The Production and Circulation of Knowledge in Rural and Independent Catholic Action (Belgium-France, 1931–1986)

ORa.CL.E: Organize, Classify, Evangelize: The Production and Circulation of Knowledge in Rural and Independent Catholic Action (Belgium-France, 1931–1986).

A 24-month “Marie Curie” project led by Juliette Masquelier and funded by the European Research Council.

The ORaCLE project aims to draw on the sociology of knowledge to reexamine the history of specialized Catholic Action through its production of social classification systems (by “social milieu,” by “social nuance,” and by gender), in order to study the implications for the organization of activism and the production of knowledge.

Social classifications constitute the very essence of the so-called “specialized” Catholic Action movements, which, beginning in the 1920s, proposed selective pastoral approaches based on “lifestyles”: working class, rural, student, self-employed, maritime, and merchant. This segmentation of society was not merely a strategy imposed “from above” by the episcopate. On the contrary, the archives show that it was an ongoing process of social classification and distinction carried out at all levels of the organizations, from leaders to activists. The process of classification by class and gender was a tool for achieving social and pastoral objectives, which the archives allow us to observe from both “above” and “below.”

The ORaCLE method is based on a comparative analysis of various Catholic Action movements for adults from two social backgrounds (rural and independent) in two predominantly Catholic countries where specialized Catholic Action was pioneered and flourished (France and Belgium), in order to study these processes from the founding of specialized Catholic Action through to its reorganization following the loss of the episcopal mandate (1930–1985). The extensive archives left by these organizations will provide insight into the materiality of the various mechanisms for producing social categories within them: from the complex ecosystem of publications and subgroups targeting activists based on their social characteristics, to the development of surveys that inform the knowledge each specialized Catholic Action movement builds about “its” milieu; including the practice of “review of life” conducted in all local groups, where peers and chaplains continually assess and debate norms and identities.

By reexamining the history of Specialized Catholic Action through the lens of classification over the long term, the objective is to understand (1) how the specific forms of organization within Catholic Action produce social classifications and knowledge that they implement in their activist practice, involving a multiplicity of actors; (2) how religion influences processes of social hierarchization and how these categories are embodied by activists; and (3) how this knowledge circulates in society, and what connections it maintains with academic sociology.