La différence
Michel Wieviorka
décembre 2000£
( 2005 : Pocket Edition, Paris, Editions de l'Aube)
(en italien: La differenza culturale. Una prospettiva sociologica, Roma, Ed. Laterza, 2002 / en portugais : A Diferença, Lisboa, Fenda, 2002 / en allemand: Kulturelle differenzen und kollektive identitäten, Hamburg, Hamburger Edition, 2003)

Difference
"The challenge posed by the emergence of cultural identities -both in their expression and in their contemporary signification -now has a historical depth of almost half a century. Since the 1960's the so-called Western democracies - to which most of the analyses in this book are devoted - have had to deal with these on the home front. Dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and totalitarian societies have also been faced with this challenge particularly in situations where the reference is to a forbidden or persecuted religious assertion or again to a struggle for national liberation. And they have plagued many countries in the 'fourth world' in the form of religious or nationalist movements, or yet again in actions involving what is sometimes referred to as "nativism".
Confronted with this challenge we can no longer content ourselves with the hesitant expression of cursory hypotheses, outlining hasty and poorly supported arguments. We are no longer on the eve of the unknown: we are now totally involved in conflicts, tensions and transformations which we now know are neither ephemeral nor minor events - which obviously does not mean that their forms of expression are stabilized or their long-term meaning fixed.
Three types of discussion deserve our attention. There are those which concern the actors who claim to adhere to a cultural identity. Then there are those which involve political philosophy. Finally, in some countries political and institutional practice has been characterized by the implementation of multiculturalism, a major innovation which has given rise to considerable debate". Michel Wieviorka

Dominations ordinaires
Danilo Martucelli
décembre 2000

Ordinary Dominations
The analysis of domination is often more theoretical than close to the difficulties of everyday life, so much so that the problems dealt with in sociological literature at times appear to be somewhat remote from the situation of the individual. Given the speed of change, the triumph of the market, the changing economic role of the State, not to mention exclusion and precarity, or again the disruptions which, by affecting the relations between the sexes or between generations concern the most intimate dimensions of subjectivity, the sum total conception of domination has become inadequate. It must now be conceived of in other terms, considering both its fragmentation and the permanence of its structural forms; its heightened constraints and the erosion of boundaries between spheres of social life. We must also reveal the different scales of relationships of domination, defining through their intermeshing and juxtaposition, the multiple and contradictory positions of the dominated individual.
In this era of widespread interconnections, divisions emerge as paradoxical and perhaps insurmountable: between the North and the South, women and men, the old and the young, workers and administrators. The world is at once integrated in practical terms and analytically totally elusive to the individual. This book sets out a grammar which provides a unified approach to the apprehension of domination in the face of its rising spread and the diversity of its forms.

Violence et démocratie. Le paradoxe brésilien
Angelina Peralva
mars 2001

Violence and Democracy: The Brazilian Paradox
"Here we are inside the "morro"--separated from the prosperous southern half of Rio, and from similar areas of Sao Paulo--where we are faced with extreme forms of violence, which increased dramatically after Brazil's transition to a democratic form of government. In this case, the sociologist's task is to compare societal violence to the forms of violence that gang members use as a way to both adapt to their society and to distance themselves from it. Angelina Peralva is up to that task. She takes us within the contradictions of a society that is changing but that is also allowing its internal weaknesses to develop in the form of "tribalism" and competing gangs, whose level of violence seems almost impossible for us to understand. Whether or not this violence is symptomatic of anything more than social pathology or failure, it tends to lead us to lump together diverse social phenomena into the falsely unified concept of deviant forms of conduct. After reading this book, it will be difficult to be contented with the customary calls for the reeducation and social reintegration of gang members, usually accompanied by calls for better training and supervision of police officers. While necessary, such programs and measures have always remained empty promises." Alain Touraine

La différence culturelle. Une reformulation des débats
sous la direction de Michel Wieviorka
et Jocelyne Ohana
mars 2001

Cultural Differences: Changing the Terms of the Debate
During the 1980s and 1990s, throughout the world, the rise of cultural identities has led to new questions, fears, as well as debates which are obviously far from over. Too often, intellectual and political responses have tended to be reductive, or to be driven by purely ideological and polemical factors, which created superficial contrasts between two starkly basic options. However, the discussion cannot be limited to such dichotomies as: the Republic vs. Democracy, or Universalism vs. Particularism.
In June of 1999, over forty scholars and researchers from around the world, who are specialized in diverse fields of the social sciences, met for a week at Cerisy, with the aim of shifting the terms of the debate away from the conceptual dead ends and simplistic oppositions to which it had been reduced. The following issues, among others, were addressed: the nature of cultural differences, the historical transformation that has turned them into crucial societal issues, and the fears and misconceptions associated with them. Other memorable and potentially useful insights were provided during the Colloquium, particularly in regards to the close (and often underestimated) links, between cultural differences and social injustice, between memory and difference, or between violence and culture.

Qu'est-ce qu'être Juif ? 50 Sages répondent à Ben Gourion (1958) (document inédit)
Eliezer Ben- Rafaël
2001
Forword by Michel Wieviorka

The meaning of Jewishness; fifty scholars reply to Ben Gurion
In 1958, Ben Gurion, head of the State of Israel, had the novel idea of inviting some fifty scholars in Israel and in the diaspora to reply to the question: who is Jewish? The scholars included outstanding figures in Jewish thought - rabbis, philosophers, men of science, doctors, lawyers, practising Jews such as Agnon, the winner of the Nobel prize, as well as liberals and free thinkers like Isaiah Berlin. The inquiry originated in a question which arose repeatedly in discussions in the young Hebrew state: should the children born to mixed couples whose mother was not Jewish be accepted as Jewish or not, and if so under what conditions?
The answers are extremely informative and reveal the immense diversity of positions concerning the borders of Judaism and the in-depth meaning of what it is to be Jewish.
As a result of Eliezer Ben Rafael's research, these exceptional documents are published here for the first time. Forty years later, these answers are contextualised and set in the transformation of Judaism from the beginning of modern times to the dawn of the 21st century.

E. Ben Rafael is Professor of Sociology at the University of Tel Aviv and the author of major works in English and in Hebrew dealing with the themes of identity and conflict in the contemporary world as well as with questions of sociology of language.

Critique de la santé publique.
Une approche anthropologique.
sous la dir. de Jean-Pierre Dozon et Didier Fassin
2001

Critiquing Public Health: An Anthropological Approach
"La santé est désormais au creur de la définition du politique, Elle l'est à travers les transformations de l'action publique qu'entraîne la généralisation de la réduction des risques et du principe de précaution, Elle l'est plus encore par le développement de formes inédites de rapport à soi qu'induisent les nouveaux dispositifs de régulation des corps, Affichant pour finalité des améliorations profitables à tous et à chacun, reposant sur des méthodes épidémiologiques de mieux en mieux éprouvées, la santé publique impose des valeurs et des procédures qui semblent aller de soi et qui résistent à l'analyse,
C'est ce que ce livre démontre, D'une part, en s'intéressant aux cultures politiques de la santé publique, aux normes, aux savoirs, aux discours qui manifestent ses pouvoirs, Et d'autre part, en examinant ses politiques culturelles, la manière dont elle traite les individus et les collectivités auxquels elle attribue des croyances, qui s'opposent à ses propres vérités, et des résistances qui ralentissent son progrès,
Les études proposées ici ne se limitent pas au seul cas français, Elles portent sur des politiques européennes et africaines de lutte contre le sida, sur des actions conduites à Marseille et à Londres dans le domaine de la toxicomanie, sur des programmes de santé reproductive menés auprès de femmes amérindiennes des hauts-plateaux andins ou émigrées des banlieues françaises, sur la prise en charge des étrangers et des minorités par l'ethnopsychiatrie, sur la mise en reuvre des connaissances et des techniques de l'épidémiologie et de la génétique, Elles analysent les non-dits sur lesquels repose le travail de la santé publique et font ressortir les réalités qu'il méconnaît, à commencer par les inégalités qu'il néglige ou qu'il renforce."

Les biotechnologies en débat.
Pour une démocratie scientifique
Suzanne de Cheveigné
Daniel Boy et Jean-Christophe Gallou
2002

Debates in Biotechnology: For a Scientific Democracy
"Il y a un demi siècle seulement, l'ADN livrait le secret de sa structure en double hélice. Depuis, il est devenu possible d'accéder aux mécanismes moléculaires de l'hérédité, de modifier les formes naturelles du vivant, et de créer des "OGM", des organismes génétiquement modifiés, bactéries, plantes ou animaux - sans que les processus biologiques mis en jeu soient toujours parfaitement compris, ni parfaitement maîtrisés.
Les utilisations de la génétique réveillent dès lors des craintes anciennes, et en activent de nouvelles, qui touchent les unes et les autres aux conséquences de la manipulation du vivant, en général et de la modification de l'humain, en particulier.
Ce livre analyse la manière dont notre société a accueilli ces techniques, et restitue les termes du débat qui en est résulté, pour aboutir à un constat implacable: jamais ce débat n'a été à la hauteur des enjeux. Fondé sur des recherches systématiques et précises, conjuguant clarté et rigueur scientifique, toujours très documenté, cet ouvrage mobilise sociologie, politologie et sciences juridiques de manière intégrée, refuse les facilités de la simple juxtaposition des perspectives offertes et dénonce la confiscation de thèmes scientifiques et techniques par les "experts".
Par les analyses qu'il développe, ce livre constitue un plaidoyer argumenté pour une démocratie scientifique."

(Suzanne de Cheveigné est sociologue, chargée de recherche au CNRS ; Daniel Boy est politologue, directeur de recherche à la Fondation nationale des Sciences Politiques ; Jean Christophe Galloux est juriste, professeur agrégé à l'université Paris II-Panthéon Assas)

Le malentendu
Franco La Cecla
2002

Misunderstanding
"Nous vivons une époque qui se drogue à l'évidence et à la transparence. On nous invite à "communiquer", comme si nous savions une fois pour toutes qui nous sommes et qui sont nos interlocuteurs, à respecter les différences ou à les condamner, comme si nous en connaissions le tracé exact - celui qui délimiterait du même coup notre propre territoire. Le plus important, à mon sens, dans l'essai magnifique de virtuosité et de culture que nous propose La Cecla, c'est son rejet de ce qu'à une autre époque on aurait appelé l'idéologie dominante. Sa subtile analyse de la notion de frontière (et les nuances éclairantes qu'il apporte à celle de ghetto, ne la confondant pas avec les phénomènes de "ghettoïsation" qui caractérisent certaines banlieues), sa relecture des théoriciens du syncrétisme, puis de le créolité, la distance qu'il prend vis-à-vis des illusions de la communication médiatique (qui sert à beaucoup de choses, mais pas à la rencontre) nous révèlent un auteur qui ose s'engager (je tiens à ce terme, dut-il créer quelque. . .malentendu) avec détermination, lucidité et humour dans les complexités buissonnantes et les simplismes pervers du monde contemporain." Marc Augé

(Franco La Cecla a enseigné l'anthropologie à Palerme, Vérone et Venise, ainsi qu'à Berkeley et à Paris, à l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Ses livres sur l'espace, sur les contacts interculturels ou sur la masculinité constituent une "oeuvre foisonnante, originale et profonde". Le malentendu est son premier livre traduit en français)

Les malades en mouvements.
La médecine et la science à l'épreuve du sida
Janine Barbot
2002

Patients in Movements: Medicine and Science confront AIDS
"Les malades ont changé. Individuellement ou par l'intermédiaire de leurs associations, ils s'engagent, de plus en plus nombreux, exerçant une influence considérable sur le système de santé.
Ainsi, les malades du sida ont fait une entrée très remarquée sur le terrain de la recherche, affirmant leur légitimité et leur compétence sur des questions qui restaient jusqu'alors le monopole des spécialistes. Leur objectif était déroutant de simplicité: "Des médicaments pour les malades ici et maintenant." Et pour y parvenir, concrètement, ils se sont immergés dans l'univers biomédical, inventant une nouvelle forme de mobilisation collective : l'activisme thérapeutique, pression pour infléchir les règles scientifiques de l'expérimentation et les procédures d'encadrement du marché des médicaments.
L'intrusion des "profanes" dans la production des innovations médicales a suscité des débats virulents. Les uns ont dénoncé les perturbations que cette nouvelle donne inflige à la bonne marche de la science et aux mécanismes naturels de régulation du marché des médicaments. D'autres ont, au contraire, applaudi cette remise en cause de l'hégémonie du pouvoir médical où ils ont vu un pas décisif vers une" démocratisation " de la médecine et de la science.
Ce livre examine l'influence exercée par les associations de lutte contre le sida sur le développement des médicaments en France. Basé sur une enquête empirique, et sur un suivi du travail quotidien des militants associatifs pendant plusieurs années, il restitue dans un cadre d'analyse stimulant les paroles croisées des militants et des patients "ordinaires", celles des chercheurs et celles des représentants des agences publiques. Les aspects routiniers - et invisibles aux yeux du public - de l'activisme thérapeutique sont mis en évidence, tout comme les "coulisses" des grandes affaires médiatiques qui ont ponctué le développement des médicaments du sida."

(Janine Barbot est sociologue à l'Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, INSERM)

La mondialisation par le bas.
Les nouveaux nomades de l'économie souterraine
Alain Tarrius
2002
Forword by Michel Wieviorka

Globalization from below. The new nomads of the underground economy
Usually, globalization implies high finance, high-tech or the new economy. It evokes Wall Street or the City of London, the World Bank, the IMF, and multinational corporations that wield greater power than many governments. But not in the case of this book. For globalization is also at work below the radar screen of governments, thanks to the loopholes and inefficiencies of their laws and regulations. Globalization is cultural as well as economic. Its agents are the unlikely "mules" of international commerce, building innumerable networks through patronage or illegal activities. The investigation detailed in this book begins in Belsunce, a run-down neighborhood of Marseille. It branches out to southern France, to Italy, to Spain, throughout the Mediterranean, toward Africa as well as northern Europe, in the process becoming something of a sociological thriller.
The nomadic capitalism that characterizes globalization from below is first and foremost based on the constant work of "mules"?mostly immigrants who incorporate into commercial transactions new lifestyles and relationships. A keen observer, Tarrius reveals their skill at belonging at once "to here in France, to back there at home, and to both at once." They are building different modes of existence without expecting much from the standard policy of assimilation into the French Republic.

Alain Tarrius is a Professor of Sociology and Urban Anthropology at the Université de Toulouse Le Mirail. This book is drawn from fifteen years of research

M. Wieviorka was the academic co-ordinator of the "Entretiens d'Auxerre", held in November 2002 which brought together fifteen experts on Islam.

Les mondes de l'ethnicité. La communauté d'expérience des héritiers de l'immigration maghrébine,
Ahmed Boubeker, october 2003

Worlds of ethnicity
"L'immigration est une histoire. Une histoire vécue, à travers la longue trame de l'expérience d'un sujet humilié, poursuivant néanmoins sa lutte pour la reconnaissance. Une histoire que ce livre saisit du dedans, démystifiant la gloire sans éclipse de notre modèle national d'intégration.
D'une génération à l'autre, du "bled perdu" aux "cités d'exil", I'immigration maghrébine reste rencontres, au carrefour de morceaux de bravoure réinterprétés, entre ritournelle des origines, complainte du déraciné et ballade du pionnier labourant sa nouvelle terre. Là où le regard public ne voit que problèmes d'intégration, malaise des banlieues et autres stigmates de l'exclusion, Ahmed Boubeker découvre les figures de l'imaginaire des "mondes de l'ethnicité . Il restitue l'histoire de la première génération, avec le "zoufri", tour à tour pionnier, guerrier, travailleur immigré. Celle d'une seconde fondation avec le "beur", entre évasion des cités ghetto et invasion de l'espace public. Celle, enfin, de la génération suivante, en quête de refondation, avec la figure émergente de l'acteur ethnique.
Au delà même de l'immigration, dans un contexte de déclin de l'Etat nation, et au plus loin de la légende dorée du creuset français, ce récit des éternels oubliés de l'histoire de France éclaire sous un jour nouveau les significations qui fondent par le bas la cohésion non plus étatique mais culturelle de nos réalités sociales".

(Ahmed Boubeker est maître de conférences en sociologie à l'université de Metz.)

Un autre monde... Contestations, dérives et surprises de l'antimondialisation
Michel Wieviorka (Editor)
Paris, Balland Editions (october 2003)

Another world is possible: challenges, detours and surprises in the antiglobalization movement
In less than ten years, "antiglobalization" and now "alterglobalization" movements, have learned to impose their themes and ideas in public debate, putting an end to the arrogance of elites, which the name of Davos alone has come to symbolize, and liquidating ideologies about the social void, generalized individualism and the end of "grand narratives." They have regiven meaning to the idea of collective action. But, they are at the same time tempted by the ideology of suspicion, which is content to denounce and critique, without the slightist constructive spirit, and sometimes even to engage in violence.
Clearly, this being the case, these new actors arouse emotions and judgements, both positive and negative. But, hasn't the moment come to go beyond these reactions and feelings and to base our understanding in reason, that is, in knowledge and analysis? In this work, the reader will find first of all ways of approaching the subject, analyses of general scope, analytical tools for approaching "alterglobalization" action, some more centered on the actor and his orientations, others more centered on the world system and its transformations. Then, the reader will go on to examine the particularly decisive moments or reorientations in the short, but nonetheless dense, history of the movement, which is thus put in perspective. Finally, this book considers the paradox of historical situations where globalization is denounced, no longer by the "alterglobalization" movement, but by particularly reactionary actors, whilst globalization is desired and finally put into place by forces concerned about democracy, liberty, creativity and openness to the world.

La violence
Michel Wieviorka
Paris, Editions Balland
(2005: Pocket Edition, Paris, Hachette Littératures)

Violence
"Is it possible to understand the causes of violence? We are now in an era in which we can and must apply new as well as more traditional forms of analysis. For violence contains, as we are today increasingly aware, an enigmatic component that remains beyond the reach of the conceptual tools of social sciences or political philosophy. It is this strangeness, often approximated by literature and the best forms of journalism, which makes the phenomenon of violence even more obscene. It is in fact when violence takes on its most extreme, surprising, or marginal forms that its core characteristics become the most visible. Such is the underlying paradox of the issues addressed in this book: How has today's new paradigm of violence become dominant? To what extent are the analytical tools of sociology, history, anthropology, psychology, and political science still relevant? Lastly, how can we fully take into account individual motivations, as well as the processes of loss, perversion, or excess of meaning, within the description of the manner in which violence is generated?"

L'islam dans les prisons
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Paris, Balland Editions

Islam in french Prisons
"We already knew the hard conditions of life of the prisoners but we ignored a major problem that this books addresses in an extensive way: second religion in France, Islam is probably the first carceral religion in this country. A social reality up to now covered up is unveiled: the massive presence of the Muslims in prison. What is their daily life? What means to them religion, how do they construct their religious feeling? How do they respect the religious prescriptions and prohibitions? How do they tackle obligations like the daily prayers, the ramadan or the consumption of the halal meat?
This sociological research gives us to see the multiple facets of proselytizing which is not confined to the radical Islam, the invention of new forms and new meanings within Islam in prison. It tries to understand their experience by examining the subjectivity of the Muslim prisoners, the specificity of their confrontation with the major problems of life and death, their sexual life, their attitude and representation of deviant life; it exhibits the process of the construction and destruction of the Self by the prisoners for whom Islam has become a major source of hope and survival.
At this very moment when the society has major questions about the secularization and "laïcité", the Republicanism, the integration of the immigrants and their offsprings, this research, the first to be devoted to Islam in prison in France, opens up new vistas in the present day debates."

Etre jeune en Palestine
Pénélope Larzillière
Paris, Editions Balland (September 2004)

Young Palestinians
What is it like to be a young person today in the territories governed by the Palestinian Authority?
In 1987 Palestinian youth became massively involved in the first Intifada, convinced that their struggle would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. In 1993 the Oslo Accords seemed to bring them closer to that goal. Hope subsequently gave way to the despair that was at the heart of the second Intifada, launched in 2000. While most of them held onto that national political objective, they all became extremely pessimistic about its chances for success.
The daily lives of these young people have deteriorated enormously, and they are preoccupied with many things besides political and geopolitical affairs - their studies, work, religion, relationships. During the first Intifada, people's private and public lives merged quite easily as they were focused on the national objective. Activism seemed to be a way of improving their lot in all walks of life. But that is no longer possible. Their involvement has become something necessary, yet hopeless.
The author paints a striking portrait of these young people, whose daily lives are totally conditioned by the changing political situation but are not reduced to that.

Pieds-noirs de père en fils
Clarisse Buono
Paris, Editions Balland (October 2004)

The Children of Pieds-noirs
Contrary to a commonlly accepted idea, the "Pieds-Noirs" didn't really exist as such during the period of French Algeria. They came about in France once Algeria's European population was repatriated.
On an historic scale, the "Pieds-Noirs" identity had only a brief existence, less than half a century. Today, it is a strong one - but will it die out with the current repatriated people?
Born in France, the descendants of "Pied-Noirs" cannot even remotely relate to the experience and memory of their parents, for they were not victims of exile. The elements making up the community's strength are closely linked to the historical account that has been reconstructed to respond to a national history judged as biased.
What has shaped the identity of the parents cannot do the same for their offspring; hence the paradox revealed by this survey among the "Pieds-Noirs" of Marseille, Lyon or Paris: instead of preserving the family's culture, the descendants are forced to abandon it and in turn elaborate a true identity loss. This way they will have a chance to organize themselves as … "Pieds-Noirs" and will be able to avoid the demise of the identity of the community.