Sujets de sciences.

L’absence de clarté en sciences sociales sur un ensemble de problématiques fondamentales pose problème. Qu’est-ce qu’une science qui n’a pas vocation à expliquer, qui n’est pas vraiment expérimentale, dont les énoncés ne peuvent pas être sérieusement réfutés ou comparés, dont les expériences ne sont pas réellement reproductibles, qui est exceptionnellement cumulative, qui ne peut concevoir des lois ? Et qui, finalement, si elle existait, assimilerait les sujets à des objets, c’est-à-dire à des réalités comparables dont l’action est [...]

De la prison Montluc au Mémorial, et après…

Chronique d’une enquête.

In 2009, Lyon’s prisons closed. The Montluc prison was the only one that was saved from demolition and turned into a memorial to the victims of the Nazi repression. By so doing, the other stories and memories of this prison, that operated from 1921 to 2009, were « forgotten », including those of the Algerian War. This article retraces the investigation that was conducted by sociologists who followed « the making of » of this heritage process and sought [...]

Petit glossaire du futur pour une lecture démocratique de notre avenir.

With this glossary, written in the framework of an exploratory research on the relation to the future, we attempt to draw the conceptual network that allows for a “pratical understanding” of the future (Ricoeur 1983). A conceptual network that enables to answer the “what”, “who”, “why” and “how” of human actions. This glossary evolves around two axes : on the one hand, the way people are cognitively able to conceive of a future and, on the other hand, the [...]

La (dé)territorialisation et les changements d’échelle du patrimoine.

La co-construction sociale du temps et de l’espace dans la nouvelle étape de mondialisation.

This article analyzes a contemporary change in the spatial dimension of heritage, characterized by a twofold process of territorialization and deterritorialization. It shows that the territorialization of heritage has changed in scale and in social function — from the heritage of quarters, not just buildings, it has come to signify the multiplication of heritage-based public perimeters and even the contribution of heritage to processes of territorialization —, that it forms a system with networking and standardization of heritage, and [...]

La mémoire faite trajet.

Ethnographie des écrits de travail d’un conteur contemporain.

This article reopens the question of the art of memory by putting it to the test of the current revival of an old practice : the oral transmission of the tale. One of the difficulties met by current storytellers is the mandatory step of the written text. This paper focuses on the writings of a storyteller : annotations in the margins of collected tales, texts rewrites, filings in computer folders. Following a resolutely pragmatic anthropology of writing, I show [...]

La mémoire désidentifiante.

This article discusses the film Les hommes debout, which focuses on a neighborhood of Lyon that is under renovation (Gerland) and the memory associated with it. However, the authors are less concerned with considering it as a document subject to sociological analysis than by recognizing it as part of an investigation that is already fully underway, the one conducted by the director in an aesthetic format. Adopting a pragmatic standpoint, they suggest following suit to the filmmaker, as it [...]

Mémoire publique et mémoire collective de l’esclavage.

L’apport de la sociologie pragmatiste.

The aim of this article is to theorise a new version of “memory”, which we will call “public memory”, by using a conceptual framework inspired by pragmatist sociology. This theorisation will be put to the test through an ethnographic study that we have been conducting for several years on associations that originate in the French Antilles and support the cause of remembering slavery. [...]

Pragmatique de la mémoire.

In a pragmatic perspective, « memory » is no longer the appropriate object of sociological inquiries — « memoriality » is. By « memoriality », we refer to what actors or instances that are committed to memorial activities deal with : memoriality is what they have to specify and investigate through their own inquiry. They have to make memoriality consistent and sensitive through practical arrangements. In this sense, the contributions that compose this Traversal explore different memoriality regimes, namely [...]

Venir à Ground Zero, se souvenir du 11-Septembre.

This article prolongs Halbwachs’s analysis of the spatial localisation of memories by means of a pragmatist sociology of the experience of places of memory. In other words, it aims to show how the fact that one remembers a past event by visiting the place it is said to have taken place in is dependent on the people whom one encounters and meets, on the devices in place, and on the emotions that are felt. This paper considers the case [...]

Les promesses de mémoire : retour sur les écrits du 9/11.

This paper consists in the analysis of the promises of memory made in New York after the 9/11 attack, such as « We Will Never Forget You », « We Will Always Remember ». As speech acts (Austin) these promises show problems of infelicity, but as written acts they offer many enunciative resources due to their materiality (autographic, signature, public displays), which is well adapted to a situation of disaster. As collective solemn public acts, the promises of memory [...]