Multiple Modernities, Inequalities and Intermediate Spaces

Abstract

European thought has continued to perceive itself as the universal mediator of all other histories (Chinese, Indian, Arab, African, Brazilian etc.). This has led the author to talk of 'multiple modernities' and to consider the processes of differentiation in contemporary societies in conjunction with those of pluralisation and recomposition. This chapter examines sociological questions linked to these multiple modernities. It shows how various forms of domination and diffracted inequalities foster processes of individuation that give rise to diversity within individual biographies. The chapter then shows how identities are simultaneously being reconfigured and blurred in situations characterised by paradoxical injunctions that exacerbate demands for social and public recognition in European societies. And, while conflicts are emerging between different orders of recognition, at the same time intermediate spaces are emerging in which individual and collective identities are being reconstructed in contexts of strain and tension. Keywords:Chinese society; European societies; inequalities; modernities