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This article investigates the place of postmodernism in sociology today by making a distinction between its epistemological and empirical forms. During the 1980s and early 1990s, sociologists exposited, appropriated, and normalized an epistemological postmodernism that thematizes the tentative, reflective, and possibly shifting nature of knowledge. More recently, however, sociologists have recognized the potential of a postmodern theory that turns its attention to empirical concerns. Empirical postmodernists challenge classical modern concepts to develop research programs based on new concepts like time-space reorganization, risk society, consumer capitalism, and postmodern ethics. But they do so with an appreciation for the uncertainty of the social world, ourselves, our concepts, and our commitment to our concepts that results from the encounter with postmodern epistemology. Ultimately, this article suggests that understanding postmodernism as a combination of these two moments can lead to a sociology whose epistemological modesty and empirical sensitivity encourage a deeper and broader approach to the contemporary social world.
After more than two decades of sociological ruminations on the topic of postmodernism, we seem, in some ways, to have reached saturation and to be turning away from the use of the term. As early as 1987, a newspaper column on design announced the recession of postmodernism (Gitlin 1989:191). That architectural experts described the waning of postmodernism first is not surprising, as architecture is usually considered the birthplace of postmodernism (Jencks 1987; Portoghesi 1983). More recently, sociologists, late to embrace the postmodern, have been speaking of its demise (Runciman 1999; Demerath 1996) and a time period after postmodernism (Antonio 2000; Owen 1997; Mouzelis 1996; McLennon 1995). But, despite these arguments, the term persists (Agger 2002; Delanty 2000; Callinicos 1999; Allan 1998; Anderson 1998; Jameson 1998; Lemert 1997).1
Another seeming end to postmodernism comes from those who intend to replace postmodernism with late modernism, reflexive modernism, and radicalized modernism (Beck 1997, 1994, 1992; Beck, Giddens, and Lash 1994; Giddens 1994a, 1994b, 1994c, 1992, 1991, 1990). When we examine the themes, issues, and topics of these approaches, however, we find them to be similar to what postmodernists pursue.2 It is possible that what these new terms reveal is a turn away from some facets of postmodernism: a break with a particular type of late 1980s and early 1990s postmodernism. Evidence below...