Abstract
Within modernity, social identity and solidarity are deemed to be conflicting terms. What has been called the `culture of difference' triggers a weak solidarity anywhere. If this is really so, how can we explain the rise of new `social solidarities' - a phenomenon which is occurring throughout Europe along with concomitant processes of fragmentation and differentiation? The general argument of this paper is that conflicts between social identities and solidarities cannot be understood in terms of a clash between individual and holistic perspectives. We need a relational perspective. From this angle, the paper tries to explain why and how a post-modern (societal) balance between social solidarity and social identities (i.e., a new citizenship) is emerging today, from the society rather than from the state, in such a way as to build new forms of interdependences and links between identities and solidarities. Sociologically speaking, it may be that a new `societal semantics' is emerging, according to which citizenship is a complex of rights and duties not only of individuals but also of social groups, arranging civic life into several `universalistic autonomies' capable of reconciling collective goals and self-management practices, solidarity and identity issues. This is the new challenge for post-modern societies; the name of this new game is `societal citizenship' or citizenship of social autonomies, including regional ones.
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