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Ulrich Beck’s historical-social theory. Cities After Society October 6, 2009. Risk defined. An environmentalist definition: “the probabilities of physical harm due to given technological or other processes” ( Risk Society , pg. 4) - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Ulrich Beck’s historical-social theory
Cities After SocietyOctober 6, 2009
Risk defined• An environmentalist definition: “the probabilities of
physical harm due to given technological or other processes” (Risk Society, pg. 4)
• A rational critique of science and other modern authorities: “Then ‘reflexive modernization’ means self-confrontation with the effects of risk society that cannot be dealt with and assimilated in the system of industrial society—as measured by the latter’s institutionalized standards” (“The Reinvention of Politics,” pg. 6)
• For individualization: “the risk society is potentially also a self-critical society… Precisely where traditions and hence values have deteriorated, risks come into being” (pg. 176)
Production Consumption
Macro
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
Under tradition and first modernity, these social dynamics are largely routinized…
… although capitalism, technology and the nation-state are inherently dynamic
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
PHYSICAL RISK
Introduces instability and uncertainty to economy and social reproduction
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
RISK SOCIETY
People challenge the legitimacy of risk-generating institutions and social order.
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
REFLEXIVE MODERNIZATION
Critical reason aimed at routine nature and taken-for-granted legitimacy of all social forms and processes.
Production Consumption
Macro
Micro “Work” “Life”
Social reproduction
culture, religion
class, status
family, sexual DOL
nation-state
INDIVIDUALIZATION
… although capitalism, technology and the nation-state are inherently dynamic
Individualization defined• Structurally, “the disintegration of previously existing social forms”
(Individualization, pg. 2)• Culturally as personal experience and modes of legitimacy, “this
level of pre-conscious ‘collective habitualizations’, of matters taken for granted,… is breaking down into a cloud of possibilities to be thought about and negotiated (pg. 6)
• (Re-)structurally, “new demands, controls and constraints are being imposed on individuals… the space in which modern subjects deploy their options is anything but a non-social sphere” (pg. 2).
• In terms of human agency, “far more than earlier, individuals must, in part, supply [these modern regulations or guidelines] for themselves, import them into their biographies through their own actions… The normal biography thus becomes the ‘elective biography’, the ‘reflexive biography’, the ‘do-it-yourself biography’… [which] is always a ‘risk biography’, indeed a tightrope biography’ (pp. 2-3).
