The Social Routes of the Imaginary

The question of imaginary starts where its opposition to reality ends. Once this opposition is dismissed, it becomes possible thinking of imaginary as a mean of construction and transformation of the social reality. A series of essays – regarding the taking form of socio-anthropological environments; the collective dynamics of social integration; the mass media metamorphosis; the politics legitimation processes; the symbolic dimension of economics and that of the material culture; the representation of otherness – trace an analytical perspective in which imaginary represents an essential tool for a deep understanding of social phenomena.
Contributors: Sergio Brancato, Francesca Colella, Stefano Cristante, Fabio D'Andrea, Valentina Grassi, Pier Luca Marzo, Milena Meo, Luca Mori, Maria Giovanna Musso, Domenico Secondulfo, Antonio Tramontana, and Pier Paolo Zampieri

Pier Luca Marzo teaches sociology of social change and sociology of imaginary at Department of Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Education and Cultural Studies (COSPECS), University of Messina. He is editor in chief and founder of the open access journal Im@go. A Journal of the Social Imaginary, and member of the scientific board of AIS (The Italian Sociological Association) Imaginary section.
Luca Mori is associate professor of sociology at the University of Verona. His research focuses on social theory, sociology of health and illness and social imaginaries.