There are several stages in Emiliana Mangone’s academic and research life, and they are described below with some of the main publications.

She firstly focused  on social policies, health and training of social and health workers since- before starting academic career – she acquired a decade of experience in the field of social policies and communication by practicing the profession of Sociologist at Italian public institutions.

A second stage of her academic life, Mangone developed studies in the field of cultural and institutional systems, with particular attention to the dynamics of social representations of relationships and knowledge as key elements for human action, and in migration studies.

In the last years, Mangone has rediscovered the work and thought of Pitirim A. Sorokin through a critical analysis of the renowned sociologist’s theories while highlighting some of his more overlooked ones. Topics explored include cultural dynamics; the relationship between culture, society, and personality; social mobility; and the socio-cultural causality of time and space. This discover took place also with  updates of these theories by discussing their relevance in current cultural contexts. These studies aim to extend the work started by Sorokin on the promotion and application of “integralism”, an approach that conceives the change of any sociocultural phenomena as the result of the combination of external and internal forces. He uses this method to analyse socio-cultural phenomena, propose new policy, and enhance the development of humanity from the cultural point of view. The final aim is a new vision of humanity and its development in a cultural context, especially the positive actions of humans being as altruism, gratitude, solidarity, etc. For these studies she was invited as keynote speaker at International Conference “Pitirim Sorokin and global development paradigms of the XXI century” (to the 130th birthday) [МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ НАУЧНОЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ «ПИТИРИМ СОРОКИН И ПАРАДИГМЫ ГЛОБАЛЬНОГО РАЗВИТИЯ XXI ВЕКA» (130-летию со дня рождения)] with a speech titled, “The Actuality of Pitirim A. Sorokin as a Theorist of Integral Sociology in the XXI Century” [Актуальность Питирима А. Сорокина как теоретик интегральной социологии в XXI веке] – Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University, Syktyvkar, Russian Federation, 2019.

With the reinterpretation of Sorokin’s works and thought, part of Mangone’s research and scientific production are oriented towards the study of positive phenomena that involves human beings such as altruism, gratitude, solidarity. In detail, she focuses on the rediscovery of altruism in the social sciences.

Currently, Mangone’s attention focus on a specific topic: Narratives and Social changes. Narrative has in itself a very high degree of rhetoric – certainly accentuated by the forms of communication adopted. Despite it does not cover all topics of the society and certainly not all the places, it promotes debates. Narrative is part of social life and this is undeniable, just as it is indisputable that, most of the time, the great narrative with all its implications is based on the same subject: the person who builds the narrative and the one who tells it are the same subject. Moreover, conceptual ambiguity is also inherent in the narrative and it often produces “perverse effects”. For instance, narrative mobilizes in a global way but has a local appropriation there is conflict. The qualitative and quantitative methods, or purely theoretical contributions are equally welcome. Potential questions to be asked for this topic include, but are by no means limited to, the following ones: What is narrative? And what use do individuals and collectives make of it? Who builds the story? And above all who tells it and how does he/she tell it?