The conceptual foundations for the sociology of lifestyle

A “modernizational” breakthrough in the Soviet way of life, transformation of a single-style culture into a multi-style one, diversification of lifestyle, together with the emergence of the latter’s absolutely new forms and subjects have created the need for a conception which could explain the changes occurring, the need for an adequate scientific understanding of processes such as the decay and collapse or the emergence and fortification of a lifestyle, as well as of the very term itself together with the system of categories which are interconnected with it; for a conception which would serve as a key for understanding the social processes occurring in society on a macro and micro-scale, as well as for determining the dominants, alternatives and the emerging vector in terms of social development. In this regard the article presents a consistent re-conceptualization of the sociological approach towards studying lifestyle, a re-conceptualization which would reflect the dynamics of certain social processes taking place in the country; provided is a modern scientific (in contrast to an ideological or an ordinary) understanding of its essence, it being a process of reproducing certain social relations and creating appropriate types of personalities; established is a transition from a structural-functional lifestyle dynamic conception towards a subject-activity based one. Within the established conception the idea of integrity in living together with its comprehensive analysis is clearly drawn out, while the developed categories act as dialectically interconnected and transferring into one another. Thus the process of understanding the essence of lifestyle (from lifestyle analysis to ways of living, and from the latter to the emerging characterization of lifestyle as a unity within diversity) corresponds to the general process of learning, which starts with examining the individual and goes toward discovering the peculiar and unraveling the common. This is a scientific analysis of life models which develops the current social space and contains within its future state. Thereby sociology of lifestyle is an integral conceptual construct which allows understanding how certain manners of social action begin defining the “dominant form of integration”, as well as the emergence of modal personality and a modern type of society.

Sociology, conception, living; image, manner and style of living; re-conceptualization.

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