Metaphor and the Sociological Imagination of Zygmunt Bauman(مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) consistently oscillates between the roles of sociologist and novelist throughout his works, and, unlike many other sociologists, he makes conscious and deliberate use of metaphor. The aim of this article is to examine the metaphorical concepts in Zygmunt Bauman’s imagination by employing the “metaphor identification method” and drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson as well as Paul Ricoeur. The findings of the study reveal that Bauman employs metaphors at both the ontological and methodological levels. For Bauman, metaphor is not merely a descriptive tool, but a research strategy for examining abstract and intangible aspects of human life such as inequality, globalization, ethics, suffering, love, solidarity, and oppression. The overarching and central metaphor in Bauman’s thought is liquidity. His other metaphors are subordinate to the metaphor of liquid modernity and are coherently interconnected within this conceptual constellation. He believes the old order is collapsing in the transition from solid to liquid modernity, but the new has not yet been born. Moreover, many of Bauman’s metaphors exhibit temporal, spatial, and binary characteristics. These metaphors allow Bauman not only to describe the complexities of modern society but also to make them experientially accessible and intellectually comprehensible. Bauman’s notion of a liquid society can be seen as a metaphorical extension of concepts such as Giddens’s “late modernity,” Ulrich Beck’s “risk society,” and Lyotard’s “postmodern.” However, Bauman reconfigures and re-narrates these ideas through a distinct theoretical framework inspired by Paul Ricoeur.