Les intellectuels français et la destruction yougoslave: Structuration d’un espace public (1991-1999)

Abstract

The research topic focuses on the French intellectual field of the last decade of the 20th century, which is understood in the light of intellectual actions and representations of the process of destruction of the second Yugoslavia and the wars for its legacy. The events that occurred in Yugoslavia in the 1990s are perceived as a "affair" in the sense given by the French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Élisabeth Claverie, and used - in the context of research conceived as a form of a posteriori socio-historical experiment - as a kind of operator that helps us to trace the contours of the structure of a social universe such as the French intellectual field. The "Yugoslav affair" is well suited to this function, because it has particular properties, has lasted almost a decade and has constantly provoked the reactions of a large number of agents in the public space in France. The main objective of this research work was therefore to answer several decisive questions based on a prosopographical approach of intellectuals, as well as to analyse their actions and representations. More precisely, the question was: a) What are the modalities and forms of intervention in the polemical space built around the "Yugoslav affair" (1991-1999); b) How is this given space structured through competition and antagonisms between individuals and groups? In other words, what are the links between the objective positions of intellectuals, on the one hand, and their political disposition and position in the debate, on the other? c) What is the logic of receiving the destruction of Yugoslavia in France? In other words: is it mainly linked to events in the former Yugoslavia or to political issues within France? Have these different representations evolved, and in what ways? d) How do the positions taken fit into the dominant balance of power in France? Have they strengthened existing structures? Do they influence the modification of the French intellectual field?