Spatial Politics

An entertaining and engaging social and cultural history of the London community of Peckham that offers lessons in urban living.“Is there life in Peckham?” asks a pop song of the 1980s. Peckham has been treated as a joke and a place to be avoided. It has been celebrated in television comedies, and denigrated for its levels of crime. It is a center for the arts and the creative industries, yet it also suffers from social deprivation and racial tension. Passport to Peckham is a guide to an unofficial part of London―social and cultural history written from the ground up. In this entertaining and engaging account, Hewison invites readers to explore Peckham’s streets and presents the portrait of a community experiencing the stresses of modern living. Old and new residents rub against each other as they try to adjust to the challenges created by urban regeneration and the more subtle process of gentrification. Artists have lived and worked in Peckham for more than a century, and now Caribb

A memoir and cultural history the World’s End, a West London area once home to bohemian artists and punk rock and now an outpost of neoliberalism.Charlie Gere’s account of growing up in the World’s End area of West London during the Cold War combines local history, cultural history, memoir, and a strong sense of the apocalyptic. Once a rundown part of Chelsea at the wrong end of the King’s Road, the World’s End has long been a place for bohemian writers and artists, including Turner, Whistler, Beckett, Bacon, and Bacon’s muse Henrietta Moraes, all of whom evinced an appropriate apocalyptic sensibility. After World War II, in which the area suffered severe bombing, it became a center of the counterculture that emerged from what Jeff Nuttall called “Bomb Culture,” formed by the threat of nuclear annihilation. The famous boutique Granny Takes a Trip opened there in 1966, joined later on by Hung On You, Puss Weber’s Flying Dragon Tea Room, and the commune Gandalf’s Garden. The area also

Knowledge and Global Power is a ground-breaking international study which examines how knowledge is produced, distributed and validated globally. The authors use interviews, databases, and fieldwork t

What are the limits of tolerance in constitutional or liberal democracies today? This is a crucial question, for if there were no limits to tolerance, it would ultimately destroy itself by accepting t

Surprisingly, jihadi groups like ISIS do not only attract female supporters coming from Muslim communities, but also Western women who grew up in non-Muslim environments. Trauma, depression and the ne

In a world of fake news and populist politics, elections can seem like theatre. With growing rates of informal votes and a perceived narrowing of differences between the major parties, do Australian e

Red or Green? Traditionally, Australian progressives have supported the Australian Labor Party; increasingly, The Greens appeal. What are the key differences between the parties? Is greater collaborat

Political parties have always been fundamental to Australia's representative democracy. As organizations, however, their continued centrality and longevity depend upon their ability to respond to chan

In Australian politics, minor parties have come a long way. From an era where there were no minor parties in the national parliament, they have become crucial players in shaping government policy and

In an age when the United Nations has declared access to the Internet a human right, and universal access to high-speed broadband is a national goal, urban areas have been largely ignored by federal p