[ecrea] CFP International Symposium - "Giving voice to the voiceless? Actors, strategies and discourse"

*Call for paper*

*Giving voice to the voiceless?*

*Actors, strategies and discourse*

**

**

Although the problem of freedom of expression has long dominated 
thinking and debate about the functioning of public arenas, the question 
of access to legitimate expression for the most powerless social groups 
has, over recent decades, become a public problem in its own right. The 
conditions under which these groups have access to public expression, 
and the audibility of their discourse, are now questioned by many actors 
(associations, trade unions, political parties, intellectuals, social 
workers, journalists, and so on) who are proposing strategies designed 
to “give voice to the voiceless”. The objective of this symposium is to 
examine, within an interdisciplinary perspective, the modalities, forms 
and issues surrounding these offers to the powerless to have their 
voices heard: the actors who are promoting them, the strategies shaping 
them and the discourses accompanying them.


The social sciences, especially political sociology and, indeed, social 
history, have until now focused mainly on the conditions of access and 
legitimacy of speech for dominated groups or those with “limited 
resources” in the areas where public debate is developed: among workers, 
immigrants, dissenters, ethnic and sexual minorities, the homeless, the 
excluded, women, children and young people^^[1] . These groups are 
sometimes classed into categories such as “the unheard”, “the 
invisible”, “the faceless”, “vulnerable members of the public”, or 
“menial groups”.^^[2] There is little research focusing on the 
categorisation which contributes to the very existence of these groups, 
whether it is led by those specialising in social problems (state 
agencies; professionals working in information, socio-cultural 
leadership or health; social workers; militants; artists; and so on) or 
by researchers themselves^^[3] . The latter have had the opportunity to 
question (EHESS, March 2016) the conditions of collection, audibility, 
credibility and intelligibility of words spoken by the “voiceless”^^[4] .

The American anthropologist James Scott considers that occasions when 
authentic speech by “menials” is heard publicly are the exceptions 
rather than the rule, and that it is more often expressed in a covert 
manner or disguised in confined spaces, which are often difficult for 
historians or ethnologists to access. We might question the processes 
and agents who help publicise this “hidden transcript” and the effects 
that their interventions may produce on this. We might also question the 
nature and texture of this speech, which is all the more difficult for 
the researcher to access given that he never finds it in its “raw” 
state, but always partially transformed by the mechanisms determining 
its conditions of enunciation and reception. In what circumstances and 
on what terms do agents get to the point of taking on the role of 
spokesperson or representative of these “voiceless” people, at the risk 
of reproducing the symbolic capturing mechanisms that some intend 
precisely to denounce? What are the mediums, forms, formats and genres 
which provide the special mediations for expressing this speech? In what 
way is the institutionalisation of these common-sense or scholarly 
categories and problems likely to open up or close over the space of the 
possible and thinkable with regard to the problems suffered by the 
“voiceless”, and the solutions likely to be provided to them in the 
areas of social action, distribution of wealth, education, media and 
government action?

We shall, in addition, be concerned with analysing the words spoken by 
these “voiceless” members of society when they manage to express 
themselves publicly within the arenas or through the procedures made 
available to them^^[5] . How, indeed, should we analyse these private 
words that have been made public by a process of selection, of 
scene-setting and of expression in words over which the speakers have, 
at best, only partial control? What indications enable us to analyse the 
transformations undergone by these words when they submit to being 
publicised, and/or when these groups provide for themselves or are 
provided with “spokespersons” to speak in their name? What repercussions 
do these forms of expression produce on those who contribute to making 
them visible and audible? Finally, we intend to question the conditions 
under which these words are received and able to be heard: what logics 
govern their circulation in the social environment? How are they 
interpreted or retranslated according to the listeners who receive them? 
Do the mechanisms which produce them play an emancipating role or do 
they contribute to paradoxical forms of confining speakers within 
imposed roles and categories?

A last line of thinking might be based upon analysing the mechanisms 
themselves: the offer of being able to speak can take shape in ways as 
diverse as a collection in a publishing house, a television programme, 
speaking groups or blogs, or indeed in an institutional framework, be it 
in education, health or the cultural domain… So many combinations, both 
physical and symbolic, which will not be envisaged simply as places for 
understanding subjects of investigation, but as organised spaces 
organising social relations.

The symposium will have a multidisciplinary perspective and we invite 
sociologists, anthropologists, cultural historians, political 
scientists, semiologists, linguists and discourse analysts to present 
their work and share their analyses and reflections.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1]A few bibliographical references will give an idea of the scale and 
abundance of work that has been devoted to the issue. In the domain of 
sociology and political science, there are: Beaud, 2006; Bourdieu, 1993; 
Braconnier and Mayer, 2015; Dubois 2008; Elias and Scotson, 1997; 
Ferron, 2012; Garcia, 2013; Gaxie, 1978; Glady and Vandevelde-Rougale, 
2016; Laforgue, Payet, 2008; Hamidi, 2010; Juhem and Sedel J., 2016; 
Mouchard, 2009; Payet, 2011; Piven and Cloward, 1979. In history, there 
are: Farge, 1998, 2004; Guillaumou, 1999; Guillaumou, Mesini, Pelen, 
2004; Kershaw, 2013; and Zinn, 2004.

[2]Braconnier and Mayer, 2015; Rosanvallon, 2014; Beaud, 2006; Farge, 
2004; Spivak, 1988.

[3]For exceptions to this, particularly on the “excluded” category, see 
Lafarge, 2001; on the “immigrant” category, Spire, 1999; and on the 
“less” category (the homeless, the jobless, those without legal 
documentation, etc.), Mouchard, 2009. For a more general sociological 
analysis of these “classification struggles”, see Bourdieu, 1978.

[4] Symposium /Les sciences humaines et sociales face au foisonnement 
biographique. Innovations méthodologiques et diversité des approches 
/[The human and social sciences faced with biographical profusion. 
Methodological innovations and diversity of approach] (EHESS, Paris, 
9-11 March 2016). One of the workshops was called «La parole inaudible» 
[Inaudible speech].//

[5]The following references provide an initial bibliographical basis for 
starting to think about these issues: Angenot, 1989; Auboussier, 2015; 
Barbet-Honoré, 2013; Bilat, Lelay, 2016; Gardet, 2009; Oger, 2006; 
Puccinelli-Orlandi, 1996; Juhem, Sedel, 2016; Ducard, 2016; Paveau, 
2016, 2017.

**

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*Organization* Two plenary lectures: confirmed: Philippe Artières, 
historian, research director, CNRS, Interdisciplinary Institute of 
Contemporary Anthropology.     Communication format: 30 mn     Two round 
tables, with invited speakers-e-s *Languages:* French or English, 
preferably with French support in the latter case. *Submission of 
proposals* Proposals should include:     Name (s) and first name (s) of 
the author (s),     Institutional Connection     Title, summary of 2500 
signs, including bibliography, 5 keywords They will be anonymized and 
submitted to two evaluators of the Scientific Committee, who will be 
particularly attentive to the articulation between the methodology used, 
the theoretical framework and the nature of the empirical data studied. 
They are to be sent in text format (.doc, .odt, .text or .rtf) to the 
following address: (colloquesansvoix /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(colloquesansvoix /at/ gmail.com)> Participants will then be invited to 
send a text of 20,000 signs for the 09/05/2018 *Calendar :* - Submission 
of proposals for communication (title, abstract, institutional link) for 
01/12/2017 - Notification of acceptance: 31/01/2018 - Sending of an 
extended text: 09/05/2018 Registration fees, which will be indicated 
during the first semester, will be borne by the participants. Steering 
committee : Dominique Ducard, Benjamin Ferron, Emilie Born, Claire Oger 
(UPEC, Céditec) Scientific Committee:
Sonia Branca-Rosoff (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, CLESTHIA)
Cécile Canut (Université Paris Descartes, CERLIS)
Dimitri Della Faille (Université du Québec en Outaouais, Cédim/GRICIS)
Vincent Dubois (Université de Strasbourg, SAGE)
Aude Gerbaud (Université Paris-Est Créteil, Céditec)
Corinne Gobin (Université libre de Bruxelles, GRAID)
Jacques Guilhaumou (CNRS, Triangle)
Frédéric Lambert (Université Paris 2, CARISM)
Joëlle Le Marec (Université Paris-Sorbonne, GRIPIC)
Ida Machado (Universidade federal de Minas Gerais, NAD)
Daniel Mouchard (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, ICEE)
Caroline Ollivier-Yaniv (Université Paris-Est Créteil, Céditec)
Julie Pagis (CNRS, CERAPS)
Marie-Anne Paveau (Université Paris 13, PLEIADE)
François Perea (Université Montpellier 3, Praxiling)
Alain Rabatel (Université Lyon 1, ICAR)
Juliette Rennes (EHESS, Cems)
Ruth Wodak  (Lancaster University / Université de Vienne)


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