Le trasformazioni dell'auto-mutuo aiuto in una prospettiva eliasiana. Alcune esperienze europee

Abstract

Using the Elias’ perspective and focusing on interdependencies between social actors and facts, the paper shows the process of transformation of self-help/mutual aid over time in some European Counties. It proposes a classification that identify three different phase, each of which characterized by a different configuration of the social system and where different level of interconnections and interdependencies between institutions regulated by different Polanyian modes of exchange can be observed. According to Freidson proposal, professionalism has been added to three traditional regulatory principles. We conclude the paper with two open questions: the first argues about the opportunity to modelize a model of self-help systems according to influences exerted by welfare regime and professional model prevailing in different contexts; the second concern the possibility to imagine a new historical phase characterized by a social configuration in which the reciprocity plays a dominant role on the social integration process.