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The Rise of Network Society #2
The Power of Identity
Manuel Castells describes the origins, purpose and effect of proactive movements, such as feminism and environmentalism, which aim to transform human relationships at their most fundamental level; and of reactive movements that build trenches of resistance on behalf of God, nation, ethnicity, family, or locality.The fundamental categories of existence, the author shows, are threatened by the combined, contradictory assault of techno-economic forces and transformative social movements, each using the new power of the media to promote their ambitions. Caught between these opposing trends, he argues, the nation-state is called into question, drawing into its crisis the very notion of political democracy. The author moves thematically between the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Mexico, Bolivia, the Islamic World, China, and Japan, seeking to understand a variety of social processes that are, he contends, closely inter-related in function and meaning.This is a book of profound importance for understanding how the world will be transformed by the beginning of the next century.
584 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1997
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975 people want to read
About the author
Manuel Castells
167 books244 followersManuel Castells is Professor of Communication and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, as well as Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia, and Marvin and Joanne Grossman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society at MIT. He is the author of, among other books, the three-volume work The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture.
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February 3, 2019
259 pages into this he says something that if he said it on page one might have been very helpful: “I stand by the classic norm of ‘no class without class consciousness’.”
In this, volume two of this work, we have moved from the things you would have automatically associated with The Information Age: that is, the computers and networks and productive forces of volume one – to ‘the power of identity’. And this is anything but an obvious or expected shift in focus, well, for me at least.
One of the things that you might expect in a network society, if you were thinking in an abstract sense, is that perhaps people would become increasingly ‘the same’ as we became increasingly ‘connected’. You know, why is it that every five miles you drive down a road in a country like England you get an absurdly different accent from the last one? And why is it that in Australia, even though each of the capital cities were built following significantly different migration patterns, for even someone with a degree in linguistics it seems a struggle to tell the difference in accent from someone from Perth or from Sydney (look them up on a map if you don’t know what I’m talking about). I guess the advent of national radio and television has done a lot to ensure that regional variations in accent in Australia have been kept to a minimum, even when, as with Perth, the people living there have often wanted to secede and to form their own nation apart from the rest of Australia. And yet, a huge desert, a bucket load of South African migrants, and an unfair distribution of the national goods and services tax later still isn’t enough to get them to speak with a different accent to the rest of us.
Identity is a complicated thing and how it has been impacted by the development of the network society isn’t necessarily obvious.
This book provides remarkably useful histories of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, Catalunya (particularly interesting as he says that it is a nation that doesn’t even want to be a state), Al-Qaeda, the Aum sect in Japan, the anti-globalisation movement, the Green movement, the Feminist movement, the Gay movement, and particularly the rise of national identities, despite the shrinking power of the nation state. Like I said in my review of the first volume, this guy could be the definition of ‘comprehensive’.
So, class consciousness. Well, that’s the thing. In some ways you could see this book as a long justification for the ideas of Beck and Giddens – that is, those who are generally blamed for providing the intellectual justification of the UK Labour Party’s ‘third way’ – or of Bill Clinton’s betrayal of the Democratic Party’s ‘working class base’. Beck, Giddens and Castells all claim that there has been a fundamental shift in society brought about by the information revolution. In large part this can be measured by the decline in people identifying with their social class as defined by their industrial position within society – the decline in the power of the trade unions being a particularly clear manifestation of this – and instead towards issues often referred to using the cliché of today – identity politics.
One of the things the sociologists like to consider, if a lot of very different things all seem to be occurring at more or less the same time, is to try to come up with a relatively simple mechanism that might provide a way to understand the ‘why now?’ question. The growth of the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the black lives matter movement, Al-Qaeda seems likely to require a pretty wide brush if you are going to sweep all of them into the one dustpan. Although, he doesn’t quite give just one ‘explanation’ for all of these disparate social movements – that would smell a little too much like the ‘grand narratives’ that have gone out of fashion lately. All the same, many of these new movements have been enabled by the shift to the network society. So, when you look at Al-Qaeda, for example, it would be almost inconceivable for them to be as effective as they have been if the internet hadn’t existed. It provides a remarkable example of a networked organisation – where all members are assumed to be so committed to the cause that they can be relied upon to do whatever is necessary to further the organisation’s aims, so that the ‘nodes’ of the network can be assumed to work-on with limited communication between each other, and certainly continue without the requirement of a central node calling the shots. Green Peace is similar, if, however, the need for absolute secrecy is less an imperative in this case. Still, its ability to plan and act also works on an assumption of distributed leadership, given member commitment. The requirement that a central leadership must be blindly followed is mostly removed.
These organisations are based on convictions that are not necessarily related to a person’s social class, but they do require people to identify with the issue involved – you need to be a ‘certain type of person’ to identify with these issues. As he says early on in this, many academics in the West have preferred to think that religious fundamentalism is an example of the sorts of child-like certainties that our more educated world will increasingly move away from – except, the opposite appears to be the case, as people seem to be becoming more religious with time, and with religion becoming an ever more central aspect of their identity.
This is interesting, given his discussion in the first volume about the space of flows and how it dominates the space of place. That is, that the power in network capitalism is held by those least connected to places, those who turn all places into a kind of no-place, and whose lives are facilitated by the most modern aspects of the network society. Organisations, such as Al-Qaeda and Green Peace, make use of these same networks, and they could not be conceived outside of those networks, but they are opposed to what might be called the ‘disembodied’ version of globalism that those who occupy the space of flows support. The agnosticism of network societies, their abstract and other-worldliness, is something that unites the various manifestations of the ‘anti-global’ movement, from the extremes of Green Peace to Al-Qaeda.
And nationalism has increased too – and this is particularly strange, since we are witnessing an age when the nation state could hardly be more impotent. This is true of almost all nation states, the US being virtually the only one he believes can sustain itself as a ‘sovereign nation’ – but at a significant cost. In fact, the actions of powerful nations to undermine the new world order – one that stresses all nations having some form of voice and rights – is presented here as ultimately undermining those nation states as well. Still, nationalism is on the rise, even while those who inhabit ‘the space of flows’ increasingly ignore the boundaries and borders associated with such a land based concept. Here, as in the next volume, he points to the power of nationality to rip the Soviet Union apart – and hints that this might also be a problem for Indonesia and China. However, he also points out the contrary force here too – the force that is (despite Brexit) unifying Europe and creating the ground for other trading blocks in Asia, North America and so on.
The other end of this is the gay and feminist movements. In these cases, it is the fundamental change in the sexual power relations that has given these movements the ability to bring about change. The reason this is happening now is because those who previously were without any form of power are finding they are increasingly as powerful as those who once controlled their lives. One of the biggest changes facilitating this shift has been in the number of women entering the work force. While this may have led to an increasing precarity in work for everyone – particularly in the advanced nations in the west, since this has occurred on the basis of a sharp decline in industrial jobs, often well-paid and male, and led to a huge rise in service sector jobs, often part time, poorly paid and female. Still, this increasing precarity has moved slowly towards levelling male and female wages, if remarkably slowly, and thus in levelling power between males and females. It is inconceivable that an average household could exist on a single wage today and this economic shift has brought about a shift in the power relations in the family too.
The patriarchy sustained itself on the basis of economic inequality – and as women have entered the labour force, that economic inequality (which clearly still exists) has narrowed to the extent where sustaining male domination has become increasingly difficult.
There is a long discussion here about the psychology underlying all this – with women described as more likely to be willing to be lesbian than men are to be guy (something that even the figures quoted by him didn’t seem to support) but even if not, that they are more willing to pair with other women in even non-sexual relationships to bring up children away from the bloody racket that is men.
Since this book isn’t seeking to make predictions, but rather to expose patterns, the point here is not that he sees a necessary end to patriarchy, but rather that if patriarch is going to continue to exist it will need to find other ways to express its power. And that essentially looks like it will have to mean either it disappearing or resorting to abject oppression. And since it seems women just don’t seem to be prepared to put up with that for too much longer, things will need to change… but time will tell.
Similarly, this seems to be also true with the gay movement. He presents this as also another manifestation of the move away from an unquestioned acceptance of the right of the patriarchy to decide the limits of desire. These movements are providing fundamental shifts in how ‘families’ are shaping in society – or if what is occurring can even be called ‘families’ – given the rise in one-person households.
I have to agree about the diminishing power of trade unions, but a few books I’ve read lately have stressed that the proportions of those considering themselves to be working class – in the UK, it seems to have been about the same proportion since the mid-sixties; and in the US I think the people who refer to themselves as working class has actually been increasing – might mean a shift back to class consciousness. Again, it is hard to tell such patterns, but people do certainly appear to be becoming aware that the field is tilted out of their favour and that social inequality is growing at perverse rates.
This book left me feeling rather down, to be honest, particularly in relation to the growth of religious fundamentalist movements and identities and national identities. I was born in Northern Ireland – religion and nationalism stink of death to me. And calling nationalism patriotism doesn’t make the smell go away even a little bit. That these are presented as two of the major movements fighting against the excesses of the global network society doesn’t particularly fill me with hope or joy.
The problem I had with this book was one of the silences here. He says at one point that identity is more than just the stuff you do – it is what provides our lives with meaning. So, being a Muslim, for instance, is probably going to mean more to you, and be more a defining aspect of your life, than being a plumber. Now, you might not get to ‘choose’ to be a Muslim – it being a function of where you were born and so on – but the commitment of your beliefs here are infinitely important. Just as being gay, for instance, is something ‘you are’ rather than something you might choose.
But nothing in this book looks at the forms of identity I’m particularly interested in, and I’m not sure why not. For example, capitalism spends billions and billions of dollars every year seeking to influence you into believing that your ‘true’ identity is yet another purchase away. For instance, are you a Mac or a PC? A Holden or a Ford? A Marlboro man or will only the best do, with Benson and Hedges? Beer or wine? The identity products are endless, each carefully crafted, and each defines us both to those we meet and to ourselves at least as well as our nationality and our religions do. In fact, I would argue that because most of these choices are barely even conscious, they link us to tribes we are hardly even aware we belong to and so are even more insidious than those neatly labelled Catholic and Protestant.
All the same – what a book.
In this, volume two of this work, we have moved from the things you would have automatically associated with The Information Age: that is, the computers and networks and productive forces of volume one – to ‘the power of identity’. And this is anything but an obvious or expected shift in focus, well, for me at least.
One of the things that you might expect in a network society, if you were thinking in an abstract sense, is that perhaps people would become increasingly ‘the same’ as we became increasingly ‘connected’. You know, why is it that every five miles you drive down a road in a country like England you get an absurdly different accent from the last one? And why is it that in Australia, even though each of the capital cities were built following significantly different migration patterns, for even someone with a degree in linguistics it seems a struggle to tell the difference in accent from someone from Perth or from Sydney (look them up on a map if you don’t know what I’m talking about). I guess the advent of national radio and television has done a lot to ensure that regional variations in accent in Australia have been kept to a minimum, even when, as with Perth, the people living there have often wanted to secede and to form their own nation apart from the rest of Australia. And yet, a huge desert, a bucket load of South African migrants, and an unfair distribution of the national goods and services tax later still isn’t enough to get them to speak with a different accent to the rest of us.
Identity is a complicated thing and how it has been impacted by the development of the network society isn’t necessarily obvious.
This book provides remarkably useful histories of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, Catalunya (particularly interesting as he says that it is a nation that doesn’t even want to be a state), Al-Qaeda, the Aum sect in Japan, the anti-globalisation movement, the Green movement, the Feminist movement, the Gay movement, and particularly the rise of national identities, despite the shrinking power of the nation state. Like I said in my review of the first volume, this guy could be the definition of ‘comprehensive’.
So, class consciousness. Well, that’s the thing. In some ways you could see this book as a long justification for the ideas of Beck and Giddens – that is, those who are generally blamed for providing the intellectual justification of the UK Labour Party’s ‘third way’ – or of Bill Clinton’s betrayal of the Democratic Party’s ‘working class base’. Beck, Giddens and Castells all claim that there has been a fundamental shift in society brought about by the information revolution. In large part this can be measured by the decline in people identifying with their social class as defined by their industrial position within society – the decline in the power of the trade unions being a particularly clear manifestation of this – and instead towards issues often referred to using the cliché of today – identity politics.
One of the things the sociologists like to consider, if a lot of very different things all seem to be occurring at more or less the same time, is to try to come up with a relatively simple mechanism that might provide a way to understand the ‘why now?’ question. The growth of the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the black lives matter movement, Al-Qaeda seems likely to require a pretty wide brush if you are going to sweep all of them into the one dustpan. Although, he doesn’t quite give just one ‘explanation’ for all of these disparate social movements – that would smell a little too much like the ‘grand narratives’ that have gone out of fashion lately. All the same, many of these new movements have been enabled by the shift to the network society. So, when you look at Al-Qaeda, for example, it would be almost inconceivable for them to be as effective as they have been if the internet hadn’t existed. It provides a remarkable example of a networked organisation – where all members are assumed to be so committed to the cause that they can be relied upon to do whatever is necessary to further the organisation’s aims, so that the ‘nodes’ of the network can be assumed to work-on with limited communication between each other, and certainly continue without the requirement of a central node calling the shots. Green Peace is similar, if, however, the need for absolute secrecy is less an imperative in this case. Still, its ability to plan and act also works on an assumption of distributed leadership, given member commitment. The requirement that a central leadership must be blindly followed is mostly removed.
These organisations are based on convictions that are not necessarily related to a person’s social class, but they do require people to identify with the issue involved – you need to be a ‘certain type of person’ to identify with these issues. As he says early on in this, many academics in the West have preferred to think that religious fundamentalism is an example of the sorts of child-like certainties that our more educated world will increasingly move away from – except, the opposite appears to be the case, as people seem to be becoming more religious with time, and with religion becoming an ever more central aspect of their identity.
This is interesting, given his discussion in the first volume about the space of flows and how it dominates the space of place. That is, that the power in network capitalism is held by those least connected to places, those who turn all places into a kind of no-place, and whose lives are facilitated by the most modern aspects of the network society. Organisations, such as Al-Qaeda and Green Peace, make use of these same networks, and they could not be conceived outside of those networks, but they are opposed to what might be called the ‘disembodied’ version of globalism that those who occupy the space of flows support. The agnosticism of network societies, their abstract and other-worldliness, is something that unites the various manifestations of the ‘anti-global’ movement, from the extremes of Green Peace to Al-Qaeda.
And nationalism has increased too – and this is particularly strange, since we are witnessing an age when the nation state could hardly be more impotent. This is true of almost all nation states, the US being virtually the only one he believes can sustain itself as a ‘sovereign nation’ – but at a significant cost. In fact, the actions of powerful nations to undermine the new world order – one that stresses all nations having some form of voice and rights – is presented here as ultimately undermining those nation states as well. Still, nationalism is on the rise, even while those who inhabit ‘the space of flows’ increasingly ignore the boundaries and borders associated with such a land based concept. Here, as in the next volume, he points to the power of nationality to rip the Soviet Union apart – and hints that this might also be a problem for Indonesia and China. However, he also points out the contrary force here too – the force that is (despite Brexit) unifying Europe and creating the ground for other trading blocks in Asia, North America and so on.
The other end of this is the gay and feminist movements. In these cases, it is the fundamental change in the sexual power relations that has given these movements the ability to bring about change. The reason this is happening now is because those who previously were without any form of power are finding they are increasingly as powerful as those who once controlled their lives. One of the biggest changes facilitating this shift has been in the number of women entering the work force. While this may have led to an increasing precarity in work for everyone – particularly in the advanced nations in the west, since this has occurred on the basis of a sharp decline in industrial jobs, often well-paid and male, and led to a huge rise in service sector jobs, often part time, poorly paid and female. Still, this increasing precarity has moved slowly towards levelling male and female wages, if remarkably slowly, and thus in levelling power between males and females. It is inconceivable that an average household could exist on a single wage today and this economic shift has brought about a shift in the power relations in the family too.
The patriarchy sustained itself on the basis of economic inequality – and as women have entered the labour force, that economic inequality (which clearly still exists) has narrowed to the extent where sustaining male domination has become increasingly difficult.
There is a long discussion here about the psychology underlying all this – with women described as more likely to be willing to be lesbian than men are to be guy (something that even the figures quoted by him didn’t seem to support) but even if not, that they are more willing to pair with other women in even non-sexual relationships to bring up children away from the bloody racket that is men.
Since this book isn’t seeking to make predictions, but rather to expose patterns, the point here is not that he sees a necessary end to patriarchy, but rather that if patriarch is going to continue to exist it will need to find other ways to express its power. And that essentially looks like it will have to mean either it disappearing or resorting to abject oppression. And since it seems women just don’t seem to be prepared to put up with that for too much longer, things will need to change… but time will tell.
Similarly, this seems to be also true with the gay movement. He presents this as also another manifestation of the move away from an unquestioned acceptance of the right of the patriarchy to decide the limits of desire. These movements are providing fundamental shifts in how ‘families’ are shaping in society – or if what is occurring can even be called ‘families’ – given the rise in one-person households.
I have to agree about the diminishing power of trade unions, but a few books I’ve read lately have stressed that the proportions of those considering themselves to be working class – in the UK, it seems to have been about the same proportion since the mid-sixties; and in the US I think the people who refer to themselves as working class has actually been increasing – might mean a shift back to class consciousness. Again, it is hard to tell such patterns, but people do certainly appear to be becoming aware that the field is tilted out of their favour and that social inequality is growing at perverse rates.
This book left me feeling rather down, to be honest, particularly in relation to the growth of religious fundamentalist movements and identities and national identities. I was born in Northern Ireland – religion and nationalism stink of death to me. And calling nationalism patriotism doesn’t make the smell go away even a little bit. That these are presented as two of the major movements fighting against the excesses of the global network society doesn’t particularly fill me with hope or joy.
The problem I had with this book was one of the silences here. He says at one point that identity is more than just the stuff you do – it is what provides our lives with meaning. So, being a Muslim, for instance, is probably going to mean more to you, and be more a defining aspect of your life, than being a plumber. Now, you might not get to ‘choose’ to be a Muslim – it being a function of where you were born and so on – but the commitment of your beliefs here are infinitely important. Just as being gay, for instance, is something ‘you are’ rather than something you might choose.
But nothing in this book looks at the forms of identity I’m particularly interested in, and I’m not sure why not. For example, capitalism spends billions and billions of dollars every year seeking to influence you into believing that your ‘true’ identity is yet another purchase away. For instance, are you a Mac or a PC? A Holden or a Ford? A Marlboro man or will only the best do, with Benson and Hedges? Beer or wine? The identity products are endless, each carefully crafted, and each defines us both to those we meet and to ourselves at least as well as our nationality and our religions do. In fact, I would argue that because most of these choices are barely even conscious, they link us to tribes we are hardly even aware we belong to and so are even more insidious than those neatly labelled Catholic and Protestant.
All the same – what a book.
October 23, 2019
I don’t know about you but I get insulted when an author explicitly uses psychoanalytical analysis approvingly to explain gay and lesbian behavior by stating babble along the lines that lesbians had a relationship of some kind with their dad and that made them lesbians and the feminist movement is made up of patriarchal hating lesbians who think San Francisco is special because after the war sailors came home from Asia. Granted some of the author’s nonsense is quoting others such as when he slams ‘feminist materialist’ but he does open his psycho-babble gay and lesbian section by telling the reader he agrees with those he quotes. I don’t need psycho-babble to explain why I am right handed nor do I need it in understanding why there are gays or lesbians (or trans, or bi). The single biggest sea change that happened after proposition hate (prop 8) in California was passed in 2008 is that people don’t see homosexuality as a behavior (choice) but they started seeing it as people were born that way and were made in God’s (or the universe's) image. This author explains homosexuals as if they are choosing their behavior not as if they are born that way.
All of the author’s analysis of his subgroups and his framing seem quaint today. The author is writing in 1996 and 2004. There’s a tidal wave going on as he’s writing and he fails to put the pieces together. For example, he misfires on religion and what was really happening overall with how faith was being reassessed (or even how they are starting to no longer think that homosexuals are an abomination and are going to hell or are at least slowly start to reassess their judgments against them). He is fixated on global World Trade Organization protests and makes them vital to his narrative in his identity story telling. His feminist story telling bleeds oddly into lesbianism and into the psycho-babble I mentioned in the first paragraph. The author is describing the world within its own terms and doesn’t step out of the given paradigms of his time period. Psychoanalysis is a perfect example for why that is such a dangerous way of seeing the world. It took people to get out of that tautology in order to see its flaw and understand why it was circular, ‘everyone is repressed because they deny their own repression’ (Popper will say that in his excellent book ‘Open Society’).
The author at times did get into clock time, cosmic time and secular verse sacred time and did remind me of the vastly superior book by Charles Taylor ‘Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity’. By all means, if you get the urge to read on this topic I would suggest Taylor’s book as superior in every way and that would save you from the disappointment of this book. Even if I had read this volume II when it first came out, I would have probably blasted it for its faults, but 15 years latter this book is an anachronism and is best left on the library bookshelf next to volume II of Oswald Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West’ both books best ignored today.
Overall, this book is a somewhat awful way of getting at his overall theme that our identity is being reshaped by the internet and is weakening the nation and leading to globalism through our identity necessarily reevaluating our values outside of our traditional communal context. Read Charles Taylor’s book instead.
All of the author’s analysis of his subgroups and his framing seem quaint today. The author is writing in 1996 and 2004. There’s a tidal wave going on as he’s writing and he fails to put the pieces together. For example, he misfires on religion and what was really happening overall with how faith was being reassessed (or even how they are starting to no longer think that homosexuals are an abomination and are going to hell or are at least slowly start to reassess their judgments against them). He is fixated on global World Trade Organization protests and makes them vital to his narrative in his identity story telling. His feminist story telling bleeds oddly into lesbianism and into the psycho-babble I mentioned in the first paragraph. The author is describing the world within its own terms and doesn’t step out of the given paradigms of his time period. Psychoanalysis is a perfect example for why that is such a dangerous way of seeing the world. It took people to get out of that tautology in order to see its flaw and understand why it was circular, ‘everyone is repressed because they deny their own repression’ (Popper will say that in his excellent book ‘Open Society’).
The author at times did get into clock time, cosmic time and secular verse sacred time and did remind me of the vastly superior book by Charles Taylor ‘Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity’. By all means, if you get the urge to read on this topic I would suggest Taylor’s book as superior in every way and that would save you from the disappointment of this book. Even if I had read this volume II when it first came out, I would have probably blasted it for its faults, but 15 years latter this book is an anachronism and is best left on the library bookshelf next to volume II of Oswald Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West’ both books best ignored today.
Overall, this book is a somewhat awful way of getting at his overall theme that our identity is being reshaped by the internet and is weakening the nation and leading to globalism through our identity necessarily reevaluating our values outside of our traditional communal context. Read Charles Taylor’s book instead.
August 26, 2007
This is the best of Castells' trilogy. While it's never easy to read Castells' writing, mostly due to his style of writing -- repetitious, contradictory, and confusing (therefore I gave 4 stars instead of 5)-- it was so exciting to read this one. He offers a very convincing framework to grasp and understand the socio-cultural-political dynamics associated with the technological transformation of our society and with the globalization of the economy. It provides excellent analysis of the importance of cultural, religious and national identity as sources of meaning for people and its implication for social movement and offers a new way of looking at the dynamics of global and local change. Ironically, the strength and the weakness of this book lies on the same pod: its ambitious and lustrous tendency. It gives you broad picture, yet sometimes it's too broad and too sketchy.
Personally, this book is so dear to me, as it was the main key for me, opened up some alternative doors, to frame my dissertation. I don't always agree with Castells. I am always in agree-disagree relationship with him. In fact, in my dissertation I did criticize him on some concepts. But all in all, I owe Castells much for challenging me in my way of thinking.
Personally, this book is so dear to me, as it was the main key for me, opened up some alternative doors, to frame my dissertation. I don't always agree with Castells. I am always in agree-disagree relationship with him. In fact, in my dissertation I did criticize him on some concepts. But all in all, I owe Castells much for challenging me in my way of thinking.
Read
July 3, 2012This was probably a bit more relevant of a text in the delirious years after the end of the Cold War, when the air was thick with "The End of History" and the incipient crushing forces of total globalization, a universal liberal democracy, and a free market of heretofore unknown efficiency... a time, in other words, when a statement as banal as "people still care about their culture, religion, etc." was actually considered important.
To sum up Castells' basic argument, identities continue to thrive not in spite of but largely due to the highly networked nature of the globalized world. I find this to be a a reasonable and fairly obvious statement. Thankfully, he's fairly ambivalent about this prospect, rather than either gushing over it or decrying it, so he actually comes off as a trustworthy researcher. But especially compared to The Rise of the Network Society, it's not really that stunning.
To sum up Castells' basic argument, identities continue to thrive not in spite of but largely due to the highly networked nature of the globalized world. I find this to be a a reasonable and fairly obvious statement. Thankfully, he's fairly ambivalent about this prospect, rather than either gushing over it or decrying it, so he actually comes off as a trustworthy researcher. But especially compared to The Rise of the Network Society, it's not really that stunning.
October 5, 2008
That's a great book. I love the trilogy. I translated an essay of his, which is here: http://www.negations.net/neo-anarchis...
August 27, 2025
Manuel Castells’ The Power of Identity (1997; revised edition 2004), the second volume of his trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, explores the ways in which identity becomes a central axis of meaning, power, and conflict in the network society. Whereas the first volume, The Rise of the Network Society, foregrounded the structural transformation of capitalism through digital technologies and global flows, The Power of Identity examines the subjective and cultural dimensions of this transformation. Castells argues that in an era where traditional sources of meaning—nation, class, religion—are destabilized by informational globalization, identity emerges as the primary source of orientation, resistance, and legitimacy.
The central thesis of the book is that identity constitutes the fundamental principle of social organization and political mobilization in the information age. Castells distinguishes between three types of identity formation: legitimizing identity, constructed by dominant institutions to extend their authority; resistance identity, developed by marginalized actors in opposition to dominant structures; and project identity, created when social actors seek to redefine their position and transform society. This tripartite framework provides a powerful analytic tool for understanding the rise of new social movements, the resurgence of nationalism, and the persistence of religious and cultural traditions in a globalized, networked world.
A major contribution of the book is its detailed empirical exploration of identity-based movements across diverse cultural and political contexts. Castells devotes substantial attention to religious fundamentalism, particularly Islamic and Christian movements, interpreting them as forms of resistance identity that react against the homogenizing forces of global capitalism and cultural secularization. He also examines the rise of environmentalism, feminism, and gay rights movements as examples of project identities that seek to construct new cultural codes and reshape institutions. These case studies underscore Castells’ argument that identity, far from being a residual or secondary phenomenon, is a primary driver of collective action in the network society.
Castells also traces how identities interact with political institutions and nation-states. He contends that the global integration of financial markets and digital networks undermines traditional sources of state legitimacy, leaving a vacuum filled by identity politics. This dynamic can yield both emancipatory and regressive outcomes: on one hand, it fuels movements for autonomy, diversity, and cultural recognition; on the other, it enables the rise of exclusionary nationalisms, ethnic conflicts, and religious fundamentalisms. The dual nature of identity—as a source of empowerment and as a vehicle of division—runs as a leitmotif throughout the book.
Methodologically, Castells combines sociological theory with comparative political analysis and cultural interpretation. His use of a wide range of case studies across continents enhances the book’s breadth, though occasionally at the cost of analytical depth. The conceptual framework of legitimizing, resistance, and project identities, however, offers a robust lens through which to interpret both local and global transformations.
Critics of The Power of Identity have noted that Castells’ emphasis on the structural logic of the network society can understate the role of contingency and political strategy. While his tripartite typology of identity is illuminating, it risks oversimplifying the fluid and overlapping nature of lived identities. Moreover, the rapidly evolving landscape of digital communication—especially the rise of social media platforms after the book’s publication—introduces new complexities in the construction and dissemination of identities that extend beyond Castells’ original analysis. Nonetheless, the core insights remain highly relevant to contemporary debates on populism, digital activism, and the politics of recognition.
The Power of Identity stands as a seminal contribution to the study of globalization, culture, and politics. By situating identity at the heart of the network society, Castells illuminates both the opportunities and the dangers inherent in the reshaping of collective life in the information age. For scholars of sociology, political science, cultural studies, and communication, the book remains indispensable not only as part of Castells’ broader theoretical system but also as a standalone analysis of the cultural dynamics of globalization. It is a work that continues to resonate, offering a framework to interpret the ongoing struggles over belonging, legitimacy, and meaning in the twenty-first century.
GPT
The central thesis of the book is that identity constitutes the fundamental principle of social organization and political mobilization in the information age. Castells distinguishes between three types of identity formation: legitimizing identity, constructed by dominant institutions to extend their authority; resistance identity, developed by marginalized actors in opposition to dominant structures; and project identity, created when social actors seek to redefine their position and transform society. This tripartite framework provides a powerful analytic tool for understanding the rise of new social movements, the resurgence of nationalism, and the persistence of religious and cultural traditions in a globalized, networked world.
A major contribution of the book is its detailed empirical exploration of identity-based movements across diverse cultural and political contexts. Castells devotes substantial attention to religious fundamentalism, particularly Islamic and Christian movements, interpreting them as forms of resistance identity that react against the homogenizing forces of global capitalism and cultural secularization. He also examines the rise of environmentalism, feminism, and gay rights movements as examples of project identities that seek to construct new cultural codes and reshape institutions. These case studies underscore Castells’ argument that identity, far from being a residual or secondary phenomenon, is a primary driver of collective action in the network society.
Castells also traces how identities interact with political institutions and nation-states. He contends that the global integration of financial markets and digital networks undermines traditional sources of state legitimacy, leaving a vacuum filled by identity politics. This dynamic can yield both emancipatory and regressive outcomes: on one hand, it fuels movements for autonomy, diversity, and cultural recognition; on the other, it enables the rise of exclusionary nationalisms, ethnic conflicts, and religious fundamentalisms. The dual nature of identity—as a source of empowerment and as a vehicle of division—runs as a leitmotif throughout the book.
Methodologically, Castells combines sociological theory with comparative political analysis and cultural interpretation. His use of a wide range of case studies across continents enhances the book’s breadth, though occasionally at the cost of analytical depth. The conceptual framework of legitimizing, resistance, and project identities, however, offers a robust lens through which to interpret both local and global transformations.
Critics of The Power of Identity have noted that Castells’ emphasis on the structural logic of the network society can understate the role of contingency and political strategy. While his tripartite typology of identity is illuminating, it risks oversimplifying the fluid and overlapping nature of lived identities. Moreover, the rapidly evolving landscape of digital communication—especially the rise of social media platforms after the book’s publication—introduces new complexities in the construction and dissemination of identities that extend beyond Castells’ original analysis. Nonetheless, the core insights remain highly relevant to contemporary debates on populism, digital activism, and the politics of recognition.
The Power of Identity stands as a seminal contribution to the study of globalization, culture, and politics. By situating identity at the heart of the network society, Castells illuminates both the opportunities and the dangers inherent in the reshaping of collective life in the information age. For scholars of sociology, political science, cultural studies, and communication, the book remains indispensable not only as part of Castells’ broader theoretical system but also as a standalone analysis of the cultural dynamics of globalization. It is a work that continues to resonate, offering a framework to interpret the ongoing struggles over belonging, legitimacy, and meaning in the twenty-first century.
GPT
December 25, 2015
Excellent book. This came close to five stars for me but suffered somewhat from trying to cover too much, and thus leaving out some important details. Castell's first volume in The Information Age was really interesting and unique. The network society was defined as something that the political could not wrap up into a neat little formula as some have tried to do when speculating on the positive or negative effects of technological growth. Castell's made this point by presenting huge amounts of empirical data on how varied global trends can be concerning technology's relation to employment, media, and information economy. His revelations on the history and diversity of informationalism and technological progress is an excellent blue print for social and political theory. Specifically because it addresses technology as something that, in spite of being inevitable, is fairly contingent and dependent on the institutions that create and govern it.
The second volume is more of a meditation on ideology. This makes Castell's project more apparent. What he is ultimately trying to do is define and describe the major aspects of the global network. This is an important task for academics to take on, but at the same time, an author that does this is almost setting themselves up to fail by tackling too much. With that said the descriptions of differing ideologies are incredible. Descriptions of religion, nationalism, and patriarchy are analytic and sincere, often tying into a variety of ugly truths about their relations to social institutions, norms, and laws. His discussion for the way ideology can restructure and evolve in movements such as feminism and environmentalism present excellent examples of positive social activism moving into the 21st century. He also examines how media technology now adds new power to spreading normative values, old and new, within these differing social identities.
The problem though with analyzing multiple ideologies and then tying it back into some of the major themes in the last book is that important details get lost. Religion, for example, is a politically and institutionally complex ideology. Religion has contributed to authoritarianism and often has helped justify and excuse violations of human rights. At the same time it has led crucial humanitarian and political movements for marginalized people around the world. Castell's discusses this slightly with the Zapatistas movement but he never really captures the crux of the dilemma that religion has, often caught between pluralist interpretations and fundamentalism. The point being that, while this book covers a lot of interesting ground, Castell's can never give one identity, movement, or ideology the service it deserves by trying to define so much at once.
Overall the second volume does a good job at a fairly difficult project. I will be interested to see how the third volume wraps things up.
The second volume is more of a meditation on ideology. This makes Castell's project more apparent. What he is ultimately trying to do is define and describe the major aspects of the global network. This is an important task for academics to take on, but at the same time, an author that does this is almost setting themselves up to fail by tackling too much. With that said the descriptions of differing ideologies are incredible. Descriptions of religion, nationalism, and patriarchy are analytic and sincere, often tying into a variety of ugly truths about their relations to social institutions, norms, and laws. His discussion for the way ideology can restructure and evolve in movements such as feminism and environmentalism present excellent examples of positive social activism moving into the 21st century. He also examines how media technology now adds new power to spreading normative values, old and new, within these differing social identities.
The problem though with analyzing multiple ideologies and then tying it back into some of the major themes in the last book is that important details get lost. Religion, for example, is a politically and institutionally complex ideology. Religion has contributed to authoritarianism and often has helped justify and excuse violations of human rights. At the same time it has led crucial humanitarian and political movements for marginalized people around the world. Castell's discusses this slightly with the Zapatistas movement but he never really captures the crux of the dilemma that religion has, often caught between pluralist interpretations and fundamentalism. The point being that, while this book covers a lot of interesting ground, Castell's can never give one identity, movement, or ideology the service it deserves by trying to define so much at once.
Overall the second volume does a good job at a fairly difficult project. I will be interested to see how the third volume wraps things up.
December 11, 2008
While I agree with many things Prof Castells says, I find many of his arguments tangential at best. He tends to rely on the anecdote a little too much in this book - and perhaps on small sample research (for some of his more interesting claims - especially towards sexuality and gender).
The scope of the book is ambitious to say the least, sadly he has fallen into a trap mostly reserved for economists - namely making rash statements about the world without really going too deep into the information he is standing upon.
The scope of the book is ambitious to say the least, sadly he has fallen into a trap mostly reserved for economists - namely making rash statements about the world without really going too deep into the information he is standing upon.
October 8, 2007
Elightening view of current social movements and how they are effecting the development of the world today. Very academic - be ware.
May 11, 2022
Culture is shaped throughout history; Throughout human history, we have seen the potentials of culture through many social structures. Now we were thinking what could be more, when a new world emerged; Internet. This new structure of the internet, where both globalization and localization can go hand in hand; has led to the emergence of unique cultures and identities. In this book, Castells mostly explains how identities and cultures in the 'physical world' can realize themselves in the virtual world. Through this narrative, we can also observe how the internet organizes culture and identity mechanisms. In short, this book does not directly describe our day, but it allows us to build an excellent tool for understanding the present. It is a must-read book, especially for social scientists who want to analyze the links between technology and culture.
December 30, 2024
Required reading for anyone saying anything about "society". Its global scope is particularly beneficial to inward-looking small minds grown in echo chambers. Admittedly leftist and feminist, lucid, terse, and witty.
Favourite quote:
Favourite quote:
Let us now turn to analyze the underlying trends at the root of this crisis and, it is to be hoped, at the source of new forms of togetherness between women, children, pets, and even men.
March 22, 2018
Self Identity’s strong and can affect the social, economic and political environment. This book well explains how social movements can grow from small groups of independent people to political parties or extremists based on religious fundamentalism. Well explained, catchy and smooth! Recommended
August 7, 2020
This is such a thoroughly researched book. I absolutely admire Castells and his work in developing and analyzing the network society. A must read for anyone interested in researching the media landscape, identity politics in the digital age, and the digitalization of social movements.
August 4, 2018
One of the best studies on the current state of the society I've ever read. Rich, informative, smart, objective.
November 21, 2019
Read half-and-half with my classmate. Even the half of it almost killed me. The book would be only half of its length if he didn't repeat the same stuff over and over again.
October 24, 2024
mi-a mancat zilele si mi-a placut
September 3, 2025
Fundamental para entender el siglo XXI
April 24, 2014
This is another book I had to read for a graduate seminar which was dull and boring. It is a little better than one of the other books for the seminar which I previously reviewed
but not by much! Fortunately the other books required look much more interesting.
This book covers how we identify ourselves and others by our nation, gender, religion, race, ethnic group, environmentalism and more. The ideas are great- it is just that the writing is pompous. You spend so much time trying to figure out what the hell he is trying to say that there isn't much time left to interact with the ideas. That is a shame because there are some fascinating topics here. For example- the nationalistic feeling people have for their country and how it can lead to antagonism with others from other countries when we feel our ways are better and we and our country are superior, There is also the ways people feel a link to the land and their people in areas that are not actually separate countries (like Palestine). I found the information on the building of the Soviet Union and the breakup of said union into parts and the variables involved to be timely and relevant but written in such a blowhard way. The information on patriarchal society, environmentalism, social movements, terrorism, the global economy, and the internet age really was juicy information dried out by dull writing. Really, someone should tell Manuel Castells that books should be written in an interesting way to benefit readers and help them to relate to and interact with the ideas rather than sounding like a string of incoherent sociology-speak.
but not by much! Fortunately the other books required look much more interesting. This book covers how we identify ourselves and others by our nation, gender, religion, race, ethnic group, environmentalism and more. The ideas are great- it is just that the writing is pompous. You spend so much time trying to figure out what the hell he is trying to say that there isn't much time left to interact with the ideas. That is a shame because there are some fascinating topics here. For example- the nationalistic feeling people have for their country and how it can lead to antagonism with others from other countries when we feel our ways are better and we and our country are superior, There is also the ways people feel a link to the land and their people in areas that are not actually separate countries (like Palestine). I found the information on the building of the Soviet Union and the breakup of said union into parts and the variables involved to be timely and relevant but written in such a blowhard way. The information on patriarchal society, environmentalism, social movements, terrorism, the global economy, and the internet age really was juicy information dried out by dull writing. Really, someone should tell Manuel Castells that books should be written in an interesting way to benefit readers and help them to relate to and interact with the ideas rather than sounding like a string of incoherent sociology-speak.
July 15, 2019
Este é o segundo livro da trilogia “A Era da Informação”, de Manuel Castells. O primeiro é “A Sociedade em Rede” e o terceiro, “O Fim do Milênio”. Nesta obra o autor analisa a formação de diferentes tipos de identidades pelo mundo e como elas impactam o conceito de Estados-Nação da maneira como o conhecemos. Qual a influência da globalização na formação dessas identidades? Quando se deu uma das primeiras "revoluções” fortemente impulsionada pela internet no século 20? Estaria o modelo de liderança pessoal ameaçado pelo poder de mobilização da internet? Quais os tipos de identidades que fundamentam a formação de grupos sociais e quais suas motivações? Fundamentado em inúmeros dados estatísticos o autor Manuel Castells tenta responder essas perguntas ou ao menos levar o leitor a refletir a respeito.
June 16, 2012
The three volumes that this book is a part of ate staggering in scope and often penetrating in analysis. Castells' theory of flow is groundbreaking and provides a framework for an entirely new direction in communication theory, the political economy of mediated communication, and the politics of information and culture.
One critique of these three volumes is that there are moments in all three books where Castells becomes nostalgic for a so-called authentic urban space and culture that is highly problematic. As well, his theory of the spatiality and temporality of flow is undertheorised. that said, this is one of theist important series of works on communication to surface in the last 20 years. All three volumes are must reads.
One critique of these three volumes is that there are moments in all three books where Castells becomes nostalgic for a so-called authentic urban space and culture that is highly problematic. As well, his theory of the spatiality and temporality of flow is undertheorised. that said, this is one of theist important series of works on communication to surface in the last 20 years. All three volumes are must reads.
April 17, 2013
This book is useful for understanding the emergence of many social movements in today's globalised world, such as religious fundamentalism, feminism, environmentalism, etc. Castells explores how the power of identity play important roles to force social transformation in the informational society. He explains that legitimising identities are drained away as the the role of nation-state is increasingly diminished. Responding the growing acts of terrorism in this new millennium, Castells argues that religious identity becomes more prevalent because of the disappointment towards the nation-state which is failed to bring welfare into the society.
April 24, 2016
While not dynamic as its predecessor, this book is still a rewarding thing for any reader. Castells' insights on recent Mexican history, especially, intrigue.
This passage works well as any to synthesize its book's largest theme:
When the world becomes too large to be controlled, social actors aim at shrinking it back to their size and reach. When networks dissolve time and space, people anchor themselves in places, and recall their historic memory. When the patriarchal sustainment of personality breaks down, people affirm the transcendent value of family and community, as God's will. (p. 66)
This passage works well as any to synthesize its book's largest theme:
When the world becomes too large to be controlled, social actors aim at shrinking it back to their size and reach. When networks dissolve time and space, people anchor themselves in places, and recall their historic memory. When the patriarchal sustainment of personality breaks down, people affirm the transcendent value of family and community, as God's will. (p. 66)
August 21, 2016
La complejidad de Castells que le da respuesta a tanto liderazgo personalizado, manipulación tecnológica, financiación ilegal, partidos políticos sin atractivos y repetitivos y un resto burocrático, privado de la confianza pública. Es interesante desarrollar y comprender los 3 tipos de identidades que surgen en el marco de las relaciones de poder y la manera en que éstas juegan un papel determinante en los espacios para definir sentidos y funciones en una sociedad altamente cambiante y racionalizada por los espacios económicos.
Totalmente recomendado.
Totalmente recomendado.
March 6, 2008
ini buku jilid keduanya.
yang jilid pertama gak baca :-)
dulu kenal castells karena komporan pak bangun untuk buku castells yang lain: "urban questions".
lalu, buku ini beli untuk perpustakaan [dan saya nebeng baca] karena tertarik tajuk-tajuk yang mengisinya, yakni tentang konstruksi identitas dan gerakan-gerakan sosial yang diakibatkannya. termasuk adalah gerakan fundamentalisme di banyak agama.
yang jilid pertama gak baca :-)
dulu kenal castells karena komporan pak bangun untuk buku castells yang lain: "urban questions".
lalu, buku ini beli untuk perpustakaan [dan saya nebeng baca] karena tertarik tajuk-tajuk yang mengisinya, yakni tentang konstruksi identitas dan gerakan-gerakan sosial yang diakibatkannya. termasuk adalah gerakan fundamentalisme di banyak agama.
December 23, 2010
Fantastic overview of neo-liberal identities in the globalized world. He thoroughly puts into perspective how social networks are operating and interacting, how grass-roots movements are re-shaping identity, and the operations of us-them dichotomies around the world.
July 15, 2020
Manuel Castells was one of the "must read" authors when you took IR subject.
His research was so important because it showed you how informations flexibel the information is, in this 21st century era
His research was so important because it showed you how informations flexibel the information is, in this 21st century era
Read
May 4, 2010Great analysis!
Read
October 23, 2010Very sorry, I don't know to say about this book as I've never read it at all. Though, all Castells works I like and love them very much.
November 9, 2024
Pietra miliare per ogni comunicatore
May 30, 2011
this book is going to help me finish my thesis. hopefully :)
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