Georges Balandier

Georges Balandier is a ethnologist and Sociologue French. He is currently professor emeritus of the Sorbonne (University Rene Descartes, Paris-V), Directeur of studies to EHESS, collaborator with the Center of African studies .

Biography

Georges, Leon, Emile Balandier , born on December 21st, 1920 in Aillevillers (70), wire of a railwayman and socialist militant, began with studies of philosophy then the war and the occupation did it refractory with STO (Service of Obligatory Work) then resistant. Starting from its human experiments of resisting and in the intellectual effervescence which follows the release (he attends in particular Michel Leiris) he will take part in the effort “to try to lay down another colonial policy”. “When I arrive at Dakar, in 1946, I discover initially poverty behind clothings of pageantry… but also a certain turbulence” ( Entretiens with G. Balandier in 1982).

Member of the SFIO of 1946 to 1951, he becomes ethnologist, while taking part of the interior in the release of Africa. As of 1952 it takes party for independence in the Cahiers of sociology , undertakes then research under the administration of Pierre Mendès France but breaks with the policy when De Gaulle puts the Guinea Sékou Touré out of the French Union. With Alfred Sauvy, he invents the concept of Tiers-monde to indicate, in 1956, these countries which resembled a little the Tiers state of the French revolution.

Discoverers of the “Brazzavilles black”, it is one of the first to turn its attention of the study of the traditional companies to that of the changes in progress in the African contemporary companies.

In 1982, it founds with Michel Maffesoli, the Center of studies on the current one and the daily newspaper .

Currently (2007), Balandier is director of the international Cahiers of sociology with Michel Wieviorka.

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