From one class to another

The work of the philosopher Chantal Jaquet, The Transclasses, product of a seminar organized at the University of Paris-1, aims to think about socially ascending individual trajectories. More broadly, the work seeks to think about the exception in order to complement rather than disqualify the theory of social reproduction – a dialogue with Pierre Bourdieu summarized in a formula: “ think the distinction within the distinction » (p. 5).

To do this, Chantal Jaquet strives to develop a theory of social non-reproduction through the construction of the concepts of transclass and complexion, and the critique of those of identity and causality.

The project is ambitious. In clear language, the work addresses classic questions in an original way and poses a triple challenge to the social sciences, at once theoretical, practical and political. In this regard, the fact that the critical apparatus of the book is fragmentary does not reduce the fruitfulness of its numerous avenues of reflection. Future work could very usefully deepen them.

A theoretical challenge for the social sciences

On a theoretical level, Chantal Jaquet’s book raises the question of the capacity of the concept, necessarily general, to think about what is singular. Chantal Jaquet’s reflection is indeed anchored in the proposal of two new concepts. The first — that of “ transclass » — seeks to think about the experience of individuals from the working classes who, during their lives, experience an upward social trajectory, in the literal sense extra-ordinary. The author prefers the concept of transclass to that of “ class defector » which, certainly expresses the transference, but also the betrayal. Forged on the model of the term transsexual, the concept of transclass indicates the transition from one class to another, without value judgment on this multifaceted passage, at the same time geographical, economic, political and cultural, and whose causes and consequences consequences are to be found both in the social context and in individual dispositions.

According to the author, the phenomenon of transclasses can only be correctly analyzed by taking into account the always composite, ambivalent and singular play of the bundle of determinations at the origin of the particular trajectory of the transclass. This point leads Chantal Jaquet to develop a second concept — that of “ complexion », taken from Spinoza. From Latin idiot (with) and plectrum (to weave), complexion intends to grasp in its complexity the intertwining of physical and mental determinations which make up the originality of a singular life. Complexion thus represents the incorporation of a knot of dispositions shaped by individual history. In the case of transclasses in particular, the complexion allows us to think about the absence of unity, the change, even the tearing of a personality living between two incompatible worlds, oscillating between shame and loyalty to the original environment. , fascination and anger towards the environment of arrival – what Pierre Bourdieu had called “ split habitus “. Chantal Jaquet thus rejects the false explanations of chance and personality to account for the trajectory of transclasses in order to register this phenomenon “ under the regime of necessity » (p. 24).

The concept of complexion therefore proposes a “ combinatorial thinking » (p. 97) to understand the modalities of action, at the confluence of individual and collective determinations, that is to say at the crossroads of the singular and the general. A tool for analyzing the singular interconnections of multiple determinations, complexion makes it possible to account for the multidimensional nature of causality since no determination is efficient alone. Convincingly, the concept of complexion thus encompasses that of habitus, more homogeneous because above all linked to the social position of the individual. In the study of the individual trajectory, the complexion integrates, in addition to social position, gender, race, sexual orientation, place in siblings, parental aspirations, emotional life, etc. Attentive to the singular and therefore to the intimate, Chantal Jaquet thus reveals the heterogeneity and mutability of each individual complexion, and shows that “ all human existence could be defined by a practice of the differential gap » (p. 221, emphasis added). Chantal Jaquet joins here the reflections of Bernard Lahire on the “ singular plural » seeking to found a “ sociology at the individual level “.

In line with other works, the concept of complexion leads to a critique of the concept of identity. The assignment of individuals to constant characteristics of class, race, gender, sex, etc., brings identity closer to a uniform and immutable essence, and encourages us to represent the self as substance or as subject. The case of transclasses shows, on the contrary, that their existence is fundamentally a dis-identification, a process of tearing away from their original environment. This criticism of the concept of identity also extends to the concept of “ struggle for recognition » which presupposes the negation of a pre-existing, abstract and fixed identity, whether individual or collective, and whose dignity must be restored in the public space. The identity of the individual, thus thought of as plurality, ambiguity, instability and precariousness, should ultimately rather be understood according to the flexible concept of “ transidentity » (p. 136). This term, effective within the economy of the work, is however only mentioned once, and would require a finer conceptualization to better account for its heuristic scope.

A practical challenge for the social sciences

These theoretical positions raise practical questions. The work first pleads in favor of taking into account the determining role of affects in the constitution of the self. However, for the author it is not a question of rehabilitating through affects the subjectivism of an autonomous and sovereign self, but of recalling that “ emotional complexion » (p. 222) is not only or primarily a concretion of psychological facts but of social facts, that is to say the incorporation of a social history.

The heart of the analysis is thus inspired by Spinozist philosophy to bring to light the play of determinations which allows a power to act to achieve non-reproduction. The motives of action are thus to be understood through the combination of affects, whether they are joyful (love, admiration, enthusiasm, pleasure) or sad (shame, resentment, anger, hatred), and whose strength more or less greatness modifies the body and mind of the individual, directs his power to act and determines him to stay in his class or to leave it. Affective complexion thus offers a tool that is both subtle and solid for understanding the logic of discontinuity in any individual trajectory, and offers a complement to what Pierre Bourdieu noted when he criticized “ the biographical illusion “. The fact that any reproductive process is never perfect but characterized, irreducibly, by a “ differential gap » to the standard indicates the possibility of non-reproduction. The study of the complexion of the transclass must then make it possible to understand the sources of the force which made this gap a remarkable exception. The work thus attempts to resolve this difficulty: to grasp the singularity of certain cases of exception to the rule while every singular case is, to admittedly varying degrees, an exception to the rule. So what are the criteria — philosophical, anthropological, sociological, historical — for judging the remarkable exception? ?

Attention to the multiplicity and complexity of affects in order to understand the individual therefore presupposes combinatorial thinking which leads the work to present itself as a vibrant plea in favor of inter- and even transdisciplinarity in the social sciences (p 15-16). Unraveling the threads of complexion requires forging a way of thinking about complexity using necessarily diverse theoretical and practical tools that can be inspired by various scientific traditions. In particular, the affective complexion conceptualizes a thought on the micro scale whose attention to singularity underlines the interest and complementarity of the work of microhistory, microsociology, microethnology. Chantal Jaquet draws, for example, on the study of Mozart by Norbert Elias (an interdisciplinary study bringing together sociology, history and psychology) to show the limits of statistical investigation when it comes to reporting on the exception ( pp. 16-18). Thanks to the concept of complexion, the author thus attempts to resolve this second difficulty: to grasp the singularity of exceptional cases using a general theoretical model which does not presuppose any analogy between them. How can we therefore consider the comparison? a posteriori between singular cases of non-reproduction ?

Philosophical work inspired by sociology, ethnology but also literature, The Transclasses is also written in a language inspired by the art of the maxim of the classic moralists from Montaigne and Pascal to La Rochefoucauld and Chamfort. In its content as in its form, the book invites researchers in the social sciences to build up, so to speak, a true scientific complexion.

A political challenge for the social sciences

The book ultimately raises important political issues. If the existence of transclasses does not contradict the theory of reproduction, it does contradict it. It is contrary to it since it goes against it, but does not eliminate it since the very rarity of non-reproduction attests to the force of reproduction, in particular of the reproduction of the inequality of social classes. Transclasses therefore invite us to understand why and how, within a framework of given determinations, determinations other than those usually expected were expressed to give rise to an exceptional trajectory. Studying transclasses therefore allows us to understand the driving forces of historical change even in the absence of violent social revolution.

Also, from an individual point of view, non-reproduction indicates the possibility of inventing “ a new existence within an established order » (p. 7). Understanding such an invention requires the rejection of a double illusion: that of an absolutely free individual and that of an absolutely predetermined individual. The life of Pierre Bourdieu for example, studied by the author, shows that he was able, from of the contradictions of his complexion, reinvent himself, apart, by forging new practices of existence reproducing neither the norms of his environment of origin nor those of his environment of arrival. Furthermore, by capturing all of the social determinations which have produced the individual as he has become, the concept of emotional complexion largely ruins the pretensions of “ subject ” At “ deserved “. The work thus opens the way to a radical critique of one of the conceptual foundations of contemporary political liberalism.

From a collective point of view, the work shows that each individual carries multiple and competing social injunctions. In this sense, non-reproduction is never an individual phenomenon, but “ transindividual » (p. 96). The political challenge of the study of non-reproduction is therefore to link these singular experiences together. at first sight irreducible — a point left unanswered by the work. It is here that the author, in the wake of Michel Foucault, Didier Éribon and many others, insists on the possible intersection, without hierarchy, of non-reproduction struggles, whether biological or sexual. , racial or gendered (p. 21, 229-230). In the particular of all non-reproduction there is indeed the possibility of combating social violence, of inventing new norms and therefore of rethinking the human condition. For all these reasons, Chantal Jaquet is right to consider her beautiful book as “ a fighting book “.