RISULTATI RICERCA

The article intends to offer a literature review of Italian sociological research on status communication of Italian middle class in the last fifteen years. We focus on a central topic of sociology of consumption, such as middle class distinction and identity strategies, and on a status group who was strongly affected by the recent economic crisis. The review is structured in two sections. The first section focuses on the middle class consumption strategies before the 2008 economic crisis, the second is aimed to identify the strategies of facing the crisis.

Critical consumption and food networks - This paper explores the development of alternative practices of production and consumption of food in Italy, pointing out the attention on the potentiality of the short food chains aiming to improve the conditions of small producers as well as on the emerging of critical consumption practices that have encouraged the constitutions of the solidarity purchasing groups (GAS). In particular, this paper presents the results of a national survey about the direct selling practices involving small rural producers as well as the GAS. The networks developed by these actors present specific aspects that are not considered by the analytical approaches just focusing on spatiality, but can be interpreted as "networks of resistance". Key words: critical consumption; agro-food networks; biological production; solidarity purchasing groups; short food chains; direct sale.

Il volume presenta una ricerca sulle modalità di attuazione e implementazione dell’art. 75 e sul suo impatto sui consumatori di sostanze psicoattive illegali. Saggi sulla disciplina delle misure amministrative, sul processo istitutivo dei Nuclei operativi tossicodipendenze nel contesto evolutivo dell’organizzazione e delle funzioni delle prefetture, sui problemi inerenti la valutazione delle politiche in materia di droghe, accompagnano il nucleo centrale del lavoro.

The Italian landscape has seen numerous changes in the last twenty years connected with different ‘driving forces’ of a prevalently socio-economic nature, which are reflected in the general ‘banalisation’ of the landscape and a continuous expansion of urbanised areas. An analysis of data from the ‘Inventory of Land Use in Italy’ provides a precise picture of the dynamics of landscape change which allows us to assess the real capacity of national parks to safeguard the environment. It was found from a comparative analysis that although the figure for the urbanised surface area of parks (1%) is currently much lower than the national average (7.3%), it’s rate of increase over the last 20 years compared to the 1990 figure is quite similar (20% in parks and 24% in the country as a whole).

Il contributo presenta alcune riflessioni sul rapporto tra il modello insediativo dello urban sprawl e il consumo di territorio in Italia. L’accrescimento di aree urbane a bassa densità nel nostro paese risulta sganciato dai trends demografici e viene letto come il principale responsabile del consumo della risorsa suolo. Dal punto di vista sociologico, il fenomeno della città diffusa sembra inoltre allontanarsi dai tratti peculiari della forma urbana che non può prescindere da un certo grado di densità e compattezza.

The concept of the ‘postmodern consumer’ plays a central role in the debate, started in the early 80s, about economic, social and cultural changes in developed countries in the years following the end of the second world war. These changes were interpreted as a passage from modern to postmodern society. According to this literature, postmodern conditions have had a significant impact on the consumer, especially with regard to his/her psychological characteristics. In this new framework the consumer is viewed as someone more interested in the symbolic or cultural value of products and services than in their functional and utility value. At the same time, he/she is represented as an active player in the market scenario, exercising the freedom to move in search of trademarks, symbols and experiences through which he/she can communicate his/her own identity. The figure of the postmodern consumer is difficult to place in the framework of standard neoclassical theories on consumerism, which highlights the shortcomings of this theoretical approach in studying the behavior of the postmodern consumer. These shortcomings are likely to be more relevant when considering the consumer of food products, given the strong nexus between consumption and the well-being of the consumer and the symbolic and cultural value that food products project. The main goal of the paper is to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the postmodern consumer of food products by means of an analysis of scientific literature, mainly in the areas of behavioral economics, sociology and psychology. Following this, the paper focuses on questions regarding information and the rational behavior of consumers as being the main hypothesis upon which standard neoclassical theories are based, adding to the traditional approach to consumer choice the new insights provided by this different perspective. Finally, the implications of this type of analysis for food safety and quality policies are considered, together with a discussion on further research needed to define more effective policies.