Postmodernism and Culture
Contextualising Globalisation, Culture and Lifestyle
Lecture IV
Daniel Turner and Jenny Flinn
Why postmodernism?
Postmodernity – another ‘buzzword’ of the 21st century
 Postmodern debate sets the framework for critical,
theoretical and philosophical debates in many fields (inc
globalisation) (Harvey, 2000)
 Links to social processes and cultural forms
 Yet summarising postmodernism is like: ‘trying to grab
jelly in a clamp’ (Bryman, 1995)
 ‘Do debates concerned with post-modernity amount to little
more than a theoretical blind alley or do they have a
significant contribution to make to our understanding of the
social world?’ (Miles, 2001:83)
 How does postmodernity impact upon the cultural
industries?
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Modernism
Links to the
Enlightenment,
Protestant Work
Ethic and Industrial
Revolution (Turner,
1991)
 Triumph of rational
thought (Miles, 2001)
 Quest for freedom,
order and certainty.
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Modernist culture:
“leisure as occupying
an observable space
and time in society”
(Rojek, 1995:38)
 Leisure as a social
function fixed to
work.
 Identity fixed and
certain and tied to
local and historical
context.
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Postmodernism
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Modernity: ‘is a paradoxical unity, a unity of
disunity; it pours us all into a maelstrom of
perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle
and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish’
(Berman, 1982:15)
Failure of modernity (Macionis and Plummer,
1997)
‘Incredulity towards metanarratives’ (Lyotard,
1984)
Post-modernity or postmodernity?
The collapse of certainty and boundaries
Postmodernism and Identity
‘the onus for the construction of such identities
increasingly falls on the shoulders of the
individual’ (Miles, 2001:95)
 A product of globalisation
 Giddens (1991) the reflexive project of the self
 ‘the snag is no longer how to discover, invent,
construct, assemble (even buy) an identity, but
how to prevent it from sticking’ (Bauman,
1996:24)

Postmodernity and Culture
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The dominance of imagery and the end of the
‘real’
Hyper-reality (Eco, 1986)
‘our humanity is based on nothing more than
our ability to consume spectacular simulations
of reality’ (Miles, 2001, p87)
The collapse of boundaries and meaning –
cultural stratification and significance is
meaningless?
Pastiche, re-hash, retro, nostalgia, ironic
consumption
Postmodernism and Consumption
‘Strollers’, ‘players’, ‘tourists’ and
‘vagabonds’ (Bauman, 1995)
 Baudelaire’s (1960) ‘fláneur’
 The consumption of signs and the egocentricism of everyday life.
 Consumption as a way of life?
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Critiquing postmodernism
A western plaything?
 ‘On what basis does representation
purport to reflect how consumers really
interact with MTV?’ (Miles, 2001, p99)
 A meaningless theoretical buzzword?
 The ironic meta-narrative?
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Alternative conceptualisations
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Postmodernism or Post-modernism?
High modernity (Giddens), Liquid Modernity (Bauman)
‘The compulsive and obsessive, continuous, unstoppable, forever
incomplete modernisation; the overwhelming and ineradicable,
unquenchable thirst for creative destruction (or of destructive
creativity, as the case might be, of ‘clearing the site’ in the name of a
‘new and improved’ design; of ‘dismantling’, ‘cutting out’, ‘phasing
out’, ‘merging’ or ‘downsizing’, all for the sake of a greater capacity
for doing more of the same in the future’) (Bauman, 2000, p28)
We need order, we want ‘fixed’ boundaries and rules.
Emergence of a risk society as a result of postmodern globalisation
Finding the ‘ontological anchor’ to everyday life? – identity
Finding the ‘safe’ form of risk and danger – consumption
Finding the ‘meaningful’ form of hyper-reality - culture