5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The term "vocation" usually has a positive connotation, as it is associated with a sense of purpose or direction in work that is both personally fulfilling and socially significant. From this perspective, it is a dimension potentially present and pursued in every work and profession. However, a strong vocational value seems to apply even more to welfare professions: they are expected to take care not only of citizen-clients but of society, protecting the public interest and producing collective goods and services.

Care and vocation are associated, often in an emancipatory sense, with social love, understood as an enacted phenomenon inherent to all spheres of living, characterized by a non-utilitarian vision and, conversely, by excess or overabundance.

Yet, in a market economy, vocation can transform into blackmail, and the need to cope with its moral obligations can turn into exploitation.

This session seeks to explore the multifaceted dimensions of the “work-vocation” issue from the perspective of social love, investigating both its bright and dark sides, i.e., personal and collective emancipation and manipulative exploitation. Contributions addressing this topic from an intersectional and social justice perspective across different jobs and professions will be particularly appreciated.