Routledge Paradoxes of Individualization: Social Control and Social Conflict in Contemporary Modernity

Product Description 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. Review A Yankee Book Peddler UK Core Title for 2011 'Houtman, Aupers and De Koster's book is a fine example of the new cultural sociology convincingly showing that culture is the decisive factor in understanding various phenomena, ranging from the role of the internet to the rise of populism. I have seldom come across a book so well written, so rich in its theoretical grounding and so insightful in its empirical accounts.' Jan Willem Duyvendak,'University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 'With a variety of fresh Dutch evidence, this book shows how contemporary individualism both shapes everyday experience and causes new forms of exclusion and intolerance. Reporting original research on a contentious issue, it makes stimulating reading for anyone interested in a central modern myth and its very real consequences.' Frank Lechner, Emory University, USA About the Author Dick Houtman is Professor of Cultural Sociology and Religion at theUniversity of Leuven, Belgium. Stef Aupers is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Centre for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology (CROCUS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Willem de Koster is researcher and lecturer at the Centre for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology (CROCUS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.