Based on the cultures of European societies (France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal) and other cultural areas (United States, South America, Asia - Japan and China), the laboratory’s team plans to develop its field of research around two main areas:
1. Cultures and citizenship: representations, transmissions, transformations
At a time when so-called “Western” liberal democracies seem more than ever to be in a state of crisis, this research theme aims to question the gradual undermining of the representative and performative mechanisms of the “social contract”. While the rise - in all the social, linguistic and cultural spheres we explore - of various populisms calls for reflection on principles such as the “people”, power or the “elite”, the radicalization of questions relating to identity, the nation and its organicity, and sovereignty in the face of the neo-liberal trappings of globalization, the remarkable resurgence of the notion of “race” in public and scientific debate, in the wake of a politicized articulation of the principles of discrimination, oppression, systemic racism and colonization(s) on the one hand, and integration, assimilation and multiculturalism on the other, are all phenomena that invite us to question the idea of a certain “end of history” (Fukuyama) that capitalism and democracy would have sealed hand in hand. On the contrary, this growing “hatred of democracy” (Rancière) seems to be paving the way for new conflicts, particularly cultural ones - be they palpable or fantasized, denied or erected as strategic scarecrows - which researchers need to question.
This research area uses the notion of citizenship as an analytical tool. As a quintessential cultural fact, it has imposed a link between individualism and universalism, by granting a series of rights and privileges supposed to guarantee the political freedom of citizens, and at the same time enabling the emergence of a collective identity, most often within the framework of the nation-state. Citizenship is therefore inextricably linked to the democratic process, of which it is both the guarantor and the voluntary obstacle, since it imposes a simultaneous phenomenon of inclusion in and exclusion from the national community.
Taking a comparative approach to the different areas studied by the laboratory's members, several links enable researchers to carry out their research:
- Citizenship and culture(s)
- Democracy and freedom(s)
- Citizenship and power / State
- National construction / national narratives and individual and collective experiences
- Culture(s) and identity(ies)
- Cultural transformations, transculturation and sovereignty(ies)
- Strategies of resistance, resilience and cultural survival
- Citizenship and individual and collective identity(ies)
- Inclusion/exclusion, peripheral belonging and margins
- Multiple citizenship, dual belonging
- Citizenship and gender/race/class
- Identity(ies) and cultural heritage, inheritance and transmission practices
- Citizenship and cultural practices / aesthetic experimentation
2. Decentering: creative and critical dynamics.
The specificity of this area is that it focuses on a research approach common to all RÉMÉLICE members: decentering. This concept has proved to be a unifying force, creating synergies within the laboratory for all the language-cultures studied. In addition, this area is in line with what has been the foundation of RÉMÉLICE since its creation: the complementarity of practices and cross-disciplinarity.
Decentering refers to a willingness to change perspectives, highlighting the relativity of concepts: the periphery becomes a center from which to rethink the whole. Attempting to understand decentering implies building cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, enabling a breakdown of barriers that encourages the exploration of new research perspectives. Theoretical references need to be constantly renewed to give substance to decentering, one of the characteristics of which is that it is thought in constant motion, conducive to both theoretical and methodological creolizations (in Edouard Glissant’s sense of the term). The fields of application of this concept and methodology are multiple.
The study of decenterings, creative and critical dynamics aims at the emergence of new literary, cultural and artistic mapping. The aim is to revisit literary, cultural and artistic histories in order to bring to light authors, works and themes that have attracted little attention in the academic field. The laboratory focuses on several dimensions:
- The transmission of decentering through translation
- Decentered reception
- So-called popular cultures
- Creations linked to migration
- Women and decentered visions of history
- Insularities as cultural and literary off-centers