Thematizing Acceleration

Abstract

Is acceleration an unprecedented and defining feature of modernity? Or only of late modernity? Is it a sole effect of modern capitalism? Do we live in an ever-accelerating world? If so, what are the social, cultural, psychological, political and ethical implications? In the last two decades a lively debate has emerged around social acceleration as an object of systematic social scientific enquiry and these questions have preoccupied a number of contemporary commentators. Particular attention has been devoted to the investigation in three major and intertwined areas associated with this theme: (1) the implications of the individual and social experience of ‘living in a fast-changing world’; (2) the temporal structures of modernity and associated temporal politics; and (3) the cultural significance of acceleration. This chapter surveys the existing acceleration scholarship and sets the general framework for subsequent analysis.