Vita e Pensiero

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With the end of modern society, new issues arise and link to unemployment: the growing instability that brings about (and entwine with) uncertainty and modifies the relationship subject-society; new inequalities and new terms of social protection; the elements of integration and social bonds that are under discussion and ask the subject new types of responsibility in and towards the society. The article aims at analysing unemployment with reference to social change by discussing its new characters and defining the new work-life balances which are under construction at individual and societal level.

This essay concerns some new concepts that can help sociological theory interpret globalisation and multicultural societies. Its key-concept is intercultural communication, largely used in communication studies, studies on intercultural relationships, and linguistics. The essay proposes an integration of a sociological theory of communication with some of these studies, explaining and analysing the different forms of intercultural communication which can give a more precise meaning to the processes of globalisation and to multicultural contexts. The historical background of these processes and contexts is the expansion of modern European society, which is interpreted as functionally differentiated, following Luhmann’s social systems theory. In contrast with the dominant forms of ethnocentrism which have continuously shaped intercultural communications between the functionally differentiated European society and the other societies in the world, new theories propose a form of intercultural dialogue. The meaning of such a dialogue is defined in two versions, transcultural and cosmopolitan: the comparison between these versions enlightens their different features and problems. Finally, the reasons for a sociological interest in these theories are discussed, with reference to explanations of globalisation and multicultural society.

This article presents a case study that considers a particular self-help mutual-aid group: Alcoholics Anonymous. On the empirical level, the research is conducted through the partecipant observation method. Starting from a briefanalysis of these types of associations, both from the point of view of their evolution and from the point of view of the sociologists, the author tries to analyse how the Twelve Steps groups specifically work and what their cure method consists of. This study aims at demonstrating how the recovery method used in these groups (and in general in all groups that use Twelve Step Programs) could be considered, to every extent, an effective alternative therapy.

A key point in the researches on institutions is the place they have in the social system. Especially sociology wonders which institutional shape is emerging in the contemporary society. This paper looks through the meaning of ‘institution’, and then the social evolution of institutions, by underlining the contributions of sociology, law and economics. State and society are part of a complex link, in which State plays a subordinate role.

Through the fundamental concepts of habitus and reflexivity, the author analyses both the heuristic role and the limits of Margaret Archer’s work for the maturation of present sociological theory and for the change of the way in which the sociology studies the institution. In fact, the relative dependence between the reflexivity of the internal conversation and the reflexivity of the structures lets the sociologist choice between an “institutional” perspective and a theoretically autonomous and specifically scientific perspective.

Through the analysis of sociological thought of Durkheim, Weber and Spencer, the author focuses on the complexity and dramatic element of the modern institutional process, which has these characteristics in the phase whether of institutionalisation or of de-institutionalisation. So this suffering process, which has its last meaning in the value, can not be reduce in its explanation in analytic schemes which have a mechanistic nature.