The Sociology Book

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 149 See also: Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Manuel Castells 152–55 ■ Ulrich Beck 156–61 ■ David Held 170–71 ■ Thorstein Veblen 214–19 ■ Daniel Bell 224–25 Industrialization spreads throughout the world, leading to... ...mining and ...globalization and ...the mass ...greater refining more the increasing production of dependence on minerals for the consumer technology, which manufacture of movement of people products, which enhances human commodities. and goods in cars, become central to capacities and people’s self-identity. trains, boats, experiences. and planes. People don’t want to accept that their consumer lifestyles contribute to carbon emissions, so climate change is a back-of-the-mind issue. A by-product of this energy However, Giddens is optimistic which use market forces to reward production is carbon dioxide, which about the future. He believes that companies that reduce their builds up in the upper atmosphere the same human ingenuity that greenhouse gas emissions. and traps energy from the sun, gave rise to industrial and high- New technologies are also being leading to “global warming” and tech societies can be used to find researched, developed, and shared, extreme weather events, such as innovative solutions to reducing which could potentially end the droughts, floods, and cyclones. carbon emissions. For instance, world’s reliance on fossil fuels, and international cooperation is seeing provide cheap and clean sources Innovative solutions countries introducing carbon of energy for both developed and In The Politics of Climate Change trading schemes and carbon taxes, developing societies. ■ (2009) Giddens argues that because the dangers posed by Future discounting person take up smoking, when environmental degradation and the health risks are widely climate change are not obvious or According to Giddens, the known? For the teenage smoker immediately visible in everyday concept of “future discounting” it is almost impossible to life, many people ”...do nothing of explains why people take steps imagine being 40, the age at a concrete nature about them. Yet to solve present problems but which the dangers start to take waiting until such dangers become ignore the threats that face hold and have potentially fatal visible and acute—in the shape of them in the future. He notes consequences. This analogy catastrophes that are irrefutably the that people often choose a small applies to climate change. result of climate change—before reward now, rather than take People are addicted to advanced being stirred to serious action will a course of action that might technology and the mobility be too late.” lead to a greater reward in the afforded by fossils fuels. Rather future. The same psychological than tackle an uncomfortable “Giddens’ paradox” is the label principle applies to risks. reality, it is easier to ignore the that he gives to this disconnect warnings of climate scientists. between the rewards of the present To illustrate his point, and the threat of future dangers Giddens uses the example of and catastrophes. a smoker. Why does a young

150 NO SOCIAL JUSTICE WITHOUT GLOBAL COGNITIVE JUSTICE BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA SANTOS (1940– ) IN CONTEXT A Western capitalist world order has taken root, stratifying nations not only along economic and political lines but also by FOCUS Epistemologies forms of knowledge. of the South This has resulted in a cultural battle in which the global North, KEY DATES with its culture rooted in science, regards the global South 1976 G-7 is formed by the as culturally inferior. world’s seven wealthiest and most influential nation-states Global equality can only be achieved when cultures to discuss global affairs. enter into a dialogue based on mutual respect and acknowledgment of different forms of knowledge. 1997 Indian scholar Shiv Visvanathan coins the term There can be no social justice without “cognitive justice,” in his book global cognitive justice. A Carnival for Science: Essays on Science, Technology, T he notion that knowledge ways in which its members and Development. and culture are inseparable accumulate socially specific was proposed by French knowledge about the world. 2001 The World Social Forum sociologist Émile Durkheim. He is founded in Brazil by anti- claimed that the culture of a Portuguese sociologist globalization activists to group—its collectively produced Boaventura de Sousa Santos discuss alternative pathways ideas and ways of thinking about accepts that this link exists to sustainable development situations and events—shapes the and, building upon Immanuel and economic justice. Wallerstein’s concept of the world 2014 British sociologist David Inglis uses de Sousa Santos’s ideas about the plurality of knowledge to critically consider the development of cosmopolitan society.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 151 See also: Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Immanuel Wallerstein 144–45 ■ Boaventura de Roland Robertson 146–47 ■ Arjun Appadurai 166–69 ■ Antonio Gramsci 178–79 Sousa Santos system, he has extended the idea global North, he refers to different Boaventura de Sousa Santos is to what he says is the cultural agendas from the peripheral states a professor at the University of battle created by globalization. He as “epistemologies of the South.” Coimbra, Portugal. He earned claims the world is divided into an his doctorate in the US, at uneven conflict between dominant In his work, de Sousa Santos Yale, and is a visiting professor (“hegemonic”) groups, states, acknowledges that his goal is to at the University of Wisconsin- and ideologies on one side, and end these hierarchies of exclusion, Madison. He is a defender dominated (“counter-hegemonic”) because “there is no social justice of strong social and civic groups, collectives, and ideas on without global cognitive justice.” movements, which he regards the other. The battle takes place He maintains that the cultural as essential for the realization at a number of levels, including the diversity of the world is matched of participative democracy. economy, technology, and politics. by its epistemological diversity; recognition of this has to be at In 2001 de Sousa Santos Culture and power the core of any global effort to founded The World Social De Sousa Santos says that the eradicate current inequalities. Forum as a meeting place cultures of the world—and the The biggest obstacle to this, for organizations opposed to knowledge embedded within argues de Sousa Santos, is that the forms of globalization led by them—are hierarchically arranged scientific knowledge of the global neoliberal economic policy and unevenly accessible, in line North is “hegemonic” within the and transnational corporate with wider capitalist power social hierarchy of knowledge. capitalism. He has published relations. Referring to the widely on globalization, philosophical term “epistemology” Technological dominance sociology of law and the state, (from episteme, “knowledge”), he The capitalist and imperial order democracy, and human rights. argues that the marginalization imposed on the global South by the of some nations by others on the global North has an epistemological Key works world stage is intimately related to foundation. Western powers have epistemological exclusion. Because developed the capacity to dominate 2006 The Rise of the Global the dominant models of social many parts of the world, not least Left: The World Social Forum research are those imposed by the by elevating modern science to and Beyond the status of a form of universal 2007 Cognitive Justice in Indigenous tribes, such as Brazil’s knowledge, superior to all other a Global World: Prudent Kayapó, understand the properties of types of knowledge. Other non- Knowledges for a Decent Life healing plants. Western pharmaceutical scientific forms of knowledge, and 2014 Epistemologies of the companies exploit this knowledge, but the cultural and social practices of South fail to reward the tribes adequately. different social groups informed by these knowledges, are suppressed plurality: an “emancipatory, non- in the name of modern science. relativistic cosmopolitan ecology Modern science has colonized our of knowledges,” which will have thinking to such an extent that at their heart the recognition diverging from it is classified as of difference, and of the right to irrational thought. An example difference and coexistence. of this is the Western media’s Only by these means, says de portrayal of Middle Eastern culture Sousa Santos, can we achieve as irrational and excessively a truly global understanding of emotionally charged, which has how societies work. This vision “destructive consequences.” informs the efforts of groups such as The World Social Forum, Instead, de Sousa Santos is which seeks to bring about social keen to develop a transnational and economic justice using cultural dialogue that will result in alternatives to capitalism. ■

152 IN CONTEXT THE UNLEASHING FOCUS OF PRODUCTIVE Network society CAPACITY BY THE POWER KEY DATES OF THE MIND 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist MANUEL CASTELLS (1942– ) Manifesto forecasts the globalization of capitalism. 1968 Manuel Castells studies under French sociologist Alain Touraine on the subject of social movements and resistance to capitalism. From 1990 The corporate use of Internet-based technology increases, spreading out to the wider public and domestic life. 1992 US sociologist Harrison White writes “Markets, Networks, and Control,” a discussion of network theory. 1999 Dutch sociologist Jan Van Dijk writes The Network Society, focusing on social media such as Facebook. T he last 50 years have seen giant leaps in science and developments in Internet- based and digital technologies. According to Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells (whose work straddles communication and information studies and is strongly influenced by Karl Marx), these advances have been shaped by—and played a key role in contributing to—economic, social, and political developments on the world stage. This has led Castells to focus on globalization and its economic and social effects. For Marx, industrial capitalism was based on the production of consumer goods and commodities.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 153 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Niklas Luhmann 110–11 ■ Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Anthony Giddens 148–49 ■ Ulrich Beck 156–61 ■ Daniel Bell 224–25 ■ Harry Braverman 226–31 The “network society” ...where access to the This means almost is an interconnected network, or the “space of anyone, anywhere, global community can use telecommunications- flows,” is no longer the based technology for any of interests... preserve of a dominant creative purpose. social group. During the 1970s, US sociologist and whole societies is networks. The idea of a fully connected Daniel Bell invoked the term Moreover, the malleable and open- world, wired through the Internet, “post-industrialism” to designate ended nature of these networks conjures up images of people in the shift toward a service-led means that they span the globe. all corners of the planet engaging economy. Castells argues that the productively in different types rise to prominence of Internet- When classical sociologists of relations with one another in based technologies means such as Karl Marx, Émile constantly shifting networks— capitalism now centers on Durkheim, and Max Weber use constrained not by geography or information and knowledge. Human the term “society,” it refers nationality, but only by the capacity societies, he claims, have left primarily to that of a given nation- of human imagination. It is now behind the Industrial Age and state. So, for example, it is possible possible to access information entered the Information Age, the to talk of US society as something 24 hours a day through search social–structural expression of different from, as well as sharing engines such as Google, and to join which is the “network society.” similarities with, say, British chat rooms with people thousands society. However, in Castells’ work, of miles away and engage in A networked world the nation-state has become the instantaneous communication. The Information Age is defined by globe and everything in it. The the creation and dissemination of world of relatively autonomous Castells elaborates on the various specialist knowledges such nation-states, with their own concept of networks in a variety as fluctuations in world oil prices, internally structured societies, is of ways. Microelectronics-based the financial markets, and so on. no longer—it has been reimagined networks define the network In advanced capitalist societies, as multitudes of overlapping and society and have replaced networks of financial capital and intersecting networks. bureaucracy as the main way of ❯❯ information are now at the heart of productivity and competitiveness. The shift from the production of goods and services to information and knowledge has profoundly altered the nature of society and social relations. Castells claims that the dominant mode of organizing interpersonal relations, institutions, BM&FBOVESPA in São Paulo, Brazil, is the largest stock exchange in Latin America. The exclusively electronic trading environment exemplifies the global economy in the Information Age.

154 MANUEL CASTELLS The network society is a Financial Chat this elite’s preferred spatiality result of affordable, globally data rooms is the global city—from here it is unifying telecommunications able to reproduce its cosmopolitan technology that has changed practices and interests. how we live, think, and do things. People who may never Meanwhile, in contrast, the meet one another can now lives of the masses tend to be local communicate instantly to rather than global—organized trade goods or to exchange around and clustered in places information and ideas. where people live in close physical proximity and social relations are Entertainment Online characterized by shared ways of services shopping life. Therefore, said Castells, most people build meaningful identities organizing social relations, because a social order organized into and and lives in actual geographically they are far better at managing around networks can lay claim to specific locales, the “space of complexity. As well as the being highly dynamic, innovative, places,” rather than in the ethereal economic networks of financial and geared to ongoing, fast-moving and placeless world of electronic trade and capital investment, social changes. Castells describes networks, the “space of flows.” microelectronic networks include networked social relations as a political and interpersonal “dynamic, self-expanding form With the spread of the Internet networks. The “network state” of human activity” that tends and social media, however, this includes transnational political to transform all spheres of social view of a unified, cosmopolitan, bodies such as the European Union, and economic life. global elite using the space of flows while examples of interpersonal to exert power came to be seen networks are enacted through Social dynamics as overly simplistic. Economically the Internet, email, and social The matter of whether individuals impoverished social groups may networking websites such as and institutions participate in, or find it harder to incorporate into, Facebook and Twitter. are excluded from, certain social and center their lifestyles on, networks provides Castells with Internet-based technologies to the Castells says a network can a window on the power dynamics same degree as socially dominant be defined as follows: it has no at work in the network society. He groups, but this is less and less “center”; it is made up of a series concludes that networked relations the case. Castells now claims that of “nodes” of varying importance have changed the structure of “people of all kinds, wishing to do but nevertheless all are necessary society over time. all kinds of things, can occupy this in order for the network to operate; space of flows and use it for their the degree of social power peculiar Castells’ initial argument was own purposes.” to a network is relative depending that individuals working within on how much information it is able large multinational finance houses Networks have become the to process; a network only deals and institutions, and whose predominant organizational with a certain type of information— professional work is structured namely, the type of information within and through networks of form of every domain of relevant to it; and a network is an global financial flows, comprised human activity. open structure, able to expand and the dominant social group—what compress without limits. he calls the “technocratic-financial- Manuel Castells managerial elite.” Occupying the Castells emphasizes the high key posts of command and control levels of adaptability characteristic within the worldwide system, of network society. Key here is that

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 155 Anti-capitalist organizations, such today. Others deny that the present Manuel Castells as the Anticapitalist Initiative social and economic order is (which expressly refers to itself historically unprecedented; British Manuel Castells Oliván was as a network on its website), have sociologist Nicholas Garnham born in 1942 in Spain. After made use of the Internet in creative argues that the network society is being active in the student ways to connect people through a more accurately a development of anti-Franco movement, he burgeoning network that occupies industrialism than a novel stage in left Spain for France to study the space of flows. Castells uses human society. British sociologist for a PhD in sociology at the the example of the Zapatistas in Frank Webster charges Castells University of Paris during the Mexico to acknowledge that social with technological determinism— politically turbulent late 1960s. power can be accrued through the the view that social relations are space of flows by marginalized intimately shaped by technological In the 1980s Castells groups in order to challenge the developments but are not moved to California—the state and elite institutions. The determined by them; rather, home of Silicon Valley. A Zapatistas have been successful the two influence one another. decade or so later he wrote an in attracting media attention in influential three-volume study cyberspace and have used the Whether or not the network about the network society Internet to perform virtual sit-ins, society is novel or beneficial, entitled The Information Age: with software clogging government there is no doubt that the world is Economy, Society, and Culture. servers and websites, as well as to increasingly interconnected and plan and coordinate offline events. reliant on digital technologies, Castells is an influential which are reshaping social social scientific thinker. He is Dystopia or utopia? relations. For Castells, the rise of a sociologist at the University Castells’ twin concepts of a global society bound by myriad of Southern California (USC), Information Age and network networks is, ultimately, a positive Los Angeles, contributed to society provide a powerful set thing. Enabling people from far- the establishment of the USC of analytical tools for understanding flung places to interact offers the Center on Public Diplomacy, the transformative effects that potential for humanity to draw and is also a member of information technology and upon its collective productive the Annenberg Research globalization are having on human resources to create a new and Network on International life and social relations. enlightened world order. He argues Communication (ARNIC). that if we “are informed, active, Marx’s concept of alienation and communicate throughout the Key works resonates throughout Castells’ world” then we “can depart for work, which represents an attempt exploration of the inner self, having 1996 The Information Age: to make sense of the furiously made peace among ourselves.” ■ Volume I: The Rise of the paced changes and processes Network Society unfolding in the world around us While organizations are 1997 The Information Age: with a view to reclaiming control located in places... the Volume II: The Power of over them. However, the idea that Identity humans have created a global organizational logic 1998 The Information Age: society they have lost control of and is placeless. Volume III: End of Millennium are alienated by is in part indebted to other theorists of globalization Manuel Castells such as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck, and Zygmunt Bauman. Castells’ work has many critics. Sociologists such as Bauman say it is utopian considering the “reality” of the social, economic, political, and environmental problems confronting humanity

WE ARE LIVING IN A WORLD THAT IS BEYOND CONTROLLABILITY ULRICH BECK (1944–2015)



158 ULRICH BECK We are entering a new period of “reflexive” modernity, which is characterized IN CONTEXT by uncertainty and insecurity. FOCUS The scientific and technological revolution that delivered Risk society progress is now viewed as having introduced problems of development and global risks. KEY DATES 1968 The Club of Rome think Nothing appears fixed anymore and contradictions tank is founded and in 1972 emerge between scientists and policymakers about publishes a report “The Limits to Growth,” which identifies the appropriate risk response. the risk posed by excessive population growth. Loss of respect for institutions and experts creates uncertainty and doubt as we begin 1984 US sociologist Charles Perrow publishes Normal to fear we are living in a world that is Accidents: Living with High- beyond controllability. Risk Technologies. 1999 US sociologist Barry Glassner draws on Ulrich Beck’s concept of risk in The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. 2001 The 9/11 attacks on the US lead to worldwide changes in the perception of the risks posed by international terrorist organizations. H uman societies have institutions had changed profoundly means that individuals, groups, always faced dangers, and over the past decades, and that this governments, and corporations historically these have required a new way of thinking are increasingly concerned about usually been “natural” in origin. In about risk. Beck argues that social the production, dissemination, recent years, science, technology, life is progressing from a first stage of and experience of risk. We now and industry have created modernity to an emergent second, or have to confront problems that prosperity, but have also brought “reflexive,” stage. This is shaped by previous generations could not about new dangers (for example, an awareness that control of—and imagine, and this requires new those posed by the production of mastery over—nature and society societal responses. nuclear power), which have focused may be impossible. This awareness the thoughts of individuals and may itself lead to disenchantment In his earlier work, Beck points societies on a quest for safety and with existing social structures as in particular to the risks posed the idea of calculable risk. In the providers of safety and reassurance. by nuclear energy, the chemical mid-1980s the German sociologist industry, and biotechnology. He Ulrich Beck claimed that our A key characteristic of this new says that the application of science relationship to society and its stage is the emergence of a global and technology to meet human “risk society,” by which Beck needs has reached a critical

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 159 See also: August Comte 22–25 ■ Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Max Weber 38–45 ■ Anthony Giddens 148–49 threshold; that our advances century, such as health pandemics, Neither science, nor the have opened up the possibility nuclear meltdowns, or genetically politics in power... are in of disasters on an unprecedented modified foodstuffs. As a result, scale. Should such a catastrophe how do scientists, corporations, a position to define or occur, it would be so grave that and governments try to manage control risks rationally. it would be almost impossible such potentially catastrophic risks? to contain its impact or to return Ulrich Beck to the way things were before. Real and virtual risk Beck identifies a strange ambiguity means that scientists often cannot Qualities of risk in how society understands risks. agree on questions of likelihood, Beck identifies three significant On the one hand, they are real— possible severity, or how to set up qualities of risk. First, global, they exist as objective, latent proper safety procedures. In fact in irreparable damage: accidents threats at the heart of scientific and the public mind, it is these same cannot be compensated for, technological progress. They cannot experts—in their manipulation of so insurance no longer works. be ignored, even if authorities try genes or splitting of atomic nuclei— Second, exclusion of precautionary to pretend they do not exist. At who may have created the risks. aftercare: we cannot return the same time, however, risks are conditions to the way they were also virtual; that is, they represent However, while there is public before the accident. Third, no limit current anxieties about events skepticism about scientists, Beck on space and time: accidents are that have yet to—or may never— notes that they are nevertheless unpredictable, can be felt across happen. Nonetheless, it is the essential in the risk society. national borders, and impose their apparent threat posed by these Precisely because we cannot feel, effects over long periods of time. risks, the anticipation of disaster, hear, smell, or see the risks that ❯❯ that ushers in new challenges In terms of dealing with the to the power of scientists, possibility or likelihood of such corporations, and governments. calamities happening in the future, traditional methods of risk Beck observes that no one is calculation have become obsolete an expert on questions of risk, not in relation to many of the new kinds even the experts themselves. The of risks that concern us in the 21st intrinsic complexity of many risks Ulrich Beck Ulrich Beck was born in 1944 was also Visiting Professor at in the town of Stolp, Germany, the London School of Economics. which is now part of Poland. Beck was one of Europe’s most From 1966 onward he studied high-profile sociologists; in sociology, philosophy, psychology, addition to his academic writing and political science at Munich and research he commented on University. In 1972 he received contemporary issues in the his doctorate at Munich University media and played an active and in 1979 he became a full role in German and European university lecturer. He was political affairs. He died in 2015. subsequently appointed professor at the universities of Münster Key works and Bamberg. 1986 Risk Society From 1992 Beck was professor 1997 What is Globalization? of sociology and director of the 1999 World Risk Society Institute for Sociology at Munich’s 2004 The Cosmopolitan Vision Ludwig Maximilian University; he

160 ULRICH BECK we face, we need these experts to themselves from risks, perhaps help measure, calculate, and make by paying more to live in a safer sense of them for us. community or by having private insurance to provide better medical Making risks meaningful Reduced to a formula, care. However, people can no longer Beck notes the important role wealth is hierarchic, buy their way out of many modern- played by so-called “new social smog is democratic. day risks. Up to a point, someone movements” in raising public could spend their way out of one awareness of risk. For instance, Ulrich Beck risk by eating more expensive Greenpeace, an independent organic food to avoid the perceived organization committed to a powerful symbolic form. For hazards of industrial pesticides. environmental protection, runs example, the consequences of Similarly, wealthier nations might many high-profile publicity rising global temperatures over avoid the polluting effects of heavy campaigns to draw attention many decades into the future can industry by outsourcing production to the environmental risks both feel slightly unreal and abstract. to rapidly developing nations such caused and downplayed by However, “then-and-now” imagery as China. Sooner or later, however, corporations and governments. of retreating glaciers, or footage these risks “boomerang” back. of polar bears perched perilously Here, Beck emphasizes the third The media feeds on public on top of dissolving chunks of quality of risk—that it does not anxieties about risk, claims Beck. ice, delivers a powerful message respect boundaries of space and To increase sales, news providers about the immediacy of the risks time. Wealth itself provides no latch on to stories of corporate or the world faces. certain way to avoid risk—the institutional failures to adequately affluent West cannot ultimately manage risk, or sensationalize Among the wider social escape the consequences of global stories of the hidden threats posed consequences of living in a warming that will be exacerbated by technological developments. risk society is a change in the by China’s industrialization. nature of inequality. In the past, While ultimately self-serving, wealthier individuals could protect Globalized fears and hopes Beck sees this as a positive thing In his more recent work on the because it helps develop public concepts of “world risk society” and consciousness about risks and “cosmopolitanism,” Beck argues promote open debate. The media that the process of globalization— makes risks visible and meaningful for people by giving abstract risks Today’s technological societies create risks that may be unknown or almost impossible to quantify. According to Beck, when faced with such unknowable risks, we have three main responses—denial, apathy, or transformation. Denial Apathy Transformation Behaving as if Acknowledging Taking collective, the risks do not the risks may exist, global action to exist or are small. but doing nothing This is a common live positively reaction of many in response. under the shadow corporations and of risk—the idea of governments. cosmopolitanism.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 161 Surveillance, of both public spaces as a whole and must be responded environmental issues and and private communications, has to collectively, beyond the confines accidents, such as the 1984 Bhopal grown in the Western world in of national borders. Second, the disaster in India—where a gas leak response to the real and perceived level of media attention devoted from a chemical plant caused dangers posed by terrorist violence. to risks and catastrophes has the widespread poisoning—and the effect of giving more attention to 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant the growth of interdependency that how disasters impact most heavily explosion in Ukraine. More recently, undermines the influence and upon the poor; the media coverage Beck’s analysis has been applied to power of nation-states—produces of Hurricane Katrina in the US in issues of global terrorism and the its own negative consequences. 2005, for example, demonstrated near-collapse of the financial to a global audience how poverty system in 2008; it has been taken These include financial risks worsens the experience of on board by others as a way of and terrorism risks. With the global catastrophe. Third, public making sense of a diverse array growth of hedge funds, futures experience and awareness of risk of issues, including international markets, derivatives trading, debt today draws groups into dialogue relations, crime control, human securitization, and credit default with one another; for example, Beck health, food safety, social policy, swaps, no country can hide behind notes how environmental groups and social work. its borders from the consequences and businesses have joined forces of something going wrong. Acts to protest at the US government’s Ultimately, a positive strain runs of terrorist violence, planned and lack of responsiveness to the through Beck’s work. He argues carried out by ideological groups, problem of climate change. that the experience of responding permeate the boundaries between to global risk can lead to innovative states by striking at the heart of Risk and reward solutions and constructive global cities such as New York Beck’s work has been read widely social changes. It is only in new and London. Interestingly, Beck beyond the world of sociology, encounters with the possibility of observes that global terrorism because it deals in an all- catastrophe that collective welfare is one of the few risks that encompassing way with many of and common interests can prevail governments are happy to draw the key changes and concerns of over narrow, selfish concerns and attention to for political purposes. recent decades. First published in our modern institutions can be German in 1986, at a time of new reconfigured accordingly. ■ While Beck’s overriding focus environmental concerns about on risk seems bleak, he also acid rain and ozone layer depletion, Fears about acid rain and global highlights what he sees as the his original concept of the warming led to the Intergovernmental positive possibilities inherent in risk society encapsulated and Panel on Climate Change. Formed in the growth of risk. He points to anticipated a number of high-profile 1988, it reviewed the state of knowledge the development of what he terms of the science of climate change. “cosmopolitanism,” a concept comprising several components. First, the existence of global risks calls for a global response: catastrophic risks affect humanity

162 IT SOMETIMES SEEMS AS IF THE WHOLE WORLD IS ON THE MOVE JOHN URRY (1946– ) IN CONTEXT S ince the 17th century, new Being physically mobile technologies have been has become… a ‘way FOCUS emerging that have enabled of life’ across the globe. Mobilities people, objects, and ideas to move around the world more easily than John Urry KEY DATES before. British sociologist John Urry 1830 The world’s first advises that the consequences of He argues that the study of inter-city railway opens in this increase in global mobility “mobilities” makes apparent the England between Liverpool demand that the social sciences impacts and consequences of and Manchester. develop a “new paradigm” for the globalization. Likewise, the study study of how goods, people, and of the forces preventing mobility— 1840 In Britain the first ideas circulate. For Urry this “immobilities”—is essential for prepaid adhesive postage movement creates new identities, comprehending contemporary stamp, the “Penny Black,” cultures, and networks, giving rise social exclusion and inequality. revolutionizes the circulation to cultural diversity, economic of information and goods. opportunities and, at times, new By understanding this global forms of social inequality. flow, sociology can better explore 1903 US brothers Wilbur globalization’s social and and Orville Wright make Systems and mobilities environmental advantages and the first powered flight in Urry’s primary contribution to the costs (such as economic growth North Carolina. study of globalization is his focus or industrial pollutants), as well as on the social systems that facilitate the forces driving social change. ■ From the 1960s movement. The 20th century, in Telecommunications satellites particular, saw the emergence of go into orbit, heralding the cars, telephones, air power, high- instantaneous global speed trains, communications transmission of information. satellites, networked computers, and so on. These interconnecting 1989–91 British scientist Tim “mobility systems” are the dynamic Berners-Lee develops the heart of globalization, says Urry. World Wide Web. See also: Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Manuel Castells 152–55 ■ 2007 British sociologist John Saskia Sassen 164–65 ■ David Held 170–71 Urry publishes Mobilities.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 163 NATIONS CAN BE IMAGINED AND CONSTRUCTED WITH RELATIVELY LITTLE HISTORICAL STRAW DAVID MCCRONE IN CONTEXT T he economic, political, a few symbols are needed to evoke and cultural forces that strong feelings in people, such FOCUS globalization brings to as the Senyara flag of Catalonia, Neo-nationalism bear have, according to British or the fleur-de-lis symbol in sociologist David McCrone, Quebec. Although a sense of KEY DATES coincided with a rise in neo- being distinctively different from 1707 The Act of Union is nationalism, which occurs when a the larger state may be the main ratified and the United social group within a nation tries to factor that prompts calls for more Kingdom is officially formed. redefine its identity. He argues that autonomy or outright independence, all neo-national identities concern the motivations for neo-nationalist 1971 British ethnographer smaller entities within larger identities or separatism can differ Anthony D. Smith publishes nation-states: for example, Scotland widely. They may, for example, be his highly influential study, in the United Kingdom, Catalonia motivated by perceived unfairness Theories of Nationalism. in Spain, the Basque Country that in taxation or resource allocation. ■ straddles southwestern France 1983 British sociologist and northern Spain, and French- The Basque separatist organization Benedict Anderson publishes speaking Quebec in Canada. ETA engaged in political and armed Imagined Communities, which conflict with the Spanish and French examines the formation of Both national and neo-national states from 1959 to 2011, in a quest nationhood. identities are forged from the “raw for political independence. historical materials” of a common 1998 British sociologist David language, cultural myths and McCrone argues in The narratives, and social ideals. Sociology of Nationalism that McCrone says that solidarity nationalism operates as a comes into being whenever enough vehicle for a variety of social people invoke these raw materials, and economic interests. or “historical straw,” in pursuit of a common cause. Moreover, 2004 Japanese sociologist relatively little historical straw Atsuko Ichijo explores the is required to galvanize neo- apparent contradiction of an nationalist sentiment; often only “independence in Europe” policy in Scottish Nationalism See also: Émile Durkheim 34–37 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ John Urry 162 ■ and the Idea of Europe. David Held 170–71 ■ Benedict Anderson 202–03 ■ Michel Maffesoli 291

164 GLOBAL CITIES ARE STRATEGIC SITES FOR NEW TYPES OF OPERATIONS SASKIA SASSEN (1949– ) IN CONTEXT G lobalization does not take new connections and becoming place by itself. According economically interdependent. FOCUS to Saskia Sassen, professor These changes were resulting, in Global cities of sociology at Columbia University, part, from trade liberalization and New York, certain cities play a key the global expansion of industrial KEY DATES role in generating the economic and capitalism. Within this new “global 1887 Ferdinand Tönnies says cultural flows that connect the economy,” central clusters of urbanization affects social world together. These “global economic and cultural activity, solidarity by giving rise to a cities” exert power and influence or “global cities,” were forming. more individualistic society. well beyond the territory in which they are located. The modern metropolis 1903 Georg Simmel suggests Global cities, Sassen advises, that cities can cause people to Sociologists study cities produce goods in the form of adopt an “urban reserve” and to understand what impact they technological innovations, financial blasé attitude. have on the behavior, values, products, and consulting services and opportunities of occupants. In (legal, accounting, advertising, 1920s–40s “Chicago School” the 20th century, they noted that and so on). These service sociologists claim that cities the large industrial cities of the industries are highly intensive have an “urban ecology,” in developed world were forming users of telecommunications which people compete for technologies and are therefore employment and services. Wall Street is the economic engine of integrated into business networks the global city of New York. Such cities, that stretch across national borders. From the 1980s British Sassen says, are the “terrain where a They are also part of the post- sociologist David Harvey and multiplicity of globalization processes industrial or “service” economies Spanish sociologist Manuel assume concrete, localized forms.” of the developed world, in that Castells separately argue their main products are knowledge, that cities are shaped by innovation, technical expertise, capitalism, which influences and cultural goods. not only their character but also the various interactions Sassen argues in The Global of their inhabitants. City (1991, revised 2001) that the emergence of a global market for financial and specialized services gives global cities a “command and control function” over economic

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 165 See also: Ferdinand Tönnies 32–33 ■ Georg Simmel 104–05 ■ Henri Lefebvre 106–07 ■ Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Immanuel Wallerstein 144–45 ■ David Held 170–71 Globalization is transforming industrial cities and giving rise to “global cities,” which are... ...command posts ...key locations for ...sites of ...markets in which for the direction and service industries, knowledge the products of new policies driving the production and including financial innovation for new industries and global economy. and legal firms. industries and services are sectors. bought and sold. Global cities are strategic sites for new types of operations. globalization. This is because employees of local, national, processes of globalization are the headquarters of many major and multinational firms interact. performed and their consequences transnational companies are Influential universities and research dispersed through the socio- located in global cities. Consultant facilities also contribute to the economic networks of the global firms are also “over-represented” production of knowledge and economy. While global cities are in these urban hubs. These innovation, which are central to not free from poverty and other companies make the decisions that information-based economies. forms of social inequality, they direct global flows of money and are nevertheless cosmopolitan knowledge, and that can cause Sassen’s research shows that sites of diverse economic and economic activity to expand or global cities are sites where the social opportunities. ■ contract in other regions. human activities behind the The global marketplace Multinational urban culture Global cities are also marketplaces where financial goods are bought Sassen’s work highlights that national culture also increases and sold. New York, London, Tokyo, global cities are increasingly economic activity. This is Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Shanghai, cosmopolitan. As migrants add because global cities are more Frankfurt, and Sydney (among new foods, cultural expressions, appealing for transitory visitors others) are major financial centers, fashions, and entertainments and migrants, who can maintain home to large banks, businesses, to the host national culture, aspects of their ethnic and and stock exchanges. In the global this diversity enriches a city. national identities, while city, national and global markets embracing the new experiences interconnect, which leads to a In a nation-state that and values of a cosmopolitan concentration of financial activity. encourages multiculturalism city. The cultural diversity of and social inclusion, global cities global cities also means that Global cities are supported by can become even more vibrant they are orientated toward multifunctional infrastructure. sites of cultural innovation as supporting the activities Central business districts provide ideas and values are freely of a global economy and a employment clusters where the shared. This multicultural cosmopolitan global culture. texturing of a pre-existing

166 IN CONTEXT DIFFERENT SOCIETIES FOCUS APPROPRIATE THE Globalization and MATERIALS OF modernity MODERNITY DIFFERENTLY KEY DATES 1963 Jacques Derrida ARJUN APPADURAI (1949– ) introduces the concept of “différance” (difference), which later informs ideas about cultural heterogeneity. 1983 British social thinker Benedict Anderson says that groupings based on the perceptions of their members rather than direct interaction are “imagined communities.” 1991 Economic liberalization opens India to globalizing forces as the country tries to integrate into the global order. 2008 Postcolonial studies thinker Richard Brock applies Appadurai’s notion of “scapes” to critically consider the cultural construction of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. T he term “globalization” has become associated with the spread of free-market capitalism and the development of borderless economies—the idea of a global trading village. In a sociological context, however, globalization is not just an economic, but a cultural, social, and ideological phenomenon. Much debate among cultural theorists has addressed the issue of whether globalization necessarily means that the world will become more homogenous—moving toward a “one-world” culture—or whether reactions to the forces of globalization will reinforce diversity in language, culture, and ethnicity.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 167 See also: Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Immanuel Wallerstein 144–45 ■ Roland Robertson 146–47 ■ Manuel Castells 152–55 ■ Jeffrey Alexander 204–09 The human imagination Individuals is key to understanding conceptualize globalization. globalization through five fluid dimensions. How these dimensions These dimensions Arjun Appadurai are experienced encompass finance, technology, ideas, media, Born in Mumbai, India, Arjun by individuals, groups, Appadurai went to the US to or states is a matter and the mobility study at Brandeis University, of people. near Boston. He attained of perspective. his master’s degree in 1973 and his doctorate from the Different societies—and the diasporas University of Chicago in 1976. comprising them—appropriate the materials of modernity differently. Appadurai is currently the Goddard Professor in Media, Indian social anthropologist and different altogether. The result Culture, and Communication sociologist Arjun Appadurai has is that globalization does not at New York University, where taken this debate in a different necessarily denote a uniform he is also Senior Fellow at the direction. He argues that the and all-encompassing process; Institute for Public Knowledge. conventional view of globalization rather, nations are more positively He has served as an advisor as a form of cultural imperialism disposed toward certain facets to the Smithsonian Institution, fails to reflect the reality of the of globalization than others, the National Endowment for changes globalization has set depending on a range of factors, the Humanities, the National in motion. Instead, Appadurai such as the state of the economy, Science Foundation, the suggests that different societies political stability, and strength United Nations, and the World appropriate the materials of of cultural identity. For example, Bank. Appadurai founded and modernity differently. China has embraced industrial is president of the nonprofit and information technologies group Partners for Urban What this means is that one and global economic expansion, Knowledge Action and society, such as China, may take while retaining a strong sense Research, based in Mumbai, up one aspect of global change of political autonomy. and he is one of the founders (such as economic change) very of Public Culture, an rapidly, and another aspect (such For Appadurai, the process of interdisciplinary journal as ideological change) very slowly, globalization is one that leads to focused on transnationalism. while another society will be “disjunctures” where areas such ❯❯ Key works 1990 “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” 1996 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization 2001 Globalization

168 ARJUN APPADURAI One man’s imagined calls these dimensions “scapes”— provide large and complex community is another ethnoscapes, mediascapes, repertoires of images and narratives man’s political prison. technoscapes, finanscapes, and to viewers, and these shape how Arjun Appadurai ideoscapes. Unlike landscapes, people make sense of events taking which are characteristically place across the world. as the economy, culture, and fixed, Appadurai’s “scapes” politics do not move in the same are constantly changing, and Technoscapes represent the direction, thereby causing tensions the manner in which they are rapid dissemination of technology in society. An example of this is experienced depends largely and knowledge about it—either the distance between a promise on the perspective of the social mechanical or informational— of consumer goods made by global actors involved. across borders. For example, many companies and the ability of local service industries in Western people to afford them. In this context, social actors Europe base their customer-care may be any one of a number of call centers in India, and Indian Appadurai’s work addresses groupings, such as nation-states, software engineers are often how globalization diminishes the multinational corporations, recruited by US companies. role of the nation-state in shaping diasporic communities, families, cultural identity and argues or individuals. The different ways Finanscapes reflect the almost that identity is increasingly in which these five scapes can instantaneous transfer of financial becoming deterritorialized by combine means that the imagined and investment capital around the mobility, migration, and rapid world that one person or grouping globe in the fast-moving world of communications. People no longer perceives can be radically different, currency markets, stock exchanges, hold coherent sets of ideas, views, and no more real, than that seen by and commodity speculations. beliefs, and practices based on another observer. their nationality or membership Ideoscapes are made up of of a state; instead, new cultural Shifting scapes images that are “often directly identities are emerging in the Appadurai first used the term political,” either state-produced and interstices between different states “ethnoscape” in a 1990 essay, intended to bolster the dominant and localities—what Appadurai “Disjuncture and Difference in ideology, or created by counter- calls translocalities. the Global Cultural Economy,” ideological movements “oriented to to describe the flow of people— Globally imagined worlds immigrant communities, political France has embraced many economic The key to understanding exiles, tourists, guest workers, dimensions of globalization yet seeks globalization, says Appadurai, economic migrants, and other to limit the influence of foreign cultures is the human imagination. He groups—around the globe, as by, for example, charging a ticket levy argues that rather than living in well as the “fantasies of wanting to help fund the French film industry. face-to-face communities, we live to move” in pursuit of a better life. within imagined ones that are The increasing mobility of people global in extent. The building between nations constitutes an blocks are five interrelated essential feature of the global dimensions that shape the global world, in particular by affecting flow of ideas and information. He the politics of nation-states. Mediascapes refer to the production and distribution of information and images through newspapers, magazines, TV, and film, as well as digital technologies. The multiplying ways in which information is made accessible to private and public interests throughout the world is a major driver of globalization. Mediascapes

The perspective of Ethnoscapes Ideoscapes LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 169 social actors—who may be individuals or Mediascapes Technoscapes Finanscapes groups—is shaped by the position they occupy in relation to the wider culture, society and particular moment in historical time. From within this milieu, they construct a world view. It’s great to be based Positive ethnoscape It’s great that the Positive finanscapes in a vibrant, multicultural world view strong world economy world view city, but the effect of the is bolstering our nation, global economy on house but levels of immigration prices is a concern. are a concern. capturing state power or a piece of The different scapes are capable intention to critically deconstruct it.” Examples include ideas about of moving together or of following what he considers the naive a state built through concepts such different trajectories, in turn view that something as complex as “national heritage,” countered serving either to reinforce or and multifaceted as globalization by social and political movements destabilize one another. can be explained through one that promote the rights of minority master theory. That said, groups and freedom of speech. Appadurai states that Appadurai’s work has been the scapes are constructs of criticized by the likes of Dutch Sameness and difference perspective because they are social thinker Gijsbert Oonk, The different “scapes” identified determined by the relation of the who questions whether or not his by Appadurai may be, and often viewer to the viewed. If this relation concept of global landscapes can are, incongruous and disjointed. changes, so in turn does the view. be meaningfully applied when For example, social actors in one In sum, the world view constructed conducting empirical research. ■ place may be positively disposed by any social actor is exactly that: it toward economic developments is a view dependent upon the social, The new global order brought about by globalization cultural, and historical positioning cultural economy has (that is, they see a positive of the actor; and for this reason, to be understood as a finanscape), while simultaneously who and where we are determines complex, overlapping, regarding immigration as a threat what scapes we see and how we to national identity and culture interpret them. There are multiple disjunctive order. (a negative ethnoscape). ways of imagining the world. Arjun Appadurai By conceptualizing globalization The impact of Appadurai’s in terms of the five scapes, contribution to globalization Appadurai is able to undermine the theory is a significant one, view of globalization as a uniform primarily because it does not try and internally coherent process; to provide an integrated theory instead, globalization is understood of globalization in the orthodox as a multilayered, fluid, and manner of social thinkers such as irregular process—and one that is Immanuel Wallerstein from the US characterized by ongoing change. and Spain’s Manuel Castells. Quite the opposite; it is Appadurai’s

170 PROCESSES OF CHANGE HAVE ALTERED THE RELATIONS BETWEEN PEOPLES AND COMMUNITIES DAVID HELD (1951– ) IN CONTEXT Global movements of products, ideas, and people affect... FOCUS ...cultures: ...politics: ...economics: Globalization values, identities, international capitalism, and cultural forms organizations and KEY DATES institutions financial markets, 1960s Canadian media intermix and multinational theorist Marshall McLuhan and evolve. influence claims that the world is national states. businesses contracting into a “global expand. village” through technology. The world is increasingly interconnected. 1974 US sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein publishes The Processes of change have altered the relations Modern World-System, between peoples and communities. highlighting the social effects of a global economy. T he world is becoming the way communities and smaller due to the mass individuals are interacting and 1993 US sociologist George movement of people and communicating with one another. Ritzer claims that systematic the exchange and flow of products, methods of production are ideas, and cultural artifacts. Migration, for example, creates influencing the operations of These changes, suggests British an intermixing of cultures and institutions and corporations sociologist David Held, are altering the development of multicultural around the world. societies. People also connect 2006 German sociologist Ulrich Beck argues that states must embrace multilateral cooperation, transnational institutions, and cosmopolitan identities if they are to prosper in the global age.

LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD 171 See also: George Ritzer 120–23 ■ Immanuel Wallerstein 144–45 ■ David Held Roland Robertson 146–47 ■ Ulrich Beck 156–61 ■ Arjun Appadurai 166–69 Bollywood films in India represent the development of a global David Held was born in the assymetrical flow of culture around civilization. Some hyper-globalists Britain in 1951 and was the world. Despite selling more tickets praise globalization for driving educated in Britain, France, than Hollywood, they make far less economic development and Germany, and the US. He revenue from international distribution. spreading democracy; others are holds an MSc and a PhD critical of the spread of capitalism in political science from with global cultures, such as music and its social consequences. Massachusetts Institute genres or cuisines, blending the of Technology (MIT). global with the local to produce The skeptics, by contrast, new cultural products. downplay the extent to which In 1984, Held cofounded globalization is a new phenomenon Polity Press, the highly Held suggests globalization and reject the idea that global influential international is best understood as a set of integration and institutions are publisher of social-science processes and changes. Cultural undermining the power of the and humanities books, dimensions include the distribution nation-state. They see globalization where he continues as of media products and movement of as marginalizing the developing Director. He has written and ideas and people across societies. world, while at the same time edited more than 60 books Political dimensions include the benefiting corporations based on democracy, globalization, rise of international organizations, in developed nations. global governance, and public institutions, and multinational policy. In 2011 Held resigned companies. The economic The transformationalists, his professorial position dimensions include the expansion according to Held, best explain in political science at the of capitalism and consumerism. the contradictory processes of London School of Economics globalization. They argue that to become Director of the Change for better or worse? boundaries between the global and Institute of Global Policy at In Globalization/Anti-Globalization, local are breaking down, and that Durham University in the UK. Held examines the views of the human world is becoming different sociologists on interconnected. They also argue Key works globalization, organizing them that there is no single cause into “hyper-globalists,” “skeptics,” of globalization, and that the 1995 Democracy and the and “transformationalists.” outcomes of these processes Global Order are not determined. 2002 Globalization/Anti- The hyper-globalists see the Globalization (coauthor) forces of globalization as powerful, Globalization, Held suggests, 2004 Global Covenant unprecedented, and as facilitating is giving rise to a new global “architecture” comprised of multinational companies and institutions, and characterized by asymmetrical cultural and economic flows. The precise nature of the emerging patterns of inequality and prosperity brought by globalization is not yet clear. Importantly, however, Held sees globalization as a dynamic process that can be influenced: nation- states can embrace policies and relationships that address global problems or risks, be they poverty, pandemics, or environmental damage and change. ■

CULTURE IDENTITY

AND

174 INTRODUCTION Norbert Elias’s In Culture and Society and three-volume The the essay “Culture is In The Social Self, Civilizing Process social psychologist Ordinary,” published in the G.H. Mead explains examines the same year, Raymond connection between Williams places the that a sense of concept of culture identity is only social order and center stage. individual behavior. possible in a social context. 1913 1939 1958 1930S 1955 1963 Antonio Gramsci argues In The Sane Society, In Stigma, Erving Goffman that dominant social sociologist and examines how individuals groups impose their values become marginalized in and beliefs on others psychologist Erich society and come to assume Fromm criticizes the in the process of conformity imposed stigmatized identities. “cultural hegemony.” by modern society. F rom its beginnings in The emergence of sociology—the work of Erich Fromm in the the early 19th century, systematic study of how society 1950s, who argued that many sociology sought to shapes human interaction and psychological problems have examine not only the institutions identity—had coincided with the social origins. In the process of and systems that created social establishment of anthropology connecting with wider society order, but also the factors that and psychology, and there was a and identifying with a particular maintained social cohesion. degree of overlap between the three culture, individuals are expected disciplines. It is unsurprising, to conform with society, and this Traditionally, this had come then, that one of the first cultural stifles our individualism so that from the shared values, beliefs, and sociologists was also a pioneering we lose a true sense of self. Around experiences of communities, but social psychologist, G.H. Mead. the same time, Erving Goffman with the advent of “modernity” in He set the scene for a sociological began discussing the problems the form of industrialization and study of culture by highlighting the of establishing a sense of identity, secularization, the structure of connection between the individual and in the 1960s, he focused on society was radically transformed. and society, and especially the the stigma attached to those who Although it was recognized that notion of a social identity. An do not conform or are “different.” modernity had changed the way individual, he argued, can only people associated with one another, develop a true sense of identity Culture and social order it was not until the 20th century in the context of a social group, Norbert Elias, in the 1930s, had that culture—the ways that people through interaction with others. described the imposition of social think and behave as a group, and norms and conventions as a how they identify themselves as The connections with social “civilizing process,” directly members of a society—became psychology continued throughout regulating individual behavior. an object of study in its own right. the 20th century, notably in the

In One-Dimensional Benedict Anderson’s CULTURE AND IDENTITY 175 Man, Herbert Marcuse Imagined Communities argues that pluralistic explains that national Jeffrey Alexander argues in The Meanings of Social Life: society has identity is an homogenized illusory concept. A Cultural Sociology that culture and quashed culture is autonomous the spirit of rebellion. from society, but can still act as a force for social change. 1964 1983 2003 1981 1992 Jean Baudrillard’s In his article “The Question of Simulacra and Simulation Cultural Identity,” Stuart Hall suggests that nature describes the “identity and artifice are crisis” brought about by the fragmentation of traditional indistinguishable in the postmodern world. notions of culture. There is clearly a connection information, culture had become and customs, as well as their between the regulating power so far removed from the society in literature, art, and music. of culture and the maintenance which it exists that it bears little Also at the forefront of this British of social order, and some saw it relation to reality. school of cultural studies was as more than merely a process of Stuart Hall, who suggested that socialization. Antonio Gramsci Cultural identity notions of cultural identity are recognized the potential for culture A distinct branch of culturally no longer fixed. With significantly to be used as a means of social oriented sociology emerged in improved communications and control. Through subtle coercion, the UK from the latter part of the increased mobility, traditional a dominant culture imposes a 20th century: cultural studies. national, ethnic, class, and even “cultural hegemony” in which The starting point was Raymond gender identities have all but social norms become so ingrained Williams’ extensive research disappeared—and another British that anything else is unthinkable. into the idea of culture. His work sociologist, Benedict Anderson, transformed the concept, opening goes so far as to suggest that Michel Foucault developed this up entirely new areas of study to the concept of belonging to any idea further in his study of power sociological investigation. community is illusory. relations, and others, including Herbert Marcuse, examined the Williams explained that culture However, the US sociologist ways in which culture could be is expressed by material production Jeffrey Alexander considered used to quell social unrest. Later, and consumption, and by the culture to be an independent another French sociologist, Jean creations and leisure pursuits of variable in the structure of society. Baudrillard, argued that in the social groups of a specific time His cultural sociology examines postmodern world, with its and place—their food, sports, how culture shapes society through explosion of availability of fashion, languages, beliefs, ideas, the creation of shared meaning. ■

176 THE “I” AND THE “ME” G.H. MEAD (1863–1931) IN CONTEXT To have a sense of ourselves, the “I” can reflect on... FOCUS The development of self grandmother mother KEY DATES sibling ...the “me” father 1902 US sociologist Charles that represents Cooley says our views of self the behaviors and reflect the standpoint of attitudes formed significant others in our lives. by interactions 1921 In The Language of with others. Gestures, German philosopher Wilhelm Wundt says that the friend grandfather mind is inherently social. 1975 US anthropologist Clifford Geertz claims the self is a “distinctive whole and set contrastively against other such wholes.” 1980s British-born US social psychologist Hazel Rose Markus suggests we each form a schema based on past social experiences that operates as a self-system. 1999 US psychologist Daniel Siegel suggests that the development of the social self happens in concert with developing brain function.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 177 See also: W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Edward Said 80–81 ■ Norbert Elias 180–81 ■ Erving Goffman 190–95 ■ Stuart Hall 200–01 ■ Benedict Anderson 202–03 ■ Howard S. Becker 280–85 ■ Adrienne Rich 304–09 ■ Jeffrey Weeks 324–25 G eorge Herbert Mead was a is formed within the context of Our view of ourselves, of who we social psychologist and a social relationships, one or more are, is developed from birth through philosopher, and he looked particular languages, and a set of interaction with those closest to us. to both disciplines in trying to work cultural norms. From birth, babies Individual selves are not the products out what exactly we mean when begin to sense communication of biology but rather of this interaction. we talk about the “self.” Traditional through gestures, which function philosophers and sociologists saw as symbols and build “a universe of seeing the bigger picture: the “me” societies as growing from the discourse.” Over time, they learn to acts in habitual ways, while the “I” coming together of individual, mimic and “import” the practices, can reflect on these and make self- autonomous selves, but Mead said gestures, and eventually words of conscious choices. It allows us the opposite was true—selves those around them, so that they to be different, both from other emerge from social interactions; can make their own response and people and our former selves, they are formed within society. receive further gestures and words through reflection on our actions. from others. This concept is prevalent now Mead’s theory of the in psychology and psychotherapy, Who we are development of self was pivotal but when Mead first presented The pattern of attitudes that the in turning psychology and his ideas in 1913 in The Social Self, baby experiences and internalizes sociology away from the idea it was a revolutionary point of view. (learns) creates the sense of “me.” of “self” as being merely internal Mead disagreed with the idea In this way, the “me” represents introspection, and aligning it that individual, experiencing selves the behaviors, expectations, firmly within a societal context. ■ exist in any recognizable way and attitudes learned through before they are part of the social interactions with others. process. The social process of experience or behavior is But Mead says that we also “logically prior to the individuals have another sense of ourselves, and their individual experiencing which he calls the “I.” Both the “I” which are involved in it.” and the “me” are different functions of the self. The “I,” like the “me,” By this, Mead is suggesting that keeps evolving, but its function is an individual’s consciousness, with to reflect on the “me,” while also all its intentions, desires, and so on, Mind can never G.H. Mead seven years later moved to the find expression, and University of Chicago, where he could never have come George Herbert Mead was worked until his death in 1931. into existence at all, born in Massachusetts. His He claimed to have an “activist except in terms of father was a minister in the spirit” and marched in support a social environment. Congregational Church, and of women’s suffrage and other he moved the family to Oberlin, causes. The philosopher John G.H. Mead Ohio, to teach at the seminary Dewey acknowledged Mead as there when Mead was six years having “a seminal mind of the old. After graduating from very first order.” Oberlin College in 1883, Mead worked for a few years as a Key works teacher and then as a railroad surveyor before returning to 1913 The Social Self academia. He began his studies 1932 The Philosophy of the in philosophy and sociology at Present Harvard University in 1887 and 1934 Mind, Self, and Society

178 THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY IS TO LIVE WITHOUT ILLUSIONS AND WITHOUT BECOMING DISILLUSIONED ANTONIO GRAMSCI (1891–1937) IN CONTEXT According to Marx, the ruling class controls the economic base and creates the superstructure of institutions FOCUS Cultural hegemony and social relations that dominate the working class. KEY DATES Gramsci claims class domination also occurs culturally: 1846 Karl Marx and Friedrich the working class are subject to the ideological illusions Engels finish The German Ideology; not published perpetrated by the ruling class. until 1932, it later strongly influences Gramsci’s thinking These illusions must be seen through, about ideology. and resisted at all costs. 1921 The Italian Communist The challenge of modernity is to Party is founded. live without illusions and without 1922 Benito Mussolini becoming disillusioned. becomes dictator of Italy and a leading figure in the T he Marxist view of society intensified into a contest for control development of Fascism. is that life is an ongoing between a minority ruling elite and struggle of competing the majority, made up of workers. 1964 The Centre for groups; these groups are Italian socialist and social thinker Contemporary Cultural Studies determined economically, and Antonio Gramsci tries to explain is established at the University under modernity the struggle has why revolution is not precipitated of Birmingham, England, and draws heavily on Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. 1985 Inspired by Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe develop a post-Marxist manifesto in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 179 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Friedrich Engels 66–67 ■ Pierre Bourdieu 76–79 ■ Zygmunt Bauman 136–43 ■ Herbert Marcuse 182–87 ■ Jean Baudrillard 196–99 in a crisis, as it should be according the consent of the subordinated. The nature and extent of these to classical Marxist theory. He The ruling class’s ideas, which are struggles between competing argues that repression by the ruling the dominant ones permeating the world views is contingent upon class is insufficient to secure a whole of society, are propounded social, political, and economic stable social order; there must also by intellectual groups working circumstances. A series of be ideological subjugation. This in its service (often only partially prolonged economic crises leading happens in a complex process knowingly) such as journalists to high unemployment, for example, whereby the ruling elite propagates who disseminate these ideas to is liable to result in a situation in its views of the world so that they the wider population. Constant which various counter-hegemonic are accepted as common sense and exposure to them means that the forces arise in the form of trade largely beyond contention. Gramsci lower classes experience them as unions or protest movements. calls this “hegemony,” a concealed natural and inevitable, and come Gramsci notes that in most mode of class domination that to believe them. Hegemonic ideas capitalist societies the ruling explains why workers can become shape the thinking of all social classes face constant opposition Fascists rather than revolutionaries. classes. It is for this reason, says and dissent “from below” and have Gramsci, that the challenge to devote a vast amount of time and The hegemonic struggle of modernity is not to become energy to managing this situation, Gramsci claims that hegemony is disillusioned with the ongoing with complete control highly cultural and that it is involved in a struggle but to see through the unlikely, even for short periods. struggle between competing class- “illusions”—the views propounded based world views, by which is by elite groups—and resist them. Gramsci’s ideas emphasize meant sets of values, ideas, beliefs, the role of individuals and and understandings of what human Because individuals have the ideologies in the struggle for social beings are like, what society is, capacity to think critically about change, and thereby challenge and—crucially—what it could be. the view imposed upon them, the economic determinism of which Gramsci calls “counter- traditional Marxism. His concept Hegemony, he says, involves hegemonic” thinking, the ruling of “cultural hegemony,” which an invisible mechanism whereby class’s ideological dominance is recognizes human autonomy positions of influence in society often in the balance. In Western and the importance of culture, are always filled by members of an liberal democracies, the challenge has had a lasting impact on a already ruling class—largely with to hegemony is an everyday reality. number of academic disciplines. ■ Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci was born after World War II, when it in Sardinia, Italy, in 1891. He was published posthumously was a cofounder of the Italian in what are known as the Prison Communist Party. While Notebooks. By the 1950s, his serving as the party’s leader, prison writings had attracted he was sentenced to 20 years interest not only in Western imprisonment in 1928 by Benito Europe, but also in the Soviet Mussolini, Italy’s prime minister bloc. Due to the poor diet, and dictator at the time. illness, and bad health he suffered in prison, Gramsci died Gramsci wrote prolifically of a stroke at the age of only 46. while in prison. Although he had a prodigious memory, without the Key works help of his sister-in-law, Tania, who was a frequent visitor, his 1975 Prison Notebooks ideas would not have come to (three volumes) light. This intellectual work did 1994 Pre-Prison Writings not emerge until several years

180 THE CIVILIZING PROCESS IS CONSTANTLY MOVING “FORWARD” NORBERT ELIAS (1897–1990) IN CONTEXT As nations stabilized in the West after the 1500s, power was centralized and became the preserve of FOCUS The civilizing process a small number of people. KEY DATES These people were no longer revered for their c.1500 Feudalism in Western physical strength, but for their social standing, Europe comes to an end and court society emerges. reflected in their courtly manners. 1690 English philosopher To be identified with People (and nations) John Locke describes “civil power, people are encouraged lacking the right behavior society” as a united body of to display the same “civilized are seen as inferior and need individuals under the power “civilizing” into following of an executive. behavior” as a nation’s the rules of the powerful. governing elite. 1850s Auguste Comte asks how the individual T o shed light on the West’s and the effect they have had on can be both a cause and centralization of national individuals, in his famous book consequence of society. power and increasing The Civilizing Process. global domination over the last 1958 Max Weber says values 500 years, Norbert Elias turned his Elias draws on history, and beliefs can cause dramatic attention to the “psychical process sociology, and psychoanalysis to change in the social structure. of civilization”—the changes in conclude that the way in which behavior, feeling, and intentions of Western society believes itself to 1962 US anthropologist people in the West since the Middle be superior to others is summed Robert Redfield says that Ages. He describes these changes, up by the concept of “civilization.” civilization is a totality of This is both historical and great and little traditions. 1970s Antonio Gramsci says the ruling classes maintain their dominance through the institutions of civil society.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 181 See also: W.E.B. Du Bois 68–73 ■ Paul Gilroy 75 ■ Pierre Bourdieu 76–79 ■ Edward Said 80–81 ■ Elijah Anderson 82–83 ■ Stuart Hall 200–01 “Good” table manners and “correct” etiquette and deportment were, according to Elias, key components of the cultural template in the spread of the European “civilizing” process. contemporary, and can refer to all sorts of facts about nations: from general ones such as lifestyles, values, customs, and religions, to personal ones such as levels of bodily hygiene, ways of preparing food, and so on. In every case, Western society stresses that “its” version is the standard against which all others should be judged. The rise of manners These minor changes resulted in Elias says that the process spread Elias studied etiquette books and the formation of a courtly class, ever more widely from the 1500s found that a transformation in identifiable by its highly codified onward, because “good manners” attitudes toward bodily behaviors manners and disciplined way of help people get along more was key to this sense of civilization. living. Warrior knights became peaceably, and growing towns Westerners had gradually changed quiet courtiers, expressing and cities require such cooperation. their ideas of what was acceptable restraint and maintaining The process, he said, at some point in terms of facial expressions, strict control of impulses and became a question of internalizing control of bodily functions, general emotions. “Civilized” behaviors the social rules of one’s parents, deportment, and so on. soon became essential to everyone rather than one’s “betters.” wishing to trade and socialize However, the rules about what Behaviors considered normal in with others, from tradesmen to constitutes “good manners” have the Middle Ages were thought noblemen and women. always been dictated by the upper “barbarous” by the 19th century. classes, so “civilization” continues to work toward furthering the Norbert Elias In 1933 Elias went into exile in interests of the powerful elite. Paris and then London, where Norbert Elias was born in he finished The Civilizing Elias saw the transformation Breslau (now the Polish city of Process. In 1939 the book was of manners as an important part of Wrocław) in 1897, to a wealthy published in Switzerland, but the centralization of power within Jewish family. After leaving sank into oblivion until its Western nations, and a sign of the school he served in the German republication in West Germany growing interdependency of people army during World War I. in 1969. A sought-after lecturer, during urbanization. But it was also Elias studied philosophy and Elias spent his final years important in colonization during medicine at Breslau University, traveling in Europe and Africa. Elias’s lifetime. He was writing gaining a PhD in philosophy in during the 1930s, when colonial 1924. He then studied sociology Key works powers such as Britain and France, with Max Weber’s younger secure in their sense of national brother, Alfred, at Heidelberg, 1939 The Civilizing Process self-consciousness, justified the Germany, before moving to (3 volumes) morality of colonization by claiming Frankfurt University to work 1939 The Society of Individuals it brought civilization, which would with Karl Mannheim. 1970 What is Sociology? be “good” for colonized peoples. ■

MASS CULTURE REINFORCES POLITICAL REPRESSION HERBERT MARCUSE (1898–1979)



184 HERBERT MARCUSE D uring the 20th century, it The Statue of Liberty symbolizes became apparent that the the American Dream of a “classless” IN CONTEXT transformation of society society with equal opportunity – theorized by Karl Marx had failed through hard work, anyone can improve FOCUS to materialize. The sociologist and their lives and fulfill their potential. The culture industry philosopher Herbert Marcuse tried to determine what had happened back, to the end of feudal society KEY DATES by urging Marxists to move beyond in Europe in the late Middle Ages. 1840s Karl Marx says there theory and take into account the In this time of transition, people are always at least two classes real, lived experience of individuals. moved from being bound to work in capitalist societies: those for a landowner to being free to who own the means of Marcuse said that capitalism find work anywhere, for their own production and those who had somehow integrated the benefit alone. But this “freedom of sell their labor to that group. working class: workers who were enterprise was, from the beginning, supposed to be the agents of not altogether a blessing,” says 1923 The Institute for Social change had accepted the ideas Marcuse. Although free to work Research is founded in and ideals of the establishment. wherever they wanted, the majority Frankfurt, and gives rise to the They had lost sight of themselves of people had to labor extremely new “critical theory” of culture. as a class or group and become “individuals” within a system that 1944 German-Jewish émigrés prized individuality. This seemed Max Horkheimer and Theodor to be the route to success, but W. Adorno coin the term in abandoning their group, the “culture industry” in workers lost all bargaining power. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Freedom to choose 1963 Canadian sociologist How had the workers been so easily Erving Goffman publishes silenced? There was no obvious Stigma, in which he claims moment at which this had taken identity is constructed by place, so Marcuse examined how other people and society. rebellion against the status quo seemed to have been so effectively 1970s–80s Michel Foucault quashed during the 20th century. examines the normalizing He started by looking much further techniques of modern society. Culture has always played a key role But from the 1960s, even art forms once in pointing to possible ways of living thought subversive were subsumed that are outside the social “norm.” into daily life and appropriated by the media. The possibility of rebellion By absorbing the media’s messages people has effectively been quashed: accepted society’s rules and values as their own; they realized that to step beyond mass culture reinforces political repression. them would seem neurotic.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 185 See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Michel Foucault 52–55 ■ Antonio Gramsci 178–79 ■ Erving Goffman 190–95 ■ Jean Baudrillard 196–99 ■ Thorstein Veblen 214–19 ■ Daniel Miller 246–47 hard, with no guarantee of work then manipulating people through The cultural center is from day to day, and they were those needs. Essentially, by becoming a fitting part frightened about the future. convincing people that they have of the shopping center. certain needs, and then making Centuries later, the machines of it look as though there is a route Herbert Marcuse the Industrial Revolution promised to satisfying these needs (even to lift national economies to such though there is not), “vested Marcuse suggests that: “People an extent that it was thought a interests” effectively control the recognize themselves in their person would no longer need to rest of the population. commodities; they find their soul in worry about survival, but might “be their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level free to exert autonomy over a life False needs are not based on home, kitchen equipment.” that would be his own.” This was real ones such as the necessity for the American Dream, and the hope food, drink, clothes, and somewhere Everything is personal; the of most Westerners during the 20th to live, but are instead artificially individual is paramount, and his century. If the longed-for freedom generated and impossible to satisfy or her needs are what matter. This was synonymous with choice, in any real sense. Marcuse cites the apparent empowerment of the individuals were free as never need “to relax, to have fun... and individual is in fact its opposite, before, because choices in work, consume in accordance with the according to Marcuse. Social housing, food, fashion, and leisure advertisements, to love and hate needs—for job security, a decent activities continued to widen over what others love and hate”—the living standard, and so on—are the decades. actual content of these needs (such translated into individual needs, such as the latest “must-have” gadget) is as your own need for a job to buy ❯❯ “False needs” proposed by external forces; it does However, when Marcuse looked not naturally arise in someone closer, he discovered that “a like the need for water does. Yet comfortable, smooth, reasonable, these needs feel internally driven democratic un-freedom prevails in because we are bombarded by advanced industrial civilization”— media messages that promise far from being free, people were happiness if you do that or go there. being manipulated by “totalitarian” In this way we begin to believe regimes that called themselves that false needs are real ones. democracies, he said. Worse still, people were unaware of the manipulation, because they had internalized the regimes’ rules, values, and ideals. Marcuse goes on to describe government as a state apparatus that imposes its economic and political requirements on its people by influencing their working and leisure time. It does so by creating in people a set of “false needs” and Desire for “must-have” clothing, gadgets, and inessential goods stems, says Marcuse, from a false sense of “need” that is implanted in us by advertising and the media.

186 HERBERT MARCUSE The classics have left the reality that pointed to other Flaubert’s Madame Bovary chose mausoleum and come to life possible ways of living and being, to die rather than “fit in.” But modern again, but… they come to but that gap has disappeared. society has absorbed all forms of life as other than themselves; Traditionally, the forms of art lifestyle; so today, Marcuse suggests, considered to represent “culture”— she would be offered therapy. they are deprived of their such as the opera, theater, antagonistic force. literature, and classical music— incendiary calls to revolution but Herbert Marcuse aimed to reflect the difficulties must-read “modern classics” that encountered by the transcendent someone might consume on a self- consumer products. If you think human soul forced to live in social improvement program. The “avant you are badly paid, your employer reality. It pointed to a possible garde and the beatniks” now might invite you in to talk “about world beyond gritty reality. entertain without troubling people’s you.” There is no longer any sense consciences. Culture is not in a of being part of a group that is Tragedy, says Marcuse, used position of dangerous “other,” but treated unfairly—all hopes of to be about defeated possibilities; has been stripped of all its power. Marxist rebellion are lost. about hopes unfulfilled and Even great works of alienation, he promises betrayed. He cites A dimensionless world Madame Bovary, in Gustave According to Marcuse, we are Flaubert’s novel of that name caught in a bubble from which (1856), as a perfect example of there is no escape, because it has a soul unable to survive in the become almost impossible to stand rigid society in which she lived. outside the system. There used to be “a gap” between culture and However, by the 1960s, society had become so pluralistic that it could apparently contain everyone and all their chosen lifestyles. Tragedy is no longer even possible as a cultural motif; its discontent is seen as a problem to be solved. Art has lost its ability to inspire rebellion because it is now part of a mass media, claims Marcuse. Books and stories about individuals who will not conform are no longer Herbert Marcuse Born in Berlin in 1898, Herbert In 1958 Marcuse became a Marcuse served with the German professor at Brandeis University, army in World War I before Massachusetts, but in 1965 he completing a PhD in literature in was forced to resign because 1922 at the University of Freiburg. of his outspoken Marxist views. After a short spell as a bookseller He moved to the University in Berlin, he studied philosophy of California, and during the under Martin Heidegger. 1960s gained world renown as a social theorist, philosopher, In 1932, he joined the Institute and political activist. He died for Social Research, but he never of a stroke, aged 81. worked in Frankfurt. In 1934 he fled to the US, where he was to Key works remain. While he was in New York with Max Horkheimer, the latter 1941 Reason and Revolution received an offer from Columbia 1964 One-Dimensional Man University to relocate the Institute 1969 An Essay on Liberation there and Marcuse joined him.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 187 says, have become commercials The power of the media that sell, comfort, or excite— culture has become an industry. The state and its consumerist forces This flattening of the two control the media dimensions of high culture and in the modern world. social reality has led to a one- dimensional culture that easily The media reflects determines and controls our and disseminates the individual and social perspectives. state’s dominant values There is no other world, or way to and ideologies, and live. Marcuse claims that in saying manipulates society this he is not overstating the power into buying goods, of the media, because the social services, and lifestyles. messages we receive as adults are merely reinforcing the same ones that we have been hearing since our birth—we were conditioned as children to receive them. The disappearance of class Society and individuals Marcuse’s ideas about a society The compressing of culture and are lulled into believing that includes everything—in which reality is reflected in an apparent and conforming to the pluralism defeats the oppositional leveling of class structure. If all art media messages. power of any idea—is particularly forms and mass media are part of a relevant in a global age that is homogenous whole, where nothing TV program. However, according dominated by a proliferation of new stands outside of societal approval, to Marcuse, this kind of media. Marcuse was always aware people from all social classes will assimilation does not indicate of the importance of scientific inevitably start doing some of the the disappearance of classes— knowledge in shaping and same things. Marcuse points to it actually reveals the extent to organizing not just society but the examples of a typist who is which the needs that serve the myriad aspects of everyday life. made up as attractively as her establishment have become shared Crucially, and often from a radical boss’s daughter, or the worker by the underlying population. and politicized perspective, he and his boss enjoying the same could see the potential for both The result of this is that classes emancipation and domination, Intellectual freedom would are no longer in conflict. The social which makes his emphasis on mean the restoration controls have been internalized, the cultural conversation and the of individual thought and Marcuse says that we are role of new technologies in its now absorbed by hypnotized into a state of extreme service especially pertinent. Do mass communication conformity where no one will rebel. these things really bring about and indoctrination. There is no longer a sublimated social change and liberation, Herbert Marcuse realm of the soul or spirit of inner or are they simply tools for man, because everything has increasing manipulation and been or can be translated into social oppression by a powerful operational terms, problems, and ruling class? ■ solutions. We have lost a sense of inner truth and real need, and can no longer critique society because we cannot find a way to stand outside of it without appearing to have lost our sanity.

188 THE DANGER OF THE FUTURE IS THAT MEN MAY BECOME ROBOTS ERICH FROMM (1900–1980) IN CONTEXT T he German sociologist In the 20th century, by contrast, and psychoanalyst Erich individuals were repositioned FOCUS Fromm claimed that by capitalist states to become Alienation of self during industrialization in the cooperative consumers, with 19th century, God was declared standardized tastes, who could be KEY DATES dead, “inhumanity” meant cruelty, manipulated by the anonymous 1844 Karl Marx says humans and the inherent danger was that authority of public opinion and the become alienated from their people would become slaves. market. Technology ensured that own essence as a systemic work became more routine and result of capitalism. However, in the 20th century, boring. Fromm advised that unless the problem changed: alienated people “get out of the rut” they 1903 In The Metropolis from a sense of self, people had are in and reclaim their humanity, and Mental Life, Georg Simmel lost the ability to love and reason they will go mad trying to live a suggests urban life breeds for themselves. “Man” effectively meaningless, robotic life. ■ alienation and indifference. died. “Inhumanity” came to mean lacking humanity. People, Synthetic smiles have 1955 Erich Fromm publishes Fromm advised, were in danger replaced genuine laughter... The Sane Society. of becoming like robots. dull despair has taken the 1956 US sociologist Leo Srole He attributed this sense place of genuine pain. develops an alienation scale. of alienation to the emergence Erich Fromm of Western capitalist societies 1959 US sociologist Melvin and believed that a state’s social, Seeman says alienation economic, and political factors results from powerlessness, intersect to produce a “social normlessness, social isolation, character” common to all its cultural estrangement, and citizens. In the industrial age, self-estrangement. as capitalism increased its global dominance, states encouraged 1968 Israeli-American people to become competitive, sociologist Amitai Etzioni says exploitative, authoritarian, alienation results from social aggressive, and individualist. systems that do not cater to basic human needs. See also: G.H. Mead 176–77 ■ Robert Blauner 232–33 ■ Arlie Hochschild 236–43 ■ Robert K. Merton 262–63 ■ Erving Goffman 264–69 ■ Ann Oakley 318–19

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 189 CULTURE IS ORDINARY RAYMOND WILLIAMS (1921–1988) IN CONTEXT W hile Karl Marx had a shape of his culture includes keen interest in culture, mountains, farms, cathedrals, FOCUS especially in literature, and furnaces; family relationships, Structure of feeling he regarded the economy as the political debates, trade skills, driver of history: culture and ideas languages, and ideas; as well as KEY DATES were secondary. Later Marxist literature, art, and music, both 1840s Karl Marx argues that thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci popular and serious. He describes the economy determines and Hungarian theorist Georg the shape as a characteristic society’s ideas and culture. Lukács paid more attention to “structure of feeling,” which might cultural matters; but culture be defined as the lived experience 1920s Italian Marxist Antonio only came to the center of radical (ordinary life) of a community Gramsci critiques Marx’s theory in the mid-20th century with beyond society’s institutions economic determinism. Raymond Williams’ extensive body and formal ideologies. of work, which included his hugely 1958 Welsh academic influential text Culture and Society. Structure of feeling operates, Raymond Williams discusses Williams explains, “in the most the concept of “structure of Williams detaches the idea delicate and least tangible part feeling” in Culture and Society, of culture from a politically of our activities.” The concept placing culture firmly at the conservative understanding of suggests a combination of center of an understanding “tradition,” enabling an analysis of something that is visible and of social networks. what he calls “the long revolution”: organized enough to be the subject that difficult but persistent effort to of study (structure), yet elusive 1964 British sociologist and democratize our whole way of life. enough to convey the complexities cultural theorist Richard of lived experience (feeling). Hoggart founds the Centre for The shape of culture Williams’ emphasis on lived Contemporary Cultural Studies In his essay “Culture is Ordinary” experience served to open in Birmingham, England, (1958), Williams offers a personal up to sociological study whole and is succeeded as director reflection of a journey from the swathes of popular culture such in 1968 by Stuart Hall. farming valleys of South Wales as television, film, and advertising, to the colleges of Cambridge, which had earlier been seen as 1975 Jean Baudrillard England. For Williams, the culturally insignificant. ■ indicates that Marx’s focus on economics as the driving force See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Antonio Gramsci 178–79 ■ Herbert Marcuse 182–87 ■ of change is limiting. Jean Baudrillard 196–99 ■ Stuart Hall 200–01

STIGMA REFERS TO AN ATTRIBUTE THAT IS DEEPLY DISCREDITING ERVING GOFFMAN (1922–1982)



192 ERVING GOFFMAN Society provides us with a range of roles and identities that are considered “normal.” IN CONTEXT The role-identity we enact in public FOCUS (for example, teacher, doctor, nurse, storekeeper) Stigma is defined for us by society. KEY DATES 1895 Émile Durkheim explores But the self-identity we have in private, the concept of stigma and its when we are not subject to public scrutiny, is who relation to social order. we actually are, our “essential” self. 1920s The concept of symbolic interactionism When there is a major discrepancy between our public emerges at the University identity and our private self, and when performance of Chicago as the leading of our role identity is unconvincing, we are liable US social theoretical model. to be labeled negatively. 1934 Mind, Self, and Society When this negative labeling is repeated by US social psychologist over time, stigma occurs. G.H. Mead is published and later influences Goffman’s ideas about identity. 2006 In Body/Embodiment, Dennis Waskul and Phillip Vannini (eds.) see Goffman’s work as a “sophisticated framework” for understanding the sociology of the body. 2014 US sociologist Mary Jo Deegan applies Goffman’s theories to the analysis of sex, gender issues, and feminism. E rving Goffman was a The basic idea underpinning with and mediated by the types Canadian sociologist whose symbolic-interactionist thought is of people we interact with and the work draws heavily on that the individual self is first and institutional contexts we inhabit. the US social theoretical tradition foremost a social entity: even the known as symbolic interactionism. most seemingly idiosyncratic Of specific interest to Goffman This tradition focuses on micro- aspects of our individual was the subject of deviance and level interactions and exchanges selves, according to symbolic the socially enacted processes between individuals and small interactionists, are not so much whereby individuals and groups groups of people, rather than on the product of our own unique come to be stigmatized (from the far more impersonal, macro- psychology, but are socially the Greek word stigma, meaning level relationships between social determined and culturally and “mark,” “brand,” or “puncture”), or structures or institutions and historically contingent. Who we marked with disgrace. Deviance individuals. Interactionist thinkers think we are, who we imagine is implicit in the notion of stigma examine issues such as personal ourselves to be, and perhaps most because, as Goffman points out, identity, selfhood, group dynamics, importantly, who it is we are able stigma occurs whenever an and social interaction. to be, is inextricably bound up individual or group is perceived to have deviated from the socially

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 193 See also: Pierre Bourdieu 76–79 ■ Georg Simmel 104–05 ■ G.H. Mead 176–77 ■ Erving Goffman Howard S. Becker 280–85 ■ Alfred Schütz 335 School teachers perform one of the individuals imagine themselves to Erving Goffman was born most “legitimate,” highly respected possess in private—the traits and in Canada in 1922 to a family roles in society—Goffman refers to behaviors the doctor enacts in his of immigrant Ukrainian Jews. the public roles people enact as their or her private life, for example. For After graduating from the “virtual social identity.” Goffman, stigma arises whenever University of Toronto in 1945 the disparity between virtual and with a BA in anthropology prescribed norms that govern actual social identity becomes and sociology, he moved to interpersonal conduct. When an untenable—when, for instance, the the University of Chicago, individual deviates from these respected medic is known to drink where he attained his MA social norms they are stigmatized and smoke excessively outside of and PhD For his doctoral and marginalized from the wider work; feelings of embarrassment dissertation, he undertook group or social community to or shame then ensue, and social fieldwork on a remote island which they belong. interaction breaks down. Stigma in Scotland. The data he results from the fact that members collected there formed the Virtual and actual identity of society share common basis for his most celebrated In his landmark study Stigma, expectations and attitudes about work, The Presentation of Goffman analyzes the behavior what to expect from people in Self in Everyday Life. He was of individuals whose identity certain social situations, and how appointed to the University is believed to be “soiled” or those people should behave or look. of Pennsylvania in 1968 and “defective” in some way. He in 1981 was the 73rd President distinguishes between what he The concept of stigma of the American Sociological refers to as “virtual” and “actual” Goffman identifies three important Association. Goffman died in social identity. features of the concept of stigma. 1982 of stomach cancer. First, stigma is not inherent to Virtual social identity is the a given individual, attribute, or Key works socially legitimate version of way of behaving, although some selfhood that individuals are behaviors, such as pedophilia, are 1959 The Presentation of Self expected to present in public—for universally condemned. The in Everyday Life example, the socially defined traits context in which an attribute or 1961 Asylums: Essays on the and behaviors associated with behavior is displayed strongly Social Situation of Mental being a medical doctor. Actual determines how others respond. ❯❯ Patients and Other Inmates social identity is the self-identity 1963 Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity Stigma constitutes a special discrepancy between virtual and actual social identity. Erving Goffman

194 ERVING GOFFMAN Second, stigma is a negative An attribute that alcoholism, homosexuality, classification that emerges out of stigmatizes one type unemployment, suicide attempts, the interactions and exchanges of possessor can confirm and radical political behavior.” between individuals or groups, the usualness of another. He identifies the third type of whereby one has the power to Erving Goffman stigma as tribal stigma, which classify the other as the possessor includes social marginalization of what are considered to be actual social identity. However, if on the grounds of ethnicity, socially undesirable attributes the excessive behavior continues nationality, religion, and ideological or behaviors. (Goffman refers over a period of time, and through beliefs. The attributes identified in to non-stigmatized people as interaction with group members these three categories of stigma are “normals.”) To this extent, it is a the individual is allocated a deviant liable, Goffman claims, to impinge relational concept, because things status, then their self-conception negatively on the ordinary and classified as stigmatized are liable will be altered as they assume a predicted patterning of social to change, depending on the stigmatized identity. interactions involving the possessor individuals or groups interacting. of the attribute, and in turn result Goffman suggests that potentially Types of stigma in exclusion or marginalization. any attribute or act is stigmatizing, In addition to explaining the and for this reason some degree concept of stigma, Goffman Impression management of stigmatization is present in identified three types of stigma. Goffman also focuses on how virtually all social relationships: we The first type of stigma relates to individuals try to respond to and are all capable of being stigmatized what he refers to as “deformities” cope with negative classification. at certain times. of the body, such as physical He suggests that people who disability, obesity, uneven skin are stigmatized actively seek to The third characteristic of tone, baldness, and scarring. The manage or, where possible, resist stigma, says Goffman, is that it is second type of stigma refers to the negative social identities “processual”: this means that being blemishes of character, including, attributed to them. stigmatized or, more precisely, says Goffman, “mental disorder, coming to assume a stigmatized imprisonment, addiction, His concept of “impression identity, is a socially mediated management” is important in this process that takes place over time. context because it highlights the For example, if an individual is various ways people try to present made to feel uncomfortable by a version of selfhood to others that others because they become is as favorable as possible: they excessively inebriated at an adopt different strategies to avoid office party, then the feelings being stigmatized. These include of embarrassment and shame, “concealment” through use of while not particularly pleasant and “covers,” such as prosthetic limbs comfortable, are not likely to have in the case of people who feel any long-term effect on the person’s ashamed of having lost a limb. This is in direct contrast to “disclosure,” which involves a person openly acknowledging the discrediting feature(s) of their identity. Where these strategies fail or are simply not feasible, the possessor of a stigma is liable to Wigs are among the “props” or “covers” that are used by some bald people to attempt to “conceal” their baldness and thereby deflect potential sources of stigma.

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 195 seek out social types who they The causes of stigmatization are numerous, but can include idle believe will act sympathetically gossip and negative attitudes that arise from ignorance and/or class- toward them. or race-based tensions. This then leads to negative stereotyping of an individual by the wider group. Over time, the individual internalizes Goffman identifies three these labels to the extent that they inform the person’s self-evaluation and categories of people in particular identity. By this point, the individual has acquired a stigmatized identity. who are liable to fulfill this role. The first are “the own”: people Non-stigmatized Stigmatized who have a similarly stigmatized people or “normals” person attribute—for example, members of a drug-addiction recovery group. Negatively labeled and The second category is “the wise”: marginalized by the group people who work in an institution or agency that supports individuals Causes of stigmatization Effects of stigmatization who possess a stigmatizing trait include: include: (care workers, disability officers, nurses, mental health therapists, • Behavioral expectations • Feelings of worthlessness and social workers, for example). • Negative stereotyping • Excessive self-evalution The third category identified • Lack of self-confidence by Goffman includes individuals • Negative attitudes that the stigmatized person knows • Popular media • Loss of reputation very well and who are likely to • Gossip • Social withdrawal be empathetic toward them, such as the partner of someone evaluations of certain attributes stigmatized individuals back into with a disability or an addiction. and behaviors change as society the community. Goffman’s work progresses. So, he says, whether also remains relevant politically— Crossing boundaries or not mental illness and physical in particular, by offering a means It is generally accepted within disability could still be said to of understanding how to address sociology that Goffman’s detailed be the cause of stigma is highly the problem of the stigmatization observations of human interactions questionable in certain social of minority groups in modern and of the interpersonal dynamics and national contexts. multicultural societies. ■ of small-scale groups remain unparalleled. Anthony Giddens, Goffman’s work straddles the The stigmatized individual for example, draws heavily on disciplinary boundaries between may find that he feels Goffman’s ideas about human sociology and social psychology— behavior and identity formation in his theories have therefore been unsure how normals will his much acclaimed “structuration” taken up by thinkers from a wide identify and receive him. theory, which discusses the link range of academic backgrounds. between structures and human Within sociology, his ideas about Erving Goffman interaction. Pierre Bourdieu also stigma have been applied very refers to Goffman’s work in his effectively by British social exploration of the extent to which thinker Gill Green to consider the people are able to change who experiences of people with long- they are and how they feel within term illness, including those who certain contexts. have contracted the HIV virus. And social worker John Offer British social thinker Anthony has used Goffman’s concepts Wootton has argued, however, that to consider the reintegration of Goffman’s work universalizes and identifies certain attributes as once and for all liable to be the cause of stigmatizing behavior. But normative expectations and moral

196 IN CONTEXT WE LIVE IN A WORLD FOCUS WHERE THERE IS Simulacra MORE AND MORE INFORMATION, AND KEY DATES LESS AND LESS c.360 BCE Greek philosopher MEANING Plato says he would banish “the imitator” from his JEAN BAUDRILLARD (1929–2007) perfect republic. Early 1800s The Industrial Revolution begins in Europe. 1884 Friedrich Nietzsche says that we can no longer look to God to find meaning in our life, because “God is dead.” 1970s Roland Barthes says signs and symbols have ideological functions that they impart to the reader with a “natural” simplicity. 1989 British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web (www.), an Internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. A t the end of the 20th century, the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard announced that “the year 2000, in a certain way, will not take place.” He claimed that the apocalypse—the end of the world as we know it—had already occurred, and in the 21st century, we “have already passed beyond the end.” He believed this because, he said, there had been a perfect crime—“the murder of the real.” The only way in which we would “know” the year 2000, Baudrillard said, would be the way we now know everything: via the stream of images that are reproduced endlessly for our

CULTURE AND IDENTITY 197 See also: Henri Lefebvre 106–07 ■ Alan Bryman 126–27 ■ David Held 170–71 ■ Antonio Gramsci 178–79 ■ Herbert Marcuse 182–87 There is so much The media simplifies information in the modern things for us, deciding what to “make real”; world that we cannot the replication of certain absorb it all and work out images and stories leads us what is really happening. to accept them as “reality.” All complexity The things and the events Jean Baudrillard has been lost. of the physical world— Born in Reims, France, in in their unexplained, 1929, Jean Baudrillard was unpackaged form—are the first member of his family no longer accessible to us. to attend university. His parents were civil servants, We live in a world where there is more and more but his grandparents were information, and less and less meaning. peasant farmers, and he claimed to have upset the consumption by magazines, TV, cartographers draw up a huge map status quo when he went to newspapers, film, advertising, of an empire. The map’s scale is Paris to study, beyond school and websites. Reality, according 1:1, and so the map is as large as level, at the Sorbonne. to Baudrillard, is not whatever the ground it represents, and covers happens in the physical world (that the physical landscape of empire During the 1950s “reality” is dead), but that which completely. As the empire declines, Baudrillard taught German is capable of being simulated, or the map gradually becomes frayed in secondary schools while reproduced. In fact, he says, the and finally ruined, leaving only a writing a PhD thesis under real is that “which is already few shreds remaining. the tuition of the Marxist reproduced.” During the 20th philosopher Henri Lefebvre. century, representation started In this allegory, the real and In 1966, Baudrillard took up a to precede reality, rather than its copy can be easily identified; post at the University of Paris the other way around. the difference between them is IX teaching sociology, and clear. Baudrillard maintains that later became a professor in the The map comes first this is how it used to be in the subject. His left-wing, radical Baudrillard explains his position Renaissance world, when the link attitude made him famous with reference to a short story between a thing and its image (and controversial) worldwide. by the Argentinian writer and was obvious. The image was a He broke with Marxism in the poet Jorge Luis Borges, in which reflection of a profound reality, 1970s, but remained politically and we recognized both its ❯❯ active all his life. When asked “Who are you?,” he replied, “What I am, I don’t know. I am the simulacrum of myself.” Key works 1981 Simulacra and Simulation 1983 Fatal Strategies 1986 America 1987 The Ecstasy of Communication

198 JEAN BAUDRILLARD Second Life is a virtual world where users re-create themselves digitally. Online marketing advises: “Everyone... is a real person and every place you visit is built by people just like you.” engage with. They simplify the world and make it manageable. In addition, the reality they create is more exciting and perfect in every way than the one around us. similarity to that reality and its good investment, or a breakfast Dangerous utopias difference. With the start of the cereal. Presentation, not substance, “Simulacra”—images that have industrial age, however, the dictated value. This was the start no original in reality—can be link between the object and its of the age of advertising, where the produced to create a much more representation became far less message of the brand overtook the satisfying effect than images clear, as the original object, or a reality of the substance in question. that reflect reality. An actress can model of one, could be reproduced Image became everything. be “digitally enhanced” to look hundreds or thousands of times. closer to a culture’s ideal image Simplifying the world of womanhood, but even this refers Remaking reality Baudrillard followed the trajectory back to some kind of reality. For Baudrillard was aware of other of this bizarre world of images this reason, Baudrillard says that Marxist thinkers of the 1960s, such and spectacles still further. As “the territory” of the real has not yet as French theorist Guy Debord, who technology progressed, he says, disappeared entirely—fragments had drawn attention to the shift it became obvious that there was remain. But people who find in cultural thinking that occurred no need to refer to a real object or pleasure in looking at these with the onset of mass production. model at all. The image—which enhanced images may find even Debord notes that at this point in was originally abstracted from more pleasure in images that are history, “the whole life of those something real—could now be completely digitally created—that societies... presents itself as created from nothing. It did not do not refer back to a “real person” an... accumulation of spectacles.” need to connect to or reflect at all. For example, we can look at Thus life becomes condensed into anything in the physical world “perfect” digitally created people a set of recorded pictures: a family at all. This kind of image he calls wedding, a holiday in France, and a “simulacrum.” The real is produced from so on. People are more interested in miniaturized units, from capturing the image—becoming As long as an image or set of matrices, memory banks, and spectators—than in doing things: images is reproducible, Baudrillard command models—and with the image, not the event, is central maintains, it can create reality. these it can be reproduced an (the modern obsession with taking The real is “that which can be indefinite number of times. “selfies” emphasizes how pervasive reproduced.” Once images are this has become). replicated and widely disseminated Jean Baudrillard (in magazines or websites, for Baudrillard points out that example), they create a shared through capitalism, commodities reality that people can discuss, also became detached from in a way that they cannot do with themselves. Wheat was no longer the messy, unstructured physical simply wheat, for instance, but a reality that we used to try to