This book unveils the concept of social love as a kind of "Karst River" that flows through the history of sociology, reassessing it as a form criticism by people in everyday life.
Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this book offers both theoretical and empirical reflections on social love. It shows that love is not only central to the human experience, but that it can also help to interpret and intervene in social problems such as climate change, poverty, xenophobia, and the (post-)Covid crisis, recognizing people as actors in social change. It explores the idea of love as a key element in the promotion of solidarity and recognition in today’s plural and unequal societies.
Based on empirical research on social love conducted through both qualitative and quantitative methods, especially in Europe and Latin America, this book explores the social dimension of love. Providing overviews on key questions and studies on current issues, the book is essential reference and resource for researchers, students, social workers, and professionals in social sciences, social philosophy, anthropology, social psychology, sociology of emotions and postmodern literature.
Author(s): Silvia Cataldi, Gennaro Iorio
Series: Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Emotions
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 346
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Contributors
Preface
Introduction
Part I Overview
Insight
1 When Reality Challenges Sociological Imagination: What Social Love Is in a Critical Perspective
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Concept of Social Love
1.3 The Dimensions of Social Love
1.4 The Characteristics of Social Love
1.5 Conclusions
Note
References
2 Imagining On the Shoulders of Giants: A Historical Selection of the Social Thought On Love
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Philosophical Concept of Love
2.3 The Contribution of the Classics of Sociological Thought
2.4 The Contribution of the Secularisation of Love in Contemporary Sociology
2.5 The Contribution of Feminist Literature
2.6 The Contribution of Critical Sociology
2.7 The Contribution of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Literature
2.8 Conclusions
References
Evidence
3 For an Empirical Study of Social Love: Epistemological and Methodological Research Approaches
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Methodology of Social Love
3.3 Studying Social Love Through a Qualitative Methodology
3.4 Social Love in a Quantitative Perspective
3.5 Conclusion
Note
References
Current Issues
4 Social Systems and Social Love: A Macro-Perspective On the History of Civilisations
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Dawn of Civilisation and the Agricultural Empires
4.3 Imperial Rome
4.4 Middle Ages, Humanism and the First Industrial Revolution
4.5 The Market Economy and the Springtime of the Peoples
4.6 The Second Industrial Revolution and the Emotional Foundation of Action
References
5 Social Love as Utopian and Heterotopian Experiences in Contemporary Society
5.1 Introduction: Crisis and Emancipation
5.2 Social Love as a Utopian and Heterotopian Experience
5.3 Social Love and the Utopian Critique of Geometrism
5.4 Social Love as a Resource to Liberate Post-Enlightenment Thinking
5.5 Social Love and Philosophical Sociology
5.6 Final Notes: Social Love and the Political Heterotopia
Notes
References
Part II Social Love as Overabundance
Insight
6 Social Love as an Approach: Notes From the Field
6.1 Introduction
6.2 My Trajectory
6.3 Listening to the “Enemy”
6.4 Looking for More Convivial Neighborliness
6.5 Conclusions
Notes
References
Evidence
7 Giving Without Expectations: The Results of the World Love Index
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The World Love Index
7.3 Ecological World Love Indices
7.4 Conclusion
Notes
Current Issues
8 Collective Action and Love
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Emotions and Collective Actions
8.3 Filial Love: a Summarized Gaze
8.3.1 Geopolitics of Love
8.4 A New Opening
Notes
References
9 Social Love and Social Movements in the Pandemic
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Solidarity and Care in the Pandemic
9.3 Autonomous Communities and Communal Health
9.4 Mutual Aid and Organization at the Neighbourhood Level
9.5 (Counter-)information Networks
9.6 Alternative Practices and Resistance
9.7 From Mutual Aid to Democratization
9.8 Conclusions
Notes
References
Part III Social Love as Care of Others and the World
Insight
10 Re-Imagining Cosmopolitics: Love as Taking Care of the World
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Redescribing Our Narratives: Looking for New Vocabularies
10.3 Imagining a Cosmopolitics of Affects
10.4 A Matter of Perspective
10.5 More Than Stories: Overcoming Epistemic Injustices
Notes
References
Evidence
11 Educational Poverty and Care for Others: A Relation Between Human Development and Social Love
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Material Deprivation, Family Heritage, Class Relations: Perspectives On Educational Poverty
11.3 Towards a Socio-Educational Model Based On Social Love: First Insights From an Empirical Case
11.4 One Concept, Multiple Levels of Analysis
Notes
References
12 Social Love in Pandemic Times: An Opportunity to Generate and Regenerate Social Relationships
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Social Love: a Theoretical and Methodological Framework During the Lockdown Period
12.3 Social Love During Lockdown: the Results of a Survey
12.3.1 Lockdown and Health Conceptions
12.4 Conclusions: Physical Isolation as an Opportunity for Social Love to Generate and Regenerate Relationships
Note
References
13 Social Love in Healthcare Professionals: Some Preliminary Reflections On a Missing Issue
13.1 Introduction
13.2 A Literature Review of Love in Professional Healthcare Practice
13.3 Social Love in Organisational and Professional Contexts
13.4 Social Love in Nursing: an Empirical Case
13.5 Conclusion
Note
References
Current Issues
14 Poverty and Generative Welfare: Perspectives for a New Approach to Social Intervention
14.1 Background
14.2 Why Generative Welfare?
14.3 Theoretical and Methodological Issues
14.4 For an Effective Fight Against Poverty
14.5 Generative Practices and Social Innovation
14.6 Generativity and Social Love in Social Work
14.7 All Is Not Lost
14.8 A Chance for Social Work
14.9 Not Only of the Users
References
15 Post-Covid Perspectives: An Overview On Inequalities and Love Experiences in Latin America
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Brief History of the Conformation of Latin American Social Protection Systems
15.3 The Dimensions of Social Love in the Architecture of the Social Protection Systems
15.3.1 Measures of Social Love Taken By Social Protection Systems in Covid-19 Contexts
15.3.2 Measures of Overabundance (Unconditionality)
15.3.3 Measures to Extend Recognition
15.3.4 Measures That Extended Universalism
15.3.5 Care Measures and Priority of the Benefit of the Other
15.4 Reforms Needed in the SPS Architecture
15.5 Conclusions
References
Part IV Social Love as Universalism
Insight
16 Towards a Convivialist Society: How to Think and Act for Pluriversalism
16.1 Introduction: How to Rethink Living Together
16.2 Signs of Hope: the Experience of the Convivialist Manifesto
16.3 Acting for Pluriversalism: a Global Citizen Parliament
16.4 Conclusions
References
Evidence
17 Universal Is Plural: The Results of a Comparative Study From Secondary Sources
17.1 Which Universalism? A Brief Review
17.2 Method
17.2.1 Data Analysis From Secondary Sources
17.2.2 Data
17.3 Findings
17.4 Concluding Remarks
Notes
References
Current Issues
18 Common Goods and Institutions as Fields of Impersonal Action
18.1 Introduction
18.2 Max Weber and the Ethics of Universal Brotherhood
18.3 Commons as a Field of Impersonal Action
18.4 The Commons as Institutional Forms
18.5 The Daily Life of Public Institutions
18.6 Care as Institutional Property
References
Part V Social Love as Recognition of Others
Insight
19 Love in Democracy: Unfolding Sovereignty, Resonating Common Good
19.1 Introduction
19.2 At the Root: Recognizing Love in Recognition Relationships
19.3 The Populist Economy of Emotions and the Self-Destruction of Democracy
19.3.1 Populism as a Regime of Passions and Emotions
19.3.2 The Exacerbation of Control and the Search for Lost Resonance
19.4 Loving, Resonating, and Unfolding: a Democratic Anthropology
19.5 Coda: Amplification of Overabundance and Unfolding of Sovereignty
Notes
References
Evidence
20 Radical Love and Forgiveness: Re-Suturing the Social Racial Wounds in the United States
20.1 The Diaries of Two Foretold Crimes
20.2 The Love Deficiencies of Entitlement
20.3 The Love Deprivation of Pain in Suspension
20.4 Forgiveness: Responding With an Overflowing Abundance (Of Love)
20.5 The Hermeneutics of Transformative Forgiveness
References
Current Issues
21 Love Beyond Coloniality: Encountering the Other, Love Precarity, and the Idiosyncrasies of Love From the South
21.1 Introduction
21.2 Coloniality as Love Precarity
21.2.1 The Legacies of Colonial Encounters and the Institutionalization of Love Precarity
21.2.2 Being Different, How Did We Learn to See Others and Ourselves?
21.3 Idiosyncrasies of Love From the South
21.3.1 Love as “Being” Among the M.bêngôkre M.tyktire (Kayapó), From Northern Brazil
21.3.2 The Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon: Responding With Love to the Lack of Recognition (Of “Each Other”)
21.4 In Lak’ech: Liberation By Loving the Other
21.5 Conclusion: a World Unfinished and in the Making
Notes
References
Conclusion
Index
