SOCIAL TIME AS THE BASIS OF GENERATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Abstract

The article addresses the interdependence of personal and social time. Certain social events at certain age create specific forms of social identity which defines itself through these social developments. The focus of this article is theorizing how this identity - in other words, generational consciousness - can be triggered by social processes. In particular, specific interest will be on the age group born in Estonia in the 1970s, a cohort reaching maturity at the time broad social changes took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Generational consciousness forms when personal and social transitions coincide among those who are young at the time of social transitions. However, historical change does not necessarily articulate in a generational consciousness in all circumstances. Hence, analysing qualitative interview data against a backdrop of quantitative data, the article attempts to reveal the reflexive generational consciousness of this cohort and its core features. The paper also seeks to discover whether the subjective borders stated by the respondents to their social identity coincide with the (objective) social and demographic conditions of this cohort.