ABSTRACT
Natalie, a daughter of Taiwanese immigrants to America, grew up in Brooklyn – where her parents still live. There are today more than four billion users of the Internet worldwide, to which Natalie’s parents are merely some of the latest users. To raise the question of the ‘textures’ of society is thus to consider social trends that are intensely worrying on the one hand, as well as those of the most extraordinary potential on the other. In social theory as in everyday life, this answer emphasizes that social life must be constructed within the province of the nation and its assured rights of belonging – the entitlements and duties of citizenship. As it happens, Natalie often thinks about ‘society’ – or, at least, those societies through which she regularly passes and moves. Natalie is aware of the power of change, especially the speed with which the established orthodoxies of yesterday are swept aside by unexpected shifts of today or tomorrow.
