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"Gender Sociology, a field of teaching and research in construction at the University of Yaoundé 1 and at the Catholic Institute of Yaoundé (South-Cameroon)." Subsequent to the J. Moutome Ekambi (2004)'s article appraising the scientific status of "Women and Gender Studies" in Cameroon till 1990, the present paper tries to undertake a diachronic analysis of the scientific status of gender sociology at the university of Yaoundé 1 and at the Catholic Institute of Yaoundé, through changes in educational curriculum and in scientific works. The importance of gender sociology is evaluated here through the number and types of lessons taught as well as the total number of lecturers' publications and students' field studies, since the spontaneous emergence of this discipline in these two universities. After a brief disciplinary clarification, the authors realize, in turn, take stock of things and the perspectives for the construction of gender sociology in these two universities. Despite some significant progress over four decades, the influence of this disciplinary field will go through the organization of a scientific colloquium on the discipline in order to create educational and theoretical debates between the lecturers here and their colleagues of other African Nations, since many countries have many common social norms and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is a sociological thought on the implementation of the Cameroonian National Gender Policy in the field. After a brief description of the greatest winnings of this public development policy, the author tries to make a critical sociology of the main factors which limit its real implementation in the public and private spheres of our nowadays societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the three unpublished letters by satirical poet, anarchist polemicist, essayist and translator active in Paris, France in the 1890s and early 1900s, Laurent Tailhade and poet of Nicaragua, Ruben Dario. It includes discussion on papers of controversy and sociology, love poems written in the style of old hymnals and anarchist theories.

The author proposes in this paper to question the impact on personality of the main evolutions of social organization during the last centuries. Starting from the postulate that the social organization determines the structure of the subjectivity, the author underlines, according to the work of Marcel Gauchet, the gradual transition from a "traditional personality", immersed in the community, to a "contemporary personality" who ignores his inscription in the community. This lack of enrollment in the community could determine the emergence of some kind of psychiatric disorders (identity disorders, borderline states, depression, behavioral disorders in children), related to the greatest narcissistic vulnerability of subjects, more delivered to themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of low doses has a long history, initially stemming from radioactivity. It can be followed up through a series of metrological controversies about risk assessment on environmental health issues. Building on recent developments of public policy around the hazards linked to endocrine disruptors, this paper offers an exploration of different epistemic logics shaping research and expertise circles involved in low doses issues. Relying on a literature review, participative observation and a series of interviews with experts, this paper examines cognitive and technical supports used by the experts, and strives to depict the pragmatic conditions of a so-called "paradigm shift", purported to reshape the key concepts and tools of toxicology for the 21th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Première femme médecin-psychiatre à avoir eu, bien avant les années 1920, une expérience et un contact direct avec l’institution psychiatrique à Vienne, puis à Berlin, Helene Deutsch a ensuite entrepris une formation psychanalytique suivie de fonctions psychanalytiques institutionnelles à Vienne, puis – à partir des années 1934 – à Boston. Elle a produit une œuvre riche et controversée qui anime encore les débats sur le féminin, la personnalité, la maternité, l’érotisme dans la psychanalyse et la sociologie contemporaines. First woman who as psychiatric practitioner before 1920, Helene Deutsch began her career in psychiatric institution in Vienne and Berlin. She trained further in psychoanalysis first in Vienne, and in Boston. She also developed formal training for therapists and analysts. She also wrote several famous papers on female sexuality and about women's psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Objectifs En venant compléter deux publications relatives à l’enquête Hepaig-quali, l’une consacrée à la sexualité et l’autre à l’usage de drogues, cet article s’intéresse à la dimension psychodynamique des récits recueillis auprès d’homosexuels masculins séropositifs pour le VIH. L’enquête Hepaig-quali constitue l’un des volets de l’étude épidémiologique Hepaig, portant sur les « hépatites aiguës C chez des homosexuels atteints par le VIH », coordonnée par l’Institut de veille sanitaire (France). En complément de résultats recueillis par questionnaire, et à partir du point focal de « l’événement hépatite C », l’objectif de ce volet qualitatif visait à recueillir des récits de pratiques relatifs à la sexualité et à l’usage de drogues, à connaître les motivations de tels choix et à les replacer dans la trame biographique des sujets, à détailler les événements survenus dans leurs parcours de soins et à explorer les représentations relatives à leur santé physique et psychique. Méthode L’enquête repose sur la réalisation de deux entretiens successifs réalisés auprès de 31 hommes, initialement inclus dans l’étude Hepaig. Ces entretiens, intégralement retranscrits, ont fait l’objet d’une double lecture, psychodynamique et sociologique, selon une posture épistémologique se référant à une approche compréhensive des comportements. Résultats Cet article s’intéresse spécifiquement à la santé psychique des enquêtés et à la dimension psychodynamique de leurs récits. Bien que les entretiens, réalisés par le sociologue, ne soient pas l’équivalent de « cas cliniques », les enjeux psychiques y sont très présents. Les répondants évoquent, avec leurs mots, leurs expériences du stress, de la « déprime » et évoquent pour certains leurs idées suicidaires. Ils abordent en majorité leurs pratiques, et les motivent selon un discours de recherche de jouissance et de maîtrise rationnelle des risques. Discussion À bien des égards, les enquêtés apparaissent comme des « hommes ordinaires », notamment du point de vue de leur socialisation sexuée et de leur représentation du risque. Leur spécificité du point de vue de la santé psychique tiendrait à leur expérience des discriminations et à leur vécu d’une maladie chronique. En exprimant une tension permanente entre pulsion et raison, entre recherche de jouissance et besoin de maîtrise de leur vie, ils présentent les caractéristiques de l’individu hypermoderne dont les contradictions se révèlent dans le rapport à l’autre. Conclusion Les enquêtés, bien informés, adhèrent au discours médical positif des soignants, qui les soutient psychiquement face au poids de morbidité des infections par le VIH et le VHC. L’évolution des cultures sexuelles se traduit, pour ces hommes, par un rejet de la norme du préservatif et par l’adoption de pratiques décrites comme plus satisfaisantes, mais pouvant comporter des risques accrus. Leurs comportements sont toutefois régis par d’autres dimensions que la connaissance et la rationalité. La recherche de jouissance ne s’embarrasse pas toujours des freins et des empêchements que la raison imposerait. Cela devrait conduire les soignants à mieux entendre et accompagner les efforts de réduction des risques de leurs patients. Objectives This paper focuses on the psychodynamic dimension of narratives collected in interviews carried out with HIV-positive gay men, and completes two previous publications concerning the Hepaig-quali study, one centred on sexuality and the other on drug use. The Hepaig-quali study was part of the Hepaig epidemiological survey on acute hepatitis C among HIV-infected gay men, coordinated by the Institut de Veille Sanitaire (InVS, France). In addition to the results gathered from questionnaires, and with a focus on the “hepatitis C event”, the present study aimed to describe sexual practices and drug use among HCV-infected gay men, to assess the motivations of these choices, to position them in relation to their life histories and healthcare experiences, and to explore how they viewed their physical and mental health. Methodology Our study was based on two successive in-depth interviews with 31 men previously included in the Hepaig survey. These interviews, conducted by a sociologist, were fully transcribed, and analysed from a dual psychodynamic and sociological viewpoint, an epistemological stance related to the comprehensive approach to behaviours. Results Thirty-one men were included in this qualitative study. We focused specifically on the mental health of the respondents and the psychodynamic dimension of their narratives. Despite the fact that these interviews were not equivalent to “clinical cases”, psychic issues were very much present. In their own words, the respondents talked of their experiences of stress and depression, and some mentioned suicidal ideations. Most talked readily about their practices and explained them via discourse on achieving pleasure, alongside the rational control of risks. Discussion In many respects, the respondents appeared as “ordinary men”, in particular with respect to their gendered socialisation and their representations of the risks. From a mental health perspective, some specificities were linked to the experiences of discrimination and chronic illness. With the permanent tension between impulse and reason, between the search for pleasure and the need to control their lives, they present the characteristics of the hypermodern individual whose contradictions are revealed in their relationship with the other. Conclusion Accurately informed, the respondents also embraced the positivist medical discourse of their caregivers, which provides them with support and helps them to face the burden of HIV and HCV infections. The evolution of gay sexual culture leads these men, via the rejection of the “condom norm”, to choose practices described as more satisfying, but entailing greater risks. Nevertheless, as with any topic, their behaviours are regulated by other dimensions than knowledge and rationality. The search for pleasure is not always restrained by the hindrance and impediments of reason. This should lead caregivers to better understand and support the efforts that their patients make to reduce risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an interdisciplinary analysis associating sociology and biology, this paper studies the social discourses and practices concerning mosquitoes and mosquito pest management in France. The qualitative and quantitative sociological field studies involved two areas, the Rhone river delta and the French alpine valleys. Recalling the anthropocentric heritage of our western societies, our paper shows an evolution, linked to recent social changes, towards more biocentric references, a fact that is noticeable in discourses and attitudes toward mosquitoes. Rather than a radical switch, processes of cohabitation and hybridizing may be observed, combining popular and scientific knowledge, environmental, medical and social issues. The first part of this paper highlights the social and biological relationships between the insect and its habitat, i.e., wetlands. The second part focuses on the forms of articulation between anthropocentrism and biocentrism, especially through the dualism pest/useful insect. The third and last part analyses how the "taxonomic arrangements" between anthropocentrism and biocentrism have triggered an evolution of French public policies regarding mosquito pest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Dans une précédente communication (Luauté, 2014), nous avons montré qu’une conception dominante en France soutenait l’existence d’un lien direct entre conditions actuelles de travail et suicide au travail. Outre le choix du lieu, des mises en accusations précises de la part des suicidés tendent à confirmer la signification protestataire de ces actes. Ceux-ci sont à rapprocher des modèles de « suicide vengeance » et de « suicide sacrifice » issus d’une tradition extrême-orientale de la mort volontaire. L’absence de tout facteur de psychopathologie individuelle est chaque fois subsumée. Récupéré comme un mode majeur d’expression politique, le suicide au travail mérite aussi d’être questionné comme une forme insidieuse de terrorisme. En tant que phénomènes spectaculaires, les suicides au travail et le terrorisme actuel ne se conçoivent pas sans le rôle des médias. In a previous paper (Luauté, 2014), we have shown that a prevailing view in France advocates the existence of a direct link between the current conditions of work and work-related suicide. In addition to the choice of the whereabouts, specific accusations by those who commit suicide, tend sometimes to confirm the protesting signification of their action. Therefore, they can be regarded as modes of revenge and sacrifice closely patterned on far-eastern traditions of voluntary death. In each time, the lack of an individual psychopathological factor is subsumed. Having recourse to suicide is now viewed as a major mode of political expression which deserves to be considered as an insidious form of terrorism. At-work suicides as spectacular phenomena, as well as present days’ acts of terrorism, are inconceivable without the role of mass media in our societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Durkheim's writings shows clearly how he was profoundly committed to religious or quasi-religious convictions. This paper puts to one side the legacy of his Jewish origins to concentrate upon the kind of faith he himself called "humankind's religion" ("la religion de l'humanité"). The paper starts with a discussion of the literature on "civil religion" (Bellah, Wallace, Schoffeleers) in order to argue that this form of religion constitutes a minimal element of Durkheimian beliefs. The textual analysis proves consistently that neither patriotism nor any kind of internationalism is the object of Durkheimian faith. Durkheim has sometimes professed a faith in science, but in an analogical sense, as we can easily understand. In the last analysis, the real object of the Durkheimian cult is the human condition, "a fully religious ideal". In opposition to those forms of theocentrism or cosmocentrism which occur in other religions, Durkheim maintains an anthropocentric concern. For him the human being is to the highest degree, a very sacred thing, a being who "possesses this transcendent majesty which the churches of all times attribute to their gods". To him, this human is never an isolated individual; far from it. Through the individual, one recognizes "humankind which is truly respectable and sacred". The paper stresses the importance of this insight in order to elucidate Durkheimian sociology and, more generally, the Durkheimian commitment to "the science of human beings". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred years after its publication, Émile Durkheim's later sociology of religion continues to exert an enormous inluence on religious studies. Indeed, the impact of The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life has been so pervasive that sociology lost sight of most of the other work done by the L'Année sociologique team in the sociology of religion. The contributions of the collaborators have been really important. This holds true especially for Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss who played a leading role within the Durkheim-school, particularly with respect to the study of religion. In our paper we would like to show that Hubert and Mauss preigured several of the crucial arguments of Durkheim's later sociology of religion (such as the equation of society and the sacred). In the conclusion, we present Mauss' own evaluation of their collective work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the contribution of ethnopsychiatry, as a pluridisciplinary approach, to the study of delinquent phenomena. After briefly explaining the principle of complementarism as formalized by Georges Devereux, we propose a critical reading of a text first published in 1964: "Female juvenile sex delinquency in a puritanical society". In accordance with his epistemology, Devereux successively develops two points of view, sociological and psychoanalytic, that should be distinctive and incommensurable. Yet against his method, he tries to link together the both points of view and then sets undecidable propositions. At least, no connection exists beetween social and psychological theory of the symptom of "delinquency" when this question is formulated in terms of complementarism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of ecosystem services (ES) has recently become a key reference for international environmental policies (broadly including forest policy, agro-environmental measures, conservation policies, etc.) This concept has been developed gradually in scientific circles in the course of the 1990s. It acquired international recognition with a varied public (policy makers, private sector, NGOs, etc.) during the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a global environmental assessment. Since 2005, this notion is experiencing strong growth in different fields such as biodiversity, domestic policies (forestry, agriculture, water, etc.), global change, etc. Our paper is based on the exploratory assumption that the MA process, by organizing the relationship between various networks of scientists and policymakers, has played a key role in the launching and wide dissemination of the ES concept at different scales: international level, domestic policies, local public action mechanisms... It also emphasizes the decisive role played by actors involved in or related to the scientific field in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to data from the French Environmental Barometer EDF-R&D 2004 (national representative sample of French aged over 15), this paper investigated lay risk perceptions related to exposure to electromagnetic fields (from an electric power-line, a TV, a cellular phone or micro-wave oven). Answers to an opened-ended question suggested that many people worry about such exposure: it may interfere with natural electricity circulating in the human body, disturb the nervous system and cause cancer. These answers revealed a conception of human body, health and disease, and participants referred to various kinds of arguments, from expert knowledge to personal intuition. Statistical analyses showed that risk perceptions related to these four devices were strongly correlated with each other and shared common predictors. These results suggest that these risk perceptions are built within the same perceptive frame. One should not consider them as "false beliefs": they are based on consistent conceptions of the body, health and disease, they are fuelled by the contemporary levelling of knowledge, and they reflect the difficulties experienced by many people living in a changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper highlights questions addressed by ecologization processes in agriculture to agronomic sciences dealing with the study of farmer practices and the design of new farming systems. Since the aim of ecologization is the withdrawal or reduction of the use of inputs or of specific technologies (pesticides, soil tillage) and their substitution by natural processes and natural auxiliaries, we point out the interest for agronomic science to take into account the action of natural entities besides that of farmers. Based on a review of founding texts in agronomy, we highlight the fact that these natural auxiliaries or processes have so far been mainly considered as limiting factors. We also show that the attention paid by agronomists to farmer rationale has tended to minimize attention paid to biological entities and processes and contributed to developing an anthropocentric analysis of production systems. We insist on the fact that the move of agricultural systems toward more environmentally friendly and efficient practices makes it necessary to incorporate them in the set of 'actors' involved in the production processes beside farmers and their technical interventions. Our reflection draws on the theoretical proposals of the actor-network theory in sociology, following the symmetry principle which invites to consider in an equal way human and non-human entities in sociotechnical dynamics. We then propose guidelines for reflection, stressing in priority the need for a re-delineation of what may be considered as action and work within the production process. We insist on viewing observation as a form of action and on rethinking arrangements between human inaction and biological processes. We also urge to consider new temporalities and spatiality in the analysis framework, including the long-term properties of bioecological dynamics and the integration of cultivated fields in wider ecological spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on some salient issues of urban sustainable development in France with a specific accent on six urban agglomerations: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse. The reticular nature of these issues and the circuits leading to their realization are analysed with reference to the ways a multiplicity of actors conceive, plan and bring about the construction of cities, rather than through sectoral viewpoints. Thus, urban sustainable development appears within a (locally variable) set of linkages that sets these issues firmly in areas of interrelations and intersections. Based on a large body of documentation and field work (observations and interviews) this approach helps trace the complex relations between discourse and the reality of on-going dynamics, including the implementation of sustainable development urban operations such as mutations in the domain of public action as exemplified by urbanisation. These relations converge in articulating the issues, with urban sustainable development — in the diversity of its usages — becoming a "portmanteau", much like "governance". In this context, technical experts and the "city professionals" can be seen as intermediary representatives: actors/go-betweens who contribute to the development of links and modes of combining practices between usually separate worlds. On this assumption, we consider that nowadays novel professions directly linked with urban areas and environmental issues are emerging at public local level (cities, metropolitan institutions, town-planning agencies, semi-public companies, associations acting as service providers, etc.), in proportion with the development of an urban sustainable development "repertoire" in urban politics. New specific competences and scopes of activities extend and define the field of sustainable development experts. Nevertheless, these competences remain broken up between several kinds of jobs and functions (civil servants and local government officers, project leaders, urban architects, consultants, employees of associations, etc.). Indeed, the limits of this professionalization process are significant of the success of urban sustainable development itself, which can be interpreted as a malleable concept, a property considered as a central condition of its cognitive and practical diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to highlight the links between outdoor sports, sustainable development and the environment. The action-research work the author analyzed was designed to help local stakeholders manage their interactions and take the environment into account in developing and institutionalizing outdoor sports under a Scheme for spaces, sites and paths relative to outdoor sports. After briefly presenting the situation of outdoor sports, the article examines critically the literature on the environmental impact of these activities. It then analyzes the conditions in which a tool for environmental evaluation was evolved and the stakeholder interactions it induced. To conclude we show the difficulty that arise in establishing a process of participative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the data from the French Environment Barometer EDF-R&D 2004 (national representative sample of French citizens aged over 15) and surveys by ADEME between 2000 and 2005, the paper investigates lay perceptions of the causes and consequences of the greenhouse effect, which may be considered as archetypal of contemporary environmental risks. Beyond lay lack of knowledge, the greenhouse effect gives rise to coherent and meaningful cognitions, including causal explanations, shaped by the pre-existing cognitive framework. This cognitive work, based on analogic rather than scientific thought, strings together the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, air pollution and even nuclear power. The cognitive process is also fed by the individuals' general conceptions of Nature and of the rights and duties of humankind towards Nature. People are not greatly worried about the unseen and controversial consequences of the greenhouse effect: such worry could be one of those "elite fears" mentioned by Beck. Finally, while the efficiency of public policies to counter the greenhouse effect requires extensive societal involvement, low confidence towards both political and scientific authorities may prevent the population from becoming aware of the environmental stakes tied to the greenhouse effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The closure of Université de Moncton's sociology department in the spring of 1969 constitutes a unique event in the history of Canadian academics. In this paper, the authors examine the causes behind this closure. They present an intermingling and collision of motivations of different actors and movements in Acadian academic life during the late sixties: student associations, the young sociology professors, the professors association, the university administration, etc. Beyond being simply a historical anecdote, the closing of the sociology department symbolizes a larger political crisis, where two social conceptions compete: the administration envisaged a rational administration of the social, while the sociology students and professors wished for a society based on socialist and participative principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laypeople's capacity to co-produce scientific knowledge and to evaluate scientific projects has been progressively acknowledged. Yet environmental controversies have led us to consider two other significant phenomena, i.e., laypeople's reluctance to take part in participation arenas, and the ability of these very same people to energetically and convincingly take a stand against the arguments of experts. Considering these two phenomena only as a hold-up on the way to true technical democracy would be an error. They highlight the capacity of laypeople to exercise judgement, which could well lead to their adopting an ironic stance towards both politics and science. In this paper we have attempted to explore the two features underpinning this judgment, namely clear-sightedness and disenchantment. We show that ironic judgment can reflect bad experiences shared by others, and may be potentially strengthened by social sciences theories, especially those criticizing political power and science. However, if widespread, irony could lead to a paralysed society. To conclude, we suggest an alternative way of considering science and politics, removed from either respect or sterile irony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]