Self-construction and multiple modernities: A sociological approach to the condition of the individual in contemporary Morocco

摘要

The category of 'individual' has always been at the heart of classical sociological literature to describe the shift from Traditional to Modern society. Consequently, Western sociology has always imagined the individual as the exclusive product of its own form of Modernity. By analysing a corpus of sociological studies which focuses on the condition of the young adult in Moroccan contemporary urban centres, we will try to understand which other possible individuals and self-construction paths can be found in other, 'non-Western', societies. How is it possible to link the category of the 'individual' and its process of self-construction in societies that have gone through socio-historical evolution which differs from the hegemonic Western model? The case of the young Moroccan adult will be presented as a paradigmatic example of a new intellectual path through which contemporary sociology can depict the condition of the individual and its self-construction in the multiple-modernities framework.