Trend Report: The Contentious French

Abstract

Anglophone scholars often miss the important contributions to social movement studies by French researchers. This is especially true since the early nineties when numerous books and articles presented findings that are highly relevant to the international community of social movement researchers. Although the variety of fieldwork, topics, and approaches challenges efforts to synthesize, this report organizes recent trends in French social movement research by four thematic groupings: (1) the question of violence—its demise as a repertoire and the "civilizing of policing"; (2) changes in activism and militant behaviors—which focuses on new styles of commitment; (3) new social movements—referring less to a perspective than to movement types, such as immigrant, expert, and transnational movements; and (4) the biographical turn—a shift toward the subjective and "micro" dimensions of ideologies, life stories, and lived experiences.