From Political Radicalness to Citizen Participation? Current Reconfigurations of the Breton movement.

This article aims at analyzing the recent mutations of the Breton repertoire of contention. To do so, it proposes to look at the example of an association called "Dibab", which praised participatory democracy by organizing local votes on nationalitarian topics in small Breton towns during the year of 2015. Having a look at the trajectory of Dibab activists shows that many of them had started their militant career years ago, and were familiar to more radical pro-independence organizations. How do these activists have managed to play with different political strategies without losing their ideological frames? How have they expressed different kinds of commitment through their political practices and discourses? Observations, document studies and semi-structured biographical interviews disclose that the construction of a new participatory ideal by radical Breton activists does not prevent them from being multipositioned in the militant field, widening their action spectrum by doing so. That is why the Breton repertoire is better understood as a continuum. Indeed, long term processes and the juxtaposition of different spaces of mobilization must be taken into account in the analysis

From Political Radicalness to Citizen Participation? Current Reconfigurations of the Breton movement.

This article aims at analyzing the recent mutations of the Breton repertoire of contention. To do so, it proposes to look at the example of an association called "Dibab", which praised participatory democracy by organizing local votes on nationalitarian topics in small Breton towns during the year of 2015. Having a look at the trajectory of Dibab activists shows that many of them had started their militant career years ago, and were familiar to more radical pro-independence organizations. How do these activists have managed to play with different political strategies without losing their ideological frames? How have they expressed different kinds of commitment through their political practices and discourses? Observations, document studies and semi-structured biographical interviews disclose that the construction of a new participatory ideal by radical Breton activists does not prevent them from being multipositioned in the militant field, widening their action spectrum by doing so. That is why the Breton repertoire is better understood as a continuum. Indeed, long term processes and the juxtaposition of different spaces of mobilization must be taken into account in the analysis

FROM POLITICAL RADICALNESS TO CITIZEN PARTICIPATION? Current reconfigurations of the Breton movement

International audienceThis article aims at analyzing the recent mutations of the Breton repertoire of contention. To do so, it proposes to look at the example of an association called "Dibab", which praised participatory democracy by organizing local votes on nationalitarian topics in small Breton towns during the year of 2015. Having a look at the trajectory of Dibab activists shows that many of them had started their militant career years ago, and were familiar to more radical pro-independence organizations. How do these activists have managed to play with different political strategies without losing their ideological frames? How have they expressed different kinds of commitment through their political practices and discourses? Observations, document studies and semi-structured biographical interviews disclose that the construction of a new participatory ideal by radical Breton activists does not prevent them from being multipositioned in the militant field, widening their action spectrum by doing so. That is why the Breton repertoire is better understood as a continuum. Indeed, long term processes and the juxtaposition of different spaces of mobilization must be taken into account in the analysis

Les territoires des revendications linguistiques. Une comparaison Bretagne/Lusace

Cet article s’intéresse aux conditions de production d’un récit territorial régional unifié dans deux régions marquées par des mouvements de revitalisation linguistique (Grenoble et Whaley, 2006). La Bretagne abrite deux communautés linguistiques– bretonne et gallèse – porteuses de revendications de statut (Gusfield, 1986). La Lusace est un territoire revendiqué par les locuteurs des langues basse-sorabe et haute-sorabe. Les deux territoires régionaux revendiqués par les militants linguistiques diffèrent des territoires de l’action publique. Nous montrons que malgré des tentatives militantes de produire un récit territorial unifié de la région revendiquée, des rapports de concurrence et de domination entre les groupes linguistiques viennent morceler cette entreprise. En partant du postulat que l’action collective linguistique construit l’image sociale du territoire (Avanza et Laferté, 2005) tout autant que l’image sociale du territoire la construit en retour, nous nous intéressons aux usages militants des multiples récits régionaux et aux enjeux politiques qu’ils drainent.This article tackles the conditions in which a unified territorial narrative is built in two regions that are characterized by language revitalization movements (Grenoble & Whaley, 2006). Brittany is home to the Breton and the Gallo minority-language communities. Lusatia is a territory that is claimed by speakers of both Lower and Upper Sorbian, two distinct Slavic languages. Both regional territories claimed by language activists differ from the territorial frame for public action. However, the construction of territorial narratives by language activists cannot be summed up by drawing an alternative territory. Concurrence and power dynamics between language communities shatter this unified vision of the region. Based on the assumption that collective action for minority languages builds the social image of the territory (Avanza et Laferté, 2005) just as much as this social image builds collective action, we will shed light on the militant uses of the various regional narratives and on the political issues that they carry

The worlds of collective action in favour of minority and regional languages : a sociology ofcommitment to the languages of Brittany and Lusatia

Cette recherche traite d’un type d’action collective méconnu, l’action collective en faveur des langues régionales et minoritaires. En décloisonnant l’objet « langues régionales et minoritaires » et en l’analysant par un biais comparatif, notre travail permet d’éclairer en quoi la cause linguistique telle que les militants des mouvements de revendications linguistiques minoritaires la définissent influence les répertoires de ce type action collective. Prendre pour objet deux terrains régionaux sous-tendus par quatre communautés d’action collective linguistique au sein de deux États différents permet de mieux saisir l’enchâssement des mouvements d’action collective à des univers de sens et de croyances à forte charge émotionnelle peu à même d’être mis en circulation. Pour nourrir cette problématique, notre travail de thèse élabore une sociologie politique de l’action collective en faveur des langues régionales et minoritaires de Bretagne (langue bretonne et langue gallèse) et de Lusace (langue haute-sorabe et langue basse-sorabe). Tout en situant notre approche dans une sociologie des mouvements sociaux attentive aux ressorts émotionnels de l’engagement, nous enrichissons notre cadre théorique d’emprunts à la sociolinguistique critique. En signalant que l’action collective linguistique présente des spécificités dans sa construction cognitive, symbolique et argumentative ainsi que dans ses modalités d’expression, nous nous proposons d’étudier la tension entre degré d’autonomie de la cause linguistique et inclusion de celle-ci dans des univers sociaux et symboliques tiers. L’enquête comparative s’appuie sur un dispositif cumulant l’observation, à dimension ethnographique, des activités formelles et informelles des organisations militantes, à laquelle s’ajoute la réalisation d’entretiens biographiques avec les individus qui les composent afin de restituer leurs trajectoires. La prise en compte de l’idiosyncrasie des cas étudiés n’empêche pas de souligner une dynamique conjointe de porosité à des causes extérieures permettant in fine la résilience des communautés d’engagement à envisager comme des structures d’abeyance.This research addresses a lesser-known kind of collective action: collective action in defence of regional and minority languages. By de-compartmentalising this object and analysing it with a comparative perspective, our work sheds light on how the linguistic case as defined by the activists of minority language movements influences the repertoires of this specific type of collective action. Taking two regional fields sustained by four communities of linguistic collective action within two different states as an object of research allows us to better grasp the embedded nature of collective action movements in emotionally charged meaning and belief systems that are unlikely to be widely disseminated. In order to address this issue, this doctoral work sets out a political sociology of collective action in defence of regional and minority languages in Brittany (Breton and Gallo languages) and Lusatia (Higher Sorbian and Lower Sorbian languages) While the approach is rooted in a sociology of social movements which pays attention to the emotional motivations of mobilisation, the theoretical framework is extended with borrowings from the field of critical sociolinguistics. Pointing out that linguistic collective action has specific features in its cognitive, symbolic and argumentative development as well as in its forms of expression, we explore the tension between the degree of autonomy of the linguistic case and its inclusion in outside social and symbolic worlds. This comparative study is based on a combination of ethnographic observation of the formal and informal activities of activist organisations, and biographical interviews with their individual members in order to document their trajectories. The consideration of the idiosyncrasy of the cases studied is not an obstacle to underlining a joint dynamic of porosity to outside issues and motives of commitment. In the end, the latter make possible the resilience of the mobilisation communities which are to be considered as abeyance structures

Symbolic crusades in Lusatia and Brittany? An analysis of minority language movements from the perspective of status politics

International audienceThis paper proposes to analyse mobilizations for regional minority languages in Lusatia and Brittany from the perspective of "status politics". In a post-modern context, where traditional speech communities are fragmented by territorial and social mobility, speaking a minority language seems to be a matter of personal choice, structured through engagement and activism. Assuming that languages are part of a linguistic economy shaped by power conflicts and struggle for classifications, this article approaches the promotion of regional and minority languages as a struggle for social recognition of particular cultures, styles of life and collective prestige. By using the tools of political sociology, our ambition is to examine actions for Upper and Lower Sorbian, Breton and Gallo as symbolic ones, aiming at influencing the distribution of social prestige in Lusatia and Brittany, thus exceeding mere language issues. Today, campaigners for minority languages of Lusatia and Brittany participate in "revitalization movements" which also assert visions of the social world. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with language activists and on participatory observations, the idea is to consider to what extent linguistic mobilizations can be qualified as "symbolic crusades", and in what ways this sociological notion could be useful to understand the mechanisms at work in linguistic collective action in general

The ideological foundations of Breton and Lower Sorbian language revitalization through education and their consequences for new speakers

International audienceBreton (Brittany, France) and Lower Sorbian (Brandenburg, Germany) are two of the many endangered minority languages currently undergoing revitalization. In their cases, given that intergenerational transmission in a family setting has mostly ceased, language revitalization takes the form of educational initiatives, such as the immersion program Diwan in Brittany and the bilingual program Witaj in Brandenburg. The article argues that the differences in language ideologies and attitudes of language revitalizers, which form the often unexpressed and unaddressed ideological foundations of these programs, have led to divergences in results of revitalization of Breton and Lower Sorbian. These divergences can have significant consequences for the new speakers of these languages produced through educational programs. Brittany's Diwan schools, which construes Breton as relevant to modern identities and capable of functioning outside the educational context, can be claimed to be producing new speakers in whose lives Breton will play a considerable role. By using foreign language teaching strategies and struggling to provide a vibrant life for Lower Sorbian after school, Witaj, in turn, does keep the minority language alive, but much more as a school subject than as a viable means of communication