Policy Press

Society, Culture and Arts

Culture – the beliefs, behaviours and objects common to the members of a particular group – is a fundamental part of the infrastructure on which our societies depend, and a wellspring from which we can reflect and reinvent, when faced with the urgent need to find ways to better co-exist on our planet.

Our publishing promotes Goal 3: Good health and well-being, through recognising the role culture plays in our lives, in our most disadvantaged communities, in old age and in the making of government policy. By listening to different societies, and different cultures within those societies, we can often find new perspectives and different approaches to tackling the problems that cut across all cultures.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Society and culture, we aim to address the following goal:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 3: Good health and well-being

Showing 13-24 of 70 items.

Remaking Money for a Sustainable Future

Money Commons

Engaging imaginatively with the future of money, this book examines the real-life efforts of grassroots movements and activists from across the world who are reclaiming power by designing, organising and implementing complementary currencies. It will be of interest to all who are interested in constructing a more sustainable and just world.

Bristol Uni Press

What Are the Olympics For?

While attention is on Olympic triumphs and tribulations, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that is deeply troubling. Boykoff tells us that radical steps are required if the Games are to be fixed and only then will they be truly ‘athletes first’.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpreting Subcultures

Approaching, Contextualizing, and Embodying Sense-Making Practices in Alternative Cultures

This book makes an unprecedented contribution to the field by explaining the interpretive processes through which subcultural phenomena are studied. Examining dimensions of interpretivism, it reveals how and why people decide to use specific conceptual frames or methodologies and how they shape their interpretations of everyday realities.

Bristol Uni Press

Raising the Nation

How to Build a Better Future for Our Children (and Everyone Else)

Setting out big public policy ideas, enhanced by contributions from academic and campaigning experts, as well as those with lived experience, Raising the Nation shows why we must prioritise child-centred policies to ensure the future strength of our communities, environment and economy.

Policy Press

The Trouble with Jokes

Humour and Offensiveness in Contemporary Culture and Politics

Exploring the relationship between humour and offensiveness, this book delves into offensive jokes, their impact, and the dark side of laughter. It blends cultural analysis, politics, and philosophy to offer an antidote to positive thinking and guide readers through offensive humour.

Bristol Uni Press

Raising the Nation

How to Build a Better Future for Our Children (and Everyone Else)

Setting out big public policy ideas, enhanced by contributions from academic and campaigning experts, as well as those with lived experience, Raising the Nation shows why we must prioritise child-centred policies to ensure the future strength of our communities, environment and economy.

Policy Press

DataPublics

The Construction of Publics in Datafied Democracies

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Drawing on empirical data from US and UK as well as the unique example of Nordic countries where there is a high level of confidence in state and media institutions, this book shows how platforms and algorithms are transforming media, journalism and audiences’ civic practices.

Bristol Uni Press

Interpreting the Body

Between Meaning and Matter

Written by leading social scientists, this ambitious volume asks what individuals’ “handling” of bodies reveal about inequality, social order and cultural change in societies.

Bristol Uni Press

Contextual Safeguarding

The Next Chapter

This book shares stories from child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation and peer violence about what has been learnt from the Contextual Safeguarding approach to understanding harm that happens to young people in their communities and what is required to respond.

Policy Press

Queering Science Communication

Representations, Theory, and Practice

Written by leading experts, this collection examines representations of queerness in popular science and media, asks what it means for the field to ‘queer’ science communication theories and research agendas and offers practical examples and case studies for fostering radical inclusivity and equity in the science communication field.

Bristol Uni Press

The Life of a Number

Measurement, Meaning and the Media

Drawing on case studies, this book examines how politicians, academics and journalists gave meaning to data during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawson sheds light on the distinct nature of the pandemic that led to the increased politicization of data and how it permanently changed the way we view health and society more broadly.

Bristol Uni Press

Humour and Politics in Africa

Beyond Resistance

This book examines the relationship between humour and politics in Africa. Moving beyond the idea of humour as a mode of resistance, the book investigates the ‘political work’ that humour does and explores the complex entanglements in which the politics, practices and performances of humour are located.

Bristol Uni Press