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Pieces into place: Décroissance, another life and another politics – And making sense of the data

Published on April 11, 2011 by cicilie Posted in Anthropological notes, Cicilie among the Parisians, Distinctions, Paris, Politics, Slam/Performance poetry

(Writing is progressing so fast now, that I’m not able to keep up here. This post I wrote several weeks ago, but haven’t found a free moment to post it before now. I’ll try to find some more time to keep up the blog in this final stage, as it would be good to document this part of the project as well. I’ll see what I can manage.)

Smaller and larger parts of the puzzle find their place at the moment. Phenomena that have only flickered past my attention in a superficial, disconnected manner suddenly add up to a larger picture.[teaserbreak] The last of these epiphanies was triggered by a request to hold a seminar at National Institute of Consumer Research (SIFO). They asked me because they’ve a project running on migration and consumption, and certainly, migration is relevant in my research on Paris as postcolonial. On consumption on the other hand, I wasn’t so sure what I could come up with. When I discussed some bland idea I’d got with a fellow anthropologist, he said right away that it’s exactly the lack of consumption in one of the large consumer countries of the west that it interesting here. Of course! One of the definitions of French slam is that it should be for free.

About the same time, a Norwegian journal published an article on the French Décroissance (Degrowth) movement. Although I had noticed the thought-provoking term around, for instance in demonstrations, I wasn’t aware that it concerned a socio-political movement. I started wondering if parts of the slam milieu was inspired by this movement, as several texts make similar statements to their “live better consume less” ideas, as well as mocking contradiction in terms like a “fair trade” (J’aime ma planète, j’achète, “I love my planet, so I buy it” by Zéor, for instance).

“Productivisme – deadly dangerous: Let’s enter degrowth”
From a demonstration in Paris in October 2005

I had also noticed the relatively low material standard of living (without going into detail) many slammers lived under. These observations had made an impression on me, but they didn’t start to make sense before I read Sociologie de Paris (Pinçon and Pinçon-Charlot) and connected them to the brute reality of the cost of life in Paris proper compared to the poorer suburbs: Even in the cheapest arrondissments in the north and east of the city is the price per square metre double compared to in the suburban towns in Seine-Saint-Denis.

But the observations still weren’t more than signs of relative poverty in an affluent society, added perhaps some traits of degrowth-ideas present in some texts. Until I was told (by a man almost double my age, what a humiliation!) that I had to free my analysis because what I was observing seems much more radical than old ways of thinking about politics. He commented on another part of the thesis (republicanism and cosmopolitanism), but it’s pertinent in relation to the question of consumption as well. From this perspective, all these disparate observations click together in the puzzle to such a degree that it all seems utterly banal, and how come I haven’t seen it before? Maybe particularly since I’ve even proclaimed here before that I recognise in the slam scene something of Foucault’s dictum (1982) to refuse what we are and find new subjectivities liberated from the state and its individualisation.

A life with less material goods is certainly not only “relative poverty”, it is also part of larger ethical questions on local and global solidarity, ecology, how to lead the good life and so on. The Décroissance movement and the slam phenomenon are probably just different expressions of larger currents in French and western society. Suddenly, I see the slam scene as even deeper situated within a long and broad history of poetic and eventful rebellion. And the great thing for the progress of my thesis is that all these recent epiphanies don’t seem to broaden the scope of my work, spreading it out in unmanageable directions. Quite the contrary, they tie the loose ends into a nuanced and detailed tapestry and click seemingly unfitting pieces into the puzzle.

"Productivisme - deadly dangerous: Let's enter degrowth"

Adieu again

Published on September 11, 2010 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Distinctions, Peculiarities, Places

The clouds hang low over Oslo Airport. Typical nice autumn weather, the captain called it. The weather is not necessarily so nice in Paris either, so I’ll not jump to any easy comparison…
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But these last weeks, the weather has been very nice in Paris, particularly the evenings and nights. And it was even not too bad when we early, early this morning left the flat and got on our way to the airport. It’s Saturday, and at the bakery (in the upper end of Rue Oberkampf, highly recommended! Their croissants au beurre are the kind that melt in your mouth), there are more noctambules (see this post) than morning birds dropping by. I stand behind a tired young man, leaning over the counter struggling to decide between an orange or apple juice to go with his pastry. The saleswoman keeps her cool and retains all the polite phrases, but she looks a bit apprehensively up at the hooded youth.

Outside, while the bars closed some hours ago, other cafés are opening their doors, putting out chairs and tables at the pavement. Most night wanderers seemed to disappear at dawn, and we get on the bus taking us across the city, Paris is awake. Eager students hop off in the university area, and I see shoppers pull their trolleys along to the street market already burgeoning of flowers, groceries and the rest.

Paris never sleeps, I thought when I went to the bakery in this intermediate zone between nightlife and early morning. Perhaps there are streets in Oslo which gradually transforms like this as well. Oberkampf, where I lived now, can in many respects be compared to Grünerløkka (which is close to where I live in Oslo), but how often does one see old, completely ordinary people sit down on more or less trendy cafés in Grünerløkka? There are plenty of elderly inhabitants in Oberkampf, talking part in the local life, as there are plenty of children going to school there in the morning. I think it is something there, which is more than an easy comparison; this mixing of old and young, of hip and ordinary, of noctambules and parents with pushchairs, that is weaving the distinctive fabric of the Parisian street life, giving it its very particular feel. Which I don’t even have to say that I miss.

La concierge, Parisian overture part 2

Published on August 30, 2010 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Distinctions, Fieldwork

This terrible and expensive mess I created during a tenth of a second’s inattentiveness and a draught from the balcony doors would never have happened if it weren’t for the French holidays. But now the holidays are over and the house has got back its gardienne (a warden, an occupation formerly known as a concierge before it became a derogatory), and then everything falls into place. She probably knows most of what goes on in the apartment block and so she knows when someone needs a plumber, electrician, carpenter or locksmith, and he can recommend them one. So she’s got a whole estate backing up her negotiating power with the local providers of practical jobs, and negotiate she can! I’ve never lived in a building with a concierge before so I’ve never had the chance to see how they excel in their work. And by golly, that was something! Here, I get to my point. Or, I’m not really sure yet what this has got to do with my fieldwork and research, but I have a feeling that to see a concierge work means to see an essential element in how this society works.

The way she negotiated over the phone for a better price and super fast accomplishment with a locksmith she knew, at the same time as she answered all the inhabitants who greeted her en passant for work after her holidays, and intermittently sort of put in place the Jeunet drunkard (who only had tried to help us, but who shrunk a little anyway as he knows he stinks of alcohol probably), called up carpenters in her own flat and gently told them off, commanded Leo and the bird dog not to get to close and so on, all in a firm but sort of generous way. Her charisma was that of a school teacher whom you just know you must behave your very best with, and if you do, things will go your way. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bourdieu have written extensively on la concierge in the French version of The Distinction, because her position in the French class hierarchy must be quite peculiar. I’ve heard a very nice documentary series on these kind of wardens on France Culture a while ago, but now I’ve seen one in action and I definitely want one for my block back in Oslo. (But of course we’ll never get a concierge, we’ve only got this shitty neoliberal caretaker service business providers who call themselves things like economical solutions and who might change a bulb after a week but never ever greet you and make sure that everything is all right).

High summer

Published on July 25, 2008 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Distinctions, Oslo

It’s high summer and hot, and I don’t feel like doing what I’m supposed to do (I’m supposed to write a book review on Being a Hindu in Oslo.) High summer makes me melancholic. At least in one area of life I see the glass as half empty, and that’s when it comes to summers. The Norwegian summers are so short, that for half-empty-glass persons like myself, it’s only really May and the beginning of June one can enjoy fully without a bittersweet aftertaste of “soon it’s over…”. July in Norway is the time for 3-4 weeks of general holiday, and Norwegian workplaces, public offices and roads and streets (where there aren’t tourists) are as empty as they are in August in Paris or Athens.

The idea and implementation of paid holidays are at least as old in Norway as it is in France. However, I didn’t hear and care about the struggle for paid holidays before I lived in France in 2006 during the 70th anniversary for the left wing coalition Le Front Populaire. They lasted for only one year, and I think – as with many things in France – their symbolic importance outclass their actual political relevance. The film La vie est à nous (The life is ours, or The people of France) by Jean Rénoir from 1936 documents the life under The Popular Front, and the photographer Willy Ronis documented the first paid vacations, together with other famous photographers. I can’t think of any social democratic reform which is really celebrated here in Norway. And it’s not until confronted with the surprise of non-European visitors I find it strange that the country slows down and the functions close off to a minimum during July. Of course, it’s the general holidays!

(I’m hooked on the page-turning writing of Balzac at the moment – perhaps another reason why my book review isn’t progressing as fast as it should – and from his description of political and social divisions and hierarchies in early 19th century France, I get a clearer understanding of why social reforms have become such potent political symbols.)

It’s already the end of July, and in mid August already the summer is waning up here in the North. I’ve never mind going to school and I even love my job, but the end of summer has always been such a melancholic period that I’ve already started giving it an occasional sad thought. Why can’t July have at least 8 weekends? Well, it’s time to go back to the book review and get done with it. Afterwards, I’ll let myself start contemplating on the epistemological reasons behind why my fieldwork in Paris has started to get a rosy shade after having been left mostly in peace in notebooks and videos for a year.

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to Burma Shave by Tom Waits (whom the new opera house said no thanks to this July!!!) – no much to do with this post, everything to do with summer moods

It’s high summer and hot, and I don’t feel like doing what I’m supposed to do (I’m supposed to write a book review on Being a Hindu in Oslo.) High summer makes me melancholic. At least in one area of…

Hierarchy… work ethics and myths… and fieldwork

Published on May 31, 2007 by cicilie Posted in Cicilie among the Parisians, Distinctions, Fieldwork, Politics

I realise – as I read an interesting comment in Le Monde on, of all things, why the Toyota model can’t be French – that I haven’t written any posts on hierarchy yet. My cahiers and mind are full of speculations of quite another sort than on French business and work place interaction – for instance I’m thinking about what I can make out of the coincidence that the two last books I’ve read are called the art of something (loving and fieldwork to be precise). Thus, I’m relieved to find another reason for choosing this subject for a post after such a long silence in the blogsphere; it’s unforgivable to have written 69 blog-posts from France without mentioning hierarchy and arrogance!
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I’m up in the air again, with Air France, my for all reasons favourite air company for the time being. It’s awfully sunny up here, we haven’t seen any of the thunderstorm and turbulence they announced at Gardermoen, and the French (slightly) arrogant steward has served me chilled Chardonnay from Pay d’Oc – an excellent remedy against turbulence – and I’m not sure what I feel about going back to Faubourg du Temple after 9 days up north which seemed like an eternity at the other side of the galaxy (in terms of mind set of the anthropologist. Perhaps more on that later. I’ve realised that what anthropologists call going native, lay people like my Mom and ex call the Stockholm syndrome – surely this makes important data for a blog on fieldwork and anthropological research, but right now we’ll return to hierarchy). It’s not only the chilled Chardonnay that explains my fancy for Air France. I just love to serve myself unashamedly with a pile of French newspapers and go through all of them as I’m forced to do little else for 2 hours and 25 minutes. The great thing with newspaper in paper versions – compared to the e-version I usually consult through my rss feed thingy – is that I read articles I never would have clicked on deliberately. Pourquoi Toyota n’est pas français is a typical example.

At a dinner party light-years ago, an economist I know told me about a survey he’d read about in the Norwegian economist newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, explaining France’s economic and business retard as a lack of confidence between the echelons in the workplace hierarchy. The analysis in Le Monde seems to refer to the same or a very similar survey (perhaps this view is common knowledge in the financial world outside France): The gap between the managers/employers and the employees are wider in France than most other countries in the western world. There are archaic social relations in this country, the analysis claims, which keeps the French from working well together. The cadres don’t give any freedom to their subordinates, as they do not trust their capacities, and the lower employees are mistrustful of those above them. “Of course I wouldn’t use his first name and tu (second person singular as opposed to vous, the polite second person plural),” a friend of mine said about his – quite clearly idiot – boss, “he’s not my pal!”

The radical labour unions are another division holding back French business, according to the analysis. The labour unions in France have little interest in improving the work conditions for the labourers, as that would just help capitalism and le patronat… The unions here – les syndicates – are very different from the ones we’ve got back in Scandinavia. Here, less than 10% of the workforce is organised, while back home I think there are only 10% who are not in a union. I don’t know too much of what they do here, but they seem far more radical than my own “Union for researchers” which mostly care about salaries (in addition to some grumbling over the worsening conditionings for doing research after the university reform). In France, les syndicates are feared for their strike force. A relatively large portion of the French are fierce strikers, and many people count on – or worry for – what will happen to his reforms when the striking season sets off in the autumn.

Thus, it’s this archaism and divisions that are to blame, and not decline of work ethics, as the new president complains. He proclaims a rupture with the past and wants – like leaders before him in history – to restore the values of travail, famille, patrie (work, family and fatherland…). To the contrary, claims the analysis: In the developed world, the French are among those who gives most importance to work and many think it important to instil in their children the value of working hard. (Perhaps in contrast to the oil bubble Norway, if you ask my aging teacher parents…).

Interestingly, it’s not only the president who thinks that the French don’t value work sufficiently. The Guardian loves to portray the French as non-protestant hedonists who know that one should work in order to live and not live in order to work. (For instance Goodbye to la Belle France? on the possible effects of Sarkozy’s reforms). I would agree that the pace of life appears slower – and frequently comes completely to a halt on pavement cafés, just for idle conversation for hours – here than in Oslo or London. (It would be interesting to count people walking around with paper cups with coffee in the three capitals. Oops, here I can feel the urge for a digression on espresso at the counter in Latin countries, but I’ll retain myself). However, diverging from what appears to the eye of The Guardian and me – but in line with the argument that strong work ethic still exists – productivity per work hour is higher in France than in the US and Britain (but the same as in Norway).

I’ve landed in freezing cold France days ago, and when I opened the document in order to round up this post and put it online, I could no longer remember where I initially had planned to end it. I probably had tons to say about how hierarchy and “archaic social relations” shape social life here. I’m sure it also shapes the slam poetry scene, and my relations there. A few indications: French slam poetry is an east end, popular phenomenon in a country with high youth unemployment. In stark contrast to my previous fieldwork, I have markedly more education than the majority of the people who surround me, in some cases more than ten years of formal schooling and education. And where to place poetry in the French field of archaic hierarchies?

I realise – as I read an interesting comment in Le Monde on, of all things, why the Toyota model can’t be French – that I haven’t written any posts on hierarchy yet. My cahiers and mind are full of…