Concepts for Critical Psychology – serie

In the face of a world in crisis, Digitalization and Learning as a Worlding Practice: Why Dialogue Matters examines the significance of digital technologies in human learning.The book explores how learning is not just an internalization of knowledge but a problem- oriented activity of engaging with the world, a process of both meaning making and world making. It raises a pivotal question: how can digital technologies help to expand and enrich learning as a collaborative worlding practice? It discusses the importance of digital artifacts in shaping students’ learning experiences, discerning how they nourish meaningful engagement and where they pose a hindrance. The book also investigates the role of digitalization in transforming everyday life and learning activity of students, and how learners, teachers, and educators can approach these transformations critically and constructively. Based on an embodied, subject- and world- centered concept of learning, the book offers its readers a sophisticated understanding of the inner connection between digitalization and learning.This book will appeal to students and scholars in Psychology, Education, and Science and Technology Studies, as well as to anyone concerned with the implications of digital technology for the processes of human learning.

In the face of a world in crisis, Digitalization and Learning as a Worlding Practice: Why Dialogue Matters examines the significance of digital technologies in human learning.The book explores how learning is not just an internalization of knowledge but a problem- oriented activity of engaging with the world, a process of both meaning making and world making. It raises a pivotal question: how can digital technologies help to expand and enrich learning as a collaborative worlding practice? It discusses the importance of digital artifacts in shaping students’ learning experiences, discerning how they nourish meaningful engagement and where they pose a hindrance. The book also investigates the role of digitalization in transforming everyday life and learning activity of students, and how learners, teachers, and educators can approach these transformations critically and constructively. Based on an embodied, subject- and world- centered concept of learning, the book offers its readers a sophisticated understanding of the inner connection between digitalization and learning.This book will appeal to students and scholars in Psychology, Education, and Science and Technology Studies, as well as to anyone concerned with the implications of digital technology for the processes of human learning.

This essential book questions the psychological construct of Internet Addiction by contextualizing it within the digital technological era. It proposes a critical psychology that investigates user subjectivity as a function of capitalism and imperialism, arguing against punitive models of digital excesses and critiquing the political economy of the Internet affecting all users.Friedman explores the limitations of individual-centered remediations exemplified in the psychology of internet addiction. Furthermore, Friedman outlines the self-creative actions of social media users, and the data processing that exploits them to urge psychologists to politicize rather than pathologize the effects of excessive net use. The book develops a notion of capitalist imperialism of the social web and studies this using the radical methods of philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. By synthesizing perspectives on digital life from sociology, economics, digital media theory, and technology studies for psychologists, this book will be of interest to academics and students in these areas, as well as psychologists and counselors interested in addressing Internet Addiction as a collective, societal ill.

This essential book questions the psychological construct of Internet Addiction by contextualizing it within the digital technological era. It proposes a critical psychology that investigates user subjectivity as a function of capitalism and imperialism, arguing against punitive models of digital excesses and critiquing the political economy of the Internet affecting all users.Friedman explores the limitations of individual-centered remediations exemplified in the psychology of internet addiction. Furthermore, Friedman outlines the self-creative actions of social media users, and the data processing that exploits them to urge psychologists to politicize rather than pathologize the effects of excessive net use. The book develops a notion of capitalist imperialism of the social web and studies this using the radical methods of philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. By synthesizing perspectives on digital life from sociology, economics, digital media theory, and technology studies for psychologists, this book will be of interest to academics and students in these areas, as well as psychologists and counselors interested in addressing Internet Addiction as a collective, societal ill.

In this provocative and necessary book, Robert K. Beshara uses psychoanalytic discursive analysis to explore the possibility of a genuinely anti-colonial critical psychology. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to Islamophobia, this book enhances understandings of Critical Border Thinking and Lacanian Discourse Analysis, alongside other theoretico-methodological approaches.Using a critical decolonial psychology approach to conceptualize everyday Islamophobia, the author examines theoretical resources situated within the discursive turn, such as decoloniality/transmodernity, and carries out an archeology of (counter)terrorism, a genealogy of the conceptual Muslim, and a Žižekian ideology critique. Conceiving of Decolonial Psychoanalysis as one theoretical resource for Critical Islamophobia Studies (CIS), the author also applies Lacanian Discourse Analysis to extracts from interviews conducted with US Muslims to theorize their ethico-political subjectivity and considers a politics of resistance, adversarial aesthetics, and ethics of liberation. Essential to any attempt to come to terms with the legacy of racism in psychology, and the only critical psychological study on Islamophobia in the United States, this is a fascinating read for anyone interested in a critical approach to Islamophobia.

In this provocative and necessary book, Robert K. Beshara uses psychoanalytic discursive analysis to explore the possibility of a genuinely anti-colonial critical psychology. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to Islamophobia, this book enhances understandings of Critical Border Thinking and Lacanian Discourse Analysis, alongside other theoretico-methodological approaches.Using a critical decolonial psychology approach to conceptualize everyday Islamophobia, the author examines theoretical resources situated within the discursive turn, such as decoloniality/transmodernity, and carries out an archeology of (counter)terrorism, a genealogy of the conceptual Muslim, and a Žižekian ideology critique. Conceiving of Decolonial Psychoanalysis as one theoretical resource for Critical Islamophobia Studies (CIS), the author also applies Lacanian Discourse Analysis to extracts from interviews conducted with US Muslims to theorize their ethico-political subjectivity and considers a politics of resistance, adversarial aesthetics, and ethics of liberation. Essential to any attempt to come to terms with the legacy of racism in psychology, and the only critical psychological study on Islamophobia in the United States, this is a fascinating read for anyone interested in a critical approach to Islamophobia.

This crucial new work draws on empirical findings from rural North India in relation to madness and subjectivity, revealing the different structures of subjectivity underlying the narratives of schizophrenia, spirits, ghosts, and deities.Unravelling the loose ends of madness, the author explores the cultural differences in understanding and experiencing madness to examine how modern insanity is treated as a clinical disorder, but historically it represents how we form knowledge and understand self-knowledge. The author begins by theoretically investigating how the schizophrenic personifies the fractures in modern Western thought to explain why, despite decades of intense contention, the category of schizophrenia is still alive. She then examines the narratives of people in the Himalayan Mountains of rural India to reveal the discursive conditions that animate their stories around what psychology calls psychosis, critiquing the monoculturalism in trauma theory and challenging the ongoing march of the Global Mental Health Movement in the Global South.Examining what a study of madness reveals about two different cultures, and their ways of thinking and being, this is fascinating reading for students interested in mental health, critical psychology, and Indian culture.

This crucial new work draws on empirical findings from rural North India in relation to madness and subjectivity, revealing the different structures of subjectivity underlying the narratives of schizophrenia, spirits, ghosts, and deities.Unravelling the loose ends of madness, the author explores the cultural differences in understanding and experiencing madness to examine how modern insanity is treated as a clinical disorder, but historically it represents how we form knowledge and understand self-knowledge. The author begins by theoretically investigating how the schizophrenic personifies the fractures in modern Western thought to explain why, despite decades of intense contention, the category of schizophrenia is still alive. She then examines the narratives of people in the Himalayan Mountains of rural India to reveal the discursive conditions that animate their stories around what psychology calls psychosis, critiquing the monoculturalism in trauma theory and challenging the ongoing march of the Global Mental Health Movement in the Global South.Examining what a study of madness reveals about two different cultures, and their ways of thinking and being, this is fascinating reading for students interested in mental health, critical psychology, and Indian culture.

This book explores the cultural importance of cybernetic technologies and their relationship to human experience through a critical theoretical lens. Bringing several often-marginalized histories of cybernetics, psychology, and mental health into dialogue with one another, Beck questions common assumptions about human life such as that our minds operate as information processing machines and our neurons communicate with one another. Rather than suggest that such ideas are either right or wrong, however, this book analyzes how and why we have come to frame questions about ourselves in these ways, as if our brains were our own personal computers. Here, the rationality underlying information theories in psychology is followed to its logical conclusion, only to find it circles back to where it began: engineered methods of human control. After tracing a series of recent developments in this vein across fields related to mental health, Beck highlights emerging psychosocial alternatives by incorporating recent work of scholars and activists who have already begun creating collective support networks in radical ways. Their work overlaps fruitfully with ideas from those, including Gilbert Simondon and Fernand Deligny, who foresaw many of the current problems with how information theories have been coupled with psychology and mental health care.This book is fascinating reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students across psychology, mental health programs, and digital media studies, and academics and researchers with a theoretical interest in the philosophy of technology. It’s also an interesting resource for professionals with a practical interest in organizing care services under the data-driven imperatives of contemporary capitalism.

This book explores the cultural importance of cybernetic technologies and their relationship to human experience through a critical theoretical lens. Bringing several often-marginalized histories of cybernetics, psychology, and mental health into dialogue with one another, Beck questions common assumptions about human life such as that our minds operate as information processing machines and our neurons communicate with one another. Rather than suggest that such ideas are either right or wrong, however, this book analyzes how and why we have come to frame questions about ourselves in these ways, as if our brains were our own personal computers. Here, the rationality underlying information theories in psychology is followed to its logical conclusion, only to find it circles back to where it began: engineered methods of human control. After tracing a series of recent developments in this vein across fields related to mental health, Beck highlights emerging psychosocial alternatives by incorporating recent work of scholars and activists who have already begun creating collective support networks in radical ways. Their work overlaps fruitfully with ideas from those, including Gilbert Simondon and Fernand Deligny, who foresaw many of the current problems with how information theories have been coupled with psychology and mental health care.This book is fascinating reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students across psychology, mental health programs, and digital media studies, and academics and researchers with a theoretical interest in the philosophy of technology. It’s also an interesting resource for professionals with a practical interest in organizing care services under the data-driven imperatives of contemporary capitalism.

This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content and context, to be more readily assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Beginning with the colonial histories of Empire, the author draws from the 1960s Counterculture and the subsequent romanticising and idealising of the East. Cohen explores how Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist traditions have been gradually transformed into forms of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Self-Help, undergoing processes of ‘modernisation’ and secularisation until their respective cosmologies had been successfully reinterpreted and reimagined. An important component of this psychologisation is the accompanying commodification of Eastern spiritual practices, including the mass-marketing of mindfulness and meditation as part of the burgeoning well-being industry. Also presenting emerging voices of resistance from within Eastern spiritual traditions, the book ends with a chapter on Transpersonal Psychology, showing a path for how to gradually move away from colonisation and towards collaboration.Engaging with the ‘mindfulness movement’ and other practices assimilated by Western culture, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as mindfulness practitioners.

This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content and context, to be more readily assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Beginning with the colonial histories of Empire, the author draws from the 1960s Counterculture and the subsequent romanticising and idealising of the East. Cohen explores how Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist traditions have been gradually transformed into forms of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Self-Help, undergoing processes of ‘modernisation’ and secularisation until their respective cosmologies had been successfully reinterpreted and reimagined. An important component of this psychologisation is the accompanying commodification of Eastern spiritual practices, including the mass-marketing of mindfulness and meditation as part of the burgeoning well-being industry. Also presenting emerging voices of resistance from within Eastern spiritual traditions, the book ends with a chapter on Transpersonal Psychology, showing a path for how to gradually move away from colonisation and towards collaboration.Engaging with the ‘mindfulness movement’ and other practices assimilated by Western culture, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as mindfulness practitioners.

This important work critically investigates the use of rating and ranking systems in higher education to show how they govern the academic population through the creation of competition and antagonism. From social media to PISA and Rotten Tomatoes, ratings and rankings exist everywhere in our daily lives. Seemingly benign in practice, they can structure and govern important parts of society, including social interaction, public health and economic rankings. In this essential critique, author Jonas Thiel sets out the case against these practices, using the UK’s higher education model to show how tools such as the National Student Surveys (NSS) instead divide the academic population to make it governable and controllable. Instead of achieving its intended aim of improving teaching by forcing competition over student satisfaction, Thiel shows that systems like the NSS have a profound and often negative impact upon how people and institutions understand themselves. Drawing on the new materialist theory of Karen Barad, Foucault’s governmentality and Laclau’s understanding of antagonism, the book raises an urgent need to respond to these boundary-drawing practices, especially in light of rising inequality and ecological collapse, and poses the question: can we even imagine a world without 'Top 10' rankings and 'out of 5' scores?Engaging with current debates around ‘value’, tuition fees and the role of higher education in society, this is fascinating reading for advanced students and academics in psychology, education, sociology and philosophy.

This important work critically investigates the use of rating and ranking systems in higher education to show how they govern the academic population through the creation of competition and antagonism. From social media to PISA and Rotten Tomatoes, ratings and rankings exist everywhere in our daily lives. Seemingly benign in practice, they can structure and govern important parts of society, including social interaction, public health and economic rankings. In this essential critique, author Jonas Thiel sets out the case against these practices, using the UK’s higher education model to show how tools such as the National Student Surveys (NSS) instead divide the academic population to make it governable and controllable. Instead of achieving its intended aim of improving teaching by forcing competition over student satisfaction, Thiel shows that systems like the NSS have a profound and often negative impact upon how people and institutions understand themselves. Drawing on the new materialist theory of Karen Barad, Foucault’s governmentality and Laclau’s understanding of antagonism, the book raises an urgent need to respond to these boundary-drawing practices, especially in light of rising inequality and ecological collapse, and poses the question: can we even imagine a world without 'Top 10' rankings and 'out of 5' scores?Engaging with current debates around ‘value’, tuition fees and the role of higher education in society, this is fascinating reading for advanced students and academics in psychology, education, sociology and philosophy.

This unique book draws on the narratives of women participants in community radio, using intersectionality, feminist, critical psychological and community development frameworks to explore how this highly symbolic, creative dimension of activism can unmute marginalised women and enrich corporate media.Over a period of four years, twelve female radio project volunteers offer their experiences which they analyse, together as part of the RRG (Radio Research Group), alongside a conceptual and contextual framework to produce insights on the gendered nature of silence, voice and empowerment, and the wider potential of radio activism. Employing literature from a variety of fields, from bell hooks to Stuart Hall, the book foregrounds evidence from the majority world to argue the empowerment potential of community radio and the barriers to radio participation. Through this analysis community radio emerges as a site of development, from which diverse identities transpire through laughter, dialogue, raised consciousness and solidarity, but it also exposes the conflicts of empowerment by recognising inherent tensions in womanhood and in communities.Centering on the global, hegemonic challenge of empowering women, and relevant across multiple disciplines and professions, this is fascinating reading for academics, students and professionals in psychology, gender studies, media studies, development and related areas.

This unique book draws on the narratives of women participants in community radio, using intersectionality, feminist, critical psychological and community development frameworks to explore how this highly symbolic, creative dimension of activism can unmute marginalised women and enrich corporate media.Over a period of four years, twelve female radio project volunteers offer their experiences which they analyse, together as part of the RRG (Radio Research Group), alongside a conceptual and contextual framework to produce insights on the gendered nature of silence, voice and empowerment, and the wider potential of radio activism. Employing literature from a variety of fields, from bell hooks to Stuart Hall, the book foregrounds evidence from the majority world to argue the empowerment potential of community radio and the barriers to radio participation. Through this analysis community radio emerges as a site of development, from which diverse identities transpire through laughter, dialogue, raised consciousness and solidarity, but it also exposes the conflicts of empowerment by recognising inherent tensions in womanhood and in communities.Centering on the global, hegemonic challenge of empowering women, and relevant across multiple disciplines and professions, this is fascinating reading for academics, students and professionals in psychology, gender studies, media studies, development and related areas.

This book develops a critical psychological account of trauma as an institutional phenomenon, which is currently missing in psychological discourse. While a great deal of attention has been paid to understanding trauma in individualized terms, comparatively little attention has been paid to understanding trauma as a feature of institutions. Based on the observation that experiences of trauma are deeply lodged in institutional conditions, this book asks what comes into view when psychological trauma is approached as an institutional phenomenon. Recognizing that the personal is political, this book proposes an expanded institutional analytic of trauma and lays critical foundations for responses that treat institutions as sites of trauma and its management. Drawing on a range of disciplines including critical psychology, feminist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical trauma studies, this expanded institutional analytic advocates for institutional transformation within and beyond the confines of dominant psychological knowledge(s) and practice. Institutional Trauma is fascinating reading for academics, students, practitioners, and anybody interested in understanding institutional power, violence, and harm.

This book develops a critical psychological account of trauma as an institutional phenomenon, which is currently missing in psychological discourse. While a great deal of attention has been paid to understanding trauma in individualized terms, comparatively little attention has been paid to understanding trauma as a feature of institutions. Based on the observation that experiences of trauma are deeply lodged in institutional conditions, this book asks what comes into view when psychological trauma is approached as an institutional phenomenon. Recognizing that the personal is political, this book proposes an expanded institutional analytic of trauma and lays critical foundations for responses that treat institutions as sites of trauma and its management. Drawing on a range of disciplines including critical psychology, feminist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical trauma studies, this expanded institutional analytic advocates for institutional transformation within and beyond the confines of dominant psychological knowledge(s) and practice. Institutional Trauma is fascinating reading for academics, students, practitioners, and anybody interested in understanding institutional power, violence, and harm.

This book offers a unique discursive perspective on the rapid rise of food charity and how food poverty has emerged as a symptom of deeper problems requiring psychological intervention.Christian Möller explores how new anti-poverty programmes and advice cultures are psychologising poverty by locating causes and solutions inside the mind rather than in the outside world, and considers the political stakes in citizens becoming subjects of charity. Drawing extensively on Foucault alongside feminist and critical theory, the book puts forward an overdue challenge to the pervasive effects of a psychology, which limits our thinking about poverty with promises of development, happiness and resilience, but leaves social inequalities intact. Möller argues for returning critical psychology to praxis to address social injustices and inequalities. Challenging common assumptions about food charity as a symptom of a retreating welfare state, he shows how power is exercised and knowledge is produced in these spaces of care and community. Also featuring direct applications of concepts to the real-world example of food banks, the book helps set out practical guidance for students and researchers designing empirical projects in critical psychology.Drawing on original research and interviews with managers and volunteers, this text is fascinating reading for students and academics interested in critical psychology, and the relationship between charity, poverty and social exclusion.

This book offers a unique discursive perspective on the rapid rise of food charity and how food poverty has emerged as a symptom of deeper problems requiring psychological intervention.Christian Möller explores how new anti-poverty programmes and advice cultures are psychologising poverty by locating causes and solutions inside the mind rather than in the outside world, and considers the political stakes in citizens becoming subjects of charity. Drawing extensively on Foucault alongside feminist and critical theory, the book puts forward an overdue challenge to the pervasive effects of a psychology, which limits our thinking about poverty with promises of development, happiness and resilience, but leaves social inequalities intact. Möller argues for returning critical psychology to praxis to address social injustices and inequalities. Challenging common assumptions about food charity as a symptom of a retreating welfare state, he shows how power is exercised and knowledge is produced in these spaces of care and community. Also featuring direct applications of concepts to the real-world example of food banks, the book helps set out practical guidance for students and researchers designing empirical projects in critical psychology.Drawing on original research and interviews with managers and volunteers, this text is fascinating reading for students and academics interested in critical psychology, and the relationship between charity, poverty and social exclusion.

This important book offers a model to analyze the configurations of reality as manifested in everyday practices of eating and drinking in relation to the development of human subjectivity. The author uses concrete examples from daily life related to eating and drinking habits such as "eating tacos" or "taking a shot of mezcal", to offer an interface of interaction between body/mind and material entities connecting all scales of reality. Borrowing scientific insights from molecular biology and neuroscience, combined with a touch of decolonial spirit, the author examines specific 'processes' and/or 'objects' triggered by eating and drinking events, such as the production of heat as you eat a taco, or the interchange of knowledge while drinking mezcal. The book develops an approach to human subjectivity informed by material and aesthetic encounters beyond the analysis of language, representation, and social structures and aims to contribute to the contemporary landscape of efforts decentering our understanding of both human and non-human affairs. With its multidimensional exploration of our relationship with food, this is thought-provoking reading for scholars and students in critical psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences.

This important book offers a model to analyze the configurations of reality as manifested in everyday practices of eating and drinking in relation to the development of human subjectivity. The author uses concrete examples from daily life related to eating and drinking habits such as "eating tacos" or "taking a shot of mezcal", to offer an interface of interaction between body/mind and material entities connecting all scales of reality. Borrowing scientific insights from molecular biology and neuroscience, combined with a touch of decolonial spirit, the author examines specific 'processes' and/or 'objects' triggered by eating and drinking events, such as the production of heat as you eat a taco, or the interchange of knowledge while drinking mezcal. The book develops an approach to human subjectivity informed by material and aesthetic encounters beyond the analysis of language, representation, and social structures and aims to contribute to the contemporary landscape of efforts decentering our understanding of both human and non-human affairs. With its multidimensional exploration of our relationship with food, this is thought-provoking reading for scholars and students in critical psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences.

A Critical Reflexive Approach to Sex Research is a methodologically focused book that offers rich insights into the, often secret, subjectivities of men who pay for sex in South Africa. The book centres on the interview context, outlining a critical reflexive approach to understanding how knowledge is co-produced by both the interviewer and the participant in research about sex. By attending to the complex dynamics of the research interview, this book examines the historic and contemporary relationship between sex work, race, coloniality, sexuality, masculinity, femininity, whorephobia, and discourses of disease and contagion. It draws on both empirical interview data and Huysamen’s entries in her research journal to offer a unique approach to building critical reflexivity into every phase of the research process. The critical reflexive approach uses an assemblage of poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theories and practices which together provide tools to interrogate how interview dynamics facilitate, shape, and restrain the meaning that is produced within the interview. This book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in researching sex work from intersectional and feminist decolonial perspectives as it probes critical questions surrounding how men make meaning of paying for sex, their motivations for doing so, and how they negotiate their identities in relation to this stigmatised practice. It provides a unique offering to researchers working on sexual, secret, and stigmatised topics, providing them with a specific set of tools and resources to incorporate reflexivity into their own sex research.Encouraging the reader to look widely to draw on an array of theories and frameworks across disciplines, this is fascinating reading for students and researchers in critical psychology, research methods, and the social sciences.

A Critical Reflexive Approach to Sex Research is a methodologically focused book that offers rich insights into the, often secret, subjectivities of men who pay for sex in South Africa. The book centres on the interview context, outlining a critical reflexive approach to understanding how knowledge is co-produced by both the interviewer and the participant in research about sex. By attending to the complex dynamics of the research interview, this book examines the historic and contemporary relationship between sex work, race, coloniality, sexuality, masculinity, femininity, whorephobia, and discourses of disease and contagion. It draws on both empirical interview data and Huysamen’s entries in her research journal to offer a unique approach to building critical reflexivity into every phase of the research process. The critical reflexive approach uses an assemblage of poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theories and practices which together provide tools to interrogate how interview dynamics facilitate, shape, and restrain the meaning that is produced within the interview. This book will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in researching sex work from intersectional and feminist decolonial perspectives as it probes critical questions surrounding how men make meaning of paying for sex, their motivations for doing so, and how they negotiate their identities in relation to this stigmatised practice. It provides a unique offering to researchers working on sexual, secret, and stigmatised topics, providing them with a specific set of tools and resources to incorporate reflexivity into their own sex research.Encouraging the reader to look widely to draw on an array of theories and frameworks across disciplines, this is fascinating reading for students and researchers in critical psychology, research methods, and the social sciences.

This book explores welfare politics, unemployment, and interventions in relation to the labour market from a critical psychological perspective. Using critical fieldwork and theory, the author explores the administration of the unemployed, and the drive to increase labour market participation through strategies of activation.There is a strong and coherent conceptual and theoretical framing for this work, with a critical perspective (essentially, question everything) taking centre stage. It will give an overall coherence in addressing the topic. The theoretical framing is cogent and, in combination with the critical perspective, works well for integrating the material and delivering a fresh approach to this topic.Psychology, Punitive Activation and Welfare will appeal to students engaging with critical psychology, unemployment or policy, by providing a distinct application of theoretical and methodological tools to think differently about the relationship between labour market non/participation, human misery, psychology, and frontline enactment of policy and research.

This book explores welfare politics, unemployment, and interventions in relation to the labour market from a critical psychological perspective. Using critical fieldwork and theory, the author explores the administration of the unemployed, and the drive to increase labour market participation through strategies of activation.There is a strong and coherent conceptual and theoretical framing for this work, with a critical perspective (essentially, question everything) taking centre stage. It will give an overall coherence in addressing the topic. The theoretical framing is cogent and, in combination with the critical perspective, works well for integrating the material and delivering a fresh approach to this topic.Psychology, Punitive Activation and Welfare will appeal to students engaging with critical psychology, unemployment or policy, by providing a distinct application of theoretical and methodological tools to think differently about the relationship between labour market non/participation, human misery, psychology, and frontline enactment of policy and research.

The Event of Psychopoetics overviews and investigates the notion of psychopoetics, a sociopsychological event that involves re-creative slips and that emerges under certain cultural conditions and power relations in the context of everyday interaction and through certain modes of dialoguing and conversing.This transdisciplinary text takes the reader through the thought processes of Deleuze, Guattari, Agamben, Maffesoli, Foucault, Butler, Haraway, and Braidotti, among others, addressing debates that are integral to the critique of psychology and its devices of subjectivization and normalization. Garcia takes a unique approach by reflecting on how psychopoetics contrasts institutionalized dialogues, while constantly emphasizing the generative and transformative potency of social worlds effectuated in the impetuous play of poetics. The book combines the rigor of academic research with the creative display of ideas that open diverse, suggestive lines of reflection on everyday interlocution and its possibilities of reinvention, modes of social existence, and the relation between subjectivity and the designs of power. A truly unique reading experience, this book is ideal for students, instructors, and researchers in the fields of philosophy, social psychology and sociological thought, discourse studies, literary theory, and cultural analysis.

The Event of Psychopoetics overviews and investigates the notion of psychopoetics, a sociopsychological event that involves re-creative slips and that emerges under certain cultural conditions and power relations in the context of everyday interaction and through certain modes of dialoguing and conversing.This transdisciplinary text takes the reader through the thought processes of Deleuze, Guattari, Agamben, Maffesoli, Foucault, Butler, Haraway, and Braidotti, among others, addressing debates that are integral to the critique of psychology and its devices of subjectivization and normalization. Garcia takes a unique approach by reflecting on how psychopoetics contrasts institutionalized dialogues, while constantly emphasizing the generative and transformative potency of social worlds effectuated in the impetuous play of poetics. The book combines the rigor of academic research with the creative display of ideas that open diverse, suggestive lines of reflection on everyday interlocution and its possibilities of reinvention, modes of social existence, and the relation between subjectivity and the designs of power. A truly unique reading experience, this book is ideal for students, instructors, and researchers in the fields of philosophy, social psychology and sociological thought, discourse studies, literary theory, and cultural analysis.

In this important contribution to the field, Ilana Mountian critically analyses discourses surrounding drug addiction, drug prohibition, treatment and prevention, and highlights new ways of understanding the role that gender plays in the ethics of drug use across cultures. The book analyses the discourses of religion, criminality and medicine, and shows how they, combined with key historical events, affect our views of drug use and drug users based on gender, race and class. The book draws on research from a variety of fields to provide alternative conceptual and methodological perspectives on the subject, including: critical theory gender studies post-colonial studies psychoanalysis philosophy.Cultural Ecstasies is an innovative study of drugs and addiction, and will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals working in psychology, sociology, social work, health care, criminology, and allied disciplines.