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We are experiencing a period of adaptation of our agri-food systems to the context of climate change, thus witnessing the incorporation of several more ecological and socially inclusive practices. In this sense, this chapter seeks to understand the role of civil society in promoting sustainable food systems based on Brazilian experiences over the last three decades. First, the role of civil society in the construction of new agroecological markets is discussed, bringing the experience of the consumer cooperative COOLMEIA, which started the construction of the first agroecological fair in Brazil, the Ecological Farmers Fair in Porto Alegre. Then the civil society activism engaged on establishment of the Human Right to Healthy and Adequate Food is discussed, highlighting the importance of social movements and civil society organisations in the construction of a democratic political system. At last, the trajectory of the civil society as actors participating in the formal instance of State governance through their performance in the National Council for Food Security and Nutrition – CONSEA, presenting the historical context, achievements and struggles. Finally, the chapter concludes with a section reviewing lessons learned and possible challenges for civil society participation in the debate on agri-food systems in the future.

Despite profound differences, both the German Historical School and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School have in common a theoretical and cultural heritage in Central European traditions of social thought and philosophy. Although both schools often are perceived as quintessentially German traditions of economic and social research, their methodological presuppositions and critical intent diverge strongly. Since the objective of the Frankfurt School was to carry the theoretical critique initiated by Marx into the twentieth century, and since its members did so on a highly abstract level of theoretical criticism, the suggestion may be surprising that in terms of their respective research agendas, there was a common denominator between the German Historical School and the Frankfurt School critical theory. To be sure, as will become apparent, the common ground was rather tenuous and indirect. We must ask, then: in what respects did their theoretical and analytical foundations and orientations overlap? How did the German Historical School, as a nineteenth-century tradition of economic thinking, influence the development of the Frankfurt School?

The development of a knowledge society in the Arabian Gulf is a nested and contextualized process that relies upon the development of nation-specific knowledge economies and region-wide knowledge cultures. The role of internationally comparative education data and mass education systems in the Gulf as mechanisms for the development of knowledge economies, societies, and cultures are discussed and debated in relation to the unique contextual conditions countries operate within. The role of “big” data and mass education in creating expectations for achievement, accountability, and access is shown to significantly contribute to the development of knowledge societies by providing the infrastructure and capacity for sustainable change, which potentially leads to the institutionalization of knowledge acquisition, exchange, and creation in the Gulf and beyond.

The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy – that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume – and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of “vitacide,” designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered society – concepts that served as foils for delineating the kind of theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.

This study is designed to explore the process of integration and ethnic identity among South Asian immigrants in Norway. In this study I examine the extent to which different factors such as, time since migration, receptiveness of the host society, position in the labor market, schools, social networks, and interaction with the host society, contribute to immigrants’ integration and the construction of their identity in a multicultural society like Norway. Based on ethnographic methods including unstructured interviews of first-generation South Asian immigrants and their children in Norway, three different levels of integration are explained. The first level involves high ethnic identity and low integration and relates to first-generation immigrants who have accepted that a permanent return to their home country is impossible. The second level of integration is related to high ethnic identity and high integration. The individuals in this category are second-generation immigrants who are integrated into Norwegian society, while maintaining a high ethnic identity by strong allegiance to their parental norms and values. The third level is low integration and low ethnic identity and explained in terms of identity crisis, which sometimes causes an internal turmoil and disorientation for many immigrants.

The transformation from an industrial to a knowledge economy and society are underway. In the knowledge economy, the knowledge of people and organizations—their intellectual capital assets—are the primary factors of production and the source of wealth. This is in contrast to other kinds of capital that fueled the industrial and the agricultural economies. Librarians have understood the knowledge society as one characterized by an increased focus on digital resources and an expanded use of virtual channels to deliver those resources. However, the nature of the knowledge society and economy is far more expansive than a digital environment. A knowledge society is one in which all members of a society engage in knowledge transactions—in the business environment, in the social sphere, in civic activities, and in everyday environmental actions. This view of the knowledge society presents new opportunities for librarians to leverage their intellectual capital. This chapter profiles the intellectual capital assets of librarians, considers how they align with professional competencies, and presents use cases that illustrate the value of these assets. Future scenarios illustrate how traditional functional competencies might shift in the knowledge economy. These also suggest contexts which highlight undervalued or new competencies. Seven observations describe how librarians might prepare for expanded roles in the knowledge society.

In recent years, the concept of “reification” has virtually disappeared from debates in social theory, including critical social theory. The concept was at the center of the revitalization of Marxist theory in the early twentieth century generally known as Western Marxism. Georg Lukács in particular introduced the concept to express how the process described in Marx's critique of alienation and commodification could be grasped more effectively by combining it with Max Weber's theory of rationalization (see Agger, 1979; Stedman Jones et al., 1977).¹ In Lukács's use, the concept of reification captured the process by which advanced capitalist production, as opposed to earlier stages of capitalist development, assimilated processes of social, cultural, and political production and reproduction to the dynamic imperatives and logic of capitalist accumulation. It is not just interpersonal relations and forms of organization constituting the capitalist production process that are being refashioned along the lines of one specific definition of economic necessity. In addition, and more consequentially, the capitalist mode of production also assimilates to its specific requirements the ways in which human beings think the world. As a result, the continuous expansion and perfection of capitalist production and its control over the work environment impoverishes concrete social, political, and cultural forms of coexistence and cooperation, and it brings about an impoverishment of our ability to conceive of reality from a variety of social, political, and philosophical viewpoints.