Globalization, modernity and social change: hotspots of transition

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Introduction: Theorizing 'Undefined Society'

2. Urban Worlds and Global Cities

Urban Footprints: The Ecological Embeddedness of the City

Urban Landscapes of Change: Between Local Diversity and Global Interconnectedness

The Global City As Post-metropolis

Recomplexifying the Global City

Terminological Confusions in the Global City Discourse

Summary and Conclusion

3. Borders, Border Regions and Post-socialist Transformations: New Geographies of Power and Identity

Borders and Border Regions: New Landscapes of Power and Identity

'Interdependent Borderlands' or 'Wild Zone'? The German-Polish Border Region

Between 'Europhoria' and 'Europhobia': The Festivalization of Borderland Politics

The Legacy of (Post-) Socialism or the Victory Crisis of Western Modernity?

Strategies of Transclusion: Hypermobility and Symbolisms of Belonging

Summary and Conclusion

4. The Workplace in Transition: Labour, Time and Space

Work and Employment in the Networked Society

Beyond Taylorism? Skill, Control and the Informational Labour Process

Identity, Subjectivity and Control in the Informational Workplace

Gendered Informationalism? Occupational Segregation and Emotional Labour in Call Centres

India Calling! Cyber-coolies in Cyber-Space?

Globalization and Organized Labour: The Ambiguities of Identity in the Informational Workplace

Summary and Conclusion

5. Consumption: Money and Identity in the Postmodern World

Money, Commodification and Identity: Fragments in a Fragmented World?

Cathedrals of Consumption: The Origins of Hyperconsumption

Rationalization and Its Discontents: From the Iron Cage to the Castle of Romantic Dreams?

Postmodern Space and Consumption: Ambiguity, Ontological Insecurity and the Shopping Mall

Aporetic Consumption? Postmodernism, Ambiguity and Social Change

Summary and Conclusion

6. Politics Beyond the State: New Individualities and Solidarities

Neo-Liberal Globalism and the Crisis of Social Democracy

Globalization and Individualism: Beyond Identity Politics?

Anti-Globalism: Networks of Resistance and the Globalization of Politics

Social Movement Unionism: The Limits and Possibilities of a Postmodern Labour Movement

Global Civil Society: The Politics of Cosmocracy?

Summary and Conclusion

7. Nature, Environment, Milieu: Life in Risk Society

Archimedean Points: Globe and Body

The Advance of the 'Risk Society': Exploring the Genesis and Consequences of Avian Flu

Risk Society as 'Second' or 'Reflexive' Modernity

Symbolic Reconciliation with 'Nature': Milieu and Body

Summary and Conclusion

8. Reconstructing the Social

Whither Community?

Sociology for a Changing World

Bibliography

Index