I-COMMUNITAS’ work seeks to establish stronger bridges and flowing communication between the human and social sciences, between theory and practice, between quantitative and qualitative, textual and visual methodologies, favouring interdisciplinary research strategies which include historical and comparative perspectives in the approach and treatment of the issues studied in order to enhance the ability to understand and explain the phenomena analysed and their applications in the present environment.

I-COMMUNITAS brings together four main lines and one transversal line of research, ranging from the history of concepts and creation of theory to social intervention. These lines constitute interrelated fields of study which, without renouncing their specificity, allow for the construction of objects of research of a transversal nature. Researchers from various disciplines take part in the broad lines defined, reinforcing interdisciplinarity.

The main and subordinate lines of research are as follows:s:

1. Socio-territorial and cultural studies

• Genesis of the urban world
• Rural and urban sociology: mobility and land management
• Cultural and linguistic heritage, education and the arts
• Temporalities, creativity and social change
• Analysis of religion

2. Memory, politics and identity

• Genesis of the state and characterisation of power
• Nationalisms and nationalisation processes
• Memories, social imaginaries and political cultures
• Transitions, democracy, territorial model of the state and political parties
• Political management of cultural diversity

3. Human Rights

• History and current limits of human rights
• Immigration, refuge, citizenship and multiculturalism
• Freedom of conscience and public freedoms
• Elites, power and corruption
• Scientific-technological challenges and bioethical implications

4. Public communication, social development and intervention

• Communication, plurality and social development
• Intolerance and collective violence legitimisation processes
• Social inequalities and social policy analysis
• Anthropology and sociology of health: current challenges
• Ethics of social intervention

5. Social theory and research methodology (transversal line)

• Contemporary sociological theory
• Research epistemology and methodology in the Human, Social and Legal Sciences
• Interdisciplinary practices: demography, survey, biography and prosopography, gender, multimedia languages
• Applied Linguistics: sociolinguistics, dialectology, language contact and acquisition