Elliott Identity Troubles

An Introduction
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-135-04372-8
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 228 Seiten

These are turbulent times, a transformative world of both pervasive identity reinvention and identity crisis. The global electronic economy, digital worlds, vast mobilities, biotechnologies and the posthuman: the pervasive institutional features of contemporary societies are generating a metamorphosis across the force-field of identities today.

Identity Troubles: An Introduction provides a wide-ranging, accessible and critical introduction to the big global changes impacting upon both private lives and social identities. The book documents various contemporary mutations of identity – from robotics to biomedicine, from cosmetic surgery to digital lives –and considers their social, cultural and political consequences.

Following the model of his hugely popular Concepts of the Self, Anthony Elliott distills the major institutional and cultural transformations of our age. Elliott opens with a brilliant synthesis of the key conceptual innovations in identity studies in the context of recent social theory. He critically examines accounts of "individualization", "reflexivity", "liquidization" and "new maladies of the soul", and discusses the major works of key theorists - outlining the relevant social and historical context, and drawing out critical themes. He follows with a series of chapters looking at how what is truly new in contemporary life is having profound consequences for identities, both private and public. By analyzing these global shifts, Elliott sheds fresh light on the mix of opportunities and dangers affecting identities. He changes the contours of social theory by suggesting that a "struggle for reinvention" increasingly shapes strategies of identity in our era of global economy and posthuman fracture.

The book will be essential reading for undergraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, political science, women’s studies and identity studies in the humanities more generally. It offers the first comprehensive overview of identity studies in the interdisciplinary field of social theory.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Elliott, Anthony

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Identity Troubles Part I: Theories of Identity 1. Identity, Individualism, Individualization: Three versions of the self, with Charles Lemert 2. The Theory of New Individualism 3. Identity Weakened? The reinvention of imagination in the age of globalization 4. Experimental Worlds: On posthuman identity Part II: Practices of Identity 5. Accelerated Identity: Five theses on the self, with Eric L. Hsu 6. Drastic Plastic: Identity in the age of makeover 7. New Global Elites: On new individualist arts of escape 8. Digital Lives, Miniaturized Mobilities and Identity 9. DIY Self-Design: Experimentation Across Global Airports with David Radford

Über Autor(innen)

Anthony Elliott is Director of the Hawke Research Institute and Executive Director of the Hawke EU Centre for Mobilities, Migrations and Cultural Transformations, where he is Research Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia. He is also Visiting Global Professor of Sociology at Keio University, Japan.