The anthropological perspective of the world

Table Of Contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• About the author
• About the book
• This eBook can be cited
• Table of Contents
• Preface. Social action under constraint
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. What an inductive method is, or how to understand the thread of all of these investigations
• Introduction
• How to reproduce the portion of disorder which organises all societies without recreating an artificial scientific order producing a belief in an absolute truth
• The “I” form as a tool for the elucidation of the real practice of researchers
• How to explore reality without allowing oneself to be trapped in the apparent rigour of a state of the art which limits the creativity necessary for the exploration of new territories
• The qualitative investigation – an amoral aid to discernment
• Induction in humanities, a method which takes the details as a point of departure to retrace the diversity of elements which compose a system of action
• The inductive methods of observation of reality: scales of observation, the method of itineraries, the method of life cycles and the system approach
• Scales of observation, or the impossibility of overall observation
• The method of itineraries and life cycles, or the dynamic and inductive observation of social phenomena
• The system approach: a theory of constraints and social rough patches
• The four elementary frameworks of my inductive practice in humanities
• Conclusion
• Chapter 2. The discovery of large organisations as a new mode of regulation of the post-war societies (1969–1971)
• Introduction
• The State: from the black box to the rise of technostructures between the 19th and the 20th century
• Chapter 3. From an abstract State to the concrete interplay of political and administrative social networks, the case of industrial policy in France in the 1960s
• Reversal of the concept of power: from domination which forces to the margins of manoeuvre of actors under constraints
• The corps des Mines, or the strategic ability to gain access to the top level of State
• Weak directorates: the complex regulation of links between the local level and the central administration
• How to gain aid from the State while protecting oneself from it acting within the company
• Conclusion
• Chapter 4. The conquest of Madagascar in the 19th century, or the continuing march of globalisation (1971–1975)
• Introduction
• In the beginning was human power
• A French moment of opening up of the world
• Conclusion
• Chapter 5. The Sundi peasant society in the Congo: organisation of the land, gender-based division of tasks, the tontine, and management of uncertainty (1971–1975)
• Introduction
• The tontine, an original form of structural homology
• The management of agricultural land, between the technical, the social and the religious
• The Sundi peasant society: a system of action of the management of uncertainty
• Conclusion
• Chapter 6. “Sorcery” and conspiratorial theories of power, or the uncertain borders between imagination and reality (1975–1979)
• Introduction
• “Sorcery”, a magical-religious device in the search for meaning, between domination and margin for manoeuvre
• The place of emotion and of “series” in the system of proof of beliefs
• Continuity between “sorcery” and conspiratorial theories of power: a constant anthropological factor of the search for meaning
• The problematic link between the intention and the result of the action in society, or the overestimation of the smooth link between cause and effect
• Conclusion
• Chapter 7. The scales of observation or the discovery of the discontinuity of observation between the macrosocial and the microsocial scales (1986)
• Introduction
• Drought in the Sahel, between human microsocial actions and climatic causes
• The birth of scales of observation: resolving a practical question, that of gathering information which varies depending on focal lengths
• The three causalities of scales of observation: correlation, situation and meaning
• The macrosocial, mesosocial, microsocial and micro-individual scales of observation
• Conclusion
• Chapter 8. Life cycles as trigger events of consumers’ itinerary of purchase and use (1989)
• Introduction
• The double dimension, sacred and family-centred, of golden jewellery
• Occasions for purchase of golden jewellery as a function of life cycle stages
• The method of life cycles: the role of consumer goods in the construction of identity
• Conclusion
• Chapter 9. Urban spaces of French consumption through the representations which users form of “contemporary entrances to the city” (1990)
• Contemporary city entrances, or the ambivalences of modernity linked with the development of periurban mass distribution
• From the development of hypermarkets with a utilitarian goal to the emergence of enlarged shopping centres with leisure facilities
• The four social phenomena which have an underground influence on practices of consumption: economic fragility, ethnic group, separation of couples and the transition between life cycles
• Conclusion
• Chapter 10. Choice of hypermarkets, constraint of budget and purchasing strategies, little day-to-day tricks, an anthropology of banality (1991)
• The relative nature of the proximity of the purchase site: a decision between a distance, time, atmosphere, a day-to-day itinerary and ease of parking
• Attention to price: a practice under the constraint of overall management of the family budget
• The range of products inside the shop: a criterion of the choice of chain which varies depending on the occasions triggering the purchase itinerary
• Ethnography of the moment of purchase: day-to-day tricks, between control and inspiration
• Conclusion
• Chapter 11. The urban riots of 1994 on an estate in Chelles, a vehicle of analysis of societal tensions and the institutionalisation of consumption
• The problematic cohabitation between “the French” and “the Algerians”
• Urban riots, a vehicle of analysis of what makes and breaks society
• Conclusion
• Chapter 12. The detour via the United States in the 1990s: discovery of the historical origin of large-scale global consumption between the 16th and the 18th century (1994)
• Introduction
• The origins of modern consumption between the 16th and the 18th century in England, France, Holland and the United States
• The anthropology of consumption
• Conclusion
• Chapter 13. At the origins of global consumption – the detour via the American middle class (1994–2001)
• Introduction
• The Grand Canyon as a symbol of American greatness in the face of European cathedrals
• DIY: do-it-yourself as a male practice in the United States at the turn of the 1950s
• The lawn, a moral value which is obligatory for the middle class
• Conclusion
• Chapter 14. Usages and representations of electrical energy in France at the end of the 20th century (1996)
• Introduction
• The omnipresence of uses of electricity in the home in France
• The images of electricity in the 1990s: life against death
• From lightning to the socket, from nature to culture
• The ambivalent images of electricity: apocalypse, messianism and androgyny
• Conclusion
• Chapter 15. The entrance of the Chinese middle class into global consumption in Guangzhou (1997)
• Introduction
• China: real but relative exoticism
• Daily life, domestic space in Guangzhou and the importance of electricity
• The food itinerary: departure, access, purchase, preparation and consumption – a daily practice
• Conclusion
• Chapter 16. Pre-existing structures for new items in the French domestic space (1997)
• Introduction
• A reminder of the interpretative inductive model which underlies observations of everyday life
• The four major practices of the management of day-to-day life in the domestic universe on a microsocial scale: delegating, “routinising”, programming and improvising
• The social norms and codes which organise practices and usages within the domestic space
• Conclusion
• Chapter 17. Testimony of a left-wing reformist on May 68 in Nanterre, France (1998)
• Introduction
• The underground revolution of French Catholicism triggered by Vatican II
• November 1967: the first strike at Nanterre University, learning collective action
• May 68, learning to settle conflicts
• The Edgar Faure law and the creation of MARC 200 in Nanterre: learning political realism
• Conclusion
• Chapter 18. An immersion in the day-to-day life of the Danish middle class (1999)
• Introduction
• Student accommodation: limited cost thanks to the State
• Shopping: a purchasing practice between canapés, traditional dishes and readymade products
• Culinary preparation: a conventional gender-based division of tasks between man and woman
• Ethnography of a Danish family itinerary, in Odense
• Conclusion
• Chapter 19. China at the turn of the 21st century: the rise of the Chinese middle class, of BRICS and of international tensions (2005)
• Introduction
• China: misleading geography, demographics transformed by the only child, and a centralised and authoritarian political system
• The Chinese economy in 2004: investments in the coast, rise of salaries and movement of companies towards the west
• Conclusion
• Chapter 20. Social practices relating to SMS and mobile telephones in China, Poland and France, in the young portion of the global middle class (2005)
• Introduction
• Use of SMS by a rather young population, with practices which are close in the three cultures
• A dominant strategy among the young: minimising costs while maintaining the social link
• The SMS as a tool for the reduction of human costs linked to social transactions
• The content of SMS between Haiku, post-it and rebus: the reduction of language in China, France and Poland
• Conclusion
• Chapter 21. The unexpected beginnings of the new digital economy in France, in China and in Africa (2006)
• Introduction
• The Dang Dang company (??), an example of the pragmatic creation of the logistical conditions for diffusion of a digital innovation
• The social conditions of the diffusion of e-commerce
• Conclusion
• Chapter 22. An anthropological look at the crisis of 2008 (2009)
• Introduction
• Uncertainties of three kinds today: historical, pragmatic and societal
• The geopolitical issues of the crisis
• Ecological uncertainties
• The risks for social equity
• Uncertainties relating to the places of the triggering of problems and solutions
• Problematic links with the crisis of 1929
• Conclusion
• Chapter 23. The crossover of the global middle classes, or consumption as a vehicle of analysis of the new international order (2011)
• Introduction
• The tripling of the world upper middle class between 2000 and 2009
• The rise in forced expenditures for the least socially privileged groups in developed countries
• Rise of a new middle class and social and political movements in emerging countries
• Global progression in consumption and competition for the access to raw materials
• Conclusion
• Chapter 24. Thirty years of transformations in the presentation of the body in China: body care and make-up as vehicles of analysis of social cleavages (2012)
• Introduction
• The 1960s or “the grey period”
• The 1980s, the “colourful period”
• From 1995 to today, the years of abundance
• The ambivalence of social practices relating to make-up in China
• The social life of make-up and body care: a life cycle effect under a strong constraint of social norms
• Conclusion
• Chapter 25. Rise of the global middle class, international tensions and contradictions of the energy transition (2013)
• Introduction
• Rise in the military tensions in the South and East China Seas and progression of the middle class of consumers
• The limits of Chinese consumption: insecurity with respect to sickness and retirement
• Mass consumption items as an indicator of the outline of the middle class
• Conclusion
• Chapter 26. The double energy bang, from the great divergence of the 18th century to the competitive convergence of the 21st century (2013)
• Introduction
• 3000 years of “pre-coal” economy: the central place of human power
• Coal and cotton: the two resources which made it possible to bypass the restrictions of access to land in the face of demographic pressure
• Conclusion
• General Conclusion
• Bibliography