Acceleration and cultural change. Dialogues from an overheated world

This open access book includes socio-anthropological and anthropo-sociological conversations between one of the world's leading anthropologists, Thomas Hyland Eriksen, and a young scholar, using his groundbreaking "overheating" approach.This book includes socio-anthropological and anthropo-sociological conversations between one of the world's leading anthropologists, Thomas Hyland Eriksen, and a young scholar, using his groundbreaking "overheating" approach. From the pandemic to the spread of nationalism, from the Anthropocene to the Homogenocene, the authors discuss the most urgent issues of current society: e.g., the loss of biological and cultural diversity owing to the forces of globalisation; and the emergence of new forms of diversity through globalisation and migration; the intersectional dimension of climate change; the incredible rising of anger demonstrations around the world and resentful, overheated identities often linked to right-wing nationalism; the way digital devices have changed the meaning of temporality in people's life-worlds; the regulatory and competitive pressures on universities which are a result of many factors in the intersection of globalisation, massification and marketisation; youth's weakened belief in progress connected to changes in the contemporary world, such as growing inequality, political alienation and environmental destruction; recent pathbreaking research and original theory in sociology and anthropology related to the changes in an overheated world; and what post-Coronavirus social life might become. Highly topical, engaging and written in a conversational style, this book is a must-read for social scientists and discerning lay persons who want a fresh perspective on understanding the critical issues of our time. This is an open access book.

Reinterprets Erikson's 'overheating' approach through a dialogue between two scholars

Showcases the power of dialogue as discourse, especially across the social sciences

Pushes towards deprivatisation of knowledge in the academy

This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

Auteur
Martina Visentin is a Senior Assistant Professor at the University of Padua. She teaches Introduction to Sociology and Social Policies (Faculty of Political Science) and her research interests focus on: social innovation in local welfare; social policies; higher education and changes in university students and researchers.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen has for many years studied, and written about, identity politics, ethnicity, nationalism and globalisation from a comparative perspective. He has also published popular books, textbooks, polemical books and essays on a variety of topics.

Contenu

Introduction to overheating approach: an Ariadne's thread for the readers.- First conversation: vulnerabilities and opportunities in a pandemic society.- Second conversation: diversity and globalisation.- Thirds conversation: the new diversities.- Fourth conversation: climate change under overheating lens.- Fifth conversation: days of rage.- Sixth conversation: temporalities regimes in a platform society.- Seventh conversation: fast vs slow academic. Why go on this road?.- Eighth conversation: youth in an overheating world.- Ninth conversation: sociology, anthropology and the world.- Tenth conversation: overheating approach after Covid 19.- Conclusions. An afterword.