Social love and the critical potential of people: when the social reality challenges the sociological imagination

"For a long time, love has been confined to the private sphere and its social dimension has been overlooked. Instead, love is a force capable of generating social bonds and change in human sociability. 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. Breaking the logic of instrumentality, calculation and standardization, love enables people to enter in a regime of overabundance which recognizes the irreducibility of the other. Being a key element of solidarity in current plural and inequal societies, love can also help to interpret and intervene in social problems, such as poverty, conflicts, xenophobia, climate change, and post-covid crisis, recognizing people as social changers. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the book offers theoretical and empirical reflections on social love, as well as insights of some of the most important current sociologists, such as Sari Hanafi, Alain Caillè, Paulo Henrique Martins, Adrian Scribano and Geoffrey Pleyers. 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 the whole spectrum of social disciplines"--

"For a long time, love has been confined to the private sphere and its social dimension has been overlooked. Instead, love is a force capable of generating social bonds and change in human sociability. 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. Breaking the logic of instrumentality, calculation and standardization, love enables people to enter in a regime of overabundance which recognizes the irreducibility of the other. Being a key element of solidarity in current plural and inequal societies, love can also help to interpret and intervene in social problems, such as poverty, conflicts, xenophobia, climate change, and post-covid crisis, recognizing people as social changers. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the book offers theoretical and empirical reflections on social love, as well as insights of some of the most important current sociologists, such as Sari Hanafi, Alain Caillè, Paulo Henrique Martins, Adrian Scribano and Geoffrey Pleyers. 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 the whole spectrum of social disciplines"--

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.