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 [...]

Un temps et un lieu pour vieillir ?

Membrado, Monique et Alice Rouyer (dirs.). 2013. Habiter et vieillir, vers de nouvelles demeures. Toulouse : Éditions ERES.

Aging is a natural process. Yet, we often associate it with a final stage and therefore focus on the problems of advanced age. Becoming old is thus nothing else than getting closer to death ; it consists in the rupture of our linear conception of life. The authors of Habiter et vieillir inquire into these ruptures, which allow us to identify the moments in which we are faced with the reality of old age. Through different angles, Monique Membrado [...]

L’autonomie entre pensée et action.

Dosse, François. 2014. Castoriadis, une vie. Paris : La Découverte.

François Dosse’s biography of Cornelius Castoriadis proceeds from in-depth work on the archives of Castoriadis, which helps the reader grasp the framework of the philosopher’s conceptual production. The group and journal Socialisme ou Barbarie were essential in the development of an original philosophy, whose influence was unfortunately minor on the intellectual climate in France at the end of the sixties. The rediscovering of Castoriadis is the occasion to analyze the situation of a marginalized intellectual generation in France. The [...]

La résilience comme injonction politique post-Xynthia.

Instrumentalisation étatique ou territorialisation des risques de catastrophe ?

For the past decade, the figure of “natural disaster” has come back with force, mobilizing in return the notion of “territories’ resilience”. In this context, this article aims to analyze the etiological and axiological substructures on which the French central political power relies when referring to these two concepts. In this respect, the dramatic consequences of the storm Xynthia, which hit the French Atlantic littoral in 2010, have revealed a noticeable inflexion of the public policies of flooding/marine submersion [...]

Faut-il faire aimer la ville ?

Martouzet, Denis (dir.). 2014. Ville aimable. Tours : Presses universitaires François-Rabelais.

This multi-authored work gathers various contributions which focus on the “emotional relationship people have with cities”. In an approach that is both poetic and relational, the authors — mainly urban planners and geographers — seek to highlight the mutual influence that takes place between people and the city. Taking stock of their work, they shape the frame of a future research program, mixing theoretical reflections and studies that are more directly built on data. Finally, they question the ideal [...]

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 [...]

Des géographies queers au-delà des genres et des sexualités ?

This article aims to show how queer geographies fit into the history of geography and how francophone geographies can use them. It throws light on the origins (postmodernity and feminisms) and precedents of queer geography (geography of sexualities). In opening to intersectionality (political, racial, social and cultural dimensions), this new geographical field could enable us to go far beyond Gender and Sexualities Studies. [...]