Introduction: A look at social problems in Southern Europe from the south

Abstract

Social problems are socially constructed, although this does not mean that they are mere constructs or imaginaries, only existing in the minds of the social subjects that produce, perceive or live them. Although it is essential to consider subjective imaginaries (more or less incorporated by individual or group social subjects) regarding social problems to understand them, they clearly have a real basis, as their existence can be verified through empirical study of the processes through which they become subjectively perceived objective realities (Frigerio, 1995), as well as through analysis of the socio-temporal contexts in which they emerge. To a great extent, we agree with Rubington and Weinberg (2010), who differentiate two constructionist perspectives in the analysis of social problems: on one hand, a strict constructionism, focused on the subjective definition of problems, and, on the other, a contextual constructionism, which also includes the context in which these problems are produced and reproduced as an essential factor that must be considered. The subjective dimension of social problems, even if considered from the perspective of the strict constructionism that Rubington and Weinberg refer to, as a mere definition of such problems or a mental construction related to them, is as empirically verifiable and analyzable as is any objective dimension. This is because the subjective dimension can be objectified through the identification of the evaluations, representations and discourses constructed regarding specific social phenomena and circumstances that are perceived as social problems by some segment of the social subjects that voluntarily or involuntarily (or consciously or unconsciously, as well) produce and experience them (Blumer, 1971). Thus, when we refer to the social construction of social problems, we do not understand this as if it is a mere elaboration of representations of these problems (the previously mentioned mental constructs or imaginaries), as if these problems only existed in ideas and through ideas that actors have