‘Race’, sexualities and the French public intellectual: an interview with Eric Fassin

French academic Eric Fassin is interviewed about his work in the field of public sociology, particularly around race and sexuality, over the last two decades. He explains the background and context of intellectuals in France before moving on to the specifics of addressing firstly ‘race’, and secondly sexuality. He argues that 1989 and 2005 are the key turning points in public discourse on ‘race’. Prior to 1989, which saw the first of the ‘Headscarf crises’, ‘race’ was not dealt with explicitly, either in French colonial history or its postcolonial present. The headscarf crisis clarified the tensions within the republican tradition (in which people are formally divided only into French citizens and foreigners, rather than recognised as classes or ethnic groups). The discourse surrounding the riots of 2005 made this the other key year. The framing of debate was along the lines of discrimination (between French citizens) rather than integration (of foreigners into Frenchness), marking a shift towards an acceptance that racism was a social issue. Fassin coins the term ‘sexual democracy’ to encapsulate the distinction between characteristics that are immanent rather than transcendent, and argues that discourse about sexuality and families represents a conflict between those who see them as governed by the social, and those who see them as outside these norms, beyond the social

Habitus, conciencia y deseo o la intimidad atravesada por el espacio público

Este artículo propone la hipótesis de que tomar en consideración la existencia del espacio público permitiría que disciplinas como la Sociología o la Antropología entendieran la manera como se incorporan las normas sexuales y sexuadas en la sociedad contemporánea. Para ello se plantea una revisión crítica del concepto de habitus, retomando algunos aportes de Marcel Mauss, Pierre Bourdieu y Judith Butler, con el fin de sugerir que hoy no incorporamos, de manera ciega o totalmente inconsciente para nosotros mismos las normas sociales, sino que, por el contrario, encarnamos una identidad teniendo conciencia parcial de las normas. También nos permitiría entender que estas se encuentran en disputa y son objeto de debate público y de controversia

Brexit, British People of Colour in the EU-27 and everyday racism in Britain and Europe

This paper foregrounds an understanding of Brexit as unexceptional, as business as usual in Britain and Europe. It reports on original empirical research with British People of Colour who have settled elsewhere in Europe, to bring into view an original perspective to understandings of what Brexit means to Britons living in Europe, and to consider what these testimonies offer to emerging social science research on Brexit. As we argue, focussing on the testimonies of British People of Colour living in the EU-27 offers a unique lens into how Brexit is caught up in everyday racism, personal experiences of racialization and racial violence, and longer European histories of racialization and racism. Importantly, these experiences precede and succeed Brexit, taking place in both Britain and other European Union countries

Civil society leadership in the struggle for AIDS treatment in South Africa and Uganda

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This thesis is an attempt to theorise and operationalise empirically the notion of ‘civil society leadership’ in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘AIDS leadership,’ which is associated with the intergovernmental institutions charged with coordinating the global response to HIV/AIDS, is both under-theorised and highly context-specific. In this study I therefore opt for an inclusive framework that draws on a range of approaches, including the literature on ‘leadership’, institutions, social movements and the ‘network’ perspective on civil society mobilisation. This framework is employed in rich and detailed empirical descriptions (‘thick description’) of civil society mobilisation around AIDS, including contentious AIDS activism, in the key case studies of South Africa and Uganda. South Africa and Uganda are widely considered key examples of poor and good leadership (from national political leaders) respectively, while the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) are both seen as highly effective civil society movements. These descriptions emphasise ‘transnational networks of influence’ in which civil society leaders participated (and at times actively constructed) in order to mobilise both symbolic and material resources aimed at exerting influence at the transnational, national and local levels

Réponse à Christine Delphy

Dans la revue Sociologie (vol. 3, n° 3, 2012), Christine Delphy et Pascale Molinier mènent une discussion intéressante, animée par Isabelle Clair et Sandrine Rui, sous un titre qui a attiré mon attention tant il rencontre les réflexions que j’essaie de développer de longue date : « Genre à la française ? ». Christine Delphy y revient d’ailleurs sur un article que j’ai publié en 1993 dans la revue Esprit: « C’est bien pourquoi je n’aime pas cette notion de « rapport social de sexe » car elle l..

« Technologies of Race »: préface

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L’homosexualité dans la famille. Ce que nous apprennent les recherches étatsuniennes

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"Herculine Barbin, dite Alexina B.", présenté par Michel Foucault: postface d’Éric Fassin : « Le vrai genre » (réédition augmentée)

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« La masculinité sans les hommes, les hommes sans la masculinité »

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