Late Modernity

Depression is emerging as one of the major threats to public health in the 21st century. Yet, unexpectedly few studies have looked into how defining features of late modernity, like increased complexity, detraditionalization and individualization, may upset young people’s subjectivation, well-being and mental
health. This study provides qualitative interviews with seven Norwegian young adults between 20 and 31 years that have experienced a bout of depression. The results reveal that failure to live up to perceived standards and ideals of contemporary Western neoliberal culture of the sovereign, self-governing
individual, in total control of all aspects of life, looms large over their heads. However, there were also more personal unique themes about bullying and genetic dispositions for depression that suggest that sociocultural theories about late modern life
as producing conditions for depression must be interpreted in line with more individual biographic and biological factors.

V monografiji "Umetnost komuniciranja v kontekstu pozne moderne" se ukvarjamo z vprašanjem, kako kontekst pozne moderne vpliva na komunikacijske procese med ljudmi in iščemo načine ter lastnosti, ki jih lahko ljudje v komunikacijskih procesih razvijajo kot odziv na determinante sočasnega družbeno-kulturnega konteksta. In the monograph

"The Art of Communication in the Context of Late Modernity" we deal with the question of how the context of late modernity influences communication processes between people and seek ways and characteristics that people can develop in communication processes in response to determinants of contemporary socio-cultural context.

Human sociality moved to a new era via the rise of modernity. Early attempts
to understand this phenomenon – such as the dichotomies between
mechanical and organic solidarity or Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft – set
their indelible mark on the social sciences. These two articles build on the
theory of transition from direct to institutional sociality and focus on the
intricacies of the transformation of the social subject which now builds
itself by accessing modules of institutional performance. The “modular individual” amounts to a competitive combination of resources that he or she
does not possess inalienably. Unlike the permanence of social belonging,
everything provided by the institutional web is detachable. The point has
been reached where an adequate self cannot be maintained without competition
with others. All an individual can do is increasingly compete, thus
increasingly become dependent on institutional resources. In a powerful
paradoxical arrangement, the quest for personal adequacy generates social
vulnerability. This is the contradictory treadmill that institutional sociality
imposes on its subjects.
Keywords:
Human Sociality, Institutional Web, Modernity, Social Bond, Individuation.

A házasságok és az intim kapcsolatok általában az elmúlt évtizedekben egyre sérülékenyebbé váltak. Ez különösen akkor szembeötlő, ha azokat a tartósságra orientált premodern házasságok perspektívájából vesszük szemügyre. Az apa kétségbevonhatatlan uralmán, valamint a család vagyonának és társadalmi státuszának továbbörökítésén alapuló tradicionális házasságokat fokozatosan felváltják olyan új kapcsolatok, amelyek, legalábbis a késő modernitás uralkodó diskurzusa szerint, szinte kizárólag a partnerek közötti érzelmi kötődésre épülnek. A kapcsolatok történeti elmozdulása az általam „autotelikus párkapcsolatnak” nevezett kapcsolati forma felé kétségkívül a felek közötti viszonyok demokratizálódásának irányába hat. Ugyanakkor a partnereket egyúttal arra is kényszeríti, hogy saját boldogságukat immáron a párkapcsolaton belül találják meg, ennek érdekében pedig saját terveiket, várakozásaikat, reményeiket diskurzus tárgyává tegyék, eközben szüntelenül elemezzék és értékeljék saját kapcsolatukat, amely így a transzparencia irányába tolódik el.
Mindez jelentős terhet ró a párkapcsolatokra, ugyanakkor a nem kis részben ambivalenciára és projekcióra épülő intimitás megélését is egyre nehezebbé teszi. Önsegítő könyvek szerzői, coachok és párkapcsolati szakértők sietnek a párkapcsolati nehézségekkel küzdők segítségére, mivel azonban maguk is gyakran folyamatos kommunikációra, a kapcsolati viszonyok diskurziválására és transzparenssé tételére bátorítják az érintett feleket, csak még sérülékenyebbé teszik azokat. A törékeny párkapcsolat (legalább időleges) stabilizálására irányuló egyetlen hathatós – és többé-kevésbé tudattalan – stratégia, úgy tűnik, a gyerekvállalás. Így válik jobb híján a gyerek a késő modernitás egyetlen „metaprojektjévé”.

Strangers at Our Door is a book by Zygmunt Bauman, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Leeds. Bauman is one of the most influential sociologists of our age, who wrote many books and articles in various topics. Bauman is the advocator of late modern social theory and he conceptualizes the age that we live in as a “liquid modern” time or era. I think that especially last several books of Bauman are efforts to express and contextualize his social theory and liquid modernity concept through different themes like morality, love, utopia, and social inequalities. This book also has the same intention and it can be considered as a late modern social theorists’ view on the current refugee crisis.

This article engages with Archer's call to further research on reflexivity and social change under conditions of late modernity (2007, 2010, 2012) from the perspective of existing work on reflexive discourse in the language disciplines (Silverstein 1976, Lucy 1993). Drawing from a linguistic ethnography of the networked trajectories of a group of working-class South Asian youth in Hong Kong (Pérez-Milans & Soto 2014), we analyze the trajectory of Sita, a Hong Kong-born young female with Nepali background. In her trajectory, performative acts of ethnic minority-based activism emerge as key in the enactment of a given set of values, stances, types of persona and situated forms of alignment/disalignment. That is to say, Sita's enactment of activism is seen in this article as tied to a discourse register (Agha 2007: 147). As such, 'talking/doing activism' is inter-textually linked to a speech chain network of a group of secondary school students, teachers, researchers and community-based minority activists engaged with Sita in various interrelated projects for social empowerment. Analysis of interview transcripts, online chats and multimodal artifacts shows the extent to which the coordinated formation of this discourse register proved useful in providing Sita with relevant cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986) with which she shaped her own academic trajectory, from a low-prestige government-subsidized secondary school to an elite international college.

Esta publicación es una reseña bibliográfica del libro de François Dubet ¿Por qué preferimos la desigualdad? (aunque digamos lo contrario) (2016). Allí el autor propone un modo diferente y novedoso de abordar las desigualdades a partir de un diagnóstico: la crisis de las solidaridades. Para Dubet, es esta crisis la que en parte explica la preferencia por la desigualdad o, al menos, la preferencia por no reducirla -aunque digamos lo contrario-.
Sostiene que en las sociedades democráticas y plurales hay un convencimiento por parte de los individuos de ser iguales por derecho, lo que induce a una demanda de justicia y equidad a fin de que el principio de igualdad se adapte a la diversidad de los hombres y  a sus condiciones de vida. Sin embargo, esta convicción es insuficiente a la hora de llevar a cabo prácticas políticas de reducción de las desigualdades sociales. Entonces, “para que el principio de igualdad llegue a constituir una voluntad de igualdad social, debe asociarse a un sentimiento de solidaridad y fraternidad: la igualdad nos compromete porque los individuos tienen algo de común y semejante; porque están vinculados; porque tienen un destino común, y porque su felicidad privada depende de la felicidad pública." (Dubet, 2016: 107)

In the past decade, urban regeneration policy makers and practitioners have faced a number of difficult challenges, such as sustainability, budgetary constraints, demands for community involvement and rapid urbanization in the Global South. Urban regeneration remains a high profile and important field of government-led intervention, and policy and practice continue to adapt to the fresh challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century, as well as confronting long-standing intractable urban problems and dilemmas. This Companion provides cutting-edge critical review and synthesis of recent conceptual, policy and practical developments within the field. With contributions from 72 international experts within the field, it explores the meaning of ‘urban regeneration’ in differing national contexts, asking questions and providing informed discussion and analyses to illuminate how an apparently disparate field of research, policy and practice can be rendered coherent, drawing out common themes and significant differences. The Companion is divided into six parts, exploring: globalization and neo-liberal perspectives on urban regeneration; emerging econceptualizations of regeneration; public infrastructure and public space;
housing and cosmopolitan communities; community centred regeneration; and culture-led regeneration. The concluding chapter considers the future of urban regeneration and proposes a nine-point research agenda. This Companion assembles a diversity of approaches and insights in one comprehensive volume to provide a state-of-the-art review of the field. It is a valuable resource for both advanced undergraduate
and postgraduate students in Urban Planning, Built Environment, Urban Studies and Urban Regeneration, as well as academics, practitioners and politicians.

The Emerging Church grew in prominence in the United States in the 1990's as a reaction to seeker-sensitive approaches of nondenominational evangeli-cal megachurches. These megachurches are known for the commodification of religion and the conception of church members as consumers, and are thus prime examples of the neoliberalization of the American religious landscape. In contrast, the Emerging Church opposes institutionalized and neoliberalized religious practices and structures, instead emphasizing local and contextual organization and practice as a basis for more " authentically Christian " lives. Nevertheless , the Emerging Church itself displays characteristics of neoliberalization, which I disclose using Wendy Brown's definition of neoliberal rationality. This raises the question whether a lived critique of neoliberalization is possible in the late modern era.

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

This Handbook offers a state-of-the-art account of research in language policy and planning (LPP). The Handbook examines the ways in which scholarship in language policy and planning (LPP) has understood the changing relationship between LPP and political-economic conditions, and how this changing relationship has shaped knowledge production in the field. With an underlying interest in language, social critique, and inequality, scholars in this volume work in widely divergent local, regional, national, and institutional settings, to investigate the ongoing processes that have gradually become the focus of contemporary LPP research, in many cases forcing scholars and practitioners in the field to revisit their own assumptions, views, and methodological perspectives. Through a critical examination of LPP, the Handbook offers new directions for a field in theoretical and methodological turmoil as a result of the socioeconomic, institutional, and discursive processes of change taking place under the conditions of late modernity. Chapters in this handbook are divided into three major sections: conceptual underpinnings of LPP; LPP, nation states, and communities; and LPP and late modernity. Subsections include chapters focusing on LPP and nationalism, minorities, standardization, and globalization; LPP in institutions of the nation-state and in communities; language, neoliberalism, and governmentality; language and mobility, diversity, and new social media; and new approaches to extending LPP scholarship. A final chapter offers an integrative summary and suggestions for future directions in LPP research.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a painful psychological condition that is largely limited in psychosocial theory. This exploratory paper examines Borderline Personality Disorder through the theoretical lens of social, anthropological, and critical theory. First I will discuss the important psychomedical conceptualizations and explanations regarding Borderline Personality Disorder. Second, these dominant discursive thoughts regarding Borderline Personality Disorder will be dissected and deconstructed through social, anthropological, and critical theory. Third I will be using Internet ethnography, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis to analyze the narratives of individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder as they engage in Internet communication and in virtual communities. The goal of this exploratory paper is to critically analyze the construct of Borderline Personality Disorder and the degree of its validity as a psychological classification.

KEYWORDS: Borderline Personality Disorder, Narrative Analysis, Critical Psychology, Subjectivity, Identity Disturbance, Lived Experience, Pain and Suffering, Late-Modernity, Sociology, Anthropology

MLA Citation:
Li, John. 'On The Borderline: An Exploratory Study On The Narratives Of Borderline Personality Disorder And The Contestations Of Psychomedical Discourse And Power'. Master's Thesis. The University of Chicago, 2013.

Contact:
johnmhli@berkeley.edu
916 623 5512

At the beginning of the XXI century, human societies are entering a period of "late modernity" characterized by new forms of trust and risk, untransparent social situations and economic, political and cultural globalization. These processes are associated with the presence of abstract systems that surround people and which require support of people with expertise in the fields which include transport, telecommunications, finance, security, media, energy. At the same time, it is noted that the expertise cult is born and specialists not only meet the identified needs, but also produce new, thus contributing to the development of a culture of narcissism. Article aims to explain the characteristics of expert systems and cultural narcissism, experts role as a participant in social change, model types and kinds of experts with their arcane in to ontological and epistemological structures of the social world. I also highlight the problems associated with the suppression of restrictions in to the access of expertise knowledge.
**
Wraz z początkiem XXI wieku społeczeństwa ludzkie wchodzą w okres „późnej nowoczesności” cechujący się nowymi formami zaufania i ryzyka, nieprzejrzystością sytuacji społecznych oraz postępującą globalizacją ekonomiczną, polityczną i kulturową. Procesy te wiążą się z obecnością systemów abstrakcyjnych, które otaczają ludzi i do funkcjonowania wymagają wsparcia osób z wiedzą specjalistyczną z zakresu m.in. transportu, telekomunikacji, finansów, bezpieczeństwa, mediów, energetyki. Jednocześnie zauważa się, iż rodzi się kult ekspertyzy a specjaliści nie tylko zaspokajają rozpoznane potrzeby, ale też wytwarzają nowe, przyczyniając się tym samym do rozwoju kultury narcyzmu. Artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie specyfiki systemów eksperckich i narcyzmu kulturowego, roli eksperta jako uczestnika przemian społecznych, modelowych typów ekspertów i rodzajów ich wtajemniczeń w struktury ontologiczne i epistemologiczne świata społecznego oraz zwrócenie uwagi na problemy związane ze znoszeniem ograniczeń dostępu do wiedzy specjalistycznej.

Criolo e Emicida são músicos que possuem destaque no cenário musical brasileiro contemporâneo, fruto de uma significativa produção artística e de atuações que marcam seus posicionamentos políticos no país. Os artistas compõem e atuam no contexto da modernidade tardia brasileira, sob os efeitos nefastos do modelo econômico que se estabeleceu durante a ditadura e com a democracia neoliberal que se firma após os anos de chumbo e que consolida as disparidades sociais já acentuadas nestes tempos. Há, então, na crítica a essa realidade nacional, o entrelaçamento de temáticas e de procedimentos estéticos: utilizando o sampling como procedimento de apropriação dos estilhaços desse mundo, os rappers desconstroem a ideia de um Brasil montado sob a égide da mestiçagem, sustentada pela falsa noção de democracia racial. Tal postura se manifesta não apenas nas produções cancionais de Criolo e de Emicida, como também nas suas múltiplas atuações, que performatizam modos de enfrentamento a esse contexto de violências históricas. A partir dessas problematizações, o trabalho pretende analisar como as composições desses artistas produzem uma leitura sobre a modernidade tardia brasileira, em que medida suas produções cancionais rasuram os discursos acerca da identidade brasileira e dos afro-brasileiros, como a violência sobre o corpo afro-brasileiro é apresentada como um dos traços significativos dessa modernidade e como os artistas e suas obras operam formas de insurgência contra essa face violenta do Brasil tardo-moderno. No desenvolvimento do trabalho, observou-se o processo de sampling como um procedimento estético e político, que, num viés afrodiaspórico, agencia diferentes perspectivas do Brasil e dos afro-brasileiros e as põem em diálogo. Outro aspecto importante é a afirmação da identidade afro-brasileira a partir da ocupação do espaço da rua – analisado no processo de formação das favelas brasileiras e na relação entre essa formação e a produção cancional dos artistas – como resposta a uma concepção de cidadania que, ao invés de garantir direitos, se manifesta como necropolítica que assassina o povo negro no Brasil. Além disso, foi possível apontar, a partir dos diferentes espaços de atuação dos artistas, diferentes formas com as quais eles se constroem como pensadores e como figuras atuantes na construção de alternativas para combater o trabalho de morte que historicamente se impõe sobre os afro-brasileiros, que tem o Estado como um de seus principais agentes.

This project tells a history of allegory from late modernism into the present. It presents case studies of four sites of allegorical thought and practice in late twentieth-century American cultural production, with a focus on post-WWII art, theory, literature, and material culture: Aldous Huxley’s psychedelic writings in dialogue with the work of Color Field painter Morris Louis and his critics; the relationship between materiality and hermeneutics in Ken Kesey’s communal art project, Furthur; the literary theory of Paul de Man, where allegory becomes conflated with irony; and allegorical structure and performativity in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Understanding allegory as a structure of thought—a transmedial structure based on an urge for meaning-making inherent in the human mind that is modified and adapted in response to evolving historical contexts, circumstances, and pressures—it examines these sites of allegorical transformation to ask how allegory was mobilized, theorized, or used by historical actors working within the limits of their contextual conditions of possibility. In doing so, it asks how recent changes in allegorical form, structure, and function come to shape the mode’s contemporary appearance, arguing that allegory’s structure undergoes a progressive flattening of levels as its aesthetic transcendence is reimagined as aesthetic immanence.

This paper situates neoliberalism and authoritarian populism within the longue durée of modernity. I define modernity as the set of processes unfolding in the wake of European expansion, including colonialism, settler colonialism, the Atlantic slave system, capitalism, the Enlightenment, the nation-state (and nationalism), and imperialism. How does our current crisis of global neoliberalism (and American politics) have roots in the deep history leading to the present?

This essay will analyze the structure of contemporary criminological discourse by illustrating how such discourse breaks down into two complementary discursive strategies bound up by a complex dialectical relationship. It will analyze the different ways of thinking about the criminal question typical of late modern societies by describing on the one hand a criminological discourse calling for harsh and exemplary punishment, a discourse that informs to large extent the rhetoric of the neoconservative political movement, which in recent decades has established its hegemony over the public debate on crime and punishment; on the other hand a criminological discourse that typically informs what has been called advanced liberalism, more attuned to the way the problem of crime tends to be approached by technicians, administrators, and penologists, who are more concerned with the question of costs and rewards and are therefore careful to assess the costs that come with an expansion of the penal system. As much as these two strategies stand in contrast to each other in important ways, they nonetheless seem to function in a complementary fashion, considering that neo-conservatism may be thought as the political platform of economic neo-liberalism.

In this closing chapter we explore the consequences that the socioeconomic, institutional and discursive processes of change taking place under the conditions of late modernity may have for Language Policy and Planning (LPP) research in the years ahead. Although the chapters in this Handbook reveal the diverging circumstances for LPP under different configurations of global and local forces, they also point to several recurring key issues that we believe will be important in the future of the field. These recurrent issues are concerned with both ontological and epistemological dimensions in LPP research. They can be grouped into seven major strands, namely: (1) the continued importance of critical approaches; (2) the paradox of agency; (3) the need for ethnographic approaches to move from recognition of their value to further engagement with epistemological awareness; (4) the challenge of creating new links between LPP and alternative philosophical traditions, beyond European political theory; (5) the increasing role of media in LPP; (6) the need for expanding collaborations and revisiting long-standing assumptions about community-based research, language rights, and activism; and (7) the imperative of addressing ethical issues in contemporary LPP research through researchers’ reflexivity. This closing chapter addresses each of these issues by identifying paths for future research in the field.

This dissertation investigates learner beliefs, language ideologies, self-positioning, and language use among a group of Swiss university students of Danish as a foreign language. The theoretical framework of the study draw on socially informed second language acquisition (SLA) research and on late modern sociolinguistics.

Research questions
• What do Swiss university students of Danish as a foreign language believe about language and language learning, why do they hold these beliefs, and how do the beliefs relate to language ideologies?
• How do the participants present themselves in terms of beliefs, ideologies, and self-positioning? 
• In what ways do the participants use linguistic features generally thought to belong to different languages, to what degree can their language use be compared with polylingual behaviour, and how does their language use relate to the beliefs and ideologies expressed by the participants?

Data
During three semesters, or a year and a half, three types of data were collected from the 49 participants: Questionnaires for background knowledge, learning journals for the study of beliefs and ideologies, as well as individual and group audio recordings for the study of language use.

Main findings
At the beginning of the three semester course, the participants generally express structure-focussed beliefs about language and language learning, whereas at the end of the course, they focus more on communicative approaches to language learning. The beliefs held by the participants are influenced by their comprehensive experience with language learning. The change from a structural to a communicative focus may be explained by a socialisation process during the course, or by changes in the participants’ perceived and actual sociolinguistic progression.

The participants further express ideas about language and language learning, which relate to institutional and societal language ideologies. The participants express ideas about language as a system, languages as separate entities, and authentic target languages.

Self-positioning is carried out by the participants at the earliest stages of language learning, and the position themselves as high expectancy students, language experts, and hard-working students. This self-positioning is closely linked with the classroom setting.

The beliefs and ideas held by the participants are compared with the way they use language in written and oral form. In some cases, the participants use features generally thought to belong to different languages for language play, but in most instances the participants try to use features that are exclusively associated with Danish, and their use of features generally thought to belong to different languages is not intentional. This finding leads to a theoretical discussion of the notion of polylanguaging, particularly how the concepts of stylisation, ideologies, repertoire, and awareness can be integrated into the definition of polylanguaging.

The industrialization produces a veil in its aesthetization, and in this veil lies a criticism and heterotopia in its images of dreams. This is the dynamic duality in Walter Benjamin’s incomplete project, ‘Paris, Capital of the Ninetieth Century’. Benjamin deals especially with the passages. They are new architectural phenomena that connect streets through alleyways with shops. Passage has a more spacious meaning, pointing to the way Benjamin reads the metropolis. Passage means in Benjamin's optics threshold or transition, namely between I and things, awakening and dream, potential and realization. ‘I and things’ are essential, when it comes to exhibitions of commodity, where things are made personal and particular. This personification or anthropomorphication plays a crucial role in Benjamin's analysis of the metropolitan aesthetics. The article seeks to answer why and how Benjamin sought this path in his mapping of modernity's aesthetization and finally how it manifests itself in relation to Benjamin’s theory during the National Socialism’s aesthetics of politics and later in the digital passages of late modernity as commodity aesthetics driven by algorithms.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, passage, commodity aesthetics, metropolis, modernity, late modernity, antrophomorphication, images of dreams, aesthetics of politics, digital passage, influencer, unpacking unboxing.

This chapter focuses on the popular Confucian revival that started at the beginning of the 21st century in Mainland China. After a presentation of its different phases, it analyzes how the actors involved in this revival perceive the predicaments of the present times and how they build upon resources offered by the past (here, the revived tradition of Confucianism) in order to fuel their imagination about the future. In so doing, it explores why Confucianism is considered by many, at different levels (grassroots level, authorities) and for different reasons, meaningful and relevant in the context of late modernity. The chapter is also a contribution to a broader reflection about the transformations of the “regime of historicity” (articulation between the different dimensions of time: past, present and future) that can be observed in today’s China.

This ahead of print version is uploaded on Academia.edu with the authorization of the volume editors. Final proofreading has not taken place.

This is the opening chapter to The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning, a project that aims to go beyond just providing a set of summaries of specific sub-fields within Language policy and planning studies (although some will be provided as needed, or can be found elsewhere; e.g., Ricento, 2016; Spolsky, 2012). In this chapter, we address many of the current questions that researchers face under contemporary conditions of change tied to so-called Late Modernity, with an ambition to better understand the current period in which the field of language policy and planning (LPP) operates. Against the background of our particular academic journey as editors of the Handbook, we first provide an overview of the foundations of the field of LPP. After this, we detail the specific questions that have guided the organization of this volume. In the final part, we try to map out some of the different threads of recent LPP research evident in this Handbook, highlighting the issues that scholarly analysis seeks to understand and the approaches to research used in the investigation, and to anticipate some of the generalizations that emerge.

The field of bilingual education in Hong Kong provides a perfect window to study transformation of education in the context of wider processes of economic, institutional, political, sociolinguistic and cultural changes. As Hong Kong changed from a former British colony to a Special Administrative Region (SAR, hereafter) of the People’s Republic of China, the space of language education has seen the overlapping of old and new ideas regarding what languages should be learned or taught, by whom, when and to what degree. Such ideas and the related policies which have contributed to their institutionalisation cannot be detached from shifting conditions as to who gets to decide what language repertoires are attributed value in which sociolinguistic markets vis-à-vis local and trans-local processes of destabilization of the modern politics of language and culture. This entry traces major works that have reported and described these processes, with attention to their implications for the existing language-in-education policies and practices in contemporary Hong Kong.

This essay is an attempt to link aspects of Kierkegaard’s experimental
writings with new contemporary ecological perspectives which—in the act of interpenetration—are fusing philosophy, science, literature, anthropology,
political thought, new economic perspectives, and visual and sound media, in order to open up new ways to live and flourish on a damaged planet—in our “age of disintegration.” I present Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of his time as “the age of disintegration” (from 1848) as something that can be connected to the contemporary socio-political conditions in late modernity, and to the new epoch on the horizon which we are now experiencing. I interpret Kierkegaard’s expression “out into the middle of life” as the kernel of Kierkegaard’s authorship of interruption and unsettling. I argue it can be implicitly included in aspects of ecological perspectives offered by innovative writers today.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/kier/24/1/article-p437.xml?language=en

Das Netzwerk ist ein Grundbegriff des 21. Jahrhunderts geworden – und mit ihm die Diagnose, dass wir in einem neuen Zeitalter leben, in dem es auf Konnektivität, Flexibilität und Selbstorganisation ankommt. In einer groß angelegten Geschichte des Regierungsdenkens zeichnet Vincent August erstmals diese fundamentale Transformation nach. Er zeigt, dass unsere Welt keineswegs nur durch den Neoliberalismus geprägt wird – und dass die Netzwerk-Gesellschaft nicht einfach ein Resultat des Internets oder von Computern ist. Vielmehr griffen Berater:innen und Intellektuelle wie Foucault, Crozier oder Luhmann auf die Kybernetik zurück, um die Ideenwelt der Souveränität abzulösen und unser Regierungsdenken grundlegend zu verändern. Eine Analyse spätmoderner Gesellschaften kommt ohne eine Analyse dieses Netzwerk-Paradigmas nicht aus.

»Vincent August liefert eine herausragende Studie, an der die Sozialwissenschaft nicht vorbeikommt. Es handelt sich um eine in jeder Hinsicht originäre und innovative Arbeit, die einen lange währenden Diskurs über Regieren anschaulich und materialreich präsentiert.«
(Herfried Münkler)

»Vincent August liefert in diesem Buch geradezu ein Meisterstück einer ideengeschichtlichen und politiktheoretischen Arbeit ab, an der die gesellschaftstheoretische Diskussion nicht wird vorbeigehen können.«
(Hartmut Rosa)

As the Council of Europe is shifting its traditional focus on learning European languages towards emphasizing the importance of speaking other languages of the wider world, an increasing number of schools are offering Mandarin as part of their official curriculum in the United Kingdom. This is being financially supported by transnational/inter-institutional networks headed by Confucius Institutes and linked to the Hanban in the People’s Republic of China. In addition, learning of this language is being legitimised by appealing to discourses of “social cohesion” and “internationalism”. This article draws from a sociolinguistic ethnography carried out in a London secondary school located in a working-class area. This school converted itself into a Language Specialist School teaching Mandarin because of difficulties in recruiting the institutionally required minimum number of students for being entitled receive public educational funding. In the framework of a partnership with Confucius Institute, which requires its affiliated schools to ensure success rate of students learning Mandarin meets a given ratio, this paper takes a closer look at the resulting local uncertainties, with focus on everyday discursive practices of “collusion” (McDermott & Tylbor 1986) through which teachers and students create a sense of smooth language learning environment even when the majority of the students have difficulties in achieving outcome targets.

A small proportion of people claim to live and consume in ways they consider more sustainable in social and environmental terms. As yet, we do not know how many exactly, but possibly no more than 5‐10% of the population. The thesis intentionally focuses on this minority finding there are at least three reasons why it is interesting to do so. First because they are all but ignored in sociologies of practice in the context of sustainable consumption which considers this minority an insignificance and focuses almost exclusively on a ‘mainstream’ majority which more closely maps onto the stereotype of ‘consumer society’. Second because we think we can learn much from juxtapositioning this group empirically against the spectrum of theories of practice to devise more robust and appropriate theoretical explanation of how these subjects, in the context of everyday practice, negotiate the many interpretations and contradictions involved in trying to put ‘sustainability’ into practice. Third because by understanding them better we can reflect on theoretical, empirical and policy implications for nudging this minority of the population to a higher percentage.

The thesis sits at one end of a spectrum of positions in theories of practice applied to consumption, and in particular with a normative interest in sustainable consumption. It aligns with those who seek to re‐insert the reflexive agent into accounts of practice, with particular reference to the conceptual construct of the ‘citizen‐consumer’ and the context of political consumption (Spaargaren & Oosterveer 2010). Referring to theories of consumption, the thesis adds perspectives on how people negotiate multiple domains of consumption simultaneously since everyday practice involves interactions across multiple domains (such as eating, mobility, householding); and yet typically in theories of practice these are artificially separated into single domains. The study therefore considers the implications which domains have on how particular practices are carried out, first separately (per domain) and then as they come together (in a cross‐cutting domain perspective). The study then takes theories of practice as a springboard to develop a theoretical position and framework which better fits the narrated accounts of the 37 subjects who participated in this study. In iteratively co‐developing a theoretical framework and multiple ‘stages’ of empirical research (using grounded theory methodology) the study seeks to explain theoretically how subjects justify their ‘doings’ (drawing on ‘conventions’ and ‘orders of worth’ (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006)); how they appear to muddle through as best they can (introducing ‘bricolage’ (Lévi‐Strauss 1972)); and how subjects appear to devise decision short‐cuts when approaching decisions characterised by the multiple contradictions of sustainable consumption and incomplete or ‘too much’ information (introducing heuristics (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier 2011)).

In joining calls to re‐insert the reflexive agent to account for how, when and why subjects enact changes towards trajectories which they consider ‘more sustainable’ in their own terms, the study takes inspiration from Margaret Archer’s morphogenesis approach (1998) and explores her model of multiple modes of reflexivity, announcing certain modes as ‘better fitting’ conditions of late modernity. The study finally finds that contrary to a notion of the un‐reflexive agent, the citizen‐consumer is able to articulate visions of the ‘good life’. In addition she is able to fold these visions back onto everyday practices performed in the past, present and future, laying out normative guidelines and positive accounts of how to achieve personal or societal well‐being and happiness. The overarching positioning of the study is much inspired by Andrew Sayer’s (2011; 2000) ‘normative turn’ calling upon social sciences to re‐instate research into the things about which people care. The study is therefore guided by the overarching question of how people translate their environmental and/or social concerns into the ways in which they live and consume.