Georges Balandier is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, anthropologist and ethnologist noted for his research in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

. He is currently a professor emeritus

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 (Université René Descartes, Paris-V), and is a member of the Center for African Studies (Centre d'études africaines [Ceaf]), a research center of the École pratique des hautes études

École pratique des hautes études

The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....

 (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). Held for many years the Editorship of prestigious Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie (previoulsy held by his mentor Georges Gurvitch

Georges Gurvitch

Georges Gurvitch was a Russian born French sociologist and jurist. One of the leading sociologists of his times, he was a specialist of the sociology of knowledge. In 1944 he founded the journal Cahiers internationaux de Sociologie. He held a chair in sociology at the Sorbonne in Paris.Gurvitch is...

) and edited the innovative series Sociologie d'Aujourd'hui at Presses Universitaires de France. Among his disciples, collaborators or followers are a number of French intellectuals who resisted Pierre Bourdieu's influence (Michel Maffesoli

Michel Maffesoli

Michel Maffesoli is a French sociologist of italian origin.He is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and is at present a professor at the Paris Descartes University. Michel Maffesoli made a work around the issue of social link community, the prevalence of imagination and everyday life in contemporary...

, Jean Duvignaud

Jean Duvignaud

Jean Duvignaud was a French novelist and sociologist.Duvignaud was a secondary school teacher at Abbeville then at Étampes where he taught Georges Perec. After submitting his doctoral thesis he taught at the University of Tours...

, Colette Moreux, Philippe-Joseph Salazar

Philippe-Joseph Salazar

Philippe-Joseph Salazar is a French rhetorician and philosopher born 1955, Casablanca, Morocco. Educated at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. Alumnus of École Normale Supérieure, Paris and past director at Collège international de philosophie, Paris, founded by Jacques Derrida. Currently...

).

Books by Georges Balandier

• Anthropologie politique, 1967.
• Dictionnaire des civilisations africaines, 1968.
• Political Anthropology, Vintage Books 1972, ISBN 0394718186
• Afrique ambigüe, 1980 (revised).
• Le pouvoir sur scènes, 1980.

External links

Centre d'études africaines (Ceaf) Biography