Buying And Selling The Poor

Buying and Selling the Poor ventures behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar welfare-to-work system, offering new insights into how Australia responds to unemployment and disadvantage. As the authors tell the story of four local employment offices, they paint a vivid picture of a critically important social service which many people are aware of but which few properly understand. They also reveal the wider impacts that processes of marketisation and welfare reform have had on these frontline services over decades, and how the work of frontline staff and service providers has been transformed. Buying and Selling the Poor looks closely at how these services operate, why some succeed where others fail, and what can be learned from the stories of staff and clients who have navigated the system. Three decades into this market experiment, how well are we doing in supporting our most vulnerable citizens to get back to work? 'This revealing, often heart-wrenching work will prove enlightening for not only those within the policy field, but also anyone with an interest in or experience dealing with a system that often feels like a race to the bottom.' - Kim Thomson, Books+Publishing

The animal agriculture industry, like other profit-driven industries, aggressively seeks to shield itself from public scrutiny. To that end, it uses a distinct set of rhetorical strategies to deflect criticism. These tactics are fundamental to modern animal agriculture but have long evaded critical analysis. In this collection, academic and activist contributors investigate the many forms of denialism perpetuated by the animal agriculture industry. What strategies does the industry use to avoid questions about its inhumane treatment of animals and its impact on the environment and public health? What narratives, myths and fantasies does it promote to sustain its image in the public imagination? ‘powerful, timely and essential’ – David Nibert, author of Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict ‘Meatsplaining equips us to identify the lies at the heart of animal agriculture. It’s an excellent and timely compilation on an exceedingly vexing problem.’ – Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat and Burger ‘Meatsplaining is the first book to give an apt name to the animal agriculture industry’s relentless campaign of disinformation and denialism ... Written in a clear, lively, and accessible style, Meatsplaining will surely educate the public about the horrors of animal agriculture.’ – Marc Bekoff, author of The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age ‘Cruelty thrives in secrecy, and the meat industry is highly skilled at concealing the routine abuse and misery that flourishes on modern farms. Meatsplaining cuts through the spin, and exposes the meat industry's massive PR machine. It explores how Big Meat uses language, obfuscation, and denial to misdirect the public's attention away from its commodification of sentient animals, environmental devastation, and the looming health crisis caused by eating animals. This book is a must-read for animal advocates, and anyone else who no longer wants to be lied to.’ – Camille Labchuk, Executive Director, Animal Justice ‘This book ... provides a necessary corrective to the fantasy world created by meat industry propaganda. As we grapple with a global zoonotic pandemic and biodiversity crisis, it is urgent for us to ... start thinking clearly about who and what is on our plates.’ – John Sorenson, Brock University

The concept of community-led research has taken off in recent years in a variety of fields, from archaeology and anthropology to social work and everything in between. Drawing on case studies from Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, this book considers what it means to participate in community-led research, for both communities and researchers. How can researchers and communities work together well, and how can research be reimagined using the knowledge of First Nations peoples and other communities to ensure it remains relevant, sustainable, socially just and inclusive?

Once the world’s prairies, grasslands, steppes and tundra teemed with massive herds of game: gazelle, wild ass, bison, caribou and antelope. Humans seeking to hunt these large fast-moving herds devised a range of specialised traps that share many characteristics across all continents. Typically consisting of guiding walls or lines of stones leading to an enclosure or trap, game drives were designed for a mass killing. Construction of the game drive, organisation of the hunt and processing of the carcass often required group co-operation and in many cases game drives have been linked to seasonal gatherings of otherwise scattered groups, who may have used these occasions not only to hunt, but also for social, ritual and economic activities. The Gazelle’s Dream: Game Drives of the Old and New Worlds is the first comparative study of game drives, examining this mode of hunting across three continents and a broad range of periods. The book describes the hunting of bison in North America, reindeer in Scandinavia, antelope in Tibet and an extensive array of examples from the greater Middle East, from Egypt to Armenia. The Gazelle’s Dream will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of hunting and wildlife management.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Recording Kastom brings readers into the heart of colonial Torres Strait and New Guinea through the personal journals of Cambridge zoologist and anthropologist Alfred Haddon, who visited the region in 1888 and 1898. Haddon's published reports of these trips were hugely influential on the nascent discipline of anthropology, but his private journals and sketches have never been published in full. The journals record in vivid detail Haddon's observations and relationships. They highlight his preoccupation with documentation, and the central role played by the Islanders who worked with him to record kastom. This collaboration resulted in an enormous body of materials that remain of vital interest to Torres Strait Islanders and the communities where he worked. Haddon's Journals provide unique and intimate insights into the colonial history of the region will be an important resource for scholars in history, anthropology, linguistics and musicology. This comprehensively annotated edition assembles a rich array of photographs, drawings, artefacts, film and sound recordings. An introductory essay provides historical and cultural context. The preface and epilogue provide Islander perspectives on the historical context of Haddon’s work and its significance for the future.

One of the Best 5 Books of 2014 — Esquire "I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. Well, not this book, because I never imagined that the book I was waiting for would be so devastatingly smart and funny, so consistently entertaining and unflinchingly on target. In fact, I would like to have written it myself – if, that is, I had lived Linda Tirado’s life and extracted all the hard lessons she has learned. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. Tirado is the real thing." —from the foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado, in her signature brutally honest yet personable voice, takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits. She articulates not only what it is to be working poor in America (yes, you can be poor and live in a house and have a job, even two), but what poverty is truly like—on all levels. Frankly and boldly, Tirado discusses openly how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why “poor people don’t always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should.”