Introduction to Social Analysis Lecture 8

1. Introduction to Social Analysis Lecture 8 How is contemporary society different from classic images of modern industrial society?

2. Chuck Berry No Particular Place to Go • http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ofyn_chuck-berry-no-particular-place-to_music • Barry McGuire The Eve of Destruction • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8SfiCnwF28

3. How is contemporary society different from classic images of modern industrial society? • This lecture is about how Sociologists Anthony Giddens, and Ulrich Beck have tried to understand contemporary society in contrast to ‘post-modern’ perspectives. • What features of contemporary society make it different from the classic views of modernity? • Their answers use the concepts of ‘reflexivity’ and ‘risk’. • These concepts will be illustrate through examples from contemporary empirical sociology which have used their ideas.

4. Studies Introductions to the theory: • Beck, Ulrich, Giddens, Anthony and Lash Scott (1994) Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Cambridge: Polity Press. (in particular pp. 184-197.) 301.01 BEC • Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and self-identity : self and society in the Late Modern AgeCambridge : Polity,  301.157 GID • Pip Jones 2003 Introducing Social Theory. Polity Press, Chap. 10. Critical Responses to Post-modernity and Postmodernism. Empirical studies: • Burrows, Roger and Nicholas Gane (2006) “Geodemographics, Software and Class” Sociology 40(5):793-812. • Green, Eileen and Carrie Singleton (2006) “Young Women Negotiating Space and Place” Sociology 40(5):853-872. • http://0-ejournals.ebsco.com.lib.exeter.ac.uk/direct.asp?IssueID=CF2B4B49015B

5. Key points of reflexive modernity. 1. • Giddens position is an attempt to deal with the post-modern critique without throwing out key elements of classic sociology - hence a revised rather than a post modernity. • His arguments are summerised in his table of contrasts [slides 23-31, final page of course pack reading ]

6. Key points of reflexive modernity. 2. • Individuals have dramatically increased knowledge about themselves and thus to manipulate and control aspects of themselves which were not previously possible. • This is manifest is such issues as self-monitoring, manipulation and shaping of the body.

7. Fertility monitor Breathaliser Nike+iPod kit This new product lets runners monitor their efforts with short-range radio transmissions

8. Key points of reflexive modernity. 3. • Society has dramatically increased knowledge about itself and thus some institutions have the ability to manipulate and control aspects of social life that were not previously possible. • This is manifest in such issues as evaluating and dealing with risk.

9. Collection and analysis of data • Government - census, surveys, migration, prices, consumption, university entrance • Commercial – profiling, consumer risk • Surveillance – crime, terrorism • Medical monitoring and control – swine flu

10. Who is watching? Who is watched?

11. Technologies of surveilance • www.ctcdevon.co.uk/exeter.htm • http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/webcams/exeter_pop01.html • http://www.letopweb.net/webcam-du-monde.html Google earth Tsunami watch Video by and of the police at demonstrations

12. Risk assessment • Pandemic alert • Terror alert status • Flood watch status • Car insurance, home insurance • New technologies bring both benefits and risks -

13. Choice, risk, reflexivity • risk as an organizing principle of the late modern industrial society, • Beck and Giddens suggest that risk has far reaching effects on the construction of contemporary identities (Beck 1992; Giddens, 1991). • identity is increasingly articulated through differing dispositions towards risk,

14. Risk society • We can anticipate risks • Make choices of life style as a result • Can anticipate growing range of apocalyptic scenarios – nuclear war, pandemic, meteor strike, climate change etc. • Variety of adaptations – personality / self – society / institutions • Risk averse, health and safety • Thrill seeking, hedonism, live for today

15. risk theorists also claim that a number of traditional features of industrial society, such as class, community and family are decreasing in influence, and relationships with strangers, encountered through greater national and global flows of people and cultures, are taking on greater significance.

16. Burrows, Roger and Nicholas Gane (2006) “Geodemographics, Software and Class” Sociology 40(5):793-812.http://ejscontent.ebsco.com/ContentServer/FullTextServer.asp?format=fulltext&ciid=AFF6FE0D2C11B5AD33A5C39287A4498B12358FD79662C83E5A73A26C0C5BCAFCA32BCF1055F90842&ftindex=1&cid=F35D3D648505FA48F6657AA16B59DF7E37A882374E0FF73373CA921EDDA876B9&ext=.pdf • About modern data bases and software which are primarily designed for marketing, which classify and label micro localities with detailed socio-metric data. • They make explicit links to key figures of modern social theory - Bourdieu (Distinction) ,Beck (Risk Society) and Bauman.

17. Choice, risk, reflexivity • The success of such classification systems [such as ACORN and MOSAIC ] lies in their ability to map out and structure patterns of consumption that in turn aid both the enhancement and regulation of the capitalist market. …businesses and policy makers alike use geodemographic classifications extensively to inform the targeting of goods, services and policy interventions. • belonging to place: to places through which we can identify ourselves and be identified and placed (in a social landscape) by others. ‘One’s residence is a crucial, possibly the crucial, identifier of who you are’. • This, then, is the most striking feature of geodemographic classification systems and their migration into software: they map consumer habits onto territory, and in so doing recast class and status as spatial categories.

18. Choice, risk, reflexivity • This is very much a part of what Bauman and Beck call individualized society, in which identities become the responsibility of individuals rather than state-run institutions, and where we are left to ‘sort ourselves out’. • The other side to this, however, is that the classification systems considered in this article offer ready-made ‘class’ identities that have been generated from consumer surveys and the like. This means that identities are shackled to and to some extent ascribed from real and desired patterns of consumption (desires that in themselves are, of course, products of capitalism). • At the same time, these classification systems are automated through complex algorithms that remain hidden from the user’s eye, so that the sorting mechanisms that underpin the classifications themselves are all but invisible. • Burrows, Roger and Nicholas Gane (2006) “Geodemographics, Software and Class” Sociology 40(5):793-812. pp807 • i.e. class remains important but reflexivity enables people and institutions to actively respond and modify class behaviour

19. Explores social construction of risk Leisure activities of two groups of young women, one white the other south Asian in a north-eastern industrial town. [Middlesborough] Look at emotions, calculations and management strategies associated with risk reported by the women in unstructured interviews. How these are understood by the participants is embedded in discourse about female ‘respectability’ Green, Eileen and Carrie Singleton (2006) “Young Women Negotiating Space and Place” Sociology 40(5):853-872.

20. Green, Eileen and Carrie Singleton (2006) “Young Women Negotiating Space and Place” Sociology 40(5):853-872. • Young women share perceptions and experiences of risk, linked to male violence • Many choose inside ‘safe’ place for leisure • Manifest differences between cultures how this is expressed and understood • But risk taking can be a fun a desirable aspect of leisure activity • ‘risky’ behaviour is contextualised by the young women through dominant discourses about feminine and ethic identities.

21. Choice, risk, reflexivity • “In the accounts that we have presented, risk is depicted as an organizing principle of daily routines and leisure practices that dictate young women’s use of time and space. Because certain times of the day and spaces are perceived as risky, their own position or place in time and space is continually under negotiation.” (Green and Singleton 2006: 867) • i.e risk is a life-style choice not the absence of moral authority

22. a revised rather than a post modernity • Gidden's summary diagramme which contrasts his position to that of post-modernity. • Exercise: try and locate research examples given in the lecture within Gidden’s framework.

24. 1. Understands current transitions in epistemological terms or as dissolving epistemology altogether. The way the world is changing makes it impossible to understand, (or at least understand in traditional terms) It is not possible to say when and where a ‘respectable’ girl should be out alone. 1. Identifies the institutional developments which create a sense of fragmentation and dispersal. Some social institutions are changing in such a way that they create a feeling that things are falling apart and nothing is certain any more. Families have become uncertain how to bring up teenage girls and use a diverse set of standards. A Comparison of Conceptions of "Post-Modernity" (PM) and "Radicalised Modernity" (RM)*

25. “Focuses upon the centrifugal tendencies of current social transformations and their dislocating character.” Society tends to fly apart and upset peoples expectations You can’t tell who is working class any more because there are now too many different ways of understanding what working class means “Sees high modernity as a set of circumstances in which dispersal is dialectically connected to profound tendencies towards global integration.” Society’s tendency to fly apart is met with an opposing tendency which links the whole world together We don’t know who are the working class any more but the whole world knows about and resents the vast personal incomes of failed bankers living in lavish mansions in prime locations A Comparison of Conceptions of "Post-Modernity" (PM) and "Radicalised Modernity" (RM)*

26. 3. Sees the self as dissolved or dismembered by the fragmenting of experience. There are too many looking glasses to see oneself clearly Girls in Middlesborough are faced with confusion by radically different expectations from family, school, their peers, the media, etc. 3. Sees the self as more than just a site of intersecting forces; active processes of reflexive self-identity are made possible by modernity. We can use the many new ways of looking at ourselves to create ourselves anew many times Girls in Middlesborough are forging new identities built from elements drawn across the world. A Comparison of Conceptions of "Post-Modernity" (PM) and "Radicalised Modernity" (RM)*

28. 4. Argues for the contextuality of truth claims or sees them as "historical." No right or wrong judgments are possible Cannot trust any one account of the girls risk taking more than another 4. Argues that the universal features of truth claims force themselves upon us in an irresistible way given the primacy of problems of a global kind. Systematic knowledge about these developments is not precluded by the reflexivity of modernity. Knowledge about society is possible even although people can change their behaviour through gaining knowledge, Can identify more from less truthful account of girls risk taking

29. 5. Theorises powerlessness which individuals feel in the face of globalising tendencies. People feel they can do nothing to change their situation Girls feel powerless to change the risky situations they find themselves in 5. Analyses a dialectic of powerlessness and empowerment, in terms of both experience and action. People respond more or less successfully to their predicament Girls manage themselves to minimise the risks they don’t want and experience the ones they do.

30. 6. Sees the "emptying" of day- to-day life as a result of the intrusion of abstract systems. Experts with scientific knowledge will always know our situation and its risks better than ourselves Experts can predict better than the girls who will get in trouble 6. Sees day-to-day life as an active complex of reactions to abstract systems, involving appropriation as well as loss. People use and react to expert scientific knowledge in a variety of ways Girls know about the risks on the street and adapt to them to both avoid and enjoy them