Explore the vast range of titles available.

The historical evolution of social and legal conceptions of gender based domestic violence in France are the dynamic traces of how social practice, as well as social representations, formed and transformed. However, numerous studies show that the current incident-based conceptions of domestic violence are far from the victims’ experiences, and only partially effective in detecting, criminalising and preventing domestic violence. Understanding the global process by which perpetrators subordinate the victims, mostly women and children, by progressively depriving them of their human rights and liberties, led to a contemporary conceptualisation of domestic violence as coercive control (Stark, 2007). Recognising the roots of domestic violence in gender inequality, far from reducing it to some individual, psychological issues, this human-rights based conception of domestic violence is much closer to the victims’ experiences, has led to legal innovation in the ways in which several countries understand, criminalise and prevent domestic violence, and could be at the core of emerging social representations of domestic violence.

In this text from a lecture made in 2006, Serge Moscovici (1925–2014) seeks to update his earlier work on the ‘conspiracy mentality’ (Moscovici, 1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representations theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: first, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French Revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactiories rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (‘thematas’) of conspiracy mentality: 1) the prohibition of knowledge; 2) the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and ‘enlightened’ minorities; 3) the search for a common origin, an ‘Ur-phenomenon’ that connects historical events and provides a continuity to history (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4) the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fasciting potential avenues for future research.

Qu'impliquent les notions de « contrôle » et de « coercition » pour les victimes de violence conjugale ? Comment changer de paradigme afin de considérer cette problématique à travers le prisme de la « privation de liberté » et non seulement sous l'angle de la « sécurité » des victimes ? La conceptualisation du contrôle coercitif a été l'une des avancées les plus importantes dans le domaine de la violence conjugale. Elle permet ainsi de s'éloigner de l'accent mis sur les incidents « uniques » ou « isolés ». Néanmoins, très peu d'écrits sur le contrôle coercitif sont proposés en français. Cet ouvrage cherche à pallier ce manque. Il aborde, d'une part, les avancées conceptuelles. Pour ce faire, il s'appuie sur des résultats de recherche ainsi que sur les écrits les plus récents dans diverses disciplines, incluant le travail social, le droit, la sociologie, la criminologie et les études féministes et de genre. D'autre part, il met de l'avant l'intégration de ce concept dans les lois, les politiques et les pratiques de divers secteurs. Bien que les contextes québécois et canadien soient privilégiés, les développements sur la scène internationale sont également abordés. Contrôle coercitif offre au lectorat des pistes de réflexion d'action pour les secteurs de la violence conjugale, du droit et de la protection de la jeunesse.

With the support of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. “Les Influences” Ideas Prize 2019

Mon après-guerre à Paris. Chronique des années retrouvées (My post-war in Paris. Chronicle of the years found) by Serge Moscovici, edited introduced and annotated by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, is reviewed.