Economies of Signs and Space

Scott Lash · John Urry

dic 1993 · SAGE

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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 subjects - refugees, financiers, tourists and fl[ci]aneurs - are mobile over ever greater distances at ever greater speeds.

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Professor Scott Lash is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, as well as a a project leader in the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme. He is a leading name within sociology and cultural studies, has written numerous books and articles over the last twenty years, and is currently the managing editor for the journal Theory, Culture and Society.