Thinking, Defining and Classifying Revolts

This symposium invites us to consider the development of knowledge about revolts against which the governing authorities deployed armed troops throughout the 19th century.^e century. It aims to emphasise both the use and influence of the knowledge produced about the revolt in the political and social re-ordering of the movement, and the place of these events in the disciplinary corpus concerned. It also looks at the knowledge developed within the revolting populations.

As well as studying the production and qualification of knowledge, the call also invites us to think about other players who participate indirectly in its development. So, to move away from a vision of top/down where knowledge emerges from a dominant elite that imposes it on a population in revolt, it is interesting to consider the influence of the context of revolt on the analyses developed. Since rebellion can modulate or invalidate certain previous theories, it can be seen as a condition for the structuring production of knowledge. More generally, the relationship between the knowledge produced and its objects suggests that we should consider knowledge spaces as spaces of struggle and domination, with certain types of knowledge serving, for example, to symbolically repress and delegitimise rebellion.  

In relation to the porosities or possible exchanges between the knowledge of the different groups, the conference invites us to think about the networks and means of production and circulation of the knowledge developed, particularly with regard to the possible influence of the context of revolt.