(Re)appropriating knowledge

Presentation

At the crossroads of fields and disciplines, this collective book offers an original reflection, based on specific situations, on the concept of appropriation or re-appropriation of knowledge and know-how, focusing analyses on the point of view of actors, their commitments, aims and objectives, and looking at the power of initiative and strategies they deploy in the production and use of knowledge.

Based on case studies, the book takes a global approach to the issue thanks to the wide range of fields studied: Africa - Sub-Saharan Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco; America - Mexico, Haiti; Asia - India, China, Iran; Europe - France. It brings together the reflections of four anthropologists, six historians, two sociologists, a geographer and a specialist in literary history. Without fixing the definition of these processes of (re)appropriation, the aim is to consider them from a methodological and heuristic point of view. Beyond already well-worked notions such as "cultural transfer" or "acculturation", the work presented here allows us to go beyond the mere description of the distribution or circulation of knowledge, adopted or rejected in certain regions, focusing instead on the agentivity of actors in these processes of integrating knowledge or know-how considered exogenous or rediscovered after long periods of oblivion.
The case studies proposed may feed theoretical reflections, serve as a basis for regional studies, or enable comparative approaches.

Directresses

Marie Chosson is an ethnologist, senior lecturer and professor of Tseltal language at Inalco (Americas Department), and a member of the CESSMA laboratory (UMR 245). Her research has focused on the Tseltal Maya population in Chiapas (Mexico), with particular emphasis on the anthropology of conflict and violence, and the processes of reinvesting tradition. Part of her work is also based on ethnolinguistic analyses.

Marie-Albane de Suremain is an alumnus of ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, agrégée in history, maître de conférences in history at UPEC-INSPE in the Créteil academy and a member of the CESSMA laboratory (UMR 245). Her research focuses on the history and epistemology of knowledge in the human and social sciences, and on colonial and post-colonial Africa. She recently co-edited Enseigner les traites, les esclavages, leurs abolitions et leurs héritages, published by Karthala in 2021.

Anne Viguier is an agrégée in history, a lecturer at Inalco (South Asia and Himalaya department) and a member of the CESSMA laboratory (UMR 245). She specializes in the history of India. In particular, she has worked on the urban world of the Tamil country during the colonial period, and is pursuing research on the social and cultural history of South India in the contemporary era.
She has co-directed works promoting multidisciplinary and trans-area approaches, notably the Encyclopédie des historiographies, Afriques, Amériques, Asies, vol. 1, published by Presses de l'Inalco in 2020.

448 pages
16 x 24
Publication: 10/06/2021
ISBN: 9782858313860