Robert Castel (1 August 1933 – 12 March 2013) was a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

sociologist and researcher at the

École des hautes études en sciences sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate '' grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. Th ...

Academic career

Castel was born in Saint-Pierre-Quilbignon, now part of Brest. He initially studied philosophy in the late 1950s. In the late 1960s, he met

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

and began working with him in sociology. His initial work dealt with

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

and

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...

, establishing a critical sociology of these issues and linking this work to

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

, particularly to his 'genealogical approach'. He further dealt with exclusion, or rather what he called the 'disaffiliation', which affects individuals 'by default'. His later and perhaps best known work examined how the wage system, which at first was despised, has gradually established itself as the reference model and has been progressively associated with social protections, and the concept of social property, creating a constitutive status of 'social identity'. Castel was responsible for the formation of Le Groupe d'analyse du social et de la sociabilité (GRASS), a specialised group of sociologists within the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

Books

* ''Le Psychanalysme,'' 1973 * ''L'Ordre psychiatrique'', 1977 (Translated into English in 1988: ''The Regulation of Madness: The Origins of Incarceration in France'') * ''La Gestion des risques'', Minuit, 1981 * ''La Société psychiatrique avancée'', 1979 * ''Les Métamorphoses de la question sociale, une chronique du salariat'', Fayard, 1995. (Translated into English in 2002: ''From Manual Workers to Wage Laborers: Transformation of the Social Question'') * ''Propriété privée, propriété sociale, propriété de soi'' (avec Claudine Haroche), 2001. * ''L'Insécurité sociale : qu'est-ce qu'être protégé?'', Éd. du Seuil, 2003. * ''La discrimination négative'', 2007 * ''La montée des incertitudes : Travail, protections, statut de l'individu'', Ed. du Seuil, 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castel, Robert 1933 births 2013 deaths French sociologists Academic staff of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences French male writers