Paradoxes of Individualization
Paradoxes of Individualization

Author: Dick Houtman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1351912852

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Paradoxes of Individualization addresses one of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary sociology: whether a process of individualization is liberating selves from society so as to make them the authors of their personal biographies. The book adopts a cultural-sociological approach that firmly rejects such a notion of individualization as naïve. The process is instead conceptualized as an increasing social significance of moral notions of individual liberty, personal authenticity and cultural tolerance, which informs two paradoxes. Firstly, chapters about consumer behavior, computer gaming, new age spirituality and right-wing extremism demonstrate that this individualism entails a new, yet often unacknowledged, form of social control. The second paradox, addressed in chapters about religious, cultural and political conflict, is concerned with the fact that it is precisely individualism's increased social significance that has made it morally and politically contested. Paradoxes of Individualization, will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of cultural sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, and cultural, religious and media studies, and particularly to those with interests in social theory, culture, politics and religion.

Paradoxes of Individualization
Paradoxes of Individualization

Author: Mr Willem de Koster

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-01-28

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1409494802

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Paradoxes of Individualization addresses one of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary sociology: whether a process of individualization is liberating selves from society so as to make them the authors of their personal biographies. The book adopts a cultural-sociological approach that firmly rejects such a notion of individualization as naïve. The process is instead conceptualized as an increasing social significance of moral notions of individual liberty, personal authenticity and cultural tolerance, which informs two paradoxes. Firstly, chapters about consumer behavior, computer gaming, new age spirituality and right-wing extremism demonstrate that this individualism entails a new, yet often unacknowledged, form of social control. The second paradox, addressed in chapters about religious, cultural and political conflict, is concerned with the fact that it is precisely individualism's increased social significance that has made it morally and politically contested. Paradoxes of Individualization, will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of cultural sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, and cultural, religious and media studies, and particularly to those with interests in social theory, culture, politics and religion.

Challenges of Individualization
Challenges of Individualization

Author: Nikolai Genov

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-16

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 134995828X

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This book critically engages with a series of provocative questions that ask: Why are contemporary societies so dependent on constructive and destructive effects of individualization? Is this phenomenon only related to the ‘second’ or ‘late’ modernity? Can the concept of individualization be productively used for developing a sociological diagnosis of our time? The innovative answers suggested in this book are focused on two types of challenges accompanying the rise of individualization. First, that it is caused by controversial changes in social structures and action patterns. Second, that the effects of individualization question varieties of the common good. Both challenges have a long history but reached critical intensity in advanced contemporary societies in the context of current globalization.

The Rule of the Clan
The Rule of the Clan

Author: Mark S. Weiner

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-03-12

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1466836385

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A revealing look at the role kin-based societies have played throughout history and around the world A lively, wide-ranging meditation on human development that offers surprising lessons for the future of modern individualism, The Rule of the Clan examines the constitutional principles and cultural institutions of kin-based societies, from medieval Iceland to modern Pakistan. Mark S. Weiner, an expert in constitutional law and legal history, shows us that true individual freedom depends on the existence of a robust state dedicated to the public interest. In the absence of a healthy state, he explains, humans naturally tend to create legal structures centered not on individuals but rather on extended family groups. The modern liberal state makes individualism possible by keeping this powerful drive in check—and we ignore the continuing threat to liberal values and institutions at our peril. At the same time, for modern individualism to survive, liberals must also acknowledge the profound social and psychological benefits the rule of the clan provides and recognize the loss humanity sustains in its transition to modernity. Masterfully argued and filled with rich historical detail, Weiner's investigation speaks both to modern liberal societies and to developing nations riven by "clannism," including Muslim societies in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Management and Organization Paradoxes
Management and Organization Paradoxes

Author: Stewart R. Clegg

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2002-06-07

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9027297827

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Paradox — the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states — has become orthodox. The orthodox is now the paradox. The orthodox world of ordering, controlling and organizing is increasingly opposed to a normalizing world of disordering, disrupting and disorganizing. And organization studies cannot avoid changing its conceptions of reality as that reality changes. In the future, organization studies will be the study of paradox, how to understand it, how to use it. In this book of original contributions addressed to management and organization paradoxes the authors address the new state of the field in terms of representations — representing paradoxes — and materialisations — materialising paradoxes. The themes — although varied, ranging from dialectics to internal tensions; from collaborations to ethics and value conflicts; from resistant labourers and wharfies to cartoon characters such as The Simpsons; from the irrationalities of finance to the psychoanalytic rationalities of auditing, and from issues of governance in Asian and international business to the composition of the new knowledge work force in the business professions — cohere around core aspects of paradoxicality. Overall, the contributions to Management and Organization Paradoxes are diverse and challenging. Each contribution takes a different angle on the central theme. All of the chapters illuminate diverse aspects of contemporary paradoxes in management and organization theory. The book provides, in each of its chapters, a challenge to the still overwhelmingly rationalist views of theory and practice that dominate the field and provides new directions for understanding organizations and management.The contributors are drawn from leading European, Australian and Latin American contributors.

Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism
Late Modernity, Individualization and Socialism

Author: M. Dawson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1137003421

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Influenced most notably by Émile Durkheim and Zygmunt Bauman, Dawson outlines how this long neglected stream of socialist theory can help us more fully understand, and possibly move beyond, the problems of neoliberalism and our conceptions of political individualism.

Paradoxes in Social Work Practice
Paradoxes in Social Work Practice

Author: Merlinda Weinberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-17

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1317084225

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In the helping professions, codes of ethics and decision-making models have been the primary vehicles for determining what constitutes ethical practice. These strategies are insufficient since they assume that shared meanings exist and that the contradictory universal principles of codes can be reconciled. Also, these tools do not emphasize the significance of context for ethical practice. This book takes a new critical theoretical approach, which involves exploring how social workers construct what is ’ethical’ in their work, especially when they are positioned at the intersection of multiple paradoxes, including that of two opposing responsibilities in society: namely, to care for others but also to prevent others from harm. The book is built on narratives from actual front-line workers and therefore is more applicable and grounded for practitioners and students, offering many suggestions for sound practice. It illustrates that an understanding of ethics differs from worker to worker and is heavily influenced by context, workers’ values, and what they take up as the primary discourses that frame their perceptions of the profession. While recognizing the oppressive potential of social work, the book is rooted in a perspective that ethical practice can contribute to a more socially just society.

Youth Development in Identity Societies
Youth Development in Identity Societies

Author: James E. Cote

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 042978323X

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This book explores the causes and consequences of the contradictions in young people’s lives stemming from the affluence–purpose paradox: a lack of purpose-in-life among many of those living in the most affluent societies in human history. This paradox is endemic to identity societies where people experience a choice-contingent life course, and is examined using an interdisciplinary approach—largely with an integration of developmental psychology and sociology, but also using historical, anthropological, economic, and political perspectives. The transition to adulthood is now commonly a prolonged process, with young people facing a number of psychological challenges and sociological obstacles in their identity formation. Challenges include difficulties in making prudent choices about goals. Obstacles involve cross-pressures in the wider society as well as in educational institutions. Consequently, many youth experience their education as alienating and stressful rather than as an opportunity for personal development. Those without a sense of purpose have more difficulties with their identity formation that can produce symptoms of anxiety and depression. The current student mental health crisis is examined in this context. An additional challenge is an ambiguously defined adulthood. Young people who are confused about appropriate adult roles often value hedonistic activities rooted in narcissism and materialism rather than in more fulfilling long-term goals. Conversely, those who are agentic in their personal development can thrive in adulthood, especially when they combine agency with generativity. This book ends with a series of recommendations for researchers and policy makers to help youth cope with the affluence–purpose paradox.

Managing in Uncertainty
Managing in Uncertainty

Author: Chris Mowles

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-03-24

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 131755034X

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The reality of everyday organizational life is that it is filled with uncertainty, contradictions and paradoxes. Yet leaders and managers are expected to act as though they can predict the future and bring about the impossible: that they can transform themselves and their colleagues, design different cultures, choose the values for their organization, be innovative, control conflict and have inspiring visions. Whilst managers will have had lots of experiences of being in charge, they probably realise that they are not always in control. So how might we frame a much more realistic account of what’s possible for managers to achieve? Many managers are implicitly aware of their messy reality, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles engages directly with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Mowles argues that if managers proceed from the expectation that organizational life as inherently uncertain, and interactions between people are complex and often paradoxical, they start noticing different things and create possibilities for acting in different ways. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to practitioners, advanced students and researchers looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective.

Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition
Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition

Author: Sharam Alghasi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1317084187

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Explicitly comparative in its approach, Paradoxes of Cultural Recognition discusses central issues regarding multiculturalism in today's Europe, based on studies of Norway and the Netherlands. Distinguishing clearly the four social fields of the media, education, the labour market and issues relating to gender, it presents empirical case studies, which offer valuable insights into the nature of majority/minority relationships, whilst raising theoretical questions relevant for further comparisons. With clear comparisons of integration and immigration policies in Europe and engagement with the questions surrounding the need for more culturally sensitive policies, this volume will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers alike.