Staying on topic: doing research between improvisation and systematisation

Doing scientific research is, in theory, a systematic and well-organised enterprise. Field works are planned, interview guides are prepared, participants are selected. And, if the job was done well, data is collected, analysed, interpreted in a proper, clean, scientific manner. In reality, however, things often go astray: field works get cancelled, interviews get side-tracked and participants drop out. The investigation of human lives, as it turns out, cannot do away with the messiness of human lives. In such cases, researchers must adapt to the new situation and yet to stay on topic: in one word, they need to improvise. How, then, does research remain scientific? In this chapter, I will argue that it is not planning, organisation or control that make good academic work, and that it is often in the unexpected that the most interesting results emerge. What matters, however, is what is done afterwards; how hunches and surprises are turned into systematic investigations, analyses and interpretations. This argument will be illustrated with the story of an ‘impromptu’ fieldwork in Brussels and its unpredictable consequences; or, rather, how staying on topic requires one to systematically stray away from it

“I would rather be hanged than agree with you!”: Collective Memory and the Definition of the Nation in Parliamentary Debates on Immigration

This paper explores the meaning attributed to the national group as an entry point into how boundaries between the in-group and the out-group are formed. To do so, it focuses on the representation of the past of the group, taken as a symbolic resource able to produce a raison d’être for national groups, and does so within a dialogical framework. Using the transcripts of the French parliamentary debates on immigration from 2006, it proposes a qualitative analysis of collective narratives of the past along three axes: 1) what meaning do they give to the nation, 2) how is such a meaning produced, and 3) how do the stories told by different groups reply or relate to one another. By identifying the main narratives found in the data and how they relate to each other – within and between groups – it proposes to see collective memory as itself the product of symbolisation processes and, therefore, as a cultural tool especially powerful to produce meaning about the present. This paper also argues that collective memory is a situated construction negotiated with – or contested by – others, made possible by the presence of common historical benchmarks to which different meanings may however be attributed. Finally, it proposes to understand “immigration talk” as potentially the product of the identity questions faced by the national group, rather than the other way around

Social Thinking and History

Social Thinking and History demonstrates that our representations of history are constructed through complex psychosocial processes in interaction with multiple others, and that they evolve throughout our lifetime, playing an important role in our relation to our social environment. Building on the literature on social thinking, collective memory, and sociocultural psychology, this book proposes a new perspective on how we understand and use our collective past. It focuses on how we actively think about history to construct representations of the world within which we live and how we learn to challenge or appropriate the stories we have heard about the past. Through the analysis of three studies of how history is understood and represented in different contexts – in political discourses in France, by intellectuals and artists in Belgium, and when discussing a current event in Poland – its aim is to offer a rich picture of our representations of the past and the role they play in everyday life. This book will be of great interest toacademics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology, memory studies, sociology, political science, and history. It will also make an interesting read for psychologists and human and social scientists working on collective memory

Qui fait quoi? Pratiques de l'informatique et résistance des métiers dans un quotidien régional.

International audienceWho does what? Computers alter work habits and tend to deeply modify the social forms of the division of labor. The present article is based on an analysis of the everyday work habits at the French regional newspaper, Ouest-France, and shows how, despite efforts on the part of management to break down barriers between the trades, the employees built them back up again. The book-trade workers developed skills associated with the mastery of computers, demonstrating their desire to remain the sole custodians of a professional quality embodied in the culture of the book trades. They were also seeking to preserve their trades whatever the tools nedded to exercise them. The journalists, on the other hand, who associated the ideal of skill with the intellectual dimension of their occupation and not its technical dimension, refused to acquire the knowhow connected with computer use.L'arrivée de l'informatique modifie les pratiques de travail et tend à bouleverser les formes sociales de la division du travail. Cet article s'appuie sur une analyse des pratriques quotidiennes de travail à Ouest-France, pour montrer comment, en dépit de la volonté de la direction de rapprocher les métiers, les salariés vont reconstruire les cloisonnements professionnels. Les ouvriers du livre vont développer des compétences liées à la maîtrise du dispositif informatique. Ils revendiquent ainsi la volonté de rester les seuls garants d'une qualité professionnelle inscrite dans la culture des métiers des "professionnels du livre". Ils recherchent également à sauvegarder leur métier quelque soit l'outil pour l'exercer. En revanche, les journalistes, qui associent à l'idéal de compétence la dimension intellectuelle de leur métier et non sa dimension technique, refusent d'acquérir des savoir-faire liés à l'usage de l'informatique

Social Thinking and History

Social Thinking and History demonstrates that our representations of history are constructed through complex psychosocial processes in interaction with multiple others, and that they evolve throughout our lifetime, playing an important role in our relation to our social environment. Building on the literature on social thinking, collective memory, and sociocultural psychology, this book proposes a new perspective on how we understand and use our collective past. It focuses on how we actively think about history to construct representations of the world within which we live and how we learn to challenge or appropriate the stories we have heard about the past. Through the analysis of three studies of how history is understood and represented in different contexts – in political discourses in France, by intellectuals and artists in Belgium, and when discussing a current event in Poland – its aim is to offer a rich picture of our representations of the past and the role they play in everyday life. This book will be of great interest toacademics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology, memory studies, sociology, political science, and history. It will also make an interesting read for psychologists and human and social scientists working on collective memory

Situated trajectories of learning in vocational training interactions

This paper investigates smaller-scale transitions that are part of the longer-term processes of subjective transformation and adaptation to new professional competencies for learners in the field of vocational education. On the conceptual level, it proposes to view transitions as intermediate states in situated trajectories of learning. The notion of trajectory aims to capture that (a) learning occurs through situated and highly contextualized micro activities and (b) that these activities occur within historical sequences of events, which come to form over time dynamic trajectories. The ingredients constitutive of a trajectory of learning are first defined. The notions presented are next applied to the empirical analysis of one sequence of learning, in which we show the transitions undergone by one object of knowledge as it is being taught to different apprentices in a workshop. On the theoretical plane, the paper thus proposes to view transitions as microdynamics of change. On the methodological plane, it contributes to identifying possible empirical sources and methodological frames to study micro-transitional phenomen