Political and Moral Anthropology of the Social Question
In an exclusive interview, Didier Fassin evokes several of his past research projects that led him to explore what Michel Foucault defined as “the dark side of history”: not only social groups subject to domination or discrimination, but also the analyses and policies which compose the “government of precarity”. Within this frame, he underlines the dangers of “culturalizing” poverty, i.e. of collapsing socio-economic factors into cultural ones thus concealing the deep roots of poverty and depoliticizing its implications. He maintains that a sociology of State institutions—including the study of moral economies and moral subjectivities—can link the macro and micro dimensions of social analysis, both of which are necessary to address present-day treatment of poverty.