Identities, commitments, gender

Responsible: Lissell QUIROZ

Structural topic: The aim of the “Identities, commitments, gender” area is to conduct a collective and transdisciplinary reflection on humans as social and political agents who question their identity and their place in society. The work of each member of the group therefore focuses on the question of identities, with the work taking on different forms depending on each research subject.

Objectives : Within AGORA, the “Identities, commitments, gender” area analyses the challenges of past and present social mobilisations in complex and changing societies in which individuals are required to constantly renegotiate their identity and their role/place in the community.

Faced with rising conservatism and populism, we are witnessing a resurgence of social mobilisations which highlight the multiple exclusions and discriminations suffered by various groups and individuals and which we will analyse in the light of gender and postcolonial and decolonial perspectives. In various contexts (postdictatorial, postcolonial and/or neocolonial) but also in terms of a redefinition of democratic practices, these mobilisations question the foundations of contemporary democracies and the real access of minorities to citizenship.

These questions are directly linked to the place and the visibility occupied by social actors in the public space. Their images and representations are in perpetual motion. In increasingly virtual societies, the repertoires of actions are evolving and now involve the use of new technologies, particularly social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). While cyberactivism is expanding rapidly, it can be seen that, in some cases, open confrontations on our streets have moved to the digital space, where verbal oppositions are multiplying, sometimes having a significant impact on public opinion. These new forms of mobilisation will also be at the heart of our work.

The researchers of the “Identities, commitments, gender” area are interested in questions relating to the construction and structuring of identity/identities - political, social, cultural, sexual, digital - (reformulations, perception and self-perception, sense of identity and of community), and in practices aimed at questioning all kinds of relationships of oppression (colonial, gender, economic, class, etc.). These are examined through a multidisciplinary approach (sociology, social or cultural anthropology, political science, comparative history, micro-macro history, gender studies, film studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies) and in various geographical and cultural areas (Europe, United States, Latin America, Asia).

Méthodology : The “Identities, commitments, gender” area uses multidisciplinary methods from sociology, social or cultural anthropology, political science, micro-macro history, gender studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies. It develops a “bottom up” perspective that addresses social and cultural movements, social fragmentation and migration through the study of individual and collective experiences.