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An Introduction to Culture,
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Socialisation, and Social Norms REVISION NOTES FOR SALE
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August 4, 2017 In sociology, it is essential to understand the social context in which human Families and Households Revision Bundle
Culture and Identity behaviour takes place – and this involves understanding the culture in Revise Sociology Home Page (latest post)
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Culture, norms, which social action occurs.
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Culture is a very broad concept which encompasses the norms, values,
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To give two speci c, and classic de nitions of the term culture:
Ralph Linton (1945) de ned the culture of a society as ‘the way of life of its
members: the collection of ideas and habits which they learn, share and
transmit from generation to generation’.
Clyde Kluckhohn (1951) described culture as a ‘design for living’ held by the
members of a particular society.
To a large degree, culture determines how members of society think and

feel: it directs their actions and de nes their outlook on life. Culture de nes
accepted ways of behaving for members of society.
In order to survive, any newborn infant must learn the accepted ways of
behaving in a society, it must learn that society’s culture, a process known TOP POSTS & PAGES
as socialisation, which sociologists tend to split into two ‘phases’ – primary
Feminist Theory: A Summary for A-Level
and secondary.
Sociology
The Functionalist Perspective on the Family
Primary socialisation takes place in the family: the child learns many social Positivism and Interpretivism in Social
Research
rules simply by copying its parents, and responding to their approval or
Merton's Strain Theory of Deviance
disapproval of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviour, which is taught through a variety Ongoing Wars and Con icts in the World
of rewards and punishments, such as simple praise, treats, smacking and Today
Families and Households
the naughty step.
Feminist Perspectives on the Family
Education
Secondary socialisation takes place outside of the family in other social The Marxist Perspective on The Family
Exams, Essays and Short Answer Questions
institutions including the education system, the peer group, the media,
religion and the work place.
Many (though not all) sociologists argue that the norms and values we pick
SOCIAL
up through these institutions encourage us to act in certain ways, and
discourage us from acting in others, and, just as importantly, they ‘frame’ 
our worldviews in subtle ways – encouraging us value certain things that
other cultures might think have no value, or discouraging us to ask certain
‘critical questions’.
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Socialisation is not simply a process in which individuals just passively accept the
values of a society – children and adults actively re ect on whether they should
accept them, and some choose to actively engage in ‘mainstream’ culture, others
just go along with it, and still other reject these values, but those who reject
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mainstream culture are very much in a minority, while most of us go along with
mainstream norms and values most of the time. A level sociology exam practice (67)
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There are literally hundreds (and probably thousands) of social norms Careers and alternative careers (9)
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which govern how people act in speci c places and at speci c times – the
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with others, body language, and the general demeanor appropriate to Contemporary Sociology (16)
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For example the San Bushmen of Southern Africa have very di erent norms
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surrounding material culture – because they are hunter gatherers, they own Key Sociology Concepts (3)
very few items, and traditionally their economy was a gift economy, rather Longitudinal studies (3)
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than a money economy. Thus, in this culture, money has no value, and
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‘stu ’ is simply a burden. Media (73)
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The San Bushmen (although their traditional culture is much changed from 100 years ago) (39)
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The Sanema, who live in the rain forests of Brazil and Venezuela, have a
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radically di erent belief system in which dreams are as important as social problems (2)
‘waking reality’: Social Theory (A2) (74)
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The Sanema believe in a dream world inhabited by the spirits of everything Sociology in the News (32)
around them. The trees, the animals, the rocks, the water all have a spirit. Sociology on TV (18)
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Some can be used to heal, others to bring disaster and death.
sociology teaching resources (6)
South Korea (1)
Four out of ve Sanema men are practicing shamans and it is in their state crime (5)
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dreams that the spirits visit them. The main work of the shamen is to dispel
subcultures (1)
the evil spirits they believe cause illnesses, and to do this they induce a Suicide (1)
trance by taking powerful hallucinogenic drug, sakona, made from the dried surveys (3)
teaching and learning theory (17)
sap of the virola tree.
technology (6)
Theories of development (23)
In Sanema culture, it is perfectly usual for these shamans to be o their Transnational corporations (12)
USA (2)
faces on hallucinogenic drugs, ‘warding o evil spirits’ in the middle of the
War and con ict (12)
day, while other people go about their more ‘ordinary’ (by our standards) Work (9)
business of cooking, washing, cleaning, or just chillaxing (typically in
hammocks).
Bruce Parry and a Sanema shaman o their faces on hallucinogens – it’s normal there!
There are many other examples that could be used to illustrate the extreme
variations in social norms across cultures – such as di erences in how
cultures treat children, or di erences in gender norms, the point is that
none of these behaviours are determined by biology or physical
environment – we’re all pretty much the same as a biological species –
these cultural di erences are simply to do with social traditions, passed
down by socialisation.
Historical di erences in social norms
Social norms also change over time – the most obvious being how norms
surrounding childhood and gender have changed, as well as norms
surrounding expenditure and consumption.
The fact that social norms change over time again shows that biological
di erences cannot explain historical variations in human behaviour, and
also raises the important point that individuals have the freedom to change
the norms they are born into.
Related Posts
(1) To illustrate just now many social norms govern our lives, you might like
to read this post: how social norms structure your day (forthcoming post)
(2) Some sociologists (and sociologicalish commentators) are very critical

of many of our social norms – suggesting variously that they are just not
necessary, too restrictive of individual freedom, or even downright harmful
– for more on this – see this post: Social Norms – the unnecessary and the
harmful (forthcoming post).
Sources used to write this post
Haralambos and Holborn (2013): Sociology Themes and Perspectives
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From Pilgrim to Tourist – Or A Short

History of Identity, Zygmunt Bauman
March 24, 2017 If the modern problem of identity was how to construct an identity, the
Book summaries, Culture postmodern problem of identity is how to avoid xation and keep the
and Identity
options open. If the catchword of modernity was creation, the catchword of
bauman, identity,
postmodernity is recycling.
modernity, Postmodernism
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The main identity-bound anxiety of modern times was the worry about
durability; it is concern with commitment-avoidance today.
The photograph was the medium of modernity, all set in bound books with
yellowing pages, the video-tape the medium of postmodernity – today’s
recording only exists until something deemed more signi cant emerges to
replace it.
Modernity built in steel and concrete, postmodernity in biodegradable

plastic.
Identity as such is a modern invention – it is the name given to the escape

sought from uncertainty, from the modern ‘problem’ of freedom of choice
which arises with social change, and of not knowing for certain where one
ts in to the order of things; the modern ‘quest’ for identity is a response to
the inability of people to clearly project who they are to others so that we
may all ‘go on’.
Identity is always a process, a critical projection (typically?) into the future

– it is an assertive attempt to escape from the experience of under-
determination, or free- oatingness , of disembeddnsess, which is the
‘natural’ condition of modernity.
Identity in modernity is presented as an individual task, but there are

experts to guide us as to what identities are possible to achieve – experts
such as teachers and counsellors, who are supposed to be more
knowledgeable about the task of identity construction.
Modern life as pilgrimage
Modernity gave the pilgrim a new prominence and a novel twist.
For pilgrims through time, the truth is elsewhere, always some distance
away. Wherever the pilgrim is now is not where he ought to be, not where he
dreams of being. The glory of the future debases the present.
The pilgrim is not interested in the city, the houses tempt him to rest, he is
happier on the streets, for they lead him to his destination. However, even
these are perceived as a series of traps which may lead him from his path.
The pilgrim feels homeless in the city.
The desert is the place for the pilgrim, who seeks a hermetic way of life
away from the distractions of city life, away from duties and obligations.
The desert, unlike the city, was a land not yet sliced into places, a place of
self-creation, which is not possible when one is ‘in place’ in the city, which
calls upon the individual to be certain ways (through the commitments of
family and polis).
You do not go into the desert to nd identity, but to lose it, to become ‘god
like’.
The Protestants changed this by becoming ‘inner-worldly pilgrims’ – they

invented the way of embarking on pilgrimage without leaving home and of
leaving home without becoming homeless. In the post-Reformation city of
modernity, the desert started on the other side of the door.
The protestant worked hard to make the dessert come to him – through
impersonality, coldness, emptiness – protestants expressed a desire to see
the outside world as null, lacking in value, of nothingness waiting to
become something.
In such a land, commonly called modern society, pilgrimage is no longer a

choice, pilgrimage is no longer heroic or saintly, it is what one does of
necessity, to avoid being lost in the desert; to invest in walking with a
purpose while wandering the land with no destination.
The desert world of modernity is meaningless, the bringing-in of meaning

is ‘identity builiding’ – the pilgrim and the dessert-like world he walks
acquire their meaning together. Both processes must go on because there is
a distance between the goal (the meaning of the world and the future
identity of the pilgrim) and the present moment (the station of the walking
and the identity of the wanderer.)
Both meaning and identity can exist only as projects. Dissatisfaction with
the present compared to the ideal-future and delaying grati cation to
realise greater pleasure in that future are fundamental features of the
modern-identity building project, as is marking and measuring one’s
progress towards one’s goal through time.
Time is generally perceived as something through which one progress, in a

linear fashion, and modern pilgrims generally had trust in a clearly
identi ed future state (however fantastical) – and saving for the future was
a central strategy of future oriented identity-building.
Pilgrims had a stake in the solidity of the world they walked, a kind of world
in which one can tell life as a continuous story – moving towards ful lment
– The world of pilgrims, of identity-builders must be orderly, determined,
predictable, but most of all it must be one in which one can make
engravings in the sand so that past travels are kept and preserved.
The world inhospitable to pilgrims
The world is not hospitable to pilgrims any more. The pilgrims lost their
battle by winning it: by turning the social into a dessert, ultimately a windy
place where it is as easy to erase footprints as it is to make them.
It soon transpired that the real problem was not how to make identity, but
how to preserve it – in a dessert, it is easy to blaze a trail, but di cult to
make it stick.
As Cristopher Lasch points out identity refers to both persons and to things,
and we now live in a world of disposable objects, and in such a world
identities can be adopted and discarded like a change of clothes.
In the life-game of postmodern consumers the rules of the game keep

changing in the course of playing. The sensible strategy is to keep each
game short, and ‘live one day at a time’, depicting each day as a series of
emergencies.
To keep the game short means to be wary of long term commitments, not to
control the future, but to refuse to mortgage it. In short, to cut the present
o at both ends, to abolish time and live in a continuous present. Fitness
takes over from health – the capacity to move where the action is rather
than coming up to a standard and remaining ‘unscathed’; and the snag is to
no longer construct an identity, but to stop it from becoming xed.
The hub of postmodern life strategy is not identity building, but avoidance
of xation.
There are no hooks on which we can hang our identity – jobs for life have
gone, and we live in the era of personal relationships. Values become
cherished for maximal impact, and this means short and sharp, because
attention has become a scarce commodity.
The overall result is the fragmentation of time into episodes. In this world,
saving and delaying grati cation make no sense, getting pleasure now is
rational.
In this world, the stroller, the tourist, the vagabond and the player become
the key identities, all of these have their origins before postmodernity, but
each comes to be practiced by the mainstream rather than being marginal in
postmodernity.
In the postmodern chorus they all sing, sometimes in harmony, but more
often with cacophony the result.
The stroller
In modernity this is Walter Benjamin’s aneur – strolling among crowds of

strangers in a city, and being in the crowd, but not of the crowd, taking in
those strangers as ‘surfaces’ so that what one sees exhausts what they are,
and above all seeing and knowing them episodically – each episode having
no past and no consequence. The distinction between appearance and
reality matter not. The stroller had all the pleasures of modern life, without
all the torments.
In the postmodern world, the stroller is the playful consumer, who doesn’t
need to deal with ‘reality’. Shopping malls are the domain of the stroller –
while you can shop while you stroll. Here people believe they are making
decisions, but in fact they are being manipulated by the mall-designers.
Malls are also safe-spaces, where undesirables are screened out.
Originally malls were merely physical, now all of this is intensi ed in

teleshopping, in the private domain.
The vagabond
The vagabond was the bane of early modernity, being master-less, out of
control. Modernity could not bear the vagabond because he had no set
destination, each place he stops, he knows not how long he will stay. It is
easy to control the pilgrim because of his self-determination, but not the
vagabond.
Wherever the vagabond goes he is a stranger, he can never be native, he is

always out of place.
In modernity the settled were many, the vagabonds few, postmodernity

reverses the ratio as now there are few ‘settled places’ left – jobs, skills,
relationships, all o er no chance of being rooted.
The tourist
Like the vagabond, the tourist is always on the move and always in the place
but never of it, but there are seminal di erences.
Firstly, the tourist moves on purpose, to seek new experiences. They want
to immerse themselves in the strange and the bizarre, but they do so in a
safe way, in a package-deal sort of way. The tourists world is structured by
aesthetic criteria. Unlike the vagabond, who has a rougher ride.
Secondly, the tourist has a home, the vagabond does not. The problem,
however, for the tourist, is that as the touristic mode of life becomes
dominant, it becomes less and less clear where home actually is, and
homesickness sets in – home lingers both as an uncanny mix of shelter and
prison.
The player
In play there is neither inevitability nor accident, nothing is fully

predictable or controllable, and yet nothing is totally immutable or
irrevocable either.
In play there is nothing but a series of moves, and time in the world-as-
play is divided into a succession of games, each self-enclosed. For the
player, each game must have an end, it must be possible to leave it with no
consequences once it has been completed, leave no mental scars.
The point of the game is to win, and this leaves no room for compassion,
commiseration .or cooperation.
The mark of a postmodern adult is to embrace the game wholeheartedly,

like children do.
Related Posts
Modernity and Postmodernity
Postmodernity and Postmodernism
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What is Individualisation?
where individuals are forced to spend more time and e ort deciding on
what choices to make.
March 14, 2017 The concept of individualisation was developed to describe the process
Culture and Identity where the increasing rapidity of social change and greater uncertainty force
beck, identity, individuals to spend more time and e ort deciding on what choices to make
individualisation,
in their daily lives, and where they have to accept greater individual
neoliberalism, Sociology
responsibility for the consequences of those choices.
Leave a comment
It is a concept most closely associated with the late modern sociological

perspectives of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens.
The easiest way to understand it is to contrast it to the concept of

‘individual freedom’ in postmodern thought.
In postmodernism, the breakdown of traditional social norms and ways of

live are presented as something positive – resulting in greater freedom of
choice for individuals – since the 1980s especially people do have much
more freedom to choose their careers, their family situation (whether to get
married or not), their faith, even their sexuality.
In short, postmodern society is one in which people have greater freedom to

construct their own individual identity.
HOWEVER, according to Beck and Giddens, postmodernists have overstated

the extent to which individuals are free, there is more going on.
The move to postmodernity has also meant that there is more social
instability and uncertainty – careers last for a shorter period of time,
relationships are more likely to break down, the welfare state provides less
security for us if we fall on hard times, and even experts (scientists/
doctors) seem less able to give us de nitive answers on how we should live.
THUS, it is not so much a case of postmodern society providing us with

opportunities to be free to do as we please, rather we are forced into making
hundreds if not thousands of choices in order to simply get-by – we are
‘individualised’, this is NOT the same thing as just simply being free.
Individualisation – In More Depth….
Individualisation is ‘compulsory’ rather than being about genuine personal

freedom, and is an integral part of self-hood in the neoliberal (dis) order.
As Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (2001/2002) have argued,

individuals are compelled now to make agonistic choices throughout their
life-course – there may be no guidance – and they are required to take sole
responsibility for the consequences of choices made or, indeed, not made.
Individualisation is a contradictory phenomenon, both exhilarating and

terrifying. It really does feel like freedom, especially for women liberated
from patriarchal control. But, when things go wrong there is no excuse for
anyone. The individual is penalised harshly not only for personal failure but
also for sheer bad luck in a highly competitive and relentlessly harsh social
environment. Although the Becks deny it, such a self – condemned to
freedom and lonely responsibility – is exactly the kind of self cultivated by
neoliberalism, combining freewheeling consumer sovereignty with
enterprising business acumen.
Signposting
This concept is a very advanced one for A-level sociology students who can
use it to criticise Postmodernism which they are required to study as part of
the second year module in Theory and Methods.
Sources:
The Neoliberal Self by Jim McGuigan
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Mobile Phones and Digital Nomadism

February 8, 2017 Mobile phones seem to be having a profound impact on the way we interact
Culture and Identity, Digital with each other and on how we understand ourselves and our relation to
nomads, Media
place. Their increased usage has mean that many of us have moved away
digital nomad, identity,
from ‘chance socialness’ to ‘chosen socialness’; they encourage us to not be
mobile phones, Sociology
nostalgic about physical spaces, but rather to construct our identities in
Leave a comment
virtual spaces while being mobile in physical space; and they also make
communication more democratic and open, as more people are connected
than ever before and communication has become more visible rather than
invisible (via land-lines).
Below is a summary of Leopoldina Fortunati’s theorising about how mobile

phones are changing the way some of us think about our identities in
relation to our sense of place. It’s a very positive take on the impact of
mobile phones on these aspects of social life.
Fortunati uses the term “nomadic intimacy” to describe how people in

public situations use their mobile phones to interact with people they
already know (“chosen socialness”) rather than interacting with strangers
who are physically present (“chance socialness”) (Fortunati, 2002: 515-
516)
They’re not zombies, they’re just rejecting ‘chance socialness’ in favour of ‘chosen socialness’
Our sense of being part of social groups is no longer based on belonging to

xed
places but increasingly about belonging to communicative networks. As a
consequence,
people tend to su er less from nostalgia, the sense of loss of one’s own
relationship with
‘sacred’ places like home, and familiar territory. “So, the use of the mobile
phone ends up by reinforcing profane space, constructing a space without
addresses, without precise
localizations, playing down the speci cally geographical and anagraphical
aspect….to the point that the mobile phone in itself becomes a true mobile
home” (Fortunati, 2002: 520).
The mobile phone’s phatic function, that is being in touch rather than the
actual content of the conversation or message, enables us to rapidly regain
stability. “It is the possibility of contacting its own communicative network
at any moment that has the powerful e ect of reducing the uncertainty that
mobility brings with it.” (Fortunati, 2002: 523).
Finally, she argues that the mobile phone favors the development of a
democratic society, because “the mobile has granted the same
communicative rights to nomadic persons and those that are sedentary or
immobile” and in addition “it has extended individual access to mobile
communication also to members of the family up to yesterday ‘invisible’
with the xed phone” (Fortunati, 2002: 525, my addition in brackets).
For Fortunati, the digital nomad is no longer dependent on xed places but
feels at home anywhere and is always in control.
Source:
Michiel De Lange (2009) Draft of Dissertation
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Why Fitness Instructors are Like

Peasants
January 19, 2017 If you sign up to a gym this January, spare a thought for the personal
Culture and Identity trainers lurking around reception, they’re really just peasants, despite the
tness, Sociology, thinking nice pecs, at least according to some recent research by Geraint Harvey as
allowed
summarised in this Thinking Allowed podcast.
2 Comments
Harvey o ers an interesting perspective on the injustice which exists in the

way gyms employ free-lance gym instructors – many instructors are not
employed directly by the gym, but end up doing lots of free labour for the
gym because it is in their interests as this enables them to maintain and
expand their client based.
Gym instructors are generally well-quali ed professionals who have at

least a level 3 quali cation and in many cases as sports science degree, so
they have a lot of expert knowledge in their eld, they also.
Despite this level of professionalism, many gym instructors are employed

under very precarious conditions because although they are often based at
one particular gym, they are not necessarily employed by that gym, and
according to the sample in Harvey’s research the instructors actually have
to pay a monthly rent ranging between £350-£450 a month, to use the
gym’s facilities for personal training.
Given that the average fee is £20-30, this means that the average gym
instructor has to instruct at least 10 clients before they break even, but the
problem here is that the work i unreliable as it is seasonal – in January it’s
easy to pick up work, but not so much in December, ‘when everyone’s out
partying’, according to one respondent.
The really twisted thing about this relationship between the gym and the
self-employed tness instructors is that instructors ended up performing
a customer service role (to a high standard) for the gym in order to get these
clients the; they also engaged in a considerable amount of emotional labour
for free – encouraging gym-goers and making them feel good about
themselves in order to try and win clients; on top of this they also did a lot
of basic physical labour such as cleaning equipment, and the gym bene ted
by being associated with the fruits of their ‘aesthetic labour’ – the
instructors basically looked good and thus made the gym look good – and
all of this at no cost to the gym.
NB – Most of the gym instructors didn’t see this additional free-labour as

exploitative – one gym instructor actually did 30 hours additional labour,
‘touting’ for business, in addition to the hours spent doing the personal
training, but didn’t begrudge this.
Harvey uses a new concept ‘neo-villainy’ (in the title of his article) to
describe a parallel between the working conditions of medieval serfdom and
the conditions under which the gym instructors had to work – the parallel
is basically one of bondage -the serf was tied to the land, had to do physical
work for landlord and yet if there was a poor crop they ended up with
nothing; in a similar way the tness instructors above are tied to the gym,
have to engage in free labour for the gym, and yet if they get no clients as a
result, they receive nothing.
Comment
This is an interesting study which highlights the hidden injustice which

many face in this industry.
It’s thoroughly depressing that this kind of exploitative relationship goes

on when this is such a massive industry and in such high-demand. One also
wonders whether the hourly rates for personal trainers might be a bit more
reasonable if gyms actually paid these people for their labour!
I just wonder how many tness instructors it applies to – how many are
stuck in this exploitative situation compared to those that go it alone and
try to earn money via YouTube channels etc, or just through home-visits.
Relevance to A Level Sociology?
This could be used to illustrate yet another down side of neoliberalism, or

just to depress the hell out of anyone thinking of doing a sports science
degree…
Related Links
The podcast summarises aspects of Geraint Harvey’s (and others) article

‘Neo-Villeiny and the Service Sector: The Case of Hyper Flexible and
Precarious Work in Fitness Centres‘, Work, Employment and Society.
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Sociological Theories of Consumerism

and Consumption
October 12, 2016 Many of us spend a lot of time
Consumerism, Culture and thinking about the things we
Identity, Globalisation,
might consume, and how we
Postmodernism and Late
Modernsim, Social Theory might consume them, and we do
(A2) this not only as individuals, but as
Consumerism, friends, partners, and families,
Postmodernism and Late
and so intensely do we think
Modernsim, social theory,
Sociology about our consumption practices
Leave a comment that the things we buy and the
experiences we engage which are
linked to them become invested
with emotional signi cance and
central (crutches) to our very identities.
The consumption of goods and services is so thoroughly embedded into our

ordinary, everyday lives that many aspects of its practice go largely
unquestioned – not only the environmental and social consequences have
got lost on the way, but also they very notion that consumption itself is a
choice, and that, once our basic needs are met, consumption in its symbolic
sense is not necessary and thus is itself a choice.
In sociological terms one might say that contemporary re exivity is

bounded by consumption – that is to say that most of the things most of us
think about in life – be they pertaining to self-construction, relationship
maintenance, or instrumental goal-attainment, involve us making choices
about (the strictly unnecessary) things we might consume.
Even though I think that any attempt to achieve happiness through

consumption will ultimately result in misery, I would hardly call anyone
who tries to do so stupid – because all they are going is conforming to a
number of recent social changes which have led to our society being based
around historically high levels of consumption.
There are numerous explanations for the growth of a diverse consumer

culture and thus the intense levels of unnecessary symbolic consumption
engaged in by most people today – the overview taken below is primarily
from Joel Stillerman (2015) who seems to identify ve major changes which
underpin recent changes in consumption since WW2.
The rst explanation looks to the 1960s counter culture which despite
having a reputation for being anti-consumerist, was really more about
non-conformity, a rejection of standardised mass-consumption and
promoting individual self expression. Ironically, the rejection of
standardised consumption became a model for the niche-marketing of
today, much of which is targeted towards people who wish to express
themselves in any manor of ways – through clothing, music, foodism, craft
beers, or experiences. Some members of the counter culture in fact found
pro t in establishing their own niche-consumer outlets, with even some
Punks (surely the Zenith of anti-consumerism?!) going on to develop their
own clothing brands.
A second discussion surrounding the normalisation of consumerism

centres around changes in the class structure, following the work Bourdieu
and Featherstone (2000). Basically these theorists see the intensi cation of
consumption as being related to the emergence of the ‘new middle classes’
as a result of technological innovations and social changes leading to an
increase in the number of people working in jobs such as the media and
fashion.
Mike Featherstone focuses on what he calls the importance of ‘cultural

intermediaries’ (who mainly work in the entertainment and personal care
industries) who have adopted an ‘ethic of self-expression through
consumption’ – in which they engage in self-care in order to improve their
bodies and skills in order to gain social and economic capital.
The values of these early adopters has gradually ltered down to the rest of
the population and this has resulted in the ‘aestheticisation of daily life’ –
in which more and more people are now engaged in consumption in order to
improve themselves and their social standing – as evidenced in various
tness classes, plastic surgery, and a whole load of ‘skills based’ pursuits
such as cookery classes (yer signature bake if you like).
A third perspective focuses on individualisation – as advanced by the likes

of Zygmunt Bauman and Ulrich Beck.
In their view, after World War II, universal access to higher education and
social welfare bene ts in Europe led to the erosion of traditional sources of
identity provided by family, traditional authority, and work. Today,
individuals are ‘free’ from the chains of external sources of identity, but
this freedom comes at a price. Individuals are now compelled to give
meaning to their lives without the certainty that they are making the right
choice that in the past had come from tradition. Individuals are forced to be
re exive, to examine their own lives and to determine their own identities.
In this context, consumption may be a useful vehicle for constructing a life
narrative that gives focus and meaning to individuals.
As I’ve outlined in numerous blog posts before, Bauman especially sees this
is a lot of work for individuals – a never ending task, and a task over which
they have no choice but to engage in (actually I disagree here, individuals do
have a choice, it’s just not that easy to see it, or carry it through!).
Fourthly, Post-modern analyses of consumption focus on the increasing

importance of individuals to consumption. Building on the work of Lytoard
etc. Firat and Venkatesh (1995) argue that changes to Western cultures have
led to the erosion of modernist ideas of progress, overly simpli ed binary
distinctions like production and consumption and the notion of the
individual as a uni ed actor. They suggest that in contemporary societies
production and consumption exist in a repeating cycle and retail cites and
advertiser have increasingly focussed on producing symbols which
individuals consume in order to construct identities.
These changes have led to increasing specialising of products and more

visually compelling shopping environments, and F and V argue that these
changes are liberating for individuals and they seek meaning and identity
through consumption, which they can increasingly do outside of markets.
Fifthly – other researches have looked at the role of subcultures in

contemporary society, where individuals consume in order to signify their
identity as part of a group, and doing so can involve quite high levels of
consumption, even if these groups appear quite deviant (McAlexander’s
1995 study of Harley Davidson riders looks interesting here, also Kozinet’s
study of Star Trek fans).
Something which draws on numbers 3,4 and 5 above is the concept of

consumer tribes (developed by Cova et al 2007) which are constantly in ux,
made up by di erent individuals whose identities are multiple, diverse and
playful – individuals in fact may be part of many tribes and enter and exit
them as they choose.
Finally, Stillerman points out that underlying all of the above are two
important background trends
Firstly, there are the technological changes which made all of the above
possible – the transport links and the communications technologies.
Secondly there is the (often discussed) links to the global south as a source
of cheap production.
Very nally I’m going to add in one more thing to the above – underlying
the increase in and diversi cation of consumption is the fact that time has
sped up – in the sense that fashions change faster than ever and products
become obsolete faster than ever – hence putting increasing demands on
people to spend more time and money year on year to keep up on the
consumer treadmill….
So there you have it – there are numerous social trends which lie behind the
increase in and diversi cation of consumption, so the next time you think
you’re acting as an individual when you’re getting your latest tattoo, maybe
think again matey!
Related Posts
Consuming Life (Bauman, 2007) – A Summary of Chapter One
If you like this sort of thing – then why not my book?
Early Retirement Strategies for the Average Income Earner, or A Critique of

Curiously Ordinary Life of the Everyday Worker-Consumer
Available on iTunes, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble – Only £0.63 ($0.99)
Also available on Amazon, but for $3.10 because I’d get a much lower cut if I
charged less!
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Erving Goffman and Judith Butler’s

Perspectives on Identity
October 11, 2016 A summary of one chapter from Steph Lawler’s Book – ‘Identity:
Book summaries, Culture Sociological Perspectives’ – Masquerading as ourselves: Self-
and Identity
Impersonation and Social Life
Goffman, identity, Judith
butler
In this chapter Lawler deals with the work of Erving Go man and Judith
Leave a comment
Butler – for both identity is always something that is done, it is achieved
rather than innate – it is part of a collective endeavour, not an individual
odyssey and it is not a matter of individual choice. The world of agency and
interaction takes place in a wider social order than permits some actions
and disallows others.
She deals with the di erences between the two too, but more of that later.
Introduction: between semblance and substance
People in the west conventionally counter-pose being an (authentic)

identity against doing an identity (performing). When contestants leave the
big brother house for example, they often claim that the other contestants
were acting, or wearing masks, rather than being themselves.
The distinction rests on the assumption that it is possible – and indeed

desirable – for one’s true self to simply emerge – when a gap is seen to
exist between doing and being – or semblance and substance – then the
person is liable to be accused of pretension, inauthenticity, or acting a role.
We have a social and cultural preoccupation with authenticity – illustrated

through the popularity of the Cinderella story – which is acted out today in
various make-over programmes – here the fairy godmother is taken by a
series of experts – who help the person to match their bodily appearance to
the real person trapped inside. In other words the woman (typically)
becomes who she is by changing her exterior self.
However, for Go man this idea that there is a ‘true self’ which needs to be
drawn out (if it’s a ‘nic’ self) or that can be hidden (with good or evil intent)
is, in reality all there is is the performance.
(At this point Lawler also notes that what we should really be asking ourselves is
why we are so concerned with authenticity, when in reality there is no such
thing.)
Dramas and lives (Go man)
For Go man, to be a person is to perform being a person. To put it simply, it

is no good doing something if no one recognises we are doing it – this is
‘dramatic realisation‘. This is not to say that we are being fraudulent,
rather it indicates the importance of the social group – because so much of
what we act out, we act out for their bene t.
Instead of focusing on authentic and inauthentic performances, Go man

suggests we should focus on what constitutes convincing and unconvincing
performances.
For Go man, there is no essence of the self waiting to be given expression

to, the self is not the cause of a social situation, it is the result of the social
situation. The self is not the mask, it is the mask, there is no aspect of the
self which is not touched by the social world.
Even character – the background self or the ethical self re ecting backstage
on what one does front stage is a performance.
Finally for Go man the performances we give are fundamentally shaped by

social norms – there are correct ways to act, and if someone acts out of
character, we try and save them, and we feel horror or embarrassment
when someone acts entirely inappropriately – social norms embedded deep
within our psyche – also, where gender is concerned, so constraining are
norms surrounding this that gender norms take on the hue of being natural
– which is something Judith Butler picks up on…
Performative identities (Butler)
The idea that there is no essential or foundational identity also

characterises Judith Butler’s work. Butler focus on gender and wants to go
beyond Go man to explore why the social world creates gendered identities
at all.
Butler challenges the orthodox view that we have a physical, biological sex
onto which a social gender is then added, arguing that there is no physical
sexed-identity which precedes the social.
There is no natural sex onto which gender is added, because our bodies are
so infused with sociality.
For Butler, identities are not just expressions of some inner nature,
identities are performed – they are repeatedly ‘done’ and they bring into
e ect what they ‘name’.
It is not inevitable that sex distinctions should exist at all – but we live in a
society where most people go along with idea that sex matters and invest a
lot of time in it, this creates a dominant discourse surrounding sex and
gender identity which it is hard to break free from – but Butler argues that
all of this social stu calls into being the idea that sex divisions exist, and
these divisions do not have to be seen as signi cant.
Girling the Girl: The Performativity of Gender
Boys and girls are ‘boyed’ and ‘girled’ even while in the womb – and even
though they have di erent sets of genitals, there is no necessary reason
why we need to distinguish them along the lines of these genital
di erences.
As the child grows up this process of girling and boying occurs

continuously, they are hailed by society to ‘become’ a boy or a girl, and by
and large the child-subjects generally accept how they are hailed, and in
doing so come to recognise themselves as a boy or a girl, and thus actively
participate in the construction of their own sexed and gendered identity.
Moreover, this process of interpellation takes place in a wider

institutionalised context of a sexed and gender divided society, and in this
way sex di erences come to be seen as natural, and derive much of their
power because of this (mis) perception.
Along with the sex-divide, Adrienne Rich (1980) coined the term
‘compulsory heterosexuality’ to emphasise the way in which
heterosexuality is also largely perceived as the norm.
Butler recognises the fact that interpellation does not always work – people
can disrupt the process by not agreeing to go along with pre-existing
categorisations.
Compelling Performance
The idea of the sex divide and heterosexuality reinforce each other to
provide a discourse on sex/ gender.
To illustrate this discourse at work Butler draws on the example of ‘you

make me feel like a natural woman’ by Aretha Franklin — in this song, the
natural woman’ status is established through heterosexuality – the song is
presumably directed at a heterosexual man, who is able to generate feelings
of natural womanhood through his desirability and desire for the woman
who is the subject of the song – ‘femininity and masculinity are
consecrated in the heterosexual sexual encounter’.
However, the idea that a woman needs a man to feel natural at all proves the
fact that all of this is a social construct. If something was natural, it would
just be natural, you wouldn’t feel anything at all – and Butler also
recognises that there is a possibility to re-imagine the song in order to
subvert such traditional sex-gender norms.
We might also ask why, if gender is natural, people put so much e ort into
being masculine and feminine – through hair removal and the like.
So in short, normal masculinity and femininity work through normal

heterosexuality.
Melancholy, Sexual Identi cation
‘there are no direct expressive of causal lines between sex, gender, gender
presentation, sexual practice, fantasy and sexuality.
For Butler, heterosexual identi cation is a response to melancholic loss.

Here she draws on Freud to explain how heterosexual identi cation
emerges basically because we hate ourselves – the woman becomes the
woman she never loved and the man becomes the man he never loved – and
because we cannot love ourselves, we look to the opposite for love and
companionship.
If we just learned to love ourselves, the men could love other men, and
women could love other women.
Related Posts
The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life – Extended Summary
Sociological Perspectives on Identity: Summary of Chapter on Focuault
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Nadiya Hussain’s Gift to A Level

Sociology
September 18, 2016 The Chronicles of Nadiya, fronted by last year’s Bake-O winner Nadiya
Culture and Identity, Hussain, is a surprisingly solid piece of sociological TV. (Episode 1 is
Ethnicity, Sociology on TV
available on iPlayer until Friday 23rd Sept 2016, or on eStream until
Bangladesh, Culture,
Armageddon if yer one of my students.)
identity
Leave a comment
Given Bake O ’s signi cant contribution to the reproduction of class

inequality, I was sceptical about how useful a spin-o cooking
documentary might be, but the programme is actually less about cooking
and more about illustrating the complexities of British Bangladeshi culture
and identity and combating the stereotype that hijab wearing Muslim
women are oppressed.
In episode one Nadiya returns to her home village (95% of British

Bangladeshis come from the same region in Bangladesh) and in the process
discusses numerous aspects of her identity – about the complexities of
being rooted in both Britain and Bangladesh, and how she never feels 100%
at home in either place; about her choice to wear the hijab and what that
means to her; and about why she doesn’t want to subject her own children
to an arranged marriage and traditional Bangladeshi wedding ceremony
basically – you get to see a distant cousin of hers getting married, and you
can understand why!
The extract below is from ‘The Week’ which gives more background on Nadiya
Hussain’s life…
Nadiya Hussain’s life has changed hugely since winning bake-o . Since she
won, she has met the queen, written a book and given numerous interviews and
talks. In doing so, she has had to overcome her own shyness but also her family’
strict traditions.
She grew up in Luton where she went to an all girl’s school which was 85%
Muslim, where she had no white friends.
Luton’s also somewhere on both of these maps
Later, she won a place at King’s College London, but her parents refused to let
her go. Instead, they set about nding her a husband, and at 19, she married
Abdal, an IT consultant, 3 weeks after meeting him. A year later, they had their
rst child and she became a housewife.
Yet Abdal proved not to be the stereotypical controlling Muslim husband: he

could tell that his wife was unful lled, and he didn’t like it. One day, he brought
her the application form for Bake O , with 11 pages of it lled in, and supported
her every step of the way through the process.
Although her own arranged marriage has worked out, Nadiya insists that her
children will choose their partners. More generally, she hopes her achievements
will give other Muslim girls the con dence to pursue their dreams that she lacked
as a teenager. ‘I wasn’t strong then. I’m a di erent person now’.
She does cook a few (very tasty) looking dishes in the programme too, so
overall this is a top-sociological documentary – fantastic for showing how
one individual maintains some aspects of her cultural traditions while
rejecting others.
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Anthony Giddens’ Runaway World – A

Summary
August 21, 2016
Culture and Identity, Global There has been a considerable amount of research
Development,
and theorising into globalisation and its
Globalisation, Social Theory
(A2) consequences over the past decade, yet little of this
Anthony GIddens, has ltered down to students of A level Sociology.
consequences of This article aims to address this by summarizing
globalisation, Globalisation,
Anthony Giddens’ views on globalisation and its
globalisation and identity
consequences for culture and identity in the West, focusing on the two core
1 Comment
themes of risk and detraditionalisation. This article is written with the new
AQA AS module in Culture and Identity in mind, and should be useful to any
student who wishes to better understand how Globalisation a ects daily
life.
Giddens illustrates how two consequences of Globalisation, namely the rise

of a ‘risk consciousness’ and detraditionalisation, undermine the ability of
institutions such as the Nation State, the family and religion, to provide us
with a sense of security and stability. These institutions are no longer able
to o er us a clearly de ned norms and values that tell us how we should act
in society. This situation has far reaching consequences for how individuals
experience daily life and for how they go about constructing their identities.
Globalisation, manufactured risks and risk consciousness
The title of Giddens’ accessible modern classic ‘Runaway World’

immediately suggests to the reader that he perceives globalisation as an
unpredictable, destabilsing process. In Giddens’ own words: “We are the
rst generation to live in global society, whose contours we can as yet only
dimly see. It is shaking up our existing ways of life, no matter where we
happen to be. This is…. emerging in an anarchic, haphazard, fashion… it is
not settled or secure, but fraught with anxieties, as well as scarred by deep
divisions. Many of us feel in the grip of forces over which we have no
control” (Giddens 2002).
One aspect of globalisation is the emergence of ‘manufactured risks’ which

are man made, having arisen as a result of new technologies developed
through advances in scienti c knowledge. Many of these new technologies,
such as nuclear and biotechnologies bring about risks which are truly global
in scope. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, for example, resulted in
nuclear fall out spreading thousands of miles to several countries, while the
burning of fossil fuels in the United States may lead to ooding in
Bangladesh.
According to Giddens, we have little experience of how to deal with these

new threats as they have only been in existence for the last half a century.
He argues that there is a “new riskiness to risk” in that these new
technologies could have catastrophic consequences for humanity, yet we do
not yet know all of the consequences associated with them. We cannot be
certain, for example, of the possible e ects that modifying the genetic
structure of our basic food stu s will have, and we do not know exactly how
much of global warming is due to human in uence.
Many of the above problems require international action, as well as co-

coordinated local action; and in this context, Nation States appear ill
equipped to deal with such global problems. In addition, in the context of
imperfect knowledge, competing expert voices emerge, such as with the
debate over whether Britain should build more nuclear power stations, or
whether or not we should support Genetically Modi ed crops. As a result,
the experts employed by politicians become just one voice amidst a eld of
experts citing di erent evidence that point to di erent courses of action.
Globalisation, Risk and Identity
So what are the consequences of this situation for self identity? On the one
hand, we have identity politics and on the other, we have apolitical apathy.
Those who are concerned about the global problems mentioned above and
who perceive the government as being ill equipped to deal with these new
global risks, have gravitated towards New Social Movements such as the
green movement. At the more radical end of these movements, one’s whole
lifestyle, one’s whole being and identity is oriented towards addressing
global problems, at the local and international level, through protesting
globally and acting locally.
However, such radical action is only undertaken by the relative few, and
many remain apathetic towards global risks. Political apathy can also be
easily justi ed in the context of imperfect knowledge, in which no one can
ever be certain of the full extent of these global risks.
Detraditionalisation
A second major theme of Giddens’ work is that of detraditionalisation.

Giddens argues that “For someone following a traditional practice,
questions don’t have to be asked about alternatives. Tradition provides a
framework for action that can go largely unquestioned… tradition gives
stability, and the ability to construct a self identity against a stable
background.
Globalisation brings this to an end as local cultures and traditions are

exposed to new cultures and ideas, which often means that traditional ways
of acting come to be questioned. As a result of globalisation, societies and
cultures go through a process of detraditionalisation, where day to day life
becomes less and less informed by ‘tradition for the sake of tradition’.
A good example of an institution undergoing this process is marriage.

Although the tradition of marriage remains, a couple is much less likely to
get married simply for the sake of marriage, either because it is ‘what
people do, or what their parents did’. A typical couple today will discuss
whether they should get married or not; they will think about whether it is
right for them, and if they do decide to get married, they will then discuss
where they should get married, and a whole range of other aspects
associated with the marriage ceremony itself.
This theme of Detraditionalisation is to be found in many other areas of life.

If we think back to the example of identity politics as expressed through
New Social Movements, this tells us that traditional ways of political
engagement are changing. Giddens also argues that globalisation has even
lead to religions becoming detraditionalised, and there is plenty of evidence
that he is right, as practices such as church attendance in Christianity and
veiling in Islam appear to be more a matter of personal choice than of
unquestioning adherence to tradition.
Cosmopolitanism and Democratisation
The positive side of detraditionalisation is the spread of what Giddens refers

to as cosmopolitanism in which the individual is much less constrained by
arbitrary tradition than in ‘traditional’ or pre-global societies. In a
cosmopolitan society, the individual has much more freedom to re ect on
already existing cultural practices such as those associated with marriage,
religion and politics, and to choose which aspects of these cultural practices
suit him or her.
As a result of this, culture becomes something that is more uid, more open
to debate and more open to adaptations by individuals than ever before in
human history. Culture, according to Giddens, becomes more democratic as
more people have more of a say in how culture will inform their lives.
Detraditionalisation and self identity
Detraditionalisation also has consequences for self-identity. According to

Giddens “Where tradition lapses, and life-style choice prevails, self-
identity has to be created and recreated on a more active basis than before.”
Giddens further argues that individuals must engage in an ongoing process
of re ecting upon their lives and adapting them in the light of new
knowledge that arises in a rapidly changing, globalising world. This whole
process of ongoing re ecting on one’s life and changing accordingly is
known as re exivity.
Re exivity is necessary because many of our institutions no longer provide

us with a clear set of pre-given norms and values. Modern relationships,
including marriages, no longer come with a set of clear norms and values,
duties and responsibilities, instead, these need to be negotiated. Similarly,
for those that are religious, the ‘meaning of ‘being Christian’ or ‘being
‘Muslim’ is much more open to debate than ever before, and for those who
want to get political, this is no longer limited to union membership, or
party membership and voting in general and local elections, one has to
choose between a whole range of political activism. The individual is faced
today with a situation in which modern institutions no longer simply tell
the individual how to act, or how to ‘be’, they no longer act as stabilizing
forces that anchor individuals to society in clearly de ned ways. Instead, we
have to choose which aspects of tradition suit us, and be able to justify to
others why we have made these choices.
Even once we have decided on what the rules of a relationship are, on what
our religion means to us, or what kind of political action we should engage
in, the rapid pace of social change, brought on by globalization means that
we may well have to rede ne our relationships and our religious and
political identities over an over again. To give examples, a foreign rm
relocating outside the United Kingdom may mean a career change, which
could mean a renegotiation of the terms of a relationship; The recent
decision of the government to build more nuclear power stations will lead
many green activists to shift their political attentions to this issue, and the
ongoing ‘threat of Islamic extremism’, exaggerated or not, has lead to a
debate over the meaning of what it means to be British and Muslim.
Re exivity, expert systems and therapy
Giddens argues that this constant need to adapt our identities in line with
global changes has lead to the emergence of ‘expert systems’. These are
found everywhere in British society, from the careers advisor, helping us to
choose which degree is best suited to us, to the therapist and counselor,
providing us assistance in the necessary task of continually reconstructing
our identities.
The negative consequences of Globalisation and detraditionalisation
While Giddens is cautiously optimistic about the changes brought about by

globalisation, in that he believes that global risks are something we can
work together to deal with, and detraditionalisation opens up the possibility
of a radical democratization of daily life, he does also point to two major
problems.
The rst of these is the increase in addiction in modern society. Today,

people can develop recognized addictions to sex, food, gambling and even
shopping. Giddens perceives this increase in addictions as being linked to
detraditionalisation. In pre-global societies, stable traditions provided
individuals with a link to the past, now this is gone, addiction is seen as an
attempt by individuals to construct a coherent ‘narrative of the self’
through repetitive actions that provide comfort, thus linking actions today
with actions to the past.
The second negative consequence of detraditionalisation is the rise of

Fundamentalism, which Giddens sees as traditional practices that are
defended by a blinkered commitment to ideologies and beliefs, and a
resistance to engaging in dialogue about those views.
Evaluating Giddens
Many contemporary critics, argue that Giddens’ view of contemporary

societies is too optimistic.
Zygmunt Bauman essentially agrees with the fact that uncertainty in

society requires most individuals to constantly engage in ‘identity
construction’, but he also points out that the wealthy and powerful are the
ones both creating and bene ting from an unstable, rapidly changing
world, and that these people are much more able to defend themselves
against the negative consequences of living in a runaway world.
Frank Furedi, who draws on Bauman, argues that the expert systems that
have emerged to assist us in the construction of our identities are not
neutral institutions. He argues, amongst other things, that far from
allowing individuals to be more autonomous actors, they actually
encourage individuals to be dependent on expert advice.
I will summarise the work of these two contemporary critics of Giddens in a

future article. Su ce to say for now that all three agree that Globalisation
has far reaching consequences for the British society, culture and the ways
in which we construct our identities.
You might also like…
A summary of Liquid Times by Zygmunt Bauman
Giddens’ Critique of Postmodernism – an uber-brief summary.
Bibliography
Giddens, Anthony (2002) Runaway World
Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and Self Identity
Bauman, Zymunt (2007) Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty
Furedi, Frank (2004) Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an

Uncertain Age.
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Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Times – A

Summary
August 9, 2016
Book summaries, Zygmunt Bauman is one of the world’s leading

Consumerism, Culture and
sociologists. He is particularly interested in how the
Identity, Globalisation,
Marxism, Postmodernism west’s increasing obsession with ‘individualism’
and Late Modernsim, Social actually prevents the individual from being free in
Theory (A2)
any meaningful sense of the word.
bauman, liquid modernity,
marxism, Postmodernism
and Late Modernsim In ‘Liquid Times (2007), Bauman argues that there are a number of
Leave a comment negative consequences of globalisation such as the generation of surplus
people who have no where to go in a world that is full; of increasingly visible
inequalities as the rich and the poor come to live closer together; and of a
world in which it is increasingly di cult for communities and nations to
provide collective security.
According to Bauman, the ultimate cause of negative globalisation is due to

the fact that the owners of Capital are invisible and shifting, having the
power to invest locally without making commitments, and even to ignore
international law if they deem it in their interests. The global elite are
globally mobile, they are not stuck in one place, and they are free to move
on if there are better investment opportunities elsewhere. The elite are seen
as creating an unstable world as they move from place to place, seeking to
maximise their pro ts. Meanwhile, the experience of ‘negative
globabalisation’ for the rest of us who are ‘doomed to be local’ is one of
increasing anxiety, fear, and suspicion, which derive from living in an
unstable and unpredictable world over which we have no control, and we
are compelled to develop strategies to counter the unstable, unjust, unequal
and ‘risky’ and ‘dangerous’ world that the forever shifting elite leave in
their wake.
The strategies adopted depend on the speci c experience of negative

globalisation, but they nearly always involve putting up barriers to protect
us from ‘dangerous others’, or they involve escaping from a world that is
perceived as no longer worth living in.
Those that ‘run away’ include everyone from refugees eeing a war torn
country to the millions of people in the West who continually reinvent
themselves selves through seeking out new life experiences rather than
rooting their identities in involvement in local and national institutions.
‘Barrier strategies’ include the emergence of fortress Europe to keep

refugees out; the development of gated communities and the move towards
zero tolerance policing policies in many cities.
For Bauman, these strategies are always ine ective, because they do no
address the root cause of our anxiety, which is the fact that our national and
local institutions can no longer provide us with security in the wake of
instabilities brought on by advanced global capitalism. Instead, these
strategies end up increasing the amount of anxiety and fear and segregation
and eventually serve to justify our paranoia.
The remainder of this article looks at three elements of ‘negative

globalisation’: The generation of surplus people; Increasingly visible
inequalities; and the undermining of national and local institutions.
Surplus people
Bauman argues that ‘When the elite purse their goals, the poor pay the
price’, seeing the instabilities and inequalities caused by global capitalism
as creating the conditions that can lead to ethnic nationalisms, religious
fanaticisms, increased civil wars, violence, organised crime and terrorism,
all of which do not respect national boundaries. As a result, there is a new
‘global frontier land’ occupied by refugees, guerrilla armies, bandit gangs
and drug tra ckers.
Focussing on refuges, Bauman points out that they are outside law
altogether because they have no state of their own, but neither are they part
of the state to which they have ed. He points out that many Palestinians,
for example, have lived in ‘temporary’ refugee camps for more than a
decade, but these camps have no formal existence and don’t even appear on
any maps of the regions in which they are situated. To make matters worse,
refugees often have no idea of when their refugee status will end, and hence
Bauman argues that they exist in a ‘permanent temporary state’ which he
calls the ‘nowhere land of non humanity’.
Refugees in camps can be forgotten, whereas if they were amongst us, we

would have to take notice of them. In these camps, they come to be seen as
one homogenous mass, the nuances between the thousands of individuals
living therein becoming irrelevant to the outsider. Refugees, in fact, go
through a process much like Go man’s morti cation of the self, as many of
them are stripped of all the usual things they need to construct an identity
such as a homeland, possessions and a daily routine. Unlike the mentally ill
who Go man studied, however, refugees have no formal rights, because
their self- morti cation takes place in a land that doesn’t formerly exist.
Bauman’s point is that one of the worst consequences of globalisation is the
absolute denial of human self expression as experienced by refugees.
While Bauman’s work provides us with an insight into why refugees may
want to escape their permanent temporary camps, there is little chance of
this happening. For a start, Europe is increasingly developing a ‘fortress
mentality’ in which we try our best to keep refugees out the European Union
through o ering aid to countries that boarder international crisis zones in
order to help them, rather than us having to deal with the ‘refugee problem’
ourselves.
Those refugees that do make it to the United Kingdom and other European
countries have an ever slimmer chance of being awarded Asylum, and are
increasingly likely to be locked up in detention centres. In the United
Kingdom, Asylum seekers are not allowed to work or to claim bene ts,
which in turn makes it incredibly di cult for such individuals to ever
integrate into what is to them a new and strange country. Thus even for
those who escape, their reward is further experience of marginalisation.
Bauman also deals with why the general populace of the West are so scared
of Refugees. Firstly, and very importantly, he reminds us that the real
underlying cause of our fears, anxieties and suspicions is that we have lost
control over the collective, social dimensions of our life. Our communities,
our work places, even our governments, are in constant ux, and this
condition creates uncertainty about who we are and where we are going,
which is experienced at the level of the individual as fear and anxiety.
This experience of fear and anxiety means that we are unnaturally afraid of
a whole range of things, but a further reason that we might be especially
scared of Asylum seekers in particular is that they have the stench of war on
them, and they unconsciously remind us of global instabilities that most of
us would rather forget about. Asylum seekers remind us, ultimately, that
the world is an unjust place full of tens of millions of people who, through
no fault of their own, bear the consequences of negative globalisation.
Asylum seekers remind us of the frailties of a global system that we don’t
control and don’t understand.
Rather than looking at the complex underlying causes of our irrational

sense of fear, the Media and Politicians see people such as Asylum seekers
as an easy target: They are con ned to camps, and hence stuck in one place,
and they will obviously look di erent and hence are more visible. Keeping
Asylum seekers out, or sending them back in droves, becomes a political
tool, with politicians winning points for adopting ever greater levels of
intolerance towards the desperate.
The consequence of this for refugees is bleak. A major theme of Bauman’s

work is that once fear of a group in society has been generated it is self
perpetuating, whether or not that fear is justi ed. The very fact that we are
afraid of Asylum seekers means we are less likely to approach them, it
means that were are less likely to give them a chance, which in turn leads to
a situation of mutual suspicion in which both parties seek to keep as much
distance between themselves as possible.
The experience of Global Inequality
The radical inequality between citizens in the United Kingdom and refugees
living in the no where land of non humanity is stark, but, for most of us,
easily ignored. Much more visible are the inequalities that exist within
International cities such as London, New York, and, even more obviously
Mexico City and Rio Di Janeiro.
Bauman points out that cities used to be built to keep people out, but today
they have become unsafe places, where strangers are an ever looming
presence. The underlying reason why the modern city is a place that breeds
fear and suspicion is because they are sites of some of the most profound
and visible inequalities on earth, where the poor and rich live side by side.
As a result, those who can a ord it take advantage of a number of security
mechanisms, such as living in gated communities, installing surveillance
cameras, or hiring private security. The architecture of the modern city has
become one of segregating the haves from the have nots.
For the poor, this ‘forti cation mentality’ is experienced as ‘keeping us

excluded from what we can never have’ and they e ectively become
ghettoised in areas which will always seam undesirable compared to the
places they are prevented from being. Thus the poor are permanent exiles
from much of their city. Lacking economic capital, sub cultural capital
becomes the only thing the excluded can draw on in order to carve out some
status for themselves. This, argues Bauman, is the reason why there are so
many distinct and segregated ethnic identities. These are the strategies
adopted by the poor to carve out some freedom for themselves, the
strategies of those who are doomed to be local.
This strategy, however, breeds a culture of di erence, and separatism. It

breeds a city in which we are surrounded by strange others whose territory
will always seam unfamiliar, which in turn breeds yet more suspicion, fear
and insecurity. Islands of di erence rather than an integrated city are the
result, a city populated by unfamiliar people who we do not know.
Bauman points out that, once visited on the world, fear takes little to keep it
going. Social life changes when people live behind walls, wear handguns,
carry mace and hire security guards. The very presence of these things
makes us think the world is more dangerous, leading to increased fear and
anxiety. It doesn’t actually matter if the ‘others’ are actually, or ever were,
dangerous, the fact that we put up defences against them is proof enough of
the fact that they must be a threat.
Insecurity, anxiety, and the inadequacy of identity…
While Globalisation creates instabilities which creates surplus people and

stark inequalities, Bauman also argues that Globalisation erodes the ability
of the state and local communities to provide genuine stability and security
for individuals. Social institutions such as the family, education and work
dissipate faster than the span of one’s life, and it becomes di cult for
individuals to construct a coherent life-project.
This situation results in what Bauman calls ‘existential tremors,’ where

individuals do not have a stable sense of who they are, or what they belong
to, resulting, as we have already come across, in increased feelings of
anxiety, fear and uncertainty. As evidence of this, Bauman points out that
most of us do not generally perceive the future as a bright place of hope and
of ‘better things to come’, instead we see the future as a series of challenges
to be overcome, of risks to be managed, and of threats to our security. In
short, the future is a bleak, dark, and uncertain place.
In the absence of collective security, individuals and families are left to try
and develop strategies to nd security and stability themselves, and our
goals become limited to the managing risks, and our horizons limited to the
every narrowing sphere over which we still have some measure of control!
Thus we invest in pensions, become very protective of our children, and
become increasingly suspicious of strangers. We are obliged to spend our
time doing things to minimise the perceived threats to our safety: checking
for cancers, investing in home security, and monitoring our children. Our
life-project becomes not one of developing ourselves, not one of striving for
a deeper understanding of what it means to be human, but, instead, our life
goals become limited to avoiding bad things happening to ourselves.
Bauman also has a pessimistic take on the common practice of the

continual reinvention of the self. Bauman argues that the process of
constructing an identity is sold to us as something that is fun, as something
that should be pleasurable, and as something that is indicative of individual
freedom. One only needs look at the various networking and pro ling sites
to see that the expression of self identity is something associated with
pleasure and leisure. It has become a normal part of daily life to spend a
considerable amount of time, e ort, and money on constructing,
maintaining and continually transforming one’s self.
Bauman, however, reminds us that although we may think we are free, we

are actually obliged to engage in this process of continual reinvention
because our social lives are in continual ux. Furthermore, many identities
are not rooted in the local, the social or the political, they are much more
oating and transient, based on fashion, music, and interests, and Bauman
interprets many of these strategies as an attempt by individuals to try and
escape from a world over which they have no control.
Following Joseph Brodsky, Bauman is rather scathing of the range of

shallow strategies many of us adopt to escape from the world, and
ultimately argues that they are all pointless….
“you may take up changing jobs, residence, company, country, climate, you
may take up promiscuity, alcohol, travel, cooking lessons, drugs,
psychoanalysis…. In fact you may lump all these together and for a while
that may work. Until the day, of course, when you wake up in your bedroom
amid a new family and a di erent wallpaper, in a di erent state and
climate, yet with the same stale feeling toward the light of day pouring
through your window.” (105)
Bauman seams to be arguing that individuals will never nd peace of mind,

never nd ‘who they really are’ unless they have stability and security, and
in order to have that, people need to root themselves in local and national
institutions, otherwise, our attempts to nd ourselves through the
reinvention of the self will always be less than satisfactory.
Conclusion and Evaluation
Bauman’s work is important as it reminds us that there is inequality in the

way we experience risk and instability. On the one hand, the global elites
who cause our global society to be unstable bene t from this instability and
are able to avoid the worst e ects of it, through, for example, moving away
from war zones, or retreating into gated communities. Meanwhile, the
poorest are the ones who su er, having lost, in the extreme example of
refugees, the very right to be regarded as human beings.
As a nal perverse twist, the elites that created this situation in the rst
place end up either retreating to expensive enclaves that are well secured, or
they pro t from our fears politically and nancially.
One cannot help but feel incredibly pessimistic after reading Bauman’s
work. It is as if hegemonic control has penetrated so far into the hearts and
minds of the populace that the huge e ort required for people to reassert
localised, communitarian politics against global capitalist hegemonic
power is simply too much to ever hope for.
But for those that are inclined to join Social Movements, at least Bauman’s
work identi es an elite to position oneself against, and reminds us this elite
continually out the principles of genuine freedom, equality, in the pursuit
of their self interest. Bauman’s work also o ers a useful counterpoint
against what some would regard as the pointless relativism of post-
modernism and the mediocre third way quiescence of Anthony Giddens.
You might also like…
A summary of Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman
A Summary of Runaway World by Anthony Giddens
Bibliography
Zygmunt Bauman (2007) Liquid Times
This summary was published in the Sociology Review in February 2009
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All My A Level Sociology Revision Resources

life of a group of people. REVISION MEGA BUNDLE

To give two speci c, and classic de nitions of the term culture:

To a large degree, culture determines how members of society think and

Historical di erences in social norms

(2) Some sociologists (and sociologicalish commentators) are very critical

Sources used to write this post

Haralambos and Holborn (2013): Sociology Themes and Perspectives

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From Pilgrim to Tourist – Or A Short

Modernity built in steel and concrete, postmodernity in biodegradable

Identity as such is a modern invention – it is the name given to the escape

Identity is always a process, a critical projection (typically?) into the future

Identity in modernity is presented as an individual task, but there are

Modern life as pilgrimage

Modernity gave the pilgrim a new prominence and a novel twist.

The Protestants changed this by becoming ‘inner-worldly pilgrims’ – they

In such a land, commonly called modern society, pilgrimage is no longer a

The desert world of modernity is meaningless, the bringing-in of meaning

Time is generally perceived as something through which one progress, in a

The world inhospitable to pilgrims

In the life-game of postmodern consumers the rules of the game keep

In modernity this is Walter Benjamin’s aneur – strolling among crowds of

Originally malls were merely physical, now all of this is intensi ed in

Wherever the vagabond goes he is a stranger, he can never be native, he is

In modernity the settled were many, the vagabonds few, postmodernity

In play there is neither inevitability nor accident, nothing is fully

The mark of a postmodern adult is to embrace the game wholeheartedly,

Modernity and Postmodernity

Postmodernity and Postmodernism

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It is a concept most closely associated with the late modern sociological

The easiest way to understand it is to contrast it to the concept of

In postmodernism, the breakdown of traditional social norms and ways of

In short, postmodern society is one in which people have greater freedom to

HOWEVER, according to Beck and Giddens, postmodernists have overstated

THUS, it is not so much a case of postmodern society providing us with

Individualisation – In More Depth….

Individualisation is ‘compulsory’ rather than being about genuine personal

As Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (2001/2002) have argued,

Individualisation is a contradictory phenomenon, both exhilarating and

The Neoliberal Self by Jim McGuigan

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Mobile Phones and Digital Nomadism

Below is a summary of Leopoldina Fortunati’s theorising about how mobile

Fortunati uses the term “nomadic intimacy” to describe how people in

Our sense of being part of social groups is no longer based on belonging to

Michiel De Lange (2009) Draft of Dissertation

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Why Fitness Instructors are Like

Harvey o ers an interesting perspective on the injustice which exists in the

Gym instructors are generally well-quali ed professionals who have at

Despite this level of professionalism, many gym instructors are employed

NB – Most of the gym instructors didn’t see this additional free-labour as

This is an interesting study which highlights the hidden injustice which

It’s thoroughly depressing that this kind of exploitative relationship goes

Relevance to A Level Sociology?

This could be used to illustrate yet another down side of neoliberalism, or

The podcast summarises aspects of Geraint Harvey’s (and others) article

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Sociological Theories of Consumerism