Chapter 13 Mobile Sociology

I admire Mr. Urry very much for his wonderful writing, but I kept feeling that this piece is a little too dense to read. There are a lot of metaphors, especially when he talks about “global fluids” (p.197). Too many metaphors without specific examples and evidence gave me some headache.

He did make a good analysis of the transformation of society, emphasizing “globalization”. However, is there anything new? Anything different or beyond Castell’s description and analysis expect for more metaphors?

Urry claims that the “complex” nature of the society (or societies) makes all the classic sociological theories useless (p. 197), and only “complexity theory” is helpful for understanding the societies. I really doubt this. When were the societies not complex? Although they might have not been so complex in the global sense before the last century, it has always been extremely complex, at least on local levels. If the class theories worked for the “older” societies, I don’t see why they will totally lose their power in the globalizing world.

Last but not least, there is no society? Well, it makes some sense if we wanna emphasize the globalization. But, the society defined here is completely based on nation state. When we talk about “human society” or “western society”, we don’t merely mean the nation-based societies. Besides, although I agree that the world is becoming a globalizing society, there are still so many things that are particular to a certain societies (regions, nations, whatever) and worth studying, I believe, by sociologists.