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In Mazzini there is a philosophy of institutions in which the prospect of a democratic republic is based not so much on the principle of respect for individual rights -- inherited from the French Revolution -- but above all on that of duty, which supports the unity and solidarity of peoples. This idea of solidarity manifests a close union between people and God, which nourishes Mazzini's conception of republican democracy as a place for sharing not only private interests - as liberal also hold - but as a space for the free exchange of all moral and spiritual goods that do not lead to the breakdown and permanent conflict of individuals and social spheres. According to him, the prospect of a globally supportive humanity would lead to the overcoming of the antinomies of a distorted idea of progress, which cannot be entrusted merely to an incessant increase of material goods in the economic market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to analyse the social transformations produced and observed in the field of waste management. In particular, the focus is on the «Zero Waste» strategy, which has been proposing for at least two decades at a global level an alternative model of waste governance to the one centred on incinerators and landfills. The article proposes a theoretical framework to describe the genesis of «Zero Waste» as a discursive practice, proposing to observe jointly its characteristic symbolic, technological and organisational elements. In reporting the results of an ethnographic research conducted on the case of «Zero Waste» in Italy, the article also focuses on the processes of knowledge exchange between social movements, local administrations, universities and municipalised companies, the conjunctions between ecological movements and movements for the commons, the start of processes of remunicipalisation of local public services starting from a new strategy of legitimation of the public vs. the private, and the progressive institutionalisation of political ecology in the European and local policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions are essential elements that create social relationship: emotions are characterized by personal and social identity that come out from the communication with others. The social relationship's construction is also emotional, in a mix of exogenous and endogenous variables. The Sociology of Emotions, starting from the classics, tries to capture these different variables in a reflective, continuous and fluid exchange and reflection. It's important, especially in our occidental society, to read and to interpret emotions returning to the human, reflecting on challenges of the relationship and re-discussing complexities and problems that interpersonal experiences contemplate. In different "environments", not only in pragmatic but also in virtual ones, in an emotional e social exchange "onlife". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European studies of the relationship between social class and health bring out two contradictory tendencies: a general rise in life expectancy and the persistence (or even growth) of health inequalities. This essay critically reviews the main explanations of health inequalities, grouped into three classes: naturalistic explanations, lifestyle explanations, explanations focused on social interaction. Naturalistic explanations represent health status as a cause instead of a consequence of individuals' social positions. A naive version of these explanations ascribes the health inequalities to genetic diversities; a more sophisticated one recognises in social mobility processes the mechanisms which translate health resources into social resources. Lifestyle explanations describe health inequalities as the aggregate effect of the different propensity of individuals to adopt unhealthy behaviours. Explanations based on social interaction maintain that health inequalities are determined by differentials in exposure to health-related stressors which distinguish individual according to their social position. The essay concludes with a focus on the Italian context, describing the level of health inequalities in Italy and presenting the main data bases that can be used to study this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article intends to describe social interactions between regular visitors, so called habitués, of sexy theatres and pornostars. On the basis of etimographic research carried out in 1995-96 in a sexy theatre in Genoa, the author firstly analyses the actors participating in this peculiar type of social interaction, i.e., the theatre's regular customers on the one hand and pornostars on the other. Thus, the places of the representation are also investigated. These are the theatre stage and the entrance-hall. By resorting to Goffman and Simmel, the author makes sense of the actors' relations as an effort to set rules and build a sort of community, based on sharing the same sense of spare time as amusement and diversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to identify the essential features of the family, ascertain its specific nature and establish the boundaries between what is considered family and what is not, above all by distinguishing the family from the other primary groups. The phenomenon of pluralization of lifestyles has brought with it a strong degree of ambivalence. On one hand it seems to operate as a dedifferentiation process among primary relationships, as it emphasizes spontaneous feelings, values, roles and relationships of pure friendship and intimacy, while on the other hand it leads to the emergence of new distinctions between primary relationships, given that they are not all alike and cannot be categorised into homogenous groups. Therefore, in order to observe the family it is indispensable first of all to identify the network of links between the different individuals living in and around a family using a relational approach which highlights that the latent identity of the family consists of being a specific social relationship, sui generis, which emerges from the combined interweaving of four linked elements or components: gift, reciprocity, generativity and sexuality. Identifying the two ties in relationships between sexes and generations which constitute a family relationship makes it possible to simplify the wide variety of family forms which are currently taking shape in the social spectrum and aspire to be recognised officially: only the presence of at least one of the two relationships implies the existence of a family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship of historical research to contemporary family studies. Family history was influenced greatly by field such as sociology and anthropology, leading it to make several contributions to those fields in turn. The continuing collaboration of these disciplines can significantly enrich current family research, practice, and policy making. History's specific contribution lies in its attention to context. Although historical research confirms sociologic and ethnographic findings on the diversity of family forms, for example, it also reveals that all families are not created equal. The advantage of any particular type of family at any particular time is constructed out of contingent and historically variable social relationships. Historical research allows researchers to deepen their analysis of family diversity and family change by challenging widespread assumptions about what is and what is not truly new in family life. Such research complicates generalizations about the impact of family change and raises several methodological cautions about what can be compared and controlled for in analyzing family variations and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to summarize some elements about the transformation of work, analysed in more details in a little handbook just published by the author on the sociology of work today. The idea is that there is a shift from the traditional forms based on "making things" towards new forms of "social skills". In a theoretical perspective, the contribution by Amartya Sen is considered very relevant to understand this metamorphosis. In the empirical sense, the article takes in consideration the results of the last researches by many sociologists (Accornero, Beck, Castells, Florida, Gallino, Gorz, Kern and Schumann, ecc.). The main result of the study is that the conditions of the social exchange in the division of labour, industrial relations, labour markets and welfare systems will have more and more influence not only on quality, pay and hours of work but above all on the right combination of the two dimensions of doings and beings for the future worker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research tries to evaluate if the symbolic materials that a specific regional radio (Radio Onde Furlane) proposes are standardized or innovative and useful to build up a social identity acting as a reference innovative model of communicative and social interaction with its various cultural activities, its «alternative» communication and social practices and its particular way of making up information. Cultural tradition, for instance, is recovered not in a folkloristic way, but as a starting point for re-reading and re-interpretating the history, language, and culture of the community. Secondly, a continous critical approach (quite evident in the programmes contents) to some social and communicative systems considered as homologated and constrictive («globalized») is associated with a will to be a place of glocalization, of intersection between cultures. Thus the radio tries to project new cultural and social spaces, global and local at the same time, and build up new models of social identity. The case, therefore, lets us reflect upon «global» and «local», two concepts which do not seem so separated and exclusive as many researchers think, but related each other and interconnected with other forms of social partecipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of social exchange has various advantages. However, the use of exchange model risks collapsing the sociological dimension onto the utilitarianism of the economic dimension. This paper proposes a non-utilitarian model of social exchange, that reflects the non-reducibility of the social dimension to the economic dimension. The second section illustrates and criticises the traditional version of social exchange theory. The third and the fourth section consider Becker's approach and discuss the limitations of utilitarianism. Finally, the fifth section highlights the Parsonian roots of the new model proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elias is viewed as the heir of Simmel's approach to the society. According to this view, the society is basically a network of interactions and configurations. Elias, like Simmel, argues that the notion of society cannot be taken as the starting point of the sociological analysis; rather it is its final purpose, a problem which requires to be everlastingly solved. From this point of view, Elias is considered. crucial author in overcoming the contradictions involved by the sociological tradition and as the founder of a new more humanistic European sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the notion of interaction, communication and social relation with reference to three main sociological schools: symbolic interactionism, communicative and relational approach. According to symbolic interactionism, the notion of interaction impinges on social action and social structures: social reality is a system of individual and collective symbolic interactions which are repeatedly modified by social actors. Luhmann, instead, argues interaction is closely related to communication. Since social interaction is given only within a communicative system, there is no place for the subject. Turning upside down the symbolic interactionist approach, he considers interaction subordinated to communication. The third element - social relation - is the bridge linking social action and the social system. It involves an external-objective dimension (relation as structural constraint) as well as an inter-subjective side. From this point of view, the relational approach seeks to keep into account the ongoing interactions without leaving out social actors who produce them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The substantial and costant polarity that is between micro and macro sociology leads a different interpretation of some basic concepts of sociology, such as « role » and « social order ». The « role » tends in fact to be outlined as a normative imposition by macro theories and as the product of negotiation among the single actors by micro theories; the « social order » represents an objectively central element according to the former theory and becomes instead a subjectivly marginal element according to the latter one. Yet such conceptual contrapositions produce complementarity, because in concrete phenomena the micro and macro sociological dimensions are often both present as two real interwoven of social life. Sociological analysis must therefore make every effort to identify not only the differences but also problematic linkes existing between micro and macro sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the main authors that have contributed to the construction of symbolic interactionism. In particular G. Mead's thought is explored: in the 20's it offered the conceptual basis for interactionism, Blurner's and Kuhn's thought that produced the theoretical developments between the 30's and the 50's; Goffmann's dramaturgic theory, that recalls the interactionist thought of the 60's; the labeling theory that applies its principles to deviancy and the phenomenological sociology as definid by Schutz, Berger and Luckman. In the final section the main critical positions to interactionism are examined and the concept of identity emerging from that approach is explored, with reference to other contributions to the same theme, that were made by other authors such as Parsons, Luhmann and Haberznas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the loss of identity in old people, or rather, of the need to maintain or restructure a satisfactory « self », is outlined in the author's analysis of cogent and typical elements in the « system », sometimes a structural type, and sometimes of a symbolic interaction process. He examines work, the family, peer group, and associations, besides the way old people see themselves -- or may see themselves -- through the eyes of other age groups and above all in relation to their limited chances of personal contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]