Social Movements

Abstract

Setting aside the debate regarding the term ‘post-modernity’, whilst in no way denying its importance, most social theorists would agree that over the past century, society has undergone a wide variety of changes that, when considered cumulatively, bring into some doubt the idea that we inhabit a ‘modern’ society. For example, ‘struggle’ and unrest are no longer focused within a homogenous ‘working class’. Instead, divisions within the socio-economic groupings and the blurring of boundaries between groups have become widely understood, resulting in a questioning of the whole notion of ‘class’. What has come to be known as late/r modernity is now characterized by a variety of forms of unrest that can alternatively be seen as either resulting from the breakdown of ‘class’ as the major social cleavage, or as further hastening the decline of class-based ‘politics’. Issues relating to gender, sexuality, ‘race’, dis/ability, ecologism, and a wide variety of other belief- and value-based systems have now come to the fore. The proliferation of such social groupings at first glance appears to make the idea that we live in a ‘movement society’ increasingly plausible.