The legacy of Zygmunt Bauman

The death of Zygmunt Bauman has called out various obituaries and responses. These often reflect the literature already existing on Bauman; some admiring, some puzzled, some begrudging. The sociological community seems divided between wanting to claim him as someone who helped keep us on the map or on social media, and pushing him away, as popularizer, journalist, or even charlatan. This article looks to interpreting this puzzle by way of assessing his legacy. It suggests that there is a logic or pattern to his works, in which signs of the times such as love, individualization, work or refugees are analysed symptomatically, in light of the overarching theory of liquid modernity.