What makes us modern? This is a classic question in philosophy as well as in political science. However it is often raised without including science and technology in its definition. The argument of this book is that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology. This division allows the formidable expansion of the Western empires. However it has become more and more difficult to maintain this distance between science and politics. Hence the postmodern predicament - the feeling that the modern stance is no longer acceptable but that there is no alternative. The solution, advances one of France's leading sociologists of science, is to realize that we have never been modern to begin with. The comparative anthropology this text provides reintroduces science to the fabric of daily life and aims to make us compatible both with our past and with other cultures wrongly called pre-modern.

We Have Never Been Modern

This paper outlines a new approach to the study of power, that of the sociology of translation. Starting from three principles, those of agnosticism (impartiality between actors engaged in controversy), generalised symmetry (the commitment to explain conflicting viewpoints in the same terms) and free association (the abandonment of all a priori distinctions between the natural and the social), the paper describes a scientific and economic controversy about the causes for the decline in the population of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay and the attempts by three marine biologists to develop a conservation strategy for that population. Four ‘moments’ of translation are discerned in the attempts by these researchers to impose themselves and their definition of the situation on others: (a) problematisation: the researchers sought to become indispensable to other actors in the drama by denning the nature and the problems of the latter and then suggesting that these would be resolved if the actors negotiated the ‘obl...

Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay

This paper outlines a new approach to the study of power, that of the sociology of translation. Starting from three principles, those of agnosticism (impartiality between actors engaged in controversy), generalised symmetry (the commitment to explain conflicting viewpoints in the same terms) and free association (the abandonment of all a priori distinctions between the natural and the social), the paper describes a scientific and economic controversy about the causes for the decline in the population of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay and the attempts by three marine biologists to develop a conservation strategy for that population. Four ‘moments’ of translation are discerned in the attempts by these researchers to impose themselves and their definition of the situation on others: (a) problematisation: the researchers sought to become indispensable to other actors in the drama by defining the nature and the problems of the latter and then suggesting that these would be resolved if the actors negotiated the ‘obligatory passage point’ of the researchers’ programme of investigation; (b) interessement: a series of processes by which the researchers sought to lock the other actors into the roles that had been proposed for them in that programme; (c) enrolment: a set of strategies in which the researchers sought to define and interrelate the various roles they had allocated to others; (d) mobilisation: a set of methods used by the researchers to ensure that supposed spokesmen for various relevant collectivities were properly able to represent those collectivities and not betrayed by the latter. In conclusion it is noted that translation is a process, never a completed accomplishment, and it may (as in the empirical case considered) fail.

/pdf/some-elements-of-a-sociology-of-translation-domestication-of-26e92jufue.pdf

What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

https://www.reciis.icict.fiocruz.br/index.php/reciis/article/download/794/1436

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

This paper sets out an approach to the analysis of political power in terms of problematics of government. It argues against an overvaluation of the 'problem of the State' in political debate and social theory. A number of conceptual tools are suggested for the analysis of the many and varied alliances between political and other authorities that seek to govern economic activity, social life and individual conduct. Modern political rationalities and governmental technologies are shown to be intrinsically linked to developments in knowledge and to the powers of expertise. The characteristics of liberal problematics of government are investigated, and it is argued that they are dependent upon technologies for 'governing at a distance', seeking to create locales, entities and persons able to operate a regulated autonomy. The analysis is exemplified through an investigation of welfarism as a mode of 'social' government. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of neo-liberalism which demonstrates that the analytical language structured by the philosophical opposition of state and civil society is unable to comprehend contemporary transformations in modes of exercise of political power.(1).

/pdf/political-power-beyond-the-state-problematics-of-government-2q2kkbnv2q.pdf

Political power beyond the State: problematics of government

Nombre de conflits impliquant des collectifs et des particuliers engagent aujourd'hui la nature, sous des formes diverses. L'objet de l'article est de s'interroger sur les changements qui en resultent dans les modalites de critique et de justification. A partir d'expressions de desaccords dans l'amenagement de la nature, nous examinons successivement trois eventualites presentees selon l'importance des transformations qu'elles requierent : a) integration de la nature dans des ordres de justifications existants, b) elaboration d'un nouvel ordre, sur le meme modele, c) remise en cause profonde de la matrice commune a ces ordres et de l'assise qu'elle offre a la critique d'injustices.

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01540874/document

Une justification écologique

L’action qui convient

Justesse et justice dans le travail

Le Travail : marchés, règles, conventions

La identidad social en el trabajo estadistico : Nueva nomenclature de profesiones y categorias sociales y profesionales - La transformacion puntual de las profesiones impone modificar de vez en cuando las nomenclaturas en las que estan clasificadas con objeto de facilitar analisis estadisticos. Dichos cambios son onerosos tanto para las organizaciones que producen los datos como para los que los utilizan. Por lo tanto, son poco frecuentes. La anterior nomenclatura de catagorias sociales y profesionales se remonta a treinta anos. Por lo tanto se tuvo que emprender una reforma de base. Su magnitud requirio importantes tareas preparatorias, las que, por un lado, estriban en la utilizacion de dichanomenclatura en los trabajos estadisticos y, por el otro, en senalar y codificar la profesion en las encuestas. La antigua nomenclatura se vino utilizando desde un principio en gran numero de encuestas y de estudios referentes, por ejemplo, a movilidad social, consumo, ocio, demografia. Sus resultados, al acumularse, permitieron edificar hondas representaciones de sus proximidades y posiciones respectivas dentro de un « espacio » bastante estable. Esta base pudo aprovecharse para estructurar la nueva nomenclatura, la que conserva los grandes rasgos de la anterior a la par que integra distinciones complementarias. Por otra parte, se realizaron trabajos sistematicos relativos a la puesta en obra de la antigua nomenclatura, sobre la manera en la que estan declaradas las profesiones y la forma en la que estan codificadas referente a relacion con otros procedimientos de identificacion social. Se desprendio de ello escogimientos en cuanto a modos de distribucion de las nuevas categorias y a concepcion de los instrumentes que permiten utilizar la nomenclatura : documentos sobre papel y sistema informatico de ayuda al cifrado. La segunda parte del articulo presenta los grandes grupos sociales y profesionales segun la nueva nomenclatura : cuadros dirigentes, profesiones intermedias, empleados, obreros, patronos y agricultores. Presenta y justifica los cambios intervenidos con relacion a la antigua nomenclatura. Los « cuadros » se definen, de hoy en adelante, mayormente a partir del lugar que ocupan en las clasificaciones empresariales. Los cuadros de la Administracion publica se distinguen de los de las empresas y una categoria de cuadros de Inforamcion, artes y espectaculos ha sido creada. Las « profesiones intermedias » se colocan en el lugar de los antiguos « cuadros medios » e incluyen ademas a aparejadores y clero. Esta propesta la misma distincion entre Administracion publica y empresas. En ambos grupos de cuadros y profesiones liberales, opone rutondamente las categorias desde el punto de vista de la tasa de femenidad, edad, salario o diplomas. Los « empleados » constituyen un grupo sumamente femenizado (un 75 % de mujeres). Se lleva a cabo una distincion entre administracion publica y empresa : la policia y el ejercito, asi como las personas de los servicios directos a particulares estan incluidos. Los « obreros » ya non incluyen a los aparejadores, pero en cambio integran a los obreros agricolas. Subsiste la distribucion entre calificados y no calificados. Ademas, esta propuesta una distincion entre obreros de « tipo industrial » y de « typo artesanal ». Entre los que no son asaiariados, el limite entre « empresarios » por un lado, « artesanos » y « comerciantes », por el otro, abarca ahora a diez asalariados. Ademas, esta propuesta, tal como se solicito con frecuencia, una distribucion de los agricultores en tres categorias, segun importancia de la explotacion. Los « empleados » constituyen un grupo sumamente femenizado (un 75 % de mujeres). Se lleva a cabo una distincion entre administracion publica y empresa : la policia y el ejercito, asi como las personas de los servicios directos a particulares estan incluidos. Los « obreros » ya non incluyen a los aparejadores, pero en cambio integran a los obreros agricolas. Subsiste la distribucion entre calificados y no calificados. Ademas, esta propuesta una distincion entre obreros de « tipo industrial » y de « typo artesanal ». Entre los que no son asaiariados, el limite entre « empresarios » por un lado, « artesanos » y « comerciantes », por el otro, abarca ahora a diez asalariados. Ademas, esta propuesta, tal como se solicito con frecuencia, una distribucion de los agricultores en tres categorias, segun importancia de la explotacion.

Laurent Thévenot

Papers

Une justification écologique

L’action qui convient

Justesse et justice dans le travail

Le Travail : marchés, règles, conventions

L'identité sociale dans le travail statistique : la nouvelle nomenclature des professions et catégories socioprofessionnelles