英语论文网

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    This lecture focuses on the relationship between mobility and (post)modernity. In this context we investigate the shift from “solid” to “liquid” modernity, relating this shift to increasing mobility.
     According to Zygmunt Bauman, there are three essential elements of contemporary life: uncertainty, insecurity and unsafety (see In Search of Politics). Certainty is related to knowledge, to knowing what to expect and how to chose between different options. Security is attached to the feeling that the world is a steady and reliable place, that one has control over the situation. Safety is related to the body. It is the feeling that there are no terminal dangers, which threaten one’s body and its extensions, that is, one’s home, one’s family, one’s street, one’s neighbourhood, etc… Bauman argues that there is a growing experience of uncertainty, insecurity and unsafety; life in the contemporary “risk society” (Ulrich Beck’s concept) resembles life in Titanic: it is as if we can hit an iceberg any time, while we are listening to a wonderful music. Early modernity was something we were sure about; it was a secure, confident task, or, project. It was, above all, something we were going to do. We felt that we were in command of the ship. This is what has changed in “liquid modernity”. We no longer feel we are in command of the ship. In risk society, our common experience is that there are unpredictable risks, icebergs, waiting for us.
The process of globalisation has a considerable role in this process: it is becoming increasingly difficult to calculate the movements of global powers, which is a main source of uncertainty and insecurity. But, there is something else, which complicates the problem further: the process of privatisation. In the age of privatisation, people’s problems, too, are privatised, that is, private problems do not accumulate to “social”, political issues.
In this context, Bauman focuses on the agora. He argues that the agora, the site of public/political dialogue, is disappearing in contemporary cities. The new public spaces (suchas Internet, TV) do not really function as agora – in them, people’s problems remain private without accumulating or becoming collective/political problems. In earlier times people were afraid that the agora (and the private/oikos) were going to be colonised by the ecclesia, that is, official authorities (e.g. the state). However, what is taking place today is that the agora is increasingly being colonised by the private sphere. In liquid modernity, people are increasingly individualised, that is, they are free from the control and discipline by authorities such as the state, the church, the family. So, liquid modernity means more freedom, but less security, certainty, and safety. Significantly in this context, Bauman argues that it is difficult to do something against insecurity and uncertainty (because it’s to do with global powers beyond the reach of ordinary people, even of politicians), but it is not the case with unsafety. Thus there is a growing interest in safety-related issues in our society (e.g. criminality). Consequently, the most important city-generating factor today is the need for safety.
   How did liquid modernity come about? Bauman explains this in terms of mobility. In liquid modernity power is about mobility. Bauman argues that today global power is liberated from politics; whe