Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Steinmetz, George (1957-.... ; sociologue)
Titre(s) : The colonial origins of modern social thought [Texte imprimé] : French sociology and the overseas empire / George Steinmetz
Publication : Princeton (N.J.) : Princeton University press, copyright 2023
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (xvi-551 p.) : ill. ; 25 cm
Collection : Princeton modern knowledge
Lien à la collection : Princeton modern knowledge
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (p. 499-539) and index
"This book is a history of the field of sociology as it existed from the interwar,
wartime, and postwar periods in France and its Empire. This does not refer just to
sociologists who did some work in the colonies, or occasionally thought about them
in their metropolitan work, but a specific field which was constituted to understand
and then govern these colonies. The author argues that the re-founding of French sociology
during and after World War II - which spawned the likes of Raymond Aron, Jacques Berque,
Georges Balandier, and Pierre Bourdieu - occurred within the context of the re-founding
of the French empire. Though there was been much discussion of "decolonizing" sociology
in the postwar period, the deep history of sociology's connection to French colonialism
and empire has been ignored when, the author argues, it is central. The main driver
of the expansion of sociology in this period was colonial developmentalism. Sociologists
became favored partners of colonial governments, applying their expertise to an array
of "social problems," such as de-tribalization, poverty, labor migration, rapid urbanization
and the growth of shantytowns, and the decay of traditional families and religious
beliefs, and working on "modernizing" solutions. Many sociologists whose careers began
in the overseas colonies formulated concepts and theories that quickly entered metropolitan
(and then global) sociology, and their origins were forgotten. Steinmetz examines
the ways in colonial sociologists differed from the rest of the discipline -in many
ways they represented its most dynamic cutting edge-and how their locations may have
affected their intellectual agendas and scholarship. He explores the ways in which
these sociologists networked and tracks their major intellectual innovations and influence
as a group. He also explores the marginalization faced by both sociologists working
in the colonies and those born there, while showing the ways in which they were able
to overcome them. The specific challenges of colonial sociology-including some very
strongly anticolonial colonial sociologists-shaped sociological theory in ways that
are still dominant. The book amounts to a historical sociology of French academia
all told-with an emphasis on sociology and other human sciences-as well as a collective
biography of many of the major figures, many who are continually read and cited to
this day" ; "A new history of French social thought that connects postwar sociology
to colonialism and empireIn this provocative and original retelling of the history
of French social thought, George Steinmetz places the history and development of modern
French sociology in the context of the French empire after World War II. Connecting
the rise of all the social sciences with efforts by France and other imperial powers
to consolidate control over their crisis-ridden colonies, Steinmetz argues that colonial
research represented a crucial core of the renascent academic discipline of sociology,
especially between the late 1930s and the 1960s. Sociologists, who became favored
partners of colonial governments, were asked to apply their expertise to such "social
problems" as detribalization, urbanization, poverty, and labor migration. This colonial
orientation permeated all the major subfields of sociological research, Steinmetz
contends, and is at the center of the work of four influential scholars: Raymond Aron,
Jacques Berque, Georges Balandier, and Pierre Bourdieu.In retelling this history,
Steinmetz develops and deploys a new methodological approach that combines attention
to broadly contextual factors, dynamics within the intellectual development of the
social sciences and sociology in particular, and close readings of sociological texts.
He moves gradually toward the postwar sociologists of colonialism and their writings,
beginning with the most macroscopic contexts, which included the postwar "reoccupation"
of the French empire and the turn to developmentalist policies and the resulting demand
for new forms of social scientific expertise. After exploring the colonial engagement
of researchers in sociology and neighboring fields between and after 1945, he turns
to detailed examinations of the work of Aron, who created a sociology of empires;
Berque, the leading historical sociologist of North Africa; Balandier, the founder
of French Africanist sociology; and Bourdieu, whose renowned theoretical concepts
were forged in war-torn, late-colonial Algeria"
Sujet(s) : Sociologie -- France -- 20e siècle
Sociologie -- Colonies françaises -- 19e siècle
Indice(s) Dewey :
301.094 40904 (23e éd.) = Sociologie et anthropologie - France - 1900-1999
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 978-0-691-23742-8 (rel.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb47343897x
Notice n° :
FRBNF47343897
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : Part I: the sociology of colonies and empires in the history of science ; Writing
the historical sociology of colonial sociology in a postcolonial situation ; Constructing
the object, confronting disciplinary amnesia ; Part II: the political contexts of
colonial social thought in postwar France ; Colonial reconquest, scientification,
and popular culture ; Colonial developmentalism, welfare, and sociology ; Colonialism,
higher education, and social research ; Part III: the intellectual contexts of postwar
French sociology ; The earliest colonial social sciences and their engagement with
sociology: Geography, law, economics, and the sciences of the psyche ; Other neighboring
social sciences and their engagement with sociology and colonialism: History, statistics,
demography and anthropology ; Theoretical developments in interwar sociology as a
context for postwar colonial sociology ; Part IV: the sociology of French colonial
sociology, 1918-1960s ; The sociology of sociology and its colonial subfield (France
and Belgium, 1918-1965) ; Outline of a theory of colonial sociological practice
; Part V: four sociologists ; Raymond Aron as a critical theorist of empires and
colonialism ; Jacques Berque: A historical sociologist of colonialism and ‘the decolonial
situation' ; George Balandier: A dynamic sociology of colonialism and anticolonialism
; Pierre Bourdieu: The creation of social theory in the cauldron of colonial war
; Conclusion: The history of sociology, reflexicity, and decolonization
