Acceleration and Cultural Change: Dialogues from an Overheated World (excerpt)

Abstract

The book “Acceleration and Cultural Changes: Dialogues from an Overheated World” features dialogues between leading anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen and young scholar Martina Visentin. This volume aims to introduce academic and non-academic readers to a novel approach to globalization capable of synthesizing and interpreting social change that has been happening at lightning speed, unequally and unevenly. According to Professor Eriksen, the social issue is that modernity faced accelerating processes of change and various developments that are growing and accelerating without a thermostat, without a regulating mechanism which tells them it’s time to stop. Using overheating as a metaphor for unregulated acceleration since the 1990s, the authors discuss key topics including biodiversity loss, migration-driven differences, climate intersections, heated identities and protests, digital time perception, university pressures, youth disillusionment, and post-COVID reflections. The Journal of Economic Sociology publishes the seventh chapter, “Life in the Digital World,” where the authors explore smartphones’ role in reshaping daily social life rhythms.