S. Vergati, Micro – meso – macro: social network analysis as a set of research traditions and programs
The article analyses first the disciplinary and epistemological contexts of SNA; after, it compares
the different theoretical approaches referable to SNA: the structural, the formalist, and the
interactionist one. Then, two main methodological approaches are being compared: the «hard
SNA» and the «soft SNA», the first one – typical of the micro-analysis -- which considers the relational
structure as the goal of research; the second one, which uses relational data as a tool for
the theory building at the meso and macro levels. Further, SNA is proposed as an interdisciplinary
and multi-purpose way-out from the theoretical dualism holism vs. individualism, particularly
according to the structural interactionist approach. Finally, the four different explicative theories
integrated in SNA (the theory of weak ties, the theory of the structural holes, the theory of clusterness,
and the theory of relational coordination) are discussed as middle-range theories.
P. Iagulli, Self and emotions in symbolic interactionism
The idea which inspires this essay is to enquire on the place of emotions within what is
probably the most «subjectivist» sociological perspective: symbolic interactionism. I will try to
demonstrate that there was substantially no space for emotions in what can be defined «classical»
symbolic interactionism, that of George H. Mead and Herbert Blumer: this is surprising, but
only to a certain point. Symbolic interactionism began to thematize emotions starting from the
generation of scholars that can be defined post-blumerian (Shott, Scheff, Heise). The reason for
this «delay» is also cultural: this scientific field was, at least in part, a child of its time, i.e. the expression
of an «emotional culture» which began to assert itself in a significant manner, especially
in the United States, starting from the second half of the Seventies.
G. Toscano, Field and Social World. Definitions and applications in comparison
The aim of this paper is to compare the notion of «field» by Pierre Bourdieu e the sensitizing
concept of «social world» by Anselm Strauss. Bourdieu and Strauss start from different theoretical assumptions: the former from a conflictual conception of society, the latter from a Symbolic
Interactionist perspective. Nevertheless, both their concepts share the same stance, as they avoid
a knowledge of social phenomena seen as «things in themselves» and they both reject an image
of society fractured into units lacking mutual relations. Furthermore, both concepts emphasize
a constant feedback between structure and action and assume the point of view of social aggregates.
The issue has been analyzed considering problems of field and world visibility and the
definition of their boundaries.
Key words: field, social world, symbolic interaction, visibility, boundaries.
A. Caforio, Life and language of objets. Some anthropological hypothesis
Some markings by very well known authors about object-centered love in Western societies
and traditional ones have been well brought out in this article. For instance, Margaret Mead’s
observations on the issue of the social role of object love teaching in first childhood bringing up
have been properly seen into. Besides, Claude Lévi-Strauss’ sharp markings of symbolic object
importance in regard to all societies have been looked into to a great extent in the same essay.
Key words: objet, western societies, role, symbol, traditional societies.
D. Simon, The Problem of Man and Sociology: Filippo Barbano’s juvenile sources
Filippo Barbano, one promoter of the ‘sociological renaissance’ in Italy after World War II,
discussed as a student a thesis (1947) upon Personalism in the legal and christian philosophy. His
main source was Norberto Bobbio’s historical personalism which concerned the Person as ‘relationship’
and normative value with a fundamental attitude to communication. Barbano enphasized
then the role of the person as concrete agent, to whom Christianity provided a foundation
for a joint and several living-together.
Afterwards Barbano met american sociology and was confronted in particular with its attempt
toward an ‘integrated science of man’ with special attention to the concept of ‘basic personality
type’.
This was declined in an anthropological sense at a high level, which recalled Marcel Mauss’
‘total man’, concrete and far from the speculative trends of classical european sociology.
All this lead Barbano to formulate (1955/58) a program for theory and research, which had
to combine thought and experience, along the lines of the most recent american sociology, seeing
man in action within a moving social context.
Key words: person, science of man, action, communication, basic personality tipe, theory and
research.
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