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Essays

The Three Dimensions of Ethnography

An Interview with Jack Katz

by Alexandra Bidet & Carole Gayet-Viaud & Erwan Le Méner, 1 April

Looking back on several decades of intellectual activity, American sociologist Jack Katz explains his vision of a three-dimensional ethnography, combining human interactions, biographical (...)

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Reviews

The Fascination for India

About: Roland Lardinois, Scholars and Prophets. Sociology of India from France in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, New Delhi, Social Science Press.

by Jules Naudet & translated by Rohini Rangachari, 11 March

Since the 18th century, India has been portrayed in contradictory ways. While scholarly knowledge is based on the philological study of texts, literary Orientalism expresses its fascination for a (...)

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Reviews

The Art of Not Doing Fieldwork

About: Maurice Halbwachs, Écrits d’Amerique, EHESS.

by Howard S. Becker, 5 September 2012

In 1930 the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs was invited by the University of Chicago to teach for a few months in the Sociology Department. How did the not very adventurous Halbwachs (...)

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Reviews

Explanation Explained

About: John Levi Martin, The Explanation of Social Action, Oxford University Press.

by Matthieu de Castelbajac , 30 August 2012

The quality of an explanation depends much on the relationship between the sociologist and her informants. The more unequal it is, the more she will resort to “third person” explanations—a tendency (...)

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Reviews

Liberty, Security, Flexibility

About: Bénédicte Zimmermann, Ce que travailler veut dire, Economica.

by Elodie Béthoux & translated by Susannah Dale, 16 February 2012

Sociologist Bénédicte Zimmerman’s empirical studies of employer groups and participative management reveals how the tension that exists between the individual and the collective is being reshaped in (...)

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Dossiers

The Culture of Poverty

by Nicolas Duvoux, 19 July 2011

In the U.S., in France as well with Hugues Lagrange’s book on “the denial of cultures”, culture has again become the focus of poverty studies. Our dossier on “culture of poverty” reviews this new (...)

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Essays

Culture of poverty and Social Resilience

An interview with Michele Lamont

by Nicolas Duvoux & Elise Tenret & Nadège Vezinat, 20 May 2011

In this interview, Michele Lamont explains different facets of her intellectual work. She comments on the cultural sociology she practices and on her urge to both understand how individuals make (...)

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Essays

What It Means to Be a Sociologist in China

Interview with Jean-Louis Rocca

by Emilie Frenkiel & translated by Susannah Dale, 27 April 2011

In this interview, sociologist and sinologist Jean-Louis Rocca describes the development of Chinese sociology since its rebirth in the early 1980s. He also discusses the changes that have taken (...)

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Reviews

Deconstructing globalization

About: S. Sassen, A Sociology of Globalization, Norton.

by Martin Albrow, 4 June 2009

In her latest book, Saskia Sassen undertakes a ruthless demystification of economic globalization. She argues that globalization is embedded in institutions and places and reveals the nature of (...)

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Reviews

How to Find Out How to Do Qualitative Research

by Howard S. Becker, 30 April 2009

Basing his discussion on a reading of recognized classics in social science, Howard Becker offers a critique of the new ways in which sociological work is to be funded in the United States and (...)

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Reviews

William T. Vollmann on Writing Poverty

by Nicolas Duvoux, 27 February 2009

Who or what is responsible for your condition? The rich? Destiny? Yourself? The American writer William T. Vollmann posed this question to poor people in every corner of the world. Part social (...)

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