Abandonment As A Social Fact

This book provides a multidisciplinary approach for the study of the “abandonment” problem at the inter-section among urban studies, neo-institutionalist perspectives, and social ontology. An analytical framework (based on descriptive and operational issues, factors, reasons, policies) has been built to interpret the phenomenon of abandonment and possible ways of intervening. The work considers the Italian situation in general terms and examines the case study of Milan in depth. This case is interesting because it triggered public discussions on the problem of abandonment in a non-shrinking context. Moreover, recently, specific policies to cope with abandonment problem have been introduced. The purpose of the book is to show that the problem of the “abandonment” of urban buildings should be understood as a social fact and not as a brute fact. Thus, in this work the “abandoned” state of buildings is considered as not directly related to certain physical variables; rather, it entirely depends on human evaluations. Crucial information in this regard is how institutional frameworks (e.g. sets of rules of conduct) influence individual behaviour and actions through time. In this view, we may identify abandonment as a phenomenon intertwined with the actions of both private and public entities. The neo-institutional approach helps to highlight how the problem of abandonment is articulated with respect to property rights, formal constraints, reasons behind policy decisions, intervention strategies and implementations.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book provides a multidisciplinary approach for the study of the "abandonment" problem at the inter-section among urban studies, neo-institutionalist perspectives, and social ontology. An analytical framework (based on descriptive and operational issues, factors, reasons, policies) has been built to interpret the phenomenon of abandonment and possible ways of intervening. The work considers the Italian situation in general terms and examines the case study of Milan in depth. This case is interesting because it triggered public discussions on the problem of abandonment in a non-shrinking context. Moreover, recently, specific policies to cope with abandonment problem have been introduced. The purpose of the book is to show that the problem of the "abandonment" of urban buildings should be understood as a social fact and not as a brute fact. Thus, in this work the "abandoned" state of buildings is considered as not directly related to certain physical variables; rather, it entirely depends on human evaluations. Crucial information in this regard is how institutional frameworks (e.g. sets of rules of conduct) influence individual behaviour and actions through time. In this view, we may identify abandonment as a phenomenon intertwined with the actions of both private and public entities. The neo-institutional approach helps to highlight how the problem of abandonment is articulated with respect to property rights, formal constraints, reasons behind policy decisions, intervention strategies and implementations.

The first wide-ranging, organic analysis of the sociology of unmarkedness and taken-for-grantedness, this volume investigates the asymmetry between how we attend to the culturally emphasized features of social reality and ignore the culturally unmarked ones. Concerned with the structures of cultural invisibility, unconscious rules of irrelevance, automatic frames of meaning, and collective attention patterns, it brings together scholarship spanning sociology, anthropology, and social psychology, to cover various aspects of humdrum, unglamorous, nondescript, nothing-to-write-at-home-about social phenomena, developing the key assumptions, underpinnings, and implications of this field of study. As comprehensive analysis of unremarked features of our social existence, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in social theory and the sociology of everyday life.

The Disappearance of the Social in American Social Psychology is a critical conceptual history of American social psychology. In this challenging work, John Greenwood demarcates the original conception of the social dimensions of cognition, emotion and behaviour and of the discipline of social psychology itself, that was embraced by early twentieth-century American social psychologists. He documents how this fertile conception of social psychological phenomena came to be progressively neglected as the century developed, to the point that scarcely any trace of the original conception of the social remains in contemporary American social psychology. In a penetrating analysis. Greenwood suggests a number of subtle historical reasons why the original conception of the social came to be abandoned, stressing that none of these were particularly good reasons for the neglect of the original conception of the social. By demonstrating the historical contingency of this neglect, Greenwood indicates that what has been lost may once again be regained.

Fictions of Fact and Value looks at logical positivism's major influence on the development of postwar American fiction, charting a literary and philosophical genealogy that has been absent from criticism on the American novel since 1945.

This book is a collection on abandoned children illustrating the need to contextualise their position in particular cultural situations.

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.