Mai 68 et ses suites en géographie française

This article summarizes what is actually well-known about the evolution of French geography during the 60’s and the 70’s and then focuses on political and epistemological changes that appeared immediately or following in wake of 1968’s events. It first shows how the geographic community more or less...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Olivier Orain
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Éditions de la Sorbonne 2015-02-01
Series:Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines
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Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/rhsh/2406
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Summary:This article summarizes what is actually well-known about the evolution of French geography during the 60’s and the 70’s and then focuses on political and epistemological changes that appeared immediately or following in wake of 1968’s events. It first shows how the geographic community more or less maintained social and political consensus and homogeneity through its demographic expansion during post-war decades, which price was an epistemological conservatism and a static equilibrium between old constituents of the discipline. Then it depicts how Departments of Geography in universities were mobilized during the months of contestation (May-July 1968), mixing a global involvement within the national movement and a local reform of geographical communities and institutions, that shows a conformist view of what geography is, similar to common idiosyncratic self-representations mastered by geographic leaders. Lastly, it explores the political break-ups that immediately followed the 1968 crisis and the more delayed rise of a scientific criticism called “nouvelle géographie” and partly inspired by the English-American “new geography”, but specific in the way it mixes political and epistemological dimensions.
ISSN:1963-1022