Relation! Is there a more celebrated word in the social sciences? It is much more celebrated than society, culture, or action. It is transversal to all of them and less polemical than each. Society and culture have always been considered central theoretical entries and, simultaneously, exposed to questioning more or less strong objections. When society and culture become obsolete, actions and individuals are proposed, but they soon come under criticism from their detractors. Relation is the ideal compromise, the diplomatic word. It is between society, the individual, and action. One may hesitate to say that one has seen a society. We see relations all the time. Research themes, explanatory concepts, working methods – everything passes through the relationship in the social sciences. Thus, this chapter notes their omnipresent references to the idea of relation as it analyzes and describes turned-toward-the-others individuals. It proposes to review the positions of Levi-Strauss, Goffman, Bourdieu, and Latour in critical form. As for the existence of each human singularity, of each individual: Where is it? Is it not in danger of being absorbed by the “all-relation”?

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Getting out of the Relation and into an Anthropology of Existents

  • Albert Piette

摘要

Relation! Is there a more celebrated word in the social sciences? It is much more celebrated than society, culture, or action. It is transversal to all of them and less polemical than each. Society and culture have always been considered central theoretical entries and, simultaneously, exposed to questioning more or less strong objections. When society and culture become obsolete, actions and individuals are proposed, but they soon come under criticism from their detractors. Relation is the ideal compromise, the diplomatic word. It is between society, the individual, and action. One may hesitate to say that one has seen a society. We see relations all the time. Research themes, explanatory concepts, working methods – everything passes through the relationship in the social sciences. Thus, this chapter notes their omnipresent references to the idea of relation as it analyzes and describes turned-toward-the-others individuals. It proposes to review the positions of Levi-Strauss, Goffman, Bourdieu, and Latour in critical form. As for the existence of each human singularity, of each individual: Where is it? Is it not in danger of being absorbed by the “all-relation”?