In the context of predominance of knowledge and information technologies, power and the social institutions in which it is embodied have been subjected to deep tensions that are giving rise to their gradual transformation. The question that I wish to answer is a double one. In the first place, whether the great institutions that provide meaning in the modern world have really entered into crisis. In the second place, whether, together with the traditional forms of collective identity, there are new sources of identity and meaning in advanced societies. The hypothesis that I wish to defend asserts that the processes of transformation that are being generated by globalisation are eroding the traditional institutional forms and setting underway a powerful social restructuring, which is giving rise to new socio-political mobilisations and fomenting the appearance of social movements that are bearers of new values. Amongst the latter I am interested in those social movements that have a greater capacity for producing collective identities and for transforming the values of society, in order to see if we can find in them the seed of new personal and collective identities. I identify these as the symbolic challenges of difference, the naturalisation of globalisation, inclusive citizenship, creative cultural diversity, the construction of the social condition and the modern social question.

• INDEX
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Collective action, mobilisation and collective identity construction in today’s society
  • 3. Transformations of the social institutions and collective identity in modern society
    • 3.1 When the pulpit is found empty
    • 3.2 Work in order to consume, consume oneself working
    • 3.3 Politics and citizenship: the show must go on
  • 4. Concerning the old that refuses to disappear: the traditional sources of meaning in modern society
    • 4.1 The map of religious mobilisation
    • 4.2 Work is an ambit……
    • 4.3 Ethno-nationalist mobilisation
  • 5. Concerning the new that complexity designates to us: social movements in the process of identity construction
    • 5.1 The symbolic challenges of difference
    • 5.2 The naturalisation of globalisation
    • 5.3 Inclusive citizenship
    • 5.4 Creative cultural diversity
    • 5.5 The construction of the social condition
    • 5.6 The modern social question
  • 6. Conclusion
• Bibliography