Manuel Castells is a left-wing Spanish sociologist who has dedicated his life to the study of the information society, communication and globalization issues. The citation index of social sciences in its review for 2000-2014 gives it the fifth place among the world's most mentioned scientists in the press. He is the winner of the Holberg Prize (2012) for his contribution to the development of the theory of information (post-industrial) society. And the following year received the prestigious Balzan award in the field of sociology. By the way, the Holberg Prize is an analogue of the Nobel Prize, only in the field of social sciences and humanities. Currently, Manuel Castells holds the post of Director of Research at the Sociological Department of Cambridge University, and is also a professor at higher education institutions in Los Angeles and Berkeley.
Childhood and youth
Manuel Castells was born in the small town of Hellin in the Spanish province of Albacete (La Mancha) in 1942. There he grew up and spent his childhood. But in his youth, the future sociologist often moved. He lived in Albacete, Madrid, Cartagena, Valencia and Barcelona. His parents came from a very conservative family. Since the youth of Manuel passed in Francoist Spain, he had to resist his whole circle from childhood. Therefore, to remain himself, he became interested in politics from the age of fifteen. In Barcelona, a young man went to university and studied economics and law. There he joined the underground anti-Franco student movement "Workers Front." His activities attracted the attention of the country's special services, and then the arrests of his friends began, in connection with which Manuel was forced to emigrate to France.
Beginning of a scientific career
At the age of twenty, Manuel Castells graduated from the Sorbonne. Then he wrote a doctorate in sociology at the University of Paris. One of his teachers was Alain Turen. At twenty-four, Castells was already an instructor at several universities in France. Then he began to engage in urban studies and teach the methodology of social studies and urban sociology. He even happened to teach the famous Daniel Cohn-Bendit at the University of Western Paris - Nanterre-La-Défense. But he was fired from there in connection with the support of student protests of 1968. Then he became a teacher at the Higher School of Social Sciences, where he worked until 1979.
Future life
In the late 70s, Manuel Castells became a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He also became responsible for such discipline as “urban and regional planning”. He was not forgotten at home either - of course, after Franco’s death. In the 80-90s, he worked as director of the Institute of Sociology of New Technologies at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In 2001, he became professor in Barcelona. This university was called Open University. In addition, he is invited to lecture at many higher schools around the world. Since 2003, Castells has become a professor of communication at the University of Southern California. He also leads the Center for Public Diplomacy at this institution. Since 2008, he is a member of the board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Lives in Spain and the USA, spending time in one place or another.
Relations with Russia and privacy
It is interesting that for such a major scientist as Manuel Castells, the study of the city and its problems was also an impetus for personal relations. A world-famous sociologist came to the Soviet Union in 1984 at a conference of the International Sociological Association, which was held in the city of Novosibirsk. There he met the Russian scientist Emma Kiseleva, who later married him. After the collapse of the USSR, Castells came to Russia as part of a group of foreign advisers on reform and planning, but his recommendations were considered unacceptable. Nevertheless, he continued to write books and articles on the modern information society. Some of them were dedicated to the place and role of Russia. They are co-written with Emma Kiseleva. In Russian-language literature, it is generally accepted that Castells is a post-Marxist, but the scientist himself is quite critical of communist ideas and believes that the realization of any utopia leads to totalitarianism.
Theories of Manuel Castells
This sociologist is the author of twenty books and more than one hundred articles. The problems of urban life were the main theme of his first work. But not only that interested such a scientist as Manuel Castells. His main works are devoted to the study of organizations and institutions, the role of the Internet in society, social movements, culture and political economy. In addition, it is believed that Castells is one of the largest sociologists of our time, specializing in the field of knowledge about the information society. His writings on this subject are rated as classic. The scientist is interested in the state of man and society in the context of the development processes of the global Internet. He also explored the issues of social change that resulted from the technological revolution. He devoted this to his monumental trilogy, “The Information Age: Economics, Society and Culture.” Its first volume is called “The Emergence of a Networked Society, ” the second is “The Power of Identity, ” and the third is “The End of the Millennium.” This trilogy has caused a lot of discussion in the scientific community. Her popular resume was the work “Galaxy Internet”.
Manuel Castells: the concept of the information method of development
New technologies of the seventies made dramatic changes in the social and economic structure of society. Rigid enough institutions and verticals began to be replaced by networks - flexible, mobile and horizontally oriented. It is through them that power, and the exchange of resources, and much more are now carried out. It is very important for Castels to demonstrate that international relations in the field of business and culture and the development of information technology are interdependent and inextricable phenomena. All spheres of life, starting with the political activities of large states and ending with the everyday life of ordinary people, are changing, getting into global networks. These technologies raise the importance of knowledge and information flows to unprecedented heights in modern society. Theorists of post-industrialism also noted this, but only Manuel Castells proved this in detail. The information age that we are witnessing at this time has made knowledge and its transfer the main source of productivity and power.
How society has become networked
Manuel Castells also analyzes the signs of this phenomenon. One of the characteristic features of the information age is the network structural development of society along a certain logical chain. In addition, this society is changing against the background of acceleration and contradictions of the processes of globalization, affecting the entire globe. The core of these transformations, according to Castells, is associated with information processing and communication technologies. In particular, Silicon Valley with its computer industry played a huge role here. The effects and consequences of this began to cover all areas of human life. One of them was, according to Manuel Castells, a network society. It initiates the logic of changes in the social system and leads to the fact that the ability to be flexible and reconfigure has become the most successful phenomenon. The globalization of the economy has also become such a consequence. After all, the main activities, such as capital, labor, raw materials, technology, markets, are organized, as a rule, on a global scale using networks that connect working agents.
