EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY DEGREE SUMMER SCHOOL

“Sustainable Young Europe”“Youth as Social Phenomenon in contemporary Europe. Sustainability factors”

Prof. Cleto Corposanto – UMG - Magna Græcia University

12/09/2012

Starting….It seems to me that we are to a watershed in which Europe, in spite of the backwardness of the institutions, crossed by a moving background, a set of urban tribes made up of younger generations in motion a global movement driven by the possibilities of network go beyond any boundary or barrier, the mobility data from the internet, the new concept of space circunnavigabile that breaks the prospects geographic, economic, social.

Starting…Metropolitan cities are the most interesting model of evolution because they exceed the concept of centralized city with the extension to new suburbs, which are increasingly taking on the role of centers pointillés (dotted) for a territorial continuum built environment to the natural environment , accompanied by a renewed sense of local roots.

Our proposal…So I would like to discuss with you today about two topics…

Around the concept of space…with some ideas about social research

Utopias….for instance…

Rediscover the quality of life

This phenomenon of rediscovery, began to take root in the '80s, although some have started to move back in the 50s and 60s,

with many events that portend a change.

Why utopias?Because it is not even a

majority, but sociological studies show that younger generations no longer accept an utilitarian and economic conception of existence.Let us consider the students world – as you are part of it – constantly moving between the big european towns.

Why utopias?It is a movement that has ancient roots that sink in the Middle Age, and now comes back and find a very strong development through the use of computer/Internet. It is a very visible phenomenon that occurs when there is a greater flow of informations, emotions, people.

A new concept of spaceToday we are probably going back to the concept of pre-modern movement with the result that now there is a different conception of space thanks to the Internet, that gives a sense of “circumnavigation” of space.

A new concept of spaceSo Europe, thanks to the Internet, is imbued with this "nomadic tribal” (Maffessoli), a form of contamination during gestation. This could explain also the big increase of depression as a disorder. Given the pattern of the modern city, there are many clues that prove the existence of a new way of conceiving space.

A new concept of spaceAlthough the co-habitation of the students had economic motives of cost-sharing beyond these reasons, it still generates a new lifestyle on community. We can call it tribal, "urban tribe“.

Young peopleThe new generations are the "laboratory" of these new ways of living. If at the time the phenomenon is limited to the younger generation for a process of contamination that will develop into the whole social body.

The structure of familyAn expression of this phenomenon in France, for example, is the collapse of the family structure for men and women: currently 2 out of 3 marriages end in two years. Why this percentage? Because people come from a different way of life, which began in his youth.

New models…This is the reason why such lifestyle implement a process of contamination sexual. There are new models, new ways of being, to occupy the space that no longer find satisfaction in married life, so we can not say "yes this is just a period and then everything falls into place , we have returned to normal, get married, become children, is a job. "

Some statistics….There are statistics that show that 50% of Parisians and New Yorkers are single, which does not mean no sex life, even means that there are free sex.'s why I say that there is an ongoing real change. Going forward, the social ills the result of isolation family will give way to these tribes, resulting in considerable change in social life.

Being glocalThe myth of progress is a modern idea that belongs to the eighteenth and nineteenth century, but I do not think the idea is postmodern liberalism. I rather think that his place will be - using an oxymoron - a "dynamic roots." The glocal (union of two words global and local) on the one hand is rooted to the land, to the city, but at the same time be in the four corners of the world.

Being glocalThere are a return to the roots, community involvement, local products, and at the same time there is a chance to go to Tokyo to spend 15 days in Sao Paulo, Rio, and so on. This is rooted dynamic, something that goes beyond the simple progress. No longer the great myth of progress that was behind the evolution of local, going to the perfect society, even.

Re-thinking at spaces….I believe that postmodernity listing a renewed finishing space, urbanization of cities, which tend to become large. Giving back to space as important in the fifteenth century we will rethink the structure of the city, so we will give much more importance to shared places. Planners, those who are concerned with the urban context and social, will be ever more attentive to the spaces.

From an urban point of view, there are examples of these phenomena?Certainly, but not in Europe. These large mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, San Paolo ... more than city conurbations are continuous from city to country. Aggregates are not centralized like Rome, Milan, Paris, Cologne, Madrid, where there is an important center which is also the center of power, administrative, clerical. These postmodern metropolis show that there exists a more urban concept. In Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dubai, beautiful and magnificent architecture are part of a conurbation, that is where we have more city within a city.

And the research methods?

In which manners can we consider to study these new sociological concepts?

Being non intrusiveResearch methods which do not require active participation from those being researched have a respectable, if not always prominent, role in the history of social research. The most notable recent discussions of their potential are Lee’s (2000) and Corposanto’s (2004) works on unobtrusive methods.

Reactive and non reactive methodsIn reactive methods such as interviews and surveys, respondents are aware of the researcher and may respond in socially desirable fashion or adapt their behaviour in consciousness of being under scrutiny.

Another perspective… Unobtrusive use of “found” data can expose biases in data collected via reactive methods, or allow an otherwise hidden population or practice to be explored.

People and life on web…More people, and a more diverse range of people, are now online, doing a wider array of things, including participating in discussion forums and building web sites, also using social networking sites, uploading their photographs and videos, leaving their opinions via tagging, commenting and reviewing and leaving electronic traces of their actions in logs of server activity, search engine usage and the like.

People and life on web…Unobtrusive methods can also be used to gather data for a qualitative exploration, using “found” data on the Internet to explore people’s understanding of a topic or cultural phenomenon.

Internet, new data bankSince almost every conceivable aspect of daily life is reflected somewhere online, and since the cloak of anonymity can lead people to a frankness they rarely show in face-to-face encounters, the Internetoffers rich data for almost any social researcher and particularly those working in sensitive areas.

Researcher vs peopleUnobtrusive collection of Internet- derived data can be less labour intensive not only for the researcher but also for the researched. Where research focuses on sensitive areas, or particularly vulnerable groups, it can be a considerable imposition to ask respondents to recite their situation for the researchers’ benefit.

Researcher vs peopleUnobtrusive methods using Internet-derived data, make use of what people have already said and done. In addition, the Internet can make previously ephemeral and hard to record aspects of daily life into researchable phenomena.

Cautionary notesSimply because we can access data does not mean it is ethically available for research purposes. Careful evaluation needs to be made of the extent to which particular research techniques make unwarranted intrusions or may have undesirable effects on those studied.

Ethic problems?Content analysis and other quantitative techniques which summarise insights across populations will often be less ethical concern than in-depth qualitative studies focused more on the individual.

Significance…A caveat to bear in mind while analysing Internet-derived data as if it informs understanding of a broader social phenomenon is that not all of the population have access to the Internet, that access is segmented according to socio-demographic characteristics such as nationality, age, gender, education, ethnicity and income.

Social Exhibitionism?Another problem. Data which is publicly available on social networking sites may only be accessible if users have set their privacy controls to allow public access: this portion of the online population may be more naïve about privacy controls, or more interested in publicity, than the general online population.

Considering a possible lack…A further key concern about the unobtrusive use of Internet-derived data is that we lack access to how Internet users might interpret and make use of online information or what, ultimately, their browsing, hyperlinking and social networking mean to them.

Considering a possible lack…This lack of information about the consumption of online interactions often relying on unobtrusive methods as part of a combination of strategies rather than able to use them as a stand-alone method for understanding a phenomenon.

More than qual+quan…Many existing qualitative and quantitativeapproaches can be adapted to take advantage of data from the Internet. Often these unobtrusive uses of Internet-derived data allow researchers to access something much closer to the experience of everyday life than we ever encounter in interview settings.

The endIn summary, with due methodological caution a wide range of unobtrusive studies using Internet-derived data are possible. And also desiderable.