Perspectives for a New Social Theory of Sustainability

This ambitious book outlines the theoretical and practical implications of the recent technological revolution of human/non-human relations for social researchers, and in so doing, seeks to develop more adequate theoretical and methodological models for social scientists to describe and investigate these social transformations and their consequences. The environmental strategies to balance human actions with the earth's resources utilizing a sustainable approach can inspire original conceptualizations and, therefore, a new sociological paradigm rooted in a necessary rethinking of the dualism between nature and culture, and of human relations in a hyper-connected society increasingly composed by non-human elements.

Chapter discussions include:

• Sustainability and the crisis of the theoretical functional model
• Environmental sustainability and the evolution of capitalism
• From moral imperatives to indicators and indices: a methodology for validating and assessing SDGs
• An understanding of psychopathological syndromes related to social environments
• Social research between participation and critical detachment

Perspectives for a New Social Theory of Sustainability emphasizes that not only are modernist theories of unlimited wealth and progress no longer supportable, but also that their theoretical and empirical settings must be reassessed if society is to move towards sustainability. It promises to be required reading for students and researchers in sociology, psychology, economics and statistics, as well as professionals within government organizations and NGOs focused on human rights work, global inequities, ethical activism, and the UN Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals.

"This book provides a unique toolkit for politicians and citizens on sustainable development and how it is fulfilled every day." David Maria SASSOLI

European Parliament President

Auteur

Mariella Nocenzi, PhD, is a research fellow at Sapienza University of Rome in the Department of Communication and Social Research. She is the scientific director of the International Observatory of Social Theory on New Technologies and Sustainability Sostenibilia, as well as a founding member of the Scientific Council of the Inter-University Observatory of Gender and Equal Opportunity (GIO). Among her research interests in national and international projects are social history and theory, with a specific link to gender studies, sustainability and social diversity, and risks and conditions of security and safety in globalization. She is an Assistant Editor of the International Review of Sociology and has edited several publications, drawn from research on environmental issues, risk, Europe, young people, equal opportunities, and gender policies. Among her latest publications: Verso una società sostenibile. (Non)umani, reti, città e la sfida del cambiamento (ed.) [Towards a sustainable society. (No)humans, networks, cities and the challenge of the change], 2019.

Alessandra Sannella, PhD, is a social theory researcher at the Department of Human Sciences, Society and Health at the University of Cassino and South Lazio, Italy. She is the coordinator of this University Committee for Sustainable Development (CASe) and represents the University in the Italian Network of Sustainable Universities (RUS). In addition, she is active in the teaching programs of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the Sapienza University of Rome. Her scientific research and activities center on the reduction of inequality in international migration, health and global health policies, and structural violence, with specific attention paid to sustainable development in these areas. In line with these aims, she has coordinated national and European research projects on issues related to migration and the associated questions of bioethics. Her recent publications include articles on vulnerability and violence in society and the book La Violenza tra tradizione e digital society. [Violence between tradition and the digital society] (2017). Sannella has also been the editor of a wide range of sociological journals and academic volumes.

Contenu

Introduction by Enrico Giovannini, member of the Club of Rome, member of the Commission Economique de la Nation of the French Government, and co-chair of the "Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development".

Paolo De Nardis's paper on Sustainability and crisis of the theoretical functionalist model, points out that for a long time, without a prevalent paradigm for the sociology, the north-American functionalism has been considered the sociological theory par excellence. This approach, especially in the Parsons' proposal, concerned a mechanistic construction of the social system resorting to a systemic engineering based on the role of the AGIL scheme and its idealistic four shaped organizational functioning. This mechanism only could consent to optimize the performance of the social units in terms of functional success and efficiency for a normative common setting, shared as basic and unquestionable model of society. Its values are connected to those of the market, on one side money and political power, on the other one power. They live side by side in a balanced system, aimed to the best performance, the typical category in the Fifties and Sixties of the last century, when profit and efficiency prevailed. The sustainable perspective submits to a harsh criticism this approach and, as a result, it creates serious problem for the analytic functional model. The sustainable paradigm outlines a new idea of the life quality and a new definition of the social relation in terms of solidarity and equality that could requalify the social individual. The fundamental salvage of this category, from the same concept Marx outlined in the famous critics on the political economy, can prelude a possible theoretical outline and the definition of the prolegomena of a new anthropology.

Mariella Nocenzi's paper aims to explore the opportunity of a rethinking and, when necessary, of a new formulation of the theoretical and methodological categories for the analysis of the social action in modified social spaces and times. If the sociological characterization of the Anthropocene society by means of quantitative data is increasingly applied in the sociological investigations (see at the intersectional approach or at the evidences about a platform society), the deductive process to build a theoretical definition of the current processes is far from to be outlined grabbing on to the classical paradigms. The analytical exploration of some environments of social actions - as the urban ones allows to read these processes using the social categories of time, space, relation first through a traditional approach and, then, with those differences that outline the current increasing trends to the sustainability approach.

The Uliano Conti's paper proposes an analysis of sustainability. Sustainability does not exist only in relation to the socio-economic development, but also as an integral social model. This model limits the consequences of techno-nihilistic capitalism, originated by the desire to modify the world. Desire is a creative social element, but it is also at the roots of techno-nihilistic capitalism. Human desire is represented by the Edipic-acquisitive myth. Because of the crisis of techno-nihilistic capitalism, the Edipic-acquisitive myth gives way to the Narcissus-fatalistic myth. The first is a conqueror, the second is a consumer. Acquisitive desire, narcissistic desire, socio-economic sustainability, integral social sustainability are the elements that redefine sustainability as existential disposition characterized by the Wolffian surrender: surrender to the environmental contingency and catch, of what the human being can know and control. Su…