Changement climatique : Dynamiques scientifiques, expertise, enjeux géopolitiques

In less than thirty years, climate change became a both scientific and geopolitical crucial stake, concerning a great variety of research groups, epistemic communities, and political actors. An international organisation of scientific assessment- the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC)- played a key role in the domain and tends to become a paradigmatic model for other international scientific assessments. In this paper, we wanted to analyse this evolution of climate change regime, the IPCC, and the feedbacks of this evolution in France on the climate sciences community.     

The sexuality‐assemblage: desire,affect, anti‐humanism

Two theoretical moves are required to resist the ‘humanist enticements’ associated with sexuality. Post‐structuralism supplies the first, showing how the social produces culturally specific sexual knowledgeabilities. A second anti‐humanist move is then needed to overturn anthropocentric privileging of the human body and subject as the locus of sexuality. In this paper we establish a language and landscape for a Deleuze‐inspired anti‐humanist sociology of sexuality that shifts the location of sexuality away from bodies and individuals. Sexuality in this view is an impersonal affective flow within assemblages of bodies, things, ideas and social institutions, which produces sexual (and other) capacities in bodies. Assemblages territorialize bodies' desire, setting limits on what it can do: this process determines the shape of sexuality, which is consequently both infinitely variable and typically highly restricted. We illustrate how this anti‐humanist ontology may be applied to empirical data to explore sexuality‐assemblages, and conclude by exploring the theoretical and methodological advantages and disadvantages of an anti‐humanist assemblage approach to sexuality.     

Machinisme, marxisme, humanisme : Georges Friedmann avant et après-guerre

Georges Friedmann (1902-1977) is known as the founder, following WW II, of a “sociology of humanist work”. Before the war, he was a Marxist intellectual, close to the Communist Party, who admired the young Soviet Union. How this political and ideological itinerary affected his sociology of labor, has never been systematically analyzed. To do so, “machinism” (mechanization), a key concept in the first part of Friedmann’s writing, is scrutinized. This concept came not from Marx, but from Michelet’s romantic conception of history, with which Friedmann was familiar. Following the war, it was given up for the pair “natural/technical milieu”; but this shift in vocabulary did not radically alter Friedmann’s views. Questions arise about how the intellectual itinerary of the founder of French labor sociology, who was shaped by the political trauma experienced by his generation, has lastingly affected this discipline.     

Researching Within‐Household Distribution: Overview,Developments, Debates,and Methodological Challenges

Research into intrahousehold finances challenges key assumptions about the family as a unitary whole, investigates the extent of sharing within it, examines mechanisms of control and allocation of resources, and reveals the personalized nature of different monies. This article presents an overview of research on within‐household distribution (understood as both outcome and process). It discusses major questions addressed, including inequalities between (gendered) individuals and the potential reasons for these. It outlines significant developments and debates, within qualitative research in particular, in relation to the unit of analysis (traditionally, the married couple), the texture and meaning of financial dealings within couples, and the tensions between autonomy and equal sharing as values. It then discusses several key methodological challenges, and concludes by highlighting some policy implications of central research messages. Throughout, it draws on and discusses the other articles in this special section, which explore key methodological issues in researching within‐household distribution.     

Biological Pre‐emption: “Race”, Class,and Genomics

Genomics is a complex field of study involving researchers and practitioners immersed in the social milieu from which their genetic theories and comprehensions in part emerge. Genomic researchers' embeddedness in social formations with distinct ideologies predisposes them to construct hypotheses about genetics with value‐laden assumptions. Given genomics' inseparability from social influences this article explores how its use with marginalized groups has eugenic implications. Several important links between eugenics and genomics are identified suggesting eugenic implications in genomics.     

Discipline,Field, Nexus: Re‐Visioning Sociology

Cet article propose une reconceptualisation de la discipline sociologique ainsi que de sa place dans le monde actuel. Nous remettrons tout d'abord en question l'idée même que la sociologie puisse être considérée en tant que discipline académique dans le sens habituel du terme, tout comme le fait qu'il soit possible de distinguer, à la manière des sciences de la nature, autant de disciplines distinctes au sein du champ des sciences sociales. Au contraire, nous defendrons la thèse selon laquelle la sociologie et ses disciplines connexes furent plutôt constitueés en tant que champs sociaux à travers un processus historique particulier. Cette analyse nous permettra de réaffirmer la position centrale qu'occupe la sociologie dans le champ de la recherche sociale, de par les liens étroits qu'elle entretient avec les autres disciplines qui constituent ce champ, ainsi que par sa nature interdisciplinaire et critique. Cette reconceptualisation implique qu'une ontologie sociale claire fondée sur une méthodologie cohérente, en l'occurence le réalisme critique, puisse remédier aux tendences centrifuges propre à la discipline, en renforçant sa capacité à analyser les problèmes sociaux, et donc à contribuer à défendre et à élargir les pratiques démocratiques au fondement d'un avenir meilleur. This article proposes a re‐visioning of sociology and of its relationship to the late‐modern world it inhabits. I first problematize the claim that sociology is a discipline in any ordinary sense of the term, indeed, that social science can be reasonably cleaved into “disciplines” on the model of natural science. I then explore the thesis that sociology and kindred pursuits have been constituted as fields. Finally, I argue that among the fields of social scientific inquiry, the sociological terrain is of great import, as a nexus whose permeability, dense connectivity to other fields and critical transdisciplinarity are prime assets. By implication, the remedy for centrifugal tendencies that worry some sociologists is greater clarity on matters of social ontology and, on that basis, a coherent methodology (critical realism) that can strengthen sociology's capacity to understand our troubled world and to defend and enrich democratic practices that may portend a better future.