Challenges of Individualization

This book **critically engages with a series of provocative questions that ask: Why are contemporary societies so dependent on constructive and destructive effects of individualization? Is this phenomenon only related to the 'second' or 'late' modernity? Can the concept of individualization be productively used for developing a sociological diagnosis of our time? The innovative answers suggested in this book are focused on two types of challenges accompanying the rise of individualization. First, that it is caused by controversial changes in social structures and action patterns. Second, that the effects of individualization question varieties of the common good. Both challenges have a long history but reached critical intensity in advanced contemporary societies in the context of current globalization.

Provides an outline for a differentiated analytical concept of individualization Includes analyses of the long history of individualization through a discussion of the historical production and use of gold Approaches the concept of individualization as phenomena that can be identified throughout human history, rather than characteristic to modern and post-modern societies

Autorentext

Nikolai Genov is Professor Emeritus of the Free University Berlin, Germany. He received his PhD from the University in Leipzig, Germany, and is the author of more than 300 scientific publications in 28 countries.

Inhalt

1. The Global Context .- 2. Social Reality and Concepts .- 3. Millennia of Individualization .- 4. Upgrading Employability .- 5. Organizational Settings of Individualization .- 6. Cross-Border Migration .- 7. Migration Crisis .- 8. Futures of Individualization.