ABSTRACT
We have charted some of the big issues that are the subject of contemporary debate and identified some of the ways in which these issues have been addressed within the social sciences. Many of these ‘big issues’ are associated with change and transformation, although others are linked to the persistence of inequalities which challenge the idea that everything is changing as well as the notion that progress is always a forward march towards greater democracy and equality. We have considered the role of identity and the psychosocial relationship between individuals, inner worlds and the social worlds we all inhabit, in a world that has fast-changing modes of communication and representation and a rapidly changing political landscape. Identity is a key concept for the exploration and understanding of how attachments are made and the links between the personal and the social and what connects the individual to the wider society. This has particular resonance in a world that both appears to have become more uncertain as a result of economic, social, technological and political changes, new connections and new conflicts, and has seen an increasing interest in the self and connected and disconnected lives in western societies. A focus on identity provides a means of assessing the impact of change and the ways in which people make attachments in the midst of uneven and often unequal transformations. The discussion of multiple identities draws in many of the other dimensions of social relations and organization, all of which are implicated in the relationship between the individual and the society.
