Abstract
An anthropologist working in the associative context conducted a field experience in a sensitive area of Montpellier (France). This area is characterized by the coexistence of many communities including a European community, which settled there in the 1970s with little renewal; and a North African community which arrived massively by a successive vague. We also find in that area Korean, Turkish, and African elements. Even though this multiculturalism is supposed to carry an undeniable cultural enrichment, the inhabitants are actually confronted with a feeling of social heaviness related to the density of the habitat and to ghettoization because of regular influx of migrating populations that erase an atmosphere of diversity. Moreover, social and economic difficulties of many emigrating families along with the massive degree of youth unemployment provoke a certain form of social misery and festers social inequalities. With such circumstances, is it still possible to build bridges to reconnect the people of different communities? What sorts of tools are developed to attempt bringing together common interests? What could be the vectors of a cultural and social coviability? It is through an approach of inter-generational solidarity, and under the guise of benevolence and indispensable support which older people must benefit from in every community, that the “Passeurs de cultures” (links between cultures) association, carrier of image, tries to weave again connections through a digital platform of inter-generational support. With the participation of residents, it was designed with the aim of breaking down barriers and revitalizing social bonds. In order to establish a contact with the neighborhood’s different populations and build relationships that enliven an atmosphere of trust, it founds itself on an associative network and on local institutions. It also ties multiple partnerships with various colleges, retirement homes, senior citizens clubs, and women’s organizations in order to develop cultural actions to instill awareness in order to touch and convince the population to imagine new gestures of solidarity.
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Notes
- 1.
The term “practical-research” is attributed to Lewin (1946), a German experimental psychologist, who argued that through practical research theoretical advances could be made simultaneously with social change. He described the phases of practical research as a spiral of research circles progressing from a description of the existing to a plan of action.
- 2.
“A lack of basic security is the absence of one or more factors that enable individuals and families to assume basic responsibilities and to enjoy fundamental rights. Such a situation may become more extended and lead to more serious and permanent consequences. Extreme poverty results when the lack of basic security simultaneously affects several aspects of people’s lives, when it is prolonged, and when it severely compromises people’s chances of regaining their rights and of reassuming their responsibilities in the foreseeable future” (OJ of 10 and 11 February 1987) definition by Wresinski Joseph, to the French Economic and Social Council and taken by Mr. Léandro Dsepouy in his report to UNO entitled;, Extreme poverty and Humans rights, Essays on Joseph Wresinski, available online: http://www.joseph-wresinski.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/09/Attacking_Poverty_WBk_.pdf; and: atd-quartmonde.org
- 3.
See: “Livre blanc de la Paillade”, 1973, p.9.
- 4.
The word “Paillade” comes from Occitan “palhada” meaning straw or strewn with straw. This reference is explained by the fact that this area was since 1710 part of the dependencies of the castle of the “Bonnier de la Mosson” family.
- 5.
The YCW (Young Christian Workers) is the only national youth association of the working class. It is run and managed by the young people themselves.
- 6.
“The community is both a place, the people living in this place, the interaction between these people, the feelings arising from this interaction, the common life they share and the institutions that regulate this life” (Médard 1969).
- 7.
The neighborhood is part of a vast plan for urban renewal (ANRU): towers and blocks are gradually demolished for the construction of more modern estates.
- 8.
These denominations correspond to the identity claims of the gypsies themselves.
- 9.
It is interesting to take the sociologist Henri Lefebvre’s definition between “habitation” (the result of urban planning) and “inhabiting”, which is no longer the result of a “good” housing policy, a “good” architecture, a “good” urbanism, but which must be “considered as a source, as a foundation”, on which the quality of the private sphere depends: “Before habitation, inhabiting was a millenary practice, poorly expressed, ill-suited to language and concept, more or less alive or degraded, but which remained concrete, that is to say, functional, multifunctional, trans-functional” (Lefebvre 1968, p. 25 et s., our translation).
- 10.
Sociability is made up of “all relationships that we have with others” (Forsé 1991, 247).
- 11.
Some residents explain how the lack of mastery of the language constitutes an embarrassment or even a “humiliation” that makes the elderly depend on their children or their daughter-in-laws. This situation deprives them of privacy insofar as any communication, however personal, must go through an interpreter.
- 12.
According to a survey conducted by the Fondation de France in 2013, 27% of the elderly live alone (compared to 16% in 2010) and 41% have little or no contact with their own children (compared with 38% in 2010). 50% say they do not see their friends and 52% are not in contact with their neighbors. This trend is worsening among those over 75 years of age due to the death of the spouse, health problems and children living far away.
- 13.
The survey was conducted in 2014 on the theme of representations of the neighborhood and the role played by the Social Center CAF (Caisse d’Allocations Familiales / Family allowance).
- 14.
As part of these ethnology workshops, which take place once a week, adolescents are made aware of aging-related issues, learn to relate to elders and gather their memoirs, and then restore them in the form of a narrative.
- 15.
A great part of human activities are subject to the principle of reciprocity, “which consists in obliging the one who acts on another to undergo the same act, and the one who is being subjected to the act to act. It reproduces in the opposite direction the situation of one in relation to that of the other and thus the perception of each one is redoubled from that of his opposite. For example, the donor (who loses what he gives) will feel that he is acquiring the value of humanity (prestige) while the recipient of the gift will feel the loss of face and hence for him the desire to regain prestige which is translated by the obligation of reciprocity, the obligation to give back” (Temple 1989).
- 16.
This study is supported by the social and financial partners and by the network of local associations.
- 17.
These categories of assistance are: Company for an outing or a visit, Shopping, Help with your trips on foot, Assistance with the preparation of meals, Lessons, Car-pooling and transport, Administrative procedures, Listening and conversation, DIY and troubleshooting, Babysitting, Advice, Sharing of activities, Loan of material, Gardening, Others.
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Barrière, C. (2019). Reconnecting Man to Man: Socio-cultural Coviability Ties and Interculturality (Practical Research in a Sensitive Neighborhood in Montpellier, France). In: Barrière, O., et al. Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78497-7_18
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