Gino Germani

Since the 1960's, developing countries in Latin America started a complex journey towards establishing new values, the ones of modernity. This volume considers the work of renowned Italian-Argentine sociologist Gino Germani, who more than anyone else has been able to outline the process of modernization from this particular aspect. The author highlights Germanis idea of freedom as a crucial and unavoidable concept at the core of the modern way of being persons, subjects, social actors and active participants within a social system. Germani also refers to the opposite direction, that of social marginality, and suggests that a free human being is somebody who is responsible for his or her actions. Within this context, every human being is the bearer of rights insofar as he or she is capable of making choices, taking responsibilities and, able to identify on equal footing with everyone else the right and duty to be free. Bringing a new light to the great 20th century sociologists thought, this book aims to trace the path of modernization and the timely issues of freedom, marginality, and participation that still profoundly defines our social structure.