- Alain Touraine
Alain Touraine (born
August 3 ,1925 ) is a French sociologist born inHermanville-sur-Mer . He is research director at theÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales , where he founded the "Centre d'étude des mouvements sociaux ". He is best known for being the originator of the term "post-industrial society ". His work is based on a "sociology of action," and believes that society shapes its future through structural mechanisms and its own social struggles.His key interest for most of his career has been with
social movements . He has studied and written extensively on workers' movements across the world, particularly inLatin America and more recently inPoland where he observed and aided the birth of Solidarnosc (Solidarity ), see "Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement" (1983). While in Poland, he developed the research method of "Sociological Intervention," which had been outlined in "The Voice and the Eye" ("La Voix et le Regard") [1981] .Touraine has gained immense popularity in Latin America as well as in continental
Europe . Yet he has failed to gain anywhere near the same recognition in the English-speaking world. Out of twenty or so books, only about half of them have been translated into English.He participated in 1969 at MoMA's Universitas project organized by Argentine architect Emilio Ambasz.
Further reading
* [http://www.answers.com/topic/alain-touraine Answers.com on Alain Touraine ]
* [http://www.cjsonline.ca/articles/Hamel.html Jacques Hamel compares aspects of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine] .
* [http://www.barcelona2004.org/eng/actualidad/noticias/html/f043167.htm Comments of Touraine at Forum Barcelona 2004]
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