Ray Griffin

Defining the principles and practices of walking as critical pedagogy, this book engages with social questions and challenges related to understandings of the Anthropocene.Through a series of chapters that operationalize walking as a form of participatory pedagogy, it explores issues including migration and borders, sustainability and climate change, gender and feminist thought, the labour market, crime and rehabilitation, and urban life and regeneration. Showing how walking enables us to learn creatively, convivially, and critically on the move in city spaces, while thinking relationally, the authors demonstrate the importance of space, time and place: the layers of history embedded in the present, and the importance of active, embodied, participatory, collaborative and creative learning.A pioneering approach to walking as a form of engagement and learning, Walking as Critical Pedagogy will appeal to researchers and students across the social sciences interested in new methods and research methodologies, and creative ways of teaching and learning about - and engaging with - major global issues in society.

Defining the principles and practices of walking as critical pedagogy, this book engages with social questions and challenges related to understandings of the Anthropocene.Through a series of chapters that operationalize walking as a form of participatory pedagogy, it explores issues including migration and borders, sustainability and climate change, gender and feminist thought, the labour market, crime and rehabilitation, and urban life and regeneration. Showing how walking enables us to learn creatively, convivially, and critically on the move in city spaces, while thinking relationally, the authors demonstrate the importance of space, time and place: the layers of history embedded in the present, and the importance of active, embodied, participatory, collaborative and creative learning.A pioneering approach to walking as a form of engagement and learning, Walking as Critical Pedagogy will appeal to researchers and students across the social sciences interested in new methods and research methodologies, and creative ways of teaching and learning about - and engaging with - major global issues in society.

Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on ideas from economic theology, this provocative book uncovers deep-rooted religious concepts and shows how they continue to influence contemporary views of work and unemployment: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life. Chapters 1 and 3 are available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Western culture has ‘faith’ in the labour market as a test of the worth of each individual. For those who are out of work, welfare is now less of a support than a means of purification and redemption. Continuously reformed by the left and right in politics, the contemporary welfare state attempts to transform the unemployed into active jobseekers, punishing non-compliance. Drawing on ideas from economic theology, this provocative book uncovers deep-rooted religious concepts and shows how they continue to influence contemporary views of work and unemployment: Jobcentres resemble purgatory where the unemployed attempt to redeem themselves, jobseeking is a form of pilgrimage in hope of salvation, and the economy appears as providence, whereby trials and tribulations test each individual. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of modern economic life. Chapters 1 and 3 are available Open Access via OAPEN under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Ray Griffin's enquiring nature wasn't blunted by an early career in accountancy, despite the latter's mundane image (in fact it positively helped with the analytical nature of some of his projects and work). A few years ago he discovered internet marketing through some DIY website ventures for others and was intrigued by its precision and its ability to show real time results. Traditional marketing had always been hampered by its hit-and-miss nature. An American department store owner, John Wannamaker, had declared in the nineteenth century 'Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.' Now, it appeared, Google AdWords had changed all that with a system that was certainty and precision exemplified. Suddenly marketing, which until then had been far too woolly for Ray's accountancy-trained tastes, had acquired laser-like qualities in all those areas where vagueness and half-guesses ruled. Here was something that brought certainty-of-outcome (and profit) instead of half hoping something would resonate with who you were selling to - often wasting a lot of time and money in the process. Ray then sought to refine a technique which would bring the most efficient and successful tactics together for the first time. A system was created that was easy to use and achieve stunning results for any business willing to adopt and harness the power of internet marketing.