Monica Martinelli

The concept of community has known a wide spread use in sociology. However, although, it might seem simple to define community as one of the best known associative forms of human cohabitation, such a definition presents also some empirical problems. In the first place, because community has been often defined as something that dissolves itself with the coming of the modern world. Secondly, because recently such a concept has been used in sociological analysis with problematic meanings. This article attempts to explore such a concept in empirical terms and to offer a contribution to its redefinition referring to a field investigation which involved some communities of families. Starting from this, a definition of community is hypothesized in the form of a social relationship strongly anchored to the moment of intersubjectivity and capable of generating mutations in contratendency to the contemporary culture.

For a long time, in the international literature about migrations, women seem to have been relegated to subordinate and marginal positions. More recently, however, the social research has began to pay more attention to the feminine component. This is due on the one hand to a very pragmatic fact that is the massive presence of women in the migration fluxes, and secondly to the push given by studies developed within the last decades which through different approaches. These ones have brought to light that women migrate not only following close relatives - but also as an active working force themselves within the countries of arrival. Within international migrations, women have generally responded to a request for unskilled labour, both within the indutrial sector and especially in that niche of the service sector where the gender division is strong. Starting from the type of work mostly undertaken, this labour force has also been an important element for the promotion of welfare - both in the European countries of older immigration as well as in those of more recent immigration.