Contenu du sommaire : Varia

Culture and Development : Do Social Struggles Make the Difference ?
The concept of culture does not pass the exam any more. Despite the actual trend for ethno-development that can be found among donors, development and other social or political processes cannot be captured by this notion that has turned into a portmanteau word. In fact, behind the umbrella of culture, one now witnesses the production of political and social inequalities. All « development stories », happy or unhappy, can be told without referring to the notion of culture or identity. The concepts of social movement, social struggle and even political and social revolution are more heuristic. The cultural understanding of development bears the same ideological character than the notion it tries to explain, for it primarily contributes to de-politicizing the eminently political question of the production of social and political domination.

The Scholar, the Politician and the Moralist : Historiography of « Sex Tourism » in Thailand
From the mid-80s to the beginning of the 90s, « sex tourism » was harshly condemned. The case of Thailand appeared eminently problematic as discourses on commercial sex and tourism focused on this Southeast Asian country, mainly to criticize the so-called « development of global prostitution ». Social sciences were definitely part of this process. As the study of prostitution raises political and ethical issues, one must critically analyze the evolution of academic discourses. In fact, the specificity of the scientific discourse has to be defended against the activist perception, undoubtedly efficient but sometimes simplistic. A positive statement on sex tourism still appears necessary as it enables us to ask new questions on global prostitution, avoiding the pitfalls of emotional reactions. Thus, this article aims to contribute to the history of social sciences by providing some data on the genealogy of sex tourism.

The Passion of Horror and the Reason of Detection Confronted to the « Ultraviolet Catastrophe »This essay aims to explain the reason why detective novels have been first considered as an ideal production of their times, before being marginalized, their narrative form becoming irreversibly nostalgic. It will also be shown how detective novels seem to be opposed to a more or less contemporaneous popular genre, horror stories, while being haunted by it. The « ultraviolet catastrophe » will be presented as a turning point in this history of literary genres, that can be read as an episode of the war between science and literature.

Intertextual Games in Manifesto Communication : The Case of the « Manifesto of the Communist Party »This article focuses on a series of properties of intertextual relations between texts anchored in a specific genre : political manifestos. One observes that such texts are produced in critical contexts (a social crisis, or a war) by a collective author defining himself as a citizen aiming at restoring social order. Thus a manifesto addresses citizens as it appeals to make them (re) act against all kind of trouble-makers. Therefore, the establishment of an intertextual relationship between a manifesto (source text) and any kind of other text (destination text) inevitably entails exploiting typical properties of what can be called a « demonstrator » ethos. These are explicitly but also implicitly conveyed from one text to another. In this article, I analyze how, why and with what effects the beginning of a well-known manifesto – Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Marx and Engels (1848) – is intertextually linked with more recent texts that do not necessarily belong to the sphere of politics.

The Good Air of the Alps in some Sanatoria's Novels
In a shady dale at the foot of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain one can encounter several minor French literary pieces depicting life in Swiss sanatoria. This essay focuses on passages from René Burnand's Une ville sur la montagne and René de Traz's Les heures de Silence and analyzes the ethical, epistemological and aesthetic intertwining of representations of the good mountain air at the time of the sanatoria in the canton Vaud. Should one try to avoid bombastic philosophical terms, one could sum up this essay by saying that the reason why the good air of the Alps is so good is because it is « jolly pretty ».

Winter and Paper Gardens : Of Some Readings and (Re)Writings at the end of the 19th century
This article would like to show how an object, the winter garden, and the practice it entails, offer, at the end of the 19th century, a way into reading and writing the society which produced them. Gardening is indeed not limited measuring up space : it is also, and especially, a way to envisage the world, to understand and to classify it ; it further allows for the possibility to rewrite the universe or to invent one for oneself. Yet such a practice is not the preserve of landscape gardeners who, from 1870 onwards, design and maintain public winter gardens : it also shows through in the pages of journalists and other specialists on the subject, and influences a whole part of the literary production of the end of the 19th century. In effect, Zola and the decadent or fin-de-siècle authors (Huysmans, Rachilde) will seize the winter garden and make it a privileged place for the observation of the world. In these gardens, the learned nomenclature of botany is diverted for the benefit of a poetic litany ; besides, the greenhouse not only feeds the imagination and the decadent universe, but it also enables us to elaborate a coherent reading of these gardens. However, far from remaining confined to the decadent winter gardens, such an aesthetics sometimes contaminates scientific discourse, revealing then the contradictions of a century which we nevertheless considered as scientist and progressive. The arrangements of the winter gardens built in Paris from the 1870s thus elaborate a language mixing pedagogy and whim, explanation and entertainment – which reminds us, sometimes, of contemporary writers'vision of the world.

Clientelism, Communitaranism and Territorial Fragmentation in Syria
The fragmentation of the Syrian territory on community bases is directly connected to the functioning of the baathist regime controlled by a clan coming from a religious minority : the Alawit. Because it belongs to a minority considered as heretic by the Sunni muslims, who represents 80 % of the Syrian population, the Assad family is deprived of a real legitimacy which forces them to use the mechanisms of vote-catching to remain in power. While condemning the confessional system which threatens to unsettle nearby countries, the Assad clan bases its strategy on three points : it seeks to unify and enslave the Alawit community among which the main part of the security forces and the executives of the regime are recruited, gather together the other minorities (Christians, Ismaelians and Druzes) against the Sunnites, and finally divide the Sunni majority to marginalize its potential political power. In the coastal region (provinces of Latakia and Tartus) these principles are sharpened for the region is an Alawit stronghold. The unity and the territorial extension of the Alawit community is enforced at the expense of Sunni muslims, whose territories are marginalized, whereas the Christian and the Ismaelians territories are better integrated into what is considered to be a refuge in case the Alawits should lose their power in Damascus.

Rethinking « Minority » Nationalism : Kurdish Nationalism in Iraq and Syria during the Mandates, between Tradition and Modernity. This article suggests that, during the interwar period, peripheral areas inhabited by « minorities » in Iraq and Syria witnessed similar social and political developments to the rest of Iraqi and Syrian territories under British and French rule : the spread of nationalism as a lingua franca for the elites, but also among large portions of the population, and the emergence of new political actors who challenged the power of traditional notables, and furthermore held a different vision of the « nation ». Taking the Kurdish case (Sulaimaniya in Iraq/Upper Jazira in Syria) as starting point, the author offers a multi-disciplinary approach to nationalism, and pays particular attention to different levels of analysis (micro/macro). Finally, he deals with notions such as « interest », « passions », and « clientelism », within the context of implemented mandatory policies vis-à-vis Kurds in Iraq and Syria.

Between Worship and Political Issues : The Construction of an Islamo-Christian Encounter in Egypt during the XXth centuryStudying the encounter between Christians and Muslims in Egypt inevitably leads to take into consideration the status of the Copts, the governmental strategies set up by the successive leaders, as well as the role of the Church as an assembly point for a minority community with a precarious status. The press highlights a series of landmarks whereby one may approach the issue of interreligious convergence : there is first of all a seemingly political encounter that seems political and which displays in the context of the nationalist Revolution of 1919. We also observe forms of encounter around the sanctuaries which attract Christians and Muslims as well. There are finally « hybrid » convergences based on the idea of a mixed worship, an act of faith which turned into an act of patriotism. Nevertheless in every case, the social, political and economic realities of Egypt and and of the Coptic community more particularly reveal that what sources describe as a convergence phenomenon does not always resist critical examination, making it necessary to question underlying stakes and draw attention to the process of their construction.

Discourses and Representations of Iraqi Refugees in Syria : Elements for an Analysis
Four years after the invasion of Iraq by the American-led coalition, more than 4 millions of Iraqis are considered displaced, immigrants, or refugees by the UN. In Syria, their number is estimated at 1.2 million by the Syrian government and the UNHCR. Our work in Syria focused on the representations and political, national and sectarian identifications of the Iraqi Arab refugees in Syria. In the present article, we would like to discuss a first series of questions which are at the core of the practices and discourse of the Iraqi refugees. First, we will try to describe the various economical and relational factors and the logics of identity and class, which contributed to the strategy of establishments of Iraqi refugees in Syria since 2003. Then, we will see how multiple forms of violence existing nowadays in Iraq are playing a central role in the construction of the discourse of the refugees, especially on the logics of identity, and the great impact that they have on their practices. Finally, studying the discourse of refugees will help us understand how the violence they face has shaped an « essentialist » or even « ethnic » discourse. Yet, although this discourse results from the current crisis, it relies on figures and representations coming from class and sectarian fractures that were already existing in Iraq at the beginning of the XXth century.