Between Socialization and Vulnerability. Rethinking Solidarity
(2017) Karl Polanyi International Seminar — Location: CNAM - Paris (19.May.2016)
Files
No attached file found for this publication.
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- As the 21st century gets underway, we are moving into a new global era, one that is much more technology-driven and structurally inegalitarian. Can we clarify the terms of this new era? The hypothesis I would like to put forward here is the following: the period we are experiencing is throwing the very concept of solidarity into crisis. And yes, I am talking about the “concept” of solidarity, not just the “practice”. We are seeing a crisis not only in the practice of solidarity – which is stronger in some places than others – but also in the very concept of solidarity, which I believe has been deeply and lastingly affected. These changes are not unconnected with the crisis rippling through the field of sociology itself. This strong and emerging trend cannot be explained simply by the fact that sociology is allegedly less “audible” or “relevant” than it has been at other times in our history. We are looking at a long-term process of conceptual collapse, which largely explains the decline of sociology in the media and among intellectuals today. From the outset, sociology has had a reciprocal relationship with solidarity: it was both the theoretical instrument that gave solidarity the respectability it deserved and the consequence, in scientific terms, of the changes in industrial society, where “liveable” lifestyles were sought following the upheaval caused by the liberal revolutions in the late 18th century. In other words, while sociology did not invent solidarity as such, it did invent the concept. So the crisis in the latter is undermining its entire project. What is the solution? That is what this paper will attempt to explain.
- Affiliations
Citations
de Nanteuil, M. (2017). Between Socialization and Vulnerability. Rethinking Solidarity. Karl Polanyi International Seminar, CNAM - Paris. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/176158