Page 12 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

9781412934633-FM 1/12/09 4:18 PM Page xi

Preface

Michel Wieviorka,
President,
International Sociological Association

In our era, which is apparently dominated on movement and the masters of their work
the one hand, by violence, communally based (the employers). This conflict structured col-
divisions of all kinds, and war, and, on the lective life well beyond the places where it
other, by phenomena of exclusion and social was initiated. Politics, notably the left/right
vulnerability, and the intensification of indi- cleavage, was informed by this, as were many
vidualism connected with economic global- other social or cultural movements, including
ization; how refreshing it is to encounter those of students, grass roots associations,
discussions of competition, or at least of con- peasants, consumers, families, movements
flict – that is, of conflictual relations and not for children’s education, and so on.
of impasses – and of cooperation! But we are no longer concerned with those
In the period from the end of World War II conflicts. The Cold War is behind us, and by
to the mid-1970s, there were two great con- and large, the workers’ struggles have lost
flicts which constituted a double principle their centrality, their ability to make the pro-
structuring the world, at least for a number of letariat the main actor in collective life, the
societies, especially in the West. The Cold one who is called upon to lead.
War, in which the threat of nuclear attack The post-War years were also those of decol-
played a major role as a deterrent, regulated onization, and today we often have the feeling
the opposition between two blocs, except for of living in societies where the debates and the
an exceptional moment of crisis which was problems owe a good deal to the impact of the
quickly resolved (the affair of the Cuban mis- end of the colonial era. This is true both in the
siles). This made it possible for the planet to formerly colonized as well as in the formerly
avoid violence between the two super- colonizing societies which, in fact, now often
powers. Ultimately, they never made war receive fairly large-scale migrations from their
directly and never went too far locally, former colonies. In some ways, we may say
because a local war always carried the risk of that we are orphans of two great conflicts
expanding into a confrontation at the which were the Cold War and the struggles of
summit, which neither the West nor the East the workers’ movements. Moreover, from the
wanted. logic of the shattering of colonialism, we see
And in the industrialized countries, at any the growth of new highly charged conflicts
rate in the West, social relations took the form based on cultural and historical factors as well
of a central oppositional conflict, in the factory as on collective memories. These conflicts are
and in the workshop, between the workers’ sometimes described as ‘post-colonial’.