Scientific Studies about “Liquid Modernity” by Zygmunt Bauman: a systematic review

Abstract

Objective. This study carries out a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of academic research articles related to liquid modernity, by Zygmunt Bauman. Method. Through keywords in the Web of Science and Scopus databases from 2002 to 2020, a database was created with scientific articles that studied the subject. Subsequently, a qualitative analysis of 20 articles selected from among them was carried out to identify how an individual's cultural identity and belonging to society are challenged by the concept of liquid modernity. Results. Based on the results obtained, this article found that the subjects most addressed by the authors related to liquid modernity are social media, consumption and individualism, pointed out by this research as the main challenges created by liquid modernity for cultural identity and the feeling of belonging to an individual's society. Conclusions. We live in the postmodern era Bauman called liquid modernity, a subject that has been widely discussed in several areas of knowledge. Despite the research limitations regarding the selected studies and the databases used, this article contributes to academia and society, it also identifies some gaps in the literature and provides suggestions for future research.