Sociologies de la précarité et précarités de la sociologie

Abstract

The confrontation with regards to the notion of “vulnerability” according to the two perspectives of Henri Eckert and Mircea Vultur, correspond to the construction of an abyss at several levels. The question concerns effectively the conditions of relevancy and the limits of validity of sociological analysis. Whilst claims of the scientific character of sociology lead to affirmations about its autonomy as a discipline, will sociology remain forever the receptacle of the a priori ideologies which have impregnated its principal paradigms? Whilst the consideration of globalisation phenomena at the scale of “world society” asserts itself from what is now a shared space, will the settings of observations, analyses and interpretations of “social phenomena” remain implacably defined by historical and national contexts? In the contribution to this debate the author does not try to separate the two theses, but rather attempts to link them. He formulates the hypothesis that the interpretative divergences between the actors (and between sociologists) constitute, from an analytical and methodological point of view, privileged indicators of the social phenomena studied (here the employment market and its representations) of which the social construction is to be understood from the dynamics of conflicting cooperation.