This journal is published in French only.

Claude Vautier

In memoriam : Alain Desrosières et Raymond Boudon (p. 13–16)

Anne Robineau, Jean Valenti, and Martin Geoffroy

Avant-propos (p. 19–28)

Simon Laflamme

Some dialectics related to media and culture in Canadian Francophonia (Des dialectiques relatives aux médias et à la culture dans la francophonie canadienne) (p. 29–50)

Abstract:

Culture, in its sociological sense, results from a dialectic, an ongoing process, between symbolic systems and sets of individuals, on the one hand, and between individuals themselves and communities themselves on the other; in so being, it is information and communication. In societies highly defined by mass media, this dialectic operates in a continuous movement; but its momentum is also plural and this plurality brings into question the mere possibility of social identity. Operates, though, another dialectic, that one between homogenisation and differentiation. Media constitute one of the most determining factors of symbolic systems, and so, of identities. The messages they send are subject to a variety of competitive constraints, including those of economic and demographic nature, but as well those of perceptions and of the dialectic between message producers and receivers. A community, in contemporary times, can reproduce itself insofar as it is developing within this complexity. That is what we will intend to illustrate in this paper by emphasizing on Canadian Francophonia.

Keywords: Media and culture, minority, Canadian Francophonie, homogenisation, differentiation, arts.

Jean Valenti

Mediation and Identity in Self Story Telling. Freedom between Francization, New School Year, Discipline, and Eulogy (Récit de Soi médiatique et identitaire. La Liberté entre francisation, rentrée scolaire, discipline et éloge) (p. 51–84)

Abstract:

This article focuses on the column entitled “Dans nos écoles” (“In Our Schools”) in the Franco-Manitoban newspaper La Liberté (2006-2008). The author aims to show that the personal narrative used there explores certain strategies of self-identification in the context of the individual and society. He draws attention to terms such as francisation, the start of the school year and school discipline, while showing that the dialectic between Self and Other opens up a symbolic pathway through which the Other of Franco-Manitoban culture (the Anglophone world) implicitly enters. In this way, personal narrative, as a narrative form, becomes a source of mediation and memory. In order to clarify the object of his research, the author begins with a synthesis of the work carried out on identity in several fields of the social sciences. This synthesis not only highlights the complexity of the concept of identity, but also offers some guidelines without which it remains susceptible to numerous conceptual abuses.

Keywords: Identity, theories, Franco-Manitoban minority, Francophone media, youth representation, eulogy.

Ziyan Yang

Burden of Lightness: A Study on Kimchi d’Ook Chung (Le Fardeau de la légèreté : une étude de Kimchi d’Ook Chung) (p. 85–100)

Abstract:

As early as the birth of Quebec literature as part of the configuration of the Quebec national identity, the relationship between the capture of the Self and the understanding of the Other formed the focus of most literary works. Today, with the emergence of migrant or new Quebecois writers (differentiated from native Quebecois writers), the Self and the Other become entangled in that their boundaries disappear in a new form of writing known as “migrant writing”. This article examines the depiction of identity in the first novel Kimchi by Ook Chung, a Quebecois writer originally from East-Asia. We first rely on the works by Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur on the concept of identity to study the dialectic between the Self and the Other in the main character’s search for identity. Then, Chung’s language is analysed from a cross-cultural standpoint according to the concept of “hybridity” coined by Homi Bhabha. Finally, we examine the role of art and writing in the construction of identity in Chung’s novel.

Keywords: Identity, otherness, hybridity, writing, language, culture.

Lucie Hotte

Arts in the Service of Identity: The Role of Committee of Inquiry Reports in Minority Art Definition (Les Arts au service de l’identité : le rôle des rapports de comités d’enquête dans la définition de l’art minoritaire) (p. 101–117)

Abstract:

This article focuses on what the Franco-Canadian, and more specifically the Franco-Ontarian, elites expect from the artists and their productions in the context of the 1960’s and 1970’s social transformations. It particularly analyses the three investigation reports requested by the Ontarian government between 1969 and 1991: the Comité franco-ontarien d’enquête culturelle (commonly referred to as the Rapport Saint-Denis), the Groupe d’étude sur les arts dans la vie franco-ontarienne, entitled Cultiver sa différence. Rapport sur les arts dans la vie franco-ontarienne (or le Rapport Savard, presented in 1977) and the Groupe de travail pour une politique culturelle des francophones de l’Ontario, named RSVP. Clefs en main (or le Rapport Grisé, tabled in 1991). This analysis identifies the different roles, usually ones of social cohesion and identity building, that the elites would like the artists and their work to play. It also highlights the challenges faced by the artists in regard to the conceptions of art offered to, if not imposed upon them.

Keywords: Cultural politics, art and culture, engaged art, minority art, cultural mediation.

Pamela V. Sing

Literature and Community: Vitality and Acknowledgement of Far Ouest Francophone (Littérature et communauté : vitalité et reconnaissance du Far Ouest francophone) (p. 119–144)

Abstract:

For nearly a century, the field of “Franco-Albertan literature” meant the works of chiefly one writer. Up until the 1950s, that writer was Georges Bugnet, who originally from France, settled in Alberta soon after the latter became a province of Canada. From 1960 until the end of the century, Francophone Alberta’s writer was Marguerite-A. Primeau, who, born in the northern Albertan village of Saint-Paul-des-Métis, settled in Vancouver in 1954. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Alberta’s Francophone community has begun to come into its own, not only demographically, but also institutionally and culturally. This is reflected in the increased number of its literary artists, defined in this article as Francophones either born in Alberta, or who, originally from another part of the Francophone world, live and write in Alberta, or lived and wrote in Alberta. Compared to Franco-Manitoban, Franco-Ontarian or Acadian writers, Franco-Albertan writers are relatively few in number, but in terms of Francophone Alberta’s history, things are on the move. The community is at present less worried about survival issues and more concerned with questions related to its recognition. Whom do they seek to be recognized by? How are they going about obtaining that recognition? This article attempts to offer some elements of response to those questions while claiming a particularly important role for literary production.

Keywords: Vitality and recognition, community and literature, Francophone far West.

Anne Robineau

Inequalities and Minorization of Identities for Women Artists in Canadian Francophonia (Inégalités et minorisation des identités chez les femmes artistes dans la francophonie canadienne) (p. 145–174)

Abstract:

Even if women artists are wishing for recognition of their work, independently from their gender, language and belonging to a cultural group, their practices conditions are sometimes linked to these statuses. Through a sociodemographic study of French Canadian artists, we will analyze more specifically the data on women artists. We will show that, even if they have a higher education than man, women artists usually are considerably less paid for their services. We will also try to understand if minorization processes of women from professional artistic francophone communities can explain some gender inequalities and how the production of identity discourses (women, francophonie, linguistic minority) reinforce tensions between art and the identity perspective.

Keywords: Artists, women, Canadian Francophonie, inequalities, minorization.

Mélanie Girard

Power and Group Dynamics (Pouvoir et dynamique de groupe) (p. 177–208)

Abstract:

Phenomenology and its derivatives have long insisted on the idea that social beings are free in nature. As social sciences have evolved towards more complex theoretical models, the limits of these approaches have become more and more obvious. However, in order to fully apprehend these limits, a change in paradigm, from an acter-based to a relation-based perspective is necessary. With this change comes a reflexion on the notion of power as theorized by phenomenologically-oriented theories, that is to say as something which can be detained and therefore used by social actors. A relationnal approach conceives power otherwise; in fact, it poses that power, as an analytical category, is not useful in understanding human relations. Through a series of indicators, we have operationnalized the concept of power as conceptualized by actor-based models by confronting it to data. This paper discusses the results of this analysis, results which suggest that power, when defined as formally distributed, does not explain the way in which information circulates and is not useful in explaining human relations.

Keywords: Phenomenology, action, relationship, dynamic, power, formal power, informal power.

Mircea Vultur

Économie et société. Pistes de sortie de crise, Louis Favreau et Ernesto Molina, Presses de l’Université du Québec, coll. « Initiatives », 2011 (p. 209–214)

Gérard Divay

Innovation sociale et territoire. Convergences théoriques et pratiques, Guy Bellemare et Juan-Luis Klein (dir.), Québec, Presses de l’Université du Québec, coll. « Innovation sociale », 2011 (p. 215–218)

Omer Chouinard

L’Économie sociale, vecteur d’innovation. L’expérience du Québec, Marie J. Bouchard (dir.), préface de Riccardo Petrella, Québec, Presses de l’Université du Québec, coll. « Innovation sociale », 2011 (p. 219–222)

Chantale Beaucher

La Recherche d’extase chez les jeunes, Nicolas Ducournau, Jocelyn Lachance, Louis Mathiot et Meryem Sellami (dir.), Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval, coll. « Sociologie au coin de la rue », 2010 (p. 223–225)

Garry Potter

Integral Theory in Action: Applied, Theoretical, and Constructive Perspectives on the AQAL Model, Sean Esbjörn-Hargens (dir.), préface de Roger Walsh, postface de Ken Wilber, Albany (NY), State University of New York Press (SUNY Press), 2010 (p. 226–232)