The aim of this article is to respond to the question of whether social networks represent a possible terrain of application and investment for interactionist research. The answer to that question is, without a doubt, affirmative. What appears to be truly problematic, if not completely improbable, is that this investment can come about through a “coming together” of symbolic interactionism and social network analysis. The vocational focus that has evolved in the two perspectives, the conceptual frameworks and methods used for the study of social interactions and their interlinking in relational networks, presents aspects of extreme differentiation that render a possible convergence quite difficult.

This article explores the connection between Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) and Symbolic Interactionism (SI) in the light of the methodological position presented in Herbert Blumer’s Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. The examination of this connection will take place in three steps: firstly, I will offer some preliminary considerations with regard to ‘variant forms’ in Grounded Theory (GT) as well as cite the present debates about the differences and similarities between different approaches within it; then, I will describe the essential characteristics of the ‘methodological position’ of SI and build some lines of continuity between these elements and the main tenets of constructionist GT; finally, I will present ten conceptual expressions and methodological practices in which it is possible to verify the methodological convergence between the two perspectives. This analysis makes it possible to consider the Constructivist Grounded Theory as a set of coherent principles, methods, and research practices from the point of view of a scholar inspired by the SI’s perspective. However, the peculiar reference to the methodological position of SI does not exhaust the set of possible epistemological and methodological sources, from which the perspective of GT derives. Instead, it represents a controversial point, with regard to which the debate still appears to be particularly heated.

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This contribution offers a systematization of aspects tied to the meaning of voluntarism's presence in Italy's society. It reconstructs the essential characters of voluntary service and in particular, analyses in depth its dynamics of change, which - as I believe will be clear to the reader by the end of this volume point towards issues of identity, horizons and perspectives. The essay states how triumph, decline and new development perspectives are central moments of a reflection that at the same time contemplates the evolution of the phenomenon of voluntarism in our country, and considers the present changes and future perspectives, which are already revealed by many new elements present in contemporary voluntary service.