Recension / A. Berque

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Vous avez dit « naturel » ?

Des catastrophes « naturelles »

Virginie DUVAT et Alexandre MAGNAN

Paris, Le Pommier, 2014, 312 p., 23€ 

S’il est des géographes qui nous assurent que Le ciel ne va pas nous tomber sur la tête[1], ou au contraire des prospectivistes qui nous décrivent déjà L’effondrement de la civilisation occidentale[2] (rétrospectivement, vu de 2393), on creuse ici les interrelations qui « fabriquent des catastrophes » à partir de simples événements naturels. Le thème est géographique entre tous, et l’idée n’est pas neuve. On sait qu’il y a catastrophe quand l’humain est concerné, mais pas quand il ne l’est pas. C’est cette logique que le livre de V. Duvat et A. Magnan développe et affine, en passant en revue au fil des chapitres près d’une dizaine de cas qui nous mènent du Bangla-Desh aux îles coralliennes du Pacifique, en passant par la tempête Xynthia, l’ouragan Katrina, le cyclone Luis à Saint-Martin, le tsunami du « 3.1.1 » (i.e. le 11 mars) au Japon, et la résilience des Maldives après le tsunami de 2004. 

Le concept de "spéciété" est-il opératoire ? / A. Berque

Proposed to the International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, special issue on “Sociality, culture and nature”.

Is the concept of speciety

rationally operative ?

by Augustin BERQUE

Monkeys (1960-70) Chao Shao-an (Hong Kong Heritage Museum)
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Abstract – The paper discusses the validity of the concept of shushakai put forward by the Japanese naturalist Kinji Imanishi. It proposes to translate this concept with speciety, defining it as the fact of being a species as a society, not as a mere population ; a society endowed with subjecthood, thus possessing its own specific world and evolving in relation to that world, rather than to the environment in general. The point of view is that of mesology, i.e. the study of milieu as distinct from the environment, which is the object of ecology. Mesology in that sense corresponds to Umweltlehre in Uexküll’s sense, and to fûdogaku in Watsuji’s sense.

Is the concept of speciety rationally operative ? / A. Berque

Proposed to the International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, special issue on “Sociality, culture and nature”.

Is the concept of speciety

rationally operative ?

by Augustin BERQUE

Abstract – The paper discusses the validity of the concept of shushakai put forward by the Japanese naturalist Kinji Imanishi. It proposes to translate this concept with speciety, defining it as the fact of being a species as a society, not as a mere population ; a society endowed with subjecthood, thus possessing its own specific world and evolving in relation to that world, rather than to the environment in general. The point of view is that of mesology, i.e. the study of milieu as distinct from the environment, which is the object of ecology. Mesology in that sense corresponds to Umweltlehre in Uexküll’s sense, and to fûdogaku in Watsuji’s sense.