Thanks to an enlargement of the sociology of the sociology of mobilizations, the journal file Genes“ set up in a constraint situation », Allows to deepen the relations between social movements and authoritarian regimes, and thus demonstrate the low relevance of this last epithet.
This review of the review Genes Dedicated to the commitment in a constraint, brings together four articles on Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Colombia. By choosing to operate a geographical decenter of the sociology of mobilizations, usually confined to European and North American spaces, their authors give us reading and understanding protest practices that take shape in so-called transitional political spaces and by situations of strong uncertainty about the management of their repression by the state authorities. They also invite us to think about “ methods of restitution of unofficial or risky practices “(P.5) Since they testify to the dilemma, underlined in the introductory text of Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle and Frédéric Vairel, between the need to protect his sources and will to remain as faithful as possible to the data collected. Nevertheless, the heterogeneity of the land and the conditions for collecting the ethnographic material that does not allow to draw, once the reading of this file is completed, a uniform conclusion which would transcend the typicity of the cases, it is also on the contribution of each text taken individually that you have to look.
The sociology of mobilizations with regard to four atypical land
By investigating Cuba, and more particularly a collective of young teachers, researchers and cultural officials, Marie Laure Geoffray intends to wonder about “ The way in which certain informal groups have managed to create more free spaces and to work, from the inside, to social practices and imaginations (P.7-8). It is therefore less mobilizations in the strict sense that there is a question here than a “ Contestation of low intensity (allowing) the “co-production” of the transformation of the revolutionary regime “(P.27) To the extent that, with the exception of a few rare dissident initiatives, the Cuban militant field remains widely controlled by the State. This does not prevent the author from summoning well -known concepts of the sociology of mobilizations such as those of trajectory and commitment. It thus shows for example that the actors of the studied collective share, despite different social origins, the same experience of loss of bearings due to the dissonance between a revolutionary socialization and the radical crisis caused by the collapse of theUSSR as well as “ common provisions for the commitment to renovated socialism »(P.12), which can partly be explained by international connections providing alternative political referents.
Montserrat Emperador is interested in demonstrations of unemployed graduates in Morocco, considering that these constitute “ A good analyzer of the internal dynamics of social movements and the implications of the authoritarian liberalization policy (P.31) at work in this country. It indeed shows the ambivalent status of these manifestations which, on the one hand, legitimately the speeches on the political transition insofar as they are most of the time tolerated and, on the other, come up against the unpredictability of the repressive response. Hence the following conclusion which could find its place without too much surprise in many other work on mobilizations but takes, in the Moroccan context of political liberalization, a particular coloring: “ The relative uncertainty of the police response is a principle of management which aims to erode the benchmarks on which activists build the “rationality” of their action (…), a powerful weapon of discouragement and competition (P.43).
In his study on the 2005 elections in Saudi Arabia, Pascal Ménoret proposes to question the hegemonic conception of politicization as a long learning process by showing that, in the Saudi case, becoming a voter can be done quickly. This specificity is explained by the fact that, in this country, one becomes a voter not “ By learning an abstract role or by defeating himself from his affiliations, but in the very extension of social roles and religious networks, which a priori hostile to the very idea of election (P.51). It is thus by the conversion of a preexisting habitus largely determined by the Islamic anchoring that electoral habitus develops. Pascal Ménoret underlines the paradox that exists in the fact that the Saudi voter is the product of Islamist groups which do not recognize democratic vote and it makes this paradox the cornerstone of its argument. He thus shows that by proposing to the voters, mostly undecided, political training and information that the State is unable to issue (through “ electoral tents », Sending by Sms lists of “ good candidates “, Etc.), the sheikhs become” Election entrepreneurs ” Who “ make the vote (P.67).
Angela Santamaria Chavarro, by studying the trajectory of two Colombians who took refuge in Australia and engaged in the denunciation of the Tierra Blanca massacre, is interested in “ victims construction process (P.77) through the mobilization of legal, media and international resources at a transnational level. It intends to show the tensions that are likely to produce the accession to international lobbying of a new generation of militants not very endowed with economic and school capital – to which Dora belongs, one of the two surveyed – and their necessary alliance with Other actors with larger resources – such as Rosa, the second surveyed. In the case of the two women, whose trajectories she relates in detail, Angela Santamaria Chavarro notes that “ A struggle for monopoly and the mobilization of the “capital of the victim” (settled) within the international campaign between the political refugee and the indigenous leader (P.90). This ethnographic case also serves as a focal length to observe more broadly the process of internationalization of the cause studied, its different stages, its challenges and the conditions for its success.
When the constraint is exercised
Several works, works or thematic files published in French -speaking social science journals have recently highlighted the contributions and limits of the ethnographic survey, as well as the difficulties which incumbent on certain terrains generally qualified as sensitive, mined or at risk ( Agier, 1997 ; Albera, 2001 ; Cefaï and Admirals, 2002 ; Boumaza and Campana, 2007). If they do not present methodological reflection on their relationship to the object as the central dimension of their approach, the different articles of this issue of Genes invite us to think about the commitment of the actors studied in a constraint as that of the researcher who studies them. How indeed not wonder about the conditions for collecting a material subject to the vagaries of an investigation carried out in political contexts marked by uncertainty ? On this point, we will sometimes regret reading the file that the reflexive return made by the authors on their approach is not as advanced as the introduction suggests.
Pascal Ménoret is thus the only one to propose a substantive reflection on the challenges of an investigation in a country “ renowned for its extremely repressive policy in political and moral matters (P.52). In a box, he listed and decrypts the various difficulties he was confronted with, giving his article a real methodological added value. The other three researchers are evolving, of course, on land not having such a clear political closure as Saudi Arabia and we can therefore assume the issues linked to their lesser presence on site. However, there is a lack of reflection on their positioning and on the restitution of the data which goes beyond the simple evocation of anonymization made by Marie Laure Geoffray and by Angela Santamaria Chavarro, respectively in a succinct box and in a footnote.
In the Cuban case, we learn that the author participated in the organization of the collective studied and that the “ shared interests in political, intellectual and research (him) allowed to build a relationship of trust »(P.8) with his respondents. But nothing is known about the way in which this proximity was able to play in the development of its questions or in the course of the field. Regarding Angela Santamaria Chavaro, it could have been interesting to know more about the way she managed the proximity that seems to have created between her and these two militants of the Colombian Aboriginal cause encountered in Australia, which she Describes interactions, often conflicting, without really wondering about the issues of their own presence by their side. Montserrat Emperador, on the other hand, exploits extensively to the notes of land taken during his observations, giving his text a certain ethnographic depth. But we would have liked to know his position during the demonstrations observed. Where was it exactly ? How was she perceived by those around him (demonstrators, police, passers-by, etc.) ? How did she experience the violence she describes as suffered by her respondents and who is wondering if she too had to pay the price ?
Beyond this methodological aspect which can sometimes lead the reader to remain hungry, this set emerges from many particularly stimulating reflections. The articulation made between mobilizations and societal and government changes occurring in the contexts studied is one of them and merit all the more of being emphasized as it is often lacking in the work on activism (Siméant and Sawicki , 2010: 22). This articulation leads the reader in particular to note “ The low consistency of the concept (authoritarianism) and its unusable character (P.6) In the contributions in question here. Indeed, while we could have expected to discover investigative situations marked by an open repression, we discover a variety of responses to described mobilizations ranging from “ let go (P.6) In the case of Moroccan demonstrations to the threat of direct sanctions towards intellectuals in Cuba. It thus appears that the notion of constraint, if it sometimes appears blurred because of the limited use which is made of it in the different contributions, is nevertheless particularly suitable to understand the question of “ activism games in political spaces in transition (P.7) to which this file invited.