Martin O’Brien - Theorising Modernity: Reflexivity, Environment & Identity in Giddens’ Social Theory

THEORISING MODERNITY

Reflexivity, Environment and Identity in Giddens Social Theory

THEORISING MODERNITY

Reflexivity, Environment and Identity in Giddens Social Theory

edited by
Martin OBrien, Sue Penna and Colin Hay

First published 1999 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge

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Copyright 1999, Taylor & Francis.

(Except for A world of differences: What if its so?
How will we know?, Chapter 10, (c) Charles Lemert
1998: this contribution may not be reproduced in
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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-30743-8 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Theorising modernity : reflexivity, environment, and identity in Giddens social theory / edited by Martin OBrien, Sue Penna, and Colin Hay.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0582307430 (ppr)

1. Giddens, AnthonyViews on modernity. 2. Post-modernismSocial aspects. 3. Civilization, Modern. 4. Political sociology.

I. OBrien, Martin, 1957 . II. Penna, Sue, 1949 . III. Hay,

Colin, 1968 .

HM73.T455 1998

303.4dc21

9835616

CIP

Typeset by 35 in 10/12 pt Palatino

Contents

The contributors

Floya Anthias is Professor of Sociology and Head of Sociology at the University of Greenwich. She has published extensively in the areas of ethnicity, gender, migration and racism, as well as on Cypriots in Britain. Her latest book, on the Social Divisions of Identity, will be published by Macmillan. She is currently writing a book on young Asians and Cypriots in Britain, and researching into exclusion and citizenship in relation to self-employment practices amongst women and minorities.

Paul Bagguley is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leeds. He is currently researching environmental protest movements and New Social Movement theory. He is the author of From Protest To Acquiescence? (Macmillan 1991) and co-editor of Transforming Politics: Power and Resistance (Macmillan 1999).

Ted Benton is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. He has published extensively in the areas of philosophy and social science, history of biology, and social theory. Recent publications include Natural Relations (Verso 1993) and an edited collection, The Greening of Marxism (Guiford Press 1996). He is a member of the Red-Green Study Group.

Peter Dickens was trained initially as an architect and is now a Reader in Sociology at the University of Sussex. His areas of research are urban studies, environmental sociology and the links between the natural and the social sciences. He has most recently published Society and Nature (Harvester Wheatsheaf 1992) and Reconstructing Nature: Alienation, Emancipation and the Division of Labour (Routledge 1996).

Anthony Giddens is one of the leading British sociologists of the post-war period. He has published many books on social theory and the sociology of modern society including, recently, Beyond Left and Right: The Future of RadicalPolitics (Polity 1994) and In Defence of Sociology: Essays, Interpretations and Rejoinders (Polity 1996). He is currently the Director of the London School of Economics.

Jenny Harris is a Principal Lecturer (Research) in the Department of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire. Her research is in the areas of qualitative methodology and disability studies. She has published widely in these fields, and is the author of The Cultural Meaning of Deafness (Avebury Press 1995) and Deafness and Hearing (Venture Press 1997).

Colin Hay is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK), a visiting Fellow of the Department of Political Science at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (US), and Research Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University (US). He is author of Re-Stating Social and Political Change (Open University Press 1996 and winner of the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize), and, forthcoming, Labouring Under False Pretences? (Manchester University Press), Postwar British Politics in Perspective (co-authored, Polity Press), and Demystifying Globalization (co-edited, Macmillan).

Charles Lemert is Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, USA. He writes extensively in the areas of social theory, both classic and contemporary, cultural studies and French social thought. He is series editor for the Twentieth-Century Social Theory series published by Blackwell, editor of Social Theory: the Multicultural and Classic Readings (Westview Press 1993), co-editor of The Goffman Reader (Blackwell 1997) and author of Sociology After the Crisis (Westview Press 1995) and Post-modernism is Not What You Think (Blackwell 1997).

Nicos Mouzelis is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. His main research interests are in the sociology of development, historical sociology and sociological theory. His main publications include Politics in the Semi-Periphery: Early Parliamentarism and Late Industrialisation in the Balkans and Latin America (Macmillan 1986), Post-Marxist Alternatives: The Construction of Social Orders (Macmillan 1990), and Sociological Theory: What Went Wrong? Diagnosis and Remedies (Routledge 1995).

Martin OBrien is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey. He has published widely on social and cultural theory, social policy and the sociology of environmental change. He is co-editor of Values and the Environment: A Social Science Perspective (Wiley 1995) and co-author, with Sue Penna, of Theorising Welfare: Enlightenment and Modern Society (Sage 1998).