Call for papers

Call for the monographical issue of Studi di Sociologia

Resilienza: dilemmi e controversie attorno a un concetto socio-ecologico

(edit by Alfredo Alietti e Dario Padovan)

In the last period burdened by the pandemic and ecological crisis, the term resilience echoes with a certain assiduity in the political debate and in the mass media. Also the dissemination of the term and its success in the academic debate has been so widespread that we have witnessed the birth of some international journals, such as “Resilience. International Policies, Practices and Discourses”, “Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities”, “Resilience: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Science and Humanitarianism”. Within this significant reflection, resilience takes on a clear and precise sociological meaning, namely, the reaction of certain groups and/or communities affected by catastrophic events, e.g. earthquakes, floods, and more generally by climate change. In this regard, it is necessary to emphasise the self-organising element of a given local system and its ability to learn and adapt to the new socio-environmental conditions. The fundamental issue, on which it is appropriate to dwell and on which the discussion develops, concerns the obvious theoretical and empirical translation of the concept within the sphere of the social and sociological paradigm. In fact, if we delve into the social references with which to conjugate resilience, a number of difficulties emerge, especially in its ontological dimension and its operational applicability. In the determination of the resilient prerogative, a multiplicity of social, cultural, political and economic variables is involved, which both facilitate and differentiate its empirical manifestation. In its essence, there is a difficult relationship between theoretical approach and empirical reality that needs to be addressed in order not to run the risk of tautological thinking (“the capacity of a resilient subject lies in resilience”) or consensual rhetoric that conceals the failure of the market as the sole regulator of social relations and local and/or trans-local institutions to provide policies in order to contrast the negative outcomes of critical situations.

The call aims to promote a reflection on the resilience through the invitation to propose essays that move within the following main aspects:

1)      its theoretical dimension and relevance within the sociological field that puts at the center of the analysis the possible different approaches to resilience and its centrality as a heuristic concept in the understanding of society and its transformations;

2)      its empirical manifestations within the possible and different themes of sociological research, focusing on the operational definition capable of identifying the preeminent characters necessary to understand its empirical reality and its real impact;

3)      the translation of a concept typical of STEM sciences - ecology, engineering, physics - into an interpretative scheme for the social sciences;

4)      the use of the concept of resilience as the attribution of responsibility to the adaptive capacities of complex social systems;

5)      The use of the concept to reclassify communities, depoliticize conflicts and the functioning of socio-material structures, proposing a cultural and social determinism.

Submissions of the abstracts, in Italian and in English, must be sent in Word format to the editors by March 15 to the following email address: rivista.studisociologia@unicatt.it.

The length of the abstract should be 5000 characters (including spaces) must be completed with the author's affiliation and email address.

Acceptance of the abstracts by the editors and subsequent communication to the authors will follow on 30 March.

The submission of the complete essay is scheduled for 20 August. The essays will be submitted for double blind review process, the results of which will be announced by 15 October.

Final essays for publication are due by 15 November. Only contributions that have obtained a positive evaluation from the referees will be published

Texts should be between 30,000/35,000 characters (including spaces and bibliography), and be written according to editorial standards for authors available here.