Relational Sociology by Donati Pierpaolo

Author:Donati, Pierpaolo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humanities
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2010-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

Relational sociology looks at reality from a perspective which is both specific and general – that of relationality.3 In other words, it is both descriptive and normative, aimed neither at individuals nor at social structures as such, but at social relations – analysing, interpreting and attributing value to them as the precondition of problems arising and the means for their potential solution.

From the applied perspective, oriented towards network intervention, it is a question of producing a change which allows the subjects to manage their own significant, actual and potential relations. They do this by bringing their existing human and material resources – both manifest and latent – into play, so they can achieve an adequate level of self-regulation, or at least sufficient to confront their problems that would otherwise be perceived and classified as problems of individual actors or of abstract collective entities alone.

Relational sociology does not come from nowhere, nor is it determined a priori by a ‘closed’ theory.4 Historically it presupposes the emergence of a particular form of society: ‘relational society’.5 In its very mode of being, this has as its norm or defining principle, the continual generation of social relations, through processes of differentiation and integration, both at the intersubjective level – in primary networks, and at a general level – in secondary, impersonal and organizational networks. Such a society calls for a theoretical and applied vision of social reality sufficiently open to itself and about itself to think relationally.

The aim of this chapter is to outline the general theoretical premises of this approach in the belief that only a theory with its own defining principles which are both specific and widely applicable can provide the understanding and pragmatic application appropriate to giving sociology its ‘practical character’.

The main difficulty encountered is that of distinguishing this approach from structural functionalism. Without doubt, the latter is actually the approach which lays greatest emphasis on the role of relations6 and has relied and still relies heavily on the notion of ‘networks’. But unfortunately it offers a rather reductive vision, in a functionalist sense, of social relations and treats the concept of network in a structuralist vein, which is another unacceptable example of its reductionism.

In this chapter, I hope above all to specify how the relational approach differs from the structural functionalist one, as it is founded on a totally different generic premise. Consequently it leads to a totally different theoretical and practical outlook.

3 The perspective is comprehensive insofar as social relations are spread throughout society, as society is made up of social relations, even though we observe such relations, from time to time, as economic, political, juridical, psychological and so on. And it is specific insofar as the relation is observed not from a logical – economic, political, juridical – standpoint, but from a social standpoint which implies it is imbued with meaning by the subjects who are mutually involved.

4 ‘Closed’ in the sense of being conceived and of conceiving itself as complete, or self-referential, such as, for example, neo-functionalist systems theory is, as I will go on to argue.

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