Late Modernity and Social Change

Late Modernity and Social Change PDF

Author: Brian Heaphy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2007-09-12

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1134460996

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In this incisive text, Heaphy introduces the work of Giddens, Bauman, Foucault and Baudrillard to show exactly how the arguments of the great contemporary theorists play out against extended examples from real-life.

Recasting Iranian Modernity

Recasting Iranian Modernity PDF

Author: Kamran Matin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1134446691

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Critically deploying the idea of uneven and combined development this book provides a novel non-Eurocentric account of Iran’s experience of modernity and revolution. Recasting Iranian Modernity presents the argument that Eurocentrism can be decisively overcome through a social theory that has international relations at its ontological core. This will enable a conception of history in which there is an intrinsic international dimension to social change that prevents historical repetition. This hitherto under-theorized international dimension is, the book argues, manifest in combined patterns of development, which incorporate both foreign and native forms. It is the tension-prone and unstable nature of these hybrid developmental patterns that mark Iranian modernity, and fuelled the socio-political dynamics of the 1979 revolution and the rise of political Islam. Challenging solely comparative approaches to the Iranian Revolution that explain it away as either a deviation from, or a reaction to, modernity on the grounds of its religious form, this book will be valuable to those interested in an alternative theoretical approach to the Iranian Revolution, modern Iran and political Islam, working in the fields of International Relations, Middle East and Islamic Studies, History, Political Science, Political Sociology, Postcolonialism, and Comparative Politics.

Social Change, Development and Dependency

Social Change, Development and Dependency PDF

Author: Tony Spybey

Publisher: Polity

Published: 1992-08-07

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780745607306

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This book takes the study of development and social change out of the confines of the Modernization Theory - Dependency Theory debate. The author examines social change against a background of the rise of the West and the global spread of its institutions. Spybey analyzes the development of the nation-state system in the modern world, emphasizing its Western origins. He also traces out the emergence of colonialism, the capitalist world-economy and Western dominance over other parts of the world. The author goes on to examine these developments after the Second World War, against the background of the Cold War and the end of European colonialism, the reaffirmed of the existence of nation-state system by new global institutions, global military order and capitalist world economy. The First, Second and Third Worlds are placed in their social, political and economic contexts and traced through to the post-Bretton Woods period of oil crises, global recession and new international division of labour.

Social Acceleration

Social Acceleration PDF

Author: Hartmut Rosa

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0231148348

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Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies in particular three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal relationships; and acceleration in the pace of life, which happens despite the expectation that technological change should increase an individual's free time. According to Rosa, both the structural and cultural aspects of our institutions and practices are marked by the "shrinking of the present," a decreasing time period during which expectations based on past experience reliably match future results and events. When this phenomenon combines with technological acceleration and the increasing pace of life, time seems to flow ever faster, making our relationships to each other and the world fluid and problematic. It is as if we are standing on "slipping slopes," a steep social terrain that is itself in motion and in turn demands faster lives and technology. As Rosa deftly shows, this self-reinforcing feedback loop fundamentally determines the character of modern life.

The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity

The Rise of the Social Sciences and the Formation of Modernity PDF

Author: J. Heilbron

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 9401155283

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This volume offers one of the first systematic analyses of the rise of modern social science. Contrary to the standard accounts of various social science disciplines, the essays in this volume demonstrate that modern social science actually emerged during the critical period between 1750 and 1850. It is shown that the social sciences were a crucial element in the conceptual and epistemic revolution, which parallelled and partly underpinned the political and economic transformations of the modern world. From a consistently comparative perspective, a group of internationally leading scholars takes up fundamental issues such as the role of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution in the shaping of the social sciences, the changing relationships between political theory and moral discourse, the profound transformation of philosophy, and the constitution of political economy and statistics.

Embodying Modernity and Postmodernity

Embodying Modernity and Postmodernity PDF

Author: Sandra C. Bamford

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13:

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This collection of original essays critically examines the relationship between ritual, embodiment, and social change in the South Pacific. Over the past few decades, the societies of Melanesia have undergone profound and revolutionary social change. Encounters with colonialism, postcolonialism, and the forces of globalization have put indigenous peoples in touch with processes of state formation, late capitalist culture, and the emergence of a complex network of transnational identities. In addition to shaping the contours of the nation state, these developments are having a profound impact on the nature of embodied experience. In recent years, many Melanesian societies have witnessed the rise of charismatic Christianity, changing gender configurations, and the growing use of consumerism as a means of defining new social and political hierarchies. Embodying Modernity and Post-Modernity provides detailed analyses of those social changes that are becoming part of contemporary Melanesia. Written by experts with first-hand fieldwork experience, this volume furnishes novel insights concerning the social implications of modernity and postmodernity. More specifically, it addresses two interrelated themes: how the rise of new social and economic forms has influenced the ways in which Melanesians think about, experience and act upon their bodies, and the ways in which these new forms of bodily experience contribute to the emergence of new social and cultural identities. This book is part of the Ritual Studies Monograph Series, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. "While this volume will be of particular interest for regional specialists and theorists of the body, it also makes important contributions to historical analysis of colonial and post-colonial interpretations of modernity and ritual studies. The editor also deserves credit for bringing together a cohesive text, one in which the articles usefully speak to and complement one another." -- Anthropological Forum "This book is a must read for scholars of Melanesia and all scholars of the Anthropology of the Body. There is much to be gleaned theoretically from these ethnographically rich essays." -- Oceania

Modernity in Indian Social Theory

Modernity in Indian Social Theory PDF

Author: A. Raghuramaraju

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-12-06

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 0199088365

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Unlike the West, India presents a fascinating example of a society where the pre-modern continues to co-exist with the modern. Modernity in Indian Social Theory explores the social variance between India and the West to show how it impacted their respective trajectories of modernity. A. Raghuramaraju argues that modernity in the West involved disinheriting the pre-modern, and temporal ordering of the traditional and modern. It was ruthlessly implemented through programmes of industrialization, nationalism, and secularism. This book underscores that India did not merely the Western model of modernity or experience a temporal ordering of society. It situates this sociological complexity in the context of the debates on social theory. The author critically examines various discourses on modernity in India, including Partha Chatterjee’s account of Indian nationalism; Javeed Alam’s reading of Indian secularism; the use of the term pluralism by some Indian social scientists; and Gopal Guru’s emphasis on the lived Dalit experience. He also engages with the readings on key thinkers including Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and Ambedkar.

Social Change

Social Change PDF

Author: Eva Etzioni-Halevy

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-31

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1040146147

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First published in 1981, Social Change offers a critical review of the main classical and modern theories of social change, and a study of the processes of change in western societies since modernization. It focusses on the cardinal aspects of society, and those that have figured most prominently in various theories: the economy, the class structure, the political structure, and the structure of education, as they changed throughout the process of modernization and up to the 1980s. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents a general discussion of classical and contemporary theories of the advent and maturation of modern society in Western capitalist and non-Western countries. Part II provides a more detailed discussion of modernization and subsequent changes in the Western, capitalist societies. Part III examines alternative social formations—communes and co-operatives. This book will be a beneficial read for students and researchers of sociology.