Imaginary and Everyday Life: the Role of Symbolic in the Social Construction of the Reality

All sociology's founding fathers, from Durkheim to Weber, from Simmel to Pareto, have considered the role that non-rational components of action have for understanding social life. The defining moment for this field of study has been the publication, in 1960, of the important work of G. Durand about the anthropological structures of imaginary. As for the social imaginary, it is mostly C. Castoriadis that paved the way for the study of the imaginary component of social institutions. Finally, the study of the role and significance of the imagae in social life, especially in the daily life of social actors, is the thread of thought of the French sociologist M. Maffesoli.