Sciences humaines et sociales

In this article we will present some of the main findings arising from seminars and workshops that we have been holding for about five years as a way of thinking about photography and alterity together. First we clarify the meaning of “alterity” and then we consider the practice and use of photography in the social sciences as well as the closely aligned and complex relations that these practices and uses have with the perception and analysis of the process of alterization and alteration. Accordingly, we propose that photography can be, in addition to an excellent tool for the production of information, a different language, and complementary of the oral and written language in our scientific task of describing and understanding the meaning of the other in contemporary societies. We also examine the conditions necessary to make a photoethnography or a sociophotology possible.

Keywords: photography, alterity, relationship between text and image, social sciences

In this interview, Sylvain Maresca, Professor of Sociology at the University of Nantes and a Researcher at the Nantes’ Center of Sociology (CENS) and at the Laboratory of Contemporary Visual History (LHIVIC, EHESS, Paris), explains the origins of his sociological interest in photography. He describes the dilemma of the social sciences with respect to images, and emphasizes the delicate balance between text and images in working with photographs. In this article, he explains how digital tools enable researchers to explore new approaches to this issue. He also speaks about his teaching experience in relation to the production and use of images for the understanding of complexity in our contemporary everyday life.

Keywords: photography, production and use of images, relation text/image, digital technology, alterity

Writing ethnography with digital  technology.

This paper introduces the methodology of a field work conducted in a public square in Barcelona, which gives significant weight to the observation and attentive ears of the urban environment to reflect and find the better manner to communicate the results of this ethnography. To be able to present the material gathered (field work’s notes but too, sounds recordings and photographies), digital technologies (such as Cd-rom or web page format) offered us alternatives to break the linearity of text on paper and playing with the various materials (text, image, sound) obtained. Move from paper to digital format requires a rethinking of strategies of writing usually used and, in the case of anthropology, these are still deeply rooted in literary traditions of the nineteenth century.

Key words: writing, ethnography, photography, sounds, digital technology.

What Are the Implications of Flânerie in the Feminine at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century? Reflections of an Ethnographer at Work on the Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona

While undertaking an ethnography of a public square in Barcelona, I have been led to wonder about the figure of the flâneur and the difficulties of conceiving this figure in the feminine. Two theories about urban space are in conflict: one views public space as continuing the patriarchy of private space; the other sees public space as a site of freedom and self-development for women as well as men. This same tension is present in analyses of the figure of the flâneur, a figure often evoked when anthropologists work in urban contexts.

Moros, sudacas and guiris, a way to consider the human diversity in Barcelona

In the past, as well as today, here and everywhere, people have focused their thinking on classifying, and also, generally, to hierarchisize the human diversity in many different ways. But a taxinomical question have always emerged along history, involved in power relations, which are the inevitable context, in which this answer will be elaborated. Therefore, I will analyze how the barcelonian common sense organizes the "Others" who dwell in their city. I will observe the three words mentioned in the title (moros, sudacas and guiris), concentrating especially on the last one. I will try to trace the origin of the word, to consider the change of the meanning in its existence and the tools used to "put in boxes" some citizens, considered as different. As a summary, I will try to observe when and how the diversity becomes difference.

Key words: guiris/ foreigners /immigrants / perception of the "other one"

The public space use by the new neighbors of Casc Antic of Barcelona: continuity and innovations

To try to understand the urban and social practices of the different people who take up a specific neighbourhood (the Casc Antic of Barcelona), we suggest observing the (re)organization and the diferencial use of the public space by his various users. In this parte of the old city of Barcelona, which has been receiving immigration for a long time, there is a big diversity of people who are leaving marks in the urban landscape each one on its own way. Even if the urban space limits, it allows, as well to make personal modifications; adaptations marked by the old costums of the district or by the introdution of new elements. We propose studying here this mark that allows to point out differences often subtly started visualized by the decorations of the shops, fragances, colours, sounds, etc.

Keywords: Differential use of the public space/ manners to mark it/ etnic buisness/ living together/ migrations.

The aim of our paper is to present the initial findings of a research we are conducting in the frame of the project funded by the Spanish Government "Adoptions and fosterages in Spain: tracing Challenges, Opportunities and problems in the social and family lives of children and adolescents". It aims to reveal how international adoptees in Barcelona negotiate their double or multiple belonging when they perform in the public space. Getting around the city, conquering leisure spaces, and relating with pears away from the safety of parental presence, make them, in some cases, the object of stigmas and stereotypes of immigrant groups from the same countries of origin. For some of them, there is a difficult identity construction that can strengthen the culture they were socialized in or reject it. On the premise of the adoptees agency, we consider the uses both of public spaces and the stigmas as cultural tools that allow them to situtationally negotiate their status. At the same time, we raised the possibility of acceptance or rejection of the stigma. In both cases, the consequences in their sociability and family relationships should be assessed.

Three ethnographic outlines are retaken from the conclusions of three fieldworks carried out in Barcelona from 1996 to 2005: the first one is the result of the systematic observation made in an old district in transformation, the second one portrays the porterías of the city and the last one has Plaça de Catalunya as a subject of study.

Several reflections on the particular way to do fieldwork in urban contexts are presented, as well as the possibilities of an urban ethnography. The importance … [+]of observation as an anthropology research method is emphasized in opposition to other current tendencies that operate almost exclusively on the base of interviews. This leads to consider questions such as what does it mean to look at something or someone?, how do we look at?, why do we look at?

This work attempts to give some clues about the meaning of urbanity, in general, as well as about the Barcelonian urban society. The study starts by approaching a relatively closed and familiar space, porterías, to get to the anonymity of an urban public space such as Plaça de Catalunya, passing through the filter of the district, where the knowledge networks are narrower than in the heart of the city frequented by the crowd.

Without denying the contributions of the macro perspective and the imaginary approach, this work has been rather developed from a micro perspective considering what Pierre Sansot calls the sensible forms of the social life or what François Laplantine refers as modal anthropology.

These analyses were made from the spaces through the users who cross or occupy them. To insist on the notion of space implies to stop in the analysis of concepts such as spaces, places and territories. The space, taken as a constant construction, is then defined from the social practices, the programs of performance (from walking to the city-planning projects), or the speeches and the figurative representations. Therefore, in order to understand the dynamics of the constructed spaces, it is not enough to limit it to a mere abstract description of the surroundings and the routes. On the contrary, it is necessary to define the particular character of these elements as well as the interaction that these concrete manifestations generate on the spatial organization. In this sense, it is convenient to supplant the topologies and to replace them by choreographies, which implies a more attentive work on the movement and to approach the time, or even the "tempo".

... Título, Els museus d'etnologia i societat a debat. Presentació. Autor, Nadja Monnet. Autor, XavierRoigé. Editor, Quaderns-e de l Institut Català d Antropologia. Tipo, Peer-reviewed Article | null. Formato, application/pdf. Fuente, Quaderns-e de l Institut Català d Antropologia; Núm. ...

... Page 2. 70 Nadja Monnet ... En efecto, para una buena parte de las personas entrevistadas, se refiere a un marco de referencia familiar, que es considerado a veces como un lugar protector frente a la inmen-sidad ya las masas anónimas del resto de la ciudad. ...

La formación del espacio público es el resultado de un estudio realizado en 1996 en un barrio del Casc Antic, en el distrito Ciutat Vella de Barcelona. La investigación se sitúa en el terreno de la antropología urbana y propone una “observación flotante” como forma de ...

The ideas and opinions presented below are the result of two meetings organized jointly by the research group Contraplano - Documental Action’s Laboratory (Laboratori d'Acció Documental (LAD) of the Catalan Institute of Anthropology and the Laboratory Architecture / Anthropology (LAA) of the National School’s Architecture of Paris - La Villette that took place in June and October 2012 with the title "Document and understand the urban in the XXI century: dialogues between social scientists, architects and visual artists." These meetings were aimed to promote dialogue between researchers, practitioners of urban dynamics analysis and from different disciplines to meet and discuss ideas, ways of working and experiences at the intersection of the disciplines to initiate a collective reflection on the way we present and represent today urban phenomena. In our presentation we have chosen to maintain the chronological order of the experiences, pointing aspect on which we hope to continue working in future editions to establish a real dialogue which we would emerge interdisciplinary methodological and epistemological proposals for observation, analysis and understanding of our contemporary urban environments, as well as common tools to return the fruits of our research to main stakeholders: citizens.