Sociologists in the country: a sociography of social differentiation in rural Quebec
The article begins with an overview of the monographic tradition in sociology of Quebec, in particular including the work of Léon Gérin. More specifically, this introduction highlights the centrality of family networks in the maintenance and evolution of French-Canadian society in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Yet, this family-based structure of the social relations differs between French-Canadian elites and rural populations. Based on the results of an ethnographic study which I conducted in a Quebec village, I show, in the second part of the article, that the family networks at the basis of territorial rootedness remain to this day a dominant force in the social relations in this village — despite the weakening of these older networks since the Quiet Revolution and the regionalization of political activities. Finally, I correlate the weakening of these family networks to the social differentiation observed in the monographic tradition of Quebec sociology between French-Canadian elites and rural populations.