The Predicament of Society?: Sociological Imagination in the Age of Globalization.

The concept "society" has become the subject of critical debates. Sociologists who proclaim the predicament of "society" argue that sociology had identified the concept "society" with "nation-state", and the validity of this identification has expired in the age of "globalization". Has the term of the concept "society" been really expired? This paper asserts that what we need now in the age of "globalization" is not to throw away the concept "society" but to rehabilitate it. For rehabilitating the concept "society", I introduce the distinction between "society as a whole" and "society in a narrow sense". I analyze the transformation of "society" and the development of sociology from the late 19th century to the present based on this distinction. Through the historical analysis, I point out two characters of the "society" in the age of globalization: invisibilization and individualization of "society". The conclusion is that, if we can dismantle the sociological imagination of the 20th century and rebuild our approach into "society in a narrow sense" based on a re-imagined "society as a whole", the age of globalization will promote the re-birth of sociology. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]