Excluded and Alienated. Alain Touraine’s Sociology of Action

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to present the proposal of Alain Touraine’s sociology of action, originally conceived not merely as the French approach to social sciences, since critically resisting both structuralism and functionalism. Moreover, this proposal (along with the concept of the self-creation of society) benefits on the one hand from Marx and Weber solutions, and rejects, on the other, their constitutive elements, thus creating a fruitful heuristic theoretical (and practical) perspective, which is reflected in the analysis of specific areas of social reality (e.g. the social movements, class relations, sociological intervention). A specific vision of a cultural model plays here — in terms of this French sociologist — a key role.