Recent activities
We present here our recent activities conducted during the last two years.
For a more comprehensive view of our activities since 2014, including roundtables, publications, and support to some activities of the FMSH, see our page archives
2024
The release of the posthumous volume L’Asie Monde III (CNRS Publishers, 2024), edited by Jean-François Sabouret, who passed away in 2023, has offered the opportunity to recall what have been, within the FMSH, the birth in 2001 and then the development of the Réseau Asie (Asia Network), under his leadership. On April 26th, 2024, an homage to Jean-François Sabouret has been organised at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO). Amongst other speakers, Maurice Aymard, Jean-Luc Racine et Jean-Claude Thivolle shared their memories on the Asia Network, an initiative which finally, outside the FMSH and under the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) patronage, gave birth to the current ‘GIS Asie’, a network federating the community of French and Belgian studies on Asia : amongst others, an example of the incubation policy conducted by the FMSH, as testified as well, for instance, the genesis of the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies.
Supporting the colloquium “Twenty Years of the Autumn University in History. Exchange and training between China, France and Switzerland”
The Franco-Chinese Autumn University has been launched in 2003-2004 thanks to Jean-Claude Thivolle for FMSH and Duanmu Mei for the Chinese Society for the History of France and Switzerland (under the aegis of the Chinese Academy of Social sciences). Along with Roger Way (Wei Aoyu), the translator who played a decisive role during these two decades, Maurice Aymard and Duanmu Mei have organised in Paris the colloquium, attended by Jean-Claude Thivolle and many participants. Our Association has offered seed money for this initiative.
The colloquium, hosted by FMSH on July 3rd, 2024, was structured in four sessions, attended by a large number of historians and social scientists who had joined the Autumn University activities.
The programme of the colloquium is available here (in French): Link here to the programme
The videos of the four sessions are available on Canal U, on the following model link:
https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/fmsh/xxe-anniversaire-de-l-universite-d-automne-première-partie
For discovering the two volumes, Temps croisés I & II, edited by Duanmu Mei and Hugues Tertrais and published by FMSH in 2010, see here:
Volume I : https://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/883?lang=fr
Volume II : https://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/1761?lang=fr
Dianmu Mei’s presentation of the Chinese Society for the Study of French History is available here: link here: THE CHINESE SOCIETY
For an historical account and an academic assessment of the Autumn University, see the note here: link here: WHAT IS THE AUTUMN UNIVERSITY
The academic partners and the topics addressed during the twenty years of the Autumn University are available here. link here: 20 YEARS OF AUTUMN UNIVERSITY
Along with nine institutional partners, Our Association has organised à FMSH, on November 13th, 2024, a colloquium assessing the scientific itinerary and legacy of Ignacy Sachs, who passed away in 2023
To pay tribute to Ignacy Sachs is to pay tribute to the visionary eco-development theorist who, as early as the 1970s, laid the foundations of a balance to be achieved between growth, social issues and ecology, emphasising the extent to which the countries of what was then known as the Third World must free themselves from the dependence and models of the so-called advanced countries.
A citizen of the world, between Poland, Brazil, India and France, he was also a teacher and a builder of institutions, such as the International Research Centre on Environment and Development (CIRED) and the Research Centre on Colonial and Contemporary Brazil (CRBC).
His pioneering career has a particular resonance in today’s world, where climate and geopolitical changes are redefining the meaning of contemporary developments. Between past and present, this conference will illustrate what was and still is the intellectual contribution of the man who defined himself as an ‘eco-socio-economist’, a way of highlighting the interweaving of three intersecting imperatives.
Twenty speakers from various countries will offer their views, along four thematic panels. An exchange with Krzysztof Pomian, our key witness, will bring the conference to its end.
- The videos of the four sessions and of the exchange with Krysztof Pomian, are available on the Canal U link:
- Some speakers have kindly sent us their text. We publish them here below:
Session 1.
Robert Boyer (in French) : link here
Antonin Pottier (in French) : link here
Emilio Lèbre La Rovere (in French) : link here
Session 2.
Bernard Chavance (in French) : link here
Marcin Kula (in French) : link here
Malgorzata Mazurek (in English) : link here
Session 3.
Luis Carlos Bresser-Pereira (in French) : link here
Ladislau Dowbor (in English) : link here
Deepak Nayyar (in English) : link here
Rosa Freire d’Agular (in French) : link here
Francisco Sagasti (in English) : link here
Session 4.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, with a comment by Marcelo Daher (in French) : link here
More texts may follow
For going further
- You may discover on Canal U the six interviews given (in French) by Ignacy Sachs in 2008 to the Audio-visual Research Archives Programme of the FMSH : https://www.canal-u.tv/chaines/fmsh/penser-le-developpement-au-xxie-siecle
- You may also read the long exchange conducted in 2012 between Ignacy Sachs and Bettina Laville, the founder of the Vraiment durable journal, today Honorary State Counsellor, and Chairperson of the Paris Institute for advanced Studies.:
See the original paper in French : link here
An English translation is forthcoming.
Afrânio-Raul Garcia Jr. In memoriam
Since the launching of the Sachs project, Dr Afranio Garcia, an anthropologist teaching at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris and a scholar affiliated to the Reflexive Group on Contemporary Brazil within the European Centre for Sociology and Political Science (CESSP), has been deeply involved with the preparation of the event. Seriously ill, he spoke on video during the colloquium, from his hospital bed. This was his last academic intervention, as he passed way a fortnight later, on November 30th.
We wish to pay here a sincere homage to a scholar who was close to Ignacy Sachs, and who, for a long time, has played an important role in the field of French studies on Brazil.
On Afranio Garcia’s scientific career, see the piece published by the French Sociology Association on December 6th, 2024
In 2024 we have renewed our financial support to the PAUSE Programme, conducted by the Collège de France to the benefit of scholars and artists compelled to exile and whose research is hindered.
2023
The first president of our Association, Immanuel Wallerstein, was a scholar of international standing. We paid homage to him after his death in 2019, organizing a roundtable and publishing a leaflet collecting diverse tributes and a few writings from him. (see on this website the page Archives, year 2019).
Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the FMSH has hosted, in partnership with the Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, the Institut Universitaire de France and our Association, an international conference on Immanuel’s work and legacy, titled “Capitalism, anti-capitalism, committed social sciences at a global scale”. Set up by an organization committee where Kathy Wallerstein and Maurice Aymard played a leading role, the Conference welcomed some thirty speakers and moderators from multiple countries, including Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, member, as Maurice Aymard, of our Governing Board. Indeed, our contribution was not just financial, but intellectual as well…
For a presentation of the event: link here
The podcasts of each session are available on Canal U, via the links provided on the page dedicated to the Conference on the FMSH webpage: see here.
The Association of the Friends of the FMSH has organised on April 24th, in partnership with Maison Suger, a conversation with Ranabir Samaddar, from the Calcutta Research Group, and visiting scholar at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Aix-Marseille on
MIGRANTS, REFUGEES, STATES, SOCIETIES
After an opening talk from Ranabir Samaddar, « What Make Keywords in Refugee and Migration Stories? », a conversation has been engaged with the speaker and five scholars who had worked on migration issues : Flore Gubert, Rada Ivekovic, Abdolmohammad Kazemipur, Marie-Caroline Saglio and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Jean-Luc Racine being the moderator.
See the detailed program: here
See the paper of Ranabir Samaddar: “A compendium of keywords in refugee ad migration studies is a collective work”, published in International Migration, 2023: here
Listen to the podcast of the event: here
The podcast of the event will be available later on, on our website. This event has echoed the research conducted at FMSH from 2026 to 2021 by Professor Alexis Nouss, holder of the chair « Exile and Migration ». See the website: link here: https://migrexil.hypotheses.org/accueil
and the roundtable « Migration policies and Migrations politics », hold on November 8th 2021 (in French) : link here: https://www.fmsh.fr/lire-voir-ecouter/politiques-migratoires-et-politique-de-la-migration-0
The field of migration studies is still alive today at the FMSH, through projects linked to the Institut Convergence Migrations et the International Panel on Migrations.
Update of the statutes of the Association:
We had to adjust the statutes of the Association in order to satisfy a request by the Foundation MSH Supervisory Board and by the Home Ministry (which registers associations), as the Association should not have too close organic links with the FMSH in order to be represented in the Supervisory Board. Through the modification of our statutes, we have strengthened our autonomy: we have now our own website, and the President of FMSH is no more an ex-officio member of the Governing Board of the Association. He is now invited to our Board meetings, without voting powers.
In 2023, the modified statutes have been submitted twice to an extraordinary General Assembly of our members, invited to vote on line, through a security software. The modifications have been approved in the second vote, which requested a simple relative majority. Results were as follows:
The first vote ended on March 17th, 2023.
Voters: 215
Yes: 190
No: 3
No position: 22
The second vote ended on April 4th, 2023.
Voters: 332
Yes: 281
No: 3
No position: 48
The revised statutes have been therefore approved by a large majority of voters. The Governing Board of the Association thank you for your votes.
The revised statutes are effective since May 15th, 2023, when we received the registration sent by the Paris Prefecture.
In 2023 we have renewed our financial support to the PAUSE Programme, conducted by the Collège de France to the benefit of scholars and artists compelled to exile.