Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 32 No. 1, 2012.
Review article
Searching After the Answer to an Undefined Question: Zygmunt Bauman and Sociology of Liquid Consumption
Ozren Biti
orcid.org/0000-0002-9228-0438
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Starting from the sociological theory of Zygmunt Bauman, this paper discusses, on the one hand, the challenges of life in the so called light modernity and, on the other, the scientific reflection of various aspects of the light modernity. In this context Bauman’s theses on the effects of globalization on individual lives and the new identity politics are compared with the theses offered by sociological classics like Jean Baudrillard, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck. This confrontation spawns the conclusion that Bauman’s original ideas substantially contribute to the revision of rigid sociological perspectives on society as well as the role of sociology in its analysis. Bauman questions the oppositions between production and consumption, individual and community as well as security and freedom through the idea of liquidity and mobility of society in the light modernity, which makes it difficult to sociology to respond to concrete questions and confronts it with the more complex diagnostic tasks. While individualized society requires from its members to offer biographic answers to systemic contradictions, it requires from the sociologist to search for the answer to an undefined question.
Keywords
Zygmunt Bauman; sociology; liquid modernity; consumers; identity
Hrčak ID:
84049
URI
Publication date:
24.4.2012.
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