1. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Phenomenology, Social Constructionism & Modernity

2. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Phenomenology & Social Constructionism
Major Figures:
Edmund Husserl
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Alfred Schutz
Harold Garfinkel
Peter Berger & Thomas Luckman
Cognitivist ‘Revolution’

3. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Reality only exists in the ongoing stream of sensory experience to which we allocate to discrete categories.
‘Stream of Consciousness’
‘The Natural Attitude’
Edmund Husserl

4. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Challenged the privileging of the mind with respect to conscious experience
Embodied Consciousness
Body/Subjects
Maurice Merleau-Ponty ( )

5. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Phenomenal Sociology
Alfred Schutz
(1899 – 1959)

6. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
First Order Categories (Common Sense) – The recurrent elements in the stream of consciousness
Typifications: Ideal Typical Concepts
Recipes & Formulas: Taken for granted procedures for accomplishing everyday tasks.

7. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Schutz’s interaction order:
‘Consociates’: Share the same time and space
‘Contemporaries’: Share the same time
‘Predecessors’ and ‘Successors’: ‘Ideal Types’ with whom we engage through letters and reports
Lebenswelt: The Lifeworld
Bracketing
Second Order Categories: Sociology’s task is to develop second order concepts that allow to explore and understand the first order concepts that people in society employ, including their origins and effects.

8. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Ethnomethodology
Harold Garfinkel
(1917 – Present)

9. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Social Order
‘Social Facts’ & Society ‘sui generis’
Society as an Accomplishment

10. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Dealing with Everyday Life:
Reflexivity
The ‘Documentary Method’
‘Indexicality’ & Context
Language & Accounts

11. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Methods! -
The Documentary Method (again!)
‘First Time Through’
Depth Interviews
Breaching Experiments

12. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
‘The Social Construction of Reality’
Berger & Luckmann (1966)

13. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Human Nature, Plasticity & ‘Homo Socius’
Realissimum and zones of closeness and remoteness
The Natural Attitude and Shared Common Sense Knowledge (objectifications)
Social interaction

14. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Institutionalization:
Externalization: Action
Objectification: Viewing the products of action as being objectively ‘real’ (reification?)
Internalization: Subjective assimilation of the ‘taken for granted’ reality

15. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Objective Reality: The institutionalized typifications that are shared by social actors over time
Subjective Reality: The internalised social reality
Primary Socialization: Becoming a member of Society – version of Paramount reality ‘filtered’ through parents and others.
Secondary Socialization: Induction into ‘new’ sectors of the objective social world.

16. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
The Thomas Theorem
“if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas 1928:572).
WI Thomas
( )

17. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
‘The Homeless Mind’: Berger, Berger & Kellner (1973)
Technology
Bureaucracy
Modern Consciousness
Modernization & Resistance

18. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Technological Consciousness:
Componentiality (reality experienced as atomistic units)
Interdependence (units form interdependent sequences)
Implicit Abstraction (everything can be understood with reference to abstract frameworks - even humans)
Segregation (of institutions, home & work etc.)
Emotional Management (emotion permitted within some spheres and excluded from others)
Anonymous Social Relations & ‘Human Engineering’ (individuals defined as functionaries)

19. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Bureaucracy & Consciousness
Competence & Coverage (very detailed and restricted areas of expertise – but everything can be dealt with somewhere in the all-encompassing bureaucracy)
Orderliness (overarching cognitive style of bureaucrat – everything can be organized and order imposed)
Assumption of Predictability
Impression Management (stylised modes of interaction)

20. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Modern Consciousness & The Pluralization of Lifeworlds:
Individuation & Reflexivity (peculiarly separated from others due to the multiplicity of ‘life plan’ options and experiences)
Homelessness (an absence of firm roots and belonging)
Modernity & Its Discontents (secularization, meaninglessness, contradiction, discrepancy, abstraction, alienation)
Collisions of Consciousness (cultural clashes)
Counter-Culture (nature, feeling, simplification, realissimum, total life experiences, authenticity, spontaneity)
Limitations of Resistance

21. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Constructing Lifeworlds:
‘Imagined Communities’ Anderson (1983)
‘The Invention of Tradition’, Hobsbawm & Ranger (1983)

22. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Contemporary Reality:
MacDonaldization (Ritzer)
Flexibility
Managism
Consumer Society & Celebrity Culture
The Global Market Society
Risk Society (Beck)

23. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
The Saturated Self
(Gergen,1991)