Social Science Information

Anticipation calls into question the status of the future with respect to the past, which has become particularly problematic and complex in the “risk society”, where risk is now omnipresent, notably in everyday life: for example, the areas of food, health and urban security and safety. The author takes the recently launched idea of interstices of everyday life (IEL), which alludes to “in-between” situations as well as to experiences that are apparently overlooked but which have a bearing on emerging values and revive the center/periphery relationship: for example, waiting/expectation, breaks, silence, games, gifts. In this context, surprise is seen as an interstitial phenomenon: looking at the notion from the standpoint of the unpleasant or bad surprises of everyday life leads the author to examine the place assigned to it in the planning of activities in today’s time-oriented cultures. On this basis, the author advances some observations on certain trends and deadlocks of our social systems. One major example discussed is the tragedy of 11 September 2001.

The sociology of risk (Luhmann) challenges the appropriateness of the description of present-day society as a “risk society” (Beck). Every social system differentiates between risks envisaged by decision-makers and actual future dangers. Risk is envisaged only with respect to the maintenance of a social system. From this standpoint, possible harm to the man in the street may be preferred to a risk that might affect the decision-makers’ own social system.

Beck’s “risk society” is alive. From this starting point the article assumes that risk today has to be addressed in a cultural way, taking into account that risk was not a cultural feature of the Second World War society. Among the tools for addressing the question are risk-communication research and practice, which focus on the exchange of information between all the parties concerned because it is in the framework of the communication process that risk brings together scientific uncertainty and value judgements in ways that are intimately related to politics, people’s lifestyles and the nature of our democracy.

The time-scales of justice are, on the one hand, the long time of the law and, on the other hand, the time of the circumstances and contingencies that enter into the interpretation of the law. The time for educational rehabilitation in the system of juvenile justice fits into a long perspective, the time for professionals working in the system to follow up on cases. For juvenile judges, this reversible, modulable time can be used to adapt their interventions to the changing family environment. A survey in three juvenile courts of the emergency placement of minors under the French Civil Code confirms that the “educative doctrine” underlying this branch of justice is in the throes of a crisis. There is a return to legalism among juvenile judges. In a social, political context where taking immediate action is valued more than taking the time to monitor and investigate cases, the anticipation of risks has led to an institutionalization of emergency procedures with, as a consequence, the abandonment of the idea of a time for educational rehabilitation.

We are living with a new relationship to time. Urgency, instantaneity, immediacy, induced by the dictatorship of time which regulates the economy, have pervaded professional life, creating confusion between what is urgent and what is important, what is secondary and what is essential. In economies working with “tight flows”, individuals themselves become like consumer products of very short life, which enterprises try to make immediately profitable and rotate quickly. Pathologies of “hyperactivity” and “exhaustiveness” depressions are direct consequences of this state of affairs.

Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic violence is an important contribution to the sociological understanding of recognition processes, which has been a central topic from his first ethnographical research in Kabylia to his last writings. The concept of symbolic capital accounts for an immaterial form of competition and accumulation aiming at prestige and recognition. The symbolic violence theory describes the process of accepting to submit to domination through social relations, a process based on recognition of the dominants by the dominated and misrecognition of the constitutive basis of this relation. Despite its contribution to the understanding of recognition processes, the sociology of symbolic violence shows certain limits. Bourdieu reduces the specificity of recognition conflicts to an instrumental frame inspired by classical economic theory instead of pursuing the investigation of their internal logic. Moreover, emphasis on the instituted order of misrecognition and the reproduction of relations of domination tends to minimize the instituting dimension of the conflict and the impact of normative expectations in social struggles. The article invites critical examination of the theory of symbolic violence in view of an approach to recognition processes that is not subjected to categories of economic thought but is able to re-inject into its core the instituting moment of the conflict.

This article offers a counter-example of the modernization theory by looking at the elite positions of the nobility in the Netherlands in the 20th century. We compare the elite positions of the parents and the children, and between noble families and high bourgeoisie families. The likelihood of achieving an elite position has not decreased for different generations of the nobility or in comparison with the high bourgeoisie. An important factor is their social and cultural capital as indicated by the noble titles of their mothers and parents-in-law. This suggests that the modernization theory may apply to the middle classes, but far less to the elites.

This report on research in progress is based on data obtained through written questionnaires administered to UBC (University of British Columbia) and Ottawa University students who were asked to rank the importance and the degree of satisfaction associated with 14 characteristics of either the self or the social environment (gender, age, nationality, profession, religion, preferred political party, place of birth, province of residence, city of residence, university, ethnic group, language, family, and friends). Using gender, language, and race as examples, the author shows the usefulness of a role by role approach in comparative analysis, notably for the study of minority groups.