Critique d’une notion au regard de ses usages sociaux

Filmic Sociology. Theory and Pratice

Joyce Sebag et Jean-Pierre Durand

Filmic Sociology proposes an exploration of the intellectual resources offered by the hybridization of sociology and cinema: practicing sociology, or other human sciences, through images and sound. In the age of the image, this essay invites sociological research, not only through the discipline’s approach, but also through the joint learning of techniques (shooting and sound recording, derushing, editing, etc.) and film writing.

Using concrete examples, the authors analyze what it means to think through the image, explain the different phases of making a sociological documentary, and question, through sociological film, the representations of reality and, more specifically, what remains invisible in the social world. The result is a reflective look at the theories and practices presented, to better equip the sociologist-filmmaker.

Illustrated with numerous photographs that mark the history of documentary photography and film, the book is intended for both teachers-researchers and students in all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences who practice video and photography or wish to discover their uses. Students in documentary and film schools, as well as students in information and communication programs, will also benefit from the book in their studies.

Endorsements

USA: “What Joyce Sebag and Jean-Pierre Durand propose is literally to ‘think by images.’ The image is not an element constructed afterwards by thinking, it is first by the perception, and constitutive in the act of thinking.”

Guillaume Sirois, Professor, Université de Montréal, Visual Studies, Vol. 36 I.4-5, 2021.

Canada: “Harper, in the Foreword, compares filmic sociology to a ‘spider’s web. This powerful book is a reflective manual. It’s a manifesto for a visual and filmic sociology.”

Aziz Hlaoua, Professor at Rabat University, Communication (Quebec), 2022.

France: “In this book, filmic sociology emancipates itself from the written word, because if the visible and the lived can screen what is hidden, it is the narrative construction proposed by the film that must make them perceptible: the image contextualises what is said in order to better understand it, the image tells of relations ignored by traditional sociology.”

Pascal Cesaro, Assitant Professor (Aix-Marseille University), in Images du travail, travail des images (France), 2022.

Brazil: “For the authors, filmic sociology produces knowledges from the recording of sounds and images, during viewing or analysis of the rushes, and finally, during editing, which juxtaposes them to create meaning and fresh visions. Then the practice of the sociologist-filmmaker provides a reintegration of the sensitive in the discipline through the audiovisual production.”

Rafael Fermino Beverari, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Tempo Social (Brazil), 2021.

France: “For Sebag and Durand, the hybridization of sociological and cinematographic approaches is at the heart of filmic sociology. More than documentary evidence, the sociological film must be received as a tool for reflection and debate. It brings the reader back into the territory of reasoning after inviting him to open up sociological thought to the emotions and the imagination.”

Nicolas Hatzfeld, Professor of History, IDHES-CNRS, La Nouvelle Revue du Travail (France), 2022.

Italia: “The merit of Joyce Sebag and Jean-Pierre Durand is that they have skilfully shown us the heuristic potential of a complex discipline: images and sounds that are good for reflection, and for producing progress in the direction of a dialogic and polysemous knowledge of reality.”

Gianfranco Spitelli, University of Teramo, Voci (Italia), 2021.

Canada: “The authors defend two central ideas linked to the very foundations of sociological film-making. Firstly, an attachment to scientific rigor where the construction of the object, the fieldwork and the methodological tools of the discipline are combined. Secondly, filmic sociology is considered as a research tool as much as a medium, in which the out of shot is consubstantial with reality.”

Pierre Fraser, Sociologist-filmmaker, Sociologie visuelle (Canada), 2021

La Sociologie filmique propose une exploration des ressources intellectuelles offertes par l’hybridation de la sociologie et du cinéma : pratiquer la sociologie, ou d’autres sciences humaines, par l’image et le son. À l’ère de l’image, cet essai invite aux recherches sociologiques, non seulement par la démarche de la discipline, mais aussi par l’apprentissage conjoint des techniques (prises de vue et de sons, dérushage, montage, etc.) et de l’écriture cinématographiques.

À partir d’exemples concrets, les auteurs analysent ce que signifie penser par l’image, exposent les différentes phases de réalisation d’un documentaire sociologique, questionnent au moyen du film sociologique les représentations du réel et plus particulièrement ce qui demeure invisible dans le monde social. D’où un retour réflexif sur les théories et les pratiques exposées, pour mieux armer le sociologue-réalisateur de documentaires.

Illustré de nombreuses photographies qui jalonnent l’histoire de la photographie et du cinéma documentaires, le livre s’adresse à la fois aux enseignants-chercheurs et aux étudiants de toutes les disciplines des sciences humaines qui pratiquent la vidéo et la photographie ou souhaitent en découvrir les usages. Les étudiants des écoles de documentaires ou de cinéma, les étudiants des filières « Information et communication » tireront également profit de l’ouvrage dans leur parcours.

Table des Matières

• Préface par Douglas Harper
• Introduction
• Chapitre 1. La démarche de la sociologie filmique
  1. Trois fonctions imbriquées de la sociologie filmique
  2. De la Sociologie scripturale à la sociologie filmique
  3. Que dit le documentaire sociologique qui échapperait au texte ?
  4. Du Master Image et Société à la thèse en sociologie filmique
• Chapitre 2. Des ethnologues à la sociologie filmique
  1. Les documents des ethnologues et des anthropologues
  2. Photographie et cinéma documentaires
  3. Genèse de la sociologie filmique
• Chapitre 3. Cinéma et sociologie : une hybridation prometteuse
  1. Des images et des mots pour penser
  2. Peut-on parler d’images sociologiques ?
  3. Réaliser un documentaire sociologique : de la maîtrise des signifiants au montage
• Chapitre 4. Le cinéma exacerbe les interrogations sociologiques
  1. Sociologie filmique et interactionnisme
  2. Distanciation et engagement du sociologue documentariste
  3. Documentaire sociologique et « résidus scientifiques »
• Chapitre 5. L’intangible dans le documentaire sociologique
  1. De la représentation du réel
  2. Représenter l’invisible du social
  3. L’entretien filmé
• Conclusion
• Bibliographie
• Index thématique
• Index des noms propres
• Index des films cités

Fabricar al hombre nuevo plantea la modelización de hombras y mujeres que se adaptan a las necesidades cambiantes del trabajo, y nos abre interrogantes sobre la integración de las normas que emanan del sistema productivo y de la esfera del consumo. El autor analiza con detalle la conversión desde el lugar sel trabajo, donde nuevas cualidades y competencias son requeridas en los(as) trabajadores(as), pero también desde el ámbito del consumo, espacio en el que se observa una extensión de la lógica del capital. Al escrudiñar en el lean management, Jean-Pierre Durand ofrese una lectura más acabada sobre las fuentes del « malestar en el trabajo », advirtiéndonos en no quedar atrapados en perspectivas que atomizan los síntomas del malestar en las causas psíquicas, le que constituye una invitacion a pensar de manera articulada en los procesos globales, en la reorganización de la producción de los bienes y los servicios, asi como en las situaciones sociales que se construyen dentro y fuera del lugar de trabajo.
Édgar Belmont

This book shows the relationship between the changing nature of capitalism and the creation of the new man and woman. Specifically the focus is on the origins and fate of the new worker in Late Capitalism. The book combines a Gramscian critique of contemporary patterns of capitalist labour control and Lacanian psychoanalysis to account for the development of new forms of social subordination including the context for social emancipation.
All the demonstrations are based on empirical analyses of diverse fields: car and aeronautical design, job centers, rail transportations, advertising, and so on. A chapter questions the work of the customers and economic or political meanings of these transformations. The book ends by offering two scenarios: one is the continuation of the current situation with the ecological, migratory, and disasters of inequality (with a return to urban violence) which are entirely predictable; the second scenario suggests an enchanted future when all these questions are resolved by social innovation and the supersession of capitalism.

Endorsements
This book interrogates the myths that surround the changing nature of work, which is essential if we are to navigate through the many challenges – both material and ideological – that these transformations bring. Durand helps clarify the reality of what is going on, and presents careful consideration of the many tensions related to employment and consumption that are emerging. This is an important intervention that provides critical reflection on the changes occurring in spaces of work (Miguel Martinez Lucio, Professor of International HRM & Comparative Industrial Relations, University of Manchester, UK).

With historical vision, Jean-Pierre Durand advances a theory of the contemporary worker, searching for meaning and recognition in a precarious world where the line between consumer and producer disappears.  A decisive contribution to the new labor studies (Michael Burawoy, Professor at Berkeley University, USA, and former President of the International Sociological Association).

This book explores the key conceptual features of the development of the Sociology of Work (SoW) in Europe since 1945, using eleven country case studies. An original contribution to our understanding of the trajectory of the SoW, the chapters map the current state of the theoretical background of the sub-dlscipline’s development to broader socio­political and economic changes, traced across a heterogeneous set of national contexts. Different definitions of the SoW in each country often reflect variations in the focus of analysis, and these chapters link the subject definition and focus to other social science disciplines, the state, as well as social class interests and ideologies. The book contends that the ways in which the sub-discipline makes sense of changes in work is itself a response to the type of society in which the sub-discipline is practiced, whether in the post-war social democratic West, the Soviet East, or today’s societies, dominated by variant forms of neo-liberalism. It will be of use to scholars and students interested in the transnational history of the discipline of sociology, with a specific focus on the nexus between the sociology of labour, ideology, economics and politics.

Paul Stewart is Senior Research Professor at Grenoble School of Management, France, and formerly Professor of Sociology, University of Strathclyde, UK where he was coordinator of the Marie Curie ITN ‘Changing Employment’ Programme. Jean-Pierre Durand is Professor of Sociology, University d’Évry Paris-Saclay, France, and Editor­founder of La Nouvelle Revue du Travail. Maria-Magdalena Richea is Marie Curie ITN Alumna, ‘ChangingEmployment’ Post-Doctoral Experienced Researcher, University of Strathclyde, UK.

Tiffon Guillaume, Frédéric Moatty, Dominique Glaymann et Jean-Pierre Durand, Le piège de l’employabilité. Critique d’une notion au regard de ses usages sociaux, Rennes, PUR, 2017.

Joyce Sebag, Jean-Pierre Durand, Christine Louveau, Luca Queirolo Palmas, Luisa Stagi, Sociologie visuelle et filmique. Le point de vue dans la vie quotidienne, Genoa, 2018 (e-book en français, italien, anglais, espagnol). http://gup.unige.it/node/186

Sociologie Visuelle et filmique. Le point de vue dans la vie quotidienne rassemble des contributions de photographes et de cinéastes, tous sociologues, anthropologues, ethnographes, ethnologues, géographes, historiens… La vie quotidienne y apparaît comme un raccourci pour réunir une diversité d’objets traités par les sciences humaines et sociales. Le point de vue fait converger –ou diverger– les auteurs sur leur double positionnement d’intellectuels et de preneurs d’images. Qu’ils traitent de la photographie ou du cinéma, les chapitres de ce livre interrogent la fonction heuristique des images pour mieux connaître nos mondes sociaux. Ils cherchent à comprendre comment les images (et les sons) peuvent –ou non– rendre compte différemment des émotions, de la subjectivité, de l’intime, des troubles et des joies des individus et des populations. De la pratique scientifique avec l’image, au travail du réel par l’image, chacun a conscience de tout ce que les disciplines ont à gagner dans une science publique qui, avec réflexivité, fait parler les silences.