Observing Intimacies: System-Theoretical Analyses of Love Relationships Today

Introduction

Around the globe, intimacies have undergone important cultural, normative, political, and practical transformations in recent times and in the last half century. Ideals and values, expectations and distinctions through which people build their relationships have become increasingly pluralized, and so do relationship options across duration, commitment, exclusivity, material organization, and so forth. Trying to provide a general theoretical account of the transformations of intimate relationships has been a popular endeavour for social scientists in recent decades. Analytical discussions of the existing interpretations highlight a frequent misalignment between empirical observations, explanatory frameworks, and theoretical scope (Musiał 2013; Piazzesi et al. 2025; Poder 2023). Most theoretically oriented work adopts a normative stance and a sensationalist tone, sometimes hardly concealing a certain nostalgia for an idealized version of traditional relationships and gender arrangements. We believe that explicitly promoting an observational and analytical approach to intimacies – as opposed to a normative one – is instrumental in advancing knowledge production in the field by encouraging data-driven debates, but it will also contribute to curbing polarized public debate, and disinformation in public and media debates on intimate relationships. 

To contribute to promoting collective reflexivity on this societal process by providing concepts, data, and general accounts of these transformations of intimate relationships, interactions, and encounters, this special issue pursues two main goals. First, it seeks to revitalize scholarly debates around a relatively underexplored dimension of Luhmann’s theoretical and empirical work—namely, his analysis of the evolution of the intimate system and of love as a communication medium in modern societies. Luhmann’s conceptualization and his empirical investigations into the semantic and social evolution of intimate relationships remain highly relevant for scholars examining contemporary transformations of intimate life across diverse sociocultural contexts. Second, we want to encourage scholars to engage with Luhmann’s systems theory toolbox to provide original, theoretically robust, and empirically grounded discussions of the transformations of intimate relationships. We wish to stimulate theoretical innovation in a field where rich and diverse data on emerging and evolving relationship forms are often disconnected from theoretical frameworks, while existing theories frequently lack sufficiently convincing empirical foundations.

By welcoming the submission of work originating from diverse sociocultural environments, we also aim to bridge the gaps between debates unfolding within specific national or culturally homogeneous contexts. 

We encourage submissions drawing on Luhmann and systems theory more generally, and addressing a broad range of topics through two different observational perspectives:

1. Observing intimate systems through systems theory. Drawing on Luhmann and other theorists, papers adopting this perspective will deal with applications and empirically based discussions of the most relevant system-theoretical concepts in the study of the diversity of intimate relationships: code, medium, intimate communication and the complexity/improbability thereof, self-reference, semantics, autopoiesis etc. Guiding questions include: How do programs and semantic repertoires for intimacy change historically and across contexts? What semantic evolutions stabilize emerging relationship forms? How is intimacy reproduced through self-reference and communicative improbability within the diversification of intimate configurations? How do platforms, markets, and mobilities reconfigure intimate communication and semantic evolution? How are expectations stabilized under volatility (precarity, mobility, migration, long-distance), and how is disappointment dealt with? 
2. Systems observing intimate systems. Papers adopting this perspective will deal with the ways other social systems (law, politics, education, morals, media, art) observe intimacies in contemporary societies. E Guiding questions include: How do legal categories (family, consent, marriage) observe and shape intimate possibilities? How do media and platform logics observe and “irritate” relationship norms? How do moral/political discourses observe and problematize specific intimacies? How do parties, policy agendas, and governance devices problematize intimacy (“family values,” sexual and intimate citizenship, education policies etc.) and mobilize it as a resource in political conflicts? How are queer intimacies observed, and with what recurrent inclusion/exclusion effects?​

List of topic areas

• ​​​Social systems theory
• Sociology of intimacy
• Sexualities
• Gender
• Social semantics

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/kyb
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/k#jlp_author_guidelines

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key deadlines

April 15, 2026: deadline for abstracts (GEs would make a first selection based on abstracts to ensure the consistency of the papers in the special issue). Submit abstracts here: ​piazzesi.chiara@uqam.ca​
April 30, 2026: authors will be notified of acceptance and invited to submit a full paper/open Scholar One.
October 15, 2026: deadline for submission of full papers