CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

When French Social Sciences Meet Cultural Studies

Organiser: Eric Maigret

Maigret, Eric (Université de Paris 3, France) WHY DID WE HAVE SO MANY GREAT SOCIOLOGISTS IN FRANCE AND SO LITTLE CULTURAL STUDIES ?
Until recently, Cultural Studies have seemed to be out of the french landscape. The reasons are now known : the strong impact of the sociology of culture led by Pierre Bourdieu and the development of the semiological trends have both contributed to a very critical view of the "cultural industries", in a general context of elitism. Yet, many researchers have challenged these dominant paradigms, arguing for more understanding of the industries and of the audiences. Certeau is very famous for 20 years but Morin and Passeron are still unknown abroad. Today, there is a surprising misunderstanding between France, the USA and Great Britain. For many observers, british or american Cultural Studies have exhausted their critical potential and look for more left attitude in France (especially with Bourdieu) … but most of the french researchers look for "cultural" policies or new paradigms! This misunderstanding is not the first nor the last - and not necessarily useless.

Macé, Eric (Université de Paris 3, France) FROM MEDIA TO MEDIATION : SOCIOLOGY OF "AVATARS" AS SOCIOLOGY OF ACTION
This paper proposes to consider the products of our cultural industries as specific forms of representation of the "reality" of the social world, in other words, as one of its "avatars". In order to comprehend these avatars through a sociological approach, we start from an insider's standpoint (Edgar Morin vs Roland Barthes) which shows how mass culture products are typical (as ambivalent, syncretic, reversible and ambiguous). We then suggest to re-inscribe them within the frame of a general theory of action, pointing out how these products are continually the object of a struggle for definition and interpretation within the private and the public spheres (Alain Touraine, Howard Becker and Bruno Latour vs Pierre Bourdieu).

Couldry, Nick (London School of Economics, United Kingdom) BOURDIEU AND CULTURAL STUDIES: THE MISSING LINK?
Notwithstanding some harsh public statements against 'cultural studies' (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999), there is surprising common ground between Bourdieu's recent reflections (1999) on the gap between social theory and 'experience', and historic concerns of cultural studies. This paper explores such connections, looking in detail at Bourdieu's methodological writings, their strengths and limitations. The Weight of the World makes a major contribution to the unresolved search to reconcile structural factors (such as symbolic inequality) with the fine grain of individual experience. This is however only one of many fruitful connections between French social theory and international cultural studies in both directions (why not an exchange between Alain Touraine and Francois Dubet's work on 'experience' and Elspeth Probyn's work, and so on?). The paper argues for a renewed dialogue between the Anglo-American and French traditions, aimed at advancing our analysis of the complexity of contemporary mediated cultures.

Mignon, Patrick (INSEP, France) SPORT, ROCK AND OTHER DAILY LIFE OBJECTS IN FRENCH REPUBLICS
The absence of French researches in the field of cultural studies could be analysed at two distinct levels. One is the social status of popular culture (including working class culture or mass culture) in French society because of the specific history of French nation and the role of culture in this history; second is the history of the relations between social sciences, philosophy and the social life objects. Sport, rock or pop music, could give a good example of the articulation of this two levels as we can see now at the same time the growing importance of sport and pop music in French society and growing interest for pop or mass culture among French researchers. To understand this situation, we would like to explore some hypothesis about the changes in the role of politics and culture as framework for the definition of identities.

Allard, Laurence (Université Lille 3, France) SEMIOLOGY AFTER THE CULTURAL TURN : AUDIENCE AND MASS-MEDIA, BETWEEN PRAGMATICS AND SOCIOLOGY
Obviously many recent french studies dealing with movie and TV audience, from reception studies to sociological approaches, have been inspired by Cultural Studies (especially relationships between gender and reception ). These studies will be presented and criticized regarding their difficulties to articulate readers models and social membership. In order to overcome some of theses difficulties we shall recall and examine in some depth the common semiological background they share with Cultural Studies, from Barthes to Hall.