81921 - Sociology of Cultural and Creative Processes

Academic Year 2025/2026

  • Docente: Vando Borghi
  • Credits: 5
  • SSD: SPS/08
  • Language: Italian
  • Moduli: Vando Borghi (Modulo 1) (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Advanced Design (cod. 6685)

Learning outcomes

The module takes an integrated approach to the cultural and creative industries system, which includes: cultural heritage, tourism, fashion, audiovisual production, and design itself as a domain of development in the cultural and creative sector. The course provides knowledge on cultural and creative processes in the humanities and social, management and communication sciences. At the end of the module, students will be able to: understand the interactions between the various players in the cultural and creative system; identify the needs of the players and develop measurable value in terms of cultural and territorial capital; identify the products and services that, when properly designed, can represent the outcome of the project.

Course contents

In line with the overall structure of the Design Thinking Programme/Course Content — Product-Service Design Laboratory, this module will enable students to:
a) develop analytical tools for exploring the logic of social organisation and the institutionalisation of spaces and places;
b) experiment with learning and practising design investigation methods in the field of those logics and processes, in which knowledge production and intervention in problematic contexts are in a circular and mutually reinforcing relationship.

Readings/Bibliography

Reference will be made to an extensive bibliography; among the most frequently cited texts are:

Appadurai A La ricerca come diritto umano, in Il futuro come fatto culturale, Raffaello Cortina, 2014

Appadurai A., La vita sociale del design, in Il futuro come fatto culturale, Raffaello Cortina, 2014

Bagnasco A., voce Spazio, Enciclopedia Treccani delle Scienze Sociali, 2001

Berger P. L., Luckmann Th., La realtà come costruzione sociale, Il Mulino, 1974

Bifulco L, Vitale T., Da strutture a processi: servizi, spazi e territori del welfare locale, in Bifulco, L. (a cura di), Il genius loci del welfare. Strutture e processi della qualità sociale, Officina 2003.

de Leonardis O., Le istituzioni, Carocci, 2011

de Leonardis O., Mauri D., Rotelli F., L’impresa sociale, Anabasi, 1994.

Delitz H., Architectural modes of collective existence: architectural sociology as a comparative social theory, Cultural sociology, 12/1, 2018, pp. 37-57.

Kornberger M., Stewart R. Clegg Bringing Space Back In: Organizing the Generative Building, Organization Studies, 2004, 25, pp. 1095-1114

Lanzara G.F., Il carattere generativo dell’agire, in Capacità negativa: competenza progettuale e modelli di intervento nelle organizzazioni Il Mulino, 1993

Lanzara G.F., L’attività progettuale come indagine pratica, in Capacità negativa: competenza progettuale e modelli di intervento nelle organizzazioni Il Mulino, 1993

Löw M. The Sociology of Space. Materiality, Social Structures, and Action, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Plummer H., L’esperienza dell'architettura, Einaudi, 2016.

Rosenhan D.L., Essere sani in posti insani, in P. Watzlawick (a cura di), La realtà inventata. Contributi al costruttivismo, Feltrinelli, 1989

Salin O., Pesso K., Open Minds, Open Spaces: Mind-Set Changes During Urban Walking, Space and Culture, 20 (4): pp. 385-98.

Sclavi M. Arte di ascoltare e mondi possibili : come si esce dalle cornici di cui siamo parte, Bruno Mondadori, 2003.

Semi G., L'osservazione partecipante, Il Mulino, 2010.

Sendra P., Sennett R., Progettare il disordine, Treccani, 2022

Sennett R., La lotta per la città, Castelvecchi, 2020

Teaching methods

See Program of the Course Design Thinking - Module of Product-Service Design Laboratory

Assessment methods

See Program of the Course Design Thinking - Module of Product-Service Design Laboratory

Teaching tools

See Program of the Course Design Thinking - Module of Product-Service Design Laboratory 

Office hours

See the website of Vando Borghi

See the website of

SDGs

Gender equality Sustainable cities Climate Action

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.