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Book
ReviewOur
World, Our LivesThe power of identity, second edition. Manuel Castells, 2004. Oxford:
Blackwell; ISBN 1405107138, 537 pp. £17.99
SAGE Publications, Inc.2004DOI: 10.1177/09675507040120030404
Richard Waller
University of the West of England
The
power of identity is the second in the trilogy The Information Age: Economy,
Society and Culture, first published to much acclaim during 1996—98,
and currently being re-issued as a new edition. The book opens with a Maya
Angelou poem written for the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993, extolling
the virtue of living and actively shaping our destiny, and ends with a 10-page
treatise upon the nature of social change in what Castells terms `network
society'. The 400-plus pages in between confirm Castells's position as a foremost
authority on con- temporary society, and the role of individuals and agencies
within it. This is not, as the author himself acknowledges, `a book about
books' (p. 2), but one of grand ideas, and in that approach Castells echoes
the work of other heavyweight contemporary social theorists such as Beck,
Giddens and Touraine, whose influences are all acknowledged. Potential readers
interested in a detailed engagement with key thinkers, or what Castells terms
`bibliography', are advised to `consult the many good textbooks on each matter'
tackled (p. 3) instead, and I would concur. What this text does provide is
a cogent analysis of the relationship between individual actors and political
processes — both global and local — as mediated through technology,
national and supra-national institutions and personal and collective identities.
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Castells
has not updated references or data in this volume, his justification being
that the book's purpose is `analytical, not docu- mentary' (p. xvi), but I
think this is a shame nonetheless, since doing so would allow him to engage
with developments in these spheres since the turn of the millennium. Likewise,
two of the six chapters (`Patriarchalism' and `The environmental movement')
remain unchanged from the first edition, which could also have been recti-
fied, even if rewrites were intentionally minimal. Castells suggests that
he does not wish to be `running after events for the rest of my life' (p.
xvi), a sentiment with which we can perhaps empathize, but I feel a revision
would be worthwhile to further strengthen what is an impressive discourse
on contemporary world affairs. Where this edition has been updated to consider,
for instance, the growing influence since 1997 of environmental or religious
fundamentalism upon personal, national and international politics, the result
is powerful. For instance, Chapter 2 highlights the impact of globalization
and informationalization via `networks of wealth, technology and power' (p.
72) in transforming the world and its inhabitants. It offers an impressive
breadth of empirical data covering five diverse movements opposing the US-dominated
New World Order — Mexico's Zapatista guerrillas, the American Militia
move- ment, Al-Qaeda, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult and western anti-globalization
protestors. In so doing, Castells mounts a forceful argument for considering
these seemingly disparate social movements similarly. That is, as `defensive
movements built around the trenches of resistance from specific identities
and/or specific interests' (p. 73). At the time of writing this review in
March 2004, with the anti- western movements in both Afghanistan and Iraq
showing little sign of being quelled, and the recent bombing of trains packed
with commuters in Madrid, all seemingly under the aegis of Al-Qaeda, one might
dispute Castells's assertion that the environmental lobby is the most influential
social or political movement of our time. Of general interest to the reader
of Auto/Biography would be the opening chapter, `Identity and meaning in the
network society'. Here, Castells stresses the need to distinguish an individual's
identity from their social role(s). Drawing upon Calhoun (1994), he characterizes
identity as `the process of construction of meaning on the basis of a cultural
attribute' (p. 6). For Castells, the very plurality of contem- porary identities
causes stress and contradiction in both (re)presen- tation of the self and
social action. Roles (for example, `father', `university lecturer' or `football
fan') are framed by norms in turn given by social structures. Meanwhile, identities
`are sources of meaning for the actors themselves, and by themselves' (p.
7), and
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are
generally stronger than roles due to processes of internalization, self-construction
and individuation (Giddens, 1991). At its simplest, `identities organize the
meaning, while roles organize the function' (p. 7). But it is perhaps collective
rather than individual identity/ies that is/are of greatest interest to Castells
in the book, and their use as tools to interrogate issues including the anti-New
World Order social movements discussed above. This is a powerful and insightful
book that adds to Castells's repu- tation as one of the foremost social theorists
writing today, and it offers something of interest to specialist and general
reader alike. REFERENCES
Calhoun, C. 1994: Social theory and the politics of identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Giddens, A. 1991: Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late
modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press .