Papers by Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2025
This issue under the supervision of Rémy Campos, Guillaume Cot, Anne-Madeleine Goulet, and Suzann... more This issue under the supervision of Rémy Campos, Guillaume Cot, Anne-Madeleine Goulet, and Suzanne Rochefort explores, from an historical perspective, the relationships between the performing arts and the economy between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. The articles analyse practices of agents in charge of organizing and marketing cultural production, although they had no particular skills in the economic field. In the background, they developed tools to organize the economic realities to which they were confronted. Drawing on three areas of artistic practice (labour, finance, and production), the case studies gathered here shed light on the way in which new skills emerged from everyday activities and ordinary artistic practices.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2024
This issue offers a sociohistorical reading of Beirut’s intellectual worlds between the 1950s and... more This issue offers a sociohistorical reading of Beirut’s intellectual worlds between the 1950s and 1980s, during which the city established itself as one of the cultural capitals of a turbulent Arab world. It highlights the specific dynamics of this intellectual space, characterized by the predominance of private cultural actors, the intense politicization of debates and sites of idea production, and its multiple connections with political movements and thought in the Arab world, the Global South, and Europe. At the intersection of multiple disciplines (history, sociology, political science) and research fields (the history and sociology of intellectuals, the sociohistory of political ideas, New Cinema History, etc.), the articles in this issue examine Beirut’s role as both a crossroads and a laboratory for Arab political thought. They explore the transnational circulations that converged in the city, the trajectories of Lebanese and Arab figures, and the institutions and media that shaped the social production of political ideas—newspapers, journals, publishing houses, research centers, film clubs, and cultural institutions. Drawing on a rich body of empirical material, this issue brings diverse perspectives into dialogue, contributing to a renewed understanding of contemporary Arab intellectual history and the revolutionary circulations that shaped the Global Sixties.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2024
This issue includes five miscellaneous papers, avalaible in French and in English, an interview c... more This issue includes five miscellaneous papers, avalaible in French and in English, an interview conducted by Marie-Pierre Chopin about education sciences and a review of two recent books about “punk.”
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2023
How do mechanisms, instruments, and norms of cultural action circulate globally? How do cultural ... more How do mechanisms, instruments, and norms of cultural action circulate globally? How do cultural policy “models” spread? Are there favoured processes, “routes,” and types of actors in the circulation of cultural policy? By adopting various disciplinary approaches, such as the sociology of protest and public action as well as international relations and cultural history, this issue will shed light on the dynamics of the transnational circulation of public cultural actions, which is seen as a process of hybridization, appropriation, and resistance at different levels (transnational, national, and local). To do this requires an understanding of the development of concepts and instruments of public action as well as norms and cultural schemes in different contexts; but we must also understand circulation as a political issue between the different categories of actor involved in the process (such as government, experts, community networks, artists, and intermediaries).
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2023
In this issue, you can find a thematic dossier entitled “Social Sciences and Humanities Publishin... more In this issue, you can find a thematic dossier entitled “Social Sciences and Humanities Publishing: A Changing Sub-Field,” published under the supervision of Gisèle Sapiro and Hélène Seiler-Juilleret. The dossier, which marks the fifth year of journal’s existence, is exceptionnaly in French only. It includes seven papers, those one inaugurates a section dedicated to “open science” issues. A miscellaneous article is also published in this issue, in French and English.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2022
In this issue, you can find five miscellaneous articles, a review of two books which put forward ... more In this issue, you can find five miscellaneous articles, a review of two books which put forward a sociological approach to brain activity, and two interviews. The first one, published in a section entitled « On the Job », offers a reflexction on the possibility, for cultural institutions, to try to understand the practices of its own users thanks to social sciences methods. The second one, published in the section « In the Classroom and Beyond », talks about an original way of teaching social sciences at primary school and offers a feedback on this experimentation.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2022
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Comment s’articulent et se croisent les différents rapports de domination qui ... more [English below]
Comment s’articulent et se croisent les différents rapports de domination qui traversent le monde social – qu’ils soient de classe, de sexe, de race, etc. – et, surtout, comment cette imbrication est-elle susceptible de produire des configurations spécifiques ? C’est toute l’ambition des approches intersectionnelles que d’analyser, notamment du point de vue des expériences situées, la manière dont les effets croisés des appartenances et assignations de classe, de sexe, de race, etc., produisent des situations sociales particulières, qui ne procèdent pas que de l’addition des inégalités. Ce dossier thématique argumente en faveur d’une approche intersectionnelle en sociologie des arts et de la culture. L’introduction offre un retour sur les contextes d’émergence et de diffusion du concept d’intersectionnalité, en particulier aux États-Unis et en France, permet d’en souligner les enjeux programmatiques et les défis méthodologiques. Le dossier, composé de trois articles, d’une note de lecture et d’un entretien, offre une illustration possible de l’usage de ces approches dans l’étude des mondes de la culture.
// How do the different relations of domination (in class, gender, race, etc.) that permeate the social world connect and intersect? More importantly, how is this interconnection conducive to producing specific configurations? The purpose of intersectional approaches is to analyse, notably from the perspective of situated experiences, how the intersecting effects of belonging and assignment in relation to class, gender, race, and so on produce particular social situations that do not simply derive from the sum of the inequalities. This special issue argues for an intersectional approach in the sociology of art and culture. The introduction offers a review of the contexts of emergence and diffusion of the concept of intersectionality, particularly in the United States and France, and highlights the programmatic issues and methodological challenges associated with it. This issue, which comprises three articles, an interview, and a book review, offers an illustration of the potential use of these approaches in the study of the worlds of culture.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2022
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2021
[English below] Le numéro 8 de Biens symboliques/ Symbolic Goods est le premier dossier consacré ... more [English below] Le numéro 8 de Biens symboliques/ Symbolic Goods est le premier dossier consacré aux articles envoyés spontanément à la revue depuis sa création. Ce volume varia nous offre donc une opportunité de revenir sur les articles reçus et publiés depuis 2017, et permet d’expliquer le cheminement des articles avant leur publication. Depuis la création de la revue, l’équipe éditoriale tente de répondre au mieux aux préconisations du Committee on Publication Ethics (Cope1) visant une publication éthique de science ouverte. Il est pour nous important d’exposer avec le plus de transparence possible les modalités de publication et le travail effectué par l’équipe éditoriale et par les expert·e·s externes, parfois non titulaires, qui donnent de leur temps pour assurer l’existence de cette revue.
Biens symboliques/Symbolic Goods (BS/SG) issue number 8 is the first issue comprising peer-reviewed accepted papers, submitted outside of a thematic issue. This miscellany issue provides an opportunity for us to review articles received and published since 2017, and explain the process that articles undergo before publication. Since the launch of the journal, the editorial team has strived to meet the requirements of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE1) with the aim of ethical publication of open science. We wish to reveal, as transparently as possible, the publication process and the work of the editorial team and external experts – who are sometimes precarious workers of the higher education and research system – who devote their time to ensuring the journal’s existence.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2020
[English below] Les écrits sur le numérique et ses effets sur la culture sont nombreux, mais insu... more [English below] Les écrits sur le numérique et ses effets sur la culture sont nombreux, mais insuffisants pour qui veut tenter de comprendre ce que le numérique fait à la lecture littéraire ordinaire. De nombreux discours, optimistes ou inquiets, pointent les possibles ouverts par les nouveaux supports ou les menaces qu’ils font apparaître. Les neurosciences semblent pouvoir conforter les deux positions, selon l’interprétation qu’elles font de leurs données ; elles n’offrent souvent qu’une compréhension limitée en n’intégrant guère les variations sociales des usages et en replaçant peu les usages dans une pratique et dans un contexte. Les sciences de l’information et de la communication se concentrent plus largement sur les dispositifs, les usages et usager·ère·s qu’ils supposent ou favorisent, que sur leurs appropriations réelles. Les statistiques publiques mesurent des usages sans pouvoir en rendre compte. Ce dossier de Biens symboliques entend réinscrire la lecture dans les perspectives offertes à la fois par l’histoire du livre et par les sciences sociales. Pour sortir de débats largement idéologiques qui opposent les anciens et les modernes, il se propose de réunir des enquêtes empiriques qui à la fois distinguent les supports et sont attentives aux variations sociales entre les usages. Le dossier s’ouvre par un entretien avec Roger Chartier qui situe la lecture numérique dans le temps long de l’histoire de l’écrit et interroge la rupture que le numérique a opérée dans l’ordre des livres. Trois enquêtes sociologiques sur des pratiques de lecture ordinaire mettent ensuite cette interrogation à l’épreuve du terrain : qu’est-ce qui change dans le passage de l’imprimé aux écrans pour les lecteur·rice·s socialisé·e·s dans l’ordre des livres qui deviennent des adeptes du support numérique, testent un dispositif de prêt de liseuses ou au contraire n’imaginent pas du tout transposés en numérique les profits qu’ils tirent du livre papier ? Le dossier explore enfin quelques usages propres permis par le numérique, de pratiques savantes ordinaires qui passent par l’usage de corpus numérisés à des pratiques de lecture/commentaire d’une production littéraire de bande dessinée nativement numérique. Si « métamorphose du lecteur » il y a, selon l’expression de Pierre Assouline, où se situe-t-elle ? Sans prétendre en préciser toutes les facettes, ce dossier vise à montrer l’intérêt de l’enquête empirique sur une question qui a fait couler beaucoup d’encre mais reste largement ouverte.
Despite the growing number of writings on digital technology and its effects on culture, they remain insufficient if we wish to understand what effect digital media has on ordinary literary reading. Whether optimistic or concerned, the discourse tends to point out either the possibilities opened up by new mediums or the threats they represent. Neuroscience appears to support both positions, depending on how data are interpreted; it usually offers only a limited understanding, as it seldom integrates social variations, and rarely places use within the framework of a practice and context. Information and communication sciences are more concerned with devices and the uses and users they presuppose, or favour, rather than their actual use. Public statistics measure uses without being able to account for them. This Symbolic Goods dossier sets out to reintegrate reading into the perspectives offered by both the history of books and social science. Moving away from the mainly ideological debates that pit old against new, it wishes to unite empirical studies that identify mediums while also taking social variations into consideration. This dossier starts with an interview with Roger Chartier, who situates digital reading in the long-term context of the history of writing, and questions the rupture that digital technology has brought about for books. Three sociological investigations on ordinary reading practices then put this question to the test through fieldwork. What changes when a text passes from print to screen; or for readers socialized in the order of books who become digitally adept and try out an e-reader device, or conversely cannot imagine that the advantages of paper books could be transposed digitally? The dossier finally explores some actual uses that digital technology permits, from ordinary erudite practices which use a digitized corpus, to reading/commenting practices of an originally digital graphic novel literary production. If one can indeed speak of the “metamorphosis of the reader,” an expression coined by Pierre Assouline, where is this situated? Without claiming to cover all aspects, this dossier aims to show the benefits of empirical study on a question about which much has been written, but that remains largely unanswered.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2020
[English below] Réputée en perte de vitesse avec la multiplication des écrans et des nouvelles pr... more [English below] Réputée en perte de vitesse avec la multiplication des écrans et des nouvelles pratiques de consommation des productions audiovisuelles, la télévision est un média qui, tout en restant dominant, est en pleine mutation. La fabrique de ses programmes, rarement analysée par les sciences sociales, fait l’objet de ce dossier. On se propose d’y étudier, à travers des perspectives à chaque fois différentes, les rouages de la production audiovisuelle pour interroger les ressorts de la division du travail, les effets des contraintes (temporelles, économiques, d’audience, etc.) sur les biens produits, les mécanismes de l’internationalisation des programmes ou encore la difficile reconnaissance du statut des auteur·e·s.
Supposedly losing ground with the multiplication of screens and new consumer practices for audiovisual productions, television is undergoing major transformations. Nevertheless, it remains a dominant medium. This dossier focuses on the making of television programmes—a subject rarely studied by social science. We propose to analyse, through different perspectives, the workings of audiovisual production in order to question the dynamics of the division of labour, the effects of the multiple constraints (of time, audience, budget, etc.) on the produced content, the mechanisms of the internationalization of the television programme market, and TV writers’ difficulty in gaining recognition.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2020
[English below] Depuis le début de l’année 20201, plus d’une centaine de revues académiques, en g... more [English below] Depuis le début de l’année 20201, plus d’une centaine de revues académiques, en grande majorité issues des sciences humaines et sociales françaises, se déclarent les unes « en lutte », les autres « en grève ». Prenant part au mouvement social en cours, leurs comités de rédaction protestent à la fois contre le projet visant les retraites, contre la réforme de l’assurance chômage adoptée à l’automne 2019 et contre les propositions contenues dans les rapports pour la loi de programmation pluriannuelle de la recherche (LPPR)2. Par son ampleur et par sa forme – la grève et le vote de motions qui incitent les comités de rédaction à sortir de leur réserve habituelle –, cette mobilisation est historiquement inédite. La dynamique collective qu’elle suscite, par-delà les disciplines, les écoles et les conditions d’exercice de chacune des revues, témoigne du sentiment de révolte que provoquent ces réformes. Pour l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche, la réforme des retraites telle qu’envisagée actuellement par le gouvernement conduira à l’accroissement général des inégalités (entre hommes et femmes, entre titulaires et précaires, etc.) et à l’appauvrissement futur de toutes et tous, fonctionnaires, contractuel·le·s ou précaires. La réforme de l’assurance chômage augmentera, elle aussi, la vulnérabilité déjà difficilement supportable du très grand nombre des travailleur·euse·s précaires sur lesquel·le·s repose massivement la vie des universités et des laboratoires : ils et elles représentent d’ores et déjà plus d’un quart des effectifs d’enseignant·e·s, et encore bien davantage parmi les travailleurs et travailleuses administratif·ve·s et techniques. La LPPR, enfin, ne fera qu’aggraver le manque de moyens, de postes et de stabilité, et approfondir les inégalités qui minent l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche, et que deux décennies de « réformes » massivement contestées n’ont cessé d’amplifier.
Since the beginning of 20201, over a hundred academic journals, mostly French human and social sciences publications, have announced that they have “joined the struggle” or that they are “on strike”. Their editorial boards have teamed up with the ongoing social movement protesting the plans to overhaul the country’s pension system, the unemployment benefits reform of November 2019 and the proposals formulated in the reports for the upcoming law for the pluriannual programming of research known as LPPR2. In its extent and its form – strikes and votes on motions in which editorial boards have abandoned their customary reserve – this is a historically unprecedented mobilization. A collective dynamic has swept the community, beyond disciplinary boundaries, schools and the working conditions of individual journals, reflecting the widespread uproar sparked by these reforms. For higher education and research, the pension reform devised by the government in its current state will lead to heightened inequalities across the board (between men and women, between permanent and short-term staff, etc.) and to impoverishment for all, civil servants, contract workers and precarious staff. The unemployment benefits reform is also expected to exacerbate the already great vulnerability of the very large numbers of precarious workers who contribute extensively to the day-to-day operations of universities and laboratories: they account for over 25% of teaching staff and far greater proportions of support staff. The LPPR research law will only make the lack of resources, of positions and of stability worse, and deepen the inequalities that have been undermining higher education and reform, amplified by two decades of massively protested “reforms”.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2019
[English below] Ce dossier entend revenir sur la manière dont les sciences sociales étudient les ... more [English below] Ce dossier entend revenir sur la manière dont les sciences sociales étudient les rapports entre les espaces de production symboliques et les champs politique ou économique. Il se centre sur les usages en sociologie de la culture, de l’art et des idées du concept d’autonomie, et sur les diverses formes que cette autonomie relative des arts et de la culture peut prendre selon les configurations étudiées. Les contributions au dossier et les différentes études de cas présentées mettent en évidence la polysémie du concept d’autonomie sur le plan théorique, et la multiplicité de ses déclinaisons au niveau empirique. À travers une présentation comparée des différents cas étudiés dans le dossier, l’introduction aborde plus particulièrement trois questions: l’articulation entre les usages savants et indigènes du concept d’autonomie, la mesure empirique de l’autonomie et ses conditions sociales de possibilité.
This dossier aims to explore the way social sciences study relations between spaces of symbolic production and the political or economic fields. It focuses on uses in the sociology of culture, art, and ideas of the concept of autonomy, and on the various forms that the relative autonomy of art and culture can take depending on the configurations studied. The contributions and different case studies presented highlight the polysemy of the concept of autonomy on a theoretical level, and the multiplicity of its variations on an empirical level. Through a comparative presentation of the different cases studied in the dossier, the introduction specifically addresses three issues: the links between scholarly and vernacular uses of the concept of autonomy ; the empirical measure of the latter ; and the social conditions that enable it.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2018
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La spécialisation de la recherche autour d’ordres de problèmes considérés comme ... more [English below]
La spécialisation de la recherche autour d’ordres de problèmes considérés comme spécifiques est une caractéristique forte des sciences sociales telles qu’elles se sont structurées tout au long du XXe siècle. La sociologie de l’art et de la culture est l’un des multiples produits de cette division du travail scientifique. Elle a ses réseaux de chercheur·e·s, ses revues, ses ouvrages de synthèse, ses évènements scientifiques, ses diplômes, son personnel, etc. Or, dans le prolongement de la réflexion de Durkheim, on peut se demander si la sociologie de l’art et de la culture ne doit pas être considérée comme le produit d’une « forme anormale » de division du travail scientifique. Si le présent dossier n’a pas pour objet d’apporter une réponse définitive à cette interrogation, il entend néanmoins la nourrir en présentant des cas de mise en question des frontières institutionnelles existantes, entre disciplines et au sein même de la sociologie. Les cinq articles et l’entretien qui constituent ce dossier, posent ainsi une question fondamentale à la sociologie de l’art et de la culture : celle de la pertinence d’une « partition réelle du réel » (Bourdieu et al. 1968 : 60) comme principe de division du travail scientifique. Les frontières extérieures dont traite ce dossier, qu’elles soient interdisciplinaires ou intradisciplinaires, sont finalement des limites au double sens du terme : possiblement trop poreuses, possiblement trop hermétiques, elles menacent le travail scientifique d’autant plus fortement qu’elles restent méconnues et d’autant plus longtemps qu’elles restent impensées.
The specialization of research into orders of problems considered as specific has been a major trend in the structuring of the social science throughout the twentieth century. The sociology of art and culture is one of the many offshoots of this division of scientific labour. It has its own networks of scholars, journals, handbooks, scientific events, diplomas, staff, etc. Building on Durkheim’s analysis, we may consider whether the sociology of art and culture might be the outcome of an “abnormal form” of division of scientific labour. This dossier is not intended to give a definitive answer to this question, but it helps addressing it by documenting cases where existing institutional boundaries between disciplines and within sociology itself are challenged. Together, these five articles and this interview raise a key question for the sociology of art and culture: that of the pertinence of a “real division of reality” (Bourdieu et al. 1991 [1968]: 33) as a principle of division of scientific labour. Be they interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary, the external boundaries examined in this dossier are ultimately limits in two ways: they may be either too porous or too airtight, and ignoring them and failing to reflect on them might very well be detrimental to science.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2018
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À rebours des élans actuels en faveur du caractère soi-disant disruptif des « hum... more [English below]
À rebours des élans actuels en faveur du caractère soi-disant disruptif des « humanités numériques », ce dossier porte sur la manière dont les études sociohistoriques sur l’imprimé et le littéraire ont, hier comme aujourd’hui, construit et utilisé des bases de données. Le recours aux bases de données répond à des enjeux techniques et scientifiques décisifs : l’administration de la preuve ou la définition des objets et des problématiques de recherche. En ouvrant sur les coulisses de leur utilisation, ce dossier explore comment les données numériques, devenues essentielles dans bien des travaux, permettent d’arpenter la vie littéraire à différentes périodes (au double sens de la mesurer et de la revisiter, à plus ou moins grands pas). Cette mise au jour se fait selon trois axes de recherche : la conception des bases de données, leurs usages et leur stockage.
Against the current trend in favour of the so-called disruptive nature of the “digital humanities”, this dossier focuses on the way past and present specialists of sociohistorical studies on print and literature have designed and used databases. Working with databases responds to crucial challenges, both technical and scientific, about producing evidence or defining the subject and issue of a research. By shedding light on what happens behind the scenes when databases are mobilised, this second thematic dossier of Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods explores how digital data have become essential in many studies, and have therefore allowed us to survey literary life (in terms of both measuring and re-evaluating it) in different periods. In this perspective, three lines of questioning are proposed in this introduction: how databases are designed; how they are used; and how they are stored.
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2017
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Ce premier dossier thématique de Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods porte sur des... more [English below]
Ce premier dossier thématique de Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods porte sur des artistes qui, parce qu’ils ne sont ni riches ni célèbres, sont qualifiés d’« ordinaires ». Les modalités concrètes d’exercice de leur activité (conditions de travail, instabilité des carrières, nécessité de cumuler des emplois, etc.) et la manière dont ils les vivent (comme une relégation ou non, avec des espoirs de reconnaissance future ou non) sont comprises au regard de leur situation paradoxale, à la fois banale (parce que concernant la majorité des artistes) et non conventionnelle (car dérogeant à l’idéologie de la singularité qui régit les univers artistiques). Cette sociologie du travail artistique attentive aux structures sociales au sein desquelles il s’accomplit s’inscrit dans la lignée de plusieurs travaux récents autour des modes mineurs ou partiels de la reconnaissance artistique, tout en convoquant l’héritage de sociologues plus classiques comme Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu ou Raymonde Moulin. Grâce aux articles d’Audrey Millet, Serge Katz, Adrien Pégourdie et Jérémy Sinigaglia, cette catégorie de « l’ordinaire » est appréhendée au travers de disciplines artistiques variées (arts plastiques et graphiques, audiovisuel, théâtre, musique, danse) mais elle est aussi mise au travail à partir des autres producteurs de biens symboliques que sont les intellectuels, dans l’article de Pierre Bataille consacré aux anciens élèves de l’École normale supérieure ayant connu un parcours « déclassé » d’enseignants du secondaire. Le dossier se termine par un entretien avec Howard Becker, dont le travail sur les « musiciens de danse » est en partie à l’origine de cette notion d’artistes ordinaires.
The theme of this first Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods dossier is “ordinary artists”—that is to say those musicians, painters, writers, dancers or actors who are neither rich nor famous. The practicalities (working conditions, career instability, the necessity of doing more than one job, etc.) of carrying out their work, and the way they perceive these practicalities (as relegation, or in hope of future recognition) are understood in terms of the paradoxical situation in which these artists find themselves: one that is at once banal (since it concerns most artists), and unconventional (since it derogates from the ideology of originality which governs the world of the arts). The sociology of artistic work, conscious of the part played by social structures, falls within a greater body of recent research into minor or partial modes of artistic recognition, while at the same time paying homage to more classical sociologists such as Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu, and Raymonde Moulin. Thanks to articles by Audrey Millet, Serge Katz, Adrien Pégourdie, and Jérémy Sinigaglia, the category of “ordinary” is understood via varied artistic disciplines (plastic and graphic arts, audiovisual media, theatre, classical music, dance) and in very different historical or contemporary contexts, but it is also employed from the perspective of another kind of producers of symbolic goods—intellectuals— in the article by Pierre Bataille, which is dedicated to former students of the prestigious École normale supérieure, who have pursued a form of “downgraded” career path. The dossier ends with an interview with Howard Becker, whose work on “dance musicians” helped form the concept of ordinary artists.
Ce premier numéro de Biens symboliques/Symbolic Goods comprend aussi une table-ronde sur la production et la réception du classique de Grignon et Passeron, "Le savant et le populaire".
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This first issue of Biens symbolic/Symbolic Goods also features a panel on the production and reception of Grignon&Passeron's classic book, "Le savant et le populaire".
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods, 2017
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods est une revue bilingue de sciences sociales à comité de lectur... more Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods est une revue bilingue de sciences sociales à comité de lecture, à vocation interdisciplinaire et internationale. Elle a pour caractéristique de couvrir trois domaines de recherche : les arts, la culture, les idées... https://www.biens-symboliques.net/80
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is a peer-reviewed, bilingual, interdisciplinary, and international journal. Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods focuses on three areas of research: the arts, culture, and ideas... (presentation of the journal)
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Papers by Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods
Comment s’articulent et se croisent les différents rapports de domination qui traversent le monde social – qu’ils soient de classe, de sexe, de race, etc. – et, surtout, comment cette imbrication est-elle susceptible de produire des configurations spécifiques ? C’est toute l’ambition des approches intersectionnelles que d’analyser, notamment du point de vue des expériences situées, la manière dont les effets croisés des appartenances et assignations de classe, de sexe, de race, etc., produisent des situations sociales particulières, qui ne procèdent pas que de l’addition des inégalités. Ce dossier thématique argumente en faveur d’une approche intersectionnelle en sociologie des arts et de la culture. L’introduction offre un retour sur les contextes d’émergence et de diffusion du concept d’intersectionnalité, en particulier aux États-Unis et en France, permet d’en souligner les enjeux programmatiques et les défis méthodologiques. Le dossier, composé de trois articles, d’une note de lecture et d’un entretien, offre une illustration possible de l’usage de ces approches dans l’étude des mondes de la culture.
// How do the different relations of domination (in class, gender, race, etc.) that permeate the social world connect and intersect? More importantly, how is this interconnection conducive to producing specific configurations? The purpose of intersectional approaches is to analyse, notably from the perspective of situated experiences, how the intersecting effects of belonging and assignment in relation to class, gender, race, and so on produce particular social situations that do not simply derive from the sum of the inequalities. This special issue argues for an intersectional approach in the sociology of art and culture. The introduction offers a review of the contexts of emergence and diffusion of the concept of intersectionality, particularly in the United States and France, and highlights the programmatic issues and methodological challenges associated with it. This issue, which comprises three articles, an interview, and a book review, offers an illustration of the potential use of these approaches in the study of the worlds of culture.
Biens symboliques/Symbolic Goods (BS/SG) issue number 8 is the first issue comprising peer-reviewed accepted papers, submitted outside of a thematic issue. This miscellany issue provides an opportunity for us to review articles received and published since 2017, and explain the process that articles undergo before publication. Since the launch of the journal, the editorial team has strived to meet the requirements of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE1) with the aim of ethical publication of open science. We wish to reveal, as transparently as possible, the publication process and the work of the editorial team and external experts – who are sometimes precarious workers of the higher education and research system – who devote their time to ensuring the journal’s existence.
Despite the growing number of writings on digital technology and its effects on culture, they remain insufficient if we wish to understand what effect digital media has on ordinary literary reading. Whether optimistic or concerned, the discourse tends to point out either the possibilities opened up by new mediums or the threats they represent. Neuroscience appears to support both positions, depending on how data are interpreted; it usually offers only a limited understanding, as it seldom integrates social variations, and rarely places use within the framework of a practice and context. Information and communication sciences are more concerned with devices and the uses and users they presuppose, or favour, rather than their actual use. Public statistics measure uses without being able to account for them. This Symbolic Goods dossier sets out to reintegrate reading into the perspectives offered by both the history of books and social science. Moving away from the mainly ideological debates that pit old against new, it wishes to unite empirical studies that identify mediums while also taking social variations into consideration. This dossier starts with an interview with Roger Chartier, who situates digital reading in the long-term context of the history of writing, and questions the rupture that digital technology has brought about for books. Three sociological investigations on ordinary reading practices then put this question to the test through fieldwork. What changes when a text passes from print to screen; or for readers socialized in the order of books who become digitally adept and try out an e-reader device, or conversely cannot imagine that the advantages of paper books could be transposed digitally? The dossier finally explores some actual uses that digital technology permits, from ordinary erudite practices which use a digitized corpus, to reading/commenting practices of an originally digital graphic novel literary production. If one can indeed speak of the “metamorphosis of the reader,” an expression coined by Pierre Assouline, where is this situated? Without claiming to cover all aspects, this dossier aims to show the benefits of empirical study on a question about which much has been written, but that remains largely unanswered.
Supposedly losing ground with the multiplication of screens and new consumer practices for audiovisual productions, television is undergoing major transformations. Nevertheless, it remains a dominant medium. This dossier focuses on the making of television programmes—a subject rarely studied by social science. We propose to analyse, through different perspectives, the workings of audiovisual production in order to question the dynamics of the division of labour, the effects of the multiple constraints (of time, audience, budget, etc.) on the produced content, the mechanisms of the internationalization of the television programme market, and TV writers’ difficulty in gaining recognition.
Since the beginning of 20201, over a hundred academic journals, mostly French human and social sciences publications, have announced that they have “joined the struggle” or that they are “on strike”. Their editorial boards have teamed up with the ongoing social movement protesting the plans to overhaul the country’s pension system, the unemployment benefits reform of November 2019 and the proposals formulated in the reports for the upcoming law for the pluriannual programming of research known as LPPR2. In its extent and its form – strikes and votes on motions in which editorial boards have abandoned their customary reserve – this is a historically unprecedented mobilization. A collective dynamic has swept the community, beyond disciplinary boundaries, schools and the working conditions of individual journals, reflecting the widespread uproar sparked by these reforms. For higher education and research, the pension reform devised by the government in its current state will lead to heightened inequalities across the board (between men and women, between permanent and short-term staff, etc.) and to impoverishment for all, civil servants, contract workers and precarious staff. The unemployment benefits reform is also expected to exacerbate the already great vulnerability of the very large numbers of precarious workers who contribute extensively to the day-to-day operations of universities and laboratories: they account for over 25% of teaching staff and far greater proportions of support staff. The LPPR research law will only make the lack of resources, of positions and of stability worse, and deepen the inequalities that have been undermining higher education and reform, amplified by two decades of massively protested “reforms”.
This dossier aims to explore the way social sciences study relations between spaces of symbolic production and the political or economic fields. It focuses on uses in the sociology of culture, art, and ideas of the concept of autonomy, and on the various forms that the relative autonomy of art and culture can take depending on the configurations studied. The contributions and different case studies presented highlight the polysemy of the concept of autonomy on a theoretical level, and the multiplicity of its variations on an empirical level. Through a comparative presentation of the different cases studied in the dossier, the introduction specifically addresses three issues: the links between scholarly and vernacular uses of the concept of autonomy ; the empirical measure of the latter ; and the social conditions that enable it.
La spécialisation de la recherche autour d’ordres de problèmes considérés comme spécifiques est une caractéristique forte des sciences sociales telles qu’elles se sont structurées tout au long du XXe siècle. La sociologie de l’art et de la culture est l’un des multiples produits de cette division du travail scientifique. Elle a ses réseaux de chercheur·e·s, ses revues, ses ouvrages de synthèse, ses évènements scientifiques, ses diplômes, son personnel, etc. Or, dans le prolongement de la réflexion de Durkheim, on peut se demander si la sociologie de l’art et de la culture ne doit pas être considérée comme le produit d’une « forme anormale » de division du travail scientifique. Si le présent dossier n’a pas pour objet d’apporter une réponse définitive à cette interrogation, il entend néanmoins la nourrir en présentant des cas de mise en question des frontières institutionnelles existantes, entre disciplines et au sein même de la sociologie. Les cinq articles et l’entretien qui constituent ce dossier, posent ainsi une question fondamentale à la sociologie de l’art et de la culture : celle de la pertinence d’une « partition réelle du réel » (Bourdieu et al. 1968 : 60) comme principe de division du travail scientifique. Les frontières extérieures dont traite ce dossier, qu’elles soient interdisciplinaires ou intradisciplinaires, sont finalement des limites au double sens du terme : possiblement trop poreuses, possiblement trop hermétiques, elles menacent le travail scientifique d’autant plus fortement qu’elles restent méconnues et d’autant plus longtemps qu’elles restent impensées.
The specialization of research into orders of problems considered as specific has been a major trend in the structuring of the social science throughout the twentieth century. The sociology of art and culture is one of the many offshoots of this division of scientific labour. It has its own networks of scholars, journals, handbooks, scientific events, diplomas, staff, etc. Building on Durkheim’s analysis, we may consider whether the sociology of art and culture might be the outcome of an “abnormal form” of division of scientific labour. This dossier is not intended to give a definitive answer to this question, but it helps addressing it by documenting cases where existing institutional boundaries between disciplines and within sociology itself are challenged. Together, these five articles and this interview raise a key question for the sociology of art and culture: that of the pertinence of a “real division of reality” (Bourdieu et al. 1991 [1968]: 33) as a principle of division of scientific labour. Be they interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary, the external boundaries examined in this dossier are ultimately limits in two ways: they may be either too porous or too airtight, and ignoring them and failing to reflect on them might very well be detrimental to science.
À rebours des élans actuels en faveur du caractère soi-disant disruptif des « humanités numériques », ce dossier porte sur la manière dont les études sociohistoriques sur l’imprimé et le littéraire ont, hier comme aujourd’hui, construit et utilisé des bases de données. Le recours aux bases de données répond à des enjeux techniques et scientifiques décisifs : l’administration de la preuve ou la définition des objets et des problématiques de recherche. En ouvrant sur les coulisses de leur utilisation, ce dossier explore comment les données numériques, devenues essentielles dans bien des travaux, permettent d’arpenter la vie littéraire à différentes périodes (au double sens de la mesurer et de la revisiter, à plus ou moins grands pas). Cette mise au jour se fait selon trois axes de recherche : la conception des bases de données, leurs usages et leur stockage.
Against the current trend in favour of the so-called disruptive nature of the “digital humanities”, this dossier focuses on the way past and present specialists of sociohistorical studies on print and literature have designed and used databases. Working with databases responds to crucial challenges, both technical and scientific, about producing evidence or defining the subject and issue of a research. By shedding light on what happens behind the scenes when databases are mobilised, this second thematic dossier of Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods explores how digital data have become essential in many studies, and have therefore allowed us to survey literary life (in terms of both measuring and re-evaluating it) in different periods. In this perspective, three lines of questioning are proposed in this introduction: how databases are designed; how they are used; and how they are stored.
Ce premier dossier thématique de Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods porte sur des artistes qui, parce qu’ils ne sont ni riches ni célèbres, sont qualifiés d’« ordinaires ». Les modalités concrètes d’exercice de leur activité (conditions de travail, instabilité des carrières, nécessité de cumuler des emplois, etc.) et la manière dont ils les vivent (comme une relégation ou non, avec des espoirs de reconnaissance future ou non) sont comprises au regard de leur situation paradoxale, à la fois banale (parce que concernant la majorité des artistes) et non conventionnelle (car dérogeant à l’idéologie de la singularité qui régit les univers artistiques). Cette sociologie du travail artistique attentive aux structures sociales au sein desquelles il s’accomplit s’inscrit dans la lignée de plusieurs travaux récents autour des modes mineurs ou partiels de la reconnaissance artistique, tout en convoquant l’héritage de sociologues plus classiques comme Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu ou Raymonde Moulin. Grâce aux articles d’Audrey Millet, Serge Katz, Adrien Pégourdie et Jérémy Sinigaglia, cette catégorie de « l’ordinaire » est appréhendée au travers de disciplines artistiques variées (arts plastiques et graphiques, audiovisuel, théâtre, musique, danse) mais elle est aussi mise au travail à partir des autres producteurs de biens symboliques que sont les intellectuels, dans l’article de Pierre Bataille consacré aux anciens élèves de l’École normale supérieure ayant connu un parcours « déclassé » d’enseignants du secondaire. Le dossier se termine par un entretien avec Howard Becker, dont le travail sur les « musiciens de danse » est en partie à l’origine de cette notion d’artistes ordinaires.
The theme of this first Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods dossier is “ordinary artists”—that is to say those musicians, painters, writers, dancers or actors who are neither rich nor famous. The practicalities (working conditions, career instability, the necessity of doing more than one job, etc.) of carrying out their work, and the way they perceive these practicalities (as relegation, or in hope of future recognition) are understood in terms of the paradoxical situation in which these artists find themselves: one that is at once banal (since it concerns most artists), and unconventional (since it derogates from the ideology of originality which governs the world of the arts). The sociology of artistic work, conscious of the part played by social structures, falls within a greater body of recent research into minor or partial modes of artistic recognition, while at the same time paying homage to more classical sociologists such as Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu, and Raymonde Moulin. Thanks to articles by Audrey Millet, Serge Katz, Adrien Pégourdie, and Jérémy Sinigaglia, the category of “ordinary” is understood via varied artistic disciplines (plastic and graphic arts, audiovisual media, theatre, classical music, dance) and in very different historical or contemporary contexts, but it is also employed from the perspective of another kind of producers of symbolic goods—intellectuals— in the article by Pierre Bataille, which is dedicated to former students of the prestigious École normale supérieure, who have pursued a form of “downgraded” career path. The dossier ends with an interview with Howard Becker, whose work on “dance musicians” helped form the concept of ordinary artists.
Ce premier numéro de Biens symboliques/Symbolic Goods comprend aussi une table-ronde sur la production et la réception du classique de Grignon et Passeron, "Le savant et le populaire".
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This first issue of Biens symbolic/Symbolic Goods also features a panel on the production and reception of Grignon&Passeron's classic book, "Le savant et le populaire".
Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods is a peer-reviewed, bilingual, interdisciplinary, and international journal. Biens symboliques / Symbolic Goods focuses on three areas of research: the arts, culture, and ideas... (presentation of the journal)
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