Search

The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of critical junctures of our times. The social sciences, and sociology in particular, are making important efforts to understand how the crisis is evolving and to foresee how our societies may be affected. The impacts of the crisis are unevenly distributed among geographic areas, activity sectors and social collectives. In particular, several areas of Europe have been affected in distinctive ways. This special issue is dedicated to investigating a range of social effects in Southern Europe with a focus on the “social landscape” that is emerging post-crisis. The background assumption of this editorial and the articles in this special issue is that socioeconomic conditions, social arrangements, and institutions have shaped the social impact of the pandemic, together with the capacities to react in the public sphere and citizens’ resilience. Southern European countries are a strategic research site for observing such effects, because of their distinctive social configurations. The five articles in the special issue study in detail the hidden unemployment in vulnerable collectives, the reactions expressed on digital social networks, the effects on and collective action of cultural workers and artists, health perception during confinement, and social innovation related to caring for childhood. Some contributions are of a comparative nature and look at several countries. Others focus on specific countries and regions. They provide key insights for understanding the social significance of the pandemic and the peculiarities of Southern Europe.

This chapter is intended to explore the in-between space of “new-generation social enterprises” (NGSEs) in Italy from a qualitative perspective. Starting from a rapid appraisal of the main developments of the social economy sector in the country, our main objective is to assess whether this perceived model of NGSE can in fact be legitimately identified as such, with behaviours (i.e. in governance, use of networks, values and driving forces, work styles) and needs that are different from previous conceptualizations of social enterprises in Italy. To this end, we analyse the impact of the 2008/2009 economic crisis on the country’s welfare system, and other national events which opened up a space of new generation for social entrepreneurship in Italy. A specific case study, L’Arcolaio Societa Cooperativa Sociale in Sicily, will serve as a testing ground for our hypothesis: this new-generation space serves as an area of transition and crossing, rather than a space of birth or rebirth. It is a hybrid space, indeed, in which different trajectories and different instances of innovation intersect and coexist, some focused on employment-related issues and social inclusion of marginalized groups according to the traditional WISE approach, and others dedicated to emerging problems, especially environmental and ecological ones, according to the model we define as “protosocial” in the chapter.

Il contributo affronta la questione dell'irretroattività della legge relativamente al c.d. 'decreto sicurezza' attraverso l'analisi della recente pronuncia delle Sezioni Unite della Corte di Cassazione sul tema. Evidenziando il carattere di diritto umano fondamentale proprio dell'istituto della protezione internazionale, si sottolinea la sua natura di diritto soggettivo e, dunque, la necessità - avvertita sia a livello costituzionale, sia comunitario - che esso sia salvaguardato sin dal primo momento della sua richiesta, a prescindere da successive modificazioni in itinere della legislazione relativa.

Il contributo propone una riflessione su come è cambiata la grave marginalità adulta nel corso dell'ultimo decennio partendo dall'analisi dei profili di bisogno degli ospiti di quattro servizi di accoglienza residenziale comunitaria, tre maschili e uno femminile, gestiti dall'Associazione Opera Diocesana Betania onlus di Udine.