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Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order

TL;DR: In this paper, three prominent social thinkers discuss the implications of "reflexive modernization" for social and cultural theory today, and the three authors offer critical appraisals of each other's viewpoints.
Abstract: The theme of reflexivity has come to be central to social analysis. In this book three prominent social thinkers discuss the implications of "reflexive modernization" for social and cultural theory today. Ulrich Beck's vision of the "risk society" has already become extraordinarily influential. Beck offers a new elaboration of his basic ideas, connecting reflexive modernization with new issues to do with the state and political organization. Giddens offers an in-depth examination of the connections between "institutional reflexivity" and the de-traditionalizing of the modern world. We are entering, he argues, a phase of the development of a global society. A "global society" is not a world society, but one with universalizing tendencies. Lash develops the theme of reflexive modernization in relation the aesthetics and the interpretation of culture. In this domain, he suggests, we need to look again at the conventional theories of postmodernism; "aesthetic modernization" has distinctive qualities that need to be uncovered and analyzed. In the concluding sections of the book, the three authors offer critical appraisals of each other's viewpoints, providing a synthetic conclusion to the work as a whole.
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Book
18 Aug 2005
TL;DR: The authors provides a coherent and accessible overview of the work of the New London Group, with well-known international contributors bringing together their varying national experiences and differences of theoretical and political emphasis, dealing with issues such as: * the fundamental premises of literacy pedagogy * the effects of technological change * multilingualism and cultual diversity * social futures and their implications on language teaching.
Abstract: Multiliteracies considers the future of literacy teaching in the context of the rapidly changing English language. Questions are raised about what constitutes appropriate literacy teaching in today's world: a world that is both a global village yet one which local diversity is increasingly important. This is a coherent and accessible overview of the work of the New London Group, with well-known international contributors bringing together their varying national experiences and differences of theoretical and political emphasis. The essays deal with issues such as: * the fundamental premises of literacy pedagogy * the effects of technological change * multilingualism and cultual diversity * social futures and their implications on language teaching. The book concludes with case studies of attempts to put the theories into practice and thereby provides a basis for dialogue with fellow educators around the world.

2,601 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a focus on the contextually specific ways in which people act out and recognize identities allows a more dynamic approach than the sometimes overly general and static trio of "race, class, and gender".
Abstract: n today's fast changing and interconnected global world, researchers in a variety of areas have come to see identity as an important analytic tool for understanding schools and society. A focus on the contextually specific ways in which people act out and recognize identities allows a more dynamic approach than the sometimes overly general and static trio of "race, class, and gender." However, the term identity has taken on a great many different meanings in the literature. Rather than survey this large literature, I will sketch out but one approach that draws on one consistent strand of that literature. This is not to deny that other, equally useful approaches are possible, based on different selections from the literature.

2,349 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a framework for understanding and supporting efforts aimed at "responsibly innovation" in emerging science and innovation, which is a major challenge for contemporary democracies.

1,826 citations

Book
19 Nov 2006
TL;DR: The biological existence of human beings has become political in novel ways as mentioned in this paper, and the object, target and stake of this new 'vital' politics are human life itself, which has become one of the most important sites for ethical judgements and techniques.
Abstract: The biological existence of human beings has become political in novel ways. The object, target and stake of this new 'vital' politics are human life itself. The contemporary state does not 'nationalize' the corporeality of its subjects into a body politic on which it works en masse, in relation to the body politics of other states competing in similar terms. Biopolitics addresses human existence at the molecular level: it is waged about molecules, amongst molecules, and where the molecules themselves are at stake. Human beings in contemporary Western culture are increasingly coming to understand themselves in somatic terms – corporeality has become of the most important sites for ethical judgements and techniques. Biopolitics was inextricably bound up with the rise of the life sciences, the human sciences, clinical medicine. It has given birth to techniques, technologies, experts and apparatuses for the care and administration of the life of each and all, from town planning to health services.

1,652 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The power of social science and its methods is discussed in this paper, where the authors argue that social science can help to make social reality and social worlds, but its methods are still stuck in the enactment of nineteenth-century, nation-state-based politics.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the power of social science and its methods. We first argue that social inquiry and its methods are productive: they (help to) make social realities and social worlds. They do not simply describe the world as it is, but also enact it. Second, we suggest that, if social investigation makes worlds, then it can, in some measure, think about the worlds it wants to help to make. It gets involved in 'ontological politics'. We then go on to show that its methods - and its politics - are still stuck in, and tend to reproduce, nineteenth-century, nation-state-based politics. How might we move social science from the enactment of nineteenth-century realities? We argue that social-and-physical changes in the world are - and need to be - paralleled by changes in the methods of social inquiry. The social sciences need to re-imagine themselves, their methods, and their 'worlds' if they are to work productively in the twenty-first century where social relations appear increasingly complex, elusive, ephemeral, and unpredictable. There are various possibilities: perhaps, for instance, there is need for 'messy' methods. But in the present paper we explore some implications of complexity theory to see whether and how this might provide productive metaphors and theories for enacting twenty-first-century realities.

1,245 citations