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How do Mexican migrants in Germany perceive themselves and their lives? Innovatively combining theories of interculturality and social imaginaries, Yolanda López García uses the anthropological method of life stories to investigate the understudied area of Mexican migration to Germany. She discusses areas such as quality of life as a motivation for migration, the role of banal nationalism in imaginaries, the dynamic subjective re-construction of Mexicanness, and the process of (imagined) »Germanisation«. Yolanda López García ultimately argues that individuals, as social agents, engage with and construct new emerging imaginaries, which may be viewed as important engines of social change.

Be resilient! Today, we hear this line in almost any context. The term resilience is among the most repeated buzzwords. But why, simply, do we need to be resilient? Hamideh Mahdiani presents answers to this question by challenging a reductionistic understanding of resilience from single disciplinary perspectives; by questioning the dominance of life sciences in defining an age-old concept; and by problematizing the neglected role of life writing in fostering resilience. In so doing, through a multidisciplinary frame of reference, the book works with various examples from life writing and life sciences, and testifies to the focal role of narrative studies in resilience research.

In Zaatari camp, Jordan, thousands of Syrian refugees were sheltered in tents and caravans, which they steadily appropriated and turned into dwellings that responded to their social and cultural needs. In this book, Ayham Dalal takes a closer look at this remarkable transformation. He draws on the tension between 'the shelter' and 'the dwelling' to unravel how new spaces unfold in between them, where refugees become architects and the camp is dismantled and reassembled. From Shelters to Dwellings is the first study to uniquely combine ethnographic observations with new architectural research methods, to illustrate in detail how refugees inhabit shelters. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how camps and shelters are transformed by the powerful act of dwelling.

Modern waste disposal systems in mega-cities of the global South are embedded in socio-cultural belief systems, colonial histories and neoliberal logics which operate by reproducing existing social hierarchies. Sneha Sharma critically interrogates the politics around urban waste disposal in Mumbai, India, by undertaking an ethnographic journey to the city's most unwanted space, a dumping site. She challenges the dominant techno-managerial paradigm in waste management and reveals how spaces and people are made into waste through exclusionary social practices. Offering new insights on topics of urban marginality, informality, and urban planning, this book will attract scholars from sociology, urban studies, and human geography.

In the Global South, Indigenous and Native people continue to live under colonial relations within formally independent nation-states. Sebastian Garbe offers a critical perspective on contemporary expressions of international solidarity and transnational advocacy. He combines approaches from critical race and decolonial studies with an activist ethnography on networked spaces of encounters created through solidarity activism by Mapuche and non-Mapuche actors. Departing from those experiences, this book not only presents potential pitfalls of transnational advocacy but suggests new ways of understanding and practicing solidarity.

How to do cultural studies in the twenty-first century? This essay collection is not a handbook, encyclopedia, or a »state of the field« compendium. Instead, it is a reflexive exercise in cultural studies, featuring fifteen accessible essays on a selection of critical key works published since 2000. The contributors aim to provide readers with a fresh and engaging look at recent criticism, exploring the interdisciplinary traffic of theories, methods, and ideas within the field of cultural and literary studies. This book shows how the work of Lauren Berlant, Rita Felski, Fred Moten, Anna Tsing, and others can inspire new thinking and theorizing for the twenty-first century.

The courageous acts of whistleblowing that inspired the world over the past few years have changed our perception of surveillance and control in today's information society. But what are the wider effects of whistleblowing as an act of dissent on politics, society, and the arts? How does it contribute to new courses of action, digital tools, and contents? This urgent intervention based on the work of Berlin's Disruption Network Lab examines this growing phenomenon, offering interdisciplinary pathways to empower the public by investigating whistleblowing as a developing political practice that has the ability to provoke change from within.

In the complex and multi-layered process of migration and identity-building, classical migration theories and approaches of transnationalism seem no longer able to grasp how belonging and home are to be found in movement. This ethnography leads the reader into the lives of five Jamaican women in Montreal; their daily practices and experiences, their spaces of communion, their memories and projections for the future. Lisa Johnson sheds light on the mobile biographies and migratory agency of her interlocutors by following the intricate mental and physical trajectories of their deep-rooted yearning to return home.

Research on electronic dance music communities has been initiated by scholars in the fields of sociology, cultural studies, public health research and others. Linguistic aspects, however, are rarely considered. Anita Jóri fills this gap of research and suggests a new perspective by looking at these communities as a discourse community. She gives an overview of the language use and discourse characteristics of this community while applying a mixed methodology of linguistic discourse analysis and cultural studies. The book is aimed at researchers and students in the fields of applied linguistics, popular music, media, communication and cultural studies.

Post-Growth Geographies examines the spatial relations of diverse and alternative economies between growth-oriented institutions and multiple socio-ecological crises. The book brings together conceptual and empirical contributions from geography and its neighbouring disciplines and offers different perspectives on the possibilities, demands and critiques of post-growth transformation. Through case studies and interviews, the contributions combine voices from activism, civil society, planning and politics with current theoretical debates on socio-ecological transformation.

Luhmann's theory is fascinating and complex. It offers incomparably enlightening insights, references and research opportunities, but reveals its utility only after a quite high competence threshold. Using the reticular form of the glossary, this book makes the theory accessible while maintaining its complexity. Without being obstructed by knowledge gaps or by references to concepts presented elsewhere, readers inside and outside sociology get the required support to explore sociological systems theory and to engage with it. Luhmann himself, in his introduction, praises the form of the glossary to cope with the challenges of the theoretical description of our highly complex society.

Lucas Haasis found a time capsule: A complete mercantile letter archive of the merchant Nicolaus Gottlieb Luetkens who lived in 18th century Hamburg. Luetkens travelled France between 1743-1745 in order to become a successful wholesale merchant. He succeeded in this undertaking via both shrewd business practice and proficient skills in the practice of letter writing.Based on this unique discovery, in this microhistorical study Lucas Haasis examines the crucial steps and activities of a mercantile establishment phase, the typical letter practices of Early Modern merchants, and the practical principles of persuasion leading to success in the 18th century.