Laurent AUCHER

Associate Professor (MCF) of Sociology (currently pursuing an HDR)

Email: laurent.aucher[at]univ-orleans.fr

Address: Bourges IUT Social Careers Department
63 Avenue de Lattre de Tassigny
18020 Bourges Cedex

Originally from Vierzon (Cher), Laurent Aucher spent several years as a certified teacher of Socio-Cultural Education with the Ministry of Agriculture before being appointed lecturer in Sociology at the University of Orléans in 2014. He teaches at the Bourges IUT and the Orléans Faculty of Humanities (UFR LLSH), and is a researcher affiliated with CEDETE (EA 1210), a member of the Narrative Sociology Workshop and the International Association of French-Speaking Sociologists (AISLF). Between 2014 and 2017, he was co-director of studies and then deputy head of the Social Careers department at the Bourges IUT. During this period, he and his colleague Frédérique Barnier conducted a series of interviews, mainly with sociologists, for La vie des idées: the one conducted with Danièle Linhart (CNRS) was translated into Portuguese for the Brazilian journal Cadernos de psicologia social do trabalho. In 2022, he helped set up the AISLF's GT 35 “Narrative Sociology”.

Favoring an approach with a strong critical dimension that lies at the crossroads of cultural studies, microsociology and narrative sociology, her research focuses on industrial workers, memory and the ordinary, as well as on qualitative methods and the questions (epistemological, ethical, practical, etc.) that arise from them.

Concretely, he devoted a DEA dissertation (1996) and then a doctoral thesis (2013) to the Vierzon metallurgical workers' memory, respectively directed at Paris-Diderot University by Gérard Namer and Numa Murard, from which he drew three books published by L'Harmattan in the “Logiques sociales” collection: La mémoire ouvrière: recherche sur la mémoire du collectif (2013), Le tribunal des ouvriers: enquête aux prud'hommes de Vierzon (preface by Jean-François Laé, 2016) and Récits d'anciens métallos: Vierzon, 1996 (with Danielle Champion, 2021).

In connection with his thesis, he has also published three articles in peer-reviewed journals: “Aline et la vraie vie : critique du modèle conceptuel de la classe ouvrière de Maurice Halbwachs”, in L'homme et la société, n°181, 2011, pp. 215-232, “Espace matériel, espace mémoriel du groupe dominant”, in Encyclo - Revue de l'école doctorale ED 382, n°3, 2013, p. 185-194, and “Retour sur un retour d'enquête”, in Les cahiers du CREILAC, n°1, 2016, p. 307-323 (with Danielle Champion).

In 2014, he carried out an observational study of visiting practices at architect Peter Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, published under the title “Devant le mémorial, derrière le paradoxe”, in Dominique Chevalier and Anne Hertzog (eds.), “Spatialités des mémoires”, Géographie et cultures, n°105, 2018, p. 11-30.

Between 2018 and 2023, he took part in the APR-IR VIVAMEMORI (Valorization of intangible and tangible industrial heritage in the Centre-Val de Loire Region) conducted in the Berry region by the Universities of Orléans and Tours under the direction of Florence Abrioux (University of Orléans). As part of this research program, he was largely responsible for the collection of filmed testimonies in Val d'Aubois (Cher). From this experience, he drew several publications, including a field journal, Mémoire ouvrière en Val d'Aubois (La Bouinotte/PAH LVA, 2022), and an article with an epistemological aim, “Objectiver l'objectivation : retour réflexif sur un recueil de témoignages” (in SociologieS, 2024).

Throughout 2023, he carried out a survey on urban explorations (“urbex”), many of which he conducted with Nicolas Offenstadt (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Guillaume Yverneau (University of Caen Normandie): the survey appeared in February 2024 in La vie des idées under the title “Qu'est-ce qu'urbexer ?”. He is currently preparing an Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR – accreditation to supervise research) on the theme of the ordinary under the tutelage of Philippe Artières (IRIS-EHESS), with the collaboration of Jean-François Laé (Université Paris 8-Saint-Denis).