Crise et luttes étudiantes: Dialectique de politisation et questions de méthode

Abstract

The article considers the current revival of large-scale mobilisations within the student population in Europe. It advances the hypothesis that these waves of mobilisation reactivate a process of politicisation reflecting a much longer-term temporality which provides them with their foundation and which casts light on the problems and the ambivalence inherent in the phenomenon. The article thus outlines a framework for the analysis of this process that is based on the following dialectic': a) the structural integration of the university institution of advanced capitalism within a process of reproduction of the prevailing socio-economic and socio-ideological relations'; b) the conjunctures of struggle which have invested the university as institution. The article goes on to focus on two factors contributing to the intensification of this antagonism': a dialectics of politicisation and depoliticisation of the practices of knowledge in relations within the institution'; an "intrusion" of the international conjuncture within the sphere of student mobilisation. This latter factor catalyses the process of de-identification with the framework of the national State and confers a particular importance, precisely because of the fragility and the ambiguity of the phenomenon, to the European dimension of the current struggles.