Economies of Signs and Space

by Lash, Scott; Urry, John

• ISBN13: 9780803984721
• ISBN10: 0803984723
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-01-24
• Publisher: Sage Pubns Ltd

Summary

This is a novel account of social change that supplants conventional understandings of 'society' and presents a sociology that takes as its main unit of analysis flows through time and across space.Developing a comparative analysis of the UK and US, the new Germany and Japan, Lash and Urry show how restructuration after organized capitalism has its basis in increasingly reflexive social actors and organizations. The consequence is not only the much-vaunted 'postmodern condition' but also a growth in reflexivity.In exploring this new reflexive world, the authors argue that today's economies are increasingly ones of signs - information, symbols, images, desire - and of space, where both signs and social sub

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction: After Organized Capitalism	1	(11)
PART 1 ECONOMIES OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS
Mobile Objects	12	(19)
Emptying out: subjects, space-time, objects	13	(4)
The spatial institutions of capitalism: the new core	17	(11)
Core and periphery	28	(3)
Reflexive Subjects	31	(29)
Reflexive modernization: the risk society	32	(5)
Giddens: self-reflexivity in modernity	37	(7)
Bodies and classifications	44	(7)
Sources of the self: the uses of allegory	51	(3)
Aesthetic reflexivity and time-space	54	(6)
PART 2 ECONOMIES OF SIGNS AND THE OTHER
Reflexive Accumulation: Information Structures and Production Systems	60	(51)
Collective reflexivity: Japanese production systems	65	(16)
Practical reflexivity: German production systems	81	(13)
Discursive reflexivity: information-rich production systems	94	(13)
Conclusion	107	(4)
Accumulating Signs: The Culture Industries	111	(34)
Flexible production: disintegrated firms	113	(10)
Limits of flexibility: training, finance, distribution	123	(8)
Reflexive objects	131	(11)
Conclusion	142	(3)
Ungovernable Spaces: The Underclass and Impacted Ghettoes	145	(26)
The American underclass	146	(11)
The underclass in Europe	157	(3)
Polarization: poverty and professionals	160	(5)
The politics of space and the making of the underclass	165	(6)
Mobile Subjects: Migration in Comparative Perspective	171	(22)
Migration after organized capitalism	171	(4)
Case-study: clothing and fashion	175	(5)
Corporatist exclusion in a reunited Germany	180	(10)
Conclusion	190	(3)
PART 3 ECONOMIES OF SPACE AND TIME
Post-Industrial Spaces	193	(30)
Restructuring services	197	(10)
Restructuring and the public sector	207	(4)
Services and the restructuring of place	211	(9)
Conclusion	220	(3)
Time and Memory	223	(29)
Sociology of time	224	(6)
Time and the duality of structure	230	(6)
Time, powers and nature	236	(5)
Disorganized capitalism and time	241	(11)
PART 4 GLOBALIZATION AND MODERNITY
Mobility, Modernity and Place	252	(27)
Travel and modernity	252	(8)
The emergence of organized tourism	260	(9)
Tourist services and disorganized capitalism	269	(8)
Conclusion	277	(2)
Globalization and Localization	279	(35)
Money and finance	285	(7)
Nature and the environment	292	(13)
Global culture and national culture	305	(7)
Conclusion	312	(2)
Conclusion	314	(13)
Bibliography	327	(24)
Index	351