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Disorders in social relationships: the case of anorexia and bulimia Mental health problems implicitly and particularly pose questions about the tensions of the social world. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia, two eating disorders, are conceptualised in this article as exposing the social tensions particularly affecting young girls, and more frequently those from the middle and upper social classes. Why are these three structuring characteristics of social position —female sex, comfortable social milieu, and “youth”— interpretable in terms of social relations, and are they thus closely intertwined in these syndromes? Their configuration in eating disorders is atypical among health inequalities that more usually affect those from the poorer and older groups in the population. The sociological examination of these disorders shows that their foundations are not based on excessive conformity with the norms and values that would be expected of girls of the upper classes but have more to do with a “pathological use” of the norms of excellence in response to the tensions encountered at this age.

How real estate developers generate profit. A study of the entrepreneurial work of “qualifying” (classifying, enhancing and promoting) goods This article studies the case of real estate developers to probe the more general question of how economic actors generate profit. By reconstituting the history of a major shopping mall development in France and comparing it with a series of accounting forecasts drawn up by the developer, it shows that contrary to what Marxist approaches centered on ground rent predict, profit is generated by the entrepreneurial work of “qualifying” (classifying, enhancing and promoting) the proposed real estate good. The real estate development project is a system of actors that developers seek to coordinate by integrating into the attributes of the edifices they design the wishes of their strategic interlocutors; e.g., local elected officials, future tenants, investors. In doing so, they manage to implicate those protagonists in the project without relying solely on coordination through prices, which would ultimately reduce their profit margins.

Analyzing the reception of disability policies: the contribution of biographical interviews In France, as in many other countries, disability policies have evolved from using a logic of protection and segregation of people with disabilities to one of the promotion of objectives of inclusion and non-discrimination. How has the social experience of disability been affected by these changes in social policy? This article offers qualitative elements of an answer to this question from a survey using biographical interviews. The research is based on a sociological approach to the reception of public policy, enabling us to understand both the uses and effects of the latter. This approach makes it possible to analyse, from the experience of those affected by them, the paradoxical dynamics of this policy and its emancipatory aims, based here on the issues of schooling and preparation for employment, disability compensation, and accessibility.

The “sweet science” of bruising. Boxing as a paradigm of a sociology of domination Boxing, or the “sweet science” of bruising, is far from being a minor subject for sociologists and ethnographers. The increasing numbers of studies of this topic constitute a range of approaches in which not only bodies but also different conceptions of investigation and of the relationship of researchers to their fields confront each other. Looking at each of these in turn, this article traces the history of a sociological subject matter whose outlines are still to be defined. It shows that, above and beyond their differences, the ways of understanding or explaining the situation of the boxer are all concerned with a central question, that of domination. While this is in principle about fighting in the ring, researchers see its expressions as being at the intersections of “gender,” “class” and “race.” As a result they see pugilism as a theatre where various representations of the struggles of subordinate individuals against the forces of exclusion that tend to maintain them in socially dominated positions are being staged.