1.

1 An Introduction to this Unit

The discipline of Sociology has witnessed a transformation reflecting significant
changes in society and social life. This unit re-examines the sociological dimensions
of a variety of social concerns, for example: environmental issues, global migration,
health, religion, indigeneity, gender, ethnic conflict and sub-cultural groups and asks:
In the ’brave new world’ of contemporary society we need to re-evaluate the
conventional sociological concern of social structure and inequality in the face of
these broad social changes. This unit will examine the social transformations which
characterise contemporary social life; in particular the pace of social change and the
implications of social media. In exploring these social concerns the links are drawn
between more recent theoretical constructs and the more traditional focus on national
social structures and inequalities. The unit will place special emphasis on concepts
such as risk, individualism and uncertainty.

TOPIC 1: Social Change

 What factors have led to population change? Women in workforce, family

structures change (childcaring, mothering changes)
 Profit out of population change
- War: boost future populations but also drastically reduce adult population
- Fertility and changing gender conventions- womens increase participation in
the workforce
- Technological and economic change- imporvments in public health and
medical knowledge IVF
- Money and postmodernity- the rising cost of living and the choices people
make with regard to pro-creating and living conditions
- Recognising same sex marriage

1) Assess the change and power within social structures: the role that family
or religion plays in our lives
 2) Understand the processes of social change
- Track the representation of people in various jobs or the need for people in
particular jobs
- track the amount of various groups of people (age)
- longer life expectancy means the need for better resources (silver tsunami)
- resource distribution and areas in need of innovation: inform policy
reform/change (superannuation, parental leave)
- assess whether changes are benefiting or disadvantaging society

Liquid modernity:
- Bauman says liquid modern is a society in which conditions under which its
members act change faster than it takes the ways of acting to consolidate into
habits and routines
- Liquid life, just like liquid modern society, cannot keep its shape or stay on
course for long- fast paced society
- Life of constant uncertainty due to continual, rapid change and a constant
anxiety in ensuring we do not run the risk of being co-signed to waste

- Social change refers to the transformation of culture, behaviour, social

institutions, rules, values and social structure over time.
- Social change is constant & ever-present and presents both challenges and
opportunities for society - The consequences of social change are important for
sociologists in the study of social life.
- Some changes are more significant than others, & some periods see more wide-
ranging & rapid change than others.
- All social theories thus include notions of how change occurs, what facilitates
it, the impacts of it & the directionality of it.
Social change typically occurs as a result of the need to alter/improve/remove aspects
of society which are no longer fulfilling or meeting the needs of groups within society.
(media, technology can impact society)
 It can take the form of collective protest against wider social institutions and
structures.
 Social value placed on ‘progress’ – The need for innovation and technological
advancement as a sign of power and progress.
 Moral Panics and social change
 While some theories emphasize ‘the social’, ‘the economic’, or ‘the cultural’ as
the respective driving force for change, most theories today acknowledge that
these aspects of society are not separate but rather intertwined.

Living in a Brave New World

Our time is often described as being one of rapid, wide-ranging, & extreme change.

Processes of Social Change:

Industrialisation
 Brought on by the Industrial Revolution (Mid 17-1800’s): Shift from Agrarian
to Industrial, manufacturing society
 Machines and Automation leads to changing work patterns, relationships,
living arrangements and knowledge
Globalisation
 Economic changes
 Cultural changes – Consumption of food and popular culture – increased
choice
 Population movement/Demographic changes: Migration, travel, visibility of the
“other”

Education
 Increasing level & need after industrialization (E.g. Cyber security)
Women’s rights
 More women survive childbirth & increased participation in society
 Changing work structures
 Changing demographics related to motherhood and marriage.
The Internet
 Changes in type/speed of communication
 Changes in information sharing
 Changes in work structures and relationships (Social life)

‘Shift happens’ – Social Change in a snapshot.

- Humans are simultaneously products of and producers of history (Marx, 1844)
- We are part of both the equation and the result.
- Social change is constant & ever-present, although the pace may be increasing…
(Even if we don’t realise it)

Key Perspectives of Social Change

Evolutionary
Social change mirrors biological evolution & societies progress gradually (uni-/or
multi-directional).

Functionalism –
 Societies evolve overtime and change/growth is acceptable and beneficial when
it is gradual.
 As societies grow and evolve, many new roles develop and people begin to
specialize and thus the division of labour occurs (E.g. Computer sciences).
 Changes in one aspect of society require adjustments in other aspects.
 Gradual change is necessary and desirable and stems from changes in
population growth, technological advances, and interaction with other societies.
This brings about new ways of thinking and acting.
E.g. Migration
Sudden changes overthrow social order and creates chaos/conflict

Marxist/Conflict –
 Real social change is engineered through class struggle.
 Sudden social change is needed to correct inequality and other problems in
society. Sudden change can have the most impact. E.g Bus strikes
 Social change is planned and often stems from efforts by social movements to
bring about fundamental changes in the social, economic, and political systems
– Reducing inequality and correcting the status quo.

Ogburn’s Diffusionism –
Cultural (societal) change spreads through interaction & borrowing (objects, lifestyles,
ideas) – Facilitated by globalizing processes

Modernity VS. Post-Modernity: A shift in the social

Modernity
Late 19th Century – Mid 20th Century
• The Enlightenment Period: Reason/Scientific Rationalism
• Belief in ‘progress’
• Singular & Universal Truth and singular fixed self.
• Singular knowledge claims & key sources of authority
• Family as central unit of social order and influence – Middle class nuclear
family.
Post Modernity
Late 20th Century – 21st Century
• Disenchantment with promises of modernity, science, & ‘progress’
• Multiple Truths become the focus
• Questioning of knowledge & doubting expert systems
• Self (And self experience) is fluid: Conflicting and multiple identities
• No fixed categories
• Alternate family units

Postmodern culture lays down a contextual underpinning which emphasizes diversity

or ‘fluidity’ over universality or ‘rigidity’(Bauman, 2000); An age where reflexivity is
a founding principle of contemporary society. Postmodern theories advocate that there
is no objective view of the world, merely constructed meanings (Castro & Dunn,
2012).

Liquid Modernity
 
 Zygmunt Bauman – Post-modern theorist
  “...A society in which the conditions under which its members act change faster
than it takes the ways of acting to consolidate into habits and routines”
(Bauman, 2005 p. 2)
 Rigid social structures, fixed roles & responsibilities, static identities &
attachments to place, are gradually eroded.
 The solids of the past are increasingly flexible & fluid.
 This highlights the transiency of contemporary Western society.
Life in a liquid modern society cannot stand still. It must continue to modernise -
stripping itself daily of attributes that are past their sell-by dates, dismantling/shedding
the identities currently assembled or perish.
Nudged by the horror of expiry – Consuming life and a consumer life
The greatest chances of winning belong to the people who circulate close to the top of
the  global power pyramid, to whom space matters little and distance is not a bother;
people at home in many places but in no one place in particular .
Eg. Young people who accept the forces of uncertainty and change and dare not
challenge them – They are just as uncertain and nomadic, they travel from place to place
and they accept ‘risk’
‘Liquidity’ or ‘fluidity’ becomes a metaphor for the ever-changing & fast-moving
present.
 Individual as a nomad
 Individual is self-responsible and an architect of their own destiny
 Identity is a task
 Individualisation thesis (Beck): individual is becoming the central unit of
social life

Reading
Week 1: topic 1- Introduction: on living in a liquid modern world
'Liquid life’ is the kind of life commonly lived in our contemporary, liquid-modern
society. Liquid life cannot stay on course, as liquid-modern society cannot keep its shape
for long. Liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty. 
 The most acute and stubborn worries that haunt this liquid life are the fears of being
caught napping, of failing to catch up with fast moving events, of overlooking the ‘use
by’ dates and being saddled with worthless possessions, of missing the moment calling
for a change of tack and being left behind. Liquid life is also shot through by a
contradiction: it ought to be a (possibly unending) series of new beginnings, yet precisely
for that reason it is full of worries about swift and painless endings, without which new
beginnings would be unthinkable. Among the arts of liquid-modern living and the skills
needed to practice them, getting rid of things takes precedence over their acquisition.

This and other challenges of life in a liquid-modern society are traced and unravelled
in the successive chapters of this new book by one of the most brilliant and original
social thinkers of our time.
 
Liquid life is consuming life. It casts the world and all its animate and inanimate
fragments as objects of consumption: that is, objects that lose their usefulness (and so
their lustre, attraction, seductive power and worth) in the course of being used.
 
In the liquid modern world, loyalty is a cause of shame, not pride. Link to your
internet provider first thing in the morning, and you will be reminded of that sober truth
by the main item on the list of daily news: ‘Ashamed of your Mobile? Is your phone so
old that you’re embarrassed to answer it? Upgrade to one you can be proud of.’ The
flipside of the commandment ‘to upgrade’ to a state-of-consumer-correctness mobile is,
of course, the prohibition any longer to be seen holding the one to which you upgraded
last time.
 
1.1 – The basic characteristics of consumer society

The chapter only briefly deals with consumption – which is part of all societies – at
the beginning, the remaining 90% deals with consumerism, or the unique features of the
consumer society, which emerges with the decline of the society of producers some years
after WW2.

Consumerism describes that society in which wanting has become the principal
propelling and operating force which coordinates systemic reproduction, social
integration, social stratification and the formation of identity and life-policies.

In consumer society wanting, desiring and longing needs to be, just as labour capacity
was in the producers’ society, detached (‘alienated’) from individuals and
recycled/reified into an extraneous force.

In the previous society of producers desires were always, after deferred gratification,
eventually meant to be satisfied. Moreover, the function of objects of consumption, once
acquired, was to provided a sense of durability and long-term security. In contrast, the
consumer society associates happiness with an ever rising volume and intensity of
desires, which imply in turn prompt use and speedy replacement of the objects intended
and hoped to gratify them.

Consumer society has the following characteristics (my numbering)

1. An instability of desires and insatiability of needs – Consumer society thrives

when we want more and when those wants have a high turnover rate – i.e when the
goods we buy provide satisfaction for a limited time period only.

2. The desire for Immediate gratification – which has given rise to a ‘Nowist
culture’ – or a curiously hurried life. However, because today’s products only have a
limited life span and a stigma once its date is reached the motive to hurry is only partly
the urge to acquire and collect, the most pressing need is to discard and replace.

3. Pointillist time – Time is experienced as ‘broken up, or even pulverised, into a

multitude of ‘eternal instants’ episodes which are not connected to each other. Bauman
suggests that these episodes are like ‘Big bangs’ – they are pregnant with possibilities of
magnficent things happening, however these moments rarely live up to their promise and
it is in fact the excess of promises which counters each promise not lived up to.

1.2 How the consumer society effects our worldview/ inner pysche/ general way
of seeing the world.

In the consumerist economy product innovations grow at an exponential rate and there
is increasing competition for attention. This results in a flood of information which we
cannot cope with which manifests itself in vertical stacking (think multiple windows on
the go at the same time).

Images of ‘linear time’ and ‘progress’ are among the most prominent victims of the
information flood: when growing amounts of information are distributed at growing
speed, it becomes increasingly difficult to create narratives, orders, developmental
sequences. The fragments threaten to become hegemonic.

This in turn has consequences for the ways we relate to knowledge, work and lifestyle
in a wide sense.

Firstly this results in a blase attitude toward knowledge – the essence of which is

the blunting of discrimination

Secondly it results in melancholy – To be ‘melancholic’ is ‘to sense the infinity of

connection, but be hooked up to nothing’ – a disturbance resulting from the fatal
encounter between the obligation and compulsion to choose and the inability to
choose. (This seems like an evolution of the concept of anomie)

The crucial skill in information society consists in protecting oneself against the 99.99
per cent of the information offered that one does not want.

1.3 The consumer society promises but fundamentally fails to make us happy

The society of consumers stands and falls by the happiness of its members
 It is, in fact, the only society in human history to promise happiness in earthly life, and
happiness here and now and in every successive now – also the only society which
refrains from legitimizing unhappiness.

However, judged by its own standards it is woefully unsuccessful at increasing

happiness.

Bauman now draws on research carried out by Richard Layard to remind us that once
average income rises above approximately $20K per head then there is no evidence
whatsoever that further growth in the volume of consumption results in a greater number
of people reporting that they ‘feel happy’.

In fact a consumption-oriented economy actively promotes disaffection, saps

confidence and deepens the sentiment of insecurity, becoming itself a source of the
ambient fear it promises to cure or disperse.

While consumer society rests its case on the promise to gratify human desires, the
promise of satisfaction remains seductive only as long as the desire stays
ungratified. Clever!

A low threshold for dreams, easy access to sufficient goods to reach that threshold,
and a belief in objective limits to ‘genuine’ needs and ‘realistic’ desires: these are the
most fearsome adversaries of the consumer-oriented economy.

Consumer society thrives as long as it manages to render the non-satisfaction of

its members (and so, in its own terms, their unhappiness) perpetual.

Necessary strategies to maintain this involve hyping a product to the hilt and then
soon after denigrating it and creating goods and services such that they require further
purchases to be made – so that consumption becomes a compulsion, an addiction and
shoppers are encouraged to find solutions to their problems only in the shopping malls.
 The realm of hypocrisy stretching between popular beliefs and the realities of
consumers’ lives is a necessary condition of a properly functioning society of consumers.

In addition to being an economics of excess and waste, consumerism is also an

economics of deception.

1.4 Individualised life-strategies are the principle means whereby consumer

society neutralises dissent.

The society of consumers has developed, to an unprecedented degree, the capacity to

absorb all and any dissent. It does this through a process which Thomas Mathiesen has
recently described as ‘silent silencing’

In other words all ideas threatening to the existing order are integrated into it.

The principle means whereby this is done is through individualisation – whereby

individual life strategies become the route to Utopia to only be enjoyed by the individual
– changing lifestyle, not society.

To follow the metaphor used by schoolboy Karl Marx, those visions are attracted like
moths to the lights of domestic lamps rather than to the glare of the universal sun now
hidden beyond the horizon.

The possibility of populating the world with more caring people and inducing people
to care more does not figure in the panoramas painted in the consumerist utopia.

The privatized utopias of the cowboys and cowgirls of the consumerist era show
instead vastly expanded ‘free space’ (free for myself, of course); a kind of empty space
of which the liquid modern consumer, bent on solo performances and only on solo
performances, always needs more and never has enough.

Lifestyle strategies smack of adiaphorisation – removing sense of moral responsibility

for others.
 The new Blackwell companion to social theory- CH 22 Demography
 
 As a discipline, demography must appear to be one of the least suitable
candidates for inclusion in a volume on social theory. It is the intellectual and
institutional child of the modern European bureaucratic state.
 
 For military, economic, and administrative reasons, the state came to be
interested not only in the size of its component population, its evolution
and reproduction, but in all kinds of data relevant to the management of its resources,
both domestically and in its overseas colonies.
 
 To this day most demographers work directly for the state, while its more
autonomous academic practitioners are almost invariably tied closely to state and supra-
state organizations, such as the United Nations or European Union.
 
 It is thus hardly surprising that much of the “theory” that demographers use,
and especially its core concept of the “demographic transition,” has been driven at times
by the interests of the states in general and united states in particular
 
 The content and subject matter of demography also appear relentlessly
technical, descriptive, and atheoretical: more a question of arithmetic than social theory.
 
 Moreover, this is a vision many demographers themselves embrace. Mills’s
(2005) survey of recent articles in the journal Demography found that they employed
exclusively theories from other disciplines, most notably those of the household
economics of Becker (1960, 1991).
 
 To the extent that contemporary demography has its “own” theory it is that of
the “demographic transition,” but the latter has been plagued by both its political
distortion and the failure of the most extensive attempts to reconcile the theory with the
empirical evidence available (Coale 1986; Hodgson 1988; Robinson 1997) such that one
of its most prominent theorists, Paul Demeny (1972) could summarize it thus: “in
traditional societies, fertility and mortality are high. In modern societies, fertility and
mortality are low. In between there is the demographic transition.”
 
Sociology and Demography:
 
 This perhaps explains why it is unusual to find many references to demography
in contemporary sociology. Sociological texts (e.g. Giddens 2006) rarely include any
reference to demographic analysis. Yet this absence is rather paradoxical, since
sociology deals with themes that are directly related to population: the family and its
evolution, population “aging,” migration, gender relations, and so on.
 
 In the interwar period many sociologists, such as Kingsley Davis in the USA or
David Glass in Britain, took a keen interest in demography. Indeed Davis’s sociological
theory of modernization and fertility decline (1937) was almost certainly a key source of
Parsons’, later sociology of the family. However the focus of this interest – low fertility
and the prospect of population stagnation or decline – also helps explains its rapid
waning in the “baby boom” years of the 1950s and 1960s.
 
 Sociology of the body focusses on the interpretation of the changing symbolic
meanings attached to bodies or represented by them in different social contexts.
 
Demography and Economics:
 
 At first, the development of what might commonly be thought of as “theory” in
demography is to be found in works of classical political economy, where population
enters as an economic variable alongside others such as the size of the workforce, growth
of economic activity, the level of prices or supply of fertile land.
 
Demography and the concept of population:
 
  we present an alternative vision of demography and its place in social theory by
suggesting that it is precisely in its methodology, usually regarded as merely technical,
that demography has a decisive and distinctive theoretical contribution to make.
 
 From our point of view the early origins of demography as the study of
population reproduction are rather to be found in the works of early statisticians such as
William Petty, John Gaunt, or Edmund Halley, who developed various tools for
analyzing population trends which over time have culminated in the what we see as the
essential theoretical component of modern demography: the life table .
 
 Demography is the study of population
 the term “population” that is fundamental to understanding demography and its
relation to other social sciences and to biology. The term population can be taken to refer
to any group of human beings considered as a “stock,” as a defined group of persons at a
point in time: the number of inhabitants of a territory, a social class, or any group sharing
a common characteristic.
 
 the term population also has another meaning, rooted in biology, which for us
is paramount: a population is something that reproduces itself over time.
 
 When demography, and other social sciences use the term in the plural, this can
refer only to administratively defined stocks: typically the inhabitants or sometimes the
legal residents or again citizens of states
 
 Populations, however, are not eternal. They rise and fall, he argues, especially
as a consequence of migration. They can die out, as a result of chronic low fertility, or by
the fusion of previously separate populations.
 
 Thus to treat a population as a system of reproduction we have to exercise
extreme caution in reducing population systems to specific territorial areas, or treating
fertility and immigration on the one hand, or mortality and emigration on the other, as
distinct phenomena: they may be bound together by the nature of territorial boundaries
that may have little direct effect on population dynamics.
 
Life expectancy and the reproductive revolution:
 
 The size of a population, as a stock, tells us nothing about how that population
reproduces itself over time, and crucially, the volume of births and associated
reproductive effort that goes into maintaining it: what might be called the balance
between life and death.
 
 We take life expectancy to be perhaps the most important demographic
indicator, as it is at the core of reproduction. Over the last two centuries, life expectancy,
and thus the manner in which populations reproduce themselves, has undergone a
fundamental and unrepeatable change.
 
 This revolution, which demographers usually call the “demographic transition”
but which we prefer to call the “reproductive revolution” (MacInnes and Pérez Díaz
2005), has had three main consequences, crucial to modernity, which have also tended to
be obscured by the concentration on the exploration of its non-demographic “causes.”
 
Years of life: age groups, generations and life tables:
 
 In the social sciences we make use of the concept of age groups so regularly
that they end up becoming an object of investigation in themselves. But although we
often talk of the characteristics, behavior, and changes in “age groups,” such groups have
no more material an existence than Hobbes’s mushrooms.
 
 The distinction between ages and the individuals who have them is
fundamental. We can, of course, equate age group and life course, imagining that a cross-
sectional division of age groups also gives us a picture of a succession of life stages,
from infant to senior citizen, but the cost of doing so is to rule out that which we are
usually concerned to investigate in the first place: social change
 
 Considered as a birth cohort or generation in the demographic sense,
individuals’ ages become closer to their authentic meaning: sequential, temporary, stages
of a life course. An early appreciation of the sociological significance of the life table
approach is that of Ryder (1965), who saw the cohort – a group of people born at the
same calendar time – as the key concept of demography:

Population pyramids:

The rapid changes experienced by these pyramids in recent years highlights the
demographic transformations we have referred to.

That aging populations, like aging individuals, are slow, less “flexible” or dynamic, in

decline or about to die out.

The net result of these changes has been that the ratio of those in employment to the
rest of the population has been positive or neutral across the last half-century in most
European countries.

The strategic importance of fertility:

In the 1920s and 1930s the impact of the fertility decline released by the reproductive
revolution brought forth alarmist claims from both progressive and conservative
analysts about the impending “death” of the nation, either through demographic
weakness or military defeat

in our view the relationship might better be seen the other way around: an utterly
changed system of population reproduction made materially possible what had
previously been only a utopia: the destruction of the foundations of patriarchy and the
generalization, for the first time, of the idea of the fundamental equality of the sexes.

The regulation of fertility at home and abroad:

Part of the problem here is rooted in demography’s continued reliance on other
disciplines for its theoretical ideas, rather than paying sufficient attention to the
explanatory power of its own contribution.
 It is all too easy for sociology, economics, or political science to take a “variable”
such as fertility, from demography and seek explanations for it – whether in the form
of accounting for the decline of fertility thorough changes in economic behavior or
values and attitudes, or searching for policy remedies for what is wrongly assumed to
be a social problem.
But such efforts tend to overlook the way the laws of operation of the reproductive
system have been transformed by the reproductive revolution and the withering of
patriarchy.

The contemporary situation of demography:

 Our argument here, however, is that the reproductive revolution has been one equal in
status and importance to the already well-known and discussed political and economic
revolutions

This helps to explain why, although there is universal recognition that demographic
change has been a fundamental aspect of the rise of modernity, particularly the
explosion of world population that started in the eighteenth century and now appears
to be reaching its conclusion, this demographic revolution has always been seen as an
effect of other, more basic, social and economic changes, rather than some kind of
revolutionary change in its own right.

Demography in the era of population maturity:

As a result the demographic map of the world, in terms of the distribution and
demographic behavior of population, has been in constant evolution, and the themes
of interest and discussion in demography has undergone almost constant change.

Life expectancy:
Current attention has come to be focused on what, if any, are the limits to the growth
of life expectancy.

With the rise of longevity, increased interest has focused on morbidity and what has
come to be called “healthy life expectancy” or the number of years people can expect
to live in good health. Changing ages of death have also changed the pattern of
pathologies that bring it about, together with patterns of ill health in general. This has
come to be known as the epidemiological transition, with obvious implications for the
demand for health care, and other public services.
Migration:
For the first time in history, more people in the world now live in cities than in the
country, while the nature of urban spatial mobility has changed substantially even
over the last two decades.

The global spread of the reproductive revolution first experienced in Europe has
altered geostrategic global politics: the Chinese and Indian states are no longer
potential but actual world power players Added to this, the technology of mobility has
revolutionized international migration, revealing the vast distance between states’
desire to control population movements and their empirical ability to do so.

Conclusion:

We have argued that there are two main reasons why social theory ought to pay more
attention to demography than it has perhaps done in the past. The first is empirical.
We are living through a period of very rapid demographic change bound up with the
processes of modernization that has seen an upward leap in life expectancy whose
upper limits still remain far from clear.

This revolution has ushered in other demographic changes such as declining fertility
and nuptiality, the redistribution of world population, and vast changes in migration
patterns both within and between states. These demographic changes have manifold
and profound social consequences, such as alterations in the structure and power of
the family, the decline of patriarchy, intergenerational relations, and the future shape
of globalization.

The second is theoretical. By focusing on longitudinal processes, the analytical tools

of a critical demography, which we have argued can be seen as rooted in the
development of the life table and its analogs, have much to offer social theory trying
to understand processes of social change.

It can do this through its capacity to distinguish different dimensions of time and thus
bring biography and history together in a way that does not “flatten” individuals’
experiences into the kind of structural snapshot of society offered by the one-off
transversal survey.

By remembering, like Filmer, that society comprises mortals with a

sexual genesis, and not just social roles or positions in structure or discourse that need
filling, we have a better chance of understanding contemporary social change.

TOPIC 2: Social movements

New movements and old movements:
- Technology
- Politically driven
- Cultural change (values that change over social norms in a society)
- Western societies in the post 1960s era
- The social movements in our time have a distinct focus on quality of life issues
that are accompanied by post modernism
- A shift from political/economic to cultural concerns- in favour for structural
reform rather than in overthrowing political order
- Use of technology and the internet to accelerate information sharing and
enhance participation
- Inclusive (age, class, status, social categories
- E.g. aboriginal land rights, identity movements, environmental justice, climate
change movements

 Social movements are conscious, concerted, and sustained efforts by

ordinary people to change some aspect of their society by using extra-
institutional means.
 Members of social movements hold strong ideas about the contradictions and
ills of society (Shared dissatisfaction)
 The 20th century saw many significant movements including anti-war protests,
the civil rights & anti-apartheid movements which saw equality in law for
people of African descent in the USA & South Africa respectively, & voting
rights for Indigenous Australians & women, for example.
 The 21st century has seen an interesting clash between capitalist forces & the
working consumer society (Occupy protests moved on, but shoppers camping
out for iPhones not, etc.) & the re-imagining of visibility & equality under law
with transgender rights & marriage equality being achieved.
Example 1: Women's voting rights – Suffragette Movement

 Historically, citizenship was gendered (Pateman 1994; Walby 1994). The

abstract category of citizen was male; thus men were the bearers of civil,
political, and social rights (Orloff 1993)”
 The first wave of the feminist movement around the turn of the 20 th century saw
a drive to shift the political social order with the challenge to traditional
access to the voting booth being permitted only to men.
 The Suffrage movement in Britain was marked with strong political activism
led by Emmaline Pankhurst who founded the Women's Social and Political
Union in 1903.
 Movement sparked by violent acts such as arson, vandalism, bombings, hunger
strikes, wire-cutting of phone lines, & window breaking in an attempt to sway
political mood.

 Pankhurst died on June 14th, aged 69; shortly thereafter full voting rights for
women were attained on July 2nd 1928.
 However, it is important to recognise that while Pankhurst & the suffragettes
fought hard for some women, the suffrage movement was not universally
inclusive (non-white & poor/lower-class women were not the focus of
Pankhurst’s & the overall movement’s vision).
 A more universal approach to human rights began when New Zealand – the
first country to legislate for votes for women in 1893, Australia was the second
nation to allow women to vote (with the exception of Indigenous Australians,
who were not granted voting rights at all until 1962).The USA began allowing
women to vote in 1920, while Britain & Ireland did not win voting rights for
women until 1928. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia only granted women the
right to vote in 2011.

New Social Movement (NSM) theory

  New social movement theory is the theoretical framework used to represent the
social movements that have emerged and risen in Western societies since the
mid 1960’s (Pichardo, 1997).
 New social movements are believed to have moved away from the instrumental
issues of industrialism and have gravitated towards the quality of life issues
that are accompanied by post-modernism (E.g. Cultural change; Equal Rights,
Feminism, Environmental change & Identity politics).
 A shift from political to cultural concerns
 The impacts of globalisation and growth individualism have impacted on the
way in which social movements of today are organised, structured and
participated in (Martin, et al. 2006).
 Class becomes much less important in determining the base, interests or
ideology of the movement.

Example 1: Health movements in the 21st Century

Women's Health Movement

 The second wave of the feminist movement in the second half of the 20 th
century saw the rise of the Women’s Health Movement (WHM).
 WHM refers to the attempts made to address sexism in medicine (Foucault's
‘Clinical Gaze’) by highlighting the inherent sexism in medicine & the
importance of gender in health research & services.
 Promotion of the woman as an autonomous health consumer and no longer a
passive patient.
 The doctor as expert medical paradigm saw a centuries-long tradition of male
doctors holding expert knowledge which was denied to women (training,
status, etc.), but which often exploited the female body & female experiences.
 Women were excluded from the profession, participating in clinical trials and
Medically speaking ‘normal’ functioning is based on male
bodies/experiences, equating female bodies to the inherently sickly or faulty.
Example 1: Health movements in the 21st Century
Men’s health movement

 The focus on men’s health in Australia and other English-speaking countries

followed on about 20 years after the women’s health movement.
 It was only at that point that premature, potentially preventable, deaths in
young men were seen as health &/or medical issues.
 Men living with depression, loss or suicide ideation often benefit from the
support of other men in practical surrounds – the Men’s Shed is an excellent
resource: http://mensshed.org/
 Youth suicide intervention information & support is available at websites via
organisations including:
 www.beyondblue.org www.headspace.org.au www.lifeline.org.au

Health movements in the 21st Century: Changing the culture around health.

 Social change may be seen in the way we acknowledge, recognise, name &
communicate more openly about health issues in 21st century Western society,
in comparison to health mores of previous decades & centuries.
 Health problems, particularly those relating to mental illness, were often taboo
subjects, with silence & denial being the norm.
 The internet has also made discreet access to resources & information much
easier for those who wish to keep their health status private, or whose
community mores may still not embrace acknowledgement of illness.
 Example 2: Women’s movements in the 21st Century: Changing the culture
around gender based violence -‘Slut Walk’

 The new form of transnational feminist protest represented by SlutWalks

emerged within the historical context of the women's liberation movement
 Shift towards the values of the postmodern world: Identity, quality of life,
personal growth and self-actualisation rather than economic concerns.
 The SlutWalk movement turns the objectification of women on its head
becoming a unique and innovative form of protest against gender-based
violence (Misogyny, victim-blaming, sexual objectification of girls and women
in pornography and the media, popularizing rape myths, and attitudes of rape
acceptance in society).

 The slutwalks started with one small protest march in Toronto on April 3, when
women marched in defiance of a local policeman who told 10 college students
that: “I've been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should
avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised”.
 SlutWalks have since gone viral, with events planned in more than 75 cities in
countries from the United States and Canada to Sweden and South Africa. In
just a few months, they have become the most successful feminist action of the
past 20 years.

 Worldwide grassroots protest movements led by young people that appear to be

organized through and fuelled by social media
 Events are organised via their own website, Twitter account and Facebook
pages.
 This accessibility allows for participation to extend beyond class and
geographical boundaries.
  Whilst not relying solely on those in power to instigate social movements,
support from the powerful can help promote social change #MeToo

“50 years ago, to really start a social movement that has any kind of impact you
needed to be someone with a big body corporate like the president or you had to be
Martin Luther King who had this huge network of black churches… but today, anyone
who is digitally savvy can start a movement”
(Jeremy Heimans CEO of ‘Purpose’ - Empowering social movements, 2012).
Purpose builds and supports movements to advance the fight for an open, just and
habitable world using public mobilisation and storytelling to help the leading
organisations, activists, businesses, and charities engaged in particular social issues to
campaign for new initiatives that can shift policies and change public opinion.

Example 3: Marriage equality

Ireland
 In 2015 the 34th amendment to the Irish Constitution was voted in by a
resounding majority of 62% - marriage is constituted of two persons, regardless
of their sex.
 Arguably, the greatest strength of the ‘yes’ campaign was the inclusive &
dialogical approach they adopted.
 Marked a break with one of the strongest traditional power blocs in Ireland, the
Catholic church, which had informed & influenced opinion & law for
centuries.
Australia
 In 2017, on the 15th of November the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced
that 61.6% of Australians who took part voted yes for marriage equality.
 Nearly 80% per cent of eligible voters took part in the two-month postal
survey.
 The Ireland Marriage Equality referendum was not marred by physical violence or
protests, which is a win for the non-violence approach. ‘Yes’ campaigners, however, did
report verbal & written abuse & threats to a significant degree.
These experiences are echoed (and exacerbated) by the LGBTQI community in
Australia, after the Same-sex plebiscite was announced, stating they felt threatened and
distressed throughout the campaigning protests. Sadly, experiences of increased verbal
assaults and physical threats were shared in the three months following the
announcement of the postal survey compared with the prior six months.
This highlights that social change is not without resistance even today.
Week 1 Topic 2:
Editors introduction- chapter 1

In modern societies, more than ever before, people have organized themselves to
pursue a dizzying array of goals. There are the strikes, pickets, and rallies of the labor
movement, aimed at higher wages and union recognition, but also at political goals. In
the early nineteenth century the Luddites broke into early British factories and
smashed new “labor-saving” machines.

Political or Social Protest Protest refers to the act of challenging, resisting, or making

demands upon authorities, powerholders, cultural beliefs and practices by some
individual or 

The women’s movement has tried to change family life and gender relations as well as
the economic opportunities of women.

Some of these movements have looked for opportunities to claim new rights, while
others have responded to threats or violence. Some have sought political and
economic emancipation and gains, while others have promoted (or fought) lifestyle
choices they liked (or feared).

Social movements are conscious, concerted, and sustained efforts by ordinary people
to change some aspect of their society by using extra-institutional means.

Social Movement: A social movement is a collective, organized, sustained,

and noninstitutional challenge to authorities, power holders, or cultural beliefs and
practices. A revolutionary movement is a social movement that seeks, at minimum,
to overreaffirm throw the government or state, and perhaps to change the economy
and key institutions of the entire society.
Social movements are a bit like art: they are efforts to express values and sensibilities
that have not yet been well articulated, that journalists haven’t yet written about, that
lawmakers have not yet addressed.

Social movements play a crucial role in contemporary societies. We learn about the
world around us through them. They encourage us to figure out how we feel about
government policies, social trends, and new technologies.

Many movements are also interested in changing our emotional cultures, especially
movements influenced by the women’s movement, which argued that women were
disadvantaged by the ways in which different emotions were thought appropriate for
men and for women.

From a drowning to a celebration article:

Dunstan is also a significant figure in the evolution of a greater acceptance of sexual

diversity. 

one of us can be identified solely in terms of one part of our identity, but at the same
time we cannot pretend that our sexual desires, identities and behaviours – such
central factors – are irrelevant to who we are and how we act in the broader world.

Sexuality is private and public at the same time. The specific pleasures and practices
of an individual’s sex life are rarely relevant to those other than his or her partners,
and should be left to novelists and film-makers

Cyberactivism and the Emergence of #TeamPanti

Ireland’s best-known queer performer, drag artist Panti

On 1 February 2014, Ireland's best-known queer performer, drag artist Panti (Rory
O'Neill), delivered a ten-minute speech on the main stage of the Abbey Theatre
following a production of James Plunkett's play The Risen People(1958). The oration
was the last instalment in a series of so-called ‘Noble Calls’ programmed by the
national theatre, in which invited artists, activists and public intellectuals spoke after
the production about an issue of pressing concern. Plunkett's drama explores the
impact on a family of the 1913 Dublin Lockout, during which approximately 20,000
people took to the streets in an industrial dispute over working conditions. Marking
the centenary of the event, the production and its Noble Calls commemorated the
original incident, while also encouraging reflection on the state of contemporary
Ireland, and the public's aspirations for a country deeply affected by recent social,
cultural and economic upheavals.

Topic 3: youth subcultures:

- Youth subcultures are groups which hold values, and norms distinct from those
of the majority within a wider society
- Youth subcultures are subcultures which are overwhelmingly participated in by
youth
- They own a strong sense of identity and a set of styles, values, and taste distinct
from the broader culture they belong to
- Strong sense of commitment to the group in multiple forms: external and
internal (dress, rules, values, roles)
- Working class men were mainly involved because women weren’t allowed to
be in public spaces and especially alone (traditional)
- Inequality and unhappy with how broader society functioned

Understanding Subcultures
- Subcultures are groups which hold values and norms distinct from those of the
majority within a wider society
- They own a strong sense of identity and a set of styles, values and taste distinct
from the broader culture they belong to
 - A youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviours
and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that
ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school
- Some more well-known examples of subcultures include; skaters, hippies,
goths, fans of hip hop or heavy metal, body building, cosplayers, seapunk,
hipsters, straight edge.
- These subcultures hold a culture which is unique to the one which surrounds
them. This distinction is located in both material and non-material ways
including; dress, expression or demeanour (what actors wear and how they
wear it)
- There is a division between the insiders (of the subculture) and outsiders where
expression would not be understood unless you are part of it

Emergence of youth cultures

- in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Centre for Cultural Studies (CCS) at Birmingham
University started to study youth subcultures which developed from the 1950’s
onwards (post war era)
- the purposes behind their participation in subcultures was an attempt to
provide collective solutions to the structural problems they faced
- subcultures in this sense, work to address structural problems, and implicitly
contain a critique of society, “admittedly often inarticulate and exaggerated”
- examples: mods and the rockers, Skin heads, Teddy Boys (these examples
were heavily into violence, loud music, fighting)
- the emergence of these cultures after the war were no surprise because people
form the middle class background and were exposed to disposable income
- subcultures even today can be linked to economic changes by creating clothing
and dress codes that were different from the norm
 - for example, the Teddy Boys appropriated Edwardian clothing styles which
was currently in fashion at the time

CCS Criticisms:
- overemphasised committed participation- the majority of people who did not
drop out of school, did not take drugs, run away from home, became highly
promiscuous and engage in street violence or petty crimes were left out of
analysis
- excluded women and ethnic minorities within their analysis
- not all subcultures aim to counter the dominant values held by society. Whilst
they may be rebellious and may celebrate and dramatize specific styles and
values, a lot of the time, their rebellion seldom reaches an articulated
opposition
- subcultural participation is nearly always a temporary solution, and in no sense
a real material solution, but one which is solved at the cultural level
- for example, hip hop sub culture
Hip Hop subculture
- hip hop subculture emerging from early 1970s, Bronx, NY
- subcultural participate provided an opportunity to transmit political and social
commentary
- experiences of poverty, violence and crime were shared by many famous
rappers such as 2PAC which many young African American youth relate to
- youth subcultures generate a form of collective identity from which an
individual identity can be achieved outside the one which is ascribed by class,
education and occupation
- hip hop was a successful subculture with great influence, even today

Example, Bedroom culture- Girls participation in subcultures

- Class and gender will have an impact on the way subcultures are expressed,
chosen or interpreted
 - One of the most prominent questions asked as a result was- are girls really
absent from the main post war subcultures? Or are they present but invisible
- Brake (1985) examines the constraints to expressing femininity that working
class females are constraint in their ability and understanding to express
- McRobbie and Garber (theory) argue that girls absence from subcultures and
research on subcultures can be attributed to the stricter parental control and
regulation of girls leisure time
- As a result of this, girls have found alternative strategies- the ‘teeny bopper’
culture; constructed around the territory available to the girls home and the
bedroom
- This is what McRobbie terms as ‘Bedroom Culture’, where identity was often
expressed by girls
- Girls were not socialised to engage in risk-taking behaviour or participate in
public spaces and life
- Parental control saw them confined to domesticated, private spheres for leisure
- Found alternative ways to express their identities and forge connections with
other girls (e.g. decorating bedroom according to their taste and interests,
purchasing popular culture magazines or makeup, music)
- ‘teeny bopper culture’
- With the growing accessibility of the internet and social media, this bedroom
culture is only growing and becoming easier to achieve on a larger scale,
bigger than that of the small social circles girls may have formed from school
- Most YouTube videos are made in girls bedrooms – to express interests,
makeup etc

Why are youth interested in participating in subcultures?

- Participation in terms of belonging and the desire to develop and maintain a
strong, social identity
- Youth and adolescence is a period characterized by increased change and
transition structurally, functionally and hormonally and such changes lead to
specific behaviors, disinhibition, interests and communication mores
- Period of rejection of adulthood responsibilities in favor of ‘having a good
time’
- Stage which eases the transition from the security of childhood to that of a ‘full
adult’ in marriage and occupational status
- Increased participation and influence in society- legal classifications associated
with different stages of youth, notably the age at which people can vote,
engage in sexual encounters, smoke, drink and drive
- Youth is a time where people take risks, try new things, experimentations
- In particular, conformity within peer groups is important, but non-conformity
to societal norms/values is not similarly valued
- Rewards as important within this process in addition to the roles of the
consumer market
- Business are able to exploit cultural trends for target audience
- E.g. H&M have collaborated for Coachella
The changing nature of subcultural participation and expression: Online
communities and virtual selves
- Internet creating ‘global communities’/ ‘global subcultures’
- Whilst the ‘insider’ verbal and non-verbal communication signifiers are
nothing new for youth subcultures, the style and speed of communication is
increasingas a result of new media. This may be argued as reflecting rapid
consumer cycles in combination with the ease of information access in the 21 st
century
- Social media has provided an opportunity for individuals to connect with other
like-minded people and groups of common interest
- Many individuals have left Facebook and pursued other sides like tumble,
myspace which provide more autonomy and control in terms of creative
expression and design
 - Websites and dating apps made by subcultures; can be positive, minimal
embarrassment, fear
- Social media platforms can promote the emergence of ‘newer’ subcultures or
‘trends’
- E.g. Tumblr and ‘soft grunge’ or Tumblr and the ‘health goth’

The dark side of social platforms

- Social platforms, particularly reddit and twitter have come under fire for
trolling, cyber stalking, double standards and cyber bullying (esp females and
members of the LGTIQA)
- Online invisibility and anonymity make anti-social behaviors easier, and allow
for cyber bullying, harassment and trolling to occur- these are all
contemporary issues that can affect young people to the point of self-harm or
suicide

From subcultures to neo-tribes?

- Post-modernity has brought about social dissolution and extreme
individualism, where the post-modern individual moves between myriad of
sites and gatherings and has multiple identities and affiliations which cannot be
unified within one group
- Bennett’s ‘Neo-tribe’, employs Maffesoil’s concept of tribus, arguing that is
best reflects youth activity because it allows for more fluid boundaries
- The neo-tribe is fluid and fleeting. It exists only for duration of time; it only
comes into being as the occasion arises. E.g. band fandom, dance festivals
- In a subculture, identity is unified and fixed
- Whether subculture or neo-tribe, the relationship of groups with the rest of
society, the motivations and consequences of involvement the operation and
implications of collective values and practices, reinforce or challenge different
sorts of societal values
Week 1 topic 3:

Leisure and lifestyle:

For marginalized working class youth, ‘ leisure ’ is shaped by a lack of money, a

strong sense of neighbourhood boundaries, and the stigma attached to geographical
and class location.

During the last few decades, changes in patterns of educational participation,

protracted labour market transitions and an extension in the period of dependency
have all had implications for the lifestyles which young people adopt and for the ways
in which they spend their free time.

Although leisure and lifestyles continue to reflect gender and class locations, there is
evidence that these divisions have blurred as a consequence of the influence of leisure
industries and the common experience of delayed transitions (Roberts and Parsell
1994).

Males and females from all social classes tend to have more free time than previously
and engage in a greater range of leisure pursuits which, on the surface, appear to
display greater similarities than differences.

These changes in young people’s leisure and lifestyles highlight the implications of
the process of individualization identified by Beck (1992).

Young people are often able to choose between a wide range of activities and
construct their identities in an arena where the impact of traditional social divisions
appears weak.

Although gender differences remain powerful, there is evidence that they have
weakened with the narrowest gender differences being observed in those following the
increasingly popular educational routes.

Youth cultures:

In the early twenty-first century the cultural patterns and pursuits of adolescents
continue to be the subject of intense research and debate.
 The period of youth in our society is one of considerable strain and insecurity… youth
culture has important positive functions in easing the transition from the security of
childhood in the family of orientation to that of full adult in marriage and occupational
status

The first identifiable body of sociological research on what now might be termed
youth cultures was located as part of a drive to understand adolescent crime and
deviance among U.S. sociologists in the early to mid-twentieth century.

Week 2 topic 4 lecture: Rethinking Class and Inequality

The emergence of Class

- A social class is a demographic cluster of households whose members owe

their life chances principally to specific property ownership or employment
relations that constitute their class situations” (Scott 2002, p. 24 ). Wealth
based, Common definition
- Class was considered the “key to understanding the dynamics of the modern
world” (Scott 2002, p. 23). Social, employment relations of dynamics
- This was facilitated by Karl Marx’s analyses of capitalism & economic
inequality.
- Weber then refined the way sociologists consider/discuss class in terms of
social forces & stratification considering property, power & prestige.

Marx & Class

 Marx sees class as a social group whose members share the same relationships
to the means of production. Social change is driven by class struggle, pressure
on the powerful to change their lives
 The means of production consists of the tools, factories, land and investment
capital used to produce wealth. Resource to accumulate wealth. People can be
exploited to create wealth
 The bourgeoisie (the owning class) and Marx’s proletariat (the working class)
they own the means of production (own factories that sell for profit)
 However at times Marx further included the categories of the: Petite
Bourgeoisie (middle class) & Lumpenproletariat (under class)
 In capitalist society the bourgeoisie (the owning class) and Marx’s proletariat
(the working class) are dependent upon each perception of the other.
 This dependency is what keeps these class groups connected to one another.
owners rely on workers to sell their products because they don’t want to do that
job. The working class rely on their owners for a job
 It is important to emphasise that this mutual dependency is obviously not an
equal relationship but rather a relationship between “exploiter and exploited,
oppressor and oppressed”.
 Marx was writing during a time of immense social change
Weber & Class
- Weber recognized the part played by non-economic factors, alongside the
economic, in determining life chances. What your born into is what you’ll stay
in forever (generations to generations)
- In particular, he recognized three distinct dimensions in the overall distribution
of class within societies – Property (wealth), power and prestige – and he saw
each as having a separate effect on the production of life chances.
- Groups or people in a hierarchy based on power, status. His theory is more
fluid than Marx. Money does determine class
- Most relevant here is his recognition of the interdependence of class and status
in contemporary societies (Scott 2002, pp. 29-30).

- Property (Wealth) - The amount of money you have largely influences your
standing in society – Whether you own or operate the means of production
(E.g. the McDonald’s manager)
 - Prestige (Status) – label we apply to people who we believe are powerful
(E.g. A gold medallist might not own property but they have high prestige) –
Exchangeable.
- Power – The ability to control others - Prestige and Property can be turned
into power. (E.g. Celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger who became
Governor of California in 2003 or Peter Garret, Midnight Oil member/political
environmentalist)
This perspective implicitly allows for more class mobility than Marx’s position does.
Weber’s definition also lends itself more easily to the more complex class distinctions that
characterise post-industrial societies.

Class & Contemporary Society

“These days patterns and configurations [for living] are no longer ‘given’, let alone ‘self-
evident’; there are just too many of them, clashing with one another and contradicting one
another’s commandments, so that each one has been stripped of a good deal of
compelling, coercively constraining powers. And they have changed their nature and have
been accordingly reclassified: as items in the inventory of individual tasks...Ours is, as a
result, an individualized, privatized version of modernity, with the burden of pattern-
weaving and the responsibility for failure primarily on the individual’s shoulders”
(Bauman 2012, pp. 7-8).
 Heavy responsibility on the individual for life chances
 Heavy responsibility on the individual for creating opportunities for change
 Class as difficult to predict and see

Processes of social change have impacted on the prevalence of class and

experiences of inequality today.

- Globalisation
- De-industrialisation
- Individualisation
 - Mobility
- Emphasis on difference & diversity rather than inequality
- More choice = more risk & uncertainty = more responsibility

- “the disintegration of the certainties of industrial society as well as the

compulsion to find and invent new certainties for oneself” (Beck 1994, p. 14).

- Parts of our lives that were once governed by tradition, or what Bauman
denoted as ‘taken for granted norms’, are becoming problematic.

- The consequence is the compulsion to daily invent & choose a path for ones’
life.

- This necessitates an active engagement with the self, the body, with
relationships with partners, family & friends, with notions of gender, & with
careers.

Class Redefined
- “There is a clear hierarchical character to class relations on measure of income
and wealth” (Scott 2002, p. 27).
- A great volume of empirical research suggests that class is still alive.
- Class remains particularly important in labour market opportunities &
consequences of recent financial crises have to a large extent varied according
to class position.
- Bauman (1998) points out that for those at the top of the occupational
hierarchy work flexibility is voluntarily & freely chosen; but for those at the
bottom ‘flexibility’ means insecurity, lack of autonomy, lack of choice & an
uncertain future…
- Self-fulfilling & vocational work is only available to the privileged few.
- Rather than being “dead”, class has been ignored or hidden behind other more
popular social categories.
 - “Class divisions persist as a crucial structural feature of contemporary
societies, shaping people's life chances and political actions” (Scott 2002, p.
34).
- Class intersects with a number of other social divisions to produce inequalities
(E.g. Sex/Gender, Geographical location, Education & Ethnicity…to name a
few).
New class distinctions are emerging:
 Elites
 Salariat
 Proficians
 Core working class

 Precariat
 Unemployed
 Lumpenprecariat
The last three categories form a growing global group who are “more denizens
than citizens” that lack economic rights, stability, security, mobility & social
belonging (Standing 2012).

The Precariat – Class in the 21st century

- From Proletariat to Precariat (Standing, 2011)…
- Traditionally, the working class enjoyed relatively stable employment – a sort
of trade-off for their social conditions.
- This class is decreasing in number as a consequence of changes in the labour
market.
- As businesses demand flexibility, increasing numbers of employees are only
offered short term, precarious employment.

The Precariat
- The precariat denotes those with a vulnerable position in the labour market.
 - Usually in short term jobs, no access to careers or stable conditions.
- Migrants, unskilled workers & youth are particularly vulnerable.
- Western, neo-liberal democracies have produced a class of debt-ridden
graduates without job opportunities.
- “Increasingly frustrated and potentially dangerous because they have no voice,
vulnerable to the siren calls of extreme political parties, the precariat could
produce new instabilities in society” (Standing 2011).
- Particularly linked to the growth of unrest & political extremism (Exploitation
and lack of security)
- Since 2007 the global youth unemployment rate has started rising dramatically.
(ILO 2015)
- 75 million youth are unemployed around the world, an increase of more than 4
million since 2007. (ILO 2015)
- Large increases were experienced throughout Europe, North America, Latin
America & South Asia. Youth unemployment in Australia is also much higher
than the general unemployment figures…
- Up until recently youth unemployment was linked to poor educational
opportunities & lack of skills. Increased educational opportunities for all have,
however, been coupled with a rise in youth unemployment.
- Research thus suggests the education system reproduces social inequality in
the labour force.
- A key problem is the inflation in qualifications & precarity of the job market,
as well as influx of foreign workers willing & able to work under poor
conditions & lower pay rates.

The persistence of Inequality

Daniel Dorling (2015) argues that inequalities are perpetuated by 5 ideological, social
evils of our time:
1) Elitism (portrayed as efficient) – Rich people produce rich babies with rich
futures, because its easier that way.
 2) Exclusion (considered necessary) – The rich support the rich and exclude those
who need social activity and opportunity most.
3) Prejudice (presented as natural) – The rich mix only with the rich because they
don’t want to mix with the poor
4) Greed (celebrated as a good) What do the extremely wealthy do with spare
money – they invest in property, houses they do not need, but out of which they
make yet more money from those who live within them (struggling renters)
5) Despair (inevitable) Depression and anxiety – The insecurity caused when
particular forms of competition are enhanced. In the UK despair reached a new
high by 2006 when it was reported that a third of families had at least one
family member who was suffering from depression or a chronic anxiety
disorder.

Week 2 Topic 4
Reading
Social class and stratification in late modernity:

Social changes associated with late modernity have led many to question the
continuing relevance of class analysis. This is shown in relation to the constitution of
economic classes. the causal effects of class situations.

The formation of social classes, end patterns of class awareness. It is argued that
economic class divisions can still be identified and that they continue to exercise a
major impact on life chances

Class effects must be considered alongside other, partially offsetting, causal effects,
and this means that patterns of social class formation are looser than in the past.

People continue to recognise the existence of economic and social class divisions. but
they are likely to supplement this with other lifestyle factors in constituting their
social identities.

Class relations still exist and exert an effect on life chances and conditions of living.
so there is still ii role for appropriate forms of class analysis
Class divisions arise from the possession and lack of possession of property and the
employment relations that follow from this. What Weber called ‘class Situations’ exist
wherever property and employment relations generate specific capacities or powers to
acquire income and assets and so to enhance or diminish life chances.

It is possible to speak of social classes as distinct from purely economic classes. A

social class is a demographic cluster of households whose members owe their life
chances principally to the specific property ownership or employment relations that
constitute their class situations.

In the most careful and sophisticated investigation of class and health, Rose and
Pevalin (2000) have shown the strong effects of class on mortality that are apparent
when class is measured in terms of employment relations.‘ These health problems
reflect significant differences in living conditions. Seven times as many unskilled
workers as professionals live in overcrowded homes. and five times as many hare no
central heating

Class divisions persist as a crucial structural feature of contemporary societies.

Shaping people's life chances and political actions. They do so, however, alongside
other lines of social division and class analysis can no longer - if it ever could - claim
exclusive powers of explanation.

Class cannot simply be ignored or its causal consequences denied. Any understanding
of contemporary social identities and the political actions that follow from them must
recognize the interplay between class and other lines of social division. The crucial
future tasks in the study of social stratification follow from this agenda.

The Precariat: From Denizens to Citizens?

Globalization was constructed on the basis of liberalizing markets, re-regulating in

favour of competitive individualism, re-regulating to curb the capacities of collective
bodies representing workers and the interests of low-income groups, and restructuring
social protection systems so that workers and individuals bear most of the risks and
costs.

The future dynamics of this fragmented class structure will come from the two rapidly
growing groups, which overlap to some extent, namely the proficians and the
precariat.

Precarians do not have a means of drawing on and sustaining a social memory - a

sense of belonging to a self-sustaining community grounded in a profession or craft.

The global precariat is the new dangerous class, in the sense that millions of people
are socially, culturally, and economically insecure, without activities and identities
that would give them full citizenship rights.
 This means that they are likely to listen to populist and neo-fascist voices - as they are
doing in much o Europe - unless or until a feasible politics of paradise is on offer
instead.

This article has highlighted three challenges - thinning democracy, dwindling rights
linked to economic insecurity, and loss of control of the key assets of a tertiary market
society The challenge ahead will be to create a politics of paradise in which the time-
honoured trinity is given a renewed relevance

Week 2 topic 5 lecture: Identity and politics

Identity:

 Identity: commonly viewed as the collective characteristics through which a person is

definitively recognised or is known through. E.g. A Psychological perspective.
  The idea of identity is often mistakenly viewed as either a given or received (i.e.
biologically determined e.g. gender; or born into e.g. class) rather than negotiated
socially, politically, and within specific historical frameworks. Socially constructed

 e.g. ‘Racial identity’ – biological categorizations that are naturalised – rather than
historically socio‐culturally and politically devised. Other e.g. Gender, ethnicity,
sexuality.

 Viewed in collective identities e.g. Women, Aboriginal, working class, Gays and
lesbians.
 Fixed / unchanging. Homogenised rather heterogeneous. Stereotypes
Essentialism

Essentialism:

 Different groups tend to be essentialised i.e. cultural groups are homogenised around
certain values, behaviours and practices and all within that group are assumed to be
the same – sharing an essence of representation of that group, which is coherent &
unchanging

 Cultural groups are not homogeneous, but heterogeneous – a diverse / different range
of values, beliefs and practices make up members of those cultural groups

Categorization of identity:

 Categorization - psychological processes which tend to organize the environment into

categories or groups of persons, objects, events (or groups of some of their
characteristics), as well as according to their similarities, their equivalences
concerning their actions, their intentions or behaviour (Deschamps and Devos, 1998)

 Groupings in which people locate themselves – common elements Emphasis on

difference between categories

Intersectionality:

 Identities / subjectivities (Self) are not singular – though often read as such

 The complexity of identities / subjectivities captured in the concept of

intersectionality
  Intersections of aspects of identity / subjectivities – race, ethnicity, class, gender,
sexuality

Identity and recognition:

 Noble (2009) points out:

Identities are not simply given, but emerge as complex and conflicted acts of self‐
identification and identification by others: what we call identities are the result of a
dialogic process with others who have the ability to validate one’s identity claims.

Relations of recognition:

 Categories of recognition – social identities such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class

 Personal identity – capacities, accomplishments and attributes ‐ subjectivity

 What does it mean to be recognised and what sort of properties count as part of
identity? (Warnke, 2007).

 Particular components of identity perceived as central to recognition and dominate in

terms of scholarly analysis – race, sexuality and gender

 Impact on how individual’s act and how they are treated by others in micro and macro
contexts in society

 Impact on everyday perceptions of others

Self-identity:

 Self‐identity: an individual person’s conception and expression of their self.

 Constructions of self‐identity can reinforce collective categories of identity as one

strives to articulate one’s identity in order to realise a sense of belong. E.g. queer
youth, and other youth subgroups.

 Reinforce stereotypes of gay or of youth.

 Identity ‐ messy and complex, contingent and contextual rather than a stable set of
reference points (Mir, 2007 p. 66 – 67).

 Need to look at individual subjectivity constituted through discourses operating

through everyday interactions and experiences within different contexts

 Shifting notions of subjectivity – fluid, complex, contextual, relational, hybrid

Subjectivity:

 Humanism (modernist discourse) refers to a set of assumptions about human beings.

Humanism believes:

 “That the subject [self] is a unified, coherent and rational agent who is the author of
his or her own experience and meaning” (Burr, 1995:40)

 A poststructuralists or anti-humanist perspective - Subjects are constructed within

language, social interactions, relations of power therefore they will be in flux,
constantly changing, contextual (depending on who you are talking with etc.)
Multiple subject positions.

Queer Youth – Gender & Sexuality Diverse:

 ‘Growing Up Queer’ Research (Robinson, Bansel, Denson, Ovenden & Davies, 2014)

 The survey/focus groups acknowledged gender diversity, gender fluidity and non‐
binary gender.

 Wanted to understand the complexity of how these young people viewed their gender
and sexual identities.

Queer Youth ‐ Gender Identity

 Gender diverse young people articulate their gender identity in many different and
multiple ways.
 Representations of queer youth need to acknowledge the contradictions, complexities,
and diversities of their subjectivities and embodiment.
 Facebook has 50 + gender category options.
 Terms – e.g. genderqueer, demigirl, questioning, non‐binary, transgirl, genderflux,
FTM, MTF, androgynous, agender, transgender man, trigender, transvestite, Cis‐
female, Queer.

Queer Youth ‐ Gender Identity:

 Perceptions of queer or LGBTQI young people are based on stereotypes that do not
adequately represent them or their lived experience.
 Misrepresentation and misrecognition is a form of homophobia and transphobia.
  Queer youth resist any stable or predictable relationship between biological sex,
gender, and sexuality and as such their intelligibility (understandable to others) to
their families and peers challenges more common perceptions that you are, and must
be, either, ‘male’ or ‘female’, ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, ‘straight’ or ‘gay’.
 For many young people, there is a process of identity recognition – a period in which
queer identities need to be ‘explored, formed, embraced, practiced, and expressed’:
 “I wasn't sure whether I actually wanted to come out or not even though from the
beginning of the year I actually wanted to just identify as how I see myself”.
 For some gender and sexuality diverse young people, self‐ identification, based on the
available category
possibilities and understandings of gender and sexuality, is a relatively
straightforward matter. The more limited or rigidly defined these categories are, the
more limited are the possibilities for identification.

 Claiming an identity for some involves significant labour and struggle, and is not
simply a matter of already knowing the truth about oneself, but often of finding a truth
that matches with the identity that they perceive themselves as being or wanting.

 The identities that young people are negotiating are multiple and complex – and
provide more options and choices than in the past.

 Historical, political and social changes produce new possibilities: in terms of

identities.

 Responses of others – based on lack of knowledge

and recognition of diversity in its multiple forms – makes self‐ identification for
young people even harder.

 Identity was also figured in relation to the ways in which queer young people are
perceived and treated by others. Identity is relational.

As pointed out in the Growing up Queer report:

 “Perceptions of normality and deviance are based on heterosexual norms. Those

norms are as much stereotypes as representations and perceptions of LGBTQI
identities. However, the stereotypes associated with LGBTQI identities are largely
negative and experienced by young people as such. This can make the negotiation of
identities difficult and dangerous and have a significant impact on the health and
wellbeing of queer young people” (Robinson, Bansel, Denson, Ovenden & Davies,
2014: 18).

Identity Politics:

Noble (2009) argues:

Struggles for political representation by minority groups in Western nations have taken the
form of a ‘politics of recognition’: demands for legislative endorsement of and support for
cultural identity and minority rights.

 Fundamental to policies e.g. gender equity, multiculturalism, marriage equality.

 Central to individual and collective agency
 Fundamental to inequalities and marginalisation experienced by

minority groups and to the privilege of others

 Solidarity

 Critiqued for essentialising identities.

 Feminism or the Women’s Movement of the 1960’s perceived to have focused their
efforts on a critique of gender inequalities based on white middle class women’s
issues, eclipsing the intersections of gender and race or gender, race and class issues.

 Challenges from women of colour of white women’s privilege and racism; challenges
from lesbian women of heterosexual privilege and homophobia

Conclusions:

 A recognition of socio-cultural relationships of power operating at the micro and

macro levels – institutional and every day interactions – A Politics of Difference.
Identity is relational.
 The need for an anti-essentialist perspective i.e. A recognition of the differences
within identities.
 A focus of the heterogeneity, fluidity and hybridity of identity, multiplicity of
identity.
 Recognition of the struggles in the process of identity.

The importance of ‘collective politics’ to push for equalities – a hierarchy of identities and
power.

Week 2 topic 5 lecture: Social Networks

Landscape of social, technological, cultural global Change

Lister, Dovey Giddings, Grant & Kelly (2009) in New Media: a critical introduction
point out the nature of the changing landscape in which we live:

• Shift from modernity to postmodernity – deep and structural changes in

societies and economies since the 1960’s correlated with cultural changes;
 • Changing nature of the West – shifting from industrial age of manufacturing
to ‘post-industrial’ information age - shift in employment, skill, investment
and profit, production of material goods to service and information ‘industries’;

• Decentring of established and centralised geopolitical orders – weakening

of mechanisms of power and control facilitated by new communication media;

• Globalising neo-liberalism – promotion of new media, ICT’s, state and

corporate sectors – perceptions of Western progress.

Cyberspace / Technocultures

• Cyberspace: “One of the zones that scripts the future” (Haraway, 1997: 100)

• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) – widespread social,

cultural, political, economic, change as did the industrial revolution did in the
19th Century.

• Global Communication revolution – computers; the World Wide Web; email;

chat rooms; skype; zoom; twitter; avatar-based communication forums (e.g.
Second Life), blogs; smart phones. Personal (e.g. satellite families); running
businesses. SMS Texting (160 characters) & Twitter changing the way we
speak .

• WHAT DOES SMS STAND FOR?

• Consumption of media – Smart phones, Podcasts, iPods, iPads, Kindles,

interactive computer games. Changing the way we read.

• Newspapers, virtual trading centres, finding jobs, promoting business, buying

and selling, finding and doing relationships.

• Virtual realities – simulated environments, immersive representational spaces.

Social Networks:

Top 10 most popular social networking sites:

• Facebook (2 billion users)

• Twitter (140 character word limit)

• WhatsApp (1 billion +)

• Instagram (photo and video sharing)

 • YouTube (largest video networking)

• LinkedIn (working professionals and business personnel)

• Google+

• Pinterest (Vast image network)

• Tumblr (blogging network)

• Quora (interactive information exchange)

Social Networking and Identity:

• Anonymity and the impact of this on expressions of identity

• Surpassing identity barriers – different experiences of identity – no physical

codes of gender, class, race;

• Avatar based communications e.g. Second Life - constructing identities - Post-

structural theory – subjectivity (identity) – not fixed, shifting and constituted in
discourse; social reality discursively constituted;

• Risk-taking; living out fantasies, or express aspects of the self that one finds
difficult of-line;

• Relationships online.

The ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’

• New experiences of the relationship between embodiment, identity and

community – changes in the way that time, space, and place are experienced on
both local and global scales influencing the way that we see ourselves and our
place in the world;

• New conceptions of the biological body’s relationship to technological media

– challenges to the distinctions between the human and the artificial, nature and
technology – the ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’;

Examples
 • Catalyst - ABC program: how our sense of realities can be changed and
distorted through virtual representations. Watch first 5 mins.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4718816.htm

* Second Life - a virtual world

Second Life: Your Life Your world:

• A virtual world developed by Linden Lab and launched in 2003;

• Residents interact through avatars;

• In January 2008 residents spent 28,274,505 hours "inworld”;

• In the same time period, 38,000 residents on average were logged in at any
particular moment;

• Internal economy and internal currency, the Linden dollar;

• Virtual goods include buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations,

clothing, skin, hair, jewelry, flora and fauna, art.

• In 2009 the total size of the Second Life economy grew 65% to US$567
million, about 25% of the entire U.S. virtual goods market.

New forms of cultural dominance or imperialism?

• Google, Apple, Microsoft global corporations dominating the Internet –

perpetuating the influence of USA culture globally; Capitalism and
consumerism;

• Resistance from other global non-Western countries e.g. Chinese censorship -

The Great Fire Wall of China – anti-capitalist; Iranian govt. censorship of the
Internet;

• Voluntary development of the internet People don’t pay for emails

• Facebook Cambridge Analytica data Scandal – collecting personal data (87m

users) – alleged use to influence voter opinion on behalf of politicians who hire
them (most likely - Public profile page, page likes, birthday and current city.
What type of advertisement might most effectively persuade individuals.
Social Networks – ‘The Darkside’

• Cyber-bullying

https://www.humanrights.gov.au/cyberbullying-what-it-and-how-get-help-violence-
harassment-and-bullying-fact-sheet

• Cyberharassment / Cyberstalking

• ‘Grooming’ of children online by paedophiles Censorship – e.g. ‘Net Nanny’

• All in the Mind, ABC. Sunday 26th August, 2018. Peter Bazalgette – ‘empathy
deficit’ is exacerbated by the Digital era (see text excerpt next slide).

• There is the extraordinary era we now live in, the internet era, so we are living
through an industrial revolution, we are only a few years into what will be a
digital millennium, we can only begin to understand what it means. But what
we see, as well as all the benefits of the internet and the World Wide Web, we
see profoundly un-empathetic behaviour. There is something intrinsically un-
empathetic about textual communication, where you can write harsh words and
you can't see the reaction of a person to whom you are addressing them. And
we moderate our behaviour because we see the effect of our words. The
something instant about the internet where we dash off the first thought and
send it off.

• We thought that the internet would broaden our horizons but quite often it
seems to narrow our horizons, it's more narrowcasting than broadcasting
because people who think that the Moon landings were faked or that the
appalling mass shootings in America are hoaxes, and you see this sort of stuff
on the internet, or indeed who are deniers of the Holocaust, you see these sort
of conspiracy theories all the time. I'm not saying they didn't exist before, but
individuals who had those beliefs couldn't find each other and reinforce each
other's delusions. And so there are many challenges, and that is why we have
an empathy deficit and that is why we need to attend to the very precious
quality of empathy.

Social Networks: Negotiating relationships

• Sexting – Prevalence of people sending:

10% of adolescents aged 10-19 years;

53% of adults aged 18-30 years.

Prevalence of people receiving:

16% of adolescents aged 10-19 years;

57% of adults aged 18-30 years.

Females more likely to feel pressured to send texts;

Those who send and receive texts are more likely to be sexually active;

Those who send and receive texts are more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking
behaviours;

(Klettke, Hallford & Mellor (2014).

Social Media – ‘idisorders’

• Media report in the Sydney Morning Herald July 28-29 2012 – Spectrum – Is
the addictive world of social media making us crazy?

• iDisorders – Larry Rosen, Psychologist – California State University - through

the use of technology devises, more people manifesting symptoms of
narcissism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, social phobia, hypochondria and other psychiatric maladies;

• technology doesn’t make you crazy, it often exacerbates crazy tendencies, or

triggers the development. E.g. Posting a dozen daily status updates on
Facebook that make frequent use of “I” or “me” could be a byproduct of
narcissism;

• Not anti-technology but proposes the answer is not disconnecting – but the
“tech break”. It is about focusing on what you are doing rather than multi-
tasking – which he argues most of us are not good at doing regardless of gender
or age;

• “People feel amazingly reinforced when 40 people like what they have posted”
(p.19). “How do you handle the onslaught without losing your mind?”

Power to the People: Online activism and social media

 • Social media: campaigns and revolutions – what took months of planning -
now only takes a Letter – bombing to the world by pushing “send”. Going
viral;

• Online activism and social media contribution – MeToo#

Week 2 topic 5:

‘Countless acts of recognition’: young men, ethnicity and the messiness of identities
in everyday life

Discussions of recognition have a fundamentally ethical focus, preoccupied with

questions of respect and honour. These terms are also common in discussions of
young men, particularly young men from marginalised backgrounds.

The problem, as this paper has argued, is that such discussions tend to operate with a
reductive take on what recognition means. Philosophical and social debate has been
too narrowly focused on legislative recognition of, in particular, ethnic difference, in
the face of injustice.

It is not that power and inequality are unimportant—they are central—but to reduce
complex social experience to the reproduction of power means foreclosing on the
analytical power of recognition as a social process. It actually loses insights which
might help explain these things in more nuanced ways.

This paper, taking seriously the need to develop frameworks for under- standing
intersectionality, has tried to shift the emphasis back to the complexity of lived
experience. It has argued that recognition is dialogical and multi-dimensional, shifting
and fluid, situated in particular times and places, and not reducible to a single category
of social identity, like ethnicity.

Moreover, much more is at stake in such processes of recognition than what we

recognise as the key categories of social identity—class, gender, ethnicity and so on.
Capturing this fullness is crucial if we are to grapple with the ‘sociability’ of young
people—and especially the sociability of groups of young men of ethnic backgrounds
who are often the object of moral panics.

Such a politics of acknowledgement might better capture the myriad forms of

recognition that constitute social interactions and their location as forms of social
action (and not just cognition) in specific places within specific temporalities; it might
better focus on the ontological conditions of one’s being rather than a narrowly
conceived identity, and hence foster a self-reflexiveness about the circum- stances in
which we recognise and are recognised; and it may grapple better with the conflictual
and contested nature of social interaction
 Is globalization civilizing, destructive or feeble? A critique of five key debates in the
social science literature

The sociological, economic, political and anthropological literatures are devoting

increasing attention to globalization. This chapter discusses the various connotations
of the term and puts it in historical perspective. Existing theoretical and empirical
research on globalization is organized around five key issues or questions: is it really
happening, does it produce convergence, does it undermine the authority of nation-
states, is globality different from modernity, and is a global culture in the making? A
plea is made for a comparative sociology of globalization that is sensitive to local
variations and to how agency, interest and resistance mediate in the relationship
between globalization causes and outcomes.

Globalization is one of the most contested topics in the social sciences. Observers and
theorists of globalization have variously argued that the rapid increase in cross-border
economic, social, technological, and cultural exchange is civilizing, destructive, or
feeble, to borrow Albert Hirschman's (1982) celebrated metaphors.

Intuitively, globalization is a process fueled by, and resulting in, increasing

crossborder flows of goods, services, money, people, information, and culture (Held et
al 1999, p. 16)

Globalization is also an ideology with multiple meanings and lineages. As Cox (1996)
has observed, sometimes it appears loosely associated with neoliberalism and with
technocratic solutions to economic development and reform

Lecture 10:

 Consider some of the broad changes to families, and relationships, in Western

societies in the past 50 years.
 Discuss the changes in terms of individualisation theory and theorist’s perspectives.
 Unpack what family looks and feels like today, encompassing personal ideas; yes,
YOU get to play along! #Huzzah

The Nuclear Family

- The nuclear family consists of a heterosexual married couple and their two children.
 - This family form was most commonly considered ‘normal/common’ in the 1950s –
the average age of marriage at that time (post-WWII) was 21.5 years, there was a
baby boom, and the breadwinner/home-maker model was popular.
- (Henslin et al 2014, Reiger 2005)

Changing Families and Relationships

Divorce is on the rise.

- In 2010 there were 50, 240 divorces granted in Australia, an increase of 792 divorces
compared to 2009.
- In 2009 there were 49, 448 divorces granted in Australia, an increase of 2,239
divorces compared to 2008 (ABS 2012)

Marriage is delayed.
- For men the median age for all marriages rose from 28.2 years in 1990 to 31.4 years
in 2010, while for women, marriage age increased from 25.9 years in 1990 to 29.2
years in 2010 (ABS 2012).

- Bittman and Pixley (1997) argue that since the 1970s there has been a ‘baby bust’.
- Consider: In 2002 the median age of all women giving birth was 30.2 years – which
is the highest on record. The median age of fathers was 32.5 years (ABS 2003).

- There are also a number of couples who choose to be childfree by choice.

- Clearly, there are couples, and individuals who actively and consciously choose not
to have children – these people do not appeal to tradition in their decisions, but rather
ask themselves ‘what do I want for my life?’

Other changes to family and relationships include:

 An increase in single-parent headed families
 An increase in couples without children
 An increase in defacto relationships
 An increase of children born outside of wedlock (marriage)
 An increase in individuals remaining single
  The increasing visibility of same-sex couples, families headed by same sex couples,
and more visibility for queer and polyamorous families
All of these changes are challenges to heteronormative mores, standards, and stereotypes –
which theory/ies might we usefully engage with to discuss these changes?

However:
- There is still a good deal of unfounded opposition to non-heteronormative/nuclear
families, as the catalyst video clearly shows, from conservative religious minority
groups. Despite evidence of healthy family structures working around the world in a
variety of ways (nuclear and otherwise), emotional and non-evidenced critiques still
take place around the ‘biological’ – which has implications for adoptive and foster
families – and the non-evidenced religious position that insists nuclear family forms
are the only ‘natural’ family structure.

- One of the readings this week is Levin (2004), who considers the growing 21 st
century relationship trend of ‘living together apart’ (LAT).

- In households and relationships of this kind, both men’s and women’s career interests
are relevant to the decision to live apart.

- This increase in people living together apart suggests a new autonomy in

relationships.
- LAT relationships challenge the heteronormative nuclear narrative and idea that
intimacy needs or requires proximity.
- However, you may have noted in the Canadian video that LAT relationships are not
normalised – did you hear a couple of the commentators being openly sceptical about
the level of intimacy that could take place in an LAT relationship? “…not a real
couple…”
- Further to this last point, you may also note that there is a conversation about what
makes a ‘true’ couple – the dominant normative notion that is very evident here is
that a true couple is one that cohabits, is heterosexual, and is monogamous.
Individualisation Explanations

- Key social changes that have impacted family life and relationships include:
globalisation, urbanisation, secularisation, the gay rights movement, and the women’s
liberation movement.
In addition:
 People are increasingly detached from traditional roles and obligations
 People are more focused on, and concerned with, the self
 People are more likely to be reflexive about relationships, and to negotiate
relationships.

Giddens:
- Giddens is optimistic about the changes in our personal lives stating:
- “Divorce is more common, but rates of remarriage are high. The birth rate may be
declining, but there is a huge demand for fertility treatment. Fewer people choose to
get married, but the desire to live with someone as part of a couple holds steady”
(2009, p. 374).
- Giddens further argued that we are in an age of confluent love.
- “Confluent love is active and contingent love. It jars with the forever, one-and-only,
and qualities of romantic love” (Haralambos and Holborn 2008, p. 512)

Giddens’ (1992) ‘pure relationship is:

 Entered into for it’s own sake (not for obligation)
 Continued only if it provides both parties satisfaction
 Based on intimacy
 May provide equality between men and women

Beck – Zombie Categories

- Beck (1999) argued that families (along with class and other ways of considering the
social world) are a ‘zombie category’
- “Ask yourself what actually is a family nowadays? What does it mean? Of course
there are children, my children, our children. But even parenthood, the core of family
 life, is beginning to disintegrate under conditions of divorce…grandmothers and
grandfathers get included and excluded without any means of participating in the
decisions of their sons and daughters. From the point of view of their grandchildren
the meaning of grandparents has to be determined by individual decisions and
choices” (cited in Bauman 2000).

Week 11:– Ecology & Risk

 Risk Society - Ulrich Beck &Anthony Giddens

 Rainforest destruction & untraceable palm oil
 Green movements
 Eco-tourism

Risk Society
- Risk is a macro-social theory.
- Giddens asserted that a risk society is “…a society increasingly preoccupied with the
future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk” (Giddens & Pierson
1998, p. 209).
- Beck, on the other hand defined risk as: “…a systematic way of dealing with hazards
and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation itself” (Beck 1992, p. 21).
- Reflexive modernisation takes a position of considering the effects of globalisation
and transnationalism on society, and how society now negotiates and shapes itself in
the 21st century. The critique of the outcomes of modernity is different for each
theorist: Giddens proposed a Third Way (taken up by politicians Blair & Clinton for
example), Bauman discussed liquidity and constant uncertainty, whilst Beck
examined new kinds of social connections within the risk society’s “manufactured
uncertainty”.
- Individualisation – the breakdown of traditional norms and values – is also a
theoretical perspective that Giddens and Beck, along with Bauman and Beck-
Gernsheim, developed and engaged with throughout much of their working lives.

Risk
Risk, therefore, is characteristic of late modernity.
  A central aspect of human subjectivity – we feel risk as uncertainty, insecurity, fear)
 Risk is something that humans can manage
 Risk is associated with notions of choice, responsibility and blame

Beck, 1995, Ecological Politics

 Natural scientific view (realist – risks are ‘out there’ e.g. natural disasters, nuclear
accidents)
 Cultural relativist view (strong social constructionist approach – risk is determined by
society)
Why are certain risks singled out as important while others are ignored?
 “…symbolically mediated. Symbols that touch a cultural nerve and cause alarm,
shattering and making comprehensible the unreality and hyperreality of hazards in
everyday life, gain a key significance precisely in the abstractness, imperceptibility
and impalpability of the process of devastation kept alive by the advanced
industrialism of hazards” (Beck, 1995, p. 47)

Risk in Late Modernity

 All societies experience risk. But risk in late modernity is on an unprecedented and
global scale.
 God is no longer the author of risk so humans must be.
 Contradictory expert knowledge, action is paralysed e.g. Climate change, science
denial, etc.

Rainforest destruction
• How might Beck analyse this?
1. Orangutans symbolise all that is lost from the contemporary world – innocence
2. Orangutans are us as we once were – before the fall/loss of ‘innocence’ in modernity

Responses: Environmental Movements

 Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, 1969
  British Green Party 1973
 Die Grunnen 1977
 United Tasmania Group 1972 (campaign to save Lake Pedder)
 Australian Greens 1992

Theorising Green Movements

 Identity and life style politics
 Ethical and green consumption
 Increased public awareness and reflexivity (e.g. Carbon footprint, food miles, even cat
litter – consider your carbon paw print)

Green as a Mode of Consumption: eco tourism

• Conscientious, low-impact visitor behaviour
• Sensitivity towards, and appreciation of, local cultures and biodiversity
• Support for local conservation efforts
• Sustainable benefits to local communities
• Local participation in decision-making
• Educational components for both the traveller and local communities
Eco – friendly for the rich
“built using only sustainable building materials - you can take a seas plane from Phnom Penh
but the truly earth conscious will take a boat from Sihanoukvillle” (from the resort
advertisements)

Week 12: religion for Gen X & Y

Outcome:
 Defining Religion & Spirituality
 Sociology & Religion
 Theories of Religion – Durkheim, Marx & Weber
 Who are Gen X & Y?
 Modernity & the rise of Secularism
 Declining or changing?
 Post Modernity & the rise of choice – Hyper-real and Consumer religions
Religion
 A cultural system of commonly shared beliefs & rituals that provides a sense of
ultimate meaning & purpose by creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all-
encompassing & supernatural/otherworldly.
 Religion is a form of culture.
 Religion involves beliefs that take the form of ritualised practices.
 Religion provides a sense of purpose as well as social control.

 Spirituality
 A less defined system of beliefs & rituals than organised religion, but one that
provides a sense of meaning & purpose by fostering an idea of reality that is sacred,
personally meaningful & supernatural/otherworldly.
 Spirituality may be aligned to a sense of community whether immediate, online or in
essence.
 Spirituality provides a sense of purpose as well as social involvement/commitment.

Sociology: Thinking, not believing

 Sociologists are not concerned with whether religious beliefs are true/false.
 Sociologists are interested in questioning religion in terms of what it achieves
(purposes) for collective and individual identities, maintenance of tradition, power
and inequality as well as patterns of behaviors and relationships .
- Believing differs from critical thinking

Theories of Religion: Durkheim & Functionalism

 Religion is defined in terms of what it does – for society, for the individual, or for
both. Therefore, religion is both desirable and necessary
 A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things…which
unite into one single moral community (Durkheim, Elementary forms of everyday
life, 1912)
 Religion provides solidarity, social good, emotional comfort and guidance to the
individual.
 Separates the sacred from the profane
Karl Marx & Conflict theory
 Religion is considered and described as the ‘opiate of the people’ and ‘the sigh of the
oppressed’ (Marx, 1844)
 Religion as a drug that provides the working class with a sense of release and escape
from their suffering and pain.
 Reinforces social class systems and inequality- justifies class positions (and
conditions), which keeps them from revolting against the powerful classes.
 Achieved through the promise of the ‘afterlife’.

Max Weber & The protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism (1904-05)
 Religion holds the key to transforming societies from tradition to modernity.
 The change from Catholicism to Protestantism led to a great change in thought and
behaviour and the result was the spirit of capitalism – A different way of thinking
about work and money.
 Protestantism – Belief that only the few ‘elect’ were granted salvation – Financial
success.
 Protestant ethic: Self-denying and living a highly moral life, achieved through hard
work and frugality by accumulating capital and reinvesting it into production. By
living in this way, the individual will be granted salvation.

Who are Gen X & Y?

 Gen Z, iGen, or Centennials: Born 1996 and later
 Millennials or Gen Y: Born 1977 to 1995
 Generation X: Born 1965 to 1976
 Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964
 Generation Y are growing up in a world vastly different from those before them,
featuring the cultural pluralism of late modernity, increased anxiety about personal
and environmental risk, precarious employment, rampant consumerism, greater
individualisation and increased instability in families and this impacts on their
relationships with religion and spirituality(Mason & Singleton, 2008)

Modernity: The rise of secularism

  Secularisation refers to a decline (sometimes leading to the complete eradication) in
religiosity at the level of both the individual & society's mainstream institutions.
 The belief in industrialisation & the growth of scientific knowledge would lead to
secularisation.
 Global trends indicate that atheism is on the rise – the latest census results here in
Australia note that around a third of Australians identify as ‘no religion’, making this
the fastest-growing trend & the largest representative individual category

Is Religion really declining? Post-modernity and the changing nature of religious

adherence.
 Religion has taken a new form – One which has shifted from the public to private
sphere (Changing attitude)
 More people claim to have no religious affiliations, but they are not necessarily
atheist; they believe without belonging.
 Religion is becoming increasingly uncoupled from religiosity
 Many people see themselves as more spiritual than religious – Spirituality is viewed
as more self-authored and as something which can be achieved on an individual scale.
 Most people also see themselves as religious and spiritual at the same time.
 The presence of traditional religious institutions is decreasing, though the search for a
religious connection (spirituality) is on the increase.

Post Modernity: Religion, consumption and choice.

 For Lipovetsky (1987; 1993) consumption is about the construction of individual
identity.
 In post-modernity, religious actors make choices about what to believe or what not to
believe.
 People change their religion to what feels right to them at a certain time in their life as
if they were consuming religions rather than simply following the traditions of their
parents.
 This is a sign of the times that has emerged with the advent of postmodernity and
consumer culture. It has now become normal to consume various religions at the same
time without worrying about whether from a theological point of view, they would fit
together or not (Growth of acceptance of mixed faith marriages)
 Bricolage practices
  E.g. Being religious but also studying astrology
 E.g. Believing in God but also believing in Karma
 E.g. Gift giving at Christmas

Hyper-real religions
 Hyper real religions are a new religious phenomenon that mix religion and popular
culture.
 E.g. Jedi Religion (Jedism) – Star Wars
 It is important to remember the difference between Jedi on a census form and calling
oneself a Jediist.
 Jediism is actively present on the internet.
 Jediism is not the same as what is portrayed within the Star Wars film – It refers to an
actual group of people within this world that live or lived their lives according to
Jediism which embraces multiple religious and spiritual themes; Hinduism,
Confucianism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Taoism, Modern Mysticism, the way of
Shaolin Monks and Samurai warriors (to name only a few) – Bricolage at work here!
(Henslin, Possamai, Possamai-Inesedy, 2010)

Religion Online: Virtual experiences of Religion

 Lutheran Worship service on the Radio, using PayPal to tithe (Bernstein, 2003) – ‘I
don’t like getting up early…This is like going to church without having to’.
 Virtual mosques, downloadable sermons and prayer cards
 Facebook and online religious groups/pages
 Chat rooms directed by Rabbi’s, priests, ministers, monks and leaders of witchcraft
 Online donations by credit card and internet pay providers
 Emailing of prayers
 Online counselling for spiritual problems
 Religious sermons and on podcasts
Do you think virtual religion can satisfy people’s needs?
(E.g Grieving a loved one)

Consumer Religions: Ritzer (1999)

Religion and consumption:
 Ritzer (1999) makes reference to new means of consumption. E.g. malls, superstores,
airports, and cruise ships become cathedrals of consumption. These cathedrals, in
order to attract a larger amount of customers, need to offer a magical, fantastic and
enchanting shopping environment. For example, shopping malls can be interpreted as
places where people practice their consumer religions.
- Malls provide the kind of centeredness traditionally provided by religious temples,
and they are constructed to have similar balance, symmetry, and order. Their
atriums usually offer connection to nature through water and vegetation. People gain
a sense of community as well as more specific community services. Play is almost
universally part of religious practice, and malls provide a place for people to frolic.
Similarly, malls offer a setting in which people can partake in ceremonial meals.
Malls clearly qualify for the label of cathedrals of consumption (Ritzer 1999: 9).
- Religions within the modern and post-modern era take on similar experiences and
characteristics to that of the shopping mall or cruise ship.
- Under one roof, these churches offer pop-culture packaging worship styles to
boutique ministries.
- The latest generation has huge auditoriums and balconied atriums, orchestras and
bands playing soft rock, some of them with even food courts, fountains, plus plenty
of parking, clean bathrooms, and the likelihood that you’ll find something you want
and come back again
(Trueheart1996: 49).
- E.g. Hillsong