Sofia Aboim – författare

Exploring gender through the lens of field theory, Gender Fields proposes a new framework for understanding the social organisation of gender identity. In conversation with Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, the book conceptualises under-theorised situated dimensions of gender, bridging the gap between macro and micro theories of gender. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted over five years in several countries in Europe and beyond, the authors situate gender as a critical site of autonomous socio-political struggle and highlight the centrality of the transgender experience in redefining gendered personhood and freedom. Increased trans visibility catalysed new social and political arenas of contestation that expanded the potential for reimagining gender norms and identities. The authors examine political and legal arenas, the medical field and health markets, gender naming, individual practices, and material-discursive embodiments, offering new insights into gender change. While numerous explanations have been proposed, this book offers a fresh perspective on these revolutionary developments. Gender Fields characterises gender as a field of struggle through a set of basic tools that can be usefully applied to studies in diverse settings. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with an interest in issues of gender, social theory and identity.

Plural Masculinities offers a contemporary portrait of the plural dynamics and forms of masculinity, emphasizing the multiple, even contradictory, pathways through which men are remaking their identities. Proceeding from the premise that it is impossible to fully understand masculinity without considering its connection with family change and women's change, it places men and masculinities within the realm of family life, examining men's practices and discourses in their relationships with women and their changing femininities. Combining an empirical study based in Portugal with cross-national analyses of attitudes towards ideal gender arrangements in Europe and the USA, this book examines the various ways in which men come to define their identities and will appeal to those working in the fields of masculinities, gender studies and the sociology of the family.

'Colonial Senses' explores how Portuguese late colonialism and its afterlives are experienced and resisted through the senses. Moving beyond a purely textual analysis, the Element examines the insurgent optics of Amílcar Cabral, the feminist haptics of Paulina Chiziane and the sonic politics of Black female activists in post-colonial Lisbon. The Element posits that Portuguese late colonialism's sensory regime prioritised proximity and aesthetic contact in order to mask violence and stifle dissent. Using social theory, literature and ethnography, we analyse a variety of visual, tactile and auditory registers. We offer a new hypothesis on the sensory architecture of empire: that the Portuguese colonial empire developed a distinctive multisensory regime structured around aestheticised contact, intimate violence and the suppression of autonomous sensory expression. Combining historical and sociological analysis, this Element demonstrates how sensory colonial legacies endure into the present and contributes to sensory and postcolonial studies.

'Colonial Senses' explores how Portuguese late colonialism and its afterlives are experienced and resisted through the senses. Moving beyond a purely textual analysis, the Element examines the insurgent optics of Amílcar Cabral, the feminist haptics of Paulina Chiziane and the sonic politics of Black female activists in post-colonial Lisbon. The Element posits that Portuguese late colonialism's sensory regime prioritised proximity and aesthetic contact in order to mask violence and stifle dissent. Using social theory, literature and ethnography, we analyse a variety of visual, tactile and auditory registers. We offer a new hypothesis on the sensory architecture of empire: that the Portuguese colonial empire developed a distinctive multisensory regime structured around aestheticised contact, intimate violence and the suppression of autonomous sensory expression. Combining historical and sociological analysis, this Element demonstrates how sensory colonial legacies endure into the present and contributes to sensory and postcolonial studies.

Exploring gender through the lens of field theory, Gender Fields proposes a new framework for understanding the social organisation of gender identity. In conversation with Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, the book conceptualises under-theorised situated dimensions of gender, bridging the gap between macro and micro theories of gender. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted over five years in several countries in Europe and beyond, the authors situate gender as a critical site of autonomous socio-political struggle and highlight the centrality of the transgender experience in redefining gendered personhood and freedom. Increased trans visibility catalysed new social and political arenas of contestation that expanded the potential for reimagining gender norms and identities. The authors examine political and legal arenas, the medical field and health markets, gender naming, individual practices, and material-discursive embodiments, offering new insights into gender change. While numerous explanations have been proposed, this book offers a fresh perspective on these revolutionary developments. Gender Fields characterises gender as a field of struggle through a set of basic tools that can be usefully applied to studies in diverse settings. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with an interest in issues of gender, social theory and identity.

Addressing the longstanding shortcomings of theorising on men, masculinity and gender relations by examining how power operates through marginal positions, this book explores how masculinities are constructed, marginalised, and resisted across a wide range of geographies by bringing intersectionality and decoloniality into sustained dialogue.Men and Masculinities at the Margins moves beyond understandings of masculine marginality as a fixed condition to instead distinguish between margins as relational positions and marginalisation as historically situated processes shaped by inequality and power. In doing so, it places hegemonic masculinity under critical scrutiny, revealing both its continued relevance and its conceptual limitations. The contributions to this volume empirically ground engagements with this perspective, drawing on research from across the Global South and North to reveal how the processes of marginalisation are linked to colonial legacies, racialisation, class, precarity, caste, migration, violence, queerness, and digital transformations.Essential for researchers in Sociology, Gender Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students, these contributions reposition the margins as central sites for rethinking men, masculinity and the dynamics of power in a deeply unequal world.

Amidst rising tensions affecting democracy, capitalism and planetary life, this book discusses the multiple crises, processes and conflicts reconfiguring modernity. Tracking the political, social and ecological dynamics at play, it offers a critical perspective on the forces that may redefine the futures of political modernity.It asks whether a transition is unfolding and whether a new phase of modernity is emerging, or whether it is only an inflexion that we are witnessing, with the prepandemic imaginary and institutions retaining their strength, apart from smaller adaptions. Drawing on a range of cutting-edge contributions emerging from a conference at the Social Sciences Institute of University of Lisbon, it tackles issues of democracy, statehood, empire, coloniality, authoritarianism, the Anthropocene and the social bond, to offer a systematic analysis and conceptualization of ongoing changes. It offers a global perspective on the debate. Empirical and theoretical threads are brought together by the idea that we are transitioning to a world somehow yet unknown but whose contours we can already fathom.An innovative, empirically based and path-breaking analytical contribution it will appeal to specialists, researchers and postgraduate students of sociology, social theory and political theory. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.