More generally, he has been the subject of several controversies, both scientific and professional, the most widely known of which concerns his supervision of thePhD dissertation of astrologerÉlizabeth Teissier.
In 1972, Maffesoli was co-director of the ESU urban sociology research team in Grenoble. He developed a reflection on space which he continued in his work onnomadism (Du Nomadisme, Vagabondages initiatiques, La Table ronde, 1997).His work was influenced byPierre Sansot andJean Duvignaud, who were members of his PhD board in 1978. Maffesoli gave space a founding importance in social linkage and in the expression of subjectivity.[citation needed]
In 1978, Maffesoli became the teaching assistant ofJulien Freund, a conservative political theorist and follower ofVilfredo Pareto, while he was lecturing inStrasbourg. Freund offered him to host the Institute ofPolemology, which shows in his later works, under the themes of the "founding conflict" (La violence fondatrice, 1978), the "conflictual society" (PhD dissertation, 1981), and the use of the myth ofDionysus as "regenerating disorder" (L’Ombre de Dionysos, 1982).
In 1982, he founded the Centre d'études sur l'actuel et le quotidien (CEAQ) withGeorges Balandier. The CEAQ is a humanities and social science research laboratory atParis Descartes University, where he led a doctoral seminar until his retirement in 2012.
Maffesoli was awarded the Grand Prix des Sciences de l'Académie Française in 1992 forLa transfiguration du politique.
Maffesoli is the director of theCahiers Européens de l'imaginaire andSociétés journals, as well as a member of the editorial board ofSpace and Culture andSociologia Internationalis[citation needed].
Within the scientific community of French sociologists, thescientific nature of Maffesoli's works is often questioned, especially since the furore concerning the thesis of Elizabeth Teissier "created great controversy within the community [of French sociologists and beyond], and has led many sociologists to intervene in order to challenge its legitimacy".[7] On this issue, Maffesoli presented arguments on his methods, in particular through a new edition of his epistemological book,La connaissance ordinaire, in 2007. An opposition currently exists between Maffesoli's positions on "sensitive thinking" and supporters of a sociology embedded in the criteria of systematic and transparent scientificity. The conference "Raisons et Sociétés", held at theSorbonne in 2002 following the Teissier controversy to debate the broader issue of methodologies in human sciences, identified differences between the various sociological traditions relating to this case.[citation needed]
Other controversies have led to challenges to Maffesoli's institutional position: the scientific community protested against his appointment to the board of theCNRS and against his appointment at theInstitut Universitaire de France. On the other hand, Maffesoli's theories have been the subject of counter-inquiries, such as a survey by Laurent Tessier onfree parties in France and England.[8]
Maffesoli's work has achieved acclaim from authors includingSerge Moscovici,Edgar Morin, Patrick Tacussel,Philippe-Joseph Salazar or Patrick Watier who regularly cite him. His influence can also be seen in various foreign journals. It is probably his bookThe Time of the Tribes (1988, 1991), translated into nine languages, which made his notoriety outside France (seeurban tribes). Universities in Brazil, Korea and Italy request him for conferences. He has received a chair that was named after him in Brazil, and ahonoris causa doctorate from the university ofBucharest.[citation needed]
His reception outside France is ambivalent. In a 1997 article in theSociological Review, sociologist David Evans concluded that Maffesoli's theories were not apositive sociologicalparadigm, criticising his work as "incoherent" and "biased".[9] The accounts of books written by foreign sociologists were less forthright, but sometimes stressed that Maffesoli's approach was subjective and had a lack ofreflexivity. One sociologist even stated that Maffesoli's sociology was a "sociology of club".[10]
Maffesoli came to the attention of the general public in April 2001 when he defended the thesis ofÉlizabeth Teissier about the ambivalence of the social reception of astrology, highly contentious theory that he directed and whose jury was chaired bySerge Moscovici at theParis Descartes University.[11]
The attribution of a doctorate to Teissier "created great controversy in the [scientific] community, and led many sociologists to intervene to challenge the legitimacy". The thesis immediately aroused criticism in the field of French sociology, particularly that published byLe Monde byChristian Baudelot andRoger Establet on 17 April 2001,[12] and the petition of 30 April 2001 for the President of the Paris V University, and signed by 300 social scientists.[13] Many critical comments were published in the national daily press,[14] along with less radical comments.[15] Beyond sociology, four FrenchNobel Prize winners (Claude Cohen-Tannoudji,Jean-Marie Lehn,Jean Dausset andPierre-Gilles de Gennes) also protested against the title of "doctor" awarded to Élizabeth Teissier in a protest letter addressed to the then Minister of Education,Jack Lang.[16]
The scientific, philosophical and sociological aspects of Teissier's thesis were studied by a group of scientists from several disciplines,[17] including members of theCollège de France. The thesis was analyzed in detail by a group of astrophysicists and astronomers (Jean-Claude Pecker,Jean Audouze, Denis Savoie), a group of sociologists (Bernard Lahire, Philippe Cibois and Dominique Desjeux), a philosopher (Jacques Bouveresse), and by specialists of pseudo-science (Henri Broch and Jean-Paul Krivine).[18] From this analysis, it appeared that the thesis was not valid from any viewpoint (sociological, astrophysical, or epistemological).[17]
In an email of 23 April 2001 addressed to many sociologists, Maffesoli acknowledged that the thesis included some "slippages". His email minimized the importance of these errors and denounced a fierceness against Élizabeth Teissier and him.[19]
After this controversy, two symposia were held to discuss the thesis's content and validity :
A discussion-meeting entitled "La thèse de sociologie, questions épistémologiques et usages après l'affaire Teissier" was held at the Sorbonne on 12 May 2001 by the Association des sociologues enseignants du supérieur (ASES).[20] Maffesoli was present at this meeting and attended the accounts byChristian Baudelot and Lucien Karpik.[21]
A symposium entitled "Raisons et Sociétés" was organized at the Sorbonne on 18 December 2002 to discuss and propose a theoretical answer to criticism. Several intellectuals and scientists participated in the meeting to bring the debate on scientific issues raised by the controversy.Edgar Morin, physicistJean-Marc Lévy-Leblond,Mary Douglas,Paolo Fabbri,Franco Ferrarotti among others were present at this meeting.[citation needed]
This controversy was sometimes caricatured as an opposition between positivism and phenomenology. However, criticism of Michel Maffesoli came from both research schools, though positivist critics received more publicity.[22]
Maffesoli's appointment to the board of Directors of theCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique caused an outcry in the scientific community.[23] The decree of 5 October 2005 by which the appointment was established stated that the appointment was justified "because of [his] scientific and technological competence".[24]
A petition entitled "Un conseil d'administration du CNRS doublement inacceptable!" was launched after Maffesoli's appointment.[25] The petitioners protested both against the non-respect for parity and the appointment of Michel Maffesoli, deemed as disrespectful of "the need for scientific credibility of the board".[26]
From October 2005 to February 2007, the petition received over 3,000 signatures, including these ofChristian Baudelot, Stéphane Beaud,François de Singly,Jean-Louis Fabiani, Bernard Lahire, Louis Pinto, Alain Trautmann,Loïc Wacquant and Florence Weber. Ironically, and as an effect of the petition having two goals, it remains absolutely unclear whether the petitioners signed against Maffesoli's appointment, or against the non-respect for parity.[citation needed]
Appointment to the Conseil National des Universités
In late 2007, when Maffesoli was appointed to the Conseil National des Universités (CNU), section 19 (Sociology, Demography), the Association des Sociologues Enseignants du Supérieur (ASES) and the Association Française de Sociologie (AFS) protested against this decision,[27] as well as many other social scientists.[28]
In addition, in June 2002 and after the Teissier controversy, Maffesoli himself proposed to delete the CNU, which he deemed "unnecessary".[29] However, he participated in the work of the section 19 of the CNU, including the controversial self-promotion of its own members in June 2009.
Appointment to the Institut Universitaire de France
Maffesoli was one of the persons appointed to the Institut Universitaire de France by a decree issued by the Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche,Valérie Pécresse, in August 2008. This decree was the subject of a controversy over the appointment of people not selected by juries from the institute, including Maffesoli. According to economist Élie Cohen, president of the jury, Maffesoli "would be never accepted by the jury even if there were more places".[30]
Manuel Quinon andArnaud Saint-Martin, two sociologists who were students of Maffesoli in the early 2000s, took inspiration from theSokal hoax to demonstrate the lack of intellectual rigour in Maffesoli's work, as well as the absence of any seriouspeer review in one of the two journals that he directs.
Under the name "Jean-Pierre Tremblay", who was given a fictitious background as a Quebec-based sociologist, Quinon and Saint-Martin submitted an intentionally inept and absurd article on the "Autolib'", a small rentable car inParis, to theSociétés journal. The article was deliberately incoherent and plastered with liberal quotes and references to Maffesoli and other postmodern thinkers, positing that in self-service cars in Paris, the signs of masculinity had been erased and corrected, in order to "give way to an oblong maternity - no longer the phallus and the seminal energy of the sports car, but the 'uterus welcoming shelter-to-Autolib'". The article was duly "reviewed" by two people, before being accepted and published inSociétés without any substantial editing.
The authors of the hoax published an article explaining their aims and methods in March 2015.[31][32][33] The hoax article was then quickly withdrawn from the publishing platform on which it appeared.
^Serge Paugam,La pratique de la sociologie, Paris,PUF, 2008, p. 117; cf. Gérald Houdeville,Le métier de sociologue en France depuis 1945. Renaissance d'une discipline, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007, p. 261-302 (ch. 7, "La sociologie mise en cause"), and Bernard Lahire, "Une astrologue sur la planète des sociologues ou comment devenir docteur en sociologie sans posséder le métier de sociologue ?", inL'esprit sociologique, Paris, La Découverte, 2007, p. 351-387.
^Account by Jason Ryan MacLean in the journalCritical Sociology, vol. 26, n°12, p. 166-170 : "Maffesoli attempts to hide behind a thin veneer of scholarly objectivity, but his own political predilections shine through nonetheless. But more problematic than this patent inconsistency is Maffesoli's failure to be self-reflexive in a manner that might have helped him better understand how his own social and political position informs his reading of the "signs of the times" (…) Of course, the idea that one can, from the lofty perch afforded by the Sorbonne, capture and capitulate our "epoch" is on its face absurd. (Armchair sociology is not an unfair characterization of MaVesoli's approach to social analysis.)".
^abBernard Lahire, Philippe Cibois, Dominique Desjeux, Jean Audouze, Henri Broch, Jean-Paul Krivine, Jean-Claude Pecker and Jacques Bouveresse, "Analyse de la thèse de Madame Elizabeth Teissier", April 2001. Retrieved 2008-01-06.
^Bernard Lahire, "Comment devenir docteur en sociologie sans posséder le métier de sociologue ?Archived 2008-05-25 at theWayback Machine",Revue Européenne de Sciences Sociales, vol. XL, n°122, pp.42-65, 2002 : "En toute honnêteté, lequel d'entre nous, directeur de thèse n'a pas laissé passer de tels "dérapages" ? (…) Il ne faudrait pas que cette thèse serve de prétexte à un nouveau règlement de compte contre une des diverses manières d'envisager la sociologie. (…) Est ce que cette thèse n'est pas un simple prétexte pour marginaliser un courant sociologique, et disons le crûment, pour faire une chasse à l'homme, en la matière contre moi-même ?"
^E.g. : Pierre Tripier, "Le hasard, la publicité et la sociologie ou Pitié pour Husserl !" (4 May 2001) : "J'admire le courage de M. Maffesoli car je suppose qu'il est suffisamment bon tacticien pour savoir que ce qui lui ouvrirait les portes de la renommée médiatique lui sculpterait en même temps l'image sublime du bouc émissaire. Et, s'il est dans la disposition d'esprit que je suppose, c'est au volume de vente de ses livres (c'est pas cher, c'est nouveau, mais c'est abondant) qu'il mesurera les résultats de son action.".
^"Un conseil d'administration du CNRS doublement inacceptable !",op. cit. : ": … il est pour le moins étonnant de voir nommer comme représentant des disciplines " Homme et Société " Michel Maffesoli, un universitaire bien connu pour ses prises de position anti-rationalistes et anti-scientifiques. Pourquoi nommer quelqu’un qui a suscité, il y a peu, la réprobation de l'ensemble de la communauté scientifique en commettant une grave faute : l'attribution du titre de docteur en sociologie à une astrologue, Elizabeth Teissier, dont la thèse faisait l'apologie de l'astrologie ?"
^Source : AFS, "Feuille d'Info RapideArchived 2008-11-13 at theWayback Machine", 3 December 2007 : "La communauté des sociologues par le biais de ses institutions représentatives (AFS, ASES) déplore qu'un tiers des nominations effectuées par le Ministère à la 19e section du CNU (sociologie, démographie) ait été employé au profit d'une seule école de pensée; elle demande au CNU d'être particulièrement vigilant pour les qualifications et de s'assurer que les candidats aient fait la démonstration d'une maitrise du lien entre problématisation théorique et mise en oeuvre d'un corpus systématisé de données empiriques."
Dérive autour de l'œuvre de Michel Maffesoli, Ceaq (introduction by Gilbert Durand), Paris, L’Harmattan, 2004.
T.Keller, "Ein französischer Lebenssoziologe : Michel Maffesoli", in S Moebius et L.Peter. :Französische Soziologie der Gegenwart EVK verlag . Konstanz, 2004.
R.Keller:Michel Maffesoli: eine Einführung, Uvk Verlags GmbH Konstanz 2006.
S.Curti et L.F.Clemente,Michel Maffesoli. Reliance. Itinerari tra modernità e postmodernità. Mimesis, Milano, 2007.
S.Curti,Le zone d'ombra. Vita quotidiana e disordine in Michel Maffesoli. Ombre Corte, Verona, 2007.
F. Antonelli, Caos e postmodernità. Un'analisi a partire dalla sociologia di Michel Maffesoli. Philos, Roma, 2007.
P. Le Quéau,L'homme en clair-obscur. Lecture de Michel Maffesoli. Les Presses de l'Université de Laval, 2007.
M. Tyldesley, 'The Thought of Sorbonne Professor Michel Maffesoli (1944-): Sociologist of Postmodernity' Edwin Mellen Press Lewiston, NY, 2010.
