(SCL2) Aspects négligés de la sphère civile dans la sociologie culturelle : tester l’extension et les limites d’un concept

La sphère civile est devenue un thème central de la sociologie culturelle, dû principalement aux efforts de Jeffrey Alexander de la situer au cœur des activités politiques dans une perspective sociétale (Alexander, 2006, 2019). Du fait que le concept de sphère civile est le lieu principal de la participation à la vie sociale et de sa médiation, il recouvre en principe un large éventail de l’existence de tout un chacun. Au surplus, en mettant l’accent sur la dimension performative des expressions symboliques émanant des discours politiques en général et des mouvements sociaux en particulier, la sociologie culturelle présente une image générale de la sphère civile comme représentation dramatique de la vie sociale constamment aux prises avec les distinctions ou oppositions binaires de sa définition normative (bon vs mauvais, civil vs non-civil, démocratique vs anti-démocratique, etc.). Mais y a-t-il justement des limites à l’extension de la sphère civile en tant que concept ? Comment certains aspects moins « spectaculaires » (tels que les interactions quotidiennes, celles fondées sur des médias numériques, ou des structures symboliques historiques enfouies, etc.) peuvent-ils contribuer au développement, à l’expansion ou au maintien de la sphère civile ? Y a-t-il par ailleurs des aspects spécifiques ou des dimensions complètes de cette civilité collective qui sont négligés lorsque l’on en vient à penser la sphère civile ? De telles questions, basées sur des interrogations théoriques ou des recherches empiriques, seront soulevées dans le cadre de cette session thématique. Il s’agira de les poser ou d’y répondre par des contributions pouvant correspondre tant à des évaluations, des interprétations ou des révisions internes du concept ou de la théorie de la sphère civile qu’à des critiques externes leur étant adressées (privilégiant par exemple la perspective d’une approche théorique, empirique ou conceptuelle concurrente de la vie sociale). Tags: Culture, Théorie

Organizers: Charles Berthelet, École des hautes études en sciences sociales / Université du Québec à Montréal, Jean-François Côté, Université du Québec à Montréal; Chair: Fuyuki Kurasawa, York University

Presentations

Neil Wegenschimmel, University of Waterloo

The uncivil sphere: How the digital age is fracturing truth and meaning, and undermining social-civil solidarity

The neo-modernist framework of Jeffrey Alexander’s civil sphere offers a vast lens for understanding how complex democracies manage inherent and inevitable tensions, engage in civil maintenance, and ultimately achieve civil incorporation. Despite the many insights offered by Alexander’s framework, the contemporary civil sphere finds itself anchored in still-modernist institutional mechanics that render it ill-equipped to grapple with escalating social and political challenges that have emerged since the 2010s. I offer a theoretical account of the limitations of a neo-modernist civil sphere amidst the rapid evolution of technology and digital networks that has taken place post-2006 (the year Alexander’s book was published), and how the forces unleashed in this period are threatening to destroy the civil fabric in dangerously accelerated ways. At the center of this work is a theoretical model that explores the relationships between cognition, shared reality, meaning-making, and truth discernment. I expound upon the concept of epistemosis: a psychosocial state that renders individuals unable, and perhaps unwilling, to discern what is true and real. This synthesized framework incorporates elements of existential and political psychology as well as sociology, philosophy, and political science. This study scrutinizes the intricate interplay between information proliferation and overabundance, emotionally charged narratives, and the hyperreal information-sharing environment that is the internet, to demonstrate how this combination of forces engenders a pervasive sense of suspicion toward reality itself, creating an environment conducive to the growing polarization of recent years, and beyond that, the ominous possibility of “reality collapse.” This research contends that this erosion of shared reality imperils both individual self-perception and the foundational principles of liberal democratic societies, thus bypassing traditional mechanisms of civil maintenance and repair that are core to the civil sphere framework. As part of this story, I will present recent empirical work on the perception of radicalization of political and social life in the United States. These studies delve into whether the perception of growing radicalization is correlated with an increased openness to extremism and authoritarianism. This study postulates a significant link between the perception of radicalization and measures of authoritarianism, political orientation, personal uncertainty, loneliness, and media consumption habits. It also provides empirical evidence that growing bi-partisan radicalism is rooted in problems of information and understanding. Furthermore, an archival analysis of ideologically motivated violence in the United States over time was conducted to discern whether psychological perceptions align with observable societal changes. Taken together, this work confronts some of the novel risks posed to liberal democracy and assesses their implications for a well-functioning civil sphere. Additionally, it investigates the intricate relationships between perceived societal radicalization, authoritarianism, and the erosion of shared reality in the digital age. This research tasks itself with the urgency of adapting theoretical frameworks to the rapidly evolving socio-political landscape, and developing new ways of understanding fast-moving social, civil, and technological changes. As societies grapple with these challenges, understanding the evolving factors at play is imperative for safeguarding democracy, civil rights, and sustainable futures. This work does not assume that models like the civil sphere are deficient — far from it — but rather explores the possibility that we are in genuinely new territory, and thus in need of a roadmap for recalibrating theoretical frameworks to update and position the civil sphere firmly in the 21st-century. It hopes to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the democratic future and societal cohesion in the face of unprecedented ecological challenges, growing authoritarianism, and a shifting global political order, so that we might continue, in the words of Alexander (2006), to “find new possibilities for justice.”

Charles Berthelet, École des hautes études en sciences sociales / Université du Québec à Montréal

Sociétalisation des problèmes sociaux et objectivation des sociétés concrètes : le cas de l'éconationalisme au Québec

Dans son moment initial, l’élaboration d’un concept sociologique de sphère civile par Jeffrey Alexander (2006) poursuivait deux objectifs davantage complémentaires que concurrents : pour le sociologue étatsunien, il s’agissait d’une part de contribuer à l’étude des sociétés démocratiques (précisément en tant que démocratiques) dans la perspective privilégiée de la sociologie, notamment culturelle ; d’autre part, il lui importait de produire un concept résolument sociologique à partir des impulsions premières fournies par la thématisation philosophique de la société civile, considérée comme particulièrement porteuse en vue de l’accomplissement du premier objectif (Alexander, 1997). De cette double entreprise théorique est ressorti un concept de sphère civile à la fois marqué par une forte idéalité qu’Alexander situe aux fondements même de la démocratie par la mise en pratique des valeurs tant de civilité et de solidarité que d’égalité et de réciprocité qui la sous-tendent et la soutiennent, de même que par une profonde concrétude dû aux nécessaires activation, actualisation et incarnation de ces dernières au sein d’institutions sociétales particulières. S’il le mentionne de façon allusive ou y souscrit plus ou moins implicitement dans la foulée de ses propres analyses, Alexander ne fait toutefois pas grand cas de l’ancrage ou de l’enracinement de ces institutions au sein de cultures spécifiques (elles aussi à la fois sociétales et particulières), ni de l’arrimage éventuel entre les élans communicatifs de sphères civiles concrètes ou situées et les visées expressives et distinctives de telles cultures. Afin de contribuer à combler une telle lacune, cette communication reprendra la notion de « sociétalisation des problèmes sociaux » élaborée par Alexander (2019) dans le cadre plus général de sa sociologie culturelle et de la théorie de la sphère civile, en montrant qu’un tel processus ne consiste pas seulement en la constitution ou en une diffusion d’une problématique sociale ou institutionnelle à l’échelle sociétale de même qu’à sa reprise ou sa relance par des acteurs de la sphère civile au sein de ses institutions régulatrices, mais également en la constitution et en la consolidation d’une société (en tant que telle) et de ses frontières symboliques. C’est notamment ce que permet d’avancer le cas de l’éconationalisme québécois. En effet, depuis les années 2000 semble s’être formé au Québec une conscience écologique revêtue en tant que marqueur de différenciation identitaire dans le contexte de l’expression d’un nationalisme minoritaire en Amérique du Nord – qu’il s’agisse d’ainsi faire rayonner la personnalité distincte du Québec dans le cadre de la promotion de sa quête d’autonomie dans l’ensemble fédératif canadien ou de mousser certaines velléités d’indépendance. Il s’agira alors de montrer comment cet éconationalisme s’avère le résultat cumulatif de processus de sociétalisation de « problèmes environnementaux » (à commencer par les campagnes populaires contre la construction d’oléoducs sur le territoire québécois) dont les élans civils ont prêté certaines significations à des objectivations sur le plan identitaire, significations qui ont alors imprégné la conception même que certains acteurs civils, sociaux et politiques se font de la société québécoise, d’une manière qui leur permet dès lors d’envisager ou dimaginer des pistes d’« avenirs communs ».

Elliot Fonarev, University of Toronto

Moral contestation and ways of seeing social crisis, self and other, and civil obligations: a study of Jewish boundary making processes

Since the ongoing crisis in Israel-Palestine recaptured Western political and media attention in October 2023, a proliferation of frames and discourses have presented Jewish people residing outside of the State of Israel with seemingly competing epistemic and moral paradigms through which to interpret global and local events, their identities, and relationships. What do people reach towards to find comfort at a time of community pressure, and what cultural pathways are opened or closed in the process? Alexander (2023) uses the concept of societalization to suggest that we perceive a social dispute as antisemitism when we see it as something more than a routine social problem that affects particular victims, and rather as something that has reached a crisis level of moral concern for the civil sphere. Jewish entry into an unpolluted position in the civil sphere in the second half of the twentieth century in turn involved a "bargain of assimilation", one contigent on among other things incomplete societalization (Alexander 2023, p. 255). However, Grobgeld and Bursell (2021, p. 185) argue that "the feeling of ethnic pride and alienation that results from anti-Semitic persecution often itself motivates Jews to seek out 'Jewish culture' which they previously had no knowledge of" and thereby informs ethnic solidary in people. Further, collective memory (Zerubavel 1996) and productions of the past in the present (Valocchi 2012) shapes constructions of peoplehood and diasporic identity. Diasporazation has been traditionally thought to mobilize groups through collective and self-definition related to feeling of attachment or connection to a 'back home' place (Fron and Voytiv 2021, p. 211), though exogenous geopolitical events can siphon attention to other places and reshape diasporic identity formations in response to both exogenous and endogenous factors (Shams 2020). Thus long variable migration histories among Jewish communities has resulted in multi-layered diasporic identities and constructions of self and belonging in connection to place, while sustaining a sense of collectivity. Moreover, social stratification shapes the sense of belonging. Some sociologists studying belonging have drawn on Bourdieu's "sense of place" (Bourdieu 1977) to emphasize belonging in terms of relations to place and materiality that "makes us feel good about our being and our being- in-the-world; a relation that is fitting, right or correct" (Miller 2003, p. 218). What happens to these feelings of fit and formations when public attention is split across seemingly competing moral and epistemic narratives that engage questions about place and identity? This paper examines preliminary results and next steps in a qualitative study that attempts to make sense of how Jewish people in Toronto are reconfiguring and re-examining their views of identity, peoplehood, community structure, and future. I will first present preliminary data of online discourse from digital media content producers, showing how these cultural interlocutors take on and circulate competing epistemic positions, frames, and symbols about Jewish identity and experience while providing interpretive commentary on the politics of and events in Israel-Palestine that affect Jewish communities. Thinking with and about these competing discourses, I consider the extent and limits of the civil sphere in helping to make sense of distinct cultural, moral, and spatiotemporal repertoires about identity, diasporic origins, belonging, and recognition, and ask how these might inform different (and often presented as mutually exclusive) ways of seeing social crisis, self and other, and moral obligations for demonstrating social solidarities. I then consider methodological questions about how to link cultural repertoires with schemas and self-definitions in further empirical examination of boundary making processes in Jewish communities.

Jean-François Côté, Université du Québec à Montréal

Les dimensions transnationale et transculturelle de la sphère civile

Le concept de sphère civile proposé par Alexander s’applique avant tout aux manifestations actuelles de la société, ainsi qu’en témoignent les nombreux ouvrages publiés dans cette voie portant sur les États-Unis (Alexander, 2006) ou d’autres contextes comme l’Amérique latine, la Scandinavie ou l’Asie du sud-est (Alexander, Tognato, 2018 ; Alexander, Lund, Voyer, 2019 ; Alexander, Palmer, Park, Ku, 2019). Cela signifie que le concept de sphère civile possède des dimensions à la fois transnationale et transculturelle, comme Alexander le relève lui-même dans une théorisation précoce de ses sources dans les contextes de l’Antiquité ou de la modernité européenne bourgeoise. Dans cette communication, nous nous interrogerons sur ces dimensions transnationales et transculturelles de la sphère civile dans son contexte actuel, mais également en fonction de ses racines plus lointaines, en faisant appel entre autres à des conceptions de l’anthropologie de Fernando Ortiz et de la psychanalyse de Georges Devereux. Nous soutenons que ces dimensions transnationale et transculturelle de la sphère civile doivent tenir compte de ces apports théoriques dans l’application que l’on fait du concept dans divers contextes nationaux et culturels, qui viennent en retour nourrir le concept de sphère civile lui-même. Cette communication intervient dans le cadre d’une interrogation sur la portée et les limites du concept de sphère civile tel que proposé par Jeffrey C. Alexander.

Mervyn Horgan, University of Guelph

Spheres, Bubbles, Planets: thinking scale, space, and ephemeral effervescence

The best kinds of social theory are necessarily two-faced. They engage with both the embodied reality of everyday life shared by consociates—the ‘paramount reality of the lifeworld’ (Schutz)—and the grander scale of abstract, largely invisible, social structures that organize so many facets of our lives and experiences, both collectively and individually. Building out of cultural sociological insights around the centrality of performance, discourse, symbols and collective representations to social life, with civil sphere theory, Alexander (2006) offers a macro-level, normatively-oriented, empirically-grounded theory that treats the civil sphere as a relatively autonomous sphere of social life. The civil sphere’s animating principle and governing logic centres on solidarity. That’s said, because civil sphere theory’s initial iteration rested exclusively on US cases, the boundaries of the civil sphere were treated as coincident with the boundaries of the nation: expanded inclusion in the civil sphere is tied to expanded conceptions of national solidarity. Consequently, most early studies focused on national media, national politics, national institutions, and national social movements. While developed in the US using US cases, over the last 20 years civil sphere theory has increasingly globalized, with some positing the existence of a transnational, or even global, civil sphere. Given the theory’s universalist aspirations, this scalar movement upward from the national to the transnational and/or global is both analytically ambitious and politically prudent. That said, if civil sphere boundaries are coeval with national boundaries, then solidarity is necessarily restricted, for example by risking being subsumed under state projects or coopted by populist nationalism. Conversely, if the civil sphere operates at smaller scales and in more everyday spaces, it may become more difficult to delineate how its principles can diffuse more broadly. This paper’s aims are substantially less grand than the original theory, but ambitious nonetheless: to conceptualize and spatialize the civil sphere at smaller scales in ordinary spaces. To do this, I outline some lineaments of an emerging everyday interactional turn in civil sphere theory specifically, and in cultural sociology more generally. Using the ‘sphere’ as a generative image, I treat these smaller scales and ordinary spaces as ‘bubbles’. Reated as a metaphor, Liinamaa (2022: 169) notes that bubbles simultaneously connote “fragility and protection”. Bubbles are porous. They expand and contract. They float. They stick. They can burst. Significantly, tensions between internal and external pressures shape their surface and give them a tenuous structure. Bubbles too are associated with effervescence - that fizzing up and flowing over characteristic of lived, embodied solidarity, albeit ephemeral. Reflecting on a wide range of applications, cases, and critiques of civil sphere theory by colleagues across Canada (Alexander and Horgan, forthcoming), in this paper I consider some possibilities and problems that arise when we move ideas and concepts from the big stuff of spheres to the small stuff of bubbles.