Books in the Studies in Sociology: Symbols, Theory and Society series

From Habits to Social Structures

If the new cultural sociology is to gain firm grounds, it should rediscover the classic studies on cultural dynamics and cultural systems. This book contributes to a better understanding of Florian Znaniecki as an eminent culturologist and the lasting relevance of his theory of cultural becoming.

The volume casts a new look at the legacy of social phenomenology, demonstrating how such concepts as intersubjectivity, life-world, milieu, social inconsistency and symbolic transcendence can be applied to the study of sociocultural transformations.

This book is a contribution both to disseminating knowledge about the relational approach in sociology which has been developed in Italy and in Europe, starting from the work of Pierpaolo Donati, and to confronting issues which are currently much debated in social theory, social research and social work.

The volume focuses on politics of symbolization across Central and Eastern Europe understood as complex spaces of semiosis. Politics of symbolization affects the semantics of identities and power relations between various subjects, and encompasses the changing meanings of social spaces, times, as well as modalities of collective memory.

Relational sociology draws attention to non-utilitarian aspects of sociality that reach beyond instrumental rationality, and presents the issue of relational reason. Shaping a civil society under cultural plurality requires reflection upon relational rationality. This book focuses on relational goods as an emergent effect of social relations.