Brimming with messages of love, practical tips, inspiring quotes, heartfelt reflections and funny anecdotes, The Little Book of Mum is an ode to the highs and lows of motherhood.

Migration, Equality and Racisms trigger ever more salient societal debates. More than 80 VUB academics and co-authors joined forces. Philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, health scientists, sociologists, geographers, criminologists, communication and political scientists … Together they aim to contribute to an exercise of humanism as a praxis of criticism or a ‘technique of trouble-making’, in the words of Edward Said. Through 44 thought-provoking and informed opinion pieces, they quest...

Amsterdam as a lab. That is what Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences' three fieldlabs and its many partners have in mind. Functional illiteracy, debts, learning deficiencies or problems caused by extreme precipitation: the city contains plenty of tough issues, demanding novel approaches in which co-creation and participation by residents, social organizations and knowledge institutions are basic principles.In the fieldlabs, people try to change current practices by working with, instead ...

Economic Diversity in Contemporary Timor-Leste analyses various economic dynamics in past and present Timor-Leste. Comprising 14 research chapters, the volume brings to the fore: 1) local, community-based economic values and arrangements; 2) community-based entanglements with a market-driven economy; 3) the colonial and postcolonial governance praxis through which a market-driven economy has permeated the country, and 4) the creative and place-based ways through which local people have respon...

This book, 'Climate Security and the Military: Concepts, Strategies and Partnerships', reviews the climate Security Nexus from the military angle and proposes the design of climate security strategies and how they can contribute to adaptation to and mitigation of the related challenges. Part 1 reviews the understanding of the Climate Security Nexus. Subsequently, Part 2 assesses the potential design of climate security strategies. In Part 3, adaptation to climate change by the military is rev...

This is who we are and how we live!

Many Vietnamese LGBT persons lead invisible lives. Their stories are seldom told and those who dare to come out of the closet are often alone and have a low self-esteem. At the same time it’s hard for those who want to come out without any examples of how good and normal life can be as a Vietnamese lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Our goal is to give the LGBT community a face and a voice. This book is filled with interviews and photographs, packed ...

While there is evidence suggesting that an unfavorable socioeconomic status does foster voting in favor of populist parties, multiple previous studies agree that cultural or political concerns surpass the explanatory power of economic insecurity. Nonetheless, economic approaches of populist voting should not be discarded.

Next to the substantial investigation on which aspects of socioeconomic hardship increase support for populism, another objective of this thesis is to illustrate the method...

This book on Reflections on European Values is a Liber Amicorum honouring Loek Halman’s contribution to the European Values Study. For years, he has been a key figure in this longitudinal and cross-national research project on moral, social, and political values, dedicating his academic life to advancing the understanding of values in Europe. This Liber Amicorum is published at the occasion of Loek’s retirement after a long career at the Department of Sociology at Tilburg University. It b...

Lancar explains in an accessible manner how different systems—political, economic, and cultural—are intertwined and how they exert influence on individuals and groups. He reveals the shadowy aspects of power and influence that often operate behind the scenes and invites the reader to think critically about the information we consume daily and the decisions made by those who pull the strings.

The book is rich in examples, stories, and insights, understandably presenting complex concepts. L...

Over the past 60 years high-income countries have invested over 4000 billion euros in development aid. With varying degrees of success, these investments in low-income countries contributed to tackling structural problems such as access to water, health care, and education. Today, however, international development cooperation is no longer restricted to helping by giving. Instead, it is rather about opportunities, mutual interests, risk taking, and an inclusive societal approach. With the arr...