Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 162

The postcolonial critique of mainstream sociology is a powerful one which raises some fundamental problems with the idea of ‘business as usual’ for today’s sociologists. One key issue is the problematizing of the central concept of ‘modernity’, which has long been the focus of sociological theories, from Marx to Giddens, Beck, Bauman and many more. Is the concept of modernity doomed to the ‘dustbin of history’ or is there a way to modify and save it? Does it deserve to be saved?

In recent decades, one way to hang onto the concept has been to note the widely differing and divergent paths of modernization taken by countries around the world. These have led to a series of ideas on ‘multiple modernities’. The article below summarizes these various attempts and tries to explain why they have not had as much impact as might have been expected. Read the paper, then write a 750-word defence of the concept of modernity, taking account of the postcolonial critique from earlier in this chapter. In particular, discuss what sociology would lose should this concept be abandoned, and whether moving towards multiple modernities can reinvigorate the theory of modernization in a globalizing world.

Fourie, E. (2012) ‘A Future for the Theory of Multiple Modernities: Insights from the New Modernization Theory’, Social Science Information, 51(1): 52–69.