Zygmunt BAUMAN’s scientific contributions

... The concept of world risk society represents the conundrum of the era in which we live: a highly industrialised society since around the 1980s, which sociologists variously refer to as 'late modern' (Giddens), 22 'second modern' (Beck), 23 or 'liquid modern' (Bauman). 24 This era is distinguished from the earlier, 'first' or 'solid' modern in that in the late/second/liquid modernity individualisation of social institutions advances, and social bonds, which connected individuals to modern institutions such as the (predominantly nuclear) family, (reasonably stable) workplace and, and in the case of the West, (still influential) church, weaken. Instead, living one's own life, and pursuing individual life projects has become the common denominator of the late/second/liquid modern in the advanced industrial countries. ...

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Life-world: Beyond Fukushima and Minamata