2 Revisiting the Postmodernity/Liquid Modernity Debate
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Nathan Kerrigan
Abstract
This chapter contextualizes how racism can be understood within the social thought of Zygmunt Bauman concerning postmodernity/liquid modernity. It begins with a critical discussion of the delineations between modernity and postmodernity in social theory before contextualizing the ways in which racism has been mapped onto the conditions of modernity and postmodernity. This provides a milieu in locating Bauman’s position within the modernity/postmodernity debate in social theory. It argues that the shift in Bauman’s thinking on modernity was not an epistemological break; rather, his thinking has always been based on notions of liquidity, seeing the social world as always on the move, fluctuating between solidification and liquefaction. This contextualization of Bauman’s theorizations of (liquid) modernity provides the opportunity to locate racism within the very conditions of late modernity so as to make a conceptual intervention into ways of understanding racism in late modernity, as presented in the final section of the chapter.
Abstract
This chapter contextualizes how racism can be understood within the social thought of Zygmunt Bauman concerning postmodernity/liquid modernity. It begins with a critical discussion of the delineations between modernity and postmodernity in social theory before contextualizing the ways in which racism has been mapped onto the conditions of modernity and postmodernity. This provides a milieu in locating Bauman’s position within the modernity/postmodernity debate in social theory. It argues that the shift in Bauman’s thinking on modernity was not an epistemological break; rather, his thinking has always been based on notions of liquidity, seeing the social world as always on the move, fluctuating between solidification and liquefaction. This contextualization of Bauman’s theorizations of (liquid) modernity provides the opportunity to locate racism within the very conditions of late modernity so as to make a conceptual intervention into ways of understanding racism in late modernity, as presented in the final section of the chapter.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Introduction: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquidity and Racism 1
- Revisiting the Postmodernity/Liquid Modernity Debate 26
- Race, Postrace and the False Promises of the Postracial State 50
- Liquid Racism and Brexit 73
- Liquid Racism and Education 95
- Liquid Racism and Road Culture(s) 117
- Conclusion: The viscosity of contemporary racism(s) 149
- References 165
- Index 189
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Introduction: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquidity and Racism 1
- Revisiting the Postmodernity/Liquid Modernity Debate 26
- Race, Postrace and the False Promises of the Postracial State 50
- Liquid Racism and Brexit 73
- Liquid Racism and Education 95
- Liquid Racism and Road Culture(s) 117
- Conclusion: The viscosity of contemporary racism(s) 149
- References 165
- Index 189
