| A term coined by Jean-Francois Lyotard. It labels certain features of contemporary Western society after modernity, and it shares many elements of the philosophy of poststructuralism. Central to the postmodern condition is a revolution in communications led by computer technologies and cybernetics; production is dispersed, flexible and information-based. Postmodern philosophy is anti-foundationalist; it refuses master narratives and is pragmatic, contextual and local. The search for the fundamental causes of injustice, oppression and the movement of history is ruled out of court, and this places postmodernism in a tension with many feminisms as there seems to be no place for critique of pervasive axes of stratification and for critique of broader-based relations of dominance and subordination along lines like gender, race and class. |