Societes savantes and the re(production) of class and regional identity in Burgundy, France

In France, a nation renowned for its centralized state education system, ancient regional societes savantes (learned societies), precursors to the university, continue to survive. Founded in the 18th century as centers of knowledge, societes savantes reached the zenith of societal visibility in the 19th century, where at the local level they founded museums, conducted agricultural research, advised on urban planning and promoted social and natural sciences, in addition to their main and continuing role of safeguarding the French patrimony. Wary of this growing provincial influence, the French government would gradually rein in the societes savantes by creating a government institution to regulate and monitor their activities. Today, despite the overt signs of being supplanted by government agencies and the university system, no longer consulted by local officials, and disregarded by the public, these groups continue to maintain a strong presence in France's social landscape. This study examines the Academie des Sciences, Arts, et Belles-Lettres de Dijon in Burgundy, to reveal the subtle forms of (re)production by which members promote its existence. Faced with the loss of its traditional roles, the Academie's members grapple with the perennial dilemma of maintaining its distinctive and historical identity, in what are considered antithetical conditions. Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, his conceptualization of taste in Distinction, and his critical studies on education provide excellent means for analyzing the mechanisms of perpetuation, as well as for elucidating the role of societes savantes in contemporary France. This study reveals that, far from being an anachronism, the Academie is a viable institution where an aesthetic disposition of "disinterestedness," detachment from the material world, is honed through its practices and reproduced for future generations of members cultivated to elite standards. Thus members not only are guardians of a regional heritage but safeguard a class sensibility at odds with a global society driven increasingly by the "interested" science of economics and the growing focus of materialism. This study relies on interviews, ethnographic participant observation conducted in 1993 and 1997, and historical documentation from 1900 through the 1990s. It examines members' dispositions, sensibilities, practices, and responses to societal change.