EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY DEGREE SUMMER SCHOOL “ Sustainable Young Europe”

1. EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGY DEGREE SUMMER SCHOOL“Sustainable Young Europe” “Youth as Social Phenomenon in contemporary Europe. Sustainabilityfactors” Prof. Cleto Corposanto – UMG - Magna GræciaUniversity 12/09/2012

2. Starting…. Itseems to me thatweare to a watershed in which Europe, in spite of the backwardness of the institutions, crossed by a moving background, a set of urbantribes made up of youngergenerations in motion a global movementdriven by the possibilities of network go beyondanyboundary or barrier, the mobility data from the internet, the new concept of spacecircunnavigabilethat breaks the prospectsgeographic, economic, social.

3. Starting… Metropolitancities are the mostinteresting model of evolutionbecausetheyexceed the concept of centralized city with the extension to new suburbs, which are increasinglytaking on the role of centers pointillés (dotted) for a territorial continuum builtenvironment to the naturalenvironment , accompanied by a renewedsense of localroots.

4. Ourproposal… So I wouldlike to discusswithyoutodayabouttwotopics…

5. Around the concept of space…with some ideasabout social research

6. Utopias…. for instance… Rediscoverthe quality of life Thisphenomenon of rediscovery, began to take root in the '80s, although some havestarted to move back in the 50s and 60s, with manyeventsthatportend a change.

7. Whyutopias? Becauseitisnoteven a majority, butsociologicalstudies show thatyoungergenerations no longeraccept an utilitarian and economicconception of existence. Letusconsider the students world – asyou are part of it – constantlymovingbetween the big europeantowns.

8. Whyutopias? Itis a movementthathasancientrootsthatsink in the Middle Age, and nowcomes back and find a very strong developmentthrough the use of computer/Internet. Itis a veryvisiblephenomenonthatoccurswhenthereis a greater flow of informations, emotions, people.

9. A new concept of space Todaywe are probablygoing back to the concept of pre-modernmovement with the resultthatnowthereis a differentconception of spacethanks to the Internet, thatgives a sense of “circumnavigation” of space.

10. A new concept of space So Europe, thanks to the Internet, isimbued with this "nomadictribal” (Maffessoli), a form of contaminationduringgestation. Thiscouldexplainalso the big increaseofdepressionas a disorder. Giventhe pattern of the modern city, thereare manycluesthat prove the existence of a new way of conceivingspace.

11. A new concept of space Although the co-habitation of the studentshadeconomicmotives of cost-sharingbeyondthesereasons, itstillgenerates a new lifestyle on community. We can call ittribal, "urbantribe“.

12. Young people The new generations are the "laboratory" of these new ways of living. Ifat the time the phenomenonislimited to the younger generation for a process of contaminationthatwilldevelopinto the whole social body.

13. The structure of family An expression of thisphenomenon in France, for example, is the collapse of the family structure for men and women: currently 2 out of 3 marriages end in twoyears. Whythispercentage? Becausepeople come from a different way of life, whichbegan in hisyouth.

14. New models… Thisis the reasonwhysuchlifestyleimplement a process of contaminationsexual. There are new models, new ways of being, to occupy the spacethat no longerfindsatisfaction in married life, so we can notsay "yes thisis just a period and theneverythingfallsintoplace , wehavereturned to normal, getmarried, becomechildren, is a job. "

15. Some statistics…. There are statisticsthat show that 50% of Parisians and New Yorkers are single, whichdoesnotmean no sex life, evenmeansthatthere are free sex.'swhy I saythatthereis an ongoingrealchange. Goingforward, the social ills the result of isolation family willgive way to thesetribes, resulting in considerablechange in social life. 


16. Beingglocal The myth of progress is a modern idea thatbelongs to the eighteenth and nineteenthcentury, but I do notthink the idea ispostmodernliberalism. I ratherthinkthathisplacewill be - usingan oxymoron - a "dynamicroots." The glocal (union of twowords global and local) on the onehandisrooted to the land, to the city, butat the same time be in the four corners of the world.

17. Beingglocal There are a return to the roots, community involvement, localproducts, and at the same time thereis a chance to go to Tokyo to spend 15 days in Sao Paulo, Rio, and so on. Thisisrooteddynamic, somethingthatgoesbeyond the simple progress. No longer the greatmyth of progress thatwasbehind the evolution of local, going to the perfect society, even.

18. Re-thinkingatspaces…. I believethatpostmodernity listing a renewedfinishingspace, urbanization of cities, whichtend to become large. Giving back to spaceasimportant in the fifteenthcenturywewillrethink the structure of the city, so wewillgivemuch more importance to sharedplaces. Planners, thosewho are concerned with the urbancontext and social, will be ever more attentive to the spaces.

19. From an urbanpoint of view, there are examples of thesephenomena? Certainly, butnot in Europe. These large mega-citiessuchas Seoul, Tokyo, San Paolo ... more than city conurbations are continuous from city to country. Aggregates are notcentralizedlike Rome, Milan, Paris, Cologne, Madrid, wherethereis an important center whichisalso the center of power, administrative, clerical. Thesepostmodernmetropolisshow thatthereexists a more urbanconcept. In Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dubai, beautiful and magnificentarchitecture are part of a conurbation, thatiswherewehave more city within a city.

20. And the researchmethods? In whichmanners can weconsider to studythese new sociologicalconcepts?

21. Being non intrusive Research 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.

22. Reactive and non reactivemethods In 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.

23. Anotherperspective… 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. Internet, new data bank Since 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 Internet offers rich data for almost any social researcher and particularly those working in sensitive areas.

27. Researcher vs people Unobtrusive 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.

28. Researcher vs people Unobtrusive 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.

29. Cautionary notes Simply 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.

30. Ethicproblems? 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.

31. 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.

32. Social Exhibitionism? Anotherproblem. 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.

33. Considering a possiblelack… 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.

34. Considering a possiblelack… This lack of information about the consumption of online interactionsoften 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.

35. More thanqual+quan… Many existing qualitative and quantitative approaches 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.

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