ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of generations in social transformation from a socio-cultural perspective. Firstly, the authors highlight the main conceptualisations in the existing literature, paying special attention to the linkages between social generations and societal changes, and elaborating on some theoretically relevant aspects of those connections that have previously remained implicit or marginal. The chapter demonstrates the importance of the dialectics between change and stability, and between agency and structure in academic discourses and research traditions, emphasising the essential quality of discursive constructs and representations, and their symbolic power in intergenerational discursive struggles. The authors propose the concept of ‘generational capital’ as a form of symbolic capital and call for a further examination of its analytical potential. Secondly, based on generalisations from a selection of observations in Central and Eastern European transition societies, the chapter provides further suggestions for conceptualising generations within the framework of social transformation. The authors demonstrate how generational labels are constantly defined and redefined in discursive fields, contributing to the dynamics of generational change. As a direction for further studies, the chapter suggests focussing on the interplay of local socio-cultural contexts versus global processes in defining social generations and their symbolic loadings in the discursive fields.
