Editing Manuel Castells (section)

===Marxism===

In the 1970s, as a still-growing intellectual, Castells centered his research and intellectual processes around the works of [[Karl Marx]] because he, “felt the need to communicate to the world of political change through its language – [[Marxism]].<ref>Castells, Manuel, and Martin Ince. 2003. “Manuel Castells: Life and Work.” Pp. 7–21 in Conversations with Manuel Castells. Cambridge: Polity Press.</ref>" Castells developed his ideas by studying the works of several Marxists, including [[Louis Althusser]].<ref name="Roberts 1999 pp. 33–39">{{cite journal | last=Roberts | first=Joanne | title=Theory, technology and cultural power an interview with manuel castells | journal=[[Angelaki]] | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=4 | issue=2 | year=1999 | issn=0969-725X | doi=10.1080/09697259908572031 | pages=33–39}}</ref> Althusser utilized a structuralist perspective in his works, which may also be seen in some of Castells' earliest publications. For example, ''The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach'' was originally published (in French) in 1972, and is a major development in the field of urban sociology. This work emphasizes the role of social movements in the conflictive transformation of the city (cf. post-industrial society). Castells emphasizes that problems within cities do not exist in a social vacuum, and that they must be contextualized to be appropriately analyzed.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Et6wAAAAIAAJ |isbn = 978-0-262-03063-2|access-date=16 October 2021|last1 = Castells|first1 = Manuel|year = 1977| publisher=MIT Press }}</ref>

Castells also introduced the concept of "collective consumption" (public transport, public housing, etc.) comprehending a wide range of social struggles—displaced from the economic stratum to the political stratum via state intervention.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

Castells no longer identifies as a Marxist. This shift in ideology occurred when he realized that the concepts he was interested in exploring could not be appropriately evaluated by Marxism. Marxism uses class as its major lens for examining social life, and Castells had become interested in ideas that could not be understood by considering class alone. By moving away from Marxism, Castells could explore the concepts of gender, urban social movements, and nationality in a more thoughtful way. He is still interested in ideas that are related to Marxism, such as social change, power relations, and technology, but has broadened his scope of how he approaches them as topics. Castells has said that he prefers to think of theory as a tool, and Marxism is simply a tool that he uses less now. He has not renounced Marx, but has chosen different tools to analyze the social world with.<ref name="Roberts 1999 pp. 33–39"/> The following quote exemplifies the expansion of Castells' theoretical paradigm.<ref name="Rantanen 2005 pp. 135–147">{{cite journal | last=Rantanen | first=Terhi | title=The message is the medium | journal=Global Media and Communication | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=1 | issue=2 | year=2005 | issn=1742-7665 | doi=10.1177/1742766505054629 | pages=135–147| s2cid=141501784 }}</ref>

<blockquote>When I left Spain again to go to Berkeley, I was no longer interested in correct answers but in relevant questions. I became more political when I left Marxism. I left the Parisian salons with wonderful categories that had nothing to do with reality and started relying more on my own observations.<ref name="Rantanen 2005 pp. 135–147"/></blockquote>

Transcending Marxist structures in the early 1980s, he concentrated upon the role of new technologies in the restructuring of an economy. In 1989, he introduced the concept of the "[[space of flows]]", the material and immaterial components of global information networks used for the real-time, long-distance co-ordination of the economy.<ref name="Castells 1989 p. ">{{cite book | last=Castells | first=Manuel | title=The informational city : information technology, economic restructuring, and the urban-regional process | publisher=B. Blackwell | publication-place=Oxford, UK Cambridge, Mass., USA | year=1989 | isbn=978-0-631-17937-5 | oclc=19513343 | page=}}</ref>

In the 1990s, he combined his two research strands in ''[[The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture]]'', published as a trilogy, ''[[The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture#The Rise of the Network Society|The Rise of the Network Society]]'' (1996), ''The Power of Identity'' (1997), and ''End of Millennium'' (1998); two years later, its worldwide, favourable critical acceptance in university seminars, prompted publication of a second (2000) edition that is 40 per cent different from the first (1996) edition.<ref>Castells and Ince 2003, p. 20</ref>