The Individualisation Thesis

According to Furlong and Cartmel (1997), in the space of one generation there have been some radical changes to the typical experiences of young people, whereby they now see their decision-making as individual ‘choice’ rather than the product of structured constraints. In the late modern period, individuals are constantly involved in projects of self-construction. Individualisation has emerged as a central theoretical construct to characterise recent transformations within society and the life course (Mills, 2007, p. 61). The individualisation thesis posits that identity is transformed from a ‘given’ into a ‘task’ and that individuals are encouraged to take responsibility for this task (Bauman, 2000, p. 31). The thesis has many proponents, each with their own interpretations. Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman can be identified as the main individualisation theorists (Dawson, 2012, p. 306).

Beck

Arguably Ulrich Beck has been the most systematic and rational in outlining a theory of individualisation (Dawson, 2012, p. 305). In his book Risk Society: Towards a New

millennium, we are witnessing a ‘break within modernity, which is freeing itself from the contours of the classical industrial society and forging a new form—the industrial “risk society”’ (1992, p. 9). According to Beck, previous predictabilities and certainties of the first scientific industrial era are broken and people are constantly confronted with risks and concerned about the elimination of the risks.

Within the context of the risk society, Beck presents his model of individualisation. According to this model, people were removed from ‘historically prescribed social forms and commitments in the sense of traditional contexts of dominance and support.’ The initial disembeddedment makes individuals simultaneously independent to make their own choices and also responsible for their own survival. This is most apparent in what Beck describes as a ‘life of one’s own’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002), followed by ‘the loss of traditional security with respect to practical knowledge, faith and guiding norms’ (1992, p. 128). A new type of social commitment was becoming re-embedded: the controlling and reintegrating of individuals (1992).

For this ‘re-embedding’, new ‘mode of reintegration and control’, Beck proposes three theses: the first is that the individuals, regardless of status, class or family, become ‘the agents of their livelihood mediated by the market, as well as of their biographical planning and organization.’ Governments or other bureaucratic structures presume the individual is the basis, rather than a collective large unit, and they require the individual to take responsibility for his or her self-determination. His second thesis is that despite the variety of biographical situations, individualisation brings about a ‘standardisation’, which is the result of being dependent on the labour market. The individual must modify his or her biography according to the requirements of market forces. His third thesis is that there are no longer merely private situations, but always institutional ones. The apparent outside of the institutions becomes the inside of the individual biography. Placing the responsibility and the decision-making on the individual’s shoulders makes ‘do it yourself biography’ possible; however, it also creates the illusion of structure being dismantled, when in reality it is still present, only transformed and obscured. Structural failures are hidden and transformed into personal failures. Living your own life means taking responsibility for your misfortunes and unanticipated events (1992, p. 130). In Bauman’s terms, taking responsibility for one’s choices is the process of ‘subsidisation’ (Bauman, 2006, p. 4), meaning the previously collective decisions are now decided by individual considerations and choices. This privatisation of responsibility, which appears to be freedom, encourages individuals to find biographical solutions in conditions of ambivalence and uncertainty

without giving them the power and guidance to do so (Bauman, 2007c).

Beck constantly reminds his readers of the contradictions in the processes of individualisation (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). He argues that:

Coupled with this interest in “the individual solution”, there is however considerable pressure to conform and behave in a standardised way; the means which encourage individualism also induce sameness…the situations which arise are contradictory because double-faced individual decisions are heavily dependent on outside influences. (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, p. 40)

The process of individualisation offers people freedom of choice and cuts them loose from traditional forms, while also subjecting them to the control of institutions upon which they are increasingly dependent. The process dismantles structures only to replace them with other, less conspicuous ones. The individual biography becomes reflexive, but it also means that people should be responsible for the consequences of their reflexivity. The next section discusses the ideas of another individualisation theorist, Zygmunt Bauman.

Bauman

Bauman’s understanding of individualisation differs significantly from Beck’s, particularly in respect of his focus on late modern processes as stratification, as distinct from Beck’s integration (Dawson, 2010, p. 13). For Beck, there is little suggestion that some individuals are more reflexive or that some are more individualised. However, by linking individualisation to consumerism, Bauman argues that individualisation is an uneven ‘redistribution of freedoms’ and ‘the volume of freedom depends solely on the ability to pay’. For Bauman, there is stratification within individualisation:

Being an individual de jure (by decree of law or by the salt of personal guilt being rubbed into the wound left by socially produced impotence) by no means guarantees individuality de facto, and many lacked the resources to deploy the rights implied by the first in the struggle for the second. (Bauman, 2007c, p. 58)

Bauman sees a polarisation within this irreversible trend of individualisation. The ability to partake in this trend is greatly limited to those who have resources. Bauman refers to monetary resources, but they can also include the ability to have one’s choice identified as ‘legitimate’ (Bauman, 2005). Those who fail to have their choices verified, or to act up their choices, are ‘faulty consumers’ (Bauman, 2007b). For Bauman, the process of

individualisation is a process of uneven ‘redistribution of freedoms’ (Bauman, 2000, p. 218). There is no universally available opportunity to be ‘reflexive’ or ‘agentic’ as a way of responding to the increased personal responsibility (Bauman, 2000). As Bauman writes, ‘There is a growing gap between individuality as fate and individuality as a practical capacity for self-assertion; and bridging that gap is, more crucially, not part of that capacity’ (2001, p. 47).

Compared to Beck, Bauman’s focus falls more prominently on embedded, rather than on disembedded, individualisation (Dawson, 2010). While agreeing with Beck that there is increased empowerment of individuals above and beyond previous forms of social constraint, Bauman sees individualisation as a privatisation of responsibility, disguised as freedom (Bauman, 1992), which often puts the individual in a position of uncertainty (Bauman 2007c) or ambivalence (Bauman, 1991). The individuals, who are now expected to be ‘free choosers’ are responsible for ‘resolving the quandaries generated by vexingly volatile and constantly changing circumstances’ (Bauman, 2007c, p. 3). As Beck puts it, ‘How one lives becomes a biographical solution to systemic contradictions’ (cite in Bauman, 2007c). The fear of inadequacy and a sense of impotency are the results of this affiliation.

Bauman notes the polarisation of freedom and uneven distribution of resources and capacities. For large sections of the population, polarisation means growing impotence and insecurity that ‘prevent in practice what the new individualism hails in theory and promises, but fails, to deliver: the genuine and radical freedom of self-constitution and self-assertion’ (Bauman, 2001, p. 96).

Individualisation and Chinese youth

The individualisation thesis describes a set of complex phenomena present in Western Europe since the late 1970s. However, individualisation is not a trend that is exclusive to Western societies (Beck and Grande, 2010, p. 415). Yan (2010) argues that as a result of globalisation and neoliberalism, the individualisation process in China resembles that of Western Europe6_{. Similar to Bauman’s view of individualisation in Europe, in China, ‘state} power and politics have been the creators, not the creations, of a transformed society’ (Davis and Harrell, 1993, p. 5). It is never about pursuing one’s choices, but responding to the institutional changes (Yan, 2009, 2010).

In the Reform Era, as Strickland observes, young people in China have experienced constant state-sponsored institutional changes (Strickland, 2012). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the party-state had to guide the college graduates to search for a job in the labour market as they were used to being assigned a job by the state (Hoffman, 2001). By the mid-1990s, Chinese youth had gained a new understanding of society as they ventured into unknown waters with the purpose of fulfilling their material desires; those in disadvantaged positions had to accept personal responsibility for their failure to develop a career (Hanser, 2001). Growing up in this precarious social context is more problematic than ever before.

Why individualisation?

As discussed above, the individualisation thesis provides for this study the required descriptive and rhetorical power in terms of offering a lens through which to view the state- sponsored greater insecurity and increased personal responsibility faced by young people in China, as in other countries. This perspective provides a theoretical basis for the research and illuminates the situation. However, the assertions of the individualisation thesis have been made primarily via theoretical reasoning (Dawson, 2013, p. 25). The fact that neither Beck nor Bauman engaged in either empirical research or a systematic review of the literature has been a major point of critique of the thesis (Atkinson, 2010; Goldthorpe, 2002). Therefore, this study aims to test the value of the theory by applying it in empirical research. This process might make it possible to contribute to the theory by evaluating or refining its explanatory power to link the structural context with individual experiences and perspectives.

Besides its lack of empirical research, the individualisation thesis, especially Beck’s version, has been found to have other flaws. It is unclear about the driving forces behind the process of individualisation (Atkinson, 2007, p. 361). The individualisation thesis remains ‘too general to be true in every respect’, but ‘broad enough that something in it is true anyway’ (Kohler, 2007, p. 314).

The second part of the theoretical framework to be utilised in this thesis, the Foucauldian perspective, on the other hand, has been considered more empirically robust and is rarely critiqued for being too general or broad. It has been widely used to explain the connection between the structural context and the individual dimensions, as well as for analysing the behaviours of the government and the individual (Ball, 2013). The following section will discuss the Foucauldian perspective.