Sociologies (Jun 2014)
De l’acteur à l’institution. Esquisse d’une sociologie de l’action d’aide
Abstract
The ethnographic approach initiated by Jeanne Favret-Saada has allowed to re-examine the mode of participation of researchers in their proper field of inquiry. In particular, she has succeeded in showing how field studies in which ethnographers actually occupy a place in interaction can be rich and useful. Furthermore, her ethnographic practice has inspired a sociology that sees social activities as systems of places – a view that is extended and deepened by actual pragmatic sociology. Based on an ethnographic study of a food aid association, this paper aims to understand the functioning of a specific aid system that consists, by definition, of two complementary places – the helper and the helped – and to shed light on interactions between volunteers and beneficiaries. The focus of analysis takes an exemplary situation to show how the aid system exerts pragmatic and moral constraints on the individuals occupying these places. Finally, this article demonstrates how the aid association, as an institution, acts on the actors and how the actors themselves act on the institution by mobilizing, using and even subverting it.
