MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Sociologists Touraine and Bauman awarded the 2010 Prince of Asturias awards

Touraine is also very popular in Latinamerica as a political scientist

French Sociologists Alain Touraine and Polish born Zygmunt Bauman received on Thursday the 2010 Prince of Asturias Awards for Communication and Humanities.

The jury, in a meeting in Oviedo, decided to give the award to the two sociologists for their ''study of the profound transformations of modern social structures'' and their development of ''key concepts to understand fundamental questions of our time''.

French historian and sociologist Alain Touraine, 84 years old, has written important works on the post-industrial society, explaining the great changes in modern times.

Touraine is enormously popular in Latinamerica and continental Europe. Yet of his 20 books only half have been translated for the English-speaking world, where he is less recognized.

Zygmunt Bauman, originally from Poland and now with the British nationality, is sociologist and professor.

He has studied the social condition of post-modern man in an unstable world with declining values. In his analysis of reality, he has coined the term 'liquid modernity'.

Leed-based Zygmunt Bauman has brought nearly 50 Sociological works into the English language, and a critique, “liquid society” that resonates in the now.

It is the third of Crown Prince Felipe’s eight annual gifts in recognition of outstanding achievements in their fields.

Richard Serra has won arts, and the Xi’an Imperial Warriors archeologists from China have picked up Social Sciences.

The Prince of Asturias awards can be catalogued as the Spanish version of the Nobel Prize.