(The Mediterranean centre for human sciences and the Mediterranean laboratory of sociology)
Collaboration and exchanges have been established between Christophe Rulhes and researchers, scholars and students from the Mediterranean laboratory of Sociology (LAMES) and the Department of Sociology of University Aix-Marseille. Together, they question such issues as the sense of place, the notion of boundary, the constitution of a person, etc.
These interviews and meetings then gave birth to “Rencontres à VIFS” (Lively Meetings with Livings). They took place in 2013 (with the collaboration of Théâtre du Merlan) as a link between Arts and academic Research in order to decompartmentalise each approach and show knowledge—in the field of sociology, mostly—under a different light.
The GdRA relishes inviting the general public to meet, share and exchange ideas on issues that may be interesting to one and all. So on Tuesday October 22, 2013 Pr. Sylvia Girel (sociologist, specialised in arts and culture, LAMES), Gabriel Mattéi (student preparing a M.A in sociology at University Aix-Marseille) and Constance de Gourcy (Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University Aix-Marseille, researcher working on new forms of territoriality in a migratory context, LAMES) discussed the notion of the person in relation to the everyday and theatre and tackled the formidable yet funny question: What is a person? On Wednesday October 23, 2013 Laura Centemeri (sociologist, CNRS researcher, LAMES/CNRS-AMU), Nadège Pandraud, PhD. (sociologist, Aix-Marseille University), Constance de Gourcy and Christophe Rulhes asked a slightly weird question: What is a territory? It came out as a fruitful discussion between Rulhes and Centemeri, who works on such issues as the impact of environmental damage on bodies, affects and the bonds between human and non-human. How can catastrophe be acknowledged and either repaired or not? On Thursday October 24, 2013 Nasser Tafferant (sociologist and documentary maker, researcher and junior lecturer at Lausane University working on the modes of resistance of the precariat), Christophes Rulhes and Constance de Gourcy tried to make the most of the following question: “What is identity?”; a question which may become desperately sad depending on the person, institution or parties asking it. Tafferant and Rulhes discussed one of the photographic works Tafferant led in Laussanne, Switzerland, in a squat occupied by Central Europe migrants. All through the exchange, Constance de Gourcy stood as a valuable mediator and showed a real thirst for the decompartmenlising of performance, reflection and expression places. Such exchanges will go on as the GdRA and these researchers planned to collaborate and invite one another regularly.
About Laura Centemeri:
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/01/01/60/67/PDF/06_Centemeri_copyedited_ASC-RV-LC.pdf
About Nasser Tafferant:
http://voixdexils.ch/tag/m-nasser-tafferant/
http://www.mouvements.info/Le-Bizness-une-economie.html
A wonderful article on Constance de Gourcy:
http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=ETHN_102_0349