Contenu du sommaire : Les passions de la recherche

Jean-François Laé and Numa Murard, Listen-See : Empiricism in the Light of Perceptions When doing fieldwork in sociology, the researcher should not forget that he or she has a body whose position delimits perspective. In the classical oppositions between empiricism and theory, objectivity and subjectivity, and conception and perception, this physical presence is perceived as an obstacle in the search for knowledge. However, on the contrary, we face the need to develop sensory abilities as much as possible. Using a hypothesis of fieldwork carried out by a deaf researcher, and then by a blind person, it can be demonstrated that theory can be derived from the gap between discourses and practices, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the link between the words of the same discourses and the human beings who deliver them.

Monique Gadant, The Social Sciences and Politics in Algeria : The Itinerary of an Intellectual The arrival of a French professor of philosophy in October 1962 in Algeria, three months after the country's indépendance was won, reveals how being a foreigner and a woman influenced both political involvement and the modalities of research. This experience illustrates the situation within the Algerian universities in the 1960s and 70s and challenges some ideas about the role of the social sciences in relation to politics and the state.

René Lourau, The Overly Involved Investigator The humboldtian model of the priority that should be given to research is in contradiction with universities for the masses. The interference is great between the world of science and the real world. If the passion to write can facilitate the analysis of increasingly complex questions, such an impulse or activity remains a luxury for both the teacher-scholar and the student-scholar.

Monique Sélim, Ethnology Constrained Study of social transformations during a period of transition from a planned economy to a "socialist market economy" raises the question of how to pursue anthropological research in a context of political constraint. Analysis of two state companies in conjunction with a recrudesence of the occult reveals certains relationships between individuals and the state.

Philippe Corcuff, When the Field Speaks : Towards a Reflexive Sociology Sociological survey study of a local union of CFDT railroad workers from the angle of how they react to the surveys is a reflexive approach to the relations of actors with the premises of social science. It involves a concept of appropriations linking interpretations and use. Such analysis has implications for the understanding of "reason" and its role in socio-political change.

Bernard Paillard, The Researcher : Beyond Appearances The selection of fields of research is intimately related to the personal histories of researchers themselves. Personality, socio-cultural influences and personal problems are important influences. The decision to engage in a sociological study of AIDS is undoubtedly the product of intellectual influences, but it is also related to motivations that are not so readily apparent.

Louis Moreau de Bellaing, Motivations, Sentiments and Passions in Research : The Case of Tocqueville Motivations, sentiments and passions in research are individualized not only on the psychic level, but are also marked by social "objects" and are appropriated by the author.

Pierre Rolle, From East to West, the Same Crisis ? Essay on Pierre Naville Well before the fall of the USSR, Pierre Naville proposed an interpretation of the communist world and its history in the context of his analysis of productive relations in contemporary societies. For him, the creation of the USSR cannot be explained as the result of a political will or decision or as the effect of a strict determinism. The Soviet system appeared to him as a source of contradictory tensions which made its demise inevitable. The Russian Revolutions were important events in the evolution of the wage-earning class on a global level. Contemporary changes in the East as well as the West stem from the same profound crisis of productive relations, modes of mobilization and the exploitation of labor.

Ralph Samuel, Grand Narratives There has never been an agreed or authorized version of the national past. Rather it has been an arena where rival interpretations and competing narratives contend. Perhaps, rather than constructing, or canvassing, ideal syllabuses, we might do better to return to some of history's older strengths, as they were exhibited in the schoolroom, the lecture hall and the library. One of the merits of school history is that it refuses the demarcations between global and British history.