Cette thèse a pour objet la philosophie du Travail Social, ses paradigmes et ses valeurs contradictoires. La mise en perspective des prémisses souvent implicites des praticiens avec les défis éthiques et les contraintes organisationnelles auxquels ils se disent confrontés ouvre un champ important de réflexion sur la définition même du Travail Social. Peut-on reconnaître un sens (une intelligence de la situation) aux contradictions et paradoxes contenus dans les valeurs, les définitions et les pratiques du Travail Social? Ou doit-on se contenter de les déplorer ou de les assumer comme le lot quotidien de la mission des travailleurs sociaux? Un constat: le Travail Social, comme profession et comme discipline, est en déficit d'une lecture permettant de faire des liens entre ses praxis, ses discours éthiques et ses paradigmes. Une éthique désincarnée, un éclectisme des cadres théoriques, une instrumentalisation des pratiques font partie des manifestations de ce déficit. La praxis locale, nationale et internationale explore de nombreuses directions sans réussir jusqu'ici à cerner un paradigme commun susceptible d'opérer une synthèse des pratiques et des valeurs. Notre présomption: la théorie de la complexité offre une épistémologie permettant la compréhension, l'intégration et le dépassement des contradictions et paradoxes éthiques et paradigmatiques du Travail Social. À partir de la proposition de définition de Richard Ramsay, la théorie de la complexité est mise à l'épreuve dans la compréhension, l'intégration et le dépassement des paradoxes en Travail Social. Dans une discussion trialectique entre les types de praxis, les discours éthiques et les paradigmes évoqués en Travail Social, la théorie de la complexité transfigure les paradoxes du Travail Social en en faisant une de ses forces essentielles plutôt qu'une de ses limites. Cette proposition contribuera au débat sur la formulation de la définition du Travail Social. Mots-clés: Travail social, paradoxes, complexité, définition, éthique, cadres théoriques, paradigme.

Hierarchy is a form of organisation of complex systems that rely on or produce a strong differentiation in capacity (power and size) between the parts of the system. It is frequently observed within the natural living world as well as in social institutions. According to the authors, hierarchy results from random processes, follows an intentional design, or is the result of the organisation which ensures an optimal circulation of energy for information. This book reviews ancient and modern representations and explanations of hierarchies, and compares their relevance in a variety of fields, such as language, societies, cities, and living species. It throws light on concepts and models such as scaling laws, fractals and self-organisation that are fundamental in the dynamics and morphology of complex systems. At a time when networks are celebrated for their efficiency, flexibility and better social acceptance, much can be learned about the persistent universality and adaptability of hierarchies, and from the analogies and differences between biological and social organisation and processes. This book addresses a wide audience of biologists and social scientists, as well as managers and executives in a variety of institutions.

The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This Handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this Handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.

Bourdieu and Literature is a wide-ranging, rigorous and accessible introduction to the relationship between Pierre Bourdieu's work and literary studies. It provides a comprehensive overview and critical assessment of his contributions to literary theory and his thinking about authors and literary works. One of the foremost French intellectuals of the post-war era, Bourdieu has become a standard point of reference in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, art history, cultural studies, politics, and sociology, but his longstanding interest in literature has often been overlooked. This study explores the impact of literature on Bourdieu's intellectual itinerary, and how his literary understanding intersected with his sociological theory and thinking about cultural policy. This is the first full-length study of Bourdieu's work on literature in English, and it provides an invaluable resource for students and scholars of literary studies, cultural theory and sociology.

In the late 1950s, like tens of thousands of young men of his generation, Pierre Bourdieu, having recently passed the agrégation in philosophy, found himself immersed in the Algerian war. Motivated by an impulse that, as he himself says, ‘was civic rather than political’, nothing seemed more important to him than to understand the Algerian situation and provide the elements that would enable others to come to an informed judgement about it. In extremely tough conditions and along with a small group of students, Bourdieu undertook a series of studies across an Algeria that was tightly patrolled by the army, leading him to discover the shocking reality of the resettlement camps and to analyse the mechanisms of destruction of Algerian society of which they were emblematic. To achieve the objectives he had set himself, Bourdieu had to carry out a genuine intellectual conversion, acquiring an ethnographic understanding of Algerian society, learning sociological analysis at a breakneck pace and inventing new instruments - both theoretical and empirical - that would enable him to understand the relations of domination specific to colonialism. These new tools also enabled him to analyse the nature of the crisis that the war had both produced and manifested. This unique volume brings together the first texts written by Bourdieu in the midst of the Algerian conflict, as well as later writings and interviews in which he returns to the topic of Algeria and the decisive role it played in the development of his work.

"Your Mindful Compass" takes us behind the emotional curtain to see the mechanisms regulating individuals in social systems. There is great comfort and wisdom in knowing we can increase our awareness to manage the swift and ancient mechanisms of social control. We can gain greater flexibility by seeing how social controls work in systems from ants to humans. To be less controlled by others, we learn how emotional systems influence our relationship-oriented brain. People want to know what goes on in families that give rise to amazing leaders and/or terrorists. For the first time in history we can understand the systems in which we live. The social sciences have been accumulating knowledge since the early fifties as to how we are regulated by others. S. Milgram, S. Ashe, P. Zimbardo and J. Calhoun, detail the vulnerability to being duped and deceived and the difficulty of cooperating when values differ. Murray Bowen, M.D., the first researcher to observe several live-in families, for up to three years, at the National Institute of Mental Health. Describing how family members overly influence one another and distribute stress unevenly, Bowen described both how symptoms and family leaders emerge in highly stressed families. Our brain is not organized to automatically perceive that each family has an emotional system, fine-tuned by evolution and "valuing" its survival as a whole, as much as the survival of any individual. It is easier to see this emotional system function in ants or mice but not in humans. The emotional system is organized to snooker us humans: encouraging us to take sides, run away from others, to pressure others, to get sick, to blame others, and to have great difficulty in seeing our part in problems. It is hard to see that we become anxious, stressed out and even that we are difficult to deal with. But "thinking systems" can open the doors of perception, allowing us to experience the world in a different way. This book offers both coaching ideas and stories from leaders as to strategies to break out from social control by de-triangling, using paradoxes, reversals and other types of interruptions of highly linked emotional processes. Time is needed to think clearly about the automatic nature of the two against one triangle. Time and experience is required as we learn strategies to put two people together and get self outside the control of the system. In addition, it takes time to clarify and define one's principles, to know what "I" will or will not do and to be able to take a stand with others with whom we are very involved. The good news is that systems' thinking is possible for anyone. It is always possible for an individual to understand feelings and to integrate them with their more rational brains. In so doing, an individual increases his or her ability to communicate despite misunderstandings or even rejection from important others. The effort involved in creating your Mindful Compass enables us to perceive the relationship system without experiencing it's threats. The four points on the Mindful Compass are: 1) Action for Self, 2) Resistance to Forward Progress, 3) Knowledge of Social Systems and the 4) The Ability to Stand Alone. Each gives us a view of the process one enters when making an effort to define a self and build an emotional backbone. It is not easy to find our way through the social jungle. The ability to know emotional systems well enough to take a position for self and to become more differentiated is part of the natural way humans cope with pressure. Now people can use available knowledge to build an emotional backbone, by thoughtfully altering their part in the relationship system. No one knows how far one can go by making an effort to be more of a self-defined individual in relationships to others. Through increasing emotional maturity, we can find greater individual freedom at the same time that we increase our ability to cooperate and to be close to others.

Much orthodox economic theory is based on assumptions which are treated as self-evident: supply and demand are regarded as independent entities, the individual is assumed to be a rational agent who knows his interests and how to make decisions corresponding to them, and so on. But one has only to examine an economic transaction closely, as Pierre Bourdieu does here for the buying and selling of houses, to see that these abstract assumptions cannot explain what happens in reality. As Bourdieu shows, the market is constructed by the state, which can decide, for example, whether to promote private housing or collective provision. And the individuals involved in the transaction are immersed in symbolic constructions which constitute, in a strong sense, the value of houses, neighbourhoods and towns. The abstract and illusory nature of the assumptions of orthodox economic theory has been criticised by some economists, but Bourdieu argues that we must go further. Supply, demand, the market and even the buyer and seller are products of a process of social construction, and so-called ‘economic' processes can be adequately described only by calling on sociological methods. Instead of seeing the two disciplines in antagonistic terms, it is time to recognize that sociology and economics are in fact part of a single discipline, the object of which is the analysis of social facts, of which economic transactions are in the end merely one aspect. This brilliant study by the most original sociologist of post-war France will be essential reading for students and scholars of sociology, economics, anthropology and related disciplines.