Zygmunt Bauman: Mapping modernity?

Abstract

This survey of the work of Zygmunt Bauman and its subsequent reception literature was originally written for a Chinese audience. It begins from the general challenge of how to approach or reduce this immense body of work and its complexity. I suggest a different line of approach to the common, conversational reduction – ‘Bauman is A; Bauman is B’. I suggest that his work may be viewed as a General Sociology, including the echoes of this historic idea into anthropology. I scan recent secondary writing published in the English language. The idea of general sociology may take in micro-, meso- and metalevels; and Bauman's focus shifts as his sociological vocation shifts. At the same time, new and recent work does a great deal to expand the optic that we may bring to Bauman's work. We can seek to map Bauman's modernity, just as he also endeavoured to map the modernities that confronted him across the path of his life.