Modernity and Postmodernity

1
Modernity and Postmodernity

• Order versus Fluidity
• Clear Distinctions versus Negotiable Meaning
• Predictability versus Uncertainty
• Rational Progress versus Playfulness
• Control versus Uncertainty
• Future-orientation versus Present-orientation
• Production versus Consumption
• Experts versus Gurus
• etc. etc
• Is there a Third Way?

2
The Sociological Tradition(s)

• Sociology is the study of
• persisting patterns or structures external to
  individuals re Marx, Durkheim, Foucault, Bourdieu
  etc etc power and constraint
• OR
• The purposeful actions of human beings re Weber,
  Simmel, ethnomethodology etc etc meaning and
  decision-making
• Is there a Third Way

3
Lord Anthony Giddens (1938-)

• A globally recognised British social theorist
• Considerable political and cultural influence
• Typically associated with attempts to reconcile
  apparently opposed ways of thinking in both
  Sociology and practical politics
• Still alive
• The Third Way?

4
Structuration Theory - Topics

• Action and Structure
• Key Term - Agency
• Key Term Structure
• Key Term Structuration (agencystructure)
• Consciousness Society
• Time Space

5
Structuration Theory -goal

• To overcome the opposition between the two
  traditions. This requires
• Action is not equated with individual human
  activity re. Weber
• Structure is not identified with external
  constraint re. Durkheim
• Men make their own history but not in
  circumstances of their own choosing Marx

6
Key terms not action but agency

• AGENT any social unit that is capable of making
  a difference.
• Source Giddens
• i.e. agent ? only human individuals
• AGENCY the continuous flow of conduct.
• Source Dallmayr
• i.e. agency ? events just in the here-and-now

7
Key terms - structure

• STRUCTURE(S) rules and resources, or sets of
  transformation relations, organized as properties
  of social systems
• SYSTEM(S) reproduced relations between actors or
  collectivities, organised as regular social
  practices
• Source Giddens, A The constitution of society
  p.25
• Structure is the objectification of past actions
  of past agents (re Berger Luckman)
• Source Dallmayr

8
Key terms -Structuration

• Agency and Structure (are therefore) mutually
  dependant...Structure is the medium through which
  (agency) is produced
• Source Giddens Central Problems in Social
  Theory, page 69-70
• Duality of Structures means that social
  structures are both constituted by human agency
  and yet at the same time are the very medium of
  this constitution
• Source Giddens New Rules of Sociological Method,
  page 121
• Structuration (is a) connecting of human action
  with structural explanation in social analysis
• Source Giddens Central Problems in Social Theory
  page 49

9
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

• What is the relationship of an MP to their
  constituents?
• x Delegate one who follows the instruction of
  others
• v Representative one who uses their judgement on
  behalf of others to whom he/she is accountable.
• Structuration Theory As agents we use our
  practical understanding (phenomenology) and the
  resources of the social structure (Bourdieu et
  al) to construct social reality

10
Instance International Migration

• Goss, J. Conceptualising international labor
  migration International Migration Review 1995
• Filipinos migrate overseas to seek work
• They are obligated to assist their kin
  remittances
• They recommend their kin to employers
• Therefore, kinship structure takes on a new
  economic significance through the agency of
  migrants
• AND the agency of migrants is constrained by the
  rules and relations (structure) of kinship
• i.e. migration (agency) and kinship (structure)
  depend upon and affect each other

11
Instance Managerial Innovation

• Coopey et al Managers Innovations
• Changing the situation (agency)
• in context of constraints, rules and resources
  (structure)
• through selecting among available courses of
  action (structuration)
• and in changing the situation managers change
  their perception of themselves (reflexivity)

12
Consciousness and Society

• Practical Consciousness taken-for-granted
  raelity
• Discursive Consciousness legitimation
• Unconscious unacknowledged motivations
• make possible
• Reflexivity the knowledgeability of agents
  (informed citizens/klever burgher)
• but there is also
• Sequestration the institutionalised hiding
  away/separation of different spheres of personal
  life
• Therefore,
• intentional agency has unintended consequences

13
Time Space

• Agency is constituted (constructed) through time
  and space
• Schutz on predecessors, contemporaries and
  successors
• The problem of infinite regress in
  structuration theory

14
Modernity and Postmodernity

• Order versus Fluidity
• Clear Distinctions versus Negotiable Meaning
• Predictability versus Uncertainty
• Rational Progress versus Playfulness
• Control versus Uncertainty
• Future-orientation versus Present-orientation
• Production versus Consumption
• Experts versus Gurus
• etc. etc
• Is there a Third Way?

15
High Modernity

• Continues the processes of modernity eg
  rationalisation, urbanisation, technological
  advance etc (modern culture)
• But, because of its own reflexivity,
  (self-examination of its practices) high
  modernity increases uncertainty through
  accelerating change (postmodern culture)
• High Modernity as Jagernnath (Reith lecture)

16
Modernity Time

• High Modernity a changed relationship to time
  because modernity is institutionally reflexive
• Cause De-traditionalisation The loss of the
  legitimating authority of tradition. This is part
  of the process of modernisation. A respectful,
  deferential attitude towards the collective past
  is replaced by a sense of loss, nostalgia and,
  re consumer images, heritage.
• Source adapted from Giddens, A. Consequences of
  modernity
• Re also Bellah Habits of the heart

17
Modernity and Space

• High Modernity a changed relationship to space
  which both expands and contracts
• Cause Disembedding the "lifting out" of social
  relations from local contexts and their
  rearticulation across indefinite tracts of
  time-space
• Source Giddens 'Modernity Self-Identity' p.18

18
The Problem of Order as the Problem of Trust in
High Modernity

• Ontological Security A sense of continuity and
  order in events, including those not directly
  within the perceptual environment of the
  individual
• Source Giddens, A Modernity and Self-identity
  p.243 (emphasis added)
• Trust trust in others .is at the origin of the
  experience of a stable external world and a
  coherent sense of self-identity. It is 'faith' in
  the reliability and integrity of others that is
  at stake heretrust, interpersonal relations and
  a conviction of the 'reality' of things go hand
  in hand in the social settings of adult life
• Source Giddens 'Modernity Self-Identity'
  p.51-52

19
Trust Expertise

• expert systems bracket time and space through
  deploying modes of technical knowledge which have
  validity independent of the practitioners and
  clients who use them
• Source Giddens 'Modernity Self-Identity' p.18
• That is, we no longer trust persons but systems
  of which we know little

20
High Modernity as Risk Society

• In the charged reflexive settings of high
  modernity, living on 'automatic pilot' becomes
  more and more difficult to do
• Source Modernity self-identity p.125
• living in the "risk society" means living with a
  calculative attitude to the open possibilities of
  action, positive and negative, with which, as
  individuals and globally, we are confronted in a
  continuous way
• Source Giddens 'Modernity Self-Identity' p.28

21
Risk and Hazard

• Giddens (possibly) confuses these terms
• Risk likelihood of particular outcomes
• Hazard damage of particular outcomes
• Arguably
• Traditional societies high risk, low hazard
• High Modernity low risk, high hazard

22
Risk Society

• A society organised (structure) around the
  management of man-made (agency) risks
• We attempt to control (structure) risk through
  both personal and institutional risk assessment
  (agency) but this itself is inherently risky
  (i.e. less than reliable)
• The Risk Society produces and distributes both
  goods (things, commodities) and bads (risks
  resulting from, in part, the production of goods)
  (Beck)

23
Giddens Beck

• Giddens typical focus is on the risks of intimacy
  and the fragility of contemporary self-identity
• Becks typical focus is on the risks of large
  scale processes e.g. environmental degradation,
  nuclear disaster
• Re-opening the agency/structure divide?