New Release Books by Halleh Ghorashi

Considering that one of the core tasks of academia is to provide social critique and reflection, universities have an undeniable role to formulate the contours of a more inclusive academia in contrast to visible and normalised structures of exclusion. Translating such ambitions into transformative practices seems to be easier said than done. Academics need mutual inspiration and exchange of thoughts and practices to reflect on their actions and their own knowledge productions. The authors in this book mirror the challenges and achievements of academics and practitioners in three national contexts, which could serve as a foundation for academia to move towards dismantling elitist and privileged-based assumptions, and formulating new forms of knowledge production and institutional policies, inside and outside academia. The book aims to help create a more inclusive society in which academics, students and practitioners can engage, learn and transform structures of inequality, exclusion and disconnection where it seems to have the biggest impact.

Here is an exploration, unlike any before, of the fascinating, often poignant tension between the changing meaning of home and the experience of being the stranger amidst a century of runaway change. Accomplished authors and scholars share their intimate stories of seeking and struggle for home as a place and as a deeply held metaphor for the source and goal of our being. Through these personal narratives come insights about the global phenomena of migration and mobility, as lone pilgrims and whole populations, caught between "not yet from here, no longer from there," cross borders and oceans in their search for that safe, comfortable abode we all long for. This unique Euro-American collaboration presents ten essays and five portraits anchored in relevant academic research. The authors share pilgrimages across miles and generations that have made them the stranger and led them to see old places with new eyes. Their stories point toward the essential meaning of identity in ways that help us face thequestion of who among us is entitled to declare, "I am home.""Finding home-a space to express who you are and connect yourself with others who are different-is not always easy, requiring both self-esteem and a strong belief in your own identity. From both scientific and personal perspectives, this book points the way home."-Karen van Oudenhoven-van der Zee, Professor of Intercultural Competencies and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije University, Amsterdam

A former Iranian leftist political activist (now an assistant professor of anthropology at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) explores issues of exile and identity among a group of Iranian women forced to leave Iran during or after the Iranian revolution of 1979, weaving in her own experiences as a political exile. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).