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This article examines the self-production of washable and reusable sanitary masks duringthe early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on the varied concerns, skills, andmaterial resources that people mobilized. Based on hundreds of testimonials gathered atthree key moments of the pandemic in France, we describe mask-self production as a “flashpractice.” The immediate life-threatening context put the focus on basic and short-term con-cerns at the expense of other aspects (such as care for the environment, which played a sur-prisingly inconsequential role). Nonetheless, this household-based practice quickly evolvedinto a more collective undertaking with masks being self-produced together by sharing pat-terns and standards and by donating masks to others. We also show that the practice van-ished very fast, as commercial masks became available again. Because flash practicesdisappear and can quickly fall into oblivion, we hold that researchers need to document andtheorize them carefully, for flash practices raise important questions about the temporality,sustainability, and routinization of concerned practices.

International audience; Mauna Kea, the tallest volcano on Hawai‘i Island, has become a mountain familiar to many in the Pacific and around the world, as a result of the massive mobilizations in which those who identified as kia‘i (protectors) of the mountain opposed the construction of a giant Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at the summit. This article retraces the history of the Mauna Kea access road, based on a study of the English-language newspaper recordas well as ethnographic and archival material. From the road’s inception in the 1930s onward, economic interests, political conflicts, and relations of domination appear intertwined with the very materiality of the road: its route, surface, safety, maintenance, as well as features such as cattle grids, crosswalks, and guardrails. Three political strategies centrally involved the notion of a Mauna Kea access road. Starting in the 1930s, businessmen and government officials pushed for a road, and later for its improvement, in order to make the mountain more accessible, in particular for skiing. As of the 1960s, this push was paralleled and contradicted by another strategy which consisted in keeping the mountain not too accessible, in part because ofwhat some perceived as a competition between recreational and scientific uses – skiing vs. science. A third political strategy involved the road as a site from which to question the notion of public ownership and to affirm sovereignty. The history of the Mauna Kea access road appears as a synecdoche of the political conflict over land and sovereignty that defines Hawaiian history since the nineteenth century.

This article highlights the need for a holistic and interdisciplinary approach between the media and the new contexts and issues. Through a critique of the state of knowledge about Jenkins’ theorie...

Recent studies assume that the middle class’s commitment to the welfare state has gradually eroded through the implementation of neoliberal policies. This article takes a more nuanced view by addre...

I’m quite grateful to the editors of Labor History for assembling such a prestigious symposium around The Employee: A Political History. The comments offered by the commentators are both insightful...

International audience; The internationalisation of the social sciences, understood as the increasing circulation of people, ideas and materials, has been accompanied by critiques of material and power differentials and of theoretical and epistemological Eurocentrism. Within this context of debate, Islamization of knowledge (IOK) appears as an alternative epistemology. After a brief historical account of IOK’s international institutionalization, the paper focusses on one key institution, the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), where interviews were conducted with key protagonists of IOK. Analyses of these interviews reveal that IOK has been symptomatic of the failed aspects of the internationalization of the social sciences. In order to overcome the present state of affairs, proponents suggest three different projects for universalisation of the social sciences. The paper concludes with a critical appraisal of these projects’ significance for sociology and hints to potential epistemological fractures within the discipline.

Using a sociological perspective, the article shows that masters of capoeira in Brazil and boxing coaches in France have adopted an ‘ecological’ approach to society, particularly when they are working with people with disabilities. The comparative research presented in this paper is based on ethnographic data. The authors demonstrate that the ecological approach developed in these two activities is based on an ‘ethics of care’ perspective which focuses on human vulnerability. At the same time, social actors are adapting to a context which has the potential to provide income and new status. This situation differs from what is traditionally observed in care studies. Boxing coaches and masters of capoeira are developing a ‘strategic-functionalist’ approach whereby they demonstrate the educational and welfare functions of their respective practices. By doing so, they seek to occupy a more important place in the social arena by meeting disability-related expectations and new challenges linked to inclusion., Dans cet article, à partir d’une approche sociologique, nous verrons que les maîtres de capoeira au Brésil et les professeurs de boxe en France ont adopté une approche écologique, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit de prendre en charge le handicap. Cette recherche comparative s’appuie sur des données ethnographiques. Nous entendons montrer que l’approche écologique développée dans les deux activités renvoie à une éthique du care qui se fonde sur une attention particulière à la vulnérabilité humaine, tout en donnant à voir des acteurs qui s’ajustent à un contexte potentiellement pourvoyeur de revenu et de prestige, contrairement aux objets traditionnellement abordés à partir du care. Maîtres et professeurs développent une approche stratégico-fonctionnaliste du monde où il s’agit de démontrer la fonction éducative et de bien-être de leurs pratiques respectives. Par cette action, ils tentent de prendre une place plus importante dans l’échiquier social en répondant aux attentes relatives au handicap et aux nouveaux enjeux liés à l’inclusion.

International audience; This article explores the ways in which teachers describe their pedagogical and intervention practices relative to sexual diversity in Québec (Canada). Three variables closely associated with teachers who report inclusive practices emerge: experiential training (based on the experience of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual [LGB] teacher), contact training (from close acquaintance with LGB individuals), and professional training. These factors impact the probability that a teacher will refer to homosexuality, intervene when homophobic incidents occur to deconstruct prejudices, and become the confidant of LGBQ students. Results are discussed based on research on minority teachers and on the roles of straight allies in education.

This article examines the transfer of creative industries as a policy idea to Lithuania. Tracing the stages of the transfer and analysing its consequences in the local cultural policy field, this paper argues for the importance of studying cultural policy process. The findings reveal that the process of the international transfer of creative industries mattered, because it generated wider transformations in cultural policy field by having ambiguous effects on local power relations. The policy idea of creative industries opened the cultural policy field to new actors. As a result, competition for scarce state funding increased, but cultural organisations gained access to the European Union structural funds. In all, creative industries as a policy idea significantly transformed Lithuanian state cultural policy, in that it led to a reassessment of both the practices and identities of cultural organisations.

This article examines the cultivation of transnational connections, cosmopolitanism and global class consciousness among members of elite social clubs in Paris. Drawing from interviews with members, it compares how – according to their respective characteristics – various social clubs promote different kinds of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, while rejecting the more recent internationalism of upper-middle-class service clubs such as the Rotary. Each club’s peculiar ethos, practice and representations of social capital are related to the features of competing clubs through relations of mutual symbolic distinction; for example, some clubs emphasize the ‘genuineness’ of links while stigmatizing others for the accent they put on utility. The varied forms of cosmopolitanism that they promote partly replicate these logics of distinction, eliciting struggles over the authenticity or inauthenticity of transnational connections. Yet, clubs also oppose each other according to the unequal emphasis that they place on international ties per se, which creates a competing axiology within the symbolic economy of social capital accumulation.

International audience; Since the politicization of the EU's 'democratic deficit' began in the early 1990s, research has paid considerable attention to formal mechanisms for European-scale deliberation (e.g. the European Parliament or the European Convention). However, has this social science been looking for EU deliberation in the right place? Given that most of the EU's government takes place within sectors, this article instead applies Risse's lens on deliberation to investigating one of these venues of politics. Using findings from a process-tracing of the radical reform of the EU's regulation of its wine industry in 2008, it claims that despite a recent shift within the Commission to present its arguments more 'transparently', deliberation remained stifled by anticipations of interest group and member state resistance. More generally, the case study is used to show that although Commission consultation procedures are now consistently structured by the procedures of 'Better Regulation', these are still driven by calculations of consequences for Council negotiations rather than by a principled commitment to open argument and change through persuasion.

International audience; The academic literature on divided societies emerged from the study of colonial societies that were characterized by sharp and persistent cleavage along ethnic lines, and the study of consociational democracies in which there are power-sharing arrangements between two or more groups in an ethnically segmented society. The study of divided societies emerged historically at a moment when there was a growing interest in the study of immigration and inter-ethnic relations in developed industrial nations. These two sets of literature--on divided societies and on immigration and inter-ethnic relations--have developed largely in isolation from each other. Both sets of literature have also tended to focus on inter-ethnic relations, and have paid much less attention to migration. In this article, it is argued that there are a number of reasons why it is worth trying to encourage dialogue across these two sets of literature. In making the case: what is meant by the term divided society is examined; some of the ways in which the issue of migration has changed in three different divided societies--Bosnia, Northern Ireland and South Africa--are outlined; the topic of immigration and integration is examined; and some ways in which the study of divided societies might benefit from engaging more seriously with the literature on migration are suggested.

The social implications of urban restructuring, especially the spatial approach of urban renewal, are important indicators for the building stock, as this impacts on demolition and reconstruction. The social stakes of urban renewal reside in both its political intent and its social effects. Ongoing socio-economic difficulties have led to a shift in French public policy on disadvantaged neighbourhoods, moving from the promotion of local social and economic development to an increasing fear of concentrating local communities or 'ghettos'. Social mix has become a policy objective for these neighbourhoods, and urban renewal as the means to achieve it. Although the effects of this policy are currently hard to assess, three social stakes can nonetheless be identified, partly based on the results of ongoing research at Les Minguettes, a suburb of Lyon, France. First, contemporary urban renewal tends to erode the stock of affordable housing, without bringing noticeable improvements in housing conditions. Second, this policy weakens the inhabitants' social capital, a resource strongly locally anchored in working-class milieus. Finally, social mix tends to transform local forms of coexistence in unpredictable ways, with no guarantee of the anticipated positive cooperation between locals and newcomers., L'approche spatiale de la rénovation urbaine, une politique de gestion du parc bâti consistant principalement à démolir et reconstruire des logements, a des implications sociales importantes. Les enjeux sociaux de la rénovation urbaine résident à la fois dans ses intentions politiques et dans ses conséquences sociales. Les difficultés socioéconomiques actuelles ont conduit à un changement de la politique publique française à l'égard des quartiers défavorisés, qui est passée de la promotion du développement social et économique local à une crainte croissante des regroupements communautaires ou de la formation de " ghettos ". La mixité sociale est devenue un objectif des politiques visant ces quartiers et la rénovation urbaine le moyen d'y parvenir. Bien que les effets de cette politique soient actuellement difficiles à évaluer, trois enjeux sociaux peuvent néanmoins être identifiés, en se basant pour partie sur les résultats de recherches en cours aux Minguettes, en banlieue de Lyon, en France. Tout d'abord, la rénovation urbaine d'aujourd'hui a tendance à grignoter le parc des logements abordables, sans que cela se traduise par des améliorations sensibles des conditions de logement. En second lieu, cette politique affaiblit le capital social des habitants, une ressource fortement ancrée localement dans les milieux populaires. Enfin, la mixité sociale a tendance à transformer les formes locales de coexistence de manière imprévisible, sans garantie de la coopération positive escomptée entre les anciens et les nouveaux habitants.

International audience; This paper focuses on the way drug users (DUs) play an active role in implementing public health policies by their involvement in self-support groups, thus providing new forms of patients' expertise. Expertise of this nature may seem paradoxical, in that it confers qualities to populations whose practices are unlawful and whose identity is stigmatised. A qualitative method including semi directive interviews (57) and ethnographic observations was used for this research. A thematic content analysis was done from empirical data following an inductive logic. This paper aims to show how a DUs' organisation finds a place in the social arena in the political context of harm reduction, succeeds in building the French DUs' health and welfare conditions as a legitimate cause, and elaborates a specific rhetoric centered around life skills and citizenship. The new forms of patients' expertise, based on life experiences, contribute to enhancing the value of practical, emotional and subjective knowledge that sometimes questions specialist knowledge. This claim for citizenship is often used as a sort of magic incantation, and content may be lacking if public health policies are not accompanied by broader policies that attempt to take into account the political, legal, economical and social conditions of stigmatised social groups like DUs.

This article focuses on some salient issues of urban sustainable development in France, specifically with regard to six urban agglomerations: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse. The reticular dimension of these issues is analysed with reference to the ways a plurality of actors imagine, project and realize the construction of cities, rather than through sectoral points of view. This relational approach is divided according to a triple focus in which we successively address: firstly, the state of Sustainable Development (SD) policies in the six major cities, in terms of contents and conception; secondly, their implementation from the perspective of instruments; and finally, the circuits of their realization. Thus, urban SD appears within a (locally variable) set of linkages that place these issues firmly in areas of interrelations and intersections.

In contrast to the riots in the French banlieues in Autumn 2005, Germany has not reached the point of such social conflicts with an ethnic background. To explain this difference, this article compares the situation of marginalised youth of North African origin in France with its counterpart of Turkish origin in Germany. As a central explanatory factor for unrest that does or does not take the form of violent protest, the foremost hypothesis is that the experience of frustration that results from the discrepancy between the expectation of recognition and social reality is stronger in the case of France than of Germany. As a follow-up to this hypothesis, the article investigates, firstly, the corresponding processes of exclusion and integration of these young people. Secondly, the consequences of urban policy on the situation of young people in each case are examined against the background of the different models of integration. Finally, the article considers the differences in political mobilisation and ho...

This article is an attempt to prepare the ground for the analysis and theorization of the connection between the body and technical devices emerging from miniaturized wearable technologies. The research object is a secular and common “body object,” namely, eyeglasses. The article reviews the social history of this artifact and analyzes its patterns of use, showing how the distributed sociotechnical networks of action containing these simple optical systems are constantly deconfigured and reconfigured. In other words, the device is not simply subject to physical incorporation. The unstable balance between the artifact's projection onto the surrounding space and its attachment to the physical body is analyzed through the heterogeneousness of bodies coming into play as the device is socially embodied. As the corporal frame and physical, distributed, and social bodies overlap, the notion of “bodies object” emerges. This covers the artifact-related and social environment, the plural nature of which could be of...

Since the end of the first war in 1996, the definition of the Chechen national identity has been at stake in a top-level competition. I argue that four main trends – the separatists, the radical Islamists, the traditionalists and the pro-Russians – are in competition. Each of them produces its own narrative, based on a specific rendering of history. Using a constructivist approach, I address the influence of an all-out war context on social interactions, self-perception and categorisation by the others. I then examine the narratives in competition. I finally show how history and traditions have become political weapons in the struggle for power and legitimacy by opposing self-proclaimed elites promoted by wars.

This paper relates to the development of non-technical education (and to ethics) in engineering curricula in Europe and particularly in France. Two projects being followed at the Centre de recherche en eacutethique de l'ingeacutenieur (CREI) at the Catholic University of Lille (France) are discussed: the first is an engineering ethics course which has been running for 6 years in a state engineering school, where there is a strong emphasis on analysing the ethical issues of the students' first work experience. The second has to do with the writing of a European handbook on engineering ethics which gives us good insight into how engineering ethics as a discipline is shaped by the cultural background of those who develop it (dominant philosophical tradition, religious background, the way the engineering profession is organized and education). Two main approaches seem to be prevalent in Europe today: the first relates to professional ethics as discussed in the USA since the 1950s, the second relates to a new discipline that is developing in Europe, that of the ethics of technology., La première partie de l'article décrit le développement des disciplines non-techniques (dont l'éthique) dans la formation des ingénieurs en Europe, et plus particulièrement en France. Deux projets du centre de recherche en Ethique de l'Ingénieur (CREI) de l'université catholique de Lille sont esuite développés et commentés : le premier, un cours d'éthique donné depuis 6 ans dans une école publique sous tutelle du Ministère de l'Industrie (l'Ecole des Mines de Douai) dans lequel une place centrale est accordé à l'analyse de cas d'éthique présentés par les étudiants à partir de leur expérience de stage en entreprise. Le second projet développé, un manuel européen d'Engineering Ethics en cours d'élaboration, donne l'occasion de repérer de quelle manière cette discipline est façonnée par les enracinement culturel de ceux qui la développe (tradition philosophique et religieuse dominante, mode d'organisation professionnelle des ingénieurs et modalité de formation). Deux approches semblent se dégager en Europe : la première dans la lignée de l'éthique professionnelle telle qu'elle s'est développée aux Etats-Unis depuis les années 50, la seconde davantage en lien avec une autre discipline qui est apparue plus récemment, notamment en Allemagne et au Pays-Bas : l'éthique de la technologie.

International audience; In a world in flux in which the scientific certainties derived from earlier social paradigms are being challenged by the intrusion of phenomena not confinable within the bounds of ‘rational actor’ assumptions, the edge of objectivity of the social sciences is being tested. Emotion as a Dimension of Ethical and Moral Motivation grapples with this epistemic problem by arguing that emotion—defined here as ‘that which sets the mind and judgement in motion'—is a proper, indeed necessary object for contemporary analysis and the renewal of methodological enquiry. Through an analysis of the dynamics of identity and exile, and a critique of traditional sociological approaches to identity, the author argues that the finality of the social sciences should not be to separate the realms of social imagination and reality, but rather to try to understand the social realities which emerge from their encounter. The central hypothesis of the paper is that emotion is the primordial source of ethical judgement, as illustrated in universals such as the sense of justice and dignity. Emotion indeed provides crucial insights into the central questionings of contemporary sociology over identity, individual and collective, and sheds light on the formation of political and ethical judgement. Considered from the point of view of political responsibility, emotion becomes a dimension of moral motivation.

Resume L'observateur qui s'interesse aux jeux d'argent est d'abord gene par les discours sur le joueur qui vont de la condamnation moralisante a l'apologie, en passant par la complaisance et l'exotisme esthetico-litteraire. Le present article fournira l'occasion de montrer que l'on peut traiter le jeu, le joueur sans devenir visionnaire et sans proceder par anatheme moralisateur ou discours apologetique. Il donnera au sujet qui se lance dans l'aventure ludique toute sa place, sans s'identifier a ses experiences. Si le sujet est au centre de cette investigation, c'est cependant comme sujet social donnant sens a des pratiques dont la pratique sociologique doit rendre raison, a condition de la mettre en oeuvre dans toute sa diversite. Par consequent, les «je ne sais quoi» ou les «presque rien» que nous avons observes dans les espaces de jeu, entendus en interrogeant les joueurs ou en analysant le materiel ludique, sont a la genese de notre reflexion sur le jeu.

International audience