Page "Manuel Castells" Paragraph 6

In the 1970s, following the path of Alain Touraine ( his intellectual father ), Castells was a key developer of the variety of Marxist urban sociology that emphasises the role of social movements in the conflictive transformation of the city, ( cf.

post-industrial society ).

He introduced the concept of " collective consumption " ( public transport, public housing, etc ) comprehending a wide range of social struggles — displaced from the economic stratum to the political stratum via state intervention.

Transcending Marxist strictures in the early 1980s, he concentrated upon the role of new technologies in the restructuring of an economy.

In 1989, he introduced the concept of the " space of flows ", the material and immaterial components of global information networks used for the real-time, long-distance co-ordination of the economy.

In the 1990s, he combined his two research strands in The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, published as a trilogy, The Rise of the Network Society ( 1996 ), The Power of Identity ( 1997 ), and End of Millennium ( 1998 ); two years later, its worldwide, favourable critical acceptance in university seminars, prompted publication of a second ( 2000 ) edition that is 40 per cent different from the first ( 1996 ) edition.