FOR A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF VITALITY

outline of a new research program

Abstract

The article presents the broad outlines of a sociology of vitality. It develops the proposal in three main stages. First, it critically compares the scarce denaturalization to which the age categories (adolescence, youth, adulthood, old age, etc.) have been subjected with respect to what has occurred in other identity categories (class, gender or ethnicity). Secondly, based on the above, the article proposes an analytical strategy of denaturalization, dissociating age groups and the question of vitality. To this end, a specific problematization of vitality is formulated, differentiating between its two main sources of energy, metabolic and social, and characterizing it as a trans-age dimension. Thirdly, by way of illustration, some of the new problematizations that a sociology of vitality is likely to induce with respect to the sociology of age groups are presented