Dalla distanza sociale alle relazioni orizzontali. Appunti per un domani ormai alle porte

Abstract

This article offers some cause for reflection for sociological research of the coming years, which cannot easily forget the most gigantic experiment ever done in the world: 2/3 of the population closed at home for about two months. It is possible by identifying three evidences that pandemic has placed for all to see: the effects of human action on the environment; our vulnerability which is forcing us to rethink the denial of very frequent death in contemporary societies; the interdependence of our lives, which on one hand widens the boundaries and horizons through globalization, on the other hand makes us more distinct but not more distant, preserving social bonds. Ties that have not liquefied but must respond to a relational system that has long been characterized by what Giddens calls negotiated authority. Ties that will be analyzed in the light of the processes triggered by the digital society, which is also characterized by polarizations: frequent vertical fractures, which make communication more hierarchical, but also undoubted possibilities of obtaining more horizontal relationships, whose bonds and belonging can be rethought on the basis of new forms of social agreements.