Vita e Pensiero

D. GALESI, Governance phenomenology. Participated construction of social and health policies and emerging challenges. Referring to the sociology of Ardigò, this paper aims to discuss the construction of governance in contemporary health policies. From a theoretical perspective, the principle of empathy emphasizes the empowerment of local communities in those planning processes that affect the determinants of health. From an empirical perspective, the principle of ambivalence extends the possibilities of methodological integration, not only between quantitative and qualitative approaches, but also between research and decision making techniques. From an operative perspective, these assumptions call for the implementation of more inclusive strategies, opening a collaboration both with other professions and with the non-expert knowledge of informal social networks. At different but connected levels, the phenomenological proposal of the author stimulates researchers to break down self-referential frame, building policies which are effectively opened to needs and resources emerging in the lifeworld. Key words: governance, phenomenology, methodological integration, health, participation.

E. MARTINI, Looking a little further ahead: the contribution of Ardigò to sociology. Achille Ardigò has shown that «any research of truth, especially scientific truth, requires inter-subjectivity as initial process of control and objectivity in scientific knowledge». In his conception, no knowledge makes sense if it is separated from the real introspective and emphatic and communicative process. For this reason, he calls for a deeper analysis on sociality of science and technology as the social perspective – in the application of new technologies – encourages the human being to be regarded as source and final target of all and any scientific knowledge (science is therefore considered as observer dependant). In my opinion Science and Technology Studies are a good example to confirm the afore-going as the former have envisaged different approaches to study the human and social dimension within every new piece of knowledge and technology (Ardigò’s inter-subjective objectivity). These studies sustain that social research cannot be restricted to the impacts of science and technology on society, but it should also focus on the way and manner stakeholders’ networks are set up and yield results in the scientific and technological domains including also any cognitive-operational strategies and social factors which foster the diffusion of such scientific and technological output. Key words: individual, empathy, conscience, knowledge, technology.

F. PICCOLI, Achille Ardigò and «elderly condition», between sociological analysis and perspectives of social innovation. Ardigò’s contribution for the development of a full sociological knowledge about elderly condition has been very important. It has embraced several subject areas, often combining theoretical elaboration with field research and even field-testing. The aim of my paper is to provide a synthetic representation of Ardigò’s contribution, by following some guidelines: the analysis of senescence differentiation processes in relation to the broader process of social differentiation; studies and experiments on elderly home care and, more generally, I.C.T.; the exhortation of elderly to a greater civic and political engagement for the construction of our future society. Key words: elderly condition, social differentiation, senescence processes, elderly services, elderly partecipation.

G. PISI, Achille Ardigò and the Sociology of the territory. My contribution focuses on three books: Female emancipation and urbanism, The metropolitan area and The urban spread. My aim is stressing the intellectual path of Achille Ardigò, who shifted from rural Sociology to urban Sociology. Female emancipation is considered in its several elements, and all of them are connected to urbanism; in particular, the movements from rural to urban areas are mentioned. Some elements from the Ecological Chicago School and the Talcott Parsons’ theory are used as tools to deal with urbanization and urban spread trends, which were studied by Ardigò since the middle of the 1960s. Some concepts like Dominance and Planning are considered too; Ardigò used them to face the emergencies of the metropolitan area as a social system: in this case, Parsons' functional prerequisites are used as a «compass» to define such concepts, and to combine theory and empirical research. Key words: female emancipation, Talcott parson’s theories, metropolitan area, dominance, planning.

N. PAGNONCELLI, Talking about political poll’s problems In recent years, forecasts based on political surveys have often been contradicted by electoral results. This essay aims to review possible methodological and epistemological sources of error related to pre-electoral forecasting. This question relates in the first instance to the use that customers and the media make of polls. Some other possible bias is to be found in the role of the media during electoral campaigns, in the relationship between the media and polls (and politics), and in difficulties arising from specific topics covered by some political surveys. Finally, some bias comes from epistemological problems innate to political studies themselves and, above all, to methodological limits related to the choice of polling technique. Key words: poll, election, response bias, social desirability, coverage error.

P. PARRA SAIANI, The (non) quantification in the study of society. Social indicators between social control and democratic participation The social indicators movement seems to be regaining its appeal. It was an heir to the supporters of quantification in the Social Sciences, as numbers were believed to be objective and scientific per se. Echoing the London Statistical Society’s policy that was declared two decades earlier, the newly created Statistical Society of Paris resolved in 1860 that «statistics is nothing else than the knowledge of the science of facts». It was, their statutes continued, an indispensable science for a liberal state: «It ought to provide the basis upon which society is governed». But the aspiration to know the territory was not always the simple thirst for knowledge: initial attempts were conducted by governments to carry out a policy of control and taxation. Only in the mid-18th century did many initiatives flourish. These concerned the collection of information in a more democratic spirit: information was now considered to be a citizen’s right. The study of society in its various dimensions has stimulated the search for and construction of statistical indicators and indices. The search for a better way of studying the progress of societies has often led to inappropriate uses of indicators and measures. GNP, for example, has been commonly considered to be an indicator of wellbeing. The lack of a conceptual frame for studying well-being is not the only problem, nor even the greatest. Of similar importance are the meagre statistical skills of journalists and policy-makers. All together, these elements facilitate limiting the use of data in public debate. In this paper, I will consider the shift from political arithmetic to modern social reports (par. 1); the success of quantification in the Social Sciences (par. 2); the use of quantification (par. 3); the validity of official statistics (par. 4); the current non-use of quantification and the search for contextual conditions that interfere with the transformation of information into knowledge (par. 5). Key words: social indicators, policy, democracy, quantification, well-being, knowledge.

M. PEDRONI, Scientific Research and Market Research. Synergies and Conflicts Between Academic Field and Coolhunting Within the market research it has been developed, in recent years, a set of research techniques inspired by sociology and anthropology, known as coolhunting or trend research. The aim of coolhunting is to intercept and document emerging trends in consumers’ lifestyles, providing the enterprises with reports containing guidelines for planning future production and communication. Starting from an empirical investigation based on 43 in-depth interviews to the professionals engaged in trends prediction, together with a participant observation of the Dutch agency Science of the Time’s activities, the paper tries to identify: (1) the methodological features of coolhunting and its links to the non-standard social research; (2) the relationship between coolhunting and academic field: on the one hand, the benefits that coolhunting obtains from the academic research (especially the symbolic legitimation); on the other, its potential advantages for an employ in the explorative social research. Key words: coolhunting; trend research; non-standard research; social research methodology; market research.