Another Sociology of Solidarity. Gaston Richard (1860-1945)

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In 1905, Gaston Richard (1860-1945) was France first University professor of sociology. From 1895 to 1907, he collaborated with Emile Durkheim in the Annee Sociologique. Between 1926 and 1939, he directed the Revue internationale de Sociologie (1926-1939) founded by Rene Worms. At the same time, he was the president of the Institut international de Sociologie. Richard was also a member of the Protestant activists engaged in the Christian socialism movement. However, neither Richards work (more than 700 publications in the form of books, essays and reviews) nor his impact over sociology were to be considered after his death. His concept of solidarity - the core of his sociological theory - remains likewise hardly noted in the secondary literature. Richards theoretical advances in the debates between German and French sociologists about the promotion of a formalistic and applied conception of solidarity enabling the investigation of new forms of sociality in modern societies faded out. This project proposal aims at reconstructing Richards forgotten sociology of solidarity regarding: a) the context of the controversial debates with Emile Durkheim and his group on solidarity and the sociology of religion, b) the problem of solidarity and secularism as defined amongst the Protestant activists, c) the context of the German formalist sociologists and d) the continuation of Richards solidarist agenda before and after the Second World War. The methodology used in this project proposal deals inter alia with unpublished archival papers and records. These documents bring up critical material that strikes a new path to a German-French based comparative perspective in sociology and social history of solidarity in the 20th. century. These sources are worked out on the basis of textometric methods enabling to compare semantic developments of concepts and theories with the networks of persons and institutions considered in the project proposal. This analysis shows Gaston Richards sociology as a German-French cultural sociology in which solidarity is thought as a practice of relations.