Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition

by Deborah Brock (Editor), Aryn Martin (Editor), Rebecca Raby (Editor), Mark Thomas (Editor)

Overview

This unique and innovative text provides undergraduate students with tools to think sociologically through the lens of everyday life. Normative social organization and taken for granted beliefs and actions are exposed as key mechanisms of power and social inequality in western societies today. By "unpacking the centre" students are encouraged to turn their social worlds inside out and explore alternatives to the dominant social order.

The text is divided into three parts. In Part One students learn how to use theory and methodology, which are blended seamlessly throughout the text. It shows how to position Michel Foucault as a companion to theorists such as Karl Marx and Stuart Hall, while signaling the importance of non-western and Indigenous knowledges, experiences, and rights. In Part Two, students explore – and challenge – normativity; the normal body, heterosexuality, whiteness, the two-gender system, aging, and the under-side of citizenship. In Part Three, shorter chapters critique everyday practices such as thinking scientifically, practicing self-help, going shopping, managing money, buying coffee, being a tourist, and marginalizing Indigeneity. Each chapter includes intriguing exercises, study questions, and key terms that link to the volume’s comprehensive glossary. Instructors are provided PowerPoint slides, test banks, and multimodal supplementary resources that make the book adaptable to blended and online learning environments.

Essay-style lectures are also available to accompany the textbook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487588243
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	08/22/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Deborah Brock is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Aryn Martin is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Rebecca Raby is a professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University.

Mark P. Thomas is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Unpacking the Centre

Part One: Foundations

1. Thinking about Power
Deborah Brock, York University

2. Assembling Our Toolkit
Andrea Noack, Ryerson University and Aryn Martin, York University

Part Two: The Centre, Normalization, and Power

3. Fashioning the Normal Body
Anne McGuire, University of Toronto and Kelly Fritsch, Carleton University

4. Trans/Gender
Dan Irving, Carleton University

5. Thinking "Straight"
Alix Holtby, York University

6. Whiteness Invented
Melanie Knight, Ryerson University

7. Being "Middle Class"
Mark P. Thomas, York University

8. Growing Up, Growing Old
Rebecca Raby, Brock University

9. Citizenship and Borders
Nandita Sharma, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Part Three: Everyday Practices

10. Science and the "Matter" of Power
Aryn Martin, York University

11. Are You "Normal"?
Heidi Rimke, University of Winnipeg and Deborah Brock, York University

12. Going Shopping: The Politics of Everyday Consumption
Dennis Soron, Brock University

13. Are You Financially Fit?
Mary Beth Raddon, Brock University

14. Let’s Get a Coffee
Gavin Fridell, Saint Mary’s University and Erika Koss, Saint Mary’s University

15. Indigenous Youth: Representing Themselves
Margot Francis, Brock University

16. Being a Tourist
Gada Mahrouse, Concordia University

Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Gary Kinsman

"The second edition of Power and Everyday Practices is a crucial addition to writing on everyday life and social power in the best tradition of C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination. It provides crucial tools for developing critical thinking skills and for reversing the gaze so that we centre our critical analysis not on the oppressed as social problems but instead on the social organization of power in the centre, including normality, whiteness, settler colonialism, heterosexuality, and more. This book covers diverse terrains of struggle and is a crucial text not only for students in the classroom but also for activists in their communities."

Mary Louise Adams

"This book makes evident the value of the sociological imagination in a world that is both banal and tumultuous. Power and Everyday Practices is an exceptionally coherent, engaging collection that invites students to take up key conceptual tools for making sense of and intervening in the power relations that shape their identities and their experiences. It offers a sociology that is not just about but for everyday life."

Editorial Reviews

"The second edition of Power and Everyday Practices is a crucial addition to writing on everyday life and social power in the best tradition of C. Wright Mills’s The Sociological Imagination. It provides crucial tools for developing critical thinking skills and for reversing the gaze so that we centre our critical analysis not on the oppressed as social problems but instead on the social organization of power in the centre, including normality, whiteness, settler colonialism, heterosexuality, and more. This book covers diverse terrains of struggle and is a crucial text not only for students in the classroom but also for activists in their communities."

—Gary Kinsman, author of The Regulation of Desire, co-author of The Canadian War on Queers, and professor emeritus, Department of Sociology, Laurentian University

"This book makes evident the value of the sociological imagination in a world that is both banal and tumultuous. Power and Everyday Practices is an exceptionally coherent, engaging collection that invites students to take up key conceptual tools for making sense of and intervening in the power relations that shape their identities and their experiences. It offers a sociology that is not just about but for everyday life."

—Mary Louise Adams, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University

From the Publisher