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Through a set of diverse case studies in five countries, this book re-examines the production, circulation and consumption of self-help narratives of empowerment and personal fulfilment and offers fresh insights into the ways in which popular psychology shapes our everyday lives from an innovative transnational perspective.
List of contents
1. Self-help Worlds
2. Self-help and Society
3. Self-help's Transnationalism
4. Self-help Entrepreneurs in China
5. Self-help in Crisis
6. Cultural Struggles, Intimate Life and Transnational Narratives
7. The Uses of Self-help Books in Trinidad
8. The Politics of Self-help
About the author
Daniel Nehring is currently Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Worcester, UK. He has previously worked at Pusan National University, South Korea. Over the past ten years, he has done extensive research on transnational self-help cultures. Recent publications include Sociology (2013) and Intimacies and Cultural Change (2014, with Emmanuel Alvarado and Rosario Esteinou).
Emmanuel Alvarado is Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies at Palm Beach State College in Florida, USA. His research concerns experiences of intimate citizenship among Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants in the USA. Recent publications include Intimacies and Cultural Change (2014, with Daniel Nehring and Rosario Esteinou).
Eric C. Hendriks is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Sociology Department of Peking University, Beijing, China. He investigates the globalization of self-help culture and conducted fieldwork in Germany and China. In 2015, he published the book Knowledge Wars: The Global Competition between Self-Help Gurus and Institutional Authorities.
Dylan Kerrigan is a Lecturer in Anthropology and Political Sociology at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. He is currently developing a manuscript on the Militarisation and Insecurity of Everyday Life in the Caribbean. <
Summary
Self-help books aim to empower their readers and deliver happiness and personal fulfilment but do they really live up to this? In contrast, this book explores the production, circulation and consumption of self-help books from an innovative transnational perspective.
Additional text
“Their book ‘Transnational Popular Psychology and the Global Self-help Industry: The Politics of Contemporary Social Change’ brings a much-needed theoretical and empirical balance into the scholarship on therapeutic culture and self-help, which has so far focused on the global North, in particular the Anglo-American context. … the book’s remarkable collection of data and its emphasis on multidirectional transnational cultural flows are a vital addition to the literature.” (Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Acta Sociologica, Vol. 61 (2), May, 2018)
“This unique book reviews the transnational growth of the self-help industry in the US, UK, Mexico, China, and Trinidad and Tobago. … the work is unique and valuable in presenting cross-cultural study and understanding of the industry of self-help around the world. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.” (D. L. Loers, Choice, Vol. 54 (3), November, 2016)
Report
"Their book 'Transnational Popular Psychology and the Global Self-help Industry: The Politics of Contemporary Social Change' brings a much-needed theoretical and empirical balance into the scholarship on therapeutic culture and self-help, which has so far focused on the global North, in particular the Anglo-American context. ... the book's remarkable collection of data and its emphasis on multidirectional transnational cultural flows are a vital addition to the literature." (Tatiana Tiaynen-Qadir, Acta Sociologica, Vol. 61 (2), May, 2018)
"This unique book reviews the transnational growth of the self-help industry in the US, UK, Mexico, China, and Trinidad and Tobago. ... the work is unique and valuable in presenting cross-cultural study and understanding of the industry of self-help around the world. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." (D. L. Loers, Choice, Vol. 54 (3), November, 2016)
