The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

November’s Book of the Month was selected by Sarah Rhodes Subject Consultant for International Development and Forced Migration.

The weaponized camera in the Middle East: videography, aesthetics, and politics in Israel and Palestine

Liat Berdugo

I.B. Tauris, 2021

PN 1992.945 BER 2021

It was selected as offering, in the words of the author, ‘a unique perspective on the strategies and battlegrounds of the Israel-Palestine conflict’.

Book Overview

This book, drawing on unprecedented access to the video archives of B’Tselem (an Israeli NGO distributing cameras to Palestinians), highlights visual surveillance and counter surveillance at the citizen level, and how Palestinians originally filmed to ‘shoot back’ at Israelis, who were armed with shooting power via weapons as the occupying force.  It also traces how Israeli private citizens began filming back at Palestinians with their own cameras, thus creating a simultaneous, echoing counter surveillance.

Reviews

“Berdugo brilliantly proposes a taxonomy of cameras that illuminates new ways out of the political impasse that renders the violence in Israel-Palestine both spectacularly visible and systematically concealed… [She] exposes yet another ‘order of things’, wherein cameras emancipate and shield inasmuch as they are wielded as weapons”.

Daniel Mann, King’s College London.

How can I access it?

We have one lending copy of this book, which is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is PN 1992.945 BER 2021. It is also available as an eBook. For the eBook, access it from a Bodleian Library computer or use it remotely, by logging on to SOLO with your SSO. It is also available as an eLegal Deposit Book. The eBook can be accessed from a Bodleian Library computer only.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

October’s Book of the Month was selected by Helen Worrell Subject Consultant for Anthropology.

Reciprocity rules: friendship and compensation in fieldwork encounters

edited by Michelle C. Johnson & Edmund (Ned) Searles

Lexington Books, 2022

GN34.3.F53.REC 2022

This recent publication was chosen as a fresh examination of the foundation of anthropology – ethnographic fieldwork. It addresses the dynamics of power that is often present in these encounters and contributes to wider conversations on decolonising anthropology.

Book Overview

Focusing on compensation, friendship, and collaboration, this book explores what anthropologists and research participants give to each other in and beyond fieldwork. Contributors argue that while learning and following the local rules of reciprocity are challenging, they are essential to responsible research and efforts to decolonize anthropology

Reviews

This truly exciting volume addresses an acute aspect of anthropological fieldwork: that of reciprocity. As it can be a thorny issue, a systematic inquiry into it has been neglected far too long. How can, and should, anthropologists give something back to the people who have allowed them into their lives, even into sensitive situations? And for how long should this reciprocity go on? As the editors Michelle C. Johnson and Edmund (Ned) Searles argue, this raises key ethical and methodological issues. Filling an embarrassing gap, Reciprocity Rules is bound to become influential.

Helena Wulff, Stockholm University

A very welcome volume about that fundamental question within anthropological fieldwork: How to compensate our hosts? Based on the extensive long-term fieldwork experiences of the authors and richly illustrated with telling ethnographic details the chapters convincingly and insightfully demonstrate the importance of a nuanced understanding of reciprocal fieldwork obligations. Topics as the importance of studying local gifting practices, the pros and cons of different kinds of gifts and support, the importance of nonmaterial forms of compensation, the obligations—and joys—of fictive kinship relationships, reciprocal writing strategies, the context of decolonization, and many more, each exemplify the essential ethical and moral fieldwork lessons that can be learned from this original volume. Highly recommended for classes in ethnographic research methods.

Geert Mommersteeg, University of Utrecht

Reciprocity Rules is a great contribution to our understanding of fieldwork. Applying “the Gift” and “reciprocity” in concrete and reflexive ways, this collection portrays the inside story of how relations between ethnographers and those they are working with actually develop over time. Like all close relationships, those in the field engage challenges and misunderstandings as well as treasures of deep connection. Based on diverse fieldwork across four continents, the book’s authors average 24 years of connection with their field communities. For those interested in the ethics, methods, and experience of fieldwork, including junior scholars, this work is a gold mine of concrete and practical insights that reach far beyond the standard generalities of research design and methods.

Bruce Knauft, Samuel C. Dobbs Professor of Anthropology, Emory University

A brilliant and moving intervention into the fraught but fecund terrain of encounter between anthropologist and interlocutor, researcher and host community, and a profound set of meditations on the ethics of such engagement. Trail-blazing in its treatment of the unstated in anthropological fieldwork, this book should be required reading for fieldworkers, not only in anthropology but in all the qualitative research disciplines.

Charles D. Piot, Duke University

How can I access it?

We have one lending copy of this book, which is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is GN34.3.F53.REC 2022

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

Septembers’s Book of the Month was selected by Andy Kernot Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy & Intervention, Public Policy, and Internet Studies.

Understanding the Digital World: what you need to know about computers, the internet, privacy, and security

by Brian W. Kernighan

Princeton University Press, 2021

QA76.KER 2021 (library use only)

It was chosen because it is a must-read for all who want to know more about computers and communications. It explains, precisely and carefully, not only how they operate but also how they influence our daily lives, in terms anyone can understand, no matter what their experience and knowledge of technology.

Book Overview

Computers are everywhere. Some of them are highly visible, in laptops, tablets, cell phones, and smart watches. But most are invisible, like those in appliances, cars, medical equipment, transportation systems, power grids, and weapons. We never see the myriad computers that quietly collect, share, and sometimes leak vast amounts of personal data about us. Through computers, governments and companies increasingly monitor what we do. Social networks and advertisers know far more about us than we should be comfortable with, using information we freely give them. Criminals have all-too-easy access to our data. Do we truly understand the power of computers in our world? Understanding the Digital World explains how computer hardware, software, networks, and systems work. Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is and why it is difficult; how the Internet and the web operate; and how all of these affect our security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues.

Reviews

“This is the clearest and simplest explanation of the world we now all depend on–how it works and why it does what it does—from one of our best-known inventors. Everyone on Earth needs to read it.”

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. and Google

“This book takes the mystery out of computers and the Internet, and everyone can learn from it. With a friendly and accessible style, Kernighan connects what is happening inside machines to the news of the day and developments about the digital world.”

Harry Lewis, coauthor of Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion

“Kernighan tells us exactly what we need to know about computers and computer science, focusing on ideas that are useful and interesting for everyday computer users. He covers a fascinating range of topics, including fundamentals such as computer hardware, programming, algorithms, and networks, as well as politically charged issues related to government surveillance, privacy, and Internet neutrality.”

John MacCormick, Dickinson College

How can I access it?

We have one library use only copy of this book, which is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is QA76.KER 2021 (library use only). It is also available as an eLegal Deposit Book. The eBook can be accessed from a Bodleian Library computer only.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

August’s Book of the Month was selected by John Southall, Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st-Century Economist

by Kate Raworth

Penguin Books, 2022

HB75.RAW 2022

It was chosen because of the way it dissects seven core principles of Economics and considers how they can be updated for the 21^st Century.

Book Overview

Raworth critiques the idea of ‘rational economic man’ and what really makes us act in the modern world. She argues an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for encouraging economic growth when we take them into account.

Overall, Doughnut Economics is excellent at describing economic concepts in accessible terms. In addition, Raworth’s in-depth summary of climate change is very well argued, and in this sense, the book is also more about sustainable development than economics.

Reviews

“This rigorous collection brings home how we are living through a crucial period in which data is mobilised in increasingly powerful and pervasive ways.”

Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology, LSE.

“An admirable attempt to broaden the horizons of economic thinking.”

Martin Wolf, Books of the Year, Financial Times

 “the book holds multidisciplinary promise and Raworth draws upon appealing and evocative metaphors and examples to convey economic concepts”

Maria Zhivitskaya, LSE Review of Books

How can I access it?

We have 7 copies of this book, one is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is HB75.RAW 2022 (see HB75.RAW 2017 and HB75.RAW 2018 for additional copies). All copies are available to be borrowed by Oxford University students and staff members. It is also available as an eLegal Deposit Book. The eBook can be accessed from a Bodleian Library computer only.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

Julys’s Book of the Month was selected by Sarah Rhodes, Subject Consultant for International Development, Forced Migration, and African & Commonwealth Studies.

Sanctuary cities and urban struggles: rescaling migration, citizenship, and rights

edited by Jonathan Darling and Harald Bauder

Manchester University Press, 2019

JV6483.SAN 2019

It was chosen in light of Oxford receiving University of Sanctuary status, and signing the City of Sanctuary Organisation Pledge. Find out more at:  https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/oxford-community-sanctuary

Book Overview

In an era when migrant rights are under attack and nationalism is on the rise, the question of how citizenship, rights, and mobility can be recast at the urban scale is more relevant than ever.

This book makes the first sustained intervention into exploring how cities are challenging the primacy of the nation-state as the key guarantor of rights and entitlements. It brings together cutting-edge scholars of political geography, urban geography, citizenship studies, socio-legal studies and refugee studies to explore how urban social movements, localised practices of belonging and rights claiming, and diverse articulations of sanctuary are reshaping the governance of migration. It proposes not a singular alternative but rather a set of interlocking sites and scales of political imagination and practice.  In an era when migrant rights are under attack, the question of how citizenship, rights, and mobility can be recast at the urban scale is more relevant than ever.

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy in the library and is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is JV6483.SAN 2019 and it is available to borrow by Oxford University students and staff members. It is also available as an eBook. For the eBook, access it from a Bodleian Library computer or use it remotely, by logging on to SOLO with your SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

June’s Book of the month is a ten-volume history of Ukraine by its first President, Mikhailo Hrushevsky (1866 – 1934), and translated into English during the 1990s.

History of Ukraine-Rus’

Mykhailo Hrushevsky ; translated by Marta Skorupsky ; edited by Andrzej Poppe, and Frank E. Sysyn ; with the assistance of Uliana M. Pasicznyk.

All 10 volumes are available to order from the Bodleian Closed Stacks to the SSL, to consult in the library.

It was chosen because Hrushevsky’s inspired and meticulous work demonstrates the power of rigorous scholarship to counteract attempts at cultural erasure.

Book Overview

Hrushevsky set out to write the history of the Ukrainian people during the 1890s, at a time when the Russian Imperial state forbade the publication of Ukrainian-language texts, and even the use of the word ‘Ukraine’. He concentrated on the history of ordinary people, rather than the Imperial elites – and he used every source and methodology he could find, including the new discipline of Sociology. His writing was so careful and detailed that his ten volumes reach only to the seventeenth century – while his lifelong dedication to his project was such that he continued working on it despite arrest, exile and illness.

The History of Ukraine-Rus’ charts the formation and ongoing history of the Ukrainian people, rebutting claims from a succession of Tsarist, Soviet and Russian historians and politicians that the Ukrainian people never really existed prior to the Soviet Union. Hrushevsky’s meticulous scholarship demonstrates the inaccuracy of these accounts, as it also presents sources that are now unavailable, after the destructions of the twentieth century. This book stands as testament both to the continuity of Ukrainian history, and to the political power of detailed, accurate academic work.

Review

‘Hrushevsky’s combination of objectivity and optimism motivated his impressive scholarly productivity. His History stands as a lasting monument both to his scholarship and to his devotion to Ukraine. One can only applaud its wider dissemination…’

Charles J. Halperin, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Bloomington Indiana.

How can I access it?

All 10 volumes of this title are available to order up from the Bodleian Closed Stacks to consult in our library.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

May’s Book of the Month was selected by Jo Gardner, Bodleian Social Science Librarian and Subject Consultant for Politics and International Relations.

Deliberative accountability in parliamentary committees

By Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey

Available on our shelves at JN329.SCH 2022

Also available as an eBook.

It was chosen because it makes a timely contribution to studies of parliaments and how economic policy is debated in public.

Book Overview

This book looks closely at the content, conduct and motivations underpinning select committee hearings of the UK Parliament. The author’s central case study is economic policy, which is timely given the economic challenges we face in the UK and beyond. It also addresses questions of trust in political elites and institutions.

Reviews

“Overall, this is an excellent book. It is wide-ranging both in its content and in its contributions. I am very excited to see what research Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey turns to next.”
Dr Marc Geddes, University of Edinburgh

 “The book is undoubtedly a must-read for all those interested in democratic governance, the quality of accountability, and deliberation in contemporary societies.”
Manuela Moschella, Scuola Normale Superiore and Chatham House

“The strength of Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey’s excellent new book on deliberative accountability – ‘the reason-giving by policymakers for their policy decisions’ (p. 222) – is that it poses an old political science question but answers it in a new way.”
Stephen Holden Bates, University of Birmingham

How can I access it?

This title is available to consult in hard copy and as an eBook. The hard copy is currently on display in on new books display area. For those with borrowing rights, it can be borrowed from the library. Its shelfmark, when returned to the shelves, is JN329.SCH 2022 For the eBook, access it from a Bodleian Library computer or use it remotely, by logging on to SOLO with your SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

April’s Book of the Month was selected by Helen Worrell, Subject Consultant for Anthropology.

Sian Lazar

How to struggle: a political anthropology of labour

Pluto Press, 2023

HD4901.LAZ 2023

It was chosen to highlight innovative ethnographic research into labour struggles and worker strikes. It illuminates different perspectives within a complex global environment

Book Overview

This comparative ethnography presents a global perspective on labour agency, from heavy industry to the service sectors. Lazar goes beyond looking solely at organised trade unionism, also examining how individuals strive to improve their lives and working conditions.  A coda to the book examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on labour struggles and worker’s political agency.

Reviews

‘Anthropology at its best. Lazar explores how different capitalist strategies for organizing workers’ productivity generate problems that encourage certain solutions that in themselves create more problems, and on and on … Remarkably imaginative in revealing how, in large and small ways, workers of all stripes can organise to create otherwise, generate new possibilities for resistance and lead more fulfilling lives’

lana Gershon, Ruth N. Halls professor of anthropology, Indiana University, US

‘As brilliant as it is useful. Lazar manoeuvres lightly among the opposing schools of labor anthropology and shows with world-wide examples that how we struggle for better lives is deeply embedded in the type of relationships in which we labour, care and serve; relationships that are globally produced, intimately lived, and more often than not divisive. A boon for analysts and activists alike’

Don Kalb, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, author of Expanding Class

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy in the library. One of our copies is currently located at  our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). The shelfmark for the title is HD490.LAZ 2023. It is available to borrow by Oxford University students and staff members.

An eLegal Deposit copy of the title is also available on SOLO. This can be viewed on library reading room computers only.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

March’s Book of the Month was selected by Andy Kernot, Subject Consultant for Geography, Social Policy & Intervention, Public Policy, and Internet Studies

Daniel Yergin

The new map: energy, climate, and the clash of nations

Allen Lane, 2020

HD9502.A2.YER 2000

It was chosen because Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future.

Book Overview

The New Map tells a sweeping story about how the role of energy in climate change is shaping geopolitical discussions, challenging our industries and our lifestyles, and accelerating a second energy revolution – the quest for renewables. It also brings realism to the debates over the energy transition.

A master storyteller and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin takes the reader on an utterly riveting and timely journey across the world’s new map. He illuminates the great energy and geopolitical questions in an era of rising political turbulence and points to the profound challenges that lie ahead.

Reviews

“There are many … stories in this wonderful book, all of them directed at the transformation of the global map of power and wealth that has happened in the 21st century. Don’t waste your time on Boris or Trump, Covid or novichock, just read this to find out what is really happening.”

Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

“Daniel Yergin won a Pulitzer in 1992 for The Prize, an acclaimed history of petroleum and political power … In The New Map he turns his talents to what might be called geopolitical cartography … Fans of the author’s previous books will appreciate the snappy prose and plethora of well-told anecdotes … revealing and apposite … The book brings the general reader admirably up to date on the many subjects it covers.”

Edward Lucas, The Times

“Yergin is the most respected chronicler of energy history and politics today. Yergin has enviable talents. He writes fluently in a style that brings to life the arcane dynamics of the energy business. He is deeply knowledgeable and analytically prescient… The New Map is an excellent read because, through multiple interconnected storylines, it pulls together the transformative occurrences that have shaped the energy world in recent years into a cogent framework from which the reader can discern the future pathways of the next energy transition.”

Vikram S Mehta, Indian Express

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy in the library. One of our copies is currently located at our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). The shelfmark for the title is HD9502.A2.YER 2000 Our copies are available to borrow by Oxford University students and staff members.

An eLegal Deposit copy of the title is also available on SOLO. This can be viewed on library reading room computers only.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.

The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

February’s Book of the Month was selected by John Southall, Bodleian Data Librarian and Subject Consultant for Economics and Sociology.

Evelyn Ruppert & Stephan Schell

Data Practices: making up a European people

HB3582.5.A3.DAT 2021

It was chosen because it presents a set of detailed case studies in the practice of statistical data production and research methodologies within the Social Sciences.

Book Overview

This work focuses on data practices that involve establishing and assigning people to categories and goes on to consider how this matters in enacting Europe as a population and people. Five core chapters explore key categories of people – usual residents, refugees, homeless people, migrants, and ethnic minorities – and how they come into being through specific data methodologies. This includes practices such as defining, estimating, recalibrating and inferring. Additional chapters address two key subject positions that data practices produce and require: the data subject and the statistician subject.

Reviews

“The entities we call “Europe” and “European” can be studied in many ways, through history, institutions, language, and cultural practices… How people are counted and who is counted are crucial to both our understanding of populations and of politics.”

Sally Wyatt, Professor of Digital Cultures, Maastricht University

“This rigorous collection brings home how we are living through a crucial period in which data is mobilised in increasingly powerful and pervasive ways.”

Mike Savage, Professor of Sociology, LSE.

How can I access it?

This title is available in hard copy in the library and is currently located in our New Books Display Area (around the corner from our Issue Desk). Its shelfmark is HB3582.5.A3.DAT 2021 and it is available to borrow by Oxford University students and staff members.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.