Alain Touraine Research Articles

THE COMPLEXITY OF UNCERTAINTY IN EDUCATION

This article is the result of studies and research conducted in the discipline of Applied Methodology of Legal Research, more specifically the approach of the Morin Complexity Paradigm. As it is already applied to science, methodology, and also to education, which for Morin has always been his field of concern and research, UNESCO even asked him to systematize a set of reflections that would serve as a starting point to rethink the education of the new millennium, which is his work: The Seven Knowledges necessary for the education of the future. It will also be grafted some Brazilian thinkers like Pedro Demo with his ambivalences of knowledge and life, certainty and uncertainty, which resembles Morin in this approach. Paulo Freire more than anyone reminded us that no one teaches anyone, no one learns alone, we learn together. Also, as an example of how to do this in practice, José Pacheco with his Ponte School. Finally, remembered by Alain Touraine who needs a school of the subject to continue the search and struggle for recognition that encourages us Axel Honneth.

The rise and fall of social movements: A tribute to Alain Touraine (1925–2023)

The rise and fall of social movements: A tribute to Alain Touraine (1925–2023)

Život sociologa Alena Turena je došao do svog kraja - da li je došlo i do kraja društava, kako je tvrdio Turen?

Alain Touraine, the world-famous French sociologist, director and professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, founder of the Centre for the Analysis and Sociological Intervention in 1981, visiting professor at many universities outside France, and recipient of many national and international awards, died in Paris on June 9, 2023, at 3:30 A.M., at the age of 97. His daughter, Marisol Touraine, former French minister of social affairs, announced to the editorial staff for culture of the French television the exact time and date of her father's death. This information provoked the appearance of several in memoriam texts, rich in data on Touraine's biography and bibliography. I will also rely on these data, apart from other secondary and primary sources, in the process of reconstruction of the close relationship between Touraine's biography and his theoretical, empirical and practical political sociological work.

Social Movements in Brazil: From the 1970’s to the Present Day the Influence of Social Movements and their Relationship with Democracy and Party Organizations in the Last Fifty Years

This article discusses the relationship between social movements and democracy in the last fifty years in Brazil. This research aims to analyze the influence of demonstrations and street protests, which took place between 1970 and 2020, on the Brazilian democratic process and party institutions. The analysis starts from the social struggles against the dictatorship and Catholic Church through the CEBs (Base Ecclesiastical Communities) at the end of the 1970s. The struggles for redemocratization and for popular participation in the 1980s are also analyzed. The networked social movements and the new social movements, according to Alain Touraine, are also objects of this research. It is observed that social movements influence not only institutions and the democratic process but also individual and collective identities that share their ideologies, which expressively altered the political game and institutions’ functioning.

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

Lessons for Left-Wing Populism from the 2010s Austerity Wave in Europe

Social stratification in Alain Touraine’s sociological theory

The article deals with the development of the theory of post-industrial society’s social stratification. Today it is difficult to present stratification research in the form of a harmonious ordered sequence. The social stratification theory of the famous French sociologist Alain Touraine does not fit any of the usual classical directions. He revises economic determinism and puts accents on the sphere of knowledge and culture. Touraine tries to overcome the long-standing traditions of structuralism through the analysis of social action and social relations when analyzing the social stratification system. The modern «programmable society» is characterized by departure from the economic struggle and economic decisions, which have lost the autonomy and the central place that they used to have in the previous societies. Touraine’s vision of the modern society’s social structure differs from the vision of other post-industrialism theorists, especially from the ideas of American sociology, in particular, those presented in D. Bell’s works. The author of the action theory focuses on the French model of society and takes into account the historical and cultural characteristics of its development. Touraine noted the significant changes which occurred in the stratification system of modern society and the nature of its main social conflict. It is the change in the power and the forms of social domination under the influence of new factors and social processes. The French sociologist made a significant contribution to the fact that the sociological explanation of the modern social stratification system is transformed. He described the main characteristics of the post-industrial society’s class structure, the main trends of its development, offered the ways of using some categories necessary for the description of the modern post-industrial society’s stratification system.

What may we hope for? Education in times of climate change

What may we hope for? Education in times of climate change

Sociological Intervention «a la polonaise»: Alain Touraine’s Method in the Polish Context

In 1981, the French sociologist Alain Touraine (with a group of Polish young sociologists led by the veteran of Polish sociology – Jan Strzelecki), conducted a famous research on the Solidarity Movement with the use of a new and distinct method of investigation called “sociological intervention.” It was the first time that Polish sociologists, who were trained in a specific combination of Marxist and positivist traditions, had experienced this kind of ‘hard’ qualitative methodology. The reactions were mixed and the general approach was rather cautious. Nevertheless, the sociological intervention method has since been used several times by Polish scientists. The aim of this paper is to summarize these experiences.

A evolução das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação na perspectiva de Touraine, Bell e Castells

Este artigo tem como objetivo fazer um resgate histórico das transformações que ocorreram ao longo do tempo no que diz respeito às Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação, (TIC’s), e como elas implicam na vida dos sujeitos de origem trabalhadora. A partir dos estudos, percebe-se, que há uma grande relevância da comunicação e do desenvolvimento das mídias pelos humanos, a partir dos seus esforços, que levaram ao desenvolvimento das tecnologias de comunicação e informação, as TIC’s. Para esta discussão, recorreu-se a autores consagrados no que diz respeito a discussão entre tecnologia e sociedade, como por exemplo, Alain Touraine (1971), que traz a teoria da “Sociedade Programada”, assim como Manuel Castells (1999), que traz a “Sociedade em rede”. Além desses autores, destaca-se aqui os estudos de Daniel Bell (1973), que fomenta discussões a respeito da “Sociedade pós-industrial”. A escolha por esses autores, inicialmente, se deu por sua relevância frente aos assuntos que tratam da sociedade e suas relações com a tecnologia. Conclui-se que para esse caráter “flexível” da força de trabalho, a qualificação prévia importa menos do que a adaptabilidade, que inclui tanto as competências cognitivas, práticas ou comportamentais, como a competência para aprender e para submeter-se ao novo. Vê-se de forma bastante negativa as consequências da sociedade atual baseada na informatização, e na flexibilidade de mercados, entre outros aspectos que trazem danos a parcelas cada vez maiores da população, principalmente com as mudanças advindas no mercado de trabalho que explora e mutila capacidades físicas e intelectuais.

Educación laica: ¿Por qué y Para qué?

Lo que se presenta a continuación forma parte de una investigación titulada “Las potencialidades de la educación laica en la escuela primaria” (2010, ISCEEM, Toluca, México) basada en la teoría del nuevo paradigma cultural de Alain Touraine, así como en los aportes de los principales representantes de la laicidad como son Henri Peña, Jean Bauberot y Roberto Blancarte. Para este artículo se presentan algunas reflexiones en torno al tema de la laicidad en la educación pública mexicana, su significado, sus interpretaciones, las batallas culturales en torno a ella y sobre todo, sus potencialidades en la formación ciudadana en la educación básica. Su objetivo consiste en abordar los cinco aspectos más relevantes que la formación en la laicidad puede proveer y que, por mucho, rebasan los beneficios que pudiera otorgar cualquier clericalismo en la educación pública. Se concluye que dicha laicidad promueve la igualdad y el bien común que son también base de la democracia; además, al promover la libertad de conciencia capacita a los agentes para la toma de decisiones basados en la crítica y la reflexión, indispensables para la democracia.

The Kurdish Struggle in Turkey as a “Total Social Movement”, 2013-2015

The Kurdish movement’s decision to operate within and in opposition to the Turkish state reached a peak between 2013 and 2015. Three major events took place during this time period: the launch of the 2013 peace process, the 2014 presidential elections, and the June 2015 general elections. The principal driving force behind these campaigns was an important project put forward by Kurdish activists, which they termed as Türkiyelileşme [Turkeyfication]: an inclusive definition of national identity, which accepted being an integral part of Turkey while at the same time belonging to an ethnic group other than Turkish.Basing the argument on the Kurdish activists’ capacity to combine civil society activism and their promotion of democracy with the articulation of a national identity, this article considers the dynamics of the Kurdish movement along the lines of a “total social movement” between 2013 and 2015. Put forward by the sociologist Alain Touraine, a total social movement is a three-dimensional movement with social, political and national levels of action. It embodies fierce opposition between adversaries, but does not opt for violence no matter what the challenges are.

Experiência estética no movimento Hip-Hop: tensões contra hegemonicas nas práticas de consumo

O presente artigo tem como objetivo a problematização das relações entre o movimento social hip-hop e suas práticas de consumo de produtos de moda de grandes marcas, entendendo até que ponto esses usos e apropriações fragilizam o real sentido do movimento ou servem como mais uma forma comunicativa de reforço da identidade opositiva da cultura hip-hop. Caminhamos amparados teoricamente pelos Estudos Culturais, por autores oriundos da antropologia do consumo e pelas noções de sujeito, atores sociais e novos movimentos sociais, de Alain Touraine (2009). Constatou-se que os hábitos de consumo das marcas globais se prestam a formação identitária, ao pertencimento e aceitação no e do grupo, mas também ao mercado e a sociedade capitalista.

Bauman, Z. y Bordoni, C. (2016): Estado de crisis

Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni have published their work entitled State of crisis in the State and Society collection of the Paidos publishing house. This book has been translated into Spanish by Albino Santos Mosquera. It is necessary to remember that, until his recent death, Bauman was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Warsaw, after having taught at the Universities of Leeds, Tel Avivo, and the London School of Economics. This sociologist of Polish origin and internationally recognized, is the author of an abundant work that revolves around the concept of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2002). Among his numerous works, it is worth mentioning Liquid Love (2005), Liquid Life (2006), Liquid Fear (2007) or Moral Blindness (2015). Thanks to this incessant work and his innovative perspective, he has won numerous awards, such as the European Amalfi Prize for Sociologyand Social Sciences in 1992, the Theodor Adorno Awarden in 1998 and, together with Alain Touraine, the Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities in 2010 As for Bordoni, this is an Italian essayist specialized in sociology of culture who has been professor of Sociology at the Universities of Pisa and Florence, at the Oriental Institute in Naples and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara, of which he was director between 1990 and 2003.

Movimentos Sociais Rurais no Brasil: o estado da arte1

Resumo: Os movimentos sociais rurais têm sido foco de vários estudos que apontam para o seu papel ativo na luta por direitos dos grupos excluídos dentro da sociedade brasileira. Através de ações coletivas, agem como resistência à exclusão e provocam novas dinâmicas sociais no campo. Partindo da concepção teórica de novos movimentos sociais apresentada por Alain Touraine, este artigo se propôs a mapear e a discutir o estado da arte referente a teses e dissertações sobre movimentos sociais rurais. Adotamos os períodos compreendidos entre 2002 a 2014 para o mapeamento das teses e dissertações e 1980 a 2015 para as análises das temáticas relativas aos movimentos sociais rurais. Utilizou-se, para a realização das análises, o software Alceste (Análise Lexical por Contexto de um Conjunto de Segmentos de Texto). Os resultados mostraram que o período posterior a 2003 marcou a passagem do viés combativo para a rotinização dos movimentos sociais, tendo as contestações sociais se deslocado do mundo do trabalho para a vida cotidiana, com uma pluralidade de demandas materiais e simbólicas que giraram em torno do reconhecimento de identidades e do modo de vida camponês, evidenciando-se a politização dos costumes e práticas relativos ao modo de vida tradicional.

Kryzys społeczeństwa kapitalistycznego a (nowa) kwestia miejska

This article addresses the problem of the crisis of capitalist society, as described by Alain Touraine, through the example of urban space. It attempts to trace the symptoms of the crisis in the context of the urban question, understood as the set of (potential or actual) dysfunctional consequences of the organization of social life in accord with individual and/or collective expectations within the sphere of the city.

El carácter multidimensional de la acción colectiva y los movimientos sociales: una problematización teórica

<p>El presente artículo tiene como propósito fundamental dialogar entre diversas corrientes teóricas que han abordado el tema de la acción colectiva y los movimientos sociales. Así, serán revisados algunos de los preceptos básicos de la teoría de movilización de recursos; la sociología accionalista de Alain Touraine y Alberto Melucci; la teoría del enmarcado y finalmente la Escuela de la Subalternidad. Como veremos a lo largo de este trabajo, pese a que dichos enfoques comparten el reconocimiento de la racionalidad como un componente distintivo de la acción colectiva, mantienen notables diferencias en la forma de concebir un fenómeno sociopolítico que cuenta con varias dimensiones empíricas y analíticas.</p><p> </p>

Possibilities beyond crisis: Neoliberal globalization and the reconstruction of morality

This essay discusses two books on the continuing global economic crisis that occupy the highly contested intersection between economics and sociology. In exploring the possibilities for progressive alternatives to neoliberal globalization, two leading French theorists, Daniel Cohen and Alain Touraine, both integrate social, political, and cultural factors with economic analysis. Each illustrates how the dominance of financial imperatives has steadily displaced moral considerations, leading to socioeconomic polarization and fragmentation. For Cohen, in his critique of the key neoliberal concept of ‘homo economicus,’ a reassertion of human values of reciprocity and cooperation is required in order to construct a viable postmaterialist project. Touraine proposes a political future based on the enduring principles of human rights, through which a radically progressive individual and global subjectivity can be realized. The essay evaluates the arguments of each theorist, while examining the possibilities for morally informed alternatives to neoliberal globalization.

Of sorcerers and thought leaders: marketing the information revolution in the 1960s

Hoopla about the emergence of an information economy was widespread by the 1990s, when academics, politicians and the press celebrated the social transformations brought about by computers. Yet the rhetoric of high-tech revolution long predates Windows 95 or even the World Wide Web. Building on the work of Howard Brick and others on postwar debates over technology and the economy, this article explores how the trope of the “information revolution” entered public discourse in the United States in the 1960s. It considers how the general idea of a post-industrial society – an economy in which manufacturing might play a diminished role – became specifically tied in the public imagination to information technology and intellectual property. Technology firms waged a concerted campaign to assuage anxieties about technological unemployment while extolling the importance of computing and other new technologies to the nation’s economic future. It illustrates how advertisers developed a public relations message for firms such as RCA and IBM, aiming to reassure the public about the potential of computers and automation to transform society for the better. This promotion of the information revolution actually predated the influential discussions of a post-industrial society by theorists such as Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine in the early 1970s. The essay also highlights how prominent public intellectuals, such as Margaret Mead and Herman Kahn, and government officials lent their credibility to claims about the value of a future economy based on creating and processing information during the 1960s.

CONFLICT AS A FACTOR OF SOCIAL CHANGES IN THE THEORY ALAIN TOURAINE

The article analyzes the conflict as one of the basic elements of social reality, immediate source and mechanism of modern social changes. The author distinguishes the classification basics of the modern theories of conflict in Western social science, predicts the further development of social studies in problem field of conflict, and formulates the main provisions of the modern conflictological discourse. Are determined, the specific manifestations of the conflict in terms of contemporary realities, trends identified value orientations of modern society through the prism of conceptual views Alain Touraine. Disclosed concepts “subject”, “historicity”, “social movements”, “value”, the nature of social interactions, marked cultural patterns. This historicity is not understood as set of cultural values, accumulated over a certain historical time, integrated into the structure of society, as well as a set of tools with which this integration has occurred, a sort of tool of formation of various social practices that are in demand in a particular historical period. The study shows that the leading role in the discourse conflictological Alain Touraine assigned a sociological study of social changes that are going on in time and space. The conflict as a factor of social change in the theory of A. Touraine has more descriptive as fully concentrated on the study of a new historical stage of development of society and the role of social movements.

The Nordic Countries: From the Rokkan Model (“uns”) to the Touraine Model (“ich”)

Comparative politics like any comparative studies needs models with which to interpret lots of facts. Theoretical models orientate the data towards parsimony in understanding of key relationships and focus the debate on key issues. Politics in the Nordic countries used to be modelled as an exceptionally stable set of multi-party systems, based upon social cleavages as well as PR in a unitary state with comprehensive decentralisation to the local governments (communes). This model owes much to Norwegian social scientist Stein Rokkan, who traces the basic cleavages (ethnic, religious, class) to historical legacies and social organisation of civil society. Its key feature is electoral stability: “frozen party systems”. However, recently the processes of European integration and globalisation have undermined Scandinavian exceptionalism, resulting in rising political instability, electoral volatility and populist or anti-foreigner parties with considerable support. The typical political hegemony of the Social Democratic Parties (“Arbeiterbewegung”) is a thing of the past, as governments come and go in rapid fashion. As these societies have adapted to the pressures from global capitalism, inequalities in income and wealth have shot up. Yet, the Nordic welfare state has been trimmed but not abolished, as all countries have accepted some of the basic ideas in both New Public Management and further regional or local decentralisation. Adding these major changes together, we must chose another theoretical model, namely the Alain Touraine thesis about the weakening of political sociology and firm social institutions on the one hand as well as the spread of individualism and egoism on the other hand—“la fin de la societe”. The recent flows of migrants to Scandinavia and Finland have further increased centrifugal tendencies.