Normale/anormale : una categoria di analisi o una categoria di pratiche?

The paper aims to reflect on the advantages and on the limits of the use of the category of normal/abnormal. While the distinction appears problematic and useless when used as a category of analysis for the social reality, still important it seems to reflect on its use as a category of practice, that is as a specific mundane field of production of shared meanings. When used as a category of analysis, the normal/abnormal distinction disclose its normative character and its moral dimension: it designs a specific reality rather than make a picture of such reality. When it is used as a category of practice, it designates a specific empirical space, able to catch the dynamics through which the subjects make their reality accountable, constructing order and shared meanings. In this case, the normal/abnormal distinction appears to be one of the main and mainly challenged borders of the contemporary societies.