a halal diet in a Chinese environment, racism, and other subjects. Although the picture that emerges is complex and ambiguous, one striking conclusion is that Muslims in Hong Kong generally find acceptance as a community and do not consider themselves to be victimised because of their religion.

Many 21st century operations are characterised by teams of workers dealing with significant risks and complex technology, in competitive, commercially-driven environments. Informed managers in such sectors have realised the necessity of understanding the human dimension to their operations if they hope to improve production and safety performance. While organisational safety culture is a key determinant of workplace safety, it is also essential to focus on the non-technical skills of the system operators based at the 'sharp end' of the organisation. These skills are the cognitive and social skills required for efficient and safe operations, often termed Crew Resource Management (CRM) skills. In industries such as civil aviation, it has long been appreciated that the majority of accidents could have been prevented if better non-technical skills had been demonstrated by personnel operating and maintaining the system. As a result, the aviation industry has pioneered the development of CRM training. Many other organisations are now introducing non-technical skills training, most notably within the healthcare sector. Safety at the Sharp End is a general guide to the theory and practice of non-technical skills for safety. It covers the identification, training and evaluation of non-technical skills and has been written for use by individuals who are studying or training these skills on CRM and other safety or human factors courses. The material is also suitable for undergraduate and post-experience students studying human factors or industrial safety programmes.