Alain Touraine and Zygmunt Bauman Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities 2010

At its meeting in Oviedo, the Jury for the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities, made up of Mr. José Antonio Álvarez Gundín, Ms. Adela Cortina Orts, Mr. Diego Carcedo, Mr. Alejandro Echevarría Busquet, Mr. Álex Grijelmo García, Mr. José Luis Gutiérrez Suárez, Mr. Miguel Ángel Liso Tejada, Mr. Ramón López Vilas, Ms. Catalina Luca de Tena y García-Conde, Mr. Francisco Luzón López, Ms. Ana Rosa Migoya Diego, Mr. Alberto Oliart Saussol, Mr. José Luis Pardos Pérez, Mr. José Ramón Pérez Ornia, Mr. José Antonio Sánchez Domínguez, Mr. Ricardo Senabre Sempere, Mr. Enrique de Ybarra e Ybarra, chaired by Mr. Manuel Olivencia Ruiz and with Mr. Juan Luis Iglesias Prada acting as secretary, has decided to confer the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities on Alain Touraine and Zygmunt Bauman.

The French historian and sociologist Alain Touraine is the author of fundamental works on post-industrial society that have enabled us to understand and interpret the profound sense of the great transformations of our times, offering at the same time a continuous and enriching reflection on the problems derived from the need to coexist over and above human differences.

In turn, the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, born in Poland but nationalised British, who has lectured at universities in diverse countries, has comprehensively studied in depth the social condition of post-modern man in an unstable world of transitory values. In his decisive analysis of this reality, Bauman has coined the term “liquid modernity”, incisively developed in the work of the same name.

These two representatives of the most brilliant intellectual tradition of European thought have created, independently from one another, singularly valuable conceptual instruments for understanding the changing, speeded-up world in which we live.

Oviedo, 27th May 2010