Background
Henri, welcome to Berkeley.
Thank you.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in 1940 in Montmartre, a very popular neighborhood, well known. I went to school in this
neighborhood, also.
Looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your character?
My father was a very nervous person, I would say. Very active and very nervous. He was a doctor, working
first in a working-class neighborhood. My mother was less nervous and she was nice. I am not very nice.
What was distinctive about the neighborhood you were in, Montmartre?
Montmartre is divided into two parts; you have the famous place where the painters used to go, and still the
tourists, and the other part is more of, not slum, but ... the outer ring of Paris used to be there. And on the
other side of the boulevard, the gypsies were there. We called this "la zone." My father was a doctor of a
poor neighborhood, you see, and I went to school with those people. The other part of Montmartre is more
trendy, more well known. Then I moved from one school to the other. I went to high school in the other
neighborhood, on the other side of Montmartre.
Did you have any teachers that affected you when you were young, that
made an impression, that led you to an academic life?
Yes, I had several. Especially in high school. I was very spoiled, because at that time, being a teacher in
high school was really something. The lycée -- which is junior high school in the United States -- my lycée
was a very political lycée, and we had there these figures of the Resistance. I had marvelous teachers,
especially in history. I was fascinated. One of my teachers was a soldier in Verdun, the First World War,
and then was arrested by the police, then became a famous leftist leader, and was very handsome man.
When he was telling us the story of the French Revolution, we were enthusiastic. Also in philosophy,
because in France we have this very strange system. The last class of high school you have nine hours a
week a class in philosophy. So, it was very impressive. Yes, obviously. Most people were very impressive.
Any books that you remember from that period as a young person that
impressed you?
Spontaneously, I would say, when I was young, a novel of Stendhal, concerning, I would say, social
mobility and relations with women.
Which particular novel?
The Red and the Black. And then I was very impressed by Sartre, when I was young, about politics, the
meaning of life. It's all the questions of our generation. We had no choice. Because at that time France was
a very tough country, politically very tough during the Cold War. A very powerful Communist party. There
was no center left. It was the Communist Party, nothing, and the right. So, it was a very political situation.
Going back to when you were younger, how did the war, or the memories
of the war, affect you?
I was young. I think I don't have a lot of memories, because we moved very often for someplace where we
could hide. Most of the memories I have are not my memories, they come from the telling of my sister,
who is older, or from my father. But I have a very special memory. It's very funny. The first thing I really
remember, when the Americans ... We were in the south, near Orange. I remember crossing the street
where the American tanks were coming, and I was almost crushed.
By the liberators. Where did you do your college work?
When you say college ...
University.
The French system is very special. What you don't have. If you are a very good student in high school, you
stay in a special high school. To be simple, I would say prep school, which is not exactly what prep school
is here, but you stay in high school with the best students and you attend what we call the Grandes Écoles,
high schools, the best schools. I did not get into, but I stayed two years in a special school, one of the best
high schools in Paris, Lycée Henri IV, where you have the best students and the best teachers in the
country. And then you go to the university.
What university did you go to?
The Sorbonne. At that time it was the Sorbonne. Before '68, things were very simple. We were few
students, mostly upper-middle class or middle class, and we were maybe 200,000 students in France. Now
you have almost three million. So, it was the Sorbonne or nothing.
And what about your studies there? Any particular theories attract you?
What led you to become a sociologist?
To be honest, people from my generation did not think about becoming sociologists. Sociology was a
minor field. One of the major fields was philosophy, and I was at a certain time very impressed by
philosophy, so I became a graduate in philosophy and I was very influenced, to be honest, by people like
Hegel. It was very fascinating. We thought at that time that history had a meaning, you see. Reading Hegel,
you could read the actual history of the country, of the world.
I became a sociologist when I found that philosophy was a kind of dead end. I started being interested in
concrete things. My other interest was always photography, and I think that was too abstract. The gap
between philosophy and photography was some kind of impossible. So, I became very interested in
concrete research, and I started a Ph.D. in sociology with someone who has just recently died, Pierre
Bourdieu. He was my advisor. I got my Ph.D. in 1972. The subject was the career of art critique in France,
which was a funny survey and field-work, especially because it took place during the events of 1968. So, I
could attend to very strange situations.
Let's talk a little about the sixties, when you were getting your
degree. How did the events of 1968 or of that decade change the course
of your life or affect you?
Myself, I was more affected by the period before, because France was in a very strange situation with all
the former colonies. My main commitment, like many people of my generation -- I was born in 1940 -- was
against the colonialist wars. The events of '68 were perceived by myself as an anti-colonialist movement,
leftist movement. I was not in the Parti Communiste Français, the communist party, but I was very cautious
about that.
But I would say the events of '68 affected, mainly, my private life. One of the major events was the
condition of women had changed. The woman I was married with was an expression of this new generation
of women who are from the upper class, good in school, and taking jobs very early, leaving their parents,
being very free, you see. No more cultural or sexual dominance. And this is what struck me the most, the
women. I think my generation saw the change of the condition of the woman more than others. Of course,
this affected our condition, because our relations were different from what I'd seen [among] my parents or
other generations.
Was that a phenomenon that has endured? And in what ways? What has been
the consequence of that change in consciousness of women about
themselves and of men about women?
The division of labor between men and women changed. I raised my children, to put it simply. I raised my
children. My wife used to travel a lot. I did too, but there was some kind of ... I washed the dishes, things
like that. My wife became a famous linguist, and I was not affected by this. We divorced later, but for other
reasons.
Oral History
In your work as a sociologist today, one of your focuses and one of the
things that you teach is oral history. What got you interested in
capturing the lives of people as a way to do sociology?
My feeling was that most famous French sociologists like Touraine, Bourdieu, and the father, Durkheim,
were very abstract. I very often saw that they ignored history. They ignored the individual. That pushed me
to try to collect myself, in my Ph.D. and in my first research. I think that everybody has something to say,
and I think the construction of a life is a major object of sociology. All those theories are always one-sided,
you see. Also, to be honest, I like the contact with people. I think that one of the main things of being a
sociologist is to have a relation with people, not to stay at your desk and read only books from the library.
So, this relation taught me a lot. I learned about people from other conditions. I was upper middle class, and
I visited peasants, teachers from the secondary class, working class people, and this gave me a lot if insight
into the condition of French people, especially when this country started changing a lot in the late sixties.
The kinds of changes, among others, that you're talking about include
the inflow of immigrants which changed the topography of France.
No, I would not say this. France, and a lot of people ignore this, was always, like the United States, a
country of immigration, since the Italians came to Paris in the fifteenth century. So, the thing that changed,
and everybody agrees on this, is that the generation of immigrants until the 1970s would hide their origin.
They would go to the French school, not have their own institutions, except a few Italian institutions, some
churches, but they would try to, what we say, integrate into the country. One of the main features is that at
that time they were mainly single men. If you are a single man, you don't create your own life, your own
family. You adopt the rules of the country.
Things have changed absolutely. It's a very strange historical problem. When the crises came, the French
government at the time, President Giscard d'Estaing, decided that we are going to stop the immigration, but
we open the door to the family. So the family came. We call this regroupement familial, collecting families.
This has absolutely changed the landscape of France. Of course, people came from other countries. Maybe
I'm too focused on this, but I think it is very important: when you have the women. The women resist more
than man, in the beginning, our local rules. They create the family, you see, the division of labor, the kids,
and this is a major effect of immigration since the sixties. So now, we have this effect of the second of four
generations.
Let me understand what you are saying. You are saying, in a way, that
once the families came over, the women resisted, that is, the mother in
the family would resist the integration into French society and French
rules, trying to maintain the integrity of the culture that they
brought.
It started like this, but we can't generalize, because if we think about some people coming from Maghreb,
very quickly on the opposite, some women start being clothed like every French woman, going out without
any rules. But I think this creation of the family was the beginning of resistance to the French culture.
Let's go back to oral history. You've given us a sense of where it fits
in the struggle with pure theory. What is the key to successfully
extracting a person's story? How does one best set up an interview to
talk with someone and get them to tell the story of their life?
I think the first rule is to have people understand that nobody is stupid. Everybody has something to say,
and you have to be dedicated to the people. There is a climate of trust, and it starts very quickly. Some
people are unable to do that. If you are shy, it's finished. People may be shy; you're not allowed, as an
interviewer, to be shy. For most or many people, not all of them, maybe this is the first time in their life
where people speak with them and ask them their story. This is something unbelievable. It's very emotional
for them. In many, many cases, when I collect the life history, or my students [do], this is the first reaction
we see. People say, "I have nothing to say," and they start, and at the end say, "How could I say all this?"
And they like this. It is a kind of pleasure, you see.
Is it good to have a sense of where you want to go, or are these
interviews free-flowing? Does sociology give you the tools to guide
them so that people reveal themselves to you and to themselves?
Yes, but you have to find a balance between your general scheme of life history, like where were you born,
did you go to high school -- what you did with me -- but also when somebody is taking a track, it's very
special. You have to be very attentive. It's the reason I want students to use tape recorders. You don't care
about taking notes. If somebody is taking a secret track, you have to follow him and try to understand, and
in the meantime you listen to them, you have to interpret and be able to ask more questions. It's a question
of balance. It's very difficult, because sometimes it's a dead end. You say: that's a very special problem, but
not interesting at all. So, I would say this faculty of adapting yourself is one of the major things. One
famous American sociologist says "tact and tactics."
Very good. Now, you have actually integrated these ideas of
interviewing into courses that you offer at the university. Tell us a
little about that and the way you make this insight into interviewing
into a structure for training sociologists for the kind of fieldwork
that they have to do.
We can give this class for graduate or undergraduate, it doesn't matter, it's the same thing. You have to
attract them, and one of the best things to attract them is to have them listen to former interviews made by
students. Anonymous, but by students. Not by the teacher. They listen to the tapes and they are amazed
because they see that everybody has something to say. And slowly, they recognize facts, they recognize
careers, they recognize events, and it's really very good training for them. They see that students like them
are able to collect. One of the things I say, I give you the grade, but maybe I should give it to the person
you interviewed, because she was a good person. Sometimes, the people are so good that with two or one
question, they speak forever.
I guess that it's important to teach the students, as you said, tact
and tactics, to actually listen and go places which their plan had not
anticipated ...
Yes, for instance, difficult issues, like money. People don't want to speak about their salary or even
modified employment. Very crucial issues, so you have to be very cautious. But you have to know, because
it's very important. Their life, their sexual life, you don't ask very precise questions. But, for instance, I'll
give you an example. One major experience I've had of my life as interviewer was when I interviewed
Catholic upper-class women who went to a very, very prestigious private school. We talked a long time
about the school, but at a certain point I saw that most of the women had a very high rate of fertility, many
children. I did not know how to ask them how they did. And one of them told me, "I used to let nature do."
And so, I had a question for the next time: "Did you let nature do?" So, I think you can collect [from] the
people themselves, the language. Because you have your framework, your questionnaire, but you don't
have the words used by people. The more you interview people, the more you are able to talk and ask
questions in their own language. That's very important, because we don't all have the same language. That's
the reason why I told you the second part of the class is to study the language of the people.
And by language you don't mean just French or Italian, but you mean
within the language of French, for example, the different words that
different classes of people might use.
A long time ago, we interviewed former peasants. The way they chose to speak about their money was only
the number of horses they had. For the students it was amazing.
So by knowing the number of horses you could then get what the income
might be.
Talking about money -- now we have three configurations of money. You have the old franc, the francs and
euros. So, it's going to change absolutely the way you collect data now.
What about background in social history? You do that also with your
students?
Yes, because even French students -- I used to teach in the United States, it was the same thing -- they are
not very strong in history. So you start by giving them some kind of overview of the social history of the
country since the beginning of the twentieth century. You do this by many means. First you look at
statistics, because you have the birth rate, I insist very much on birth rate. I take always the example of the
consequences of the First World War. Almost two million people died in France in the First World War and
it changed completely the demography of France. A lot of people died, a lot of people could not marry, a
lot of children were not born. So you do this very precisely, to give them a way to think about the
consequences of a major event. You describe the event, the First World War, for instance, and then you see
the consequences in statistics. So you give them a bit to think about the relation between an event and the
consequences. The wars are among the best events. And also, for instance, an economic crisis or things like
that. It takes a third of the semester to get at this. One more thing I do, also, I give them to see some
videotapes, especially of this woman, [Yasmina] Bengigi, who made several movies, marvelous movies on
the immigration. It's had a very special effect. The shy students, I would say -- some girls from Maghreb
background are very shy, they don't want to cover their family. And sometimes they change their mind by
seeing that it's possible to interview. I recommend this movie.
And the name of this movie is ... ?
Memoires d'immigrés, Memories of Immigrants, by a woman called Bengigi. Very nice.
Immigration and France
Tell me a little about your student population. In your university you
have a substantial number of immigrants. What insights do you draw
about that student population and how it's changing?
To be simple, but it's necessary to say, Paris has thirteen state universities; we are a state university. Mine is
situated in the northeast of Paris, a working-class and ethnic neighborhood. Most of our students, especially
undergrad, come from this part of France. It's a very tough département [county] with a lot of delinquency,
violence. Very difficult. On the campus, I have not seen anything myself; I've never experienced anything.
A large part of the students come from ethnic groups, which means a large part from Maghreb, their parents
or grandfather came to France in the fifties or seventies. Most of them come from Algeria and Morocco.
Less Tunisia; Tunisia is richer. So, it's a large part of the students. A large part of the students also come
from the West Indies, les Antilles Françaises, Martinique. We have less and less students coming from
Africa, from the former colonies.
So, this affects [our teaching] because you have to [understand] that you are going to talk before students
coming from all these regions. So you make some kind of statement about your neutrality. You say, "I am
going to deal with a problem. I am not going to judge." It's the same thing concerning the problem of
religion, because you never know. For instance, in one my classes just now, that I will see again next
Thursday, I have a girl dressed in a Muslim traditional way. She doesn't hide her face -- if she would have
done this, I would not accept. So, we have some with Jewish, some with a cross. I am absolutely neutral.
But I have to be aware of the fact that most students are not used to talking with a teacher about that. When
you address major problems in French history, of course, you bump into the separation of state and church
in France and things that like. And many of the students are very shy. They don't want to collect that
history from their parents. And after the movie, Memoires d'immigres, of after talking with them, they do
that.
What you can you tell us about the extent to which these immigrant
populations, especially the students from the Maghreb, deal with the
problem of navigating between tradition, their immigrant backgrounds,
and modernity as it's presented by the French culture?
They have their own values. Something is striking, and I think this is one of the major events in the world,
maybe, and this is the role of music, because their music is now a feature of the French culture. One of the
things you can see from students is how music is important: in France -- we have this Muslim music.
They oppose some rules now, and this is very important. On the other side, what has struck me is that they
do not have any idea of the history of the country they've come from. When you think about Algeria, which
is a major problem in France, still, Algeria has a civil war. So, you are very aware that it's more a dream
about a country about which they don't know a lot, the real life of the country. Because if they go back to
the country, for them it would be horrible.
For instance, there is no sign of reaction here to the events of 9/11. Nothing happened on my campus,
nothing. Of course, they are more focused on the Palestinian problem. They are very focused on the
Palestinian problem. You have a lot of small committees, demonstrations -- never violent -- but the
problem that interests them more is the Palestinian problem, not the Maghreb itself.
Before we talk about their reaction to the Palestinian problem, let's
go back a minute. You're saying that in navigating where they come from
and their family's history and what French society and culture is
presenting, music is a very important integrating force on the one
hand, but on the other hand, they don't know as much about their past,
their history and so on. So an assertion of a traditional identity is
problematic.
I would say there is a barrier between their family and the university. They are two different worlds. Of
course they use the term identity. But, being a sociologist, when I ask them to go into detail ... pfff! What
does it mean? It's a very catch-all word. They use it very much. Even the other, so-called French use it. But
when you go into detail, it's some kind of belief, you see. They don't feel very attached to the country. A
few of them go for vacation in Algeria or Morocco, but very few of them.
The [problem] is the relation with their parents, because the gap between the experience of their parents
and [their role as] a student is a major thing. They can't talk about school with their parents. I know some
colleagues who are teaching in high school. It's an amazing experience for those parents when they have to
go to committees, because they are shy. So, one of the main things in the gap is the different experience.
Most students can think about their identity, their so-called identity, but it goes back to their parents, and
there is such a gap between their parents and them. Their private lives, the religion, the sex -- most of our
students are girls, and you have the contrast between the ones dressed very up-to-date and very attractive,
and few of them are dressed [traditionally]. To be honest, it's increasing.
Traditional dress is increasing?
Yes, I see this now.
The French are always complaining about the dominance and the
perversion of French culture by America and Madison Avenue and
Hollywood and so on. I'm curious. Do these immigrants manifest those
kinds of attitudes toward French culture? In other words, do they feel
about French culture the way the French feel about American culture?
No, I would say, no. To be honest, simple. I give this class on consumption. My students are required to
write a diary of the way they are dressed. When they start thinking about the way they are dressed, and they
are dressed as your students, more or less, they are dressed in an American way. What you see with them,
concretely, is the gap between what we think and what we do. You see that in many fields -- one world.
I don't see any very violent reaction against [French culture]. If it's against it, it's against the school,
because for them, maybe -- I'm thinking about it now -- maybe school became the major experience of the
French culture. So, they have a lot of trouble in high school in France, like here. Lot of trouble. Violence,
rebellion, problems against teachers in high school, more and more. This is maybe the site of the rebellion,
the teacher, the culture. I'm imagining. For instance, the teacher in high school supposed that you are
always interested in the French tragedy: Racine, Corneille. But now, a lot of people don't care. And there is
a reaction against this.
You mentioned their concern about the Palestinian issues. We're
generalizing here, but it's interesting because this is all becoming
central to French politics. Talk a little about that. Is there a
vicarious identification with the plight of the Palestinians? What's
going on there?
I think that for young adolescents, there is always this ethical moment, as I had myself. The most obvious
thing for them, now, is Palestine. It's linked. I'm going to be cautious. Some students live in suburbs with a
high Jewish community, and the Jewish community is richer than they are. There is a small town north, not
far from where we are, called Sarcelles, where you have a very powerful Jewish community [of] people
who came in the sixties from North Africa. And they are the rich people. So, the contact is sometimes very
tough. Especially if you have another community ... I use "community," but we don't use this in France; it's
more common here.
I think that they see the Palestine problem as the major issue. It is unfair, for them. Especially if they have
some religious beliefs. But, after the events of September, I did not see any reaction. After the events of the
occupied territory by the Israeli, yes there is a reaction. But, it's never violent. They have committees, they
want to send money. But, of course, if you come to the event, you see that some, not so many, but I'm
struck, some Muslim French were involved in major events, Afghanistan. So, you have this world outside
the campus of religion.
You're talking involved in what sense? You mean protests about ...
No, I mean involved in the event.
Actually in the Taliban, you mean?
Right.
France and the World
Help us understand what impact these immigrant communities are having
on the dynamic of French politics. The world was taken aback by your
recent elections in France where Le Pen was a finalist in the race.
Help us understand what is going on there. Obviously the left is
divided, which is a big part of the problem. But there's something also
going on related to people's dissatisfaction with the problem of crime.
How do these immigrant communities fit in to this picture?
Well, you asked several questions.
I have a tendency to do that.
Of course, violence takes place in suburbs and in small towns where there is a large number of immigrants,
especially young people. People who are not interested in school, unemployed, and don't believe in
competition, I think it's a major thing. School is competitive, and I think they don't believe in this kind of
competition. So, it has not the scale of importance as what you have here in this country, from what I know.
So you have poor white people, to make a comparison, and those people who live in suburbs, in bad
housing, many of them are unemployed. Many of them think that the government doesn't take care of them,
and they live in housing projects where the stores are closed. Those people are really unhappy.
A large part -- I'm going to the second question, more or less -- a large part of the people used to vote for
the communist party. They don't vote anymore for the communist party; they vote for the extreme right,
now. I think the mistake would be to think that the people who vote for Le Pen are fascists. He is,
obviously. What he says, his ideas are fascist, fascist tradition. But the people who vote for him, I would
say 50 percent of them are not fascist, but they have a daily experience of violence. They don't see the
police anymore, they don't see the administration. One of the main things about France, I would say, is a lot
of people are against the state, but actually they expect everything from the state. This is really a major
thing.
I see, a love/hate relationship.
Yes. So, I don't know if I answered.
You did. So then, let's talk about the other part of this equation. The
left, in addition to being divided, doesn't really have a program to
address these concerns. Or appears not to have a program.
The left is divided into two different parts. We have a very strange country. Imagine a country with three
and a half Trotskyisk candidates. The extreme left believes in revolution, believes that the only reason of
violence is unemployment. So, they don't have any solution. I mean, just try to do things, with some kind of
new policy, with politics of renovating. But it didn't work, it's not enough. So the left loses, because also
they are in office since '81 almost. It's not that Le Pen had gained a lot of votes. It's more, as you say
yourself, that the left was divided. And also because the French candidate Jospin was not good, very rigid,
and made many mistakes. But, you see the reaction after. I was marching on May 1. It was amazing.
In protest of the outcome.
Yes.
Millions of people were ...
What we say was a million and a half. Which is, in our country of 60 million, not bad.
Now, let's talk about this European experiment, that is, France being
part of this whole process of the uniting of Europe. How does that
affect these trends visible in the domestic politics? Is the uniting of
Europe universally popular in France?
No.
No. And is there also a reaction to that process?
Yes, you are absolutely right. It's a reaction. Because this divides the country in two. You have [people who
can] travel, can use Euros everywhere, are very happy, are middle class, upper middle class, enjoy going in
all countries and working with foreigners. But on the opposite, a large part of the population thinks it's an
obstacle, because will be slowly decided in Bruxelles by bureaucrats. People are afraid of this.
I would say that the only chance for Europe is [a unified] Europe. But we need some kind of political
power, and a very clear policy. In all countries -- for instance, they vote tomorrow in the Netherlands, and
they are going to vote in Denmark, they are going to vote in Germany --the extreme right exploits this
thing, obviously. It's a kind of nationalism. I think this is also an explanation of the vote for Le Pen. And
not only for Le Pen, but the extreme left also. This is a major thing [which] divides a country, and all
countries in Europe.
What about French foreign policy in all this? Are the voters
indifferent to French foreign policy these days or are they supportive
of it?
The French policy concerning the Middle East, which is maybe the major issue in [the past], was always
very ambiguous. A large part of the country is for Israel, but the policy in the government is for Arab
countries, which means, I think, that the French people think that Palestine deserves a state. Of course,
Israel is going to be endangered, but the major fact [is that] people are [hoping for] peace, which is not the
case now. Since DeGaulle, the French were favorable to the Arabs, I would say. And now toward the
Palestinians.
But this doesn't impinge on the domestic politics? These domestic
issues that we've just discussed, the support for Le Pen, the concern
about crime, the concern about the uniting of Europe; foreign policy is
not on the table in these debates?
Europe, yes. Middle East, I would say no. Europe, yes. Because we had a referendum a few years ago and
it was like this. But, indirectly, the problem of the Middle East and the events here affected the people
because it was a new expression of violence. The French TV during the campaign -- the campaign was very
dull -- but every night the French TV would show some violent problem. I think about that. I think maybe
for the first time, you could see the influence of the media on the vote. Why? First, because the media was
telling, on the basis of the survey, that the second term would be between Jospin and Chirac. This is a very
good example of how a rumor affected the behavior of everybody. People said, "Oh, I can go on vacation, I
don't vote, there is no problem."
I see. So the prediction that there would be a runoff between Chirac
and Jospin led to voter apathy.
I'm sure. And I think it was a false [prediction]. For social scientists, it's a marvelous example of the media
manipulating their opinion.
But you're also suggesting that the portrayal of violence as a central
issue may have heated up ...
Those two things, yes. We have not as many [television] channels as you have. Most popular are channel
one, channel two and channel three. And it was obvious, every night. Then there was a competition. And
people were not responsible, were not aware of this.
You are a person who studied quite a bit of the processes of
globalization. You've done a lot of work on tourism and so on. I'm
curious how you think the events of 9/11 will set back this worldwide
integration that we're witnessing culturally and in other ways -travel and so on. Do you think there will be long-term setback for
these processes of global integration, or do you think that this is
just a passing phase?
I will take the French view. The reaction in France was double, and still is double. To be honest and clear,
people say, "It can happen there also, obviously." The second reaction was [to be] very sad.
Globalization means to be close to the United States, and obviously France has completely changed in that
feeling. People would travel a lot more than ever, because France, I don't know if you know this, but France
is the first tourist country in the world, 60 million a year. But on the other hand, more and more French
people go abroad. They have some money, they can travel cheap. People can have some very abstract
thoughts against globalization, and their life is the opposite. They improve, they experience this
globalization in everyday life. Clothes. It's really amazing how people are clothed everywhere the same
way now. And this is in every turn of life. Watching TV and going to museums and tourist [attractions]. I
was in New York last week, and I was amazed how many French people were in the streets, speaking
English now, shopping on Broadway. But this concerns a part of the country, the rich part of the country.
Globalization is very applicable to the middle class, but France is not only middle class. We have poor
people in France. And those people are afraid.
Afraid of ... ?
Afraid that the state can't protect them.
In terms of your student populations, though, you're suggesting that
they really are globalized in a way that other parts of the population
are not.
Yes, my students. I can say that my class, a class of fifty students, for instance, is divided. Maybe half of
them are immigrants, second generation. But this is the explanation, because my university is located in the
département -- we say département; the county, you'd say here -- where immigrants now are very
numerous. So, you have second generation, you have more and more foreigners coming from East Europe,
speaking perfect French, coming from China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea. So more and more you teach in a
globalized situation. Your class is not this closed world, you see. I talk to them ... for example, one of my
classes is [taught in] English; also, I push them to look on the web, and things like that. But [whether] this
will affect specifically their life or not, I don't know. But obviously, the atmosphere is changing.
Conclusion
One final question: How would you advise students to prepare for the
future?
I tell them, you have to speak English, you have to be able to connect on the web, you have to be able to
drive, and you have to be able to leave your country very fast.
Let me make a second question out of that. I know that you feel that
it's not just words that matter, it's also images. You have a
photography component to both your life history work and your field
research. Tell us a little about that. That is, our ability to prepare
for the future by being able to think about the images that we can
form, but also that shape our thinking about the world.
I think that the French way is always too abstract. General ideas. So the way I teach and the way I myself
work, I want people to see real situations. Real people differentiate themselves. I think the main thing is to
see people acting. The new media is marvelous for this. So for example, when I give a class on the history
of American cities, I use a lot of photographs. I try to have students comment, which is very difficult. I
think it's a new skill that's very important, because they will find jobs being able to manipulate, being able
to use images. This is absolutely against the abstract theory. I want them to recognize people, to see that
people are different in one way and similar in another way. I think this opposition is the main thing now.
We are similar and we are different. I think this is what we are going to experience in the next generation.
It's what the new generation is experiencing.
If we can come full circle here, when I'm hearing is that since you are
French you can never completely give up abstraction, but you are a
rebel against it. Is that fair?
Yes, I is. I was trained as a philosopher and I changed. My advisor was the famous Bourdieu. Smart man,
but impossible. And by impossible I mean, he did not understand the changes, he did not understand the
details. I think life is made of very meaningful details, and it's the reason I like photography. I think it's a
part of the French academic culture.
Well, on that note Henri, thank you very much for being here and
sharing this story of your life, letting us do an oral history of you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with
History.
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