Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives - Couverture souple

Adrian Smith is Professor of Human Geography and Head of the Department of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. He has worked extensively over the last 16 years on the economic and social geographies of transformations from state socialism in East-Central Europe, involving a number of externally-funded research projects and resulting in three books, including Reconstructing the Regional Economy (1998), Theorising Transition (with John Pickles, 1998) and Work, Employment and Transition (with Al Rainnie and Adam Swain, 2002). He has been an editor of Regional Studies and will be an editor of European Urban and Regional Studies from 2009.Alison Stenning is Reader in Economic and Social Geography in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. She has been involved in researching household and community economies in Poland and Slovakia, the remaking of European steel communities, the politics of urban development in Auschwitz, post-accession labour migration from central Europe to the UK and the transformation of gender and work in Poland. Her work has been published in a number of sociology and geography journals, ind she edited (with Mike Bradshaw) East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union: The Post-Socialist States (2004). Katie Willis is Reader in Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses on social differentiation in processes of migration, urbanization and health sector reform. Her main publications include Theories and Practices of Development (2005); Gender and Migration (with Brenda Yeoh, 2000); Challenges and Change in Middle America: (with Cathy McIlwaine, 2002) and State/Nation/Transnation (with Brenda Yeoh, 2004). She is editor of Geoforum and International Development Planning Review.

'As the economic pundits acknowledge (finally!) the failures of the neoliberal order, Social Justice and Neoliberalism offers new research into its devastating impacts on everyday lives. In fine-grained and wide-ranging analyses, the authors demonstrate how neoliberalism was domesticated, spatialized, diversified, co-constituted, resisted and recoded by people and organizations in place. This meticulously researched collection not only indicts neoliberal ideology but points beyond it to possibilities for ethical markets and more just economic relations.' --J.K. Gibson-Graham

'This excellent book focuses on the everyday spaces of neoliberalism. Richly theorised case studies from eight very different countries examine how processes associated with marketisation are differentially experienced and contested. Not only does this book provide new evidence of the relationship between neoliberalism and economic marginalisation, it also identifies the importance of new identities and forms of governance, and explores the implications for social justice. It is an impressive contribution to the literature on neoliberalism that should be read by critical scholars and all those interested in the changing lives of real people.' --Wendy Larner, Professor of Human Geography and Sociology, University of Bristol

'Social justice and neoliberalism is a refreshing alternative to the 'global steamroller' view of the free-market revolution. Punchy and prescient, this superb collection of essays does a great job of putting neoliberalism in its place-both theoretically and politically.' --Jamie Peck, co-editor of Contesting neoliberalism: urban frontiers. Canada Research Chair in Urban & Regional Political Economy, University of British Columbia