Page 41 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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12 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

the reification of consciousness. We would Social critique centered on the anxious inter-
note that not only has alienation expanded ests of consumer society. Post-modern and
from the factory floor to culture, but so too post-structural theories, concerned with rep-
do we now look at alienation more dialecti- resentation and meanings decoupled from the
cally. Today we also look at how even within political economy, viewed selfhood as a dis-
contexts that might be considered alienating, connected series of self presentations, while
there are ways people attempt to find agency, social life and interaction were described as
community, and forms of subjectivity that little more than a pastiche of free-floating
overcome their alienation. Thus the very signifiers (Gergen, 1991; Ritzer, 1997; Rosenau,
existence of wage labor presupposes its nega- 1992; Turner, 1990). This vision of social
tion, creative labor, political alienation pre- relations as random and fragmented left no
supposes freedom and democracy, and room for conceiving of alienation.
cultural alienation promises transcendence
and freedom, what Hegel claimed the ‘joyous’
consciousness.
Finally, we would note that the concept of ALIENATION IN SOCIOLOGICAL
alienation has important implications for RESEARCH
many other basic sociological concepts such
as social conflict, criminal, and deviant In the dominant sociological literature of the
behavior, and even religious behavior, such twenty-first century, however, alienation,
as the various ways many people turn to fun- interpreted as estrangement, dehumanization,
damentalism as a way to overcome alienation stunting of relationships, and the hegemonic
qua powerlessness, meaninglessness and/or domination of consciousness, remains salient.
social fragmentation. The globalized production of McJobs
In the community of sociologist- (Ritzer, 2004) and the ever more relentless
researchers, interest in the concept of alien- colonization of selfhood and desire
ation has flourished, waned, and flourished (Hochschild, 1986) underscore the insight
again. There was widespread interest in that alienation in the classical Marxist sense
alienation in the 1950s and 1960s, with has not disappeared. The soaring accumula-
studies focusing on the workplace and its tion of wealth by trans-national capitalist
impact on selected aspects of social life. elites, whose intellectuals celebrate neo-
At that time, researchers operationalized liberalism, has been accompanied by the
alienation as a delimited quantitative index expansion of labor saving technologies of
of attitudes (see Ludz, 1973; Seeman, 1991). production as well as outsourcing work to
Concerns with alienation declined as politi- developing countries, and has had adverse
cal activism among minorities, women, consequences for millions of people.
and anti-war crusaders in the late 1960s over- Increasingly workers have to contend with
came alienation and fostered progressive the erosion of job security, the contraction of
political changes in the Americas and in entitlement programs, and growing instability
Europe. Meanwhile, inspired by semiotics in the quality of life as standards of living
and critiques of language and signification, decline.
post-modern and post-structural critiques of Some of the responses to the adverse,
de-centered selfhood, and the implosion of destabilizing, and alienating effects of glob-
institutional boundaries signaled a shift from alization range from fundamentalism and
actually existing conditions to texts, represen- reactionary politics on the one hand, to
tations, and simulations. Thus, many scholars extravagant machinations in popular culture.
embraced perspectives in which alienation Exemplars of these contemporary forms of
was regarded as an essentialist concept alienation can be found among racist, anti-
located in now outmoded grand narratives. Semitic, and homophobic clusters of groups