The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman

256 Pages·2008·0.79 MB·English

by  Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder

THE SOCIOLOGY OF ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
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The Sociology of
Zygmunt Bauman
Challenges and Critique
Edited by
MICHAEL HVIID JACOBSEN
Aalborg University, Denmark
and
POUL PODER
Univeristy of Copenhagen, Denmark
© Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The sociology of Zygmunt Bauman : challenges and critique
1. Bauman, Zygmunt, 1925- 2. Sociology
I. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid, 1971- II. Poder, Poul
301'.092
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The sociology of Zygmunt Bauman : challenges and critique / edited by Michael Hviid
Jacobsen and Poul Poder.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7060-5 (alk. paper)
1. Bauman, Zygmunt, 1925- 2. Sociology. I. Jacobsen, Michael Hviid,
1971- II. Poder, Poul.
HM479.B39S63 2008
301.092--dc22
2007041398
ISBN 978-0-7546-7060-5
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction: The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman – Challenges and Critique
Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Poul Poder 1
Part 1 Methodological Issues
1 Bauman on Metaphors – A Harbinger of Humanistic Hybrid Sociology
Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Sophia Marshman 19
2 Bauman on Ambivalence – Fully Acknowledging the Ambiguity of
Ambivalence
Matthias Junge 41
Part 2 Ethics
3 Bauman on Ethics – Intimate Ethics for a Global World?
Manni Crone 59
4 Bauman on Genocide – Modernity and Mass Murder: From
Classification to Annihilation?
Sophia Marshman 75
Part 3 Social Integration
5 Bauman on Freedom – Consumer Freedom as the Integration
Mechanism of Liquid Society
Poul Poder 97
6 Bauman on Consumerism – Living the Market-Mediated Life
Tony Blackshaw 115
7 Bauman on Globalization – The Human Consequences of a Liquid
World
Mark Davis 137
8 Bauman on Strangers – Unwanted Peculiarities
Niclas Månsson 155
Part 4 Politics
9 Bauman on Politics – Stillborn Democracy
Mikael Carleheden 175
10 Bauman on Power – From ‘Solid’ to ‘Light’?
Robert Campain 193
vi The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman
11 Bauman on Utopia – Welcome to the Hunting Zone
Michael Hviid Jacobsen 209
Postscript: Bauman on Bauman – Pro Domo Sua
Zygmunt Bauman 231
Index 241
List of Contributors
Zygmunt Bauman (born 1925), Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University
of Warsaw, Poland, and the University of Leeds, England. Internationally acclaimed
sociologist who throughout the last four decades has published more than 25 books
in English and numerous articles in a variety of journals. Among the most significant,
prominent and agenda-setting of his book are Modernity and the Holocaust (1989),
which won him the Amalfi Prize and the Adorno Prize, Postmodern Ethics (1993),
Liquid Modernity (2000) and Society Under Siege (2002). Recently he has published
Liquid Fear (2006), Liquid Times (2007) and Consuming Life (2007).
Tony Blackshaw (born 1960), teaches at Sheffield Hallam University, England. He
is author of a number of books and articles which are either on or apply the work
of Zygmunt Bauman. The former include Zygmunt Bauman (2005), “Too Good for
Sociology” in a special issue of The Polish Sociological Review celebrating Zygmunt
Bauman (edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen & Keith Tester, 2006) and “Zygmunt
Bauman” in Rob Stones (ed.): Key Sociological Thinkers (2007). The latter include:
Leisure Life: Myth, Masculinity and Modernity (2003) and New Perspectives on
Sport and ‘Deviance’: Consumption, Performativity and Social Control (with Tim
Crabbe, 2004).
Robert Campain (born 1963), is an honorary research fellow in the School of Social
Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He completed his doctoral
dissertation in 2005 entitled The Decaying Foundations: A Comparative Study of
the Work of Zygmunt Bauman and John Carroll in which he examines social order
through a comparative analysis of Zygmunt Bauman and John Carroll.
Mikael Carleheden (born 1958), Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department
of Social and Political Sciences, Örebro University, Sweden. He is presently
working out a theory about the structural transformation of modernity on both
micro and macro level. His latest publications in English are: “The Transformation
of Our Conduct of Life: One Aspect of the Three Epochs of Western Modernity”,
Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, No. 13 (2006), and “Towards
Democratic Foundations: A Habermasian Perspective on the Politics of Education”,
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38 (5) (2006).
Manni Crone (born 1963), Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Department
of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is Master of Political
Science from Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. She wrote her PhD thesis on the
political philosophy of Leo Strauss with a special emphasis on modern and classical
viii The Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman
ethics (2000). She is currently working on Islamic secularism in France, Islamic
consumer practices and current transformations of Islamic authority.
Mark Davis (born 1978), Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Sociology &
Social Policy at University of Leeds, England. He received his PhD in 2006 having
completed a study of the concept of freedom in Zygmunt Bauman’s English-language
writings. He is currently working on a proposal to establish a research centre in
Bauman’s honour at the University of Leeds and continues to write on different
aspects of Bauman’s sociology. His forthcoming book, Freedom & Consumption: A
Critique of Zygmunt Bauman’s Sociology, will be published by Ashgate in 2008.
Michael Hviid Jacobsen (born 1971), Associate Professor of Sociology at the
Department of Sociology, Social Work & Organisation at Aalborg University,
Denmark. For many years he has written extensively on the work of Zygmunt
Bauman and published several articles and books including Zygmunt Bauman – den
postmoderne dialektik (2004), Bauman Before Postmodernity (with Keith Tester,
2005), Om Bauman – kritiske essays (edited with Poul Poder, 2006), Baumans mosaik
(2006), a special issue of The Polish Sociological Review Celebrating Zygmunt
Bauman (edited with Keith Tester, 2006) and Bauman Beyond Postmodernity (with
Sophia Marshman & Keith Tester, 2007).
Matthias Junge (born 1960), Professor of Sociological Theory and History of
Sociological Theory at the University of Rostock, Germany. His recent publications
include: Ambivalente Gesellschaftlichkeit (2000), Zygmunt Bauman: Soziologie
zwischen Postmoderne und Ethik (with Thomas Kron, 2001/2006), Individualisierung
(2002), Macht und Moral: Beiträge zur Dekonstruktion von Moral (2003) and
Zygmunt Bauman (2006).
Sophia Marshman (born 1974), lectures in the Media Department at the University
of Portsmouth, England. Her chief research interest is in the Holocaust and cultural
memory. Recent publications include: “Metaphorically Speaking – Metaphors as a
Methodological and Moral Signifier of the Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman”, The
Polish Sociological Review, no. 3 (with Michael Hviid Jacobsen, 2006), and “The
Metaphorical Imagination – Zygmunt Bauman’s Poetics of the Transformation of
Modernity”, Sosiologisk Årbok, no. 1-2 (with Michael Hviid Jacobsen, 2007). She
is currently involved in completing a variety of articles analysing the sociology of
Zygmunt Bauman.
Niclas Månsson (born 1965), Senior lecturer in education at the Department of
Social Science at Mälardalens University, Sweden. His PhD thesis (2005) on negative
socialisation focuses on the stranger in the writings of Zygmunt Bauman. Månsson
is a member of the research group Studies of Difference in Educational Settings
and his publications includes “Varför finns det främlingar?” (2005), Invandrare &
minoriteter, no. 4, “Två berättelser om moralens ursprung” (2006), Finsk tidskrift,
no. 1, and “Romers möte med den svenska skolan” (2006), in Carl Anders Säfström
(ed.): Den mångtydiga skolan. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
List of Contributors ix
Poul Poder (born 1965), Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department
of Sociology, Copenhagen University, Denmark. He introduced the work of
Bauman to Danish audience in the beginning of the 1990s and has among other
pieces published “The Telos Interview” in Bauman Reader, (ed.) Peter Beilharz
(2000), Om Bauman – kritiske essays (edited with Michael Hviid Jacobsen, 2006),
“Our Present: Postmodern”, in Heine Andersen & Lars Bo Kaspersen (eds.):
Classical and modern Social Theory (2000), and “Relatively Liquid Interpersonal
Relationships in Flexible Work Life”in The Contemporary Bauman (ed.) Anthony
Elliott (2007). Another research area is the sociology of emotion in which he has
written his PhD thesis entitled Feelings of Power and the Power of Feelings:
Handling Emotion in Organisational Change (2004), and “The Political Regulation
of Anger in Organizations” in Regulating Emotions: Culture, Social Necessity, and
Biological Inheritance (2008).