Abstract

BAJOIT, Guy. La renovación de la sociología contemporánea. Cultura representaciones soc [online]. 2008, vol.3, n.5, pp.9-31. ISSN 2007-8110.

For contemporary sociologists, the place of individuals in social life has become central; this due to the great cultural changes that have taken place in all areas of social relationships: family, school, work, religion, politics, pleasure and collective action. Such changes have implied the relaxation of structural determinism, and at the same time, the demand that individuals make use of their reflexive capacity and behave as individuals-subjects-actors. Sociology needs to take into account this new situation and renew its concepts and theories in order to be able to deal and explain contemporary life. The great cultural changes that are taking place, can be explained due to the lack of credibility of the cultural industry model and its gradual substitution for a new one, that could be called an identity cultural model, which appeals to an individual who regards himself/herself as an autonomous and responsible subject, and as a civic and competitive actor in his/her relations with the others and with the world. For sociologists, the whole problem lies in how to approach, in theoretical and methodological terms, the individual considered in that way. This article suggests socio-analysis as a possible answer, since it implies the suppression of the institutional borderline between sociology and psychology, and the articulation of three theoretical traditions: the theory of ideologies (Marx), the theory of habitus (Bourdieu) and the theory of the unconscious (Freud).

Keywords : sociología contemporánea; psicosociología; Marx; Freud; Bourdieu.