از طبقه اجتماعي تا سبك زندگي رويكردهاي نوين در تحليل جامعه شناختي هويت اجتماعي

New Approaches to Analyzing Social Identity From Social Class to Life Style

The concept of social class is central to social theorizing in the tradition of sociological thought. Both social dynamics and social identities of the members of modern societies are analyzed and understood with the help of this concept. Yet, the common orientation of recent social theories is to accept the increasing importance of the realm of consumption and life styles in forming individual and social identities. This article attempts to analyze changes in the social basis of identities in contemporary societies. The analysis follows three separate but related argumentsvis: l)change in the relationship between work and leisure; 2) fragmentation of class structure in modern societies sand 3) emergence of the culture of consumption. What follows from these arguments is the acceptance of the primacy of culture over social structure of production as well as that of the reflectivity of identities vis-a-vis the determinism of structural formulations.