Società e tras-formazione. Itinerari di Ermeneutica pedagogica in Zygmunt Bauman.

This research paper attempts to reconstruct, from a socio-pedagogical viewpoint, the fundamental weave of thought of the social scientist Zygmunt Bauman and his intellectual connection with other scholars. Particular attention has been paid to the discovery of certain conceptual categories of formative importance (social order, responsibility, ethics, democracy, uncertainty, identity, wasted lives, community, belonging…). These categories were hermeneutically adopted within two ethnographic investigations, with the objective to study the formative responses of young people staying in a comunità per minori (children’s home) and the processes concerning the construction of their identity. The research process has closely examined the author’s thoughts, and, at the same time, endeavoured to understand and investigate specific formative contexts. Finally, this study aims to offer a reflection, which is central to the scholar’s work, on the theme of democracy and, predominantly, on the theme of the uncertain identity (individual or guardian?) of ontemporary man.