University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

The contrasting social logics of sociality and survival: Cultures of classed be/longing in late modernity

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 23:57 authored by Valerie Hey
Late modernity has been characterized as a space, place and ‘series of flows’, marking conditions of complexity, contradiction and diversity as the global economics of capital restructuring reach down into the local/e to radically disorganize prior social forms of collective and political identity and allegiance (Giddens, 1998). Individualization implies a de-coupling of self from the weight of group, community and tradition, thus more local, idiosyncratic and syncretic trajectories are now said to structure ‘biographies of choice’. My starting points for reflecting on this are Bourdieu’s conceptualization of the ‘social logics of the individual’ conceived as a thoroughly social subject. I use this idea to frame how two contrasting locales shape the subject within their respective interpersonal relations. Gender and class are central terms of the following discussion examining the newly improvized identities of the digitally enhanced and networked middle class, alongside the survival identities impelled by those ‘muddling through’ within disconnected locales.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Sociology

ISSN

1469-8684

Issue

5

Volume

39

Page range

855-872

Pages

18.0

Department affiliated with

  • Education Publications

Notes

This paper was selected on a highly competitive basis to form part of a Special Issue on Class, Culture and Identity. It is a synoptic transdisciplinary expository paper, based on a keynote to the 2003 Gender and Education International Education conference. It cross cuts cultural studies perspectives with educational sociology, ethnography, gender and economic geography. The paper constructs a feminist psycho-social reconfiguration of the cultural geography of class. This argued that the global reach of `fast Capitalism' construes and constructs `winners' and losers'. Through this psycho-social analytic, Hey showed how `offensive' and `defensive' identities came to be wrought by intense social spatial differentiation. It has been picked up by Rachel Thomson in work on social capital.

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC