analyses of modernity and postmodemity are useful although contested. As the growth of market relations increases in Azerbaijan and the former Soviet Republics, theorizing will necessarily have to consider the impact of capitalism when analyzing social change. Bauman (1992) feels that postmodernity can be seen as modemity conscious of its plurality, its contingency, and its ambivalence. In the wake of communism's collapse and the uncertainty that the republics of the former Soviet Union face at the present time, the concept of postmodernity serves to frame the winds of social change in the former Soviet Union.
