Dr. Fabrice Fernandez

Biography

I am a full professor in the Department of Sociology at Laval University. My work is grounded in a critical socio-anthropology of emotions, focusing on processes of domination and ordinary forms of resistance. By placing emotions and feelings at the core of the dynamics between knowledge(s) and power(s), I contribute to rethinking contemporary approaches to subjectivity and politics, illustrating how affects participate in the production and contestation of social norms. My research is based on ethnographic surveys conducted in the margins of urban space—squats, areas of relegation, non-places—as well as within institutions such as courts, prisons, and hospitals. I am particularly interested in the sensory experiences of populations facing asymmetrical power relationships and the ordinary forms of resistance they invent and mobilize daily. My recent work explores how emotions intervene in dynamics of exclusion and discrimination, analyzing their role in the political, media, and judicial treatment of racist acts and xenophobic violence. My approach also questions the epistemological foundations of sociological and ethnographic inquiry, reintroducing the sensitive dimension as a vector of knowledge. In this perspective, I explore the renewal of qualitative methodologies in social sciences, notably the potentials of collective ethnography and new sociological writings of the real, engaging with visual arts, literature, and performing arts.

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