Social Love and the Critical Potential of People

When the Social Reality Challenges the Sociological Imagination

Silvia Cataldi, Gennaro Iorio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000685206
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Overview
• Part II Social love as overabundance
• Part III Social love as care of others and the world
• Part IV Social love as universalism
• Part V Social love as recognition of others
• Conclusion
• Index