Michel Maffesoli

Michel Maffesoli (born 14 November 1944) is a French sociologist.

He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, and an emeritus professor at Paris Descartes University.

His work touches upon the issue of community links and the prevalence of "the imaginary" in the everyday life of contemporary societies, through which he contributes to the postmodern paradigm.

In 1972, Maffesoli was co-director the ESU urban sociology research team in Grenoble.

In 1978, Maffesoli became the teaching assistant of Julien Freund, a conservative political theorist and follower of Vilfredo Pareto, while he was lecturing in Strasbourg.

Freund offered him to host the Institute of Polemology, which shows in his later works, under the themes of the "founding conflict" (La violence fondatrice, 1978), the "conflictual society" (PhD dissertation, 1981), and the use of the myth of Dionysus as "regenerating disorder" (L’Ombre de Dionysos, 1982).

In 1982, he founded with Georges Balandier the Centre d'études sur l'actuel et le quotidien (CEAQ), a research laboratory in the humanities and social sciences at the Paris Descartes University, where he led a doctoral seminar until his retiring in 2012.

It is probably his book The Time of the Tribes (1988, 1991), translated into nine languages, which made his notoriety outside France; see urban tribes.

Universities in Brazil, Korea and Italy request him for conferences.

He has received a chair that was named after him in Brazil, and a honoris causa doctorate from the University of Bucharest.

His reception outside France is ambivalent.

Maffesoli was awarded the Grand Prix des Sciences de l'Académie Française in 1992 for La transfiguration du politique.

Maffesoli is the director of the Cahiers Européens de l'imaginaire and Sociétés journals, as well as a member of the editorial board of Space and Culture and.

He developed a reflection on space which he continued in his work on nomadism (Du Nomadisme, Vagabondages initiatiques, La Table ronde, 1997).

In a 1997 article in the Sociological Review, sociologist David Evans concluded that Maffesoli's theories were not a positive sociological paradigm, criticising his work "incoherent" and "biased".

The accounts of books written by foreign sociologists were less forthright, but sometimes stressed that Maffesoli's approach was subjective and had a lack of reflexivity.

One sociologist even stated that Maffesoli's sociology was a "sociology of club".

Maffesoli came to the attention of the general public in April 2001 when he defended the thesis of Élizabeth Teissier about the ambivalence of the social reception of astrology, highly contentious theory that he directed and whose jury was chaired by Serge Moscovici at the Paris Descartes University.

The attribution of a doctorate to Teissier "created great controversy in the [scientific] community, and led many sociologists to intervene to challenge the legitimacy".

The thesis immediately aroused criticism in the field of French sociology, particularly that published by Le Monde by Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet on 17 April 2001, and the petition of 30 April 2001 for the President of the Paris V University, and signed by 300 social scientists.

Many critical comments were published in the national daily press, along with less radical comments.

Beyond sociology, four French Nobel Prize winners (Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Jean-Marie Lehn, Jean Dausset and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes) also protested against the title of "doctor" awarded to Élizabeth Teissier in a protest letter addressed to the then Minister of Education, Jack Lang.

The scientific, philosophical and sociological aspects of Teissier's thesis were studied by a group of scientists from several disciplines, including members of the Collège de France.

The thesis was analyzed in detail by a group of astrophysicists and astronomers (Jean-Claude Pecker, Jean Audouze, Denis Savoie), a group of sociologists (Bernard Lahire, Philippe Cibois and Dominique Desjeux), a philosopher (Jacques Bouveresse), and by specialists of pseudo-science (Henri Broch and Jean-Paul Krivine).

From this analysis, it appeared that the thesis was not valid from any viewpoint (sociological, astrophysical, or epistemological).

In an email of 23 April 2001 addressed to many sociologists, Maffesoli acknowledged that the thesis included some "slippages".

The conference "Raisons et Sociétés", held at the Sorbonne in 2002 following the Teissier controversy to debate the broader issue of methodologies in human sciences identified differences between the various sociological traditions relating to this case.

Other controversies have led to challenges to Maffesoli's institutional position: the scientific community protested against his appointment to the board of the CNRS and against his appointment at the Institut Universitaire de France.

On the other hand, Maffesoli's theories have been the subject of counter-inquiries, such as survey by Laurent Tessier on free parties in France and England.

Maffesoli's work has achieved acclaim from authors including Serge Moscovici, Edgar Morin, Patrick Tacussel, Philippe-Joseph Salazar or Patrick Watier who regularly cite him.

His influence can also be seen in various foreign journals.

On this issue, Maffesoli presented arguments on his methods, in particular through a new edition of his epistemological book, La connaissance ordinaire, in 2007.

An opposition currently exists between Maffesoli's positions on "sensitive thinking" and supporters of a sociology embedded in the criteria of systematic and transparent scientificity.

Maffesoli has been a member of the Institut Universitaire de France since September 2008, following a controversial nomination.

More generally, he has been the subject of several controversies, both scientific and professional, the most widely known of which concerns his supervision of the PhD dissertation of astrologer Élizabeth Teissier.

Maffesoli was born in Graissessac, Hérault.

Maffesoli called to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election of 2012., which he later denied.

Maffesoli is sometimes associated with freemasonry, although there is no way to prove that he ever was a member of it.

He has recently appeared on French networks, predicting an "age of insurrections."

Within the scientific community of French sociologists, the scientificity of Maffesoli's works is often questioned, especially since the furore concerning the thesis of Elizabeth Teissier "has created great controversy within the community [of French sociologists and beyond], and has led many sociologists to intervene in order to challenge the legitimacy".