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Social Theory, Crises and Renewal Beyond Late Modernity. Part I
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC16 Sociological Theory (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
What can macro social theory can tell us about multiple, intersecting crises of contemporary societies? What do such crises themselves indicate for the future of social theory?
In the 1990s and early 2000s, economic and cultural globalisation and their effects were at the centre of theories ‘late’, or ‘reflexive’ modernity. There was optimisation over the prospects of individualisation and autonomy; the reinvigoration of civil society by sub-political actors; global democracy and cosmopolitanism; and progressive governance.
But successive waves of economic, social and political crisis – globally and within nation states – call the whole late modern framework into question. There is little sign of what might replace such macro-theoretical ideas, or even of the ambition to do so. Vandenberghe has proposed an epochal shift he labels the ‘second postmodernity’, in which the hyper-politicisation of culture has turned upon societal and democratic institutions, and even the conditions of truth making itself.
We invite papers that explore how social theory might address the following:
- What social-theoretical explanations are there for the current crises?
- What challenges do the crises pose for social theorising?
- Have we moved beyond ‘late’ or ‘post-modernity – to what?
- Can social theory resist a ‘post-truth’ climate?