ABSTRACT
How should we conceive the dynamics of those personal powers which turn out to be vital to people's living with others, in such a way that we can grasp the conditions of their fourishing as well as of their vulnerability? How can these powers be conceptualized while avoiding assumptions about permanent identi-ties? 1 Equally, how can the movement of social forms framing our life together be understood in order to account for the different ways of constructing and evaluating commonality, as well as appreciating the oppression that may result from it, and without retaining a limited view of the collective and its reproductive structures? The sociological approach presented here proposes to move along these two tracks, starting from a notion that contributes to connecting them: the engagement of human beings which is invested in social forms.
