Manufactured Insecurity

Manufactured Insecurity is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth investigation of the social, legal, geospatial, and market forces that intersect to create housing insecurity for an entire class of low-income residents. Drawing on rich ethnographic data collected before, during, and after mobile home park closures and community-wide evictions in Florida and Texas—the two states with the largest mobile home populations—Manufactured Insecurity forces social scientists and policymakers to respond to a fundamental question: how do the poor access and retain secure housing in the face of widespread poverty, deepening inequality, and scarce legal protection? With important contributions to urban sociology, housing studies, planning, and public policy, the book provides a broader understanding of inequality and social welfare in the United States today.

Finalist, 2024 Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on? In this urgent cultural diagnosis, author and activist Astra Taylor exposes how seemingly disparate crises—rising inequality and declining mental health, the ecological emergency, and the threat of authoritarianism—originate from a social order built on insecurity. From home ownership and education to the wellness industry and policing, many of the institutions and systems that promise to make us more secure actually undermine us. Mixing social critique, memoir, history, political analysis, and philosophy, this genre-bending book rethinks both insecurity and security from the ground up. By facing our existential insecurity and embracing our vulnerability, Taylor argues, we can begin to develop more caring, inclusive, and sustainable forms of security to help us better weather the challenges ahead. The Age of Insecurity will transform how you understand yourself and society—while illuminating a path toward meaningful change.

Just what is the "fear of crime" and how does it impact upon the lives of the citizens of late modern societies? This book presents work on the questions of fear, anxiety, risk and trust - both as problems of everyday living and as key themes in the culture and politics of western societies.

In the realm of safety management, this book embarks on a profound exploration of how the political economy was reshaped in the last two decades. Much like privatization, deregulation, and financialization altered the economic landscape, this narrative unveils how safety management has been affected by the intertwined dynamics of asset underinvestment, privatization, self-regulation, workplace flexibilization, and market-driven policies. This book, the second installment of a thought-provoking trilogy on the consequences of neoliberalism, mirrors the political economy's promotion of the private sector's role in the economy. Just as neoliberalism amplified and accelerated the mechanisms of human-made disasters in complex systems, this narrative lays bare the heightened potential for safety misfortunes when governed by market-driven principles. As the story unfolds, the book delves into the concept of 'synoptic legibility' in safety management, akin to how the political economy distilled its essence into privatization and deregulation. The authors scrutinize the consequences of translating safety measures into rigid targets, unveiling how this shift can distort the integrity of safety metrics and inadvertently harm individuals. Drawing parallels with historical blunders such as England's window tax, the book contemplates the precarious nature of equating simplified metrics with safety achievements. Much like the political economy's 'acceptable risk' renegotiations, it examines how the pursuit of safety through metrics and surveillance can lead to 'manufactured insecurity,' eroding trust, autonomy, and professionalism. In Random Noise, Poole and Dekker extend this reach once again, writing for all managers, board members, organization leaders, consultants, practitioners, researchers, lecturers, students, and investigators curious to understand the genuine nature of organizational and safety performance.

Americans are feeling insecure. They are retreating to gated communities in record numbers, fearing for their jobs and their 401(k)s, nervous about their health insurance and their debt levels, worrying about terrorist attacks and immigrants. In this innovative volume, editors Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Besteman gather essays from nineteen leading ethnographers to create a unique portrait of an anxious country and to furnish valuable insights into the nation's possible future. With an incisive foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, the contributors draw on their deep knowledge of different facets of American life to map the impact of the new economy, the "war on terror," the "war on drugs," racial resentments, a fraying safety net, undocumented immigration, a health care system in crisis, and much more. In laying out a range of views on the forces that unsettle us, The Insecure American demonstrates the singular power of an anthropological perspective for grasping the impact of corporate profit on democratic life, charting the links between policy and vulnerability, and envisioning alternatives to life as an insecure American.

The past fifteen years have seen renewed interest in the civil rights movement. Television documentaries, films and books have brought the struggles into our homes and classrooms once again. New evidence in older criminal cases demands that the judicial system reconsider the accuracy of investigations and legal decisions. Racial profiling, affirmative action, voting districting, and school voucher programs keep civil rights on the front burner in the political arena. In light of this, there are very few resources for teaching the civil rights at the university level. This timely and invaluable book fills this gap. This book offers perspectives on presenting the movement in different classroom contexts; strategies to make the movement come alive for students; and issues highlighting topics that students will find appealing. Including sample syllabi and detailed descriptions from courses that prove effective, this work will be useful for all instructors, both college and upper level high school, for courses in history, education, race, sociology, literature and political science.

*Winner of the 2009 Distinguished Scholarly Monograph Prize, awarded by the American Sociological Association Labor and Labor Movements section* Claims have been made on the emergence of a new labour internationalism in response to the growing insecurity created by globalization. However, when persons face conditions of insecurity they often turn inwards. The book contains a warning and a sign of hope. Some workers become fatalistic, even xenophobic. Others are attempting to globalize their own struggles. Examines the claim that a new labour internationalism is emerging by grounding the book in evidence, rather than assertion Analyzes three distinct places – Orange, Australia; Changwon, South Korea; and Ezakheni, South Africa – and how they dealt with manufacturing plants undergoing restructuring Explores worker responses to rising levels of insecurity and examines preconditions for the emergence of counter-movements to such insecurities Highlights the significance of 'place' and 'scale', and demonstrates how the restructuring of multi-national corporations, and worker responses to this, connect the two concepts

Looks at contemporary social transformation through the lens of the labour market. This book covers major themes of the day - globalization, technological change, the pension and demographic timebombs, flexibility and traditional employment.