This chapter first historicises securitisation theory and situates the theory in the wider field of international security. It shows that securitisation theory was innovative in the sense of challenging the state-centricity and over-militarised nature of international security during the Cold War. The chapter then proceeds with a brief discourse analysis of speeches made by George W. Bush and Barack Obama in relation to Islam and the role of Muslims in the war on terror. It argues that Bush and Obama articulated Islam as a ‘peaceful religion’ and that terrorists ‘hijacked its peaceful teachings’. Even Donald Trump sought to reassure the American public that his executive order banning citizens from Muslim-majority countries was ‘not a Muslim ban’. As a result, the chapter demonstrates that this presents a challenge to securitisation theory. The last section engages with the burgeoning post-Copenhagen School literature, which has raised important concerns about securitisation theory, and concludes by addressing the implications for the puzzle of the book.

This chapter explains the epistemological and ontological positions of the book and clarifies the methodology used for this study. The chapter examines the linguistic turn in the social sciences and establishes the relation between reality and language. Influenced by the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, it argues that language is constitutive of reality and thus matters for how we understand the world. Second, the chapter excavates the role of language in securitisation theory to foreground the central argument about linguistic practice. Lastly, the chapter introduces three key linguistic aspects that play an important part in the book: strategic narratives, indirect speech acts and framing Islam as a non-security issue.

The chapter considers the novels and non-fiction of Anne Enright, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2007 for The gathering. It traces the trajectory of her fiction towards a revamped version of Irish realism, with a focus on her most recent novel, The Green Road. It considers Enright’s evolving attitudes towards the nation and Irish literary traditions. The chapter discusses her memoir of motherhood and some of her other reflections on her development as a writer. It is argued that Enright belongs to a later moment than the other women considered here, as a person upon whom the burden of the Irish past appears to sit more lightly. Nevertheless, she engages with recognisably Irish themes such as emigration, child abuse, the Celtic Tiger boom/bust and rural life.

While scientists protest publicly against right-wing populists bending truths, humanists and social scientists are remarkably quiet. This is not surprising since constructivist relativism and poststructuralist ideas about the politics of knowledge have been widely adopted. This chapter explores the ideological conundrum facing social scientists and argues that pragmatism can provide resources for finding a way forward. By formulating specific criteria by means of which theories and truths can be compared and evaluated, pragmatist epistemology positions the academic as a social advisor or mediator. Moreover, on the basis of pragmatic democratic theory, it can be argued that politics is not only agonistic but needs a conciliatory moment to function sustainably. In this spirit, academic criticism should be understood not only as opposition but also as mediation. Rather than just opposing dominant thinking, the academic can engage in a cooperative vein, contributing to the decisions that are taken by mediating between different positions and points of view.

Social scientists have begun to re-evaluate and incorporate some of pragmatist John Dewey’s insights into their work. This chapter explores the role of habit in John Dewey’s understanding of human psychology and culture, opening up connections to his associated ideas of embodiment, imagination, inquiry and community, all of which are central to his concept of democracy. The formation, implementation and modification of habits – whether viewed as individual-level, community-level or cultural-level – are central to the problem of adept democratic activity and social functioning. After explaining Dewey’s meaning of, and emphasis on, habit and its correlates, I suggest how time, culture, place and criticism are important considerations within Dewey’s vision of democracy and inquiry. In the closing section of the chapter, I turn to the more applied side of the matter and sketch out some potential implications of these ideas for doing social research and for social science as part of the university that engages in community life.

Football fandom is a regular, ritualistic performance that takes place every weekend over the course of a season. These performances are recounted in conversation, social media and traditional media throughout the week. The performances help locate the individual within a broader collective, but also structure their interactions with others. Through the collective ritual of fandom, the ultras elevate themselves into a state of flow that brings the gathering of individual fans into one collective working in unison.

This chapter provides a thorough introduction to an edited book that comprises fifteen chapters exploring the power of pragmatism in relation to social research and the production of knowledge. The chapter outlines the historical development of the pragmatist tradition and its core ideas before exploring its application to social research, past and present. We make a strong case for pragmatic social research, outline its key components and highlight its implications for research practice and outcomes. In the penultimate section, we address some of the long-standing concerns about pragmatism in order to provide critical context to the chapters in the rest of the book. The final section introduces the structure of the book and summarises the substantive chapters that follow.

The introduction outlines the rationale for selecting these five women: Edna O’Brien, Sinéad O’Connor, Bernadette McAliskey, Nuala O’Faolain and Anne Enright. It discusses the ways in which women in Ireland have been understood as both symbols of the nation and key agents of modernisation. It explores the question of whether Ireland has been exceptionally oppressive to women. It considers current conditions for women in Ireland and argues for the significance of the contribution made to Irish feminism by innovative individuals such as the subjects of this book.

Like Southall, Bradford was faced in 1960–62 with a sudden influx of Asian immigrants, the great majority of whom hailed from Pakistan. This wave of immigration did cause some early panic, with the outbreak of smallpox in 1962. This chapter studies the introduction of bussing locally, which took place without a real white mobilisation in favour of it. Dispersal in Bradford was a fairly smooth affair compared with Southall. It was hailed by members of the Wilson government as a model type of dispersal, particularly because the city proved efficient at gathering statistics about immigrant children, but archives reveal that, as elsewhere, there were many shortcomings to the operation of dispersal locally, which had a detrimental effect on immigrant children.