From Utilitarian Exchange to Social Love: Community Bonds and Youth Solidarity

This paper examines whether, and to what extent, social relations can be understood in terms of utilitarian exchange, or whether they are more adequately interpreted through the categories of solidarity and social love. More specifically, the article develops a critical analysis of reductionist theories of exchange by focusing on the relationship between young people, participation, and local communities in the inner areas of Molise, a region in southern Italy that is particularly marked by socio-economic fragility. Within this framework, the study adopts a qualitative research design, based on semi-structured interviews with 62 young people aged 16 to 34, introduced using a photo-elicitation prompt. The findings indicate that, despite experiencing the constraints associated with a limited availability of services, opportunities, and resources, people in these territories cultivate forms of relational well-being that cannot be reduced to a mere cost–benefit calculus. Rather, these relationships generate recognition, mutual support, and orientations towards the common good, through practices of care directed both towards the local territory and towards family ties. From this perspective, the paradigm of social love may provide a particularly successful interpretive framework for understanding youth solidarity and the persistence of community bonds within the contradictions of late modernity.