This introduction aims to present the main contributions of the two parts of the special section – titled “Thinking through ruination: theoretical and empirical approaches to the ruins of the Anthropocene”. The focus of this special section is to explore the anthropogenic ruins of our recent past within the current context of environmental challenges and threats. The compiled articles exemplify the significance of examining these ruins, highlighting their richness and cross-disciplinary nature. Additionally, the introduction underscores the fertile intersections between the articles and discusses their common motifs in addressing the ecological crisis through the lens of ruins and ruination processes.

El impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 ha alcanzado a la mayoría de los países del mundo. En el ámbito de la comunicación política es un reto sin precedentes para los líderes políticos mundiales. En este trabajo se analiza la retórica bélica de Pedro Sánchez, presidente de España, uno de los países más afectados por la pandemia. Se toman como referencia sus discursos oficiales pronunciados del 10 de marzo al 22 de abril. Se emplea el análisis de contenido con un procedimiento creado para este caso, bajo el enfoque del análisis crítico del discurso y combinando una perspectiva cuantitativa con una cualitativa. Tras realizar una profunda revisión bibliográfica del uso de la retórica bélica en el discurso público se identifica un corpus de unidades léxicas y se interpreta en su contexto, detectándose 101 unidades léxicas y 359 frases o metáforas con reminiscencias bélicas o militares, en los 13 discursos del corpus. El mayor «peso bélico» se concentra en los momentos más graves en cuanto a víctimas y contagios de la crisis. Se concluye que la guerra es el vehículo de transmisión que emplea el presidente del Gobierno de España para explicar de forma sencilla, visual y conmovedora, una situación desconocida para la sociedad española.

This collective endeavour is a recent contribution that, according to the foreword writer and international figure of renown in sensory sociology David Howes, makes a remarkable contribution to the matureness of the sensory turn in social sciences. For Howes this is a book that expresses solidly the consolidation of a stance regarding what he considers an appropriate study of the body, emotions and senses; i.e. understanding them as constructions and configurations produced by a constant interrelation between people and the material and social world surrounding them. Howes takes up on the review of work lines that he considers fundamental for the maturation of the sensory turn as axes that in one way or another are present in the different contributions to the book. The Canadian researcher highlights the adequate handling of the methodological strategies and the high grade of theoretical sophistication in each chapter.

The electronic journal Digithum is designed for academics, professionals and students from the various fields relating to the humanities and social sciences and is published with the following aims in mind: The distribution/publication of editorial articles or research results in the following subject areas: The knowledge society: analysis of the transformations taking place in the digital age in terms of the humanities and social sciences. By information or knowledge society, we mean the current state of evolution of society, where generalised use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the production and exchange of information determines the evolution and transformation of social life, politics and the economy - especially, but not only, in developed countries. The transformation towards the knowledge society is having effects on the foundations of the organisation and structuring of societies in a way that involves a range of processes that are configuring a new social context or environment. These processes are linguistic, cultural, political and economic globalisation; the conversion of information into a raw material, and the re-establishing of social identity. The repercussions of information and communication technologies (ICT) on studies, teaching and the dissemination of the humanities and social sciences. ICT applications in studies, teaching or the dissemination of the humanities and social sciences. Promoting, in the academic community and amongst its readers, regular debate on the journal's subject matter, which, in principle, is to be related to the dossier. Digithum also reserves space for the distribution of certain articles which, though not strictly fitting into the aforementioned subject areas, due to their quality or relevance represent an important contribution to fields of study in the humanities and social sciences.

The electronic journal Digithum is designed for academics, professionals and students from the various fields relating to the humanities and social sciences and is published with the following aims in mind: The distribution/publication of editorial articles or research results in the following subject areas: The knowledge society: analysis of the transformations taking place in the digital age in terms of the humanities and social sciences. By information or knowledge society, we mean the current state of evolution of society, where generalised use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the production and exchange of information determines the evolution and transformation of social life, politics and the economy - especially, but not only, in developed countries. The transformation towards the knowledge society is having effects on the foundations of the organisation and structuring of societies in a way that involves a range of processes that are configuring a new social context or environment. These processes are linguistic, cultural, political and economic globalisation; the conversion of information into a raw material, and the re-establishing of social identity. The repercussions of information and communication technologies (ICT) on studies, teaching and the dissemination of the humanities and social sciences. ICT applications in studies, teaching or the dissemination of the humanities and social sciences. Promoting, in the academic community and amongst its readers, regular debate on the journal's subject matter, which, in principle, is to be related to the dossier. Digithum also reserves space for the distribution of certain articles which, though not strictly fitting into the aforementioned subject areas, due to their quality or relevance represent an important contribution to fields of study in the humanities and social sciences.

Aquest article vol explorar el potencial de les monedes socials i complementàries (en endavant, MSC) per millorar els aspectes humans de l’intercanvi econòmic. Ja en temps d’Aristòtil, als pensadors socials els preocupava que la recerca de beneficis conduís a la deshumanització dels qui participen en els intercanvis econòmics, un assumpte que també van tractar els pensadors fundacionals de les ciències socials modernes, com Karl Marx i Max Weber. Aquest article prova el potencial de l’ús de MSC per reduir aquesta deshumanització, que ara se situa en un context social més ampli, el del capitalisme global contemporani. Començant amb una revisió dels tipus de MSC, l’article pren en consideració els objectius i finalitats de les MSC a tot el món. Hi ha motius per ser optimistes i pensar que les MSC poden reduir els aspectes negatius de l’intercanvi financer tradicional a l’hora d’utilitzar-se en altres de caràcter perifèric i/o exclosos dels sistemes econòmics formals, sense necessàriament competir amb les institucions bancàries tradicionals públiques o privades. Aquest treball conclou amb una reflexió sobre els aspectes clau de les MSC que contribueixen a l’èxit de la seva implementació i a assegurar un ús sostenible. Malgrat el seu caràcter conceptual, l’article ofereix una metanàlisi de molts estudis de camp en MSC i, en última instància, suggereix que les MSC poden ser una eina eficaç per mitigar algunes de les qualitats perjudicials de les relacions econòmiques dominants en un món globalitzat.

The introduction to the special issue taps into discussions about the inseparability of science and fiction. Commencing from the idea that scientific statements are distinguished from fiction only a posteriori, not a priori, the piece asks, how fiction could be used as a theoretical resource in social scientific thinking. Could it inform, enrich, extend, intensify, and challenge the sociological imagination? Besides rejecting any clear-cut separation of social science and fictional and artistic forms, the text seeks to unsettle our certainty as to what counts as “fact” and what as “fiction” in the first place. It also suggests that examining the relationship of sociology and fictional and artistic forms helps us unsettle the institutionalized disciplinary ways of ordering knowledge and thought and that there may be a poetics or fiction to be uncovered in sociological scholarship, as sociology is also a form of storytelling.

¿Cómo y por qué la cultura occidental ha relacionado la desnudez con la vergüenza y el erotismo?, siendo así, ¿cómo es posible que clubes nudistas puedan socializar sin mostrar expresiones de excitación sexual ni de vergüenza?, ¿cuál es el proceso para convertirse en nudista? y, ¿de qué formas es visible el género en espacios de interacción de cuerpos desnudos? Estas son preguntas que encuentran una profunda y atinada respuesta en el reciente libro Nakedness, Shame and Embarrassment: A Long-Term Sociological Perspective, de la socióloga Barbara Górnicka. La suya es una fina mirada sobre cómo los comportamientos y las emociones son parte de cambios sociales de larga duración inscritos en el cuerpo. El libro teje una reflexión sobre la las actitudes y emociones ligadas a la desnudez desde una perspectiva eliasiana a través de 8 capítulos. En éstos, transita entre su investigación empírica en Club Nautica, agrupación nudista de Dublín, Irlanda y reflexiones teóricas a propósito de los postulados de Norbert Elias sobre el proceso de civilización.

Love and Society by Swen Seebach is a sociological study of love at its best. In recent years there has been a global boom in the scientific studies of love (García-Andrade 2014). Why? How has love become so crucial in sciences as it has in our lives? This book intends to understand why and how love has come center stage from a sociological point of view. And I emphasize this is a sociological endeavor because the question at hand is what is love’s contribution to social cohesion, how do we bond with each other when we are ‘in love’ and why it is so central in our societies, contrary to other historical periods. Also, and differently from other theoretical texts, the author goes hand in hand with empirical research on love to illustrate what people say about their love bonds: “…nearly 100 qualitative interviews with people from different European countries, with different sexual orientations, and with different social backgrounds…” (p. 13, n.1)

Long distance relationships and caring at a distance may be connected with emotional and psychological exhaustion but also gratification, reward and empowerment; above all, they possess important implications in terms of social justice, equality and citizenship. The expression ‘world families’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2014) includes a heterogeneous and tension-filled set of social actors who have in common the potential to bridge traditional distinctions between public and private, centre and periphery, national and international, able-bodied and physically/cognitively impaired, heterosexual and homosexual, bypassing dichotomous ideas of inclusion/exclusion which typically characterise the concept of citizenship. These families represent a group of very different social actors, including couples of mixed cultures and ethnicities, low-paid migrant workers, skilled migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees, distant families, etc. who challenge our culturally homogenous understanding of family and society and are defined therefore as ‘pioneers of cosmopolitanism’ and cultural diversity. Drawing on recent work on families, relationships, intimacies and caring for distant others and contextualising it within the specific and still unexplored context of Living Apart Together (LAT) same-sex couples, this article examines the moral, sociological and institutional geographies of these less visible chains of care and affection and their unequally entitled rights and visibility. The literature review is combined with auto-ethnographic work analysing and discussing the case of a married, same-sex, transnational, Living Apart Together (LAT) couple. This article suggests that by looking at what happens at the level of emotion-based, micro-situated interactions we can get some crucial insights into the changing nature of families, intimacies and relationships and their multiple implications in terms of social inclusion, entitlement to rights/citizenship and social change. It is a form of relational, emotion-based and micro-situated social inclusion and entitlement to rights/citizenship which is occurring, on a daily basis, in the interstices of people’s interactions even when such change still meets several obstacles at the structural, political and institutional level.