Aspects of Bauman’s sociology of postmodernity

In his (relatively conventional) sociology of postmodernity Zygmunt Bauman distinguishes his own position by identifying where the even more conventional 'orthodox consensus' in sociology had gone wrong, thus ending up in crisis. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor is a particularly useful text with which to begin, for in it Bauman provides a succinct overview, sketching out the key elements in his analysis of postmodernity. In Life in Fragments Bauman has much to say about the corrosive effect of consumerism, individualism, the privatisation of everyday life and market domination on postmodern identities and comments on a form of postmodern racism. This is one of the few occasions in which he addresses racism outside his study of the Holocaust, although he also provides further thoughts on anti-Semitism.

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