The Glasgow Effect

The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. Winner of the Orwell Prize 2018. Named the most 'Rebellious Read of the 21st Century' in a Scottish Book Trust poll. Darren McGarvey has experienced poverty and its devastating effects first-hand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry and unheard. And he wants to explain . . . So he invites you to come on a safari of sorts. But not the kind where the wildlife is surveyed from a safe distance. This book takes you inside the experience of poverty to show how the pressures really feel and how hard their legacy is to overcome. Arguing that both the political left and right misunderstand poverty as it is actually lived, McGarvey sets out what everybody – including himself – could do to change things. Razor-sharp, fearless and brutally honest, Poverty Safari is an unforgettable insight into modern Britain. 'Another cry of anger from a working class that feels the pain of a rotten, failing system. Its value lies in the strength it will add to the movement for change.' - Ken Loach, director of Kes

Over the last 25 years a vast body of literature has been published on neighbourhood effects: the idea that living in more deprived neighbourhoods has a negative effect on residents’ life chances over and above the effect of their individual characteristics. The volume of work not only reflects academic and policy interest in this topic, but also the fact that we are still no closer to answering the question of how important neighbourhood effects actually are. There is little doubt that these effects exist, but we do not know enough about the causal mechanisms which produce them, their relative importance in shaping individual’s life chances, the circumstances or conditions under which they are most important, or the most effective policy responses. Collectively, the chapters in this book offer new perspectives on these questions, and refocus the academic debate on neighbourhood effects. The book enriches the neighbourhood effects literature with insights from a wide range of disciplines and countries.

From biometrics to predictive policing, contemporary security relies on sophisticated scientific evidence-gathering and knowledge-making focused on the human body. Bringing together new anthropological perspectives on the complexities of security in the present moment, the contributors to Bodies as Evidence reveal how bodies have become critical sources of evidence that is organized and deployed to classify, recognize, and manage human life. Through global case studies that explore biometric identification, border control, forensics, predictive policing, and counterterrorism, the contributors show how security discourses and practices that target the body contribute to new configurations of knowledge and power. At the same time, margins of error, unreliable technologies, and a growing suspicion of scientific evidence in a “post-truth” era contribute to growing insecurity, especially among marginalized populations. Contributors. Carolina Alonso-Bejarano, Gregory Feldman, Francisco J. Ferrándiz, Daniel M. Goldstein, Ieva Jusionyte, Amade M’charek, Mark Maguire, Joseph P. Masco, Ursula Rao, Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Joseba Zulaika, Nils Zurawski

Winner of the Booker Prize Winner of 'Book of the Year' and 'Debut of the Year' at the British Book Awards The Million-Copy Bestseller 'An amazingly intimate, compassionate, gripping portrait of addiction, courage and love.' - The judges of the Booker Prize 'Douglas Stuart has written a first novel of rare and lasting beauty.' - Observer It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life, dreaming of greater things. But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and as she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different, he is clearly no' right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. For readers of A Little Life and Angela's Ashes, it is a heartbreaking novel by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell. 'A heartbreaking novel' - The Times 'Tender and unsentimental . . . The Billy Elliot-ish character of Shuggie . . . leaps off the page.' - Daily Mail

'Punchily written ... He leaves the reader with a sense of the gross injustice of a world where health outcomes are so unevenly distributed' Times Literary Supplement 'Splendid and necessary' Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm, New Statesman There are dramatic differences in health between countries and within countries. But this is not a simple matter of rich and poor. A poor man in Glasgow is rich compared to the average Indian, but the Glaswegian's life expectancy is 8 years shorter. The Indian is dying of infectious disease linked to his poverty; the Glaswegian of violent death, suicide, heart disease linked to a rich country's version of disadvantage. In all countries, people at relative social disadvantage suffer health disadvantage, dramatically so. Within countries, the higher the social status of individuals the better is their health. These health inequalities defy usual explanations. Conventional approaches to improving health have emphasised access to technical solutions – improved medical care, sanitation, and control of disease vectors; or behaviours – smoking, drinking – obesity, linked to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. These approaches only go so far. Creating the conditions for people to lead flourishing lives, and thus empowering individuals and communities, is key to reduction of health inequalities. In addition to the scale of material success, your position in the social hierarchy also directly affects your health, the higher you are on the social scale, the longer you will live and the better your health will be. As people change rank, so their health risk changes. What makes these health inequalities unjust is that evidence from round the world shows we know what to do to make them smaller. This new evidence is compelling. It has the potential to change radically the way we think about health, and indeed society.

How would your career, social life, family ties, carbon footprint and mental health be affected if you could not leave the city where you live? Artist Ellie Harrison sparked a fast-and-furious debate about class, capitalism, art, education and much more, when news of her year-long project The Glasgow Effect went viral at the start of 2016. Named after the term used to describe Glasgow's mysteriously poor public health and funded to the tune of £15,000 by Creative Scotland, this controversial 'durational performance' centred on a simple proposition – that the artist would refuse to travel beyond Glasgow's city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for a whole calendar year.

At the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was the centre for an avant-garde movement of art and design innovation in Europe, which we now refer to as The Glasgow Style. While the "Glasgow Boys" group of painters has been widely written about, their female contemporaries have received far less attention. In this work, the editor redresses this imbalance, bringing together research from 18 scholars on the work of an astonishing number of female artists from this period.