The Borders of Equality. Recognition, Inclusion, Exclusion

Abstract

According to the sociologist Ulrich Beck, the contemporary debate on social inequalities is an exemplary case study of the phenomenon of systematic distortion of «scientific perspective of the observer» which he proposed to define as methodological nationalism. In this horizon of investigation it is possible to touch the «great gray areas» - and the gross errors - produced on the level of empirical research by a vision of society and politics that programmatically tends to assume «the logic of the national perspective». Moving from some famous passages of Alexis de Tocqueville, the essay aims to focus on the complex foundational dynamics which are the basis of this territorialized approach to the issue of equality, within a path of reflection that calls into question some of the latest theoretical contributions on the theme.